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Australian doughnut brand Doughnut Time is to open its first UK store, in Shaftesbury Avenue, London next month.
It will serve up fresh, handcrafted doughnuts with a range of pop culture-inspired toppings.
The move marks Doughnut Time’s first store outside Australia since opening in 2015, with current locations including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast.
“We’ve developed a menu we think the British public will love. It’ll change weekly and we’re always experimenting with exciting flavour combinations – and fun names to match,” said Doughnut Time founder Damian Griffiths. “We’re looking forward to introducing our modern and playful take on doughnuts to the British public. We’re certain they’ll be at home here.”
The bespoke new menu includes two retro British flavours: Love Actually and Shawty it’s Sherbert Day.
Aussie bestsellers including Love at First Bite, filled with Nutella and dusted with cinnamon sugar, and the watermelon-flavoured Melon DeGeneres will also make an appearance.
Vegan and gluten-free options will also be available. Prices for the premium doughnuts start at £4 each, with boxes of one, four and six on offer.


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“at the time when walmart made a firm intention to acquire massmart, south african retailers were battling slower profit growth and increased. In its statement walmart-massmart said a core focus, as described in the cac ruling, will be “to canvass the best means by which south african. The competition tribunal on tuesday approved the merger between walmart and south african retailer massmart holdings (msm) subject to. A violent protest broke out on friday at a johannesburg store run by walmart's south african unit massmart. South africa's competition commission approved walmart's proposed acquisition of a 51% stake in massmart, a south african firm that owns.
This week, wal-mart stores (wmt, fortune 500) announced a cash offer for a majority stake in the south african retail company massmart. As part of its plan to offset slowing growth in its home market of the us, wal-mart has announced plans to buy south african-based massmart. An appeal lodged by south african authorities against the approved merger between local firm massmart and american retail giant walmart has cost the. Wal-mart is set to enter south africa after regulators approved its bid for a majority stake in one of the country's retailers.
Wal-mart is moving slowly to extend its retail empire in africa through its massmart subsidiary builds slowly from base in south africa, even as. When walmart first caught massmart in its net it was with the intention massmart, which owns 415 stores in south africa and 13 elsewhere in. South africa share game, sub-saharan africa game with foodco banner foodco produce dionwired in africa dionwired electronics department makro.
This summer, wal-mart gained entry into africa, the last market yet to be explored by the largest retailer in the world south african courts. Effect in south africa” the research aims to investigate the potential effect that wal-mart will have on labour, the local economy and consumers. In 2011, walmart bought a $24 billion majority stake in south african retailer massmart holdings due to the continent's growing consumer class. South africa's can't be a trust fund kid living off its mineral resources but not walmart's experience in controlling costs is helping massmart improve profit as. The south african retail landscape is about to change fundamentally walmart has made a non-binding offer to purchase massmart, and is likely be a major force.
Walmart operates under 69 banners in 27 countries learn more about our operations in south africa. It has been reported that walmart might be selling its massmart shares and making an exit from africa. “we're very committed to growing our business on the african continent walmart acquired a controlling stake of massmart six years ago.
Walmart says it might consider walking away from its bid to buy a majority stake in massmart, the south african retailer, if local procurement. Massmart holdings limited (jse: msm) is a south african firm that owns local brands such as south african retailer massmart backs sale to wal-mart. Us retail giant wal-mart stores, inc earlier this month finally won approval from a south african court for its proposed acquisition of massmart.
Massmart operates more than 400 stores in south africa and 12 other sub- saharan massmart is the second-largest distributor of consumer goods in africa, the. Wal-mart, the world's biggest retailer, made a $46 billion (32 billion rand) offer on september 27th to acquire the south african retail chain,. South africa, one of the fastest-growing economic regions in the world, seems a natural place for wal-mart to invest, say economists but south.
Walmart's recent arrival in south africa was in many ways like the company's arrival in any other market: contested and controversial. The wal-mart/massmart merger has caused concern about its possible however, in south africa wal-mart's presence in the local market led to questions of. Walmart, the world's largest retailer by sales, is in full retreat around the world and and this of course leaves walmart/massmart in south africa. That the merger did not raise any competition concerns, in that wal-mart did not compete with massmart in south africa and its only presence in.Download

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SYSPRO, the leading global supplier of on-premise, cloud and mobile Business ERP Software for manufacturers and distributors, announced today that one of the company's key, targeted verticals is predicted to be the "top growth area for US Exports and Imports." According to the latest HSBC Commercial Banking Trade Forecast,"Industrial Machinery is expected to be the top driver of U.S. export and import trade now and in the next decade." While numerous ERP suppliers claim solutions that solve the problems of all numerous industry verticals, SYSPRO emphasizes that the company's ERP solution has been developed to provide expertise specifically for those involved in industrial machinery production.
For example, Gary Hielkema, president of Sensor Link, a Ferndale, Washington-based manufacturer of high voltage products, including electric meters, recorders and sensors, notes that SYSPRO ERP was chosen due to the software's expertise in serving the operational needs of industrial machinery manufacturers and distributors. Specifically, he points out the superior ability of SYSPRO ERP to facilitate track process flows, bills of materials and sales, among other vital functions.
Since installing SYSPRO ERP, Hielkema can point to numerous efficiencies, including increases in the reliability of information available to workers and management, lower costs, enhanced controls, better insight into jobs and inventories and numerous others advantages. "Our costs declined because it took fewer steps and individuals to post jobs, ready the bills of materials, control inventories and numerous other functions...Today, SYSPRO is the 'golden place' to go to for reliable data on operations," he says. "SYSPRO has not only enabled us to improve product quality, as well as superior inventory management, but we save by not having to do a physical inventory count as often."
SYSPRO (syspro.com) is one of the longest standing and largest independent, international providers of ERP systems for mid-market manufacturers and distributors worldwide. SYSPRO has for more than 30 years delivered on its promise to provide thousands of its customers globally with the tools required to effectively operate and compete. Backed by a truly dedicated and professional team of employees and partners around the world, the company's ability to innovate and develop technologies based on the needs of customers is one of the reasons why SYSPRO enjoys one of the highest retention rates in the industry.


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British technology pioneer Andrew Hopper becomes a CBE in the New Year Honours list.
Professor Hopper founded Acorn computers
Professor Hopper has been made a Commander of the British Empire for services to the computer industry.
Now the head of the University of Cambridge computer lab, Prof Hopper is best known for his part in founding iconic British technology firm Acorn.
The personal computer maker was widely influential and developed technologies that are in wide use today.
Born in 1953 and educated at the University of Wales, Swansea and Cambridge, Prof Hopper won his PhD by doing early work on high-speed computer networks.
In 1978 along with Hermann Hauser, Prof Hopper founded Acorn Computers that went on to make machines which proved very popular in the UK.
It was behind the Acorn Electron and Archimedes machines and also built the fondly remembered BBC Micro. The machines found wide usage in the 1980s and early 1990s. Acorn was broken up in 2000.
One of the most influential subsidiaries that grew out of Acorn was Advanced RISC Machines which is now known as ARM. The chip designs of this firm are found in enormous numbers of portable gadgets - particularly mobile phones.
Prof Hopper has also done pioneering work on many high-speed wireless networking technologies and most recently founded a company called Ubisense that aims to develop sensor networks.
He is known to be a keen amateur pilot, owns a six-seater Cessna and has a runway in the grounds of his home in Cambridgeshire.


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Among the smartphones that should have the processor inside them Snapdragon 8+ Gen1, here is also the model Black shark 5s. It seems to be taken for granted that the next gaming phone of the Xiaomi sub brand we have this element in its technical data sheet. This was revealed by the leaker Digital Chat Station, as we will see in detail in the next lines.
Black Shark 5S will have Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
The well-known and reliable leaker Digital Chat Station is sure of this, since a gaming phone of such a large range cannot fail to have the best with reference to the hardware sector. On the other hand, to confirm this there is also the fact that historically Black Shark has always aimed high for the technical data sheet of its devices.
This choice, however, did not prevent the sub brand from making a dent in users. In fact, unlike Redmi and POCO, Black Shark has failed to establish itself on the market. Xiaomi's gaming division has not yet made it to shine, and Tencent's failure to acquire it is a worrying warning. However, everything is confirmed by the sales numbers, certainly not exciting.
However, Xiaomi has already started planning the future of Black Shark, starting with the 5S model, which according to the leaker will equip itself with the latest generation processor. Compared to the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it is said to be far superior. Also according to Digital Chat Station, the smartphone in question should have it 2K screen used on Black Shark 3 Pro and a 4800 mAh with quick charge from 100W.
More on Black Shark 5S (name currently hypothesized, there is no confirmation from the brand) we do not know. The only certainty is that it will come out this year. For the rest, we also await news or official confirmations.


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And now we play the waiting game.
Sony’s CEO Kaz Hirai has officially stated that Sony is leaving the floor open for Microsoft to unveil their new console first.
“Why go first, when your competitors can look at your specifications and come up with something better?”
Now all we need is for Microsoft to announce that they are going to wait on Sony to unveil their new Playstation and we have the loneliest holiday season in gaming ever. No matter which side flinches first we will still know everything my E3 this year.


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As we look toward 2022 and post-pandemic travel for the coming year, from a rise in ready-to-drink beverages to an increased focus on social content for hotel bookings, here are some insights from three top hospitality professionals below for consideration.
Philip Bates, CEO and Co-Founder of TMC Hospitality
- Increased Demand for Localized Experiences – The pandemic has taught us to better appreciate the small things, which will lead people to seek out ways to get to know and experience the cities to which they are traveling. Any locals-only type of offering will have appeal. For example, at our new Drift San José del Cabo, we are offering a mezcal bar developed in partnership with Mezcal Exiliado and a local taco truck accompanied by live music in the courtyard.
- Uptick In Social Group Travel - People are eager to travel with others. Whether it’s friends, family or colleagues, we are all valuing time with those in our lives more and this will drive social group travel to hotels like ours as well as to products like Airbnb and other alternative lodging options.
- Increase in “Bleisure” Travel – People are looking forward to getting out more and will increasingly mix work trips with leisure trips. Taking extra time to see friends and family, explore cities, and work remotely will all play a big role in “bleisure” demand. Hotels that offer extended stay rates, spaces and co-working areas will benefit from this trend.
Lior Sekler, VP of Revenue Management at HRI Hospitality
- Social Content Matters: The increase of disposable spend within the younger generation is impacting search and interest in travel, as they’re looking for unique experiences, interesting new destinations and “Instagrammable” content to share on social. Research shows a more than 20% increase in bookings by those influenced by social media content.
- Higher Spending: In 2021, the US experienced the strongest consumer spending growth in 70 years, totaling 8% growth. This expenditure purge is expected to continue into 2022, as consumer wealth is at record-levels and they are eager and ready to spend money.
- International vs. Domestic: Americans who vacationed within the US over the last couple of years will return to exploring international destinations once restrictions are lifted, and in return, the US will hopefully see a significant increase in international travelers within the states. Gateway cities like NYC, LA, Chicago will see the first significant signs but other unique destination like southern tours will also begin.
Dana Pellicano, Vice President, Food & Beverage, Global Operations at Marriott International
- Reinvented In-Room Dining: The pandemic provided an opportunity for a room-service redo: over the course of the last year, room service revenue far exceeded budgets and overtook restaurants and lounges as the top revenue generating outlet. At Marriott International, we started reinventing room service five years ago. The pandemic accelerated this adoption, and dozens more hotels migrated to this new room service format last year, offering food that boxes and travels well, at prices more commensurate with today’s customer expectations.
- Mobile Dining is Here to Stay: Within food and beverage, it’s mobile dining that really enjoyed a pandemic boom, as restaurant customers across the country were forced to master the use of QR code technology and mobile. For those that worry that mobile ordering will usher in lower check averages due to the inability to upsell, take note: mobile dining checks are traditionally 20% higher than traditional checks. Turns out the allure of a side of fries or a scoop of ice cream remains irresistible in any format!
- Continued Rise of RTD Beverages: Driven largely by the same trend that saw consumers comforted by eating in their room, Ready-To-Drink (RTD) beverages offer a hermetically sealed solution to the crafted cocktail, often by a familiar endorsed brand. Equally compelling: many use high quality ingredients to reasonably replicate a great bar experience, minus the garnish and fresh ice.


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Pharmacy reform in Estonia is to go ahead as planned on April 1, with 10 pharmacies so far announcing their closure as a result, on top of dozens which have already closed. Pharmacy chains had asked for the reform's entry into force date to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Most of the closures are in larger population centers already well-served by the sector, though the South Estonian town of Viljandi is seeing significant closures.
Exactly a week before the reforms come into effect, 210 of Estonia's over 500 pharmacies do not qualify for the ownership requirements – where dispensing pharmacists should own a minimum 51 percent stake in the pharmacies they work in – though 167 of these have already applied to the State Agency of Medicines (Raviamet) for registration of compliant ownership, and 10 saying they will have to close.
The State Agency of Medicines says it expects to receive these plus additional requests by the deadline, and has authorization committees meeting several times per day for this purpose.
As things stand, there would be at least 443 pharmacies operating in Estonia from April 1.
"I am pleased that in the short time remaining after the final decision of the Riigikogu, both current entrepreneurs, new pharmacist owners and pharmacy managers have worked very closely with the agency," said Kristin Raudsepp, agency director general.
"I'm really seeing a courage to act, despite the emergency situation. As of April 1, the location of pharmacies for most of the Estonian populace will not change, meaning the availability of medicines will not deteriorate," Raudsepp said.
Raudsepp added that the processing was being done in line with all social restrictions issued by the government in the current emergency situation.
The Ministry of Social Affairs also told ERR that the April 1 date remained in place.
"There is a week left to complete the pharmacy reform. The State Agency of Medicines and the ministry are aware that the transition period will end on 1 April," said Katri Eespere, health advisor at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
"We will make every effort to ensure that the transition is completed as smoothly as possible."
Ten pharmacies closing their doors
An application to close a pharmacy has been submitted by ten pharmacies, four in Tartu, which has one of the highest amount of pharmacies per capita, according to ERR's online news in Estonian.
Many of those closing were franchises which had previously been Südamapteek chain outlets.
- Tartu: Raatuse pharmacy (Raatuse 20), three Südamapteek pharmacies (Küüni 7, Ringtee 60a, Puusepa 3).
- Pärnu: Ülejõe pharmacy (Sadama 15), Linnapu Kreenholm pharmacy (Vertervalli 15).
- Kohtla-Järve: Oru district pharmacy.
- Viljandi: Vana apteek (Tallinna 2).
- Tapa: Südamapteek (Valgejõe pst 14/2).
The new law, which was a requirement of the Medicinal Products Act passed five years ago, prohibits branch pharmacies from operating in their old form, though these can continue if the required ownership requirements are met.
One exception is the Kohtla-Järve pharmacy listed above, which was owned by the dispensing pharmacist but did not meet requirements nonetheless, ERR reports.
Biggest changes in cities
Critics of the reforms, which saw several bills aimed at either reversing the course of the reforms or modifying them in key areas voted down in the Riigikogu in late 2019 and early 2020, said that they would decimate the sector in rural areas and smaller centers of population.
However, according to ERR most of the closures, including those which have already taken place, are in larger towns.
In October last year, there were 44 pharmacies operating in Tartu; there are now 30. In Narva there were 18 pharmacies; come April 1 there will be 10. There were 19 pharmacies operating in Pärnu six months ago; once the reforms come into effect there will be 11, and in Viljandi, which had 20 pharmacies last October, there will only be four outlets remaining in operation.
"While just a few months ago we were looking at figures of more than 300 non-compliant pharmacies and 35 critical areas ahead of pharmacy reform. Things are much better today. We have another week to go, so we are prepared and looking forward to hearing about any changes that current and new entrepreneurs are going to make or are already making," Kristin Raudsepp said.
The three main chains in Estonia took a different approach in the months leading up to the reforms. Magnum Medical, operator of the Apotheka chain, acquiesced to the reforms in early February, though owner Margus Linnmäe says he will be seeking damage from the state. Tamro and its associated Benu chain had had issues with the ownership requirements in some of its branches, and was one of the companies calling for a postponement of the April 1 date. Lithuanian-owned Euroapteek has been setting up multiple companies in recent weeks, reportedly enabling its dispensing pharmacists to act as franchisees.
Pharmacies are one of the key retailers which will continue to operate after further government restrictions come into effect on Friday, as part of its efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Movement within pharmacies for customers is restricted, however, meaning they cannot "wander" around the store and will have all items they previously would have been able to pick up off shelves, brought to them by the pharmacist. Restrictions on the number of packages of over-the-counter drugs which can be bought are also in place, set at two packs per purchase, in an effort to stave off panic buying.
Editor: Andrew Whyte


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On Sunday, approximately 160 animal people showed up to join a CAPS-sponsored protest of I Heart Puppies in Corona del Mar, California. Some of the protesters were from San Diego-based Animal Protection and Rescue League; others were concerned residents of Corona del Mar, which is part of Newport Beach, who do not want a pet shop that sells puppy mill dogs in their town.
Picture courtesy of Leon Wagner
This may have been the largest pet shop protest ever! We had more than 130 participants inside Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles to protest the Barkworks chain and were the first animal protection group to protest inside a mall. I have organized nationwide and North American protests in as many as 40 cities, but in terms of the number of people in one place, I doubt there has ever been anything this large in front of a pet shop. There were protesters on both sides of the street. Drivers honked and shouted in support and traffic was backed-up.
The Companion Animal Protection Society is a national nonprofit that is well known for its investigation of pet shops and puppy mills. We have investigated more than 1,000 puppy mills, most of them USDA licensed, in the Midwest, NY and PA. Our investigators have worked undercover at large brokerage facilities, including that of Kathy Bauck, one of the largest in the country. She was convicted of animal cruelty based on our evidence, which resulted in the termination of her USDA license. We have also worked at the Hunte Corporation, the largest broker in the county. Hunte, which unlike Bauck, does not breed, ships out 1,000 to 2,000 puppies a week to the U.S. and abroad. We have investigated many Hunte breeders to prove that Hunte does in fact buy from puppy mills. Many Petland stores (the largest chain in the country) buy from Hunte.
The USDA's Office of Inspector General did an audit and investigation, which resulted in a scathing 69 report condemning USDA/APHIS/Animal Care, the department that inspects USDA licensed breeders and brokers (yes, these are the puppy mills). This investigation was the result of a meeting we had with them in which we urged them to investigate USDA's extreme indifference to the Animal Welfare Act. They only agreed to meet with us because of our investigative evidence in which we cite AWA violations. We are the only national organization that documents AWA violations in our reports and even on most of our footage.
Because we are recognized as the national experts on the pet shop and puppy mill industry, CAPS receives numerous requests for investigative evidence from USDA, the New York Office of Attorney General, animal advocates working on legislation, media, lawyers, and other nonprofit organizations. CAPS’ investigative work has been vital in uncovering and exposing the puppy mill and pet shop industry and has been responsible for generating growing awareness of the issue.
The owner of I Heart Puppies told West Coast Director Carole Davis that the store’s broker is Furry and Feather/Critters and Pets in San Diego. We looked at the website for this company. Furry and Feather sells wholesale pet products; Critters and Pets is an online retailer of animals. Neither company has a USDA license. CAPS has reported them to USDA. Critters and Pets buys puppies from Barb Crick (one of Crick’s puppies was in the store during a CAPS inspection), a USDA licensed breeder in Nebraska that was investigated by CAPS in December 2010. Crick has very serious violations and was cited by the USDA for tying a mother Golden Retriever to a fence and shooting her to death with a .22. The USDA inspector found the dog on the same day and merely cited Crick for not following the veterinary guidelines whereby gunshot is not an acceptable means of euthanasia. She failed to go to the authorities and file charges for animal cruelty. Shooting a dog to death is cruelty under Nebraska law. Crick is under investigation by USDA; we also turned over our investigative findings to them. CAPS works closely with USDA and has been meeting with the agency since 2002.
Crick also sells to the Barkworks chain, which CAPS is well known for protesting. We are the first animal protection group to protest inside a shopping mall in California, a right protected under the California Constitution, which is broader than the federal one (I'm a lawyer and researched the case law). One of our protests against Barkworks inside Westside Pavilion Mall had more than 130 participants.
Brooke Bradford, one of the owners of I Heart Puppies, was not happy that West Coast Director Carole Davis checked out her store and confronted her about Barb Crick. She was distressed that Ms. Davis discovered that the store had no sprinklers or alarm system tied to a fire station, a violation of state law. Ms. Davis reported the violation, and the store had to close for two days until the store was in compliance. Ms. Bradford tried to chill the First Amendment rights of West Coast Director Carole Davis by filing a motion for a restraining order, which was denied by the court. Ms. Davis was never served. Ms. Bradford’s attorney advised her to drop the motion and a dismissal was filed.
So to those of you who have spoken out against the I Heart Puppies protest and think this is just a group of crazy activists, please understand that these activists are backed by a national nonprofit - the only one whose focus is almost entirely on the pet shop and puppy mill industry and has been for 20 years, when our nationwide protests and national media stories brought down the entire Docktor Pet Center chain of more than 300 stores.


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Tag Archives: cryptocurrency
- Macau junkets distance selves from crypto firm’s fake news
April 19, 2018
A Chinese crypto firm has caught the ire of many junket operators after announcing that its digital coin may be used for transactions in Macau casinos.
- Phil Hellmuth jumps on the crypto train with BlitzPredict
March 26, 2018
Hellmuth has signed on to be an advisor to BlitzPredict, which scans constantly a wide range of markets to aggregate the information into one location.
- Jumio to provide KYC for new CasinoCoin crypto wallet
March 23, 2018
New digital currency for the regulated online gaming sector looks to simplify the onboarding process leveraging blockchain technology.
- Asean Gaming Summit 2018 day 2 highlights
March 22, 2018
The second day of Asean Gaming Summit talks about the benefit of advance technology in blockchain can benefit the gaming industry.
- CoinPoker responds: 3 accounts banned, no reasons why
March 21, 2018
A respond from CoinPoker to allegations about security protocols on the site made by GameIntel's Alex Weldon.
- Cryptocurrency joins porn in Google’s list of banned ads
March 14, 2018
The latest wave of policy changes at tech giant Google is about to hit the cryptocurrency sector—and skins gambling, too.
Unikrn rolls out cryptocurrency for eSports betting
June 20, 2017
$500K hack challenge backfires on blockchain lottery SmartBillions
October 13, 2017


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Northampton County's next sheriff's sale is set for Friday, May 11. More than 200 properties that will go on the block.
This monthly public auction will begin at 10 a.m. in County Council Chambers at the , 669 Washington Street, Easton. Call (610) 559-3000 for details.
Rules for the sale include:
- All persons attending sheriff's sale shall be dressed in proper attire.
- No eating or drinking is allowed in council chambers where the sale is conducted.
- All cell phones and pagers are to be turned off during the sale.
Here are results from the last sale held April 5.


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ATHENS – Memories of diving in dumpsters for food and scrounging to survive during an eight-year-long economic and austerity crisis as part of international bailouts that ended in August, 2018 haven’t been forgotten in Greece.
In the waning COVID-19 pandemic, with record inflation, and soaring energy prices that doubled electric bills and a 24 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) on food, more households are buying second-hand clothes and vintage goods.
That had long been shunned, said the Chinese news agency Xinhua in a feature on the habits of Greeks and their shopping styles, reporting that experts and retailers are seeing a rise in the practice.
The thrift stores popped up like crocuses in the spring when the first wave of austerity hit in 2010 and lasted another eight years, bringing big pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and worker firings, and they’ve hung on.
Speaking to the news agency they said that the pandemic pushed more people toward online shopping but the economic hurt on many families has them rummaging through second-hand clothes again for bargains.
It will take more than two years for the economy to get better, said the 67.3 percent of respondents in the latest survey of Vendora.gr, a classifieds platform linking second–hand buyers and sellers in Greece in the past five years.
“One out of three respondents stated that selling things they don’t need anymore to make some extra money actually is a good way to tackle the inflation,” Kimon Tousmanof, Head of Marketing at Vendora.gr, said.
“Greeks not only start seeing that buying and selling second–hand has financial benefits, but they also see the environmental benefits of the whole thing,” Tousmanof said.
The survey of more than 800 people found that 49 percent of people in Greece turn to the second-hand market to save money, 15 percent for variety and uniqueness and 10 percent out of concern for the environment.
“We’ve been seeing a trend going on these past years in Greece that Greeks are embracing more and more second-hand buying and selling. And it’s estimated that until 2025 the market, the industry of second-hand buying and selling will double in size (compared to pre-pandemic levels),” Tousmanof said.
Some 80 percent of Greeks are looking for bargains and half have purchased one second-hand item within three months, showed another survey conducted by local polling firm Focus Bari earlier this year among over 6,000 people.
Vendora.gr registered a 40-45 percent increase in traffic during the pandemic. And the market is also growing offline.
Tatyana Todorova, a Bulgarian who moved to Greece in 2007, has owned a second-hand/vintage store in central Athens since 2015, her family having operated them in their homeland for almost 30 years.
While the Greek economy is on a path to grow more than 5 percent and jobs going begging in many sectors, she said that the most vulnerable in society still can’t make ends meet and more thrift shops are opening in Athens.
‘More and more people realize we shouldn’t constantly buy new clothes. Not only for financial reasons but also for quality and environmental protection,” Todorova said.’
“Among my customers are people who are wealthy and interested in the quality of garments. Many of them are seeking vintage clothing from the 70s-90s”” she told Xinhua of a trendy idea that’s caught on.
Eleni Gerontak, one of them, said she doesn’t like current fashions for their quality and lack of natural fibers and can find what she wants in vintage stores that have cotton and wool.
‘I never buy synthetic clothes. Always made of cotton or viscose, good quality fabric, and I find it here. Do you know how many beautiful items I discovered? Fine products and very affordable,” she said.
NEW JERSEY – The chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, sent a new message to Turkey that in the event it takes any action against Greece, it will suffer the consequences.
ATHENS - Despite having a costly Internet that’s the slowest in the European Union, Greece is continuing to attract high-tech giants, with Alphabet’s Google planning to create its first cloud region in the country.
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Honda Cars India has announced a price cut for its best-selling Honda Amaze car by as much as Rs 20,000. Honda also announced a price cut in its various car models in the range of Rs 14,650 to Rs 44,741 with immediate effect.
"The reduction in duty will give the necessary boost to consumer demand and fuel growth in the auto industry. We are happy to pass on the benefit of the duty reduction to our customers," Honda Cars India Senior Vice President Marketing & Sales, Jnaneswar Sen said.
The prices have been revised following the reduction in Basic Excise Duty in the interim budget 2014.The new prices will be effective from Feb 19, 2014.
The company’s product range includes Honda Brio, Honda Amaze, Honda City and Honda CR-V. Honda’s models are strongly associated with advanced design and technology, apart from its established qualities of durability, reliability and fuel-efficiency.
The new range of prices for all models (ex-showroom Delhi) w.e.f. Feb 19, 2014 is as follows:
Rs 399,900 – Rs 599,900
Petrol: Rs 499,900 – Rs 755,000
Diesel: Rs 597,500 – Rs 749,500
Petrol: Rs 719,000 – Rs1,080,000
Diesel: Rs 837,000 – Rs 1,089,000
Rs 2,025,000 – Rs 2,436,000
Other auto makers also slashed prices on Wednesday across models and variants, hoping to revive sales in a year marked by a tepid consumer demand so far.
Responding to the 3-6% excise duty cuts announced by finance minister P Chidambaram in his interim budget, Apart from the country’s top two car manufacturers — Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor — other players, including Volkswagen, M&M and Fiat, also reduced their prices.
While Maruti’s price reduction ranges between R8,502 and R30,984 across models, Hyundai lowered its prices between R10,000 and R1,35,300. Maruti’s entry-level model — Alto 800 — will now be cheaper by Rs 8,502, costing Rs 2.7 lakh (on-road, Delhi), while the top variant SX4 will be cheaper by Rs 31,000 to Rs 10.3 lakh.
Hyundai’s entry-level model Eon will now be cheaper by Rs 10,000, to cost Rs 3.10 lakh. Its recently-launched premium SUV Santa Fe’s top-end variant will be cheaper by about R1.35 lakh and will now cost Rs 29.6 lakh.
Mahindra & Mahindra said the price reduction for its vehicles is between R13,000 and Rs 49,000. Accordingly, the price range will now be between Rs 6.7 and Rs 17.3 lakh against the earlier Rs 6.9 and Rs 17.8 lakh. The company also lowered prices of


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Global Technology News for 21 Oct 2019
This should've been available out of the box. What you need to know Google will update the Pixel 4's face unlock feature to require eye detection. The feature will be available via a software update... that will be rolled out in the coming months. Face unlock is the only biometric authentication system available on the Pixel 4, with the phone lacking a fingerprint sensor. Google introduced an IR-based face unlock system on the Pixel 4 that's claimed to be just as secure as a fingerprint sensor. Google is so confident in its abilities that it doesn't offer a traditional fingerprint sensor on the Pixel 4 as a result. However, reviewers soon found that face unlock works even with eyes closed, unlike other IR-based systems. That understandably led toa lot of consternation, and Google has now...
A test by YouTube channel PhoneBuff revealed just how much battery may be saved by activating Dark Mode on an iPhone XS.
Sony hasn’t exactly been in the smartphone news recently and when it does, it’s almost not in a good light. The company once held a very favorable position among Android fans for its design,... cameras, and commitment to open source Android and modding. All of those have practically disappeared over time and, despite its almost vanilla Android experience, it is …
Thank you, brain.
Samsung is shutting down its Linux on DeX projects after only 11 months.
"Weather" in clusters of galaxies may explain a longstanding puzzle, according to a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge....
Many hearing implants won't help people with inner ear damage or auditory nerve problems, but the brainstem implants that do frequently do an incomplete job. Soon, however, there might be a far better... solution. Researchers have designed a conformab...
The Digital Transformation Agency has opened its hardware marketplace to sellers, covering enterprise storage, network equipment, and data cabling.
Facebook is willing to reverse course on its plans to tie its digital currency project to a synthetic currency tied to a basket of global currencies. Reuters is reporting that Facebook’s head of the... Libra project, David Marcus, told a group of bankers that the company’s main goal was to create a better payments system […]
WGS program and Boeing leaders are preparing for an upcoming "system requirements review." SpaceNews.com
The year I was born was the year that "fist bump" was first used in print.
Learn how to navigate the design waters in AutoCAD. This software is trusted by pros and you can start training for $19.99.
Timex has bridged the divide between sea and space with its new tribute to the U.S. space program and the first moon landing. The American watch company has debuted a new vintage-inspired diver-style... timepiece that features NASA's retired logotype.
Sangeeta Bhatia and Richard Young recognized for their contributions to "advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health."
Should you ever tell someone that you've stashed a smart speaker, camera, or display in your home somewhere? If the person lives with you, absolutely. If you're having some friends over, though, is... this overkill? Do you have a responsibility to let people know, or are you making a mountain out of a (smart) molehill?
Phagocytosis can be viewed as a primitive immune system used by all cells. When a pathogen is near the cell, the cell membrane will deform to engulf the pathogen and dispose of it. Researchers have... found that a two-dimensional sheet formed by the protein GAS7 is critical for this process, identifying through crystallography and microscopy two key hydrophilic loops in the protein.
The popular online multi-player game is facing backlash from users.
When you're buying and shooting with vintage cameras, you're also taking with you decades worth of fascinating history. If you're really lucky, you might come across cameras used by famous... photographers, limited edition models, and even those used for NASA spaceflights. You'll be even luckier if you have the $$$ to afford them. Or, you may simply find one with a really heartwarming personal history, like this Pentax Spotmatic that Brisbane-based Daimon Wright found and recently wrote about on Reddit.
Established by distinguished sociologist Jeanne Guillemin, the endowment will provide financial support for women at MIT pursuing a PhD in international affairs.
Most people can't really innovate, says Hartmut Esslinger, founder of frog design. He and his company (now celebrating fifty years in business) helped design Apple's portable computers, Sony's... Walkman, and many websites, apps, gadgets, and high-end medical and dental equipment. These are his principles of innovation.
The RF 24-70mm F2.8 isn't a showstopper like the RF 28-70mm F2. But it's a lens that will appeal to a lot of EOS R photographers, with its bright, constant aperture covering a handy zoom range, and... weather-sealing to help keep it protected from the elements. It became available at the end of September along with the nearly-identical RF 15-35mm F2.8, further expanding the range of options for full-frame Canon mirrorless shooters. We snagged some time with the lens during what's likely to be some of the last nice weather of the season - take a look. See our Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8 sample gallery
Olympus just announced the E-M5 III, the newest in its E-M5 line of enthusiast Micro Four Thirds cameras. In this hands-on preview, Chris and Jordan ask, "Who's it for?" Also, subscribe to our YouTube... channel to get new episodes of DPReview TV every week. Introduction Autumn photography in Canada Similarities to the E-M1 II Handling Design Displays Compared to the E-M1 X High resolution mode Image stabilization Video features Compared to the E-M1 II Compared to the Panasonic G9 Who is it for? Sample gallery from this episode
The nine-line BASIC program was hidden in the run-out groove of a Prodigal record for 35 years until a YouTuber uncovered it over the weekend.
'Battlestar Galactica' creator Ron Moore has planned out seven seasons for 'For All Mankind,' and revealed why he chose to rewrite NASA history for it.
Redditor u/stephenvsawyer found that HEIC photos were given unlimited backups to Google Photos because they are smaller than JPGs. If Google tried to compress them the files would actually get bigger,... which would be a waste of storage space. But Google calls it a bug and says it will fix it. However, what that means remains unclear. Would Google start charging for HEIC images stored in Photos, even if they’re small and don’t take up much space? Would it forcibly re-convert those pics to compressed JPEG, or compress them further under the HEIC format? And will the fix apply to all HEIC images or just iPhones? I’m not sure how Google will fix it unless they just check if the file extension is .HEIC and arbitrarily limit these files (arbitrary since converting them would increase their...


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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Aston Martin has set up a venture with Chinese technology group LeEco to jointly develop the British luxury car brand's first electric vehicle, which could come to market in 2018.
"It brings Aston Martin's electric car project forward. We anticipate bringing it to market in 2018, " Aston Martin Chief Executive Andy Palmer said at a news conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday.
The partners plan to develop an electric car based on Aston Martin's Rapide S model.
Separately, the new joint venture plans to collaborate with Faraday Future, the start-up electric car venture backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, the companies said.
(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Writing by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Georgina Prodhan)


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MORE than a century's worth of tradition haunts the corridors of Swezey's, but the president, William L. Knapp, doesn't think for a moment that tradition brings customers through the door.
''The customer,'' he said, ''cares about what's on the shelves today. And getting it promptly in the right size from a pleasant, knowledgeable employee. We feel that when we bring customers through the door, that's their experience, and they'll come back because of it.''
Next month Mr. Knapp cuts the ribbon on the family-owned chain's new department store, a $10 million, 100,000-square-foot building rising on the western edge of downtown Patchogue, not far from the original 1894 storefront. A survivor from the days when Swezey's was the backbone of Long Island retailing, the Island's second-oldest department store (Hildreth's, in Southampton, takes the prize) is intent on carving out a niche among a generation of young adults who shop in malls rather than on Main Street.
The opening of the new store is supported by the first television advertising campaign Swezey's has done in more than a decade. Developed by EGC Media in Hicksville, the million-dollar campaign includes a rhyming jingle that suggests that shoppers will find more at Swezey's than they expect, and will have fun doing so.Continue reading the main story
''A new generation of shoppers has grown up or moved here who haven't been to Swezey's,'' Mr. Knapp said. ''The new building will bring many of them in the door. It will be up to us to keep them coming back.''
The opening of the new store, built on the foundation of a crumbling 19th-century lace mill, positions Swezey's, which had $32 million in sales last year, to compete against an invasion of much larger, out-of-town retailers including Kohl's, which opened seven stores on the Island in March and plans three more by October, and Target, which has seven stores on the Island, two of them new in the last six months.
''Heritage is usually more important to the retailer than to the customer,'' said Joe Madenberg, whose Huntington Station company, the Retail Survey Group, has polled nearly 10,000 customers and prospective customers of Swezey's over the years. ''One of Bill's strengths as a retailer is that he realizes that.''
When Mr. Knapp's great-grandfather, Arthur M. Swezey, opened the first store on Main Street in 1894, customers hitched their horses outside. Swezey's grew to include stores in Riverhead, Setauket, Babylon and, last year, Glen Cove. Generations of Swezey family members drove home the importance of service to generations of sales personnel, many of whom stayed with the company throughout their careers. Mr. Knapp, a Swezey on his mother's side, occasionally reinforces the tradition by hopping in a truck to deliver an order to a customer's door. More routinely, sales associates greet shoppers by name, gift wrap items free and tote packages to the parking lot.
''Swezey's is the kind of store where you can return an item after a year, without a receipt, and if it's not abused, they refund your money,'' said Mayor Ed Ihne of Patchogue.
Today's younger shoppers, however, don't necessarily expect salespeople to be friendly or knowledgeable, or even visible on the sales floor. To establish Swezey's with the 20- and 30-somethings, the store asked EGC Media to focus on merchandise, lifestyles and the store's personalized service.
''The new advertising campaign shows how Swezey's combines Nordstrom-quality customer service with Macy's-style merchandising savvy,'' said Ernie Canadeo, president of EGC Media. ''The store delivers an exciting and contemporary shopping experience, and that's what the ad campaign conveys.''
The campaign will begin in late August with back-to-school spots, then resume in October. The spots will run on News 12 and Channel 55, and WALK and WBLI radio.
The ads are intended to update market perceptions about the chain. ''Customers -- and people in the market we would like as customers -- used words like old-fashioned, or dowdy, to describe our merchandise mix,'' Mr. Knapp said. ''We had to change that perception.''
The cramped flagship store, now occupying four buildings on Patchogue's Main Street, didn't help with its labyrinth of low ceilings and mid-century fixtures. When Mr. Knapp became president in 1980, however, upgrading the Main Street store's image was far from a priority.
''The 80's were a fantastic decade to be in retailing,'' Mr. Knapp recalled. ''You put something on the floor and you sold it. In the 90's, the rules changed.''
By the mid-1990's, Mr. Knapp had begun instructing the store's buyers to bring in more fashionable merchandise, especially clothing. 'We wanted to be perceived as more fashion forward,'' he said, ''carrying the same brands you would get at a store like Macy's but with service you won't get in a mall.''
Today, women choose from such names as Eileen Fisher and XOXO while men drape themselves in Tommy Hilfiger, Guess and other trendy brands.
''These brands are more often associated with larger department stores,'' said David Knapp, a menswear buyer and the president's brother. Because sales of trendier merchandise are harder to predict, ''buying them carries more of a risk for the store,'' he added, ''but it's what our customers tell us they want.''
Joel Evans, a professor of management at Hofstra University, defined Swezey's as competing in the mid-market range with Macy's and Stern's. ''Target is a discounter,'' he said. ''Kohl's comparatively has more ambience but still occupies the niche -- and mainly the same stores -- as Caldor's once did. But both are competing on price, where stores like Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's compete on ambience and service.
''The middle market,'' he continued, ''has become the toughest place to define yourself on Long Island.''
Responding to the increasingly competitive retail environment, Mr. Knapp began investing in growth and modernization. Three years ago he hired Inner Vision, a Manhattan design agency specializing in retailing, to reshape the Setauket branch.
The president of Inner Vision, Joseph Weiscar, found a store stuck in the 1970's. ''There were terrific traffic problems and operational problems,'' he said. Merchandise was hidden in boxy, decades-old cabinets; Mr. Weiscar had them removed and replaced with multilevel displays that used visual cues to bring customers toward the center of the store.
Mr. Knapp was pleased by the 10 percent boost in sales at the Setauket store, and awarded Inner Vision a major role in designing the Patchogue flagship.
The new building may draw curious shoppers, but will they return? And will the store's loyal base of traditional shoppers feel unwelcome?
''That's one of the hardest things to do in retailing: expand your target market while retaining the loyalty of your longtime customers,'' said Joel Evans, a management professor at Hofstra and author of ''Retail Manager'' (Prentice Hall), now in its eighth edition. ''Sears has tried it; J. C. Penney has tried it. Both failed, and miserably.''
To maintain the loyalty of long-time shoppers, Professor Evans said, Swezey's will need to communicate artfully to regular visitors that it will continue to carry items those customers buy and that their business is still valued. ''They need to get that message out through promotions and mailings, and any way they can,'' Professor Evans said.
Correction: August 20, 2000, Sunday The L.I.@Work column last Sunday, about Swezey's department stores and their struggle for market share on Long Island, misstated the name of an interior design consultant to Swezey's. It is New Vision Studios, not Inner Vision. The column also misspelled the surname of New Vision's president. He is Joseph Weishar, not Weiscar.Continue reading the main story


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September 29, 2014
ArtPrize kicked off its sixth year last week, and this year the annual open art competition, which will draw hundreds of thousands of attendees to downtown Grand Rapids over 19 days, has launched its first environmental sustainability initiatives.
September 23, 2014
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Orion Construction broke ground on Monday, Sept. 22, for Eastown Flats, a mixed-use development that will bring apartments and retail to two vacant lots at 1400 Wealthy and 1415 Wealthy St. SE.
September 19, 2014
A bar group is planning to open a tiki-themed barbecue restaurant and bar downtown.
September 17, 2014
The final grades from U.S. News & World Report are in for colleges across West Michigan.
September 16, 2014
Rockford launches Urbaneer concept in west side development.
September 15, 2014
Don't be surprised to see tour buses rolling into downtown Grand Rapids for ArtPrize 2015, or even ArtPrize 2014, which begins Sept. 24.
September 8, 2014
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - In a study looking at access to pediatric care, Grand Rapids came out No. 1 in the nation, according to a physician-rating website.
September 5, 2014
Loyal Mac users should be happy to hear that an Apple product retailer is opening its first Michigan location this week.
September 2, 2014
Until recently, the 106-year-old Irwin Seating Co. shared a trait with many family owned businesses: It lacked a formal succession plan that detailed the company's transition to the next generation of leadership.
August 28, 2014
A new award will honor diversity at this year's ArtPrize.


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The global video game industry will exceed $200 billion in value by 2023 — up from a projected $155 billion in 2020, projects Juniper Research.
Mobile and cloud gaming will lead the growth, as the business continues to shift toward recurring revenue, according to the report.
In fact, revenue from stand-alone purchases of video games is expected to decline by 5% during the period, as free-to-play (F2P) games such as “Fortnite” and “Call of Duty Mobile” accelerate the trend toward in-game monetization.
Cloud gaming and other video-game subscriptions are projected to grow at an average rate of 9% per year, bringing in more than $8 billion in 2023.
But this will not immediately compensate for declining purchase revenue.
“At current gaming subscription prices, it will take an average of ten months of a subscription payment to cover the retail cost of a single AAA game,” observed James Moar, co-author of the research. “The value of these platforms lies in keeping players within an ecosystem, ensuring that revenue across multiple games is captured by a single platform.”
As gamers subscribe to more services like Xbox Gamepass, EA Access and Google Stadia, and buy fewer stand-alone games, only mobile games will see a net increase in game installs between 2020 and 2023, Juniper says.
Due to F2P business models and game giveaways, virtually all (99%) mobile game downloads over those three years will be F2P, and fewer than 50% of PC game installs will be paid.
While mobile games will drive more purchases, PC games will be the most lucrative segment for in-game purchases due to their higher-value, game-expansion purchases. PC in-game purchases are projected to near $32 billion in 2023.
U.K.-based Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the high-tech communications sector.


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Siemensstadt Square has the honor to participate as part of the Siemens booth at Collisison 2023 in Toronto. There, Siemensstadt Square will show an insight into the city of the future with their impressive VR experience.
Collision, known as North America's fastest-growing tech conference, attracts every year thousands of industry professionals, investors, and entrepreneurs from around the world. Siemensstadt Square will take advantage of this opportunity by showcasing their urban development project. The VR tour of Siemensstadt Square will highlight various key features of the project.
Siemens participation in the Collision, with its Siemensstadt Square VR experience, will showcase the immense potential of Siemensstadt Square and reaffirm Siemens position as a frontrunner in innovative, sustainable solutions for cities of tomorrow.


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Just a reminder, with only hours to go, that there will be the live auction fundraiser tonight, Friday, Jan. 9, at 7 p.m. at the Fellowship Baptist Church, located at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Alberta Drive.
Everyone is invited, there’s no cost to get into the auction and you’re encouraged to bring donated items for auction when you attend.
Proceeds from the auction fundraiser will benefit residents without homes, resources or thermostat controls; specifically they will support the Centre of Hope’s fourth annual Subzero Challenge, which has already raised more than half of its $40,000 goal.
Funds raised through the Subzero Challenge enables the Centre of Hope to provide services to their patrons on weekends and holidays.
One big ticket auction item tonight is a brand new John Deer BBQ; another is a framed, signed, reproduction, #52 of 175, of an acrylic painting entitled "Alberta Bounty" by wildlife artist Darren Haley.
The framed reproduction has a certificate of authenticity attached. (See Darren Haley’s works at www.darenhaleyart.ca).
For more information on the Centre of Hope and how you can support their services in our community, visit fmcentreofhope.com


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Healthy or Health Hazard? Antioxidants Found to Have Side Effects
Byline: Jennifer Harper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Hold the green tea: The nationwide love affair with antioxidants may be too much of a good thing.
Rutgers University researchers announced yesterday that intestinal toxicity, chromosome damage and fetal leukemia are among potential dangerous side effects from dietary phytochemicals - naturally occurring substances in tea and other foods normally cited for their cancer- and disease-fighting potential.
"Whereas diet-derived compounds are generally regarded as safe based on their long history of use in the diet or as traditional medicines, it is becoming increasingly apparent that these compounds could have deleterious effect," said Joshua Lambert, lead author of the study and a chemist at the university.
His findings reveal that a well-meaning, self-remedying public is in danger of overdosing on the compounds, particularly through concentrates and supplements that tout their healing or weight-loss powers, or their lack of caffeine.
One commercial brand of green tea extract, for example, claims to contain more than 700 milligrams of polyphenols, or plant-based antioxidants. A typical cup of green tea provides about 80 milligrams.
Mr. Lambert, whose research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has found that an increasing number of human cases of hepatotoxicity, or chemical-induced liver damage, has been reported in people using tea-based dietary supplements. Research on rats and dogs also found a potential for kidney and intestinal damage.
Though Mr. …


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Voice assistants have come a long way in their ability to support multiple languages and reach broader audiences around the world. The latest development from Amazon Alexa is a more nuanced change in its language skills. The assistant now has the option to adopt the speech cadences and delivery of a professional newscaster. The AI will take on this voice when sharing news stories with a user. Amazon shared two samples of the same audio, one with the original technology and one using the newscaster voice.
We also tested the newscaster voice. A new smoothness is evident, though perhaps not reaching a professional news-reading level:
With our experiment and the Amazon examples, We are impressed by the mimicry. Most voice assistants still center on the same flat, hollow delivery style, and the new tech sounds close to something right out of your local TV news channel. Second, it’s a reminder that whether or not you are already using voice assistants, tech companies are continuing to make big strides in this sector and seem unlikely to slow down. The Google Assistant demonstration where an AI conducted a full telephone conversation (see the video below), both sounding and behaving like you’d expect a human to, is on its way to becoming commonplace.


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SUNNYLINKS, a digital marketing agency based in San Diego, announced a variety of services for local pediatricians and other business professionals looking to increase their Google ranking and attract more clients. The company offers press release writing and distribution on hundreds of high-authority media websites, helping clients increase brand awareness and improve their online reputation.
More information can be found at https://sunnylinks.me.
Recent years have seen a tremendous growth in the use of online resources for finding business information, with more than 90% of all consumers turning to Google searches and online reviews before making a purchase. This has led to considerable resources being spent on digital marketing services such as SEO, social media campaigns and many others.
SUNNYLINKS is a professional digital marketing agency from San Diego. The company was created by Sunny Gault, a prominent media figure in the field of pediatrics, parenting and child education, and owner of New Mommy Media, a media company providing various parenting podcasts.
Her extensive experience in both media and pediatrics have enabled Ms. Gault to create a digital marketing agency focusing on providing media relations and online growth services through professional press releases. SUNNYLINKS works with professional press release writers to create custom articles for local businesses and pediatricians, and uses a wide distribution network to get the press releases published on hundreds of high-authority media websites.
Having their businesses and business websites featured on numerous quality media websites also contributes to improving SUNNYLINKS clients’ Google ranking. Backlinking is essential for Google algorithms and, implicitly, SEO, with high-authority links contributing significantly to improved ranking position. As more than 90% of all keyword-specific traffic going to the top three Google results, search engine visibility is crucial.
SUNNYLINKS offers complete media relation services for San Diego pediatricians and other small businesses.
Interested parties can find more information by visiting the above-mentioned website.
Release ID: 207159


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Nokia cuts Lumia 800, Lumia 900 prices
Nokia has cut the price of the Lumia 800 by around 15 per cent and the Lumia 900 by 10 per cent in Europe.
Helsinki: Struggling phone maker Nokia has knocked 10-15 per cent off the prices of two of its top of the range smartphones, hoping to boost sales before newer models arrive in markets in November.
Nokia has cut the price of the Lumia 800 by around 15 per cent and the Lumia 900 by 10 per cent in Europe, according to device pricing data compiled by British research firm CCS Insight. Nokia declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Nokia launched Lumia 820 and 920, which many see as crucial for the Finnish company's survival. But the newest models will only go on sale in November, leaving the company's sales team struggling with older smartphone models for over a month.
Nokia had already slashed the price of the Lumia 800 by around 15 per cent earlier this month and made smaller cuts for its other Lumia models.
Once the world's biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia fell behind rivals in smartphones and has racked up more than 3 billion euros in operating losses in the last 18 months.
In early 2011, it bet its future on Microsoft's Windows Phone software. Windows accounts for only around 3 percent of global smartphones, while Google's Android platform controls two-thirds of sales and Apple has around a quarter.
Competitive pricing is considered crucial for Nokia to lure back customers, even though pricing does not seem to be an issue for rival Apple. In Belgium, for example, more than 10,000 people have pre-registered for the latest iPhone even before a local price has been set.
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- DDoS attacks on Dyn, Amazon services shut down Twitter, Other Websites in US East


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NEW YORK (AP) – A fire at a New York City e-bike shop quickly spread to upper- floor apartments and killed four people early Tuesday in the latest deadly blaze linked to exploding lithium ion batteries.
The fire, reported shortly after midnight, happened at a shop that was cited last summer for safety violations related to the storage and charging of batteries, officials said.
A pile of burned bikes, scooters and other debris lay on the sidewalk outside the shop, HQ E-Bike Repair, which was on the ground floor of a six-story building in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood.
So far this year, there have been more than 100 fires and 13 deaths linked to battery explosions in the city, said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.
“There was a very large number of both batteries and e-bikes,” Kavanagh said at a morning news conference. “This location is known to the fire department. We have written violations at this location before and we have conducted enforcement at this location before.”
Two men and two women died in Tuesday’s fire. Two other women were hospitalized in critical condition, officials said. A firefighter suffered minor injuries.
Kavanagh said it was “very clear” that the fire was caused by lithium ion batteries, which can overheat while being charged and explode in an intensely hot flare of flame, but that the exact cause was still under investigation.
Chief Fire Marshal Daniel Flynn said the shop was inspected last August and later cited for safety violations related to battery charging, the number of batteries at the site and the electrical system. The shop was fined $1,600. Authorities recently surveilled the store and found there were many batteries there, but none of them were being charged at the time, he said.
A man who said he was the owner of the bike shop told The Associated Press that he made his usual checks of the store before he left Monday night. He denied that any e-bike batteries were being charged.
“The shop has been there for six years. I check before I leave every night,” said the man, who spoke in Mandarin in a phone interview and only gave his last name, Liu. “I checked last night, turned off the power besides the ones for the monitor and automatic door.”
He added: “I got a call from a neighbor … and told me about the fire. I went to my shop but couldn’t get close when they were working on the fire. I saw a lot of smoke. My shop is gone. I’ve been working for nothing for years.”
Liu said he was at the police station waiting to talk with officers Tuesday morning.
The blaze startled the neighborhood in the middle of the night.
“A friend of mine came in and yelled ‘there’s a fire next door,'” neighborhood resident Belal Alayah told WABC-TV. “I step out. I see the flames so hot it’s going through the metal gate. I knew it was the bike store, so I called the fire department. But the fire kept getting bigger and bigger and it took them a while to stop the fire.”
Electric bikes have become popular, non-gasoline-powered ways to make deliveries, commute and zip around a city that has promoted cycling in recent decades. Many run on lithium ion batteries, which have been blamed for numerous fires.
In April in the Queens section of New York City, two children were killed in a fire blamed on an e-bike. Another Manhattan fire in November that injured more than three dozen people was caused by a malfunctioning e-bike battery, officials said.
Last year in the city, nearly 200 fires and six deaths were tied to such batteries, with an 8-year-old girl and a 5-year-old girl among those who died in blazes linked to scooter batteries. Fire officials have repeatedly issued warnings and safety tips, and the city passed new regulations this year aimed at preventing battery fires.
“So we would like to really emphasize today something that we have been saying over and over … it is also very, very important to get the word out how incredibly dangerous this is,” Kavanagh said. “This exact scenario where there’s an e-bike store on the first floor and residences above and the volume of fire created by these lithium ion batteries is incredibly deadly.”
Lithium ion batteries can catch fire because they contain a flammable electrolyte solution that allows electrical current to flow, experts say. Many fires have been linked to such batteries in laptops, cellphones and other items.
Top photo: A biker stops to look at a pile of e-bikes in the aftermath of a fire in Chinatown, which authorities say started at an e-bike shop and spread to upper-floor apartments, Tuesday June 20, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
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GameFi pulls in most crypto newbies: report; Animoca Brands Japan raises $45 million
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Gaming is the fastest growing part of the global entertainment industry. Makes sense then, that GameFi is crypto’s biggest attraction.
According to a new study released by ChainPlay, three in four investors worldwide join crypto because of GameFi (where gaming meets decentralised finance), also sometimes referred to as play-and-earn gaming.
GameFi took off big time in 2021, albeit largely as a concept and investment opportunity rather than an industry that can boast captivating, fully realised games. That’s all still to come, according founders and project leads, such as Kieran Warwick (Illuvium), Kent Byers (Civitas) and Don Norbury (Shrapnel).
GameFi-related projects such as Axie Infinity (AXS), The Sandbox (SAND); Illuvium (ILV); STEPN (GMT); Gala (GALA); Immutable X (IMX) and buckets more saw huge gains and momentum at various times last bull run, leading into the peak of the market late last year.
In fact, the ChainPlay survey reveals that many of the 68% of GameFi investors who joined the market in the past 12 months got on board late last year.
Like everything else in crypto, things have cooled off dramatically since then, but here are some other noteworthy reveals from the report, which, incidentally took in answers from 2,428 crypto-gaming investors globally.
• The “Fi” side of GameFi is unsurprisingly the biggest motivator for those investing in crypto games, with 51% of respondents citing profit as their number one reason for getting involved.
• That said… 81% said they would prioritise the fun factor of gaming over financial returns when it comes to future/developing GameFi projects.
• Respondents apparently believe that projects should prioritise improving game quality, with earning as a secondary goal.
• Again, that said… with 62% of these investors in the past six months experiencing more than 50% loss of their GameFi profits, the blame for this is put mainly on poor in-game economy design.
• “Poor in-game economy design” is the number one reason for declining GameFi profits, according to 58% of respondents.
• GenZ crypto investors allocate on average 52% of their net worth to GameFi, while 43% of female investors said they participate in GameFi out of curiosity.
• Some 44% of investors believe the entry of traditional gaming companies into the crypto space is the key driver for GameFi’s growth in 2022.
Animoca Brands, as Stockhead has mentioned almost too many times to count, is a crypto and NFT gaming investment powerhouse. The Sandbox owner has fingers in GameFi pies all over the space, across various ecosystems and countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
It’s attempting to make a dent in the Japanese market, too, through its subsidiary Animoca Brands Japan.
The firm revealed it’s raised US$45 million at a US$500 million valuation, to help its focus on all things metaverse, as well as web3 infrastructure.
The metaverse and GameFi have heavy correlation, with many crypto games intent on building vast digital worlds.
BR3AKING: The largest bank in Japan, MUFG, has become a new Animoca Brands Japan partner with a mission to increase Web3 adoption.
Animoca Brands Japan has raised $45M at a $500M valuation.
— The Metaverse (@themetav3rse) August 26, 2022
According to the announcement, Japan’s largest bank, MUFG Bank and the parent company Animoca Brands (which is valued at about US$5.9 BILLION last we checked) both supported the funding.
One of the Japanese outfit’s aims will be to help grow the Japanese NFT ecosystem, which will presumably place some focus on GameFi – one of the largest current use cases for NFTs.


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|Filed Under:||Lifestyle / Green Living|
|Posts on Regator:||46902|
|Posts / Week:||139.5|
|Archived Since:||April 22, 2008|
An art project invites viewers to reconsider their relationship to global warming.
Here's why buying Design Within Reach was such a good idea: It takes Herman Miller back to its roots.
As part of a new Hollywood Food Voices PSA series, electronic musician/DJ Moby speaks about his passion for bees and very real threat of their disappearance.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
Bison roundup to help conservation efforts 2 hours outside Chicago, Illinois.
Commercial kitchens are really expensive to build. Why not share?
What if clothing could filter pollution out of the air around your body?
A new campaign launched by the Organic Consumers Association strives to educate people about the evils of factory farming and encourages them to refuse to eat those products.
Norwegian architect Tron Meyer cuts a stair out of solid engineered wood.
Tail wags dog in this clever design
The New York Times breaks down years of bee news and bee research for us
The breakthrough also scored 18-year-old Hayley Todesco a Google Science Fair Award.
This is my last post about my current eco-venture in Barcelona: yök Casa + Cultura. We believe that good tourism is possible thanks to common sense, eco-design and working for People, Planet and Profit.
An adorable beaver swims along.
This is another example of Ecuador’s amazing insect diversity.
Echoing the helical forms found in nature, the "zome" looks like a dome, but has some unique geometric and acoustic properties that make it a bit different.
Let’s meet some of the world's smaller critters.
It's the first conference of the North American Passive House Network and it sounds like it was a lot of fun.
Two Canadians have been charged with smuggling and illegal trading.
One of the largest agricultural companies in the world has pledged to extend its zero deforestation commitments from just the palm oil sector to its entire supply chain.


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Context. Consequence. Value.
Help us continue our fight against cronyism, corruption and profligate government borrowing & spending.
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Tuesday, May 21, 2019
The Grundy Economic Development Council and Grundy County Chamber of Commerce & Industry Annual Dinner is right around the corner!
Tuck Everlasting will take the stage March 7-10 and 15-17 at the Coal City Performing Arts Center.
According to BlockShopper.com, there were three reported residential sales in Morris for the week of February 17-23, 2019.
Historical home sales data show whether price appreciation has outpaced inflation and tax rates. BlockShopper.com has calculated cities' median sales prices for the past 10 years, adjusting for inflation.
A home buyer who paid $280,000 to purchase a home on Nov. 1 paid the top home sale price for South Wilmington in 2018.


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Plus, CEO Karl Friederich Scheufele dishes on which industry heavyweight is an admirer of the company’s sapphire crystal-cased minute repeater
At Cannes, Chopard is widely recognised not only as an event sponsor but the provider of some of the festival’s most extraordinary jewels, as the maison debuts its latest high-jewellery creations each year on high-wattage celebrities. But this year, the company chose to also shine the spotlight on two very important haute horology pieces: the L.U.C. Full Strike Sapphire and the Flying T Twin, both decked to the hilt in black-tie ready sapphires. The Swiss jeweller unveiled the two at its annual gentlemen’s evening, where the company creates a soiree for men because so much of the attention of the festival is centred around women and jewellery (although of course, women are most welcome at this night, too). The idea, however, isn’t intended to compete with its jewellery for the red-carpet attention. “A watch will never be as visible as a pair of earrings,” CEO, Karl Friederich Scheufele, told Robb Report at Cannes. “It’s more discreet. The world of collector’s watches is taken a little bit differently.”
That said, there is hardly anything discreet about this year’s offering. The Flying T Twin features a flying tourbillon (as its name suggests) at 6 o’clock surrounded by hundreds of baguette-cut sapphires in a gradient of deep blue set in an 18-karat ethical-gold case. It took 106 hours for Chopard artisans just to set the stones. With more and more gents wearing gems on their wrists, lapels, and even their necks, opulent gem-set pieces such as these are increasingly having their moment in the spotlight (just check Phillips’ recent top lot auction results from Geneva for proof). To further accentuate the richness of colour on the dial, it comes on a hand-sewn blue alligator leather strap, lined with a brown alligator leather to drive home the message that this 42 by 9.72mm watch is only for a rare handful of collectors—just eight will be delivered in numbered editions.
But for movement connoisseurs looking to score an ultra-serious piece of high horology, the latest L.U.C. Full Strike should elicit another level of lust. The piece was first introduced at Watches & Wonders in April of last year in a clear sapphire crystal case and won accolades, including a nod in our Best of the Best issue and, in its earliest iteration encased in 18-karat pink gold, the GPHG’s top Aguille d’Or prize (the Oscars of watchmaking). This year at Cannes, it was introduced in a blue 42.5mm sapphire case and, like its blingy Flying T brother, it comes on a hand-sewn blue alligator leather strap to match.
The case encircles a full view of the movement and is more than just a funky design feature—the crystal gongs of the minute repeater strike the crystal case to elicit a crisp sound that was inspired by the clinking of crystal wine glasses. “As you know, I’m a wine aficionado, so I said as we were sitting around a table, ‘If we could convey the sound of crystal, this would be a great innovation,’ says Scheufele of when the idea for the piece was originally conceived. “The sound is usually more metallic [in traditionally-cased minute repeaters] and not always so great or it is hidden in the case and not coming out. And then we thought of crystal, we thought this could be the material of the case, sapphire crystal. There have been some innovations [in minute repeaters] but they were always around the case of the watch and not with integrating the crystal which is the most important part, as it turned out.”
The effect is so impressive it caught the eye and ear of fellow independent watch titan, Thierry Stern of Patek Philippe. When it was unveiled at Watches & Wonders last year, he swung by the Chopard booth to hear it himself. According to Scheufele, he was so impressed he scheduled a meeting with Chopard and the Patek development team to collectively come to check out the piece. “Later in the year, our development team was contacted by him and I was asked if it was OK if we could meet all together and I had a listen to our respective minute repeaters. I said, ‘Yes, that’s a great idea. Why not? Invite them over,’ says Scheufele. “So, we all had a meeting with about 10 or 15 people and there was a lot of listening going on and it was a very nice and friendly atmosphere. Everyone kind of knows each other or has heard of each other—the head of Patek’s development team started his career in our company 30 years ago.”
Needless to say, if you want to get your hands on the latest version you are likely already too late. Like its predecessor it will be limited to just five pieces and while we haven’t confirmed pricing on the blue sapphire version, last year’s clear sapphire crystal iteration came with a US$450,000 price tag thanks to the difficulty of the movement and case construction.
Scheufele declined to elaborate if versions in other colours would appear in subsequent years (“I’m not going to tell you that,” he said, laughing) but did acknowledge that sapphire crystal can be created in several hues (hint, hint). “It’s a very complicated process,” says Scheufele. The material is not only difficult to machine but is further complicated when colour is added due to the difficulty in getting of achieving uniformity. “All sapphire crystal is Swiss-made,” he adds. “This is part of our philosophy. We won’t go for anything else.”


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Cemex planning sales
08 May 2008
Cemex has announced plans to sell various businesses in Austria, Hungary and the UK in a bid to reduce its debt burden. The units in question had generated revenues of US$ 456 million last year.
The biggest proposed divestment will be in Australia where Cemex is looking to sell 26 aggregates plants with a total volume of 7.1 million tonnes and 39 ready-mixed concrete plants producing 2 million m3. These businesses had sales of US$ 274 million in 2007.
In Hungary the company wants to sell five aggregates plants with a total volume of 1.8 million tonnes, and 31 ready-mixed concrete plants with a total volume of 0.8 million m3. Cemex is also looking to divest five plants that produce paving stones. These various businesses had total sales of US$ 84 million last year.
The UK assets up for sale are Cemex's flooring, roof tile and rail product businesses, which had sales of US$ 98 million last year.


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India’s banks are bracing for a new wave of loan defaults, this time from retail customers.
With the Covid-19 pandemic bringing the economy to a halt, defaults by borrowers, especially embattled small businesses and individuals whose wages have eroded, are now imminent, say analysts.
“Small retail and loans to MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises) will see sharp deterioration. Even before Covid-19, unemployment was increasing in India. Now, the situation has worsened. Many households will face a cash crunch,” Pankaj Pathak, fund manager for fixed income at Mumbai-based Quantum Mutual Fund, told Quartz.
This is unlike in the past when retail loans—personal loans, credit card debt, consumer durable loans, vehicle loans, or loans to small businesses with a ticket size usually below Rs10 crore ($130,000)—were considered safe assets by banks compared to corporate loans.
The Covid-19 pandemic, thus, could bring an abrupt end to the industry’s reliance on retail loans, said a Kotak Institutional Equities report, on March 30. The Reserve Bank of India’s data show that as of September 2019, this segment accounted for 26% of Indian lenders’ overall credit of Rs95 lakh crore.
The central bank, too, was quick to see the writing on the wall. On March 27, it announced a three-month moratorium on all term loans and credit card debt to avoid defaults. However, once the moratorium ends, retail loans are expected to go bust, according to bankers.
This can have a cascading effect on banks’ finances due to their recent focus on the retail segment.
Since financial year 2016, almost all major banks have relied on retail loans to expand their loan books. This constituted the fastest growing loan segment, clocking 18% between September 2018 and September 2019.
A substantial portion of it is unsecured credit (personal loans, consumer durable loans, and credit card dues).
Credit to small businesses, too, is significant. For instance, public sector lender City Union Bank’s share of SME loans in the overall loan book stood at around 50% in December 2019 and has remained close to that mark for the past five years.
By the end of 2019, RBI was highlighting the dangers of over-reliance on retail: “The diversification strategy, while helpful as a risk mitigation tool, has its own limitations: the slowdown in consumption and overall economic growth may affect the demand for, and the quality of, retail loans.”
Moreover, in the case of unsecured loans, there is no collateral to seize in the event of a default.
“A lender won’t be interested in seizing an asset like a mobile or laptop if the borrower defaults,” explained Pathak of Quantum Mutual Fund.
Adding to banks’ woes is the precarious situation of small businesses since demonetisation and the default of infrastructure lender IL&FS last year. Covid-19 could be the last straw.
“Self-employed or MSME loans such as those given to restaurant owners are riskier compared to others as they don’t have any stream of revenue due to the lockdown right now,” said Abhinesh Vijayaraj, vice-president of equity research at Chennai-based financial advisor Spark Capital.
The slowdown in these pockets is sure to impact banks’ bottom lines as interest charged on retail loans is higher. For instance, a credit card holder pays 36% compound interest annually, which is higher than the interest levied on corporate loans.
“We are more concerned about the unsecured retail, consumer (durable), and SME (loans) at this point as their contribution to (banks’) earnings is high and it would have an impact on net interest margin, fees, and cost ratios (of the banks) as well as on provisions,” states the Kotak Institutional Equities report.
On March 19, a week before the central government announced a nationwide lockdown, US-based research & brokerage firm Bernstein downgraded HDFC Bank, citing its high exposure to unsecured consumer credit.
“The stress will be across the board for banks. We are entering into painful times for the financial system. Government support will be needed to overcome such times,” says Pathak.


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Rivian Automotive announced on Wednesday that produced 4,401 vehicles at its manufacturing facility in Normal (Illinois) during the second quarter of 2022 and the delivery of 4,467 vehicles. The electric vehicle maker said the numbers are “in line with the company’s expectations, and it believes it is on track to deliver on the 25,000 annual production guidance previously provided.
Last week, RBC Capital analyst Joseph Spak released a new note reiterating the $77 price target and the Outperform rating on Rivian shares. The analyst expects Rivian to deliver 3,600 vehicles in the second quarter, slightly above the consensus estimates.
“We expect RIVN to report 2Q22 deliveries in early July. Current 2Q22 Visible Alpha consensus stands at 3.5k (RBC at 3.6k). Based on our RBC Elements powered normalized foot traffic data which attempts to track the pace of production at RIVN’s Normal plant, we believe current expectations for 2Q22 deliveries look very reasonable. Further, we believe the current pace of production may be back near the highs.”
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Recently, Rivian announced that opened three fast charging sites this week in Colorado and California, “the first deployments in its nationwide Rivian Adventure Network”.
In mid-June, the company unveiled its plans for a large-scale wind turbine at its Normal manufacturing campus to provide clean energy enabling new R1 vehicles to be powered by renewables for their first charge. Earlier this year, Rivian had installed a 783-kilowatt solar canopy that is scheduled to begin generating electricity later this summer.
The wind project aligns with Rivian’s strategy of adding renewable resources to parts of the country that need them most Illinois’ grid is powered by 11% renewables and aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, the company stated.
Recently, Rivian Automotive Field Specialist Patrick Sarsgard unveiled that the EV manufacturer just opened a new service center located in Boston. In the same post, Sarsgard said that the U.S. electric vehicle maker is “actively delivering on the East Coast”. During Q1 2022 Earnings, Rivian reiterated its forecast to produce 25,000 vehicles in 2022.


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August's top stories: ArNoCo begins operations, Russia keeps McDonald's closed
The Arla Foods Ingredients and Deutsches Milchkontor joint venture started production of whey and lactose at its new facility in Germany, while the temporary closure of three McDonald's outlets in Moscow received backing from the Russian courts. Foodprocessing-technology.com wraps up the key headlines from August 2014.
A joint venture between Arla Foods Ingredients and DeutschesMilchkontor (DMK), ArNoCo, began production of whey and lactose at its new facility in Germany.
The €50m factory is located 22km south of the Danish border in Nordhackstedtbuilt, and will process value-added ingredients.
The new facility is positioned next to a DMK cheese factory that produces 60,000t a year of mozzarella and semi-hard cheeses, such as Gouda.
The temporary closure of three McDonald's outlets in Moscow over breaches of food safety rules has received backing from the Russian courts.
Russia's federal service for surveillance on consumer rights protection and human wellbeing, Rospotrebnadzor, temporarily shut down three restaurants in Moscow last week as part of an unscheduled inspection drive, citing a breach of sanitary laws, and this week ordered the temporary closure of a fourth branch in the capital.
While the group has denied that the closures are politically motivated, there has been speculation that the move is retaliation for the economic sanctions imposed by the West over Moscow's stance on the Ukraine conflict.
In a bid to make chicken and turkey products safer, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that poultry companies will have to meet new requirements to control Salmonella and Campylobacter rather than addressing the problem after it occurs.
The New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS), an updated science-based inspection system that positions food safety inspectors at poultry facilities more effectively, could prevent up to 5,000 foodborne illnesses every year, the agency said.
According to the modified regulations, all poultry facilities will be required to carry out their own microbiological testing at two points in their production process to show that they are taking steps to control contamination.
Canada-based McCain Foods announced plans to close its French fry facility in Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island (PEI) province, Canada.
The move, which could result in the loss of around 121 jobs, is due to a shift in the market for French fries and the stronger Canadian dollar.
The facility is expected to close by the end of October 2014.
French chocolate and pastry makers launched a campaign to oppose the government's proposal to impose health warnings on their products in an attempt to tackle the rise of obesity in the country.
The proposal requires companies to introduce colour-coded labels for all food products to ensure healthy eating. These labels have to be produced in five colours, ranging from green for products considered good for health, to red for those best avoided or eaten in small quantities. It has been proposed to put chocolate under the red category.
The Confederation of French Chocolate and Pastry Makers, which represents more than 4,500 chocolatiers and pastry makers from across France, has started a campaign on social media sites to counter the argument that chocolates are unhealthy.
African business conglomerate Dangote Industries agreed to invest around $1bn in rice production and processing operations in Nigeria.
The company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to make the investments, as part of the country's Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) announced in 2011.
Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan was quoted by the Guardian Nigeria as saying: "Today is a great day for Nigeria and this investment is worth the risk. The country is capable of producing rice that can feed the whole of [the] West African sub-region."
New Zealand-based co-operatively owned company Fonterra is to acquire a 20% stake in Chinese infant food manufacturer Beingmate and will also invest close to $555m in expanding its milk production units in New Zealand.
Fonterra will form a global partnership with Beingmate with a total investment of $615m, tod help meet China's growing demand for infant formula and also promote the improvement of product quality and safety standards in the country.
With the partnership, Fonterra aims to create an integrated global supply chain from the farm gate direct to China's consumers, using its milk pools and manufacturing sites in New Zealand, Australia and Europe.
American food company Tyson Foods is exploring new export markets for its pork products after a recent delivery to China triggered an export ban.
The company faces a ban in China owing to traces of feed additive called ractopamine in the meat, which is used to enhance growth in animals.
A total of six major US plants and six cold storage facilities have been included in the ban, three of which belong to the Tyson group.


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Much of Medtronic’s work in diabetes this year has focused specifically on bringing new technologies to European patients—and its latest purchase continues this trend.
The medtech giant snapped up the intellectual property rights to implanted infusion pump technology developed by the Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Scientific Research, a medical device incubator based in Los Angeles.
The technology differs from other implanted pumps by upping the precision of insulin delivery and offering MRI compatibility and occlusion detection. Despite those upgrades, the resulting pumps are smaller and lighter than many other currently available insulin pumps.
Under the terms of their agreement, Medtronic and the Mann Foundation will work together to further develop the technology into a new type of implantable insulin pump. The device will aim to improve insulin delivery for people with hard-to-treat Type 1 diabetes, targeting European patients with the condition. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Medtronic and the Mann Foundation go way back: In 2001, the Mann-founded insulin pump and glucose monitor maker MiniMed sold to Medtronic for more than $3 billion, becoming the basis of Medtronic’s now-booming diabetes business.
The research org continues to be a promising partner for Medtronic, thanks to its extensive experience in building and commercializing implanted devices. The medtech incubator is responsible for developing one of just three cochlear implants cleared in the U.S., and its current portfolio companies include Axonics Modulation Technologies—a former Fierce 15 honoree and maker of an FDA-approved sacral neuromodulation implant—and Bioness, which develops implants to treat orthopedic injuries and was acquired by Bioventus in a $110 million deal earlier this year.
Elsewhere in the realm of diabetes, the Mann Foundation is currently developing artificial pancreas technology, combining an insulin pump, continuous glucose monitor and automatic dosage-adjusting algorithm into a single implanted device that will mimic the pancreas’s ability to regulate glucose levels.
The newest addition to Medtronic’s diabetes segment joins a handful of other diabetes approvals and rollouts in Europe this year. In April, the Dublin-based devicemaker debuted on the continent a new infusion tubing set that can be worn for up to a week at a time, more than double the average life span of other infusion sets.
The following month, Medtronic scored back-to-back CE marks for two more diabetes management devices: an updated version of its newly acquired InPen Bluetooth-connected insulin pen and the Guardian 4 sensor, which works either as a standalone CGM or in tandem with the InPen or a MiniMed insulin pump.


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The athletic wear company announced the release of the “pro hijab,” Al Arabiya English reported on Monday.
“The Nike Pro Hijab may have been more than a year in the making, but its impetus can be traced much further back, to an ongoing cultural shift that has seen more women than ever embracing sport,” a statement from Nike said, according to Al Arabiya English.
The “pro hijab” is set to be released in spring 2018. Its creation follows years of controversy regarding Muslim women keeping their hair covered during athletic competitions. Read more (3/7/17 11:10 AM)
Last month, Nike released a new digital ad targeted to women in the Arab world. It features different women athletes in the Middle East, including figure skater Zahra Lari from the United Arab Emirates; fencer Inès Boubakri from Tunisia and boxer Arifa Bseiso from Jordan.
For me, there was one scene, portrayed by actors, that struck home. As a young woman in a hijab skateboards along a street, stared down by a middle-age woman, the narrator asks, “What will they say about you?”