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Receive $80 Grab vouchers valid for use on all Grab services except GrabHitch and GrabShuttle when you subscribe to BT All-Digital at only $0.99*/month.
Find out more at btsub.sg/promo
[BEIJING] China's consumer price inflation in March was flat at 2.3 per cent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday, below market expectations.
Analysts polled by Reuters predicted the consumer price index (CPI) would rise 2.5 per cent, compared with 2.3 per cent the prior month.
Producer prices in March fell 4.3 per cent from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said, compared with the previous month's fall of 4.9 per cent.
The market had expected producer prices to fall 4.6 per cent on an annual basis.


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Motorola, apparently forgetting it was an American company, has decided to released not one but two tricked out Droid RAZR editions exclusively for the Chinese market. It's not that one of the fastest growing destinations for Android tech can't support high-end Android products (HTC's recent sales success proves that the Chinese like their top-shelf toys) but the American and European markets also seem ready and willing for higher end specs. So what exactly will the MT917 and XT928 be packing?
Well first off both new Motorola versions will be sporting 13 megapixel cameras, which some may call overkill but I call a nice USP, when compared to the “paltry” 8 megapixel camera featured on the standard Droid RAZR. Rounding out the package on the MT917 is a 720p HD-Display–a marked improvement over the international Motorola flagship.
With such a growing and increasingly wealthy market like the Chinese market place, it's clear why Motorola is trying to grab up some of the market share which recently lead HTC to one of it's best quarters ever, but it would be nice to see the international market place getting a bit of the high-end action as well.
Recent HTC News:

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Why Cyber-Insurers Will Demand Better InfoSecAttorney Describes Pressures to Reduce Risk
As more mega-breaches occur, cyber-insurers will more closely assess the security risks of potential clients, leading more organizations to improve their information security programs, attorney John Yanchunis predicts.
"When companies are unable to get insurance ... you're going to see companies adopting better security systems," says Yanchunis of the Florida-based law firm Morgan & Morgan, who's representing consumers in several breach-related lawsuits. Those cases include one of the class action suits filed against Premera Blue Cross in the wake of a hacking incident that affected 11 million individuals.
As cyber-insurance companies send in assessors to get a better look at a potential client's security risks, "and they come up with things that are short or need to be improved, companies will move toward improving their security system," he says.
The threat of class-action lawsuits related to data breaches should also be a catalyst for organizations to get their security acts together, the attorney argues.
"When there are security breaches, where companies have failed to comply with [industry best] practices - otherwise known as negligence - then you have lawsuits," he says. "Companies tend to want to prevent that from occurring, so they're going to adopt better security measures. It's a constant thing. As technology develops, and thieves get better at what they do, companies are going to have to continue making improvements. The cyber-insurance market is going to have a big impact on that as we move forward."
In the interview, Yanchunis also discusses:
- Who's a bigger security threat - insiders or hackers;
- Why so many class action lawsuits related to recent data breaches are being filed so quickly after the incidents are revealed;
- Why many breach-related suits get consolidated by the courts, and why he expects more plaintiffs to win judgments.
Yanchunis leads the National Consumer Class Action and False Claims Act sections of Morgan & Morgan's complex litigation group. For the past 19 years, he's represented consumers in privacy rights and data breach cases. Yanchunis serves on the executive committee overseeing the consumer class, bank class and shareholder derivative litigation against Target.


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2 people shot outside mall in Salt Lake City suburb
MURRAY, Utah — Two people were wounded in a shooting just outside a popular Utah mall Sunday where hundreds of scared shoppers hunkered down until police arrived to evacuate the building.
Two people in their early 20s were shot at about 1:30 p.m. near the southeast entrance to the Fashion Place mall in Murray, a suburb south of Salt Lake City, said Murray Police Officer Kenny Bass. The man was in critical condition while the woman was in serious. Both were treated at a hospital.
Police were looking for three people suspected in the shooting, Bass said. He said the shooting may be gang related.
Shoppers were escorted by police out of the mall holding their hands in the air. The mall is a highly visited shopping center in the heart of the Salt Lake City metro area with stores such as Crate and Barrel, Macy’s and Nordstrom.
Bass says no other victims or suspects were found inside the mall.


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Pizza, baked beans and pasta producers still need to reduce salt levels, according to the latest Food Standards Agency (FSA) product survey.
The FSA announced last month that one children's pizza was found to contain almost three times as much salt as a rival brand and that some standard cans of baked beans had two thirds the salt content of other companies'.
The FSA chairman Sir John Krebs said: "The fact that the salt in one can of baked beans or a pizza can vary so dramatically indicates that manufacturers can reduce the amount of salt they add to these products."
Among children's pizzas, Iceland's Kids Crew Cheese and Tomato Pizza and Sainsbury's Blue Parrot Café Cheese and Tomato Pizza had the highest levels. Sainsbury has since changed its recipe. Dr Oetker Crisp Fine Base Speciale Pizza was the worst thin crust meat-topped pizza and Pizza Hut Thin Base Margherita the worst thin crust cheese and tomato takeaway pizza.
Morrison, Budgen and Somerfield baked beans all had higher salt levels than Co-op, Waitrose and Heinz brands.
Following the FSA's unveiling of its survey Heinz said that its new £5m promotional budget would cover reduced sugar and salt baked beans.
The marketing manager Ben Pearman said that Heinz had cut salt by a further 15% in its standard beans, representing a 30% reduction over two years, and that a new variant had 58% less salt than the new standard version.


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From cybersecurity liability to trade show coverage, insurance experts share tips on how to build the right policy.
Designer Zoltan David to Keynote Portland Jewelry Symposium
The two-day event is back Sept. 29 and 30.
Portland, Oregon—This year’s Portland Jewelry Symposium is all about metal and machinery.
The official theme of the two-day event, happening Sept. 29 and 30 at the Sentinel Hotel in Portland, Oregon, is “Metals—Methods, Machines and Mastery.”
Teresa Frye, founder of the Portland Jewelry Symposium, said in a press release: “Understanding and exploiting the intrinsic characteristics of a metal, whether through design, casting methods or tailored bench techniques, is very powerful for makers.
“The design pallet becomes broader when one can harness not only the aesthetic property of an alloy but also the technical underpinnings that lead to the production of a high-quality piece.”
Sunday, Sept. 29 will feature afternoon breakout sessions—new to the event this year—on topics including Jewelry Forensics, Basic Metallurgy for Jewelers, Legal Considerations for Custom Design and Inlay Techniques.
Award-winning jewelry designer Zoltan David will provide the Sunday evening keynote, speaking on his inspirations and how he practically applies them to his art.
“Zoltan is a true master of designing and creating in diverse metals and we are thrilled to have him delivering the keynote this year,” Frye said.
The program for Monday, Sept. 30 will cover manufacturing techniques in contemporary metals, a panel on jewelry casting, and a business and finance presentation, among other educational sessions.
The complete speaker lineup is online.
Contact Sarah Loveland for more information at email@example.com or 503-320-1873.
The charm is a modern rendition of the evil eye amulet that has been worn for thousands of years.
With Ho Brothers, you can unlock your brand's true potential and offer customers the personalized jewelry experiences they desire.
Members can still sell lab-grown stones, it said, but only natural gems are allowed on the show floor.
He is remembered for his charisma, passion, integrity, kindness, and wit.
For over 30 years, JA has advocated for the industry, fought against harmful legislation and backed measures that help jewelry businesses.
The bridal collection consists of 35 engagement rings and seven wedding bands.
There is a willingness to comply with new government-mandated regulations, with an insistence that they should be practical and realistic.
The program, now live in Europe, will roll out to the U.S. this summer.
The point-of-sale software can now prompt customers to round up their credit card purchases as a donation to Jewelers for Children.
The zone’s modernization will enhance and increase India’s jewelry manufacturing capabilities while aiding small and mid-sized businesses.
Select independent jewelers and retailers can now purchase moissanite through Charles & Colvard Direct.
Amber Rank of Exclusively Diamonds will receive mentorship, registration to AGS’s 2024 Conclave, and $500.
The auction will take place Thursday and is underground, literally.
A combination of factors is driving growth in the industry despite the precipitous drop in prices across the board.
Monica Rich Kosann created the “Slim Heart” locket in partnership with model and philanthropist Jacquelyn Jablonski.
“The Future Jewelers Academy” kicked off at the Brooklyn STEAM Center this week.


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Think about the last hour you spent without touching some type of plastic. How about the last minute? Have you ever spent an entire day without plastic? You can take a vacation from social media, from your phone, perhaps a vacation from meat or sugar — but try taking a vacation from plastic. This man-made substance has woven its way into nearly every aspect of our lives. It holds our food and beverages, it is in our clothes, jewelry and cars, it wraps the new toy or electronic, it is the new toy or electronic. Many plastic items are intended for a single use. This means you can hardly go an hour without throwing away some type of plastic. Once it leaves our hands, plastic may only be beginning its life’s journey — a journey that can have dire consequences.
Plastic is indeed everywhere — even in places we don’t see. Unfortunately for our planet, plastic has found its way to the sea, en masse. More than 80% of this ocean plastic comes from uses on land and scientists believe that plastic could soon outweigh fish in our oceans.
UK artist and conservationist Mandy Barker has spent years gathering plastic items from beaches all around the world, arranging and photographing them in evocative ways. With colorful items popping against a dark background, many of her collections give a feel of outer space — a galaxy of garbage. Everything shown in her work is actual marine debris. These items have lived a life in the ocean, then washed up onto the shore, where Barker found them.
Estimates for decomposition differ for different types of plastic. For instance, the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida estimates plastic bottles and disposable diapers take about 450 years to biodegrade in the ocean, and about 600 years for fishing line. Scientists also caution that plastic may never really “decompose” the way we know other materials do. Instead, it simply breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic — what scientists call “peppered soup.” Microplastics are more likely to be swallowed up by animals, find their way into arctic sea ice or even our bottled drinking water.
What can regular people do to help alleviate the plastic problem? Environmental leaders say it’s important for everyone to participate in beach cleanups and spread the word to families, friends and acquaintances.
“The biggest challenge is our choices,” Lynn Adams, president of the Pacifica Beach Coalition in the Bay Area. “I think we can all consume less: reduce, reuse things, buy used products, fix things that break.”
Greater collective action could then push local, regional and national governments to regulate the use of plastics.
“The same kind of collective action [in beach cleaning] probably should look at the kinds of perverse incentives we encourage as consumers and allow our leaders to sustain, and raise some questions about it,” said Edward Humes, author of “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash.”
Ultimately, if consumption of plastics is reduced — a key solutions promoted by conservation organizations — plastic production will also decline.
“We [have] become a throw-away society, and so our choices are sometimes slim,” said Adams. “We have to figure all that out and ask for better choices… We need to make it a better world, and we have the power to do that.”
Barker’s work is featured in Our Plastic Ocean, an Impressions Gallery touring exhibition, which opened this summer. The exhibition, which will travel throughout the UK through 2020, includes a virtual reality experience of Barker’s photographs called, Ripple: the unintended life of plastics in the sea. The experience was produced by Stanford University students and is now viewable at https://rippleplastic.com/


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Battlefield 1 seem to have a few glitches and ever since the game got released back in 2016, EA has tried to remove as many as they could by introducing patches over time. While one patch fixed one problem, it created another at the same time.
In 2016, Battlefield 1 patch 1.05 was released and it appears that the game has finally been made glitch free. As no reports of new glitches and errors have emerged anywhere it is safe to say the game is now free of error unless new one arises.
As Battlefield 1 is one of the biggest achievement of EA and they would want gamers to be busy with it for another year or two which will give them time to make a new game. But in order to do that they also have to introduce new features to the game over time.


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Pittsburgh, PA, April 01, 2008 --(PR.com
)-- National Retail Brokers has recently opened membership in Dallas, Texas. Recognizing the growing market in the retail real estate industry, National Retail Brokers saw the need to establish a presence in the Dallas area. National Retail Brokers will open membership nationally on a continual basis.
About National Retail Brokers:
National Retail Brokers is a National Alliance of Professionals in the retail real estate industry. Unlike the traditional alliances, NRB includes members, not only from retail brokerage firms, but also from retail real estate law firms, developers, contractors, and finance companies.


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The Arcadia group is reportedly on the brink of administration.
Sofie Willmott, Content Head of Apparel at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on this news:
“Arcadia’s stable of brands have lost relevance in recent years, with more appealing and innovative retailers that better target their shoppers, such as ASOS and the boohoo group, muscling their way in. Arcadia’s UK clothing market share has slumped 1.8 percentage points since 2015, to 2.7% in 2020, leaving it at the bottom of the top 10 UK clothing players, from fourth just five years ago, held back by its cumbersome store estate (despite a CVA in 2019) and controversial owner.
“With demand for clothing & footwear plummeting this year due to a lack of social occasions, clothing specialists have been hard hit but some of Arcadia’s more digitally savvy competitors have thrived, posting impressive results as spend has shifted online. Although Arcadia’s brands including Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins have well established online propositions, the majority of their sales would still have been generated in stores and its digital channels will not have made up for the significant sales lost from store closures during lockdowns.
“Considering its high street brand acquisitions in the last few years and that it has openly stated that it is poised for a shopping spree as competitors struggle, the boohoo group is likely to be interested in snapping up Topshop/ Topman, to boost its portfolio. However, a deal with the boohoo group is unlikely to include stores, bringing more bad news for high street locations and property owners, who will struggle to find other retailers that can fill this space.”


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Jul 16, 2012
Fred Spinney, a developer from England, really wanted to bring speech recognition to Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions out there. So, he built an app to do just that. Ubuntu Speech Input utilizes an Android app that connects via wifi to an Ubuntu computer running a companion app. Google’s built-in speech-to-text powers the app, which allows for any Ubuntu program to receive input from speech-to-text. For those with multiple computers on the same network, the ability to specify the IP address choice will help. While Google’s speech-to-text is not perfect, it is free to use, and this extends it out to another Linux software platform. While Mac owners will have Apple’s built-in dictation available in the upcoming Mountain Lion update, this is an option for those who like to use free operating systems. The app is available from Google Play, and the desktop software is pending approval on the Ubuntu Software Center, though the developer will email it to users who request it.


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Results 1 - 8 of about 8 for quickfire
April Flash and Bingo Games by Microgaming
Category: Casino, Comments (0) - 8 years ago
Recently via the press release, the giant gaming provider, Microgaming has publicized the games that it will soon be launching...
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New Exciting Games from Microgaming
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Microgaming, the most known online gaming software provider, reveals their release of an impressive selection of latest games for December....


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OKLAHOMA CITY – Elderly advocates in Oklahoma celebrate a victory. This week Governor Fallin signed Senate Bill 587 into law….
Tag Archives: Nursing Homes
OKLAHOMA CITY – Homeowners use surveillance cameras as a form of protection and now a bill aimed at protecting nursing…
- Sandwich Suspension: 2-year-old girl punished by daycare over cheese sandwich
- Oklahoma part of major beef recall, see if your neighborhood grocery store made the list
- Woman's car payments hid her death for 6 years, body found mummified in backseat of car
- TRAGIC: Man dies from injuries after being hit with his own vehicle


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t PAX East this year, the folks over at Penny Arcade introduced "Pinny Arcade" which is their pin trading program at their conventions. We were proud to be among the first batch of pins created, with a Mike Krahulik drawn Chandra head.
Part of Pinny Arcade is that the pins are limited edition and only produced for the specific show they were released at. So the above pin was only available at the 2013 PAX East in Boston.
But this year Penny Arcade is also launching PAX Australia in Melbourne from July 19-21, 2013. And guess what, we've got another awesome Pinny Arcade pin!
To see what other pins will be available at PAX Australia check out this blog post over on Penny Arcade. We'll be releasing more information about our plans at PAX Australia in the coming weeks, if you're going to be there be sure to check back!
Patrick "Trick" Jarrett joined Wizards of the Coast in 2011, taking over the reins as DailyMTG.com editor-in-chief. He oversees the daily content while also working to develop larger web projects for Magic.


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Every once in a while, Apple slips in a free promotion or two for streaming services that aren't its own. Sometimes it gets some fanfare in the Apple TV app, other times not so much. So if you missed that you can get a free month's worth of the (relatively) new Paramount+ streaming service, don't feel bad.
Ted Lasso is not a stranger to winning awards. And now Apple is promoting another big win for the hit comedy series. And this one's a big one, as far as rewards are concerned.
Do you like official merchandise? Are you a fan of the hit comedy series Ted Lasso? Well, now you can buy some inspired by the Apple TV+ show.
Apple TV+ has a consistently good library of TV series and films to watch. However, when it comes to standout hits that get people talking, the selection is much smaller. Luckily for the streaming service, Ted Lasso is good enough to carry that weight.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Morning Show) is not a stranger to working with Apple TV+. She had a co-starring role in one of the streaming service's debut series, and now she's leading the charge on another series.
It has been over a year since we first heard about the limited dark comedy series The Shrink Next Door. Things were relatively quiet on the project since, but that changed this week. We finally have some footage to watch.
With so many Apple TV+ premieres happening throughout 2021, the streaming service is releasing first-looks on a semi-regular basis. As such, we've been seeing a lot of new teaser and official trailers. Today, we get yet another for a returning series.
Having debuted with almost a hundred games, Apple Arcade now offers more than 180 titles. New arrivals have been non-existent in the past few months, but that's about to change soon.
For fans of the first season of the animated comedy series Central Park on Apple TV+, the good news is that a new season is right around the corner. Even better, you can get a look at what to expect from the upcoming episodes thanks to the brand new official trailer Apple shared today.
Before the end of 2019, we heard the majority of Apple's first slate of Apple TV+ series had been renewed for a second season. That included the drama The Morning Show, which stars Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Billy Crudup. And now, we know when we'll finally get to watch it.
Back in April, Apple TV+ gave a full series order to another bilingual show. This one's called Now and Then, and it's billed as a thriller dealing with teenage aspirations and the reality of being an adult. And now it's added a little more than a handful of new members to the cast.
See, a gritty post-apocalyptic tale about survival and discovery, is one of the most ambitious shows available on Apple TV+. Like many of the streaming service's debut series, though, it had a rocky start. By the end of the first season, though, it had found its footing and become must-watch TV.


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Malaysian Gov gives Altech the nod to manufacture
Altech Chemicals has received an official manufacturing licence from the Malaysian Government for the company’s 4,500 tonne per annum capacity high purity alumina plant in Johor, at southern tip of mainland Malaysia.
The announcement comes on the back of last week’s news that Altech has secured a suitable site of 4 hectares for the plant in Malaysia’s Tanjung Langsat Industrial complex in Johor.
The company laid down A$5.1m to secure a 30-year lease at the site, with an option to renew for another 30 years.
The industrial complex, located just kilometres from Singapore across the water, has been set aside for chemical processing activities and is part of a global hub for the manufacturing of semi-conductors and specialised synthetic sapphire products, particularly for energy efficient LED lighting.
Altech will source high purity kaolin product from its massive deposit near Meckering, east of Perth.
The product will then be transported to Malaysia for processing into a low contaminant alumina stream for industrial uses.
The demand for “HPA” is experiencing rapid growth and expected to more than double to nearly 76,000 tpa in the next 5 years, according to Altech.
The company is targeting a high-quality alumina product that is currently fetching USD$27,000 per tonne.
Altech has chosen Malaysia due to its proximity to the lucrative HPA markets in Singapore and China.
It also sites the low cost of consumable chemicals and availability of cheap power in Malaysia as prime movers for its decision to locate the plant in Malaysia.
Despite an expected CAPEX of nearly USD$300m, Altech says its studies show a payback on the project of just under 4 years, based on a long-term sale price of USD$26,900 per tonne.
The project shows a projected pre-tax NPV of USD$505m, an IRR of 22% and it will churn out an EBITDA of about USD$76m a year according to the company.
It looks to have plenty of upside too, with HPA recently selling for USD$40,000 a tonne in Japan. At these numbers the feasibility study metrics change substantially to a 2.2 year payback, a massive pre-tax NPV of USD$1.1b and an IRR of 33%.
The annual EBITDA would jump to USD$133m per annum at USD$40,000 a tonne for HPA.
Altech’s project is essentially an exercise in technology.
The company will effectively turn old weathered granite rock in a marginal wheat-producing area of W.A. into high value tech products that will be used in some of the most sought after tech products in the world today. These include LED lights and even high tech mobile telephones to name just two.
With enough raw material in-ground at Meckering to see out 250 years of production, Altech has a significant opportunity to become a trail blazer and market leader in the rapidly growing global HPA market.
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What does 2015 have in store for our wallets and the overall economy? A financial plan built on reasonable foresight is a powerful thing these days, what with the tanking price of oil, economic weakness around the world, our aging bull market, and a raft of geopolitical headwinds. So, with that being said, let’s take a look at some important milestones and trends we can expect to witness this year.
Continue Reading Below
Unemployment Will Reach 5%
While much of the global economy is in turmoil – think Europe, OPEC and Japan – the U.S. economic recovery is still seemingly chugging along. We expect more of the same, if not better, in 2015 – predicting GDP growth of 3% and a reduction in unemployment to 5%. That would take us back to levels not seen since early 2008, before the financial crisis really sunk in. More people at work means healthy corporate balance sheets, fewer entitlement payouts, more output and more robust economic growth.
The S&P 500 Will Hit 2,250
Investors are preparing to celebrate the six year anniversary of the current bull market. The average bull market lasts about five years. Should we be scared for our portfolios? Not really. There are a number of factors suggesting 2015 will be another year of fairly significant gains for the stock market, including the continued depression of interest rates and increased participation among retail investors.
Auto Sales Will Drive Higher
America’s relatively old fleet of cars (the average vehicle is 11.4 years old, according to IHS Automotive), the resurgent economy, and still-low interest rates fostered a solid year for auto sales in 2014. We expect 2015 to be even better as more and more consumers gain confidence in their financial security and savings opportunities continue to abound.
U.S. Consumers Will Rack Up At Least $60 Billion in Credit Card Debt
The past few years have seen a rapid decline in consumer credit card performance as the frugality of the Great Recession has faded further into memory. We racked up $36.8 billion in credit card debt during 2012, $38.8 in 2013 and a projected $60 billion (http://www.cardhub.com/edu/2014-credit-card-debt-study/) in 2014. That’s a combined $135.6 billion in just three years. This is expected to continue unabated in 2015, with our projections indicating that consumers will incur at least $60 million in new credit card debt during the course of the year. We obviously hope that’s not the case – that everyone makes a budget, spends less than they earn, and saves for a rainy day – but that unfortunately doesn’t appear to be in the cards for this year.
Banks Will Prepare for Massive Branch Closings
Banks have been closing branches in record numbers, as more and more of the market shifts to mobile applications and online-only accounts. The 1,487 net closings seen in 2013 were the most since 2002, according to SNL Financial, and there were nearly as many (1,462) through mid-November in 2014. We expect this trend only to accelerate in 2015.


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If you're a gin fan, a spirit devotee or a cocktail disciple, then you won't want to miss the Dublin Drinks Mixer event later this year.
This event will offer fans of these classy drinks the chance to sample hundreds of craft spirits and drinks from all around the world.
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The event is organised by the Celtic Whiskey Shop on Dawson Street in Dublin, who are also the brains behind Whiskey Live Dublin and last year's Gin Experience.
Its owner, Alistair Alpine, said about the upcoming event: 'We want to showcase and promote the very best of craft spirits from Ireland and across the globe under one roof.'
He also added that the event will give its attendees and members of the trade the opportunity the chance to meet the faces behind long-established brands, as well as new arrivals to the drinks industry.
Interactive displays and cocktail competitions with renowned bartenders and mixologists battling it out for prizes worth up to €750 will also take place at the event.
The event will be held at the National Convention Centre and will feature over 100 different alcohol brands.
Dublin Drinks Mixer will take place on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th April, with one session on Friday and two on Saturday.
Tickets are €40 plus booking fee and can be purchased here.
At least €10 from every ticket sold at the event will be donated to charity partner DEBRA Ireland, along with the money raised from a raffle during the event.


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You can no longer call Americans irresponsible energy pigs. Yeah, we're still piggy in that we use a disproportionate amount of the world's energy. We still love our SUVs and pickups the way teenagers like to text.
But since 2008, when gasoline first reached $4 a gallon, our gas gluttony has changed. Ford's average fuel economy has improved by 20% since 2004, for instance, and sales of the up-to-40-m.p.g. Ford Focus are way up. We've even stopped getting in the car to go two blocks to pick up a quart of milk. (Well, maybe you have; I don't own a car.) Weekly gasoline demand is "tepid," says JPMorgan oil analyst Lawrence Eagles, and he expects U.S. demand to fall this year by 100,000 barrels a day, even as the economy expands 2.2%.
Weakening demand should be sending gasoline prices down. So what's our reward for being rational economic actors? How about gasoline once again heading for $4 a gallon--possibly on its way to $5? The price rise will be politicized, but let's explain before we blame.
For starters, there's no shortage of crude oil, so let's not carry on about punching holes in the ground. You could argue that $125-per-barrel prices are drawing out supply. The funny thing is, there was a ton of crude available at $80 a barrel, and domestic production (thanks, North Dakota) is increasing.
There's no shortage of fear, either--fear that Israel is going to try to obliterate Iran's nuclear program, thereby setting events in motion leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which would choke off about 20% of the world's oil supply. That fear has prompted speculators to pump money into the futures market, the result being a $20-to-$30-per-barrel supply-risk premium in the price of crude.
Consumers are not the only rational actors in this oil drama. Refiners, the folks who crack crude to make fuel, play a part too, and they've responded to weak demand by limiting the supply of gasoline. According to JPMorgan, 19 refineries have shut permanently in the U.S., the Caribbean and Europe since 2009, representing some 1.7 million barrels a day of refining capacity.
The problem is profit. The refiners lost money last year. Tesoro, a big Western refiner and marketer, dropped $124 million in its fourth quarter. How is it possible for refiners to run in the red when retail prices are gushing? It's all about the 6-3-2-1 crack spread. This is not a drug epidemic. Crude is processed into a variety of products along with gasoline--light distillates like naphtha and heavy ones like fuel oil--and it's the ratio and pricing of one product to the others that figure into a refiner's profit. The 3-2-1 means that out of one barrel of oil you get three barrels of gasoline, perhaps two of diesel and one of a by-product. The 6 is a cost multiplier: take the price of oil, multiply it by 6, then back out the production costs of the 3-2-1. What's left over is the crack spread. For most refiners, that spread was negative last year.


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Throaty engines roar as Ferrari shares make Milan debut
MILAN : Legendary car maker Ferrari completed its spin off from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles with a debut on the Milan stock exchange on Monday, its shares opening at 43 euros before slipping in early trading.
Eight gleaming sports cars lined up in front of Milan’s “Midnight Palace” including the latest F12 Tdf model and the throaty roar of Ferrari engines could be heard throughout the listing ceremony, attended by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Trading under the RACE ticker saw shares drop to 41.75 euros in a broadly depressed market, before being briefly suspended and then climbing to 42.37 euros.
Chairman Ferrari Sergio Marchionne said, “From the moment we announced the split from FCA, a journey came to an end,” referring to the racer’s emergence as an independent company for the first time in 47 years.
“But the truth is that today another big chapter is beginning. This listing marks Ferrari’s independence, which is essential in maintaining its development and potential,” he said, promising customers “ever-more exclusive models”.
Ferrari, known for its high-price sports cars, is the biggest and most glamorous name in Formula One racing.


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Kiwi fruits cultivated in Arunachal Pradesh are of high aroma and flavour, thus producing a very crisp and fresh kiwi wine.
A case of Château Lafite Rothschild of 2008 vintage from Bordeaux, which was valued at £3,000 in early 2013, is now selling for £15,000 per case.
Vijay Amritraj has joined forces with one of India's largest premium wine producers to launch a new range of fine wines for the UK market.
Grover Zampa Vineyards has launched the Vijay Amritraj Reserve Collection of white and red wines branded after the legendary tennis player.
A strong earthquake that jolted residents of Napa Valley from their beds caused insured property damage likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Asian shares got off to a cautious start, while a plunge in sterling after a poll showed rising support for Scottish independence helped bolster the dollar.
In Incheon, athletes will compete in 439 events in 36 sports and disciplines, and the additional content is part of what makes the Asian Games truly Asian.
The yen strengthened in Asia as investors sought out lower-risk investments as a hedge against geopolitical uncertainty fuelled by MH17 tragedy & Israel's ground offensive in Gaza.


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Transitioning from simply connecting people to building business ecosystems, social media platforms are wooing brands with various offerings and metrics. And brands are having a field day!
It is no surprise that our timeline on social media — Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram — is usually sprinkled with heavy doses of sponsored posts by numerous brands. Social media is no more limited to just promoting a product, as brands are seriously driving reach and engagement. Even several SMBs (small and medium businesses) are opting for these platforms, making it an integral part of any campaign. In fact, as per EY’s recent report, 50% of consumers state that regular updates on a brand’s social media channel help increase their loyalty and encourage them to make repeat purchases.
Take the case of Maggi, which leveraged social media to announce its re-launch through the #WeMissYouToo campaign, followed by #WelcomeBackMaggi and #NothingLikeMaggi. Maarten Geraets, GM, food, Nestlé India, says, “The campaign brought alive the diverse roles that Maggi plays in the consumer’s life, both emotional as well as functional.”
How is social media moving the dial for businesses and influencing the marketing strategy of most brands?
Changing the game
It started with Google when it launched certification programs that allowed advertisers and agencies to use the platform. Facebook did this with Blueprint; Twitter with Twitter for Business (a micro-blogging platform). So whether it’s using Facebook’s Canvas or Instagram for Stories, LinkedIn’s InMails or Twitter’s FirstView tool, platforms are going beyond the regular hashtag to offer more to brands.
Facebook India MD Umang Bedi explains, “We offer measurement and RoI solutions and the advertiser only pays Facebook for advertising. We constantly track how we can grow the partnership with brands.”
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Budgets allocated to digital and social media marketing within the overall marketing budget seem to be increasing — 44% of brands spend more than 20% of their marketing budget on digital marketing while 24% of brands are spending 16% or more of their marketing budget on social media, the EY report mentions.
Deepika Tewari, GM, marketing, Titan Jewellery Division, says, “Social media offers us a creative canvas to share stories with our customers.”
For Tanishq’s sub-brand Mia, whose primary consumer base is working women, the brand uses LinkedIn. But it witnessed college going women also purchasing Mia. “So we found it wise to promote our campaigns on Facebook and Instagram too. We also leverage the audience base of YouTube for our thematic stories,” says Tewari.
Taranjeet Singh, business head, Twitter India says, “The consumer is always on a platform in real time, giving brands an opportunity to interact with them on a daily basis and we help them to build plans, strategise and educate them on how to be ‘always on’.”
Vodafone collaborated with Twitter to create a Super ZooZoo emoji linked to the hashtag #BeSuper. The campaign garnered 90 million+ impressions in four days with an increase in share of voice of 250%.
“Our close association with social media pages allows us to use their platforms innovatively and introduce differentiated campaigns in a competitive environment,” highlights Siddharth Banerjee, national brand head, Vodafone India.
SMBs like The Label Life and Magic Sewa have also used Twitter to raise brand awareness, push engagement and app downloads. This is primarily done through video, as platforms like Facebook and Twitter see more people engaging with video content when brands used different formats of video.
But for a professional networking platform like LinkedIn, business works differently. Akshay Kothari, country manager and head of product, LinkedIn India says, “The biggest growing business is sponsored advertising. Marketing budgets are moving and our focus is to be able to grow content and traffic. We see a lot of B2B companies using our platform and have seen fair success with B2C clients as well.”
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Too little too soon?
While many brands are using platforms and tools, judging what amount of business these platforms help garner is still a question.
For example, online brands like Foodpanda see online presence as core. Hence, experimentation is the key for them. Saurabh Kochchar, CEO and co-founder, Foodpanda, states, “You have to map your audience well and know what messages you give on each platform. The RoI for each is different and we do around 100-200 experiments to determine what push or campaign would work best.”
Saurabh Mathur, planning director, VML India cautions that social media should not be eyed as a silo, as the real power of social is seen when it gets integrated with other channels and its impact is measured in the larger context of a campaign. But the fact remains that from the total advertising budget 12-13% is allocated to digital, out of which around 6-7% is spent on social media by brands, state experts. However, it could be a challenge to attribute offline store sales accurately to a promotion on, say, Instagram.
Data metrics, therefore, is key in measuring effectiveness. Apart from traditional metrics including reach and frequency, the fourth metric that has emerged is engagement. However, content marketing in India is at a very nascent stage. “Most companies only look at CPR rather than seeing how the content is working and how users are converting,” Kothari points out.
But the digital ecosystem is on the right track, believe experts. Rajiv Dingra, founder and CEO, WATConsult says agencies have started to create special wings or teams who focus on digital media. Bigger agencies have started to de-compartmentalise in an effort to be platform agnostic.


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Last year, the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) trade association announced the discontinuation of Auction Napa Valley, one of the nation's premier charity wine auctions. Today NVV announced that the nonprofit association’s fundraising efforts will become a year-round program, called Collective Napa Valley, with a series of seasonal, multifaceted events both in and out of Napa.
“By moving to this more fluid structure, we will be able to more easily adapt and evolve,” explained Linda Reiff, president and CEO of NVV. “We will be able to be a lot more nimble with what we're doing. We will have a lot more fun, quite frankly, and not be tied to one tradition of one event on one weekend.”
Auction Napa Valley (née Napa Valley Wine Auction) was founded in 1981 by a group of vintners, including Robert and Margrit Mondavi. For nearly 40 years, the anticipated events of the fundraising weekend culminated in a live auction at Meadowood Resort, where rare lots of high-priced wines, fantasy vacations, jewelry and tickets to exclusive experiences at the Kentucky Derby and Super Bowl were auctioned off for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cumulative proceeds from the event topped $200 million and were distributed to dozens of local nonprofits in the areas of community health and children’s education.
The 2020 and 2021 Auction Napa Valley events were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Meadowood Resort sustained extensive damage caused by the 2020 wine-country wildfires. But Jack Bittner, managing partner at Ovid and chair of NVV’s board of directors, explained that the conversations about changing the auction format started eight or nine years ago.
“There was just a general feeling that we always fell back to one sort of format, this one construct,” said Bittner. “The pause in the last year gave the group a chance to discuss different ideas and concepts. It was really a let’s-throw-out-the-rulebook discussion, where everything was possible.”
Blakesley Chappellet, co-leader of the Auction Napa Valley reimagining committee, said that one of the themes of the conversations about retooling the event was “inclusion.” Auction events were both expensive and typically sold out quickly. There was a years-long waiting list even for local volunteers.
“How do we engage more people, and not be—for lack of a better word—an elitist weekend?” asked Chappellet. “We realized that what we were doing had become intimidating for a lot of people. We wanted to expand our base, and we wanted to be significantly more inclusive of wineries, of wine collectors, of Napa Valley fans, and to create these seasonal campaigns that would allow more people to have great experiences in Napa Valley outside of just that one weekend.”
For now, the NVV plans to keep an anchoring event scheduled for the first weekend of June 2022, called the Napa Valley Futures Auction. The event will continue the tradition of the barrel auction formerly held during Auction Napa Valley. The team insists that despite the changing format, the focus on fundraising remains at the core of their events. “[Auction Napa Valley] has been this extraordinary engine for local philanthropy,” explains Bittner. “Essentially what we’re doing is creating a new engine.”
Stay on top of important wine stories with Wine Spectator's free Breaking News Alerts.


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Nick Caster & NC1 Agency
NC1 becomes one of the first advertising agencies to offer their services in VR/AR.
— Nick Caster
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, UNITED STATES, October 5, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ — With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Nick Caster has announced the worldwide availability of his marketing and consulting services through NC1. Having consulted for Tesla, Safe Structure Designs and Development Firms, Caster is excited to offer his services to immersive metaverse platforms such as VR and AR. In a statement, Caster said “As industries rapidly converge and new technologies emerge, businesses must adapt quickly or risk becoming obsolete. My team and I at NC1 are committed to helping companies stay ahead of the curve by leveraging immersive media.” With this announcement, NC1 becomes one of the first advertising agencies to offer their services in VR/AR. Look for their logo in virtual environments near you.
As industries rapidly converge and new technologies emerge; businesses must adapt quickly or risk becoming obsolete according to Mr. Caster who has decided to focus on immersive media platforms such as Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR). To spearhead this move into VR/AR advertising & marketing consultancy, Mr. Caster formed NC1 with Dani Felt – an elite group of likeminded individuals consisting of experts from various disciplines including strategy, creative direction & 3D artistry with backgrounds ranging from motion graphics at MPC Film London & Apple Inc., VFX supervision at Sony Pictures Image Works Los Angeles (Spider-Man 2) as well as live action directing & producing across broadcast TV commercials at Ridley Scott Associates London among others spanning two decades working with global brands such as Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Europe , Ford Motor Company , Samsung Galaxy S7 . As one of the first ad agencies providing these services; look out for their logo popping up in your favorite virtual environments very soon! #marketing #consultants #metaverseadvertising #immersivemedia
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The post Former Google Strategist Nick Caster Launches NC1 Consulting Services For Immersive Media first appeared on Trendsetter.


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Softex Paper to hire 36 at second SC facility
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A paper products manufacturer will open its second Charlotte-area plant in Rock Hill with plans to hire 36 employees there.
Softex Paper Inc. is in the process of buying the former Inland Container building in Rock Hill Industrial Park for the paper-converting operation. The company expects to spend $2 million to kick off the new line, says Brian Smith, Softex plant manager.
“It was a really good location for us,” Smith says.
The company already employs 25 in a Chester County paper plant. That facility operates from a 160,000-square-foot building on Dawson Drive, north of Chester.
In the Rock Hill building, hiring should begin in late March or early April, Smith says.
Softex makes and packages paper towels, toilet tissue and napkins with its own name and those of its retail customers.
“The store chains they supply are expanding and thereby creating increased potential for more new jobs and investment for our area,” says Britt Blackwell, chairman of York County Council.
Softex is owned by Curacao-based Softex Group, which has facilities in Florida, Curacao, Aruba and Puerto Rico.
Ken Elkins covers manufacturing, international business and economic development for the Charlotte Business Journal.
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Not just a pretty stablecoin: What’s Facebook’s crypto play?
Is crypto lending an accoutrement of Facebook's stablecoin ambitions?
According to the BBC, Facebook is aiming to launch the "GlobalCoin" cryptocurrency by early 2020. It's expected to be a stablecoin pegged to a basket of international currencies, which will allow money transfers through WhatsApp and other services.
At the same time, Facebook has set up a new company in Switzerland called Libra Networks, focused on blockchain and payments, Reuters reports, citing Geneva's commercial register.
Insiders have been saying for a while that Facebook is building a collateralised stablecoin to carve itself a slice of the remittances market, and Switzerland is known for offering a friendly regulatory environment to blockchain and cryptocurrency projects, and for being a great place to hold lots of fiat currency. Both are potentially very useful for a collateralised stablecoin.
Plus, Libra is a great name for a stablecoin.
Facebook has remained publicly close-lipped though, even as the US senate wrote the company an open letter requesting more information about Libra and Facebook's crypto ambitions.
Questions and concerns
The letter lays out multiple concerns and asks several questions about issues including:
- How exactly it's going to work and whether it's been cleared with regulators.
- What privacy and consumer protections users will have.
- What consumer financial information Facebook has and what it does with it.
- How and whether this may impact other aspects of a user's financial life, such as insurance and credit scores.
The concerns are valid given the incredible range of data breaches and other privacy issues that have alighted on Facebook in the recent past, and that might be one reason to hold it to a higher standard than, say, Gemini or Coinbase, both of which have already released their own stablecoins.
But it appears that Facebook is being held to higher standards than other stablecoin issuers. That might be because of its storied history or sheer scale, or maybe it's because Facebook's plans very likely go well beyond simply using stablecoins for remittances and right to the heart of an entirely new blockchain digital currency-based consumer financial services platform.
Facebook's "small" blockchain team comprises dozens of people already, and it's currently advertising positions for almost 30 more. Even adjusting for puffery, the job descriptions suggest something a little more intensive than WhatsApp stablecoin payments.
It's thinking big.
"Our ultimate goal is to help billions of people with access to things they don't have now - that could be things like healthcare, equitable financial services, or new ways to save or share information," it explains to prospective content strategists, threat analysts and others.
Meanwhile, data scientists get to "build intuitive, secure products to solve some of the most challenging problems, at a scale that few companies can match" which "will have massive global impact".
These kinds of promises aren't unusual in the blockchain space. It's an area where many of the most experienced developers never have to work again, so anyone who wants to hire the industry's top talent needs to offer more than money alone. This may have been exactly what happened when Facebook bought out the Chainspace blockchain firm for the sole purpose of hiring on four fifths of its team members.
It's safe to say that in the not-so-long run, Facebook's goal is to leverage blockchain technology in order to become a hub of a wide range of consumer financial products. A stablecoin for seamless digital payments would be an excellent centrepiece for broader blockchain ambitions.
But where to begin? How about a Facebook peer to peer cryptocurrency lending platform?
Facebook's crypto lending platform
There are a few indications which tentatively suggest that Facebook could be exploring a lending platform.
One of them goes back to something called the Silicon Valley kill zone. It refers to the space in the shadow of today's tech giants, such as Facebook. When a young tech startup walks into the shadow of the giants with a product they perceive as useful or dangerous, they'll typically try to absorb or quash the upstart.
The first step is generally to just buy it out, as Facebook did when it paid a mind-boggling $19 billion for WhatsApp even though it already had a perfectly semi-adequate messaging app of its own.
But if the startup proves to be more of an upstart, and refuses the offer, the giant will just aggressively copy the startup's product instead. For example, Snapchat declined hefty buyouts from both Facebook and from Google, then subsequently found itself losing market share to the Facebook-owned Instagram, and being imitated by Google Stamp.
With that background, let's re-examine last year's rumours that Facebook was thinking of buying out Coinbase.
The price is right, with Coinbase being valued somewhere in the range of a thrifty $8 billion. But gut feelings also say that Coinbase, as an oldschool cryptocurrency organisation, would not say yes to any amount of money.
Furthermore, Mark Zuckerberg is often quoted as saying, "Facebook has not once bought a company for the company itself. We buy companies to get excellent people." And now we've seen a range of people leave Coinbase for Facebook's blockchain team.
And Coinbase clearly has more than a passing interest in crypto lending. Within just hours of the creation of its venture capital arm, Coinbase made a hearty investment in the Compound crypto lending platform.
Let's not forget the nature of the US congress letter to Facebook either. It's clearly expressing concerns over Facebook becoming a fully fledged bank with access to user financial data, credit scores and so on – not just in general but specifically in connection with cryptocurrency. The letter specifically says, "Facebook is recruiting dozens of financial firms and onloine merchants to help launch a cryptocurrency-based payment system using its social network."
But you can conjecture 'til the cows come home. The main reason it's reasonable to assume Facebook wants to get into crypto lending is because barring regulatory obstacles (gotta poach enough compliance officers) it just makes sense.
It's also fun to imagine what this could look like in tandem with a collateralised stablecoin, as the foundation of a Facebook cryptocurrency ecosystem.
A Rube Goldberg machine for money
We start with the collateral that backs the stablecoin. It hangs around and earns its keep by pulling in a portion of the small transaction fees that accompany each movement of the stablecoin – let's call it Libra.
Libra is mostly seeded into the world by people connecting their Facebook and bank accounts, at which point they can start making Libra payments digitally, sending money anywhere instantly and cheaply. When they make a payment, the amount is automatically subtracted from their bank account and held aside for safekeeping.
You now have Libras matriculating into the wider economy, as a coin that functionally degrades piece by piece with every transaction as those fees are gradually extracted from it. Banks will periodically end up with Libra stashes which they can in turn use for their own seamless digital payments.
The great thing is you now have instant, seamless digital payments and each transaction is also generating a little bit of revenue. Libras can be moved much faster than old bank money, and can make many more payments in a much shorter period of time than your traditional bank money, so the returns actually aren't bad. But only if they keep moving.
This puts you in an interesting economic position, because Libras are at their most valuable when they're being transacted the fastest and most frequently. But real life doesn't work that way, and in addition to being an instrument for transactions people also need Libras to be a store of value. At the same time, if Libras aren't being moved they're not earning revenue.
That's where Facebook cryptocurrency lending inevitably comes in. You need a way for people to lock up their Libras to essentially say "hey, I'm not using these right now", at which point the banks know they can use the backing funds for other more profitable purposes.
And you want to actively encourage people to mark any Libras that aren't being used, because Libras only generate profits as long as they're being spent. The solution is to share the interest that comes from the bank investments with the Libra user who locks up their funds.
You now have a global bank with a seamless digital currency. You've brought cheap, instant digital payments to life, and helped foster the financial inclusion of anyone who ever receives a Libra, because they can now use Facebook just like a bank.
To optimise the efficiency of the system, by making sure all Libras are either being invested or actively used, you can use the magic of fractional reserves on the bank side of things to act as a buffer between imperfect amounts of collateral and Libras. But that's assuming anyone will ever want to cash out their Libras.
Which makes you wonder. What would happen if a collateralised stablecoin became so widely used that its fiat backing became unrecognisable and worthless?
Disclosure: The author holds BTC, BNB, ATOM, IOTA at the time of writing.
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Today in Entrepreneur, Third Summit co-founder and CEO Matt Cimaglia published an article looking toward the future of video advertising. In it, he offers readers a behind-the-scenes look at the rapidly evolving post-production industry, highlighting the ballooning tailored-advertising sector as a particular harbinger of an A.I.-driven future.
“This isn’t science fiction — this is happening right now. We are witnessing a moment in video marketing history, like moments experienced across other industries disrupted by the digital revolution, where human editors are becoming obsolete. This is the next step in personalized advertising, tailoring content to individuals rather than the masses. Savvy agencies are turning to artificial intelligence for help making those new, specialized creative decisions. It’s the same logic that’s long overtaken programmatic banner and search advertising, machine learning and chatbots: There are some things computers can do faster, cheaper and more accurately than humans.”


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An Ox Cafe offers Laotian comfort food inspired by family recipes
On this week's episode of Milwaukee's longest running culinary podcast, we're talking about the annual Phobruary event happening this month in Silver City, and some big news from Dino's in Riverwest. But we kick things off by talking about a new Laotian restaurant that opened on the city's northwest side on Tuesday.
Located at 7411 W. Hampton Ave., it's called An Ox Cafe, and its owners are from Laos. They serve comfort food based on family recipes that draw from both Thai and Lao cuisine. The reason for the name, Ann explains, is that both of the owners were born in 1973, which was the Year of the Ox. For now, they're serving a temporary menu that could change in the coming months, but it's got some great staples on it, including the meat salad larb, pad thai, drunken noodles, crispy duck, volcano chicken and pho.
It's officially Phobruary in Milwaukee
Speaking of pho, the Silver City neighborhood is celebrating its annual Phobruary event. Two of the neighborhood's most popular restaurants are offering specials to celebrate. Vientiane (3422 W. National Ave.) is offering $5 bowls of pho (Monday-Friday, dine-in only), while Thai Bar-B-Que (3417 W. National Ave.) will be selling $5.99 bowls of pho (available from 11 a.m.–5 p.m., dine-in and carryout) as well as $1 crab rangoons. We can't think of a better way to warm up this winter -- it's a great way to clear out those sinuses.
Dino's is serving food again
A popular Riverwest restaurant is back. Dino’s (808 E. Chambers St.) recently reopened under the new ownership of Dan Budziszewski and Mike Brumm, but for the last few weeks only the bar has been open. Now Dino's is preparing to begin serving a food menu with a soft kitchen opening on Saturday from 4-10 p.m.) "It’s a limited menu to start, but the offerings will expand over time, to include fish fry, brunch, pizza and entrees," Ann writes for Milwaukee Magazine. We're excited about those grilled chicken wings.
Hear us talk about all of that and more (including the joys of fish sauce) on this week's episode below.


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Nov 7, 2017: Going by the trend that cameras are increasingly replacing rear-view and side-view mirrors in cars to offer dynamic views, Koito Manufacturing Co Ltd has prototyped head and tail lamps, embedding a camera in the lamps, and had exhibited it at Ceatec Japan 2017, which took place in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
Koito plans to commercialize the lamp in 2020. The head/tail lamp has a camera and LED in its transparent plastic cover. The US-based LiDAR manufacturer Quanergy Systems Inc has developed a prototype in which its LiDAR device was embedded in Koito’s head lamp.
For the first time, Koito has exhibited a head/tail lamp embedding a camera in it. The company is considering embedding a milliwave radar device in the lamp. Koito assembled the camera by purchasing an image sensor, etc from outside companies. Koito aims to improve the added values of lamps by adding external sensing functions to them.


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Infinix has announced that it will launch the Infinix Zero 5G smartphone in the Philippines this March 2022. Its introductory price is said to be under PHP 10,000.
The device is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G gaming processor which is able to utilize the accelerating growth of 5G infrastructure in the country.
The Zero 5G is the company’s first 5G smartphone and will have a 48MP main camera with 30x zoom, a 13MP portrait lens, and a 2MP bokeh sensor around the back. It is also equipped with a 33W quick charge.


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OTT TV zone
Malaysia's biggest telco will shortly be making its IPTV service 'HyppTV' available nationwide and outside the home with the launch of two new services - HyppTV Over Broadband and HyppTV Everywhere.
Despite a growing ownership base of Smart TVs, there is still a lack of conscious desire to use the sets to connect to the Internet, with most consumers preferring to connect their televisions to the Internet with other devices like games consoles, according to new research from UK pollsters YouGov.
Microsoft has finally presented its new Xbox to the world, describing the console as an all-in-one home entertainment system for the decade ahead that can connect to existing set-top boxes, snap between live TV and other tasks such as Web surfing and video calling (courtesy of Skype), and detect user gestures with much greater accuracy thanks to an improved Kinect peripheral so sensitive it can detect heartbeats.
Microsoft’s reveal of the Xbox One yesterday evening in Redmond signaled the culmination of its ambitions to be at the centre of the future living room entertainment landscape.
A new codec war is looming! The peaceful reign of H.264 is over, the end is nigh, and HEVC is ready to battle to prove its worth, steal the crown and prove itself the one true king (guess who just got caught up on Game of Thrones?).
You’ll be hard pressed to have missed the hype surrounding Netflix’s new House of Cards series. A high-profile ad campaign has accompanied its launch, including blanket coverage on London’s Underground, among other places.
Xbox One raises pulses, tracks them
Digital Home World Summit looks at digital health as key area of growth
Netflix strikes exclusive deal with Disney/ABC
BT Sport channels free with BT broadband
Telefónica launches Movistar TV
OgilvyEntertainment: "Every brand has a story to tell"
MRG: Most TV will eventually be delivered on-demand via unicast
Norm Bogen, vice-president of global research at US firm...
May 21st, 2013
Roku: “Most smart TVs have lousy UIs”
Scott Rosenberg, vice-president of business development, content and services...
May 14th, 2013
HBO LatAm: Our priority is to launch the GO app on more platforms
Dionne Bermudez, senior director of business development and new...
May 13th, 2013
The operator survival guide: rules of engagementViaccess-Orca’s Ofer Weintraub discusses the requirements for second screen apps....
March 25th, 2013
By Dr. Ofer Weintraub
IPTV meets Big Data – predicting user behaviour to create attractive offeringsThe tough challenges faced by communication service providers (CSPs) from...
March 13th, 2013
By Spyros Sakellariou
Podcast: Multiscreen video, consumer expectations and user-generated contentIn this podcast, we speak to Steve McCaffery, VP and...
March 8th, 2013
By Jamie Beach


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Boots has reduced the price of the morning-after pill in all its UK stores after failing to meet its target of a full rollout of the discount by October 2017. The move, which has been hailed as a “great win for women”, follows a campaign from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a leading provider of abortion care.
The charity wrote to retailers in spring 2017 asking them to consider offering a more affordable product after it was revealed that British women were paying up to five times as much as their European peers for the contraceptive.
Tesco and Superdrug agreed, but Boots sparked controversy when it said it would not lower the price of its generic brand of emergency hormonal contraception (EHC), levonorgestrel, as it did not want to be accused of “incentivising inappropriate use”. Campaigners said the statement was insulting and sexist and Boots eventually relented, saying the price would drop from £26.75 to £15.99 from October.
However, the chemist faced further criticism when it emerged the discount was only available in just 38 of its 2,400 branches nationwide. Boots said the delay was due to low stock as a result of “batch failure”.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the pharmacy chain said: “We’d like to thank our customers for their patience. It was always our intention to ensure that when we launched this service it was done well, and with sufficient, sustainable supply so that women would be able to access it both now and in the future.”
A BPAS spokesperson said: “We are delighted that Boots has finally followed many other retailers and is now selling emergency contraception for £15.99, almost a year after we first wrote to them asking for a reduction in the inflated prices. This is good news for women.”
They added they would be continuing their campaign as “even at these significantly lower prices, emergency contraception remains more expensive in the UK than many other European countries, and is still twice the price of what women in France are charged”.
Sharon Hodgson MP welcomed Boots fulfilling its commitment and agreed more could be done to increase access.
She said: “The next step is to ensure this important service is available to every woman at her local pharmacy free on the NHS by eradicating the postcode lottery that exists at present and look at ways to remove the cost barrier all together.”


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Mobile games prove attractive for Square Enix
Acclaimed game developer and publisher Square Enix has suffered through a turbulent year. The famed Japanese company had once been considered a titan of the game industry, but has struggled in the wake of the release of several lackluster games that have not performed well in any market. Even though the company’s most recent releases, such as Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs, have received critical acclaim, these titles have failed to meet the company’s lofty expectations. The poor performance of Square Enix’s console and PC games may be pushing the company to show more interest in mobile games.
Company continues to struggle with criticism from consumers
In the past, Square Enix has received praise for providing gamers with quality experiences that were almost impossible to find elsewhere. The company has a tendency to push the boundaries of modern console technology in an attempt to provide gamers with enjoyable experiences that have been difficult to find elsewhere. In recent years, the company has been met with increasing difficulty in this endeavor, often receiving criticism for focusing too much on the technology aspects of gaming and not enough on the actual experience of gaming.
Square Enix aims to bring console experience to mobile games
With the advent of mobile games beginning to draw attention away from traditional consoles, Square Enix is beginning to see a new opportunity to dazzle consumers with its extensive experience in the realm of gaming technology. The company has begun to show its interest in bringing the console experience to the mobile space, effectively improving the quality of mobile games significantly in the future. The company has plans to publish mobile games in the future and intends to focus on games that deliver a quality and technologically advanced experience to consumers.
Game industry growing increasingly mobile
Much of the game industry has begun to show interest in the mobile space. Mobile games have been drawing consumers away from traditional gaming platforms for some time, but have only recently begun cutting into the sales of traditional consoles. Square Enix is not t he only company with plans to take mobile games more seriously and a new focus on these kinds of games may help the company recover much of the support it has lost among consumers.


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Cheap Gas Deal Extended by Chrysler Until July 7
Date 2008/5/19 20:31:43 | Topic: Miscellaneous
|It sounds like Chrysler saw a better-than expected reaction to their $2.99 gas incentive - at least according to web site visitors. Regardless, they've extended it for an additional month:|
Chrysler is extending for another month its offer to subsidize customers' gasoline prices for three years.
The deal caps gas at $2.99 per gallon with Chrysler paying the rest. It was to expire June 2, but now will go through July 7.
Chrysler LLC Vice Chairman and President Jim Press said Monday the deal has resonated with consumers. The company says the deal has raised traffic on its Web site by 25% since it began May 7.


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As appeared in www.saag.org Shorn of the euphoria and the wishful-thinking usual on such occasions, the net results of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India (New Delhi, Agra and Mumbai) from November 20 to 23,2006,could be categorised under three heads— positive, hopefully positive and disturbingly negative.
2. The positive result, as in the past, relates to the steadily strengthening bilateral economic relations, despite continuing differences on the border dispute between the two countries. To understand the significance of the bilateral economic relations, they need to be examined under three heads—bilateral trade, bilateral construction contract flows and bilateral investment flows. The increase in bilateral trade has been spectacular and that in contract flows modest. The increase in investment flows has been poor with more investments flowing from India to China than the other way round.
3. The spectacular increase in bilateral trade would be evident from the following: In 2002, the total value of the bilateral trade was US $ five billion. By the end of 2005, it went up to US $ 18.7 billion. This year, it is expected to cross US $ 20 billion, two years ahead of the target date of 2008 set by the two countries during the visit of Chinese Prime Minister Mr. Wen Jiabao to India in April 2005. China has already replaced in 2003 Japan as India’s leading trade partner in this region and is expected to replace the US as India’s most important trade partner in another three years. Indo-US bilateral trade presently amounts to US $ 30 billion. Statistics from China’s customs authorities indicate that Sino-Indian trade in the first seven months of 2006 reached US$13.6 billion, up 27% as compared to the same period of 2005.
4. Indian statistics show a slightly higher figure. According to the statistics of the ASSOCHEM, a reputed Indian trade organisation, during the first six months of 2006, the value of Indian exports to China was estimated at US $ 6.2 billion and the Indian imports from China at US $ 7.45 billion. According to XU CHANGWEN, Director of the Asian and African Studies Department of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce, during the five years from 2000 to 2004, Sino-Indian bilateral trade grew at an annual rate of 46 per cent, surpassing the 26.7 per cent of China’s total foreign trade growth over the same period and India’s 14 per cent.
5. Encouraged by this dramatic growth rate, the two countries, during the visit of Mr.Hu, fixed a fresh target of US $ 40 billion to be achieved by 2010. Would the two countries be able to maintain the present growth rate of the bilateral trade and reach the target in time, if not ahead of schedule? In order to be able to seek an answer to this question, one has to keep in mind two factors, which dominate the bilateral trade at present. The first is the overwhelming dominance of iron ore in China’s imports from India and the second is the dominance of manufactured goods—particularly electronic goods— in India’s imports from China.
6. The dramatic increase in Indo-Chinese trade in recent years has coincided with two important changes in the economic landscape of the two countries: First, the rapid depletion of China’s iron ore reserves thereby making its front-running steel industry dependent on imports to meet the growing demand for steel of its construction and defence industries. The second, the liberalisation of the imports of consumer goods and reduction of import duties by the Government of India and the increase in the standard of living of the Indian middle class, which has created a growing demand for consumer goods of foreign design.
7. Iron ore exports constitute over 50 per cent of India’s exports to China. The iron ore produced in China is not sufficient to meet the needs of its steel industries. Moreover, it is of inferior quality. Chinese steel industries, therefore, look to India and Brazil for the purchase of iron ore. The Indian iron ore is of better quality than the Brazilian and cheaper. Middle-grade Indian ore costs for China US $ 74 to 75 a tonne as against US $ 80 a tonne for the Brazilian. While the big steel factories in China are able to pay more for the Brazilian ore and still make a profit, the medium and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) producing steel are no longer able to afford the Brazilian ore. They have, therefore, switched over to the Indian ore.
8. China’s crude steel output during the first nine months of 2006 increased by 18.4 per cent to 339.03 million tonnes as compared to 349. 36 million tonnes during the whole of 2005. China has become the world’s top steel exporter, with its exports during the first nine months of 2006 (32.85 million tonnes), constituting about one-third of the US’ total steel production. In the absence of the cheaper Indian iron ore, Chinese steel and steel products would be costlier, thereby pushing up the cost of production of its defence and other industries and its construction sector.
9. As the Indian economy expands and as the Indian steel industry develops, the domestic demand for iron ore is expected to increase. Presently, India’s iron ore reserves are satisfactory and it has more than it needs for its steel industry, but there is already some criticism of its short-sighted policy of allowing its ore reserves to deplete in an attempt to make quick money, in disregard of the future needs of its steel industries. This criticism—particularly from the leftist circles— was quite evident when a South Korean company entered into a long-term contract in Orissa for the purchase of iron ore. Surprisingly, while the communists have criticised the indiscriminate sale of iron ore to pro-Western countries, they have observed a discreet silence on the export of iron ore to China
10. If there are future restraints on iron ore exports for any of the reasons mentioned above, it could affect the expansion of Indian exports to China, unless the Chinese, in the meanwhile, develop an interest in the import of other goods from India—-particularly from the Indian manufacturing sector.
11. Manufactured goods constitute a major bulk of the Indian imports from China—with electronic equipment constituting about 28 per cent of the Indian imports. What has been happening is that during the last four years there has been a tremendous increase in the import of consumer goods—-particularly electronic equipment— of Japanese and South Korean design from Japanese and South Korean factories in China, where the cost of production is lower than in Japan and South Korea. As the salaries for the employees of these factories in China increase, this cost advantage is likely to diminish.
12. Moreover, many of these Japanese and South Korean companies, which are now exporting these goods to the Indian market from China, are in the process of setting up their factories in India in order to meet the future Indian demand. When these factories get going during the next two or three years and are able to meet the demands of the Indian consumers, the demand for these manufactured goods from their factories in China could come down. Unless the Indian consumers are attracted by alternate products made in China at low cost, which are not available elsewhere at comparable price, this is likely to have a negative impact on the imports from China.
13. After taking into account these factors, one could say that while the bilateral trade will continue increasing, one cannot say for certain that it will increase at the present rate.
14. An examination of contract and investment flows between the two countries is rendered difficult by the differing statistics depending on whether they come from Indian or Chinese sources and by the tendency in both India and China to mix up figures of the value of construction contracts won and of investment flows approved and actually realised. It needs to be remembered that even long before China opened up its economy to the rest of the world in 1978, its State-owned construction companies had made a name in the third world for the quality of the construction skills of their engineers and for their adherence to time-schedules and these companies were competing successfully in the third world for construction contracts. It has been estimated that even before 1978, Chinese State-owned construction companies were winning construction contracts worth billions of dollars per annum in different countries of the third world. The Chinese companies and their engineers and other skilled personnel have maintained that reputation and continue to flourish.
15. But, Chinese construction companies—except some from Hong Kong— were not much in evidence in India till the late 1990s. This was largely a reflection of the strained political relations between the two countries. With the improvement in political relations and with the greater comfort level between the leaders and policy-makers of the two countries, this has been changing and Chinese construction companies have started winning many contracts. According to the figures of the ASSOCHAM, Chinese construction companies have already won contracts worth US $ one billion for the construction of thermal power stations, a gas pipeline, highways construction etc.
16. However, in his address to the India-China Economic, Trade and Investment Co-operation Summit at Mumbai on November 23, Mr.Hu cited a higher figure of US $ 6.1 billion and said: “India is now one of China’s most important project contracting markets.” Figures regarding construction contracts, if any, won by Indian companies in China are not available. There is no mention of it in the statistics released by the ASSOCHAM on the eve of Mr. Hu’s visit. However, one would not be wrong in assuming that the figures would not be very high.
17. There are three defining characteristics of Chinese construction companies, when they win contracts abroad. First, their tendency to bring their own engineers and other skilled personnel instead of recruiting locally. This is stated to be because of their confidence in the quality of their own personnel and language difficulties. Second, their tendency not to sub-contract any part of their work to locals. And third, their habit of often bringing their own security personnel as one has been seeing in Sudan and in Balochistan in Pakistan.
18. Not infrequently, these practices generate local resentment against the Chinese as one has been seeing in Gwadar in Blaochistan where there has been a growing resentment of what the Balochs perceive as the monopolisation of the newly-created jobs by the imported Chinese and Punjabis.
19. One has been seeing the beginning of a similar trend in India. It has been reported that the Chinese wanted to bring 1,800 engineers and other skilled personnel for the pipeline construction, some of which will reportedly be in areas where Maoist insurgents are active. When the security agencies and the visa-issuing authorities took time for their security vetting, the Indian Communists, on whose support the present Government is dependent for its survival in power, raised a big hue and cry over it and pressurised the Government to expedite the issue of visas to them.
20. I raised this during a discussion in a private TV channel and pointed out that the Communists would have created hell and organised a strike, if an American contractor had wanted to bring even a hundred engineers, but they are justifying the import of 1,800 engineers and other skilled workers by a Chinese company. A prominent Communist leader, who participated in the debate, accused me of living in the past and of not moving forward with history and alleged that I was unnecessarily trying to sensationalise small issues in order to mislead the people.
21. Such things need to be pointed out because they contain possible seeds of future tension in the bilateral relations.
22. The statistics regarding the two-way investment flows differ too, depending on whether the source is Indian or Chinese, but one thing is evident from both figures—there are more investment flows from India to China than the other way round. According to the ASSOCHAM figures, since India opened up its economy in 1991, the total value of Chinese investment flows into India upto 2004-end (Actuals as against approvals) amounted to US $ 0.83 million only, representing 0.001 per cent of the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows into India. During the same period, the value of approvals of FDI proposals from China amounted to US $ 231.7 million, representing 0.30 per cent of the total approvals from all countries. During this period, Indian FDI flows into China (actuals) amounted to US $ 79.1 million.
23. According to XU CHANGWEN, who cites figures of China’s Ministry of Commerce, Chinese companies had set up 17 non-financial enterprises in India by the end of 2004, with a contract investment (approvals) of $39.4 million, centered on mechanical equipment, IT, and organic and chemical products. Some other projects on information and communications remain under negotiation. During the same period, Indian companies had invested in more than 138 projects in China with a contract value (approvals) of $297.55 million, and $98.61 million paid in (actual), focusing on pharmacy, IT, refractory material and diamonds.
24. Writing in the “Asia Times Online” on September 16,2006, Ms.Pallavi Aiyar, the Beijing Correspondent of “The Hindu” of Chennai, says as follows: “Indian investment in China currently stands at a measly $130 million. By the end of 2005, US businesses had actually invested $51.1 billion in China and set up 49,000 enterprises in the country. Last year alone, China’s total foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows were worth $72 billion. Chinese investments in India are not much cause for celebration either. According to the Indian government, FDI inflows to India from China between August 1991 and October 2005 worked out to a grand total of $2.03 million. Chinese statistics put the figure considerably higher, at about $47.35 million, but given that India’s total inward FDI for the same period stood at $36.2 billion, even this number is distinctly unimpressive…..
25. She further writes: “Trade alone cannot provide long-term stability to a bilateral economic relationship given that it is affected by a gamut of short-term circumstances and can, as a result, prove fickle. Mutual investments are thus crucial to a truly sustainable economic engagement. In recent years Indian companies have begun to be attracted by the opportunities China offers. Its high-volume, low-cost investment environment, connectivity to global markets and productive labor force and the presence on Chinese shores of large numbers of multinational clients have lured a small but steady stream of Indian investors in diverse sectors,, including information technology (IT), pharmaceuticals, banking, wind-farm equipment, auto components and tire manufacturing. Yet the majority of these investors in both the manufacturing and services sectors either sell to multinational companies in China or export their products out of China to their traditional buyers. The meaty Chinese domestic market remains an imposing Great Wall that so far few Indian firms have been able to scale. Even the much-hyped synergies between India’s software prowess and China’s hardware might have failed to materialize. All the big Indian IT companies, such as TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Satyam, have invested in China. However, despite predictions that Indian companies could come to account for up to 40% of the $30 billion domestic Chinese market for software, so far none of India’s IT heavyweights has been able to make a dent in this market. Foreign-owned companies continue to be kept out of the really large, multimillion-dollar IT deals at the state-owned enterprises, and Indian companies have found barriers like language and culture more challenging to overcome than expected.”
26. Till 2002, figures of Chinese FDI flows into other countries were treated as a State secret. Only from 2003, China’s Ministry of Commerce started publishing these figures. In 2003, the total value of the Chinese FDI flows into other countries was US $ 2.85 billion, of which US $ 1.38 billion was invested in the oil and gas sectors. The corresponding figures for 2004 were US $ 5.5 billion and US $ 1.8 billion and for 2005 US $ 12.3 billion and US $ 1.68 billion.
27 In China, all decisions regarding investment destinations abroad are taken by the Government not on the basis of economic considerations, but strategic and national security considerations. The question posed while taking decisions is not whether the investment will be profitable, but will the investment strengthen national security. Countries which are suppliers of oil and gas to China and countries with which China has military-related relationship enjoy a greater priority in the eyes of the decision-makers than others. Hence, countries such as Angola, Sudan, Pakistan etc enjoy a greater priority than India. In Chinese eyes, the value of India is as a destination for short-term construction contractors and not long-term investors.
28. In the issue dated November 15, 2006, of the “Guardian” of the UK, Shri Salil Tripathi, a London-based analyst, writes as follows: “Chinese investment push is driven not by the profit motive, nor by a desire to improve Beijing’s balance sheet and seek more investors, but by strategic national objectives. When such objectives determine investment, cost is no bar – which explains Chinese munificence in Angola.
The Chinese firms that invest overseas tend to be resource companies focusing on oil, gas and minerals. They are state-owned (such as the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, Petrochina, and CNOOC, the jilted suitor of Unocal), have close ties with the armed forces (Norinco and, perhaps, Haier) or are led by individuals with close ties with the Communist party. The independent private sector remains in its infancy in China. Many leading private sector “Chinese” companies are actually run by Hong Kong-based businesses such as Li Ka-Shing, or are owned by the Chinese diaspora. Indian companies expanding overseas are fundamentally different, as they are more responsive to pressure.
That accountability is not forced by India’s democracy. It is because many of these companies are from the private sector (though in the oil business, fewer are). When private individuals, rather than the state, run a company, they must earn a return, justifying the backing of investors, and pay their lenders on time.”
29. If long-term investment flows and not trade flows are taken as the real yardstick for assessing the soundness and durability of the economic relations between two countries, India and China have still miles to go before they can celebrate. To be continued
(The writer, Mr.B.Raman, is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:firstname.lastname@example.org)


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(CNBC) — You never know what can trigger a breakthrough moment. Christine Hunsicker can attest to that.
The serial entrepreneur who has helped launch two high-tech start-ups — including RightMedia, a direct marketing advertising firm purchased for $850 million by Yahoo in 2007 — is now busy building her latest venture: an online subscription rental clothing service for women sizes 10 to 32. The idea for her company, called Gwynnie Bee, was spawned in part by her fond memories of sharing garments with her cousins as a child.
The 38-year-old may be on to something big. A growing number of women who love fashion are deciding they don't necessarily need to own all the clothing hanging in their closet. Apparel rental and subscription services, such as Gwynnie Bee and rivals Rent the Runway, Le Tote and Borrow for Your Bump (maternity), are giving women the chance to rent rather than own an increasing part of their wardrobe.
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- 1 min read
Israel to support Covid-hit tourism industry
Hotels that have suffered a decline of at least 40 per cent in turnover due to the ban will receive special financial support over the coming months
Israel has launched a new plan costing 60 million new shekels ($18 million) to support the country's Covid-hit tourism industry, the Finance and Tourism Ministries said in a joint statement.
The program, initiated by Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov, aims to support tourism businesses affected by the entry ban on tourists to Israel due to the pandemic, reports Xinhua news agency citing the statement issued on Sunday as saying.
According to the plan, hotels that have suffered a decline of at least 40 per cent in turnover due to the ban will receive special financial support over the coming months. Financial support will also be given to Israeli travel agents operating inbound tourism in the country.
Besides, the plan will allow more hotel workers from Jordan and the West Bank to enter Israel. Currently, Israel has banned the entry of foreign tourists, except for special cases. Plans to reopen inbound tourism have been postponed by the government due to the recent sharp rise in Covid-19 infections in the country.


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Press Release, PRAGUE, 10 June 2010 – SPIR has Changed: Grand Relaunch June’s general meeting of the Internet Advertising Association (SPIR) brought about a major change to the internal regulations, which should reflect current development of the internet advertising and content market. The changes concern conditions of membership and the structure, as well as greater openness and responsiveness of SPIR. Last but not least, the general meeting set the regulations for the level individual members will have in deciding about the future of SPIR.
In 2009, the internet collected a total of CZK 6.4bn from Czech advertisers. For 2010, operators of internet media are estimating year-on-year growth of over 17%. In terms of display advertisements, advertisers last year invested over CZK 4bn in internet and in catalogue advertising CZK 786m in list (gross) prices. In PPC systems (pay-per-click, performance advertising), advertisers spent almost CZK 1.6bn in real (net net) prices. The internet share as media type therefore reached almost 10% for overall investment in advertising for 2009 in the Czech Republic, and is in third place immediately behind television and print media. This arises from research implemented by the independent research agency Factum Invenio (FI) for the Internet Advertising Association (SPIR).
In 2008, the Internet collected a total of 5 billion crowns from Czech advertisers and internet media operators estimate a year-on-year growth of almost 26% for this year. Within the area of banner advertising, advertisers last year invested 3.3 billion crowns in the internet, in search advertising 1 billion crowns, and in directory advertising 0.75 billion crowns in the list prices (gross). The internet’s share as a media type thus reached almost 9% of the total investments in advertising for 2008 in the Czech Republic, and is in third place right behind television and print media. This is information learnt from research implemented by the independent research agency Factum Invenio for the Internet Advertising Association (SPIR).
At the last meeting of the Executive Board of the Internet Advertising Association, its new Chairman, Ján Simkanič from the company Internet Info, and Vice-Chairman, Tomáš Řehák from OMD Czech, were elected. The election followed last June’s General Assembly of the Association, at which the participants elected a new composition of the SPIR Executive Board for the next term.
In 2007, 93 % of Czech companies used Internet advertising, mostly in the form of product campaign. The most frequently used format was banners or key words, and also text advertisements. Among the most important factors influencing further investments into Internet advertising are measurability of campaigns, their precise targeting and the reachability of specific target groups of customers. These are the key conclusions of the Internet Advertising Drivers marketing research, executed exclusively for the Internet Advertising Association by the Mediaresearch research agency.
Seven new members were welcomed into the ranks of the Internet Advertising Association (Sdružení pro internetovou reklamu - SPIR) at the last meeting of the executive board. Joining the Media Section are Aukro.cz, operator of one of the largest auction portals in the country, www.aukro.cz, and Retail Info, which operates www.akcniceny.cz and www.monitor.cz. Other new Media Section members include Burda Communications, which operates a server for computer gaming fans, www.hrej.cz . This server is designed primarily for readers of the printed titles Level and Next Level, also published by Burda Communications. Another new Media Section member is LIN, which oversees the internet activities of Radio Impuls (www.impuls.cz), the most-listened-to radio station in the country. One interesting new member of SPIR is Microsoft. Jiří Grund, Microsoft’s marketing director, explains why it was interested in becoming a member: “We recognize the importance and potential of the online market in the Czech Republic, and we’re pleased that we have the opportunity to become a member of such an association. Thanks to this group, we’ll have more opportunities to share in its development and contribute to improving the Czech internet situation.”


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Fast-moving consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) said it has completed the acquisition of intimate hygiene brand VWash from Glenmark Pharmaceuticals.
The acquisition was announced on March 23 and was subject to certain closing conditions, which have now been fulfilled.
VWash was launched by Glenmark in 2013 and the brand established itself as a market leader in the female intimate hygiene category backed by product proposition, consumer endorsements and brand-building investments.
HUL has acquired intellectual property rights including trademarks, design and know-how related to the VWash brand worldwide.
With the acquisition, said HUL in a statement, it can unlock significant synergies and scale up the brand by building awareness, driving penetration, leveraging distribution and enhance the offering for chemist channel.
“VWash acquisition is strategic and gives us an entry into rapidly-growing female intimate hygiene segment,” said HUL Chairman and Managing Director Sanjiv Mehta.
“It enables us to serve consumer needs through scientific solutions. This acquisition is also timely given heightened focus on health and hygiene. We believe that HUL is well-positioned to further scale up this brand given the strength of our market development and distribution capabilities,” it added.