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By Sudibyo M. Wiradji
Originally published in The Jakarta Post on July 31, 2019
Diageo Indonesia has moved its office to South Quarter, Jakarta. The office reflects the diversity of Indonesia that Diageo celebrates every day.
Batik paintings decorate the interior of Diageo Indonesia’s office. The pieces paint a harp uniquely combined with flowers, leaves, fish and birds.
While looking at it, I hear a voice coming from behind my back, “the batik is beautiful, isn’t it?”
I turn my head around and immediately see Christophe Beau welcoming us with a broad smile. He is the Managing Director of Diageo Indonesia, whom we agreed to meet for an interview in his new office in South Quarter, Jakarta.
Diageo is a British multinational alcoholic beverages company. It has 180 offices across the world, including Indonesia.
Hospitable, energetic and high-spirited Beau allows us to sit down on a sofa, not far from the batik paintings hanging on the cream-painted wall next to a bar with a wall lined with wooden cupboards holding neatly arranged bottles of liquor. The name Guinness with a harp as its logo on the top part of the bar stands out. The interior represents diversity in Indonesia that Diageo celebrates everyday.
Diageo Indonesia’s new home, which the employees started to occupy in April 2019, showcases the spirit of a “new way of working”. It reflects its mind as the creative and innovative thinking hub. “It is a place where all employees have the same opportunities to express themselves to be the best,” Beau says.
“We have a ‘Happy Hour’ here every Friday. It is the way we relax, interact while sharing ideas in an informal manner,” says the Frenchman.
Batik painting is part of how Beau respects Indonesian culture. Placed on the left and the right side of the bar, the batik is an open gateway for Indonesians eager to learn more about Diageo’s business operation in Indonesia. Whether it is related to its vision, commitments, performance, market share, brands and products.
Respecting local culture is in line with Diageo’s global strategy to be the best performing and most trusted and respected Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company by adjusting itself to the local environment in many ways.
Complying with local regulations
When it comes to business operation in Indonesia, Diageo tries its utmost to comply with the existing regulations on alcohol. “In this way, Diageo gains trust and respect from the local government,” says the 45-year-old, who started to lead Diageo Indonesia in 2017.
Operating a business overseas is not new for Beau. Prior to assuming his role as Managing Director in Indonesia, Beau had been working with Diageo for 16 years in different countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Chile and Puerto Rico. His previous managerial experience means that he is very familiar with how to set the right strategy to face any challenges related to sales growth and market expansion overseas.
According to Beau, trust, which at the end of the day, is closely related to sales growth and market expansion, should not only come from the government bodies, but also from other stakeholders, including shareholders, employer, employees or talents, partners and consumers.
Earning trust from the community is even more relevant in Indonesia because “we are working in a category that is sensitive. We have to make sure that people see Diageo as a corporate citizen that is doing right in Indonesia,” he assures.
However, lack of access to authentic alcohol beverages in the market has also had an adverse impact. As widely reported, a number of people died after drinking oplosan (bootleg alcohol). Irresponsible individuals have taken advantage of the scarcely found authentic alcoholic beverages in the market by producing unlicensed liquor, which poses a health hazard to the consumers.
Because Diageo cares for people, the company collaborates with the government to tackle the issue to prevent people from drinking excessively or becoming victims of oplosan. “We really want to pass on the message that people drink better instead of drinking more,” he says.
Diageo promotes responsible drinking and works with industry and other partners to tackle alcohol abuse and share information and best practice with policymakers to ensure that appropriate policies are in place to tackle excessive or harmful drinking.
“Diageo continues to promote “positive drinking” through a responsible drinking campaign, champion drinking enjoyment, encourage collaborations and partnerships, and optimize the frontline (the bartenders) to be more responsible in selling the brands.
“We are committed to rolling out the effort to change the behavior regarding the misuse of alcohol and underage drinking,” he says.
Apart from actively demonstrating its role in educating consumers about alcohol beverages, Diageo also participates in community empowerment through Sustainable Development Programs, such as ecotourism and disaster relief programs.
“We continually apply initiatives to reduce plastic waste, starting from reducing plastic straw use,” he says.
All of the above initiatives are in line with the company’s practice of good corporate governance (GCG) and its commitment to working together with the government to shape transparent, accountable, responsible, independent and fair alcohol drink business in Indonesia.
Tax and employment
Diageo is currently a leading beverage company in the spirits category, with its top spirits brands including Johnnie Walker, Singleton, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan and Gilbeys.
Indonesia, with a population of more than 260 million comprising different ethnic groups, cultures and religions, plus the increased middle class, represents one of the most exciting opportunities for Diageo over the next decade and Diageo wants to be part of this vibrant nation and market.
Beau is highly appreciative of the diversity that Indonesia offers. This is in parallel with Diageo’s business operation vision in which the company celebrates diversity everywhere it operates, in the office, at the market with its consumers, distributors and partners.
Another encouraging trend is that the spirits market continues to grow. Indonesia will follow a trend in which legal drinking age (LDA) consumers who choose to drink alcohol beverages, look for new spirits drinking experiences by, for example, trying cocktails, which contain an element of spirits.
Diageo Indonesia introduced its “a global company with a very local taste” idea through its Guinness and Smirnoff activities. Guinness, for example, celebrated batik as the symbol that binds Indonesian people. “In a society with increasing polarities in opinion, Guinness celebrates the collective Indonesian spirit, Together We are More,” Beau points out.
Another brand, Smirnoff established Smirnoff Mix It Up as a gateway for Indonesians to experience and enjoy the unique taste of good times through creative mixed music and mixed drinks.
The implementation of the newly introduced “a global company with a very local taste” idea is expected to boost Diageo Indonesia’s performance.
Diageo has its own insights into corporate performance, with giving back to society one of its strategic pillars. “The corporate performance means that all the stakeholders reap the benefit of its business presence,” says Beau.
“We contribute to the government’s revenue through taxes or providing employment.”
In line with the government’s program to boost tourism, Diageo also takes an active part in promoting Indonesia’s tourist destinations so that Indonesia will not only see an increased number of tourists, but also repeat visits.
Beau expresses his delight at learning that Diageo Indonesia’s factory in Bali had recorded the largest increase of excise contribution in the province last year. Diageo Indonesia also received the BPJS Award and status as one of the most compliant taxpayers in Bali Province. “For us it is really a reward of pride because the office received the award in less than five years after it was established,” he says.
Scaling up talents’ capacity
When it comes to employees, Diageo refers to UN Development Goal No. 5 on gender equality to ensure its employees’ prosperity.
Diageo has been on the forefront of bringing gender diversity to the workplace. Diageo maintains its gender diversity in its Leadership Team, in which 40 percent of the leaders are women.
On top of that, Diageo has also applied a progressive parental leave policy to support quality parenting. Under the policy, new mothers have 26 weeks’ paid leave and fathers have 4 weeks’ paid leave. “By giving both mother and father leave, we see that they are able to enjoy the birth of their kids,” Beau points out.
People or talents, another one of Diageo’s crucial pillars, are encouraged to continually develop their capacity to respond to the technology-driven changing business environment. “For example, we have to make sure that e-commerce becomes relevant for us. Digitalization is very important for us. This is a new skill that we have to acquire so that we can always follow the trend,” he says.
Based on a recent employee survey, 84 percent of the company’s employees are fully engaged. “This is something that we are very proud of,” he remarks in a happy tone.
Although Beau is in close contact with alcohol beverages almost every day, he acknowledges that he does not drink a lot. “I want to be an ambassador of this industry. I try to drink moderately. I would say I drink a lot better, not drink more,” says Beau, who takes regular exercise to keep his body fit and healthy.
Touching upon his type of leadership, Beau says, “I show how much I care to people. I have spent time on understanding Indonesian culture, how people think and feel at work.
“When you have the ability to emotionally connect (with the employees), then you can challenge them for the better. That’s what I am trying to do.”
“Even if we aim to create a better environment, we do it in a fun and enjoyable way as our purpose is ‘celebrating life every day everywhere’,” he remarks enthusiastically.
After the more-than one-hour interview, we say goodbye and leave Diageo Indonesia’s new office in South Quarter.
Diageo Indonesia’s new office with a comfortable, fun and pleasing ambiance will, no doubt, stimulate the staff and employees’ creative and innovative thoughts, one of the crucial elements needed to achieve the company’s shared ambition: becoming the best performing, most trusted and respected CPG company in Indonesia by coming together as one Diageo while celebrating its diversity, every day, everywhere.


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NAB 2019, Sprockit Innovation Pipeline panel – Monetizing OTT: Beyond Subscriptions
SSIMWAVE got a chance to participate in the NAB 2019 panel, Monetizing OTT: Beyond Subscriptions for a discussion on how content providers can continue building the momentum that ad-supported streaming TV services like Roku, Tubi and Pluto TV are experiencing.
While the panel spoke of many things, what stood out was simple:
“You can’t give viewers bad video,” said Dr. Zhou Wang, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of SSIMWAVE.
Successfully delivering OTT is a balance of four things: content, business model (AVOD, SVOD or hybrid), quality of delivery and investment dollars, he said. This NAB SPROCKIT Innovation Pipeline panel moderated by Alan Wolk, co-founder and lead analyst for TV[R]EV touched on many of these points, with Dr. Wang speaking about his passion for viewer quality of experience.
“Optimizing distribution is key to running a successful OTT service. Distribution needs to achieve the best quality of experience while at the same time making this affordable,” said Dr. Wang. For many consumer OTT services, making things affordable for the viewer means ad-supported content. This makes it so important to ensure the advertisement quality is good, he said.
“The quality of ads jumps up and down and we see a lot of inconsistencies in the quality and that’s something you should be very careful about. In the future OTT we will see more targeted ads, so this is very important,” he said. “To share a personal experience with you, when I watch an OTT service, and suddenly some ads jump out and the quality of the ad clip is so bad, if I was the advertiser, I would cancel the ad because it makes what I’m trying to sell look really bad.”
“You need to measure what we call ‘true quality of experience of end users’. This is directly predicting what humans would say about the video, when they are watching it on their devices,” he said. “This includes, are they looking at content which is buffering? Is it switching from high quality to low quality? Do ads look considerably worse or better than the content? All these things should be taken into account in terms of evaluating how good you are doing in video delivery.”
“In the new deployments of hybrid mixed-network environments of 5G, 4G and 3G you have to be very careful because different users have different bandwidth and you have to deal with all these cases smoothly plus combine this with ad insertion. This is a very big technical challenge,” said Dr. Wang. “The bottom line is you have to have a way to always measure performance, and have a way to control this. This means measuring QoE in real time with ongoing feedback.” Stay tuned for more about how the ad-supported OTT world is unfolding.

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Virgin Media is offering yet another short-term price incentive to customers signing up for its 20Mb broadband package.
The broadband provider is now offering three months half-price broadband and calls for customers registering before October 31st.
Virgin Media was already offering free installation to new customers registering before Sunday, but the availability of £10 broadband for three months could help attract more new customers.
The broadband and home phone bundle also comes with £80 account credit at present - exclusive to Top10.com customers signing up online with a voucher code.
Normally priced at £20 per month, the up to 20Mb broadband deal offers a free wireless broadband hub and unlimited weekend calls to UK landlines and Virgin Media mobiles.
Last week, Virgin Media launched a new advertising campaign featuring Speedy Gonzales - the fastest mouse in all of Mexico - to promote its high-speed broadband deals.


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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought two lawsuits against allegedly fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes yesterday.
Read more –> click here all content is copyright Coin Desk.
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Pure Storage announced it is expanding its as-a-service portfolio. The new offerings include FlashStack, as well as Portworx Cloud Consumption as a service. FlashStack is a converged infrastructure, which is delivered jointly by Cisco and Pure.
The infrastructure is AI-powered and software-defined with a flexible consumption model. It is scalable, managed holistically, and can help customers by giving them access to tested, validated reference architecture for common/popular workloads.
Portworx Cloud Consumption, which Pure Storage gained when it acquired Portworx last year, heralds the arrival of a consumption-based model for Kubernetes storage.
Pure Storage also acquired Portworx to get more into multi-cloud data services and allow customers to operate and scale enterprise apps across all clouds or data centres. It is difficult to forecast how many servers would be needed to run applications on Kubernetes.
To address the problem, Portworx Cloud Consumption allows consumers to buy Portworx hours at any rate throughout the year, in a fashion similar to the public cloud reserves instances.
Pure Storage launched the as-a-service offering in 2018, in addition to expansions to its subscription offerings since then.
Pure could get bigger
In the most recent published financial results (delivered in May) Pure noted that total revenue grew by 12% year over year, while subscription services, taken separately, grew by 35%. It is a model that’s working for Pure, given that the subscription models now bring in about 39% of total Pure sales.
In other recent Pure Storage news, the company’s shares rallied after JPMorgan analyst Pinjalim Bora called the company ‘well-positioned in the market to take share” from other large storage vendors.
Bora added that Pure Storage could be able to pick up more market share on its journey to re-accelerate growth and increase its revenue mix.


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Could Chapel Hill Mall be going dark?
Tenants expressed concern after receiving letters from Ohio Edison saying electricity would be turned off Monday because mall management hadn’t paid the bill.
The letters delivered to tenants were a sent as a courtesy from FirstEnergy so they'd have time to move perishables and make plans to be without power.
WKYC reached out to Mall owners Tuesday regarding the claims and did not receive a response.
Chapel Hill Mall in Akron, like many around the country, has seen a steady decline in foot traffic and tenants. Losing two of its three anchor stores –JCPenney is the last one left. But for tenants who have chosen to stay, a letter saying they could lose power came as a shock.
“We just opened up the shop this morning, we were closed Sunday and Monday, and it was just tucked in the door.”
The letter says service would be shutoff April 8 at 7a.m. since Ohio Edison hadn't received payment from mall management.
WKYC reached out to mall operations manager, Fred Salzwimmer and he told WKYC they bill had been taking care of.Despite the resolution, it's no long-term guarantee for tenants worried about the future.
Inside, there are more vacancies than tenants – many stores sitting between open spots.
Many visitors and tenants, reflecting on what the mall once was, remain hopeful that the mall will somehow, someway make a comeback.
"We are in hopes that Chapel Hill Mall will remain open. Still remain a community legacy. Because it's been in the community for so many years."


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Catering company Sodexo have withdrawn all frozen beef products from 2,300 outlets with immediate effect after Food Standards Agency horsemeat test results.
To reassure our customers, Sodexo has decided to withdraw all frozen beef products from its UK catering operations with immediate effect.
Sodexo has had a pro-active programme in place to ensure that there is no horse meat in its supply chain.
We demanded written assurances from across our supply chain that the products we purchase did not contain horse meat, and additionally implemented an internal sampling programme.
Despite repeated guarantees from our suppliers, our sampling has identified a frozen beef product which tested positive for equine DNA.
This situation is totally unacceptable.
We felt the only appropriate response was to withdraw not only this product but all frozen beef products. We will only re-admit into our catering operations products that have affirmatively passed DNA testing, pursuant to laboratory test criteria.
We have notified the FSA of our findings and will assist fully in its investigation. We have also launched our own investigation to understand how this regrettable situation arose.
Food safety, traceability and quality remain the top priority for Sodexo and this is why we have taken these steps.Sodexo’s Tillery Valley Foods business which provides meals to the healthcare sector is not affected by the above.
More top news
A woman who has battled anorexia for more than a decade has released a heartbreaking video pleading for help in fighting the disease.
A man from London who was the subject of cruel online taunts has had the last laugh when a group of celebrities threw a party for him in LA.
The Sydney gunman who took 18 people hostage in central Sydney last year was a self-obsessed fantasist, an inquest has heard.


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Unity Technologies projected a beta build of their new product that will allow AR developers to use the Unity Studio to place AR objects with real-world contexts
Bumble was on-site to give attendees’ Bumble Bizz profiles much-needed makeovers
General Assembly gave advice to startups and students thinking about starting a companyA Retrospective – and Looking Ahead When 6:30pm rolled around on Sunday, October 28, and the HBS cleanup crew began pulling the drinks from the open bar, we were left with two things. One, pounds and pounds of leftover fancy cheese (note to next year’s conference team: bring Tupperware). Two, a feeling of satisfaction that we had thrown another successful Tech Conference. We hope the attendees learned something substantial and will continue to draw on the new connections and friends they made at the conference this year.
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The big guzu
AT JUST 32-YEARS-OF-AGE GUZU CEO TIM MOBBS ALREADY HAS SOME PRETTY IMPRESSIVE ACCOLADES TO HIS NAME, INCLUDING AWARDS FOR ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AND FAMILY BUSINESS OF THE YEAR IN 2016. BUT THE GROUND-BREAKING BUSINESSMAN ISN’T ONE TO GLOAT. IN FACT, HE’D RATHER SHINE THE SPOTLIGHT ON THOSE AROUND HIM, RECOGNISING THAT SUCCESS IS A TEAM EFFORT
Guzu has been operating for just a few months, but the innovative prototyping company has quickly gained a reputation for it’s out-of-the-box manufacturing processes. It’s the third business venture for owner Tim Mobbs and going by his team-appointed title, ‘The Big Guzu’ has finally found his niche.
“I wanted to create a company that brings people’s dreams to fruition and I’ve got to say that I’ve never been so excited before about having a job like this, where I can take an idea and turn it into a product.”
Through the cutting-edge technology of 3D printing, the Guzu lab has the ability to manufacture prototypes in any form. From lighting fixtures to cups, mobile phone ideas to electrical concepts, the company is focused on making the creative dreams of its clients a reality, within weeks.
“Business is more than just dollars and cents, you have to make a difference in people’s lives,” says Tim.
“We recognise that we’re not the only creative people around. There are a lot of smart people out there. The thing that separates us from other creatives that have these great ideas is speed.”
Tim has been a family businessman for most of his working life. Starting in his late teens as an apprentice electrician for his father’s company, Mobbs Electrical, he quickly climbed through the ranks to eventually take charge of the business before embarking on his second venture, M-Elec.
“M-Elec was probably my biggest learning curve. It went from a company that was just myself creating products with my father in the shed to having around 30 staff, and I’m still the director of that.”
For more than nine years, M-Elec has been designing, developing and selling innovative lighting products and is now recognised as one of Australia’s leading LED light producers. Catapulting from the M-Elec launchpad, Guzu gave Tim and the team the opportunity to diversify their lighting designs and create some of their ‘craziest, wackiest, awesomest’ products.
Success could almost be his middle name, and despite the judges unanimously naming Tim ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the 2016 Family Business Awards, he refuses to take the glory for himself. In fact, when the limelight was shone upon him, he was quick to flick the spotlight to others.
“It’s a collaborative thing, I really believe that. You can’t win these awards, especially when it’s a personal award like ‘entrepreneur’ without a team. It’s like saying I’m going to have a race in my car without the engine. People have got to drive it.”
The Guzu team operates out of the Innovation Centre, a company that CEO, Mark Paddenburg says is a brilliant addition to the myriad of thriving businesses established in the centre. To have an in-house prototyping guru right at their fingertips is helping company concepts quickly become a reality.
A family man from the get go, Tim now lives with his wife and their two infant children, aged two and six months.
“I am learning to get minimal sleep and survive off that,” he laughs.
His biggest piece of advice for budding entrepreneurs is to always be present with the people you can impact the most.
“When I get home at 5pm, I’m there for my family, whatever they need from me, I’m there… It doesn’t matter if I’ve got multiple businesses or one. I don’t want to get to when my daughter is 14 and go, ‘Where has 14 years gone?’, I want to give her the time that she deserves.”
For Tim, business is more than just making money, his main goal is to make a difference. A goal he’s already seeing come to fruition with a number of Guzu’s clients.
“I love creating product, but if you can help people along the way, it’s like a double tick.”
Running a business is a constant learning curve, and Tim Mobb’s is one CEO who’s experience is certainly on the incline. Constantly gleaning from industry greats, this young entrepreneur isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Guzu is presently working with companies and concepts from all over the world, turning dreams into a physical reality, and it’s only the beginning for the team of six who have already achieved so much.


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Many people believe that Bitcoin is the preferred currency of criminals, but experts think that criminals are dropping Bitcoin for other digital currencies.
The Rise of Privacy Coins
In the last couple of years, deep web markets have risen in popularity. The major appeal of such darknet markets is the ability to obtain illegal goods like drugs and weapons in an anonymous way. But the recent technological advancements of law enforcement agencies has made purchasing goods on the darknet riskier.
Silk Road was once the most popular and widely used darknet market. The FBI was able to shut down Silk Road in 2013 after extensively analyzing Bitcoin transactions. Some experts believe that law enforcement agencies are able to track Bitcoin transactions that are involved in criminal activities. Many cryptocurrencies have now been developed that exclusively focus on the privacy aspect. Currently, the most popular privacy coins are Dash, Monero, and Zcash. A recent article by The Age mentioned that Europol has released a report regarding the rise of privacy coins in the criminal world.
Ditching Bitcoin for Privacy Coins
Many darknet markets have decided to no longer accept Bitcoin as a payment method after concerns of tracking possibilities from law enforcement agencies. Blockchain analysis companies like Chainalysis are now able to track illegal activities like money laundering or drug trading. The article by The Age also reports that darknet markets are not the only ones that use privacy coins for illegal activities. Many ransomware attacks have stopped accepting Bitcoin and only request anonymous coins like Monero.
Many analysts are concerned that companies and law enforcement agencies may target privacy coin users even though they are not involved in any illegal activities. A core developer at Monero, Riccardo Spagni, stated the following regarding these concerns:
As a community, we certainly don’t advocate for Monero’s use by criminals. At the same time if you have a decentralised currency, it’s not like you can prevent someone from using it. I imagine that Monero provides massive advantages for criminals over bitcoin, so they would use Monero.
Many institutions, companies, and law enforcement agencies have tried to track privacy coins without much success. Still, it’s not the fault of these privacy coins if criminals decide to use them. It’s like blaming the dollar bill when someone buys some illegal drugs from a pusher on a street corner.
What are your thoughts on the rise of privacy coins? Do you think that more people will start using them instead of Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Pixabay and Pexels.


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As far as analysts go, it’s been mostly doom and gloom where Apple is concerned of late, on account of rising costs, increasingly relentless Android-based competition headed by Samsung, the loss of Steve Jobs, and a supposed lack of innovation.
But despite that stinking bag of misery, and despite doing next to nothing in fiscal Q3 (WWDC aside), Apple has lots of good news to share. You go, girl.
Starting with the iPhone, Apple says it sold 31.2 million units in fiscal Q3 (Q2, to you and me). That’s up from 26 million year-on-year.
Interestingly, Apple says the iPhone 5 is “by far” the most activated of the iPhones, though we heard yesterday that the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S combined account for roughly 50% of sales – in the US at least.
There was slightly smelly news for the iPad however, as it slipped from 17 million sales to 14.6 million year-on-year. Apple attempted to put a positive spin on things by declaring that the iPad accounts for 85% of US tablet traffic. Tim Cook previously quipped that Android tablets appear to be kept in drawers.
As for the iPod, Apple reported a worrying 32% decrease in sales, as more and more consumers tend to use their smartphones as mp3 players. Don’t be surprised if the iPod touch doesn’t make it to sixth generation.
On the whole, Apple’s revenues were up from $35 billion to $35.3 billion, though profits dropped pretty significantly from $8.8 billion to $6.9 billion.
In a statement, Tim Cook purred: "We are especially proud of our record June quarter iPhone sales of over 31 million and the strong growth in revenue from iTunes, Software and Services.
"We are really excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and we are laser focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014.”
The fall and 2014, you say? Top contenders include the iPhone 5S, skinny fifth gen iPad, and iPad mini 2 with Retina display. We’re undecided on the Apple iWatch, while the budget iPhone is looking increasingly unlikely.


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With a focus on fashion, the centre will be anchored by a new David Jones and H&M in the fashion mall along with Seed, Bonds, Lovisa, Bardot, Cotton On, Peter Alexander and recently announced Mecca Maxima.
Centre Manager Jacqueline McKenzie said the centre, which has nearly doubled in size, will provide the Peel Region with a “vibrant new shopping destination and community hub”.
Other fashion retailers confirmed for the grand opening include Cotton On Kids, Cotton On Body, Sunglass Hut, Portmans, Forever New, Bras n Things, Tarocash, Supre, Jacqui E, Honey Birdette, Sportsgirl, Oakley Vault, Just Jeans, Universal Store, Jeanswest, Sussan, TS14+, Gazman, Naturalizer and Decjuba. Footwear retailers such as Wittner, Sketchers,
Platypus Shoes and Footlocker will also open in the fashion mall on grand opening day.
According to property firm CBRE, offshore investor interest in Western Australia’s retail market is expected to intensify in 2018, building on the $48 million worth of assets transacted in 2017.
The property firm said $458 million worth of Western Australian retail assets changed hands in 2017, up from $398 in 2016.
Access exclusive analysis, locked news and reports with Inside Retail Weekly. Subscribe today and get our premium print publication delivered to your door every week.


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Watch the video coverage for the 'Anti-Cheating Ring'
New wedding ring fingers cheaters
Married folk keen for some extra-marital activities have one more
stumbling block to contend with now, thanks to a new ‘anti-cheating
ring’ that imprints a potent statement on its wearer.
Engravings are common with bridal jewellery. From the couple’s names to Latin phrases to favourite movie quotes, jewellers aren’t surprised by many wedding ring engraving requests any more. A new wedding ring currently receiving a lot of media attention however, actually engraves a rather simple statement on the finger of the person wearing it: ‘I’m Married’.
Looking like a simple blank titanium ring from the outside, the inner band features a thick engraving of the matrimony message, so that when the wearer removes the ring, the message remains on the reddened finger. The idea is that if the wearer removes the ring, then the imprint will deter potential suitors who have a conscience, and serve as a reminder to the wearer of their matrimonial contract.
Colin Hart, owner of online store TheCheeky.com, told JCK that he designed the ring around the time Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn were getting in hot water over their love lives.
“I was also choosing a ring that week so I came up with this idea for my wedding ring,” he said.
Hart said he had sold more than a dozen of the rings already, selling at $550, which have since been featured on primetime CNN talk show Piers Morgan Tonight (video below).
Posted July 10, 2012


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Refreshed for 2022, our regular analysis selects one or more news stories from fashion technology, and presents The Interline‘s take on why they matter to our global brand and retail audience – as well as what they might mean for the longer-term future of fashion. As always, this analysis is also delivered to Interline Insiders by email – and signing up continues to be the best way to get a fresh look at the fashion technology news, completely free, in your inbox.
The early casualties of eCommerce over-acceleration begin to emerge.
The prevailing assumption has been that the pandemic pushed the eCommerce clock forward by several years, and that this acceleration would prove permanent. With physical stores closed, web and mobile sales picked up the slack, but even after the acute phase of COVID (at least in the USA and Europe) abated, population-level data shows that people continued to prefer to shop online.
Many businesses – at both the brand / retail level, and in related technology and services – made expansion decisions based on the expectation that the new, steeper curve of eCommerce growth had irreversibly detached from the old one. DTC brands scaled up their online infrastructure, retailers hired in a major way to manage a redistribution of business across channels. And technology and platform providers had little choice but to invest in hitting a target they hadn’t expected to have to hit for several years, in the space of less than one.
News released this week, though, suggests that, after its steep pandemic-era up-curve, eCommerce’s share of the total retail space is now travelling sideways – destined to rejoin the original growth curve rather than outpace it. The most visible indication of this came from a candid article penned by Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke, explaining the technology giant’s decision to cut 10% from its workforce after scaling up during COVID.
The article captures the situation in a stark way, with Lütke saying that the “bet didn’t pay off”. And the shape and size of that bet could be an indication of similar belt-tightening that may need to take place within the walls of other technology companies that rushed ahead to a destination that eCommerce is now unlikely to reach for several years. Similar conversations will also be underway at the headquarters of fashion brands that expanded their operations with similarly ambitious targets in mind.
Indeed, those conversations could well have been one of the driving factors behind a leading digital, direct-to-consumer brand establishing a wholesale business. At first glance this reads very much like a company hitting a certain growth threshold and diversifying its routes to market, but in light of what’s likely to be an industry-wide pullback from over-ambitious online DTC growth strategies, a deeper examination looks more like a brand realising that the speed of growth in a single channel will not be sufficient to sustain the business.
There is also a technology implication here. As much as platforms like Shopify have done to democratise selling, and to allow smaller brands to tap into resources and partnerships that might previously have been closed to them, wholesale and marketplace relationships offer an established route to new customer acquisition, multi-channel footprint, and other infrastructure. And as compelling as the vision for a brand to entirely own its route to market is, that vision is now set to be tempered by more practical considerations – making the opportunities offered by existing business models attractive in entirely new ways.
It’s important to remember that eCommerce is not experiencing a contraction. The channel’s share of the overall retail market still has considerable growth potential, representing only around 15% of all sales, but its runaway, pandemic-era status is now being folded back into the pre-COVID multi-channel mix.
And in a multi-channel scenario, where shoppers expect consistency of experience, and where brands and retailers must lean on process efficiency and technology to effectively juggle priorities, working digitally will be a top priority – whether a channel is wholly owned, or whether it makes use of someone else’s well-worn route to market.
See fashion technology in action: The Interline travels to SOURCING at MAGIC
This month saw the announcement of The Interline’s new partnership with SOURCING at MAGIC, which will see our Editor travelling to Las Vegas this time next week to present a curated programme of technology discussions in the new SOURCE Lounge – a place for SOURCING at MAGIC’s multinational brand, retail, and supply chain visitors to see technology in action.
Our Editor will also be taking part in a conversation on the main education stage, supporting Dr. Eric S. Ackerman, VP of Commercial Technology for Perry Ellis International, in dissecting what the Metaverse means for fashion, and what a first-mover brand was able to learn from its experiences.
Already attending SOURCING at MAGIC? The SOURCE Lounge sessions are free to attend – included in your ticket. Interested in seeing fashion technology in action? Sign up to attend SOURCING at MAGIC, 7th – 10th August, with a hybrid approach allowing delegates to take in the show in person or online.
Could inertia overtake initial optimism around the Metaverse?
A great deal of pandemic-era and post-pandemic attention has been paid to the Metaverse – and rightly so, given The Interline’s belief that real-time interactivity and digital-first workflows will transform fashion just as they have other product-centric and experience-focused industries – but there are indications this week that we may see a similar walking-back of growth expectations in this area as well.
First came the news that Meta would be increasing the price of the Quest 2 VR headset – a move that, however it’s spun, runs counter to the company’s vision for owning the “immersive internet” through the sheer scale of its hardware install base – one of the primary reasons that Meta felt confident enough to aim for a billion active Metaverse users by the end of this decade.
From a purely pragmatic, commercial perspective, Meta remains a public company, and it has been subsidising the retail price of the Quest 2 since its release – a strategy that will have certainly had a shelf life in investors’ minds. Nevertheless, while the incredibly popular headset (the Quest 2 accounted for 78% of AR/VR head-mounted display hardware sales last year) still represents by far the lowest barrier of entry into a VR ecosystem that’s going to stand the test of time, this price increase will put the brakes on on the volume of people who are able to buy into that ecosystem soon.
And as countless analysts have noted, Meta’s vision for the Metaverse hinges on it dominating the space through sheer numbers – making it essentially the de facto platform provider (if such a thing can be said to exist) for the future of the web.
That acquire-it-all strategy also suffered a setback this week, with the US FTC attempting to block the company’s acquisition of VR studio Within, which is known for developing the VR fitness platform Supernatural.
As The Interline has often suggested, the rush for the Metaverse to exist as an entirely new frontier, freed from conventional ownership and IP rules, is likely to prove premature, and we fully expect to see even more instances of traditional copyright and antitrust law infringe on any company’s attempt to dominate a new space by simply buying up as much of it as possible.
At the same time, dissatisfaction with Meta’s core products and financial performance is growing – something that could easily start to threaten the company’s R&D investment in building out its vision for the Metaverse. Especially when that investment now accounts for close to $3 billion per quarter.
Will we begin to see investors circling now that Meta has recorded its first-ever revenue drop, and with an increasingly uncertain timeline applied to achieving a return on its gigantic investments in bringing the Metaverse (or at least one man’s vision for it) to life?
Like a lot of COVID-catalysed change, the question will be answered by how far the vision measured up to the cold commercial reality.
And the best from The Interline:
Since our last newsletter, we have published a range of new collaborations, announcements, reports, and exclusives.
Our collaboration with the team behind SOURCING at MAGIC, the milestone fashion industry event that our team are partnering on in just over a week’s time, explores the close relationship between fashion and technology, and examines how job roles across the full creative and commercial spectrum are now being influenced by technology.
Also in the events space, our exclusive report from Première Vision Paris was published earlier this week – also underlining the increasingly important role that digital tools and methods will play in the future of sourcing, material innovation, supply chain transparency, and much more.
The latest episode of The Interline podcast, published at the end of last week, also touches on some of the Metaverse-related themes covered in this news analysis – emphasising the importance of the right foundations being laid if Metaverse and digital fashion are to achieve broader adoption in the near future.
Ben’s guest for this episode is Marjorie Hernandez, Founder of LUKSO, and Co-Founder of The Dematerialised – and many of the themes explored in this show are also tackled in our 2020 collaboration with LUKSO.
Next we published our first exclusive from Martyn Ewoma, which aims to get ahead of the cultural transformations being brought about by fashion’s experiments with digital identities and the Metaverse, by looking back at how individual identity and brand authenticity were built in the Web2 era.
Mark Harrop then made an impassioned case for fashion to address the true scope of the root of digital fashion: the transition from isolated applications of “3D” to a more comprehensive digital product creation workflow. More than just a change of label, this represents a shift in direction for the industry, and Mark’s exclusive article provides a roadmap of what fashion will need to achieve in order to scale DPC to the level needed for the near future.
We also recently explored technology innovation of an entirely different stripe, in our exclusive interview with Catherine Roggero-Lovisi, President and COO of Modern Meadow. This conversation shone a spotlight on the advances that are being made in biofabrication – the architecting of new materials at the molecular level. For anyone interested in the future of materials, this frank discussion highlights the potential, the possibility space, and the amount of work that’s going to be involved in taking a bold new vision for sustainable, portable, material sourcing to scale.
And finally our PLM conversations series came to a close, highlighting the last in the executive profiles that were originally published in the industry-defining PLM Report 2022:
- Paul Magel of CGS set out his vision for streamlined supply chains, real-time data visibility, and digital transparency and accountability.
- Andrew Dalziel of Infor discussed the importance of machine learning in eliminating the repetitive tasks involved in design, development and production.
- Jakob Lunøe, of Delogue, explained how digitialization, value chain transparency, and digital product creation are transforming the day-to-day lives of fashion professionals, and how PLM can support them.


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Last month, we heard about the attractive launch offers for the Jio Fiber FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) broadband service. Jio is expected to offer FTTH with a high speed of up to 100Mbps, more than a terabyte of data per month, unlimited calling, and added benefits like Jio TV subscription for an attractive price of Rs. 1,000 per month.
While Jio was speculated to announce the Jio Fiber during the second half of 2018, new updates from The Economic Times suggest that Jio could launch these services very soon. The announcement is expected to be made on on July 5 at Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting.
One can expect Jio to launch its broadband offerings at heavily subsidized prices, just like the Reliance Jio mobile service.
Earlier reports also suggest that users will be required to pay a security fee of Rs. 4,500, which instead of being refunded after disconnection, will be refunded back to the user as cashbacks or other rewards, so that service becomes “effectively free”.
Meanwhile, Airtel is gearing up to compete against Jio and is ramping up its coverage, especially in non-urban areas. It has also announced up to 20% discount to customers paying for six months or the entire year with a maximum speed of up to 300Mbps.
Along with these benefits, Airtel will also be launching a consolidated service called Home Platform, just like Jio’s proposed FTTH Home. Under this, broadband service will be offered with postpaid connections and Airtel TV DTH service, all of which will be combined under a single bill to serve the needs of a family. The platform has not been announced yet but ET suggests that it will be offered soon.
Irrespective of the fate of Indian broadband industry, Jio’s entry is likely to give a tough competition to the prevailing leaders. Its offerings will disrupt the market in two ways – first, by offering attractive pricing and second, by bundling broadband and mobility services together, Rohan Dhamija of Analysys Mason told ET.


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Footprints Center for Autism is gearing up for its fifth annual fundraising event and fashion show.
A Blue Carpet Affair will take place from 5 to 10 p.m. April 29 at Pine Ridge Country Club in Wickliffe.
The gala will consist of a dinner, music and dancing, a large basket raffle, and an inclusive fashion show featuring children of all abilities, a Footprints Center for Autism news release stated.
Tickets for A Blue Carpet Affair can be purchased by visiting the organization’s website or by contacting Footprints Executive Director Erin Bolyard at 440-259-3726 or email@example.com.
Since the capacity for guests at this year’s function is slightly smaller than in 2022, Bolyard is encouraging people to buy their tickets soon, before the event is sold out.
She added that the theme for this year’s fashion show is “Shine Like Stars!”
Each child participating as a model will choose which celebrity or outstanding person that they want to portray, Bolyard said.
“It can be the main character of a book, TV show, or movie, or a famous person, or someone in their life they look up to, or it can even be themselves,” she said. “Whichever ‘star’ they select, they can pick out an outfit that represents their star to wear down the runway.”
All proceeds from A Blue Carpet Affair will support Footprints’ mission “to provide comprehensive, collaborative and child-centered programming for individuals with autism in a positive and nonrestrictive learning environment, so that each child can reach their highest potential and achieve excellence in all aspects of life.”
The event is called A Blue Carpet Affair because it has traditionally been scheduled around the same time as World Autism Month in April. People wear blue or illuminate blue light bulbs on their porches in April to increase awareness about autism, Bolyard said.
Footprints Center for Autism, based in Perry Village, opened in 2018. The organization provides special education and speech and occupational therapy for children with autism from throughout Northeast Ohio.
This year, Footprints is serving 30 students in day treatment and outpatient formats.


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19/12/2018 · LONDON Reuters - GlaxoSmithKline plans to split into two businesses — one for prescription drugs and vaccines, the other for over-the-counter products — after forming a new joint venture with Pfizer’s consumer health division. The revamp is the boldest move yet by GSK Chief Executive Emma. 19/12/2018 · GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are combining their consumer healthcare businesses in a multibillion-dollar merger. GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are combining their consumer healthcare businesses in a multibillion-dollar merger. 23/03/2018 · GSK update regarding Pfizer Inc. Consumer Healthcare Emma Walmsley, Chief Executive Officer, GSK said: “While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy, they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation.”. Pfizer Inc. NYSE: PFE today announced the closing of its joint venture with GlaxoSmithKline plc NYSE: GSK to combine the parties’ respective consumer healthcare businesses to create the world’s largest over-the-counter OTC business with robust iconic brands. As previously announced, under the terms of the transaction, Pfizer owns a 32.
Pfizer Inc. NYSE: PFE and GlaxoSmithKline plc NYSE:GSK today announced they have entered into an agreement to create a premier global consumer healthcare company with robust iconic brands. The Boards of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction under which Pfizer will contribute its consumer healthcare business. 19/12/2018 · Issued: London, UK. GlaxoSmithKline plc LSE/NYSE: GSK has reached agreement with Pfizer Inc to combine their consumer health businesses into a new world-leading Joint Venture, with combined sales of approximately £9.8 billion $12.7 billion. 01/08/2019 · The mammoth consumer health deal Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline struck last December is finally sealed. But things are looking markedly different at Pfizer than they did seven months ago—and that may not be a good thing, analysts say.
At Pfizer Consumer Healthcare we have a passion to improve the lives of people around the world by empowering them to take health and wellness into their own hands. Pfizer Consumer Healthcare PCH is among the largest over-the-counter OTC health care companies in the world with a global footprint in more than 90 countries. We maintain. 19/12/2018 · Pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer on Wednesday announced a merger of their consumer healthcare units that produce over-the-counter medicines. GSK said it would have a 68-percent controlling equity interest in the GSK Consumer. GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer plan to merge their consumer-health divisions in a joint venture that the companies said would be the world’s largest maker of over-the-counter products like pain relievers, toothpastes, cold treatments, vitamins and dietary supplements. 19/12/2018 · Los gigantes farmacéuticos GlaxoSmithKline y Pfizer han pactado crear una joint venture de los negocios de salud de consumo medicinas sin receta, suplementos dietéticos, productos de cuidado personal con ventas globales en torno a los 10.000 millones de euros. La británica GSK. 23/03/2018 · LONDON Reuters - GlaxoSmithKline GSK.L has quit the race to buy Pfizer’s PFE.N consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion. It was not immediately clear whether there.
01/01/2019 · Pfizer y GlaxoSmithKline GSK han anunciado el miércoles la firma de un acuerdo para crear una empresa conjunta en el área de 'Consumer Healthcare', con un portfolio que incluye marcas reconocidas a nivel mundial. Esta decisión se ha aprobado de manera unánime por los comités directivos de. 19/12/2019 · GlaxoSmithKline plans to split into two businesses — one for prescription drugs and vaccines, the other for over-the-counter products — after forming a new joint venture with Pfizer's consumer health division. 08/08/2019 · Pfizer está apurando los últimos meses que le quedan de la patente de su fármaco más conocido, Viagra, por lo que ha puesto en marcha una estrategia de diversificación que pasa por crear, junto a GSK, una filial conjunta basada en lo que en el sector se conoce como Consumer Health. 22/03/2018 · Moreover, if GSK’s bid succeeds, Reckitt will find an already formidable rival further strengthened. Andrew Wood, analyst at Bernstein, says Reckitt’s decision was a missed opportunity. “An acquisition of Pfizer consumer health was RB’s opportunity to gain global leadership in consumer. 01/08/2019 · GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer said Thursday they have completed their previously announced deal to combine their consumer health care businesses. The joint venture brings together GSK's consumer health brands, which include Sensodyne toothpaste and the pain relief products Voltaren and Panadol, with.
26/06/2019 · GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare is to restructure its media, marketing and digital units in anticipation of the upcoming mega-merger with fellow pharma giant Pfizer being rubber-stamped later this year. Current marketing boss Carlton Lawson is. 19/12/2018 · GSK chief Emma Walmsley has capped a year-long overhaul of one of the world’s largest drug companies by unveiling a plan to split the group into two, creating a new £9.8bn consumer health business through a joint venture with US rival Pfizer. The newly formed UK-based group will fold Pfizer.
19/12/2018 · Turns out, after GlaxoSmithKline walked away from a chance to scoop up Pfizer’s consumer health business in March, it got another opportunity to team up on a deal. The two Big Pharma companies have decided to combine their consumer units into a new joint venture—only as a prelude for an eventual spinoff that will advance both. 01/08/2019 · GlaxoSmithKline plc LSE/NYSE: GSK today announced that it has completed its transaction with Pfizer to combine their consumer healthcare businesses into a.
GSK is plotting further divestments into next year as it looks to focus its portfolio on key categories and raise funds to cover the costs of integrating Pfizer's Consumer Healthcare business. In the third quarter, GSK's sales advanced double-digits thanks to the inclusion of Pfizer megabrands like Advil and Centrum. 01/08/2019 · RTTNews - Pfizer Inc. PFE announced the closing of its joint venture with GlaxoSmithKline plc GSK, GSK.L to combine their respective consumer healthcare businesses. The combined business, which will operate globally as GSK Consumer Healthcare, is now the world's largest over-the-counter or OTC. Consumer Healthcare En GSK Consumer Healthcare tenemos un legado que se remonta a más de 160 años, durante los cuales hemos llegado a fabricar algunas de las marcas mejor valoradas a nivel internacional, como Sensodyne, Voltadol, Termalgin, Parodontax, Corega y Rhinomer/Rhinovin.
The combined business, which will operate globally as GSK Consumer Healthcare, will be led by CEO Brian McNamara. “The successful closing of the joint venture represents an important and exciting step in forming a world-class pure-play consumer healthcare business,” said Albert Bourla, Chief Executive Officer, Pfizer. 19/12/2018 · GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s biggest drugs groups, is to be broken up after the company agreed to spin off its consumer healthcare business in a £10bn joint venture with its US rival, Pfizer. GSK, whose consumer brands include Sensodyne and Panadol, will have a controlling stake in the partnership of 68%, with Pfizer owning the remainder. 20/06/2019 · GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are expecting to combine their consumer health businesses later this year with the aim of an eventual spinoff. But before that can happen, some products will have to go. GSK has started selling off some non-core consumer products, Reuters reported, citing.
|29/10/2019 · Pfizer y GlaxoSmithKline GSK han anunciado hoy la firma de un acuerdo para crear una empresa conjunta en el área de Consumer Healthcare, con un portfolio que incluye algunas de las marcas más reconocidas en todo el mundo.||01/08/2019 · GSK completes transaction with Pfizer to form new world-leading Consumer Healthcare Joint Venture GlaxoSmithKline plc LSE/NYSE: GSK today announced that it has completed its transaction with Pfizer to combine their consumer healthcare businesses into a.||Through the combination of GSK and Pfizer’s consumer healthcare businesses we are creating substantial further value for shareholders. At the same time, incremental cashflows and visibility of the intended separation will help support GSK’s future capital planning and further investment in our pharmaceuticals pipeline.||08/05/2019 · GlaxoSmithKline plc LSE/NYSE: GSK today has announced that the shareholder resolution relating to the transaction between GSK and Pfizer Inc to create a Consumer Healthcare Joint Venture, which was announced on 19 December 2018 was approved at a General Meeting held by GSK today. 99.85% of shareholders voted for the resolution.|
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Kroger Shutters Fresh Eats MKT Convenience Stores
CINCINNATI, OH - Kroger is stepping out of the convenience store sector, recently announcing that it has shuttered its Fresh Eats MKT format stores in Columbus, Ohio.
“As part of a portfolio review, we have made the decision to discontinue the Fresh Eats MKT concept,” Kroger explained in a statement to NBC 4. “From the pilot, we have learned many things about how to provide quality, fresh, and new foods to our customers. We will incorporate these learnings in other parts of our business.”
Kroger debuted the c-store format in 2017, during a time when the retailer still operated hundreds of convenience stores. Less than a year after launching Fresh Eats MKT, Kroger sold its entire c-store operations to EG Group for over $2 billion.
Given that the Fresh Eats concept never expanded outside of Columbus, Ohio, it appears that Kroger was merely testing the waters of this small-format concept. As the years have passed, small-format stores have continued to dominate the newswire, as more companies step up to the Amazon Go plate.
Kroger, it stands to reason, is now merely biding time for its next innovation. After all, retailers need the push and pull of consumer interest to determine where they go next. Is the interest in small formats starting to wane? Does Kroger potentially know where consumer interest is headed? AndNowUKnow will be sure to keep you updated on the latest.


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A decade after launching, foodtech and quick commerce decacorn Swiggy is eyeing a public listing this year and is leaving no stone unturned to present a healthy financial picture. The company seems to be achieving a steady 25-30% year-on-year growth in the ongoing fiscal year (FY24).
During the first nine months of FY24, IPO-bound Swiggy’s revenue from operations was Rs 5,476 crore, according to a document drafted by an investment banker on behalf of Swiggy.
While the company reported Rs 8,265 crore in revenue in FY23, the document revealed it did a collection of Rs 6,623 crore in the last fiscal year, it appears Swiggy changed its revenue recognition method.
Within this, the food delivery business constituted 82.65% of the total operating revenue, amounting to Rs 4,526 crore. The remaining income came from Swiggy Instamart, the firm’s quick commerce vertical.
Sources indicate that the company is exploring a secondary market deal as it wants to offer exits to its early as well as late-stage backers. “Swiggy is likely to go for an IPO in the second half of this year and the secondary transaction appears to be an attempt to spruce up its cap table,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity.
Sources outline that Swiggy will be seeking its last primary valuation in the potential secondary transaction. “The company closed Rs 384 crore from Ramco Group in August at a valuation of Rs 73,520 crore [$8.85 billion],” mentioned the document, cited above. Just months after this funding, US-based assets manager Baron Capital Group marked up the valuation of Swiggy to $12.1 billion.
It’s worth noting that Swiggy acquired Lynk Logistics around the same time (August 2023) and the above transaction might be linked to it.
Queries sent to Swiggy didn’t elicit any response.
The document further stated that during the first nine months of FY24, Swiggy’s gross order value (GOV) stood at Rs 24,230 crore, with food delivery comprising a substantial 76.2%, equivalent to Rs 18,472 crore. The remaining GOV is attributed to Instamart.
With a sharp focus on profitability, the Bengaluru-based company has significantly improved its EBITDA margins which registered at -1.9% and -109.5% for the food delivery biz and Instamart, respectively during the nine-month period. These figures stood at -17.5% and -259% in FY23.
Swiggy’s cost-cutting measures and IPO preparations have been evident. In January, Entrackr reported that Swiggy was planning to lay off 6% of their workforce to trim expenses. In February month, the company changed its registered name from Bundl to Swiggy and recently shortlisted seven bankers including Kotak Mahindra and JP Morgan.
“Swiggy will file papers for IPO by May and ultimately go IPO around the festive season. The company will seek valuation in the range of $12-15 billion,” said another source who also requested anonymity. This person also said that the firm may give a discount in valuation as far as secondary transaction is concerned.
The timing seems good, with closest peer Zomato doing well since its listing to approach a $20 billion valuation this week. Even after factoring in the lead for Zomato in topline, a $12 billion valuation or even higher should not be out of reach for Swiggy after it files its FY24 financials. However, it is clear that factors like market dynamics at the time of the IPO, the share of offer for sale versus funds for the firm, or the plans of Big Basket or even Zepto will likely impact perceptions on future profitability. Even as Zomato has achieved operational profitability, Swiggy was some way off when it last announced numbers, and that red ink is bound to weigh heavily on its price unless a turnaround is visible and sustained.


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Facebook said Monday that it is testing a new pop-up alert for iPhone and iPad clients that burdens the advantages of its apps gathering personal information. The test comes in front of an Apple privacy change with the possibility to overturn the social network’s core business.
Apple (AAPL) is set to present another necessity for clients to give explicit permission for applications to follow them across the internet, a move that has bothered Facebook, which depends on data collection to target ads.
Presently, Facebook plans to show a brief “of our own, along with Apple’s” with an effort to show clients how personalized ads “support small businesses and keep apps free,” the organization said in an update Monday to an older blog post called “Speaking Up for Small Businesses.”
“As we shared in December, we disagree with Apple’s approach, but will be showing their prompt to ensure stability for the businesses and people who use our services,” Facebook said in the post.
For Facebook (FB), the stakes of Apple’s new privacy change couldn’t be higher. The social media organization, which makes almost all of the entirety of its income from advertising, has repeatedly cautioned investors that Apple’s software changes could hurt its business if clients reject tracking permissions.
In December, Facebook took out ads in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, saying the necessity could be “devastating” to a great many small businesses that advertise on its platform. It likewise held a press event to focus on small businesses restricted to the change and debuted a new hashtag to examine it.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, and co-founder, pounded a comparable point on a conference call with experts a month ago to talk about the organization’s latest earnings report.
“Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work, which they regularly do, to preference their own,” Zuckerberg said. “This impacts the growth of millions of businesses around the world, including with the upcoming iOS 14 changes. Many small businesses will no longer be able to reach their customers with targeted ads.”
While this most recent move may seem like one more shot fired at Apple, Facebook is taking Apple up on its offer for any designer to clarify why it wants certain permissions for tracking. “We feel that people deserve the additional context, and Apple has said that providing education is allowed,” Facebook said in the blog post.
On Apple’s privacy and information website page, the organization said designers are permitted to do this “so long as you are transparent to users about your use of the data in your explanation. … Apps must respect the user’s permission settings and not attempt to manipulate, trick, or force people to consent to unnecessary data access.”
Facebook didn’t quickly react to a request for comment. Apple declined to comment.
In a December tweet, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a picture of what Facebook’s app tracking transparency messaging could resemble. Under the permissions prompt, the example language said: “Here, in addition to other screens, Facebook can explain why users should allow tracking.” Users can then “ask app not to track” or “allow.”


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April 05, 2015
For those whose dream to travel in to space is as large as their pocket books, a new service will allow you to make that desire a reality.
World View, an Arizona based company, will send passengers to the edge of space in their new balloon-powered spacecrafts in 2016. The company has already taken several test flights, and in a video showed what passengers will see once the voyages begin:
If you're willing to pay the cool $75,000 ticket price for a trip, you'll be going up over 100,000 feet in to the air. According to the company's website, you'll spend an hour and a half ascending, two hours floating above the world, and 40 minutes heading back down to earth.
The capsule - which is safe and has been given preliminary FAA approval, according to World View - will send six passengers and two pilots in to the atmosphere on each flight. Also, if you're worried about calming your nerves while heading in to 'nearspace,' World View has you covered:
With a mini bar, light refreshments, and lavatory on board, there is no comparative experience on the earth or off. The comfort provided by our award-winning capsule design will ensure the ultimate spaceflight experience.
They've recently conducted a test flight with NASA. While they haven't released how many people have signed up already, World View says reservations have been building rapidly. So, if if you're interested and have the expendable income, get in line.


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The agreement will allow biomanufacturers to buy Repligen’s OPUS chromatography columns prefilled with Purolite’s Praesto Protein A capture resin and comes in response to feedback from customers.
Previously, Purolite sales director Chris Major said, “the customer would need to order the resin and take delivery, and then forward onto Repligen, or Repligen would buy direct. Either way this added unnecessary cost, complexity and a longer lead time, ultimately delaying our customers.”
He told Biopharma-Reporter the partnership brings customers a streamlined solution as now, as soon as the customer requests the column, the process build immediately begins.
“Resin stocks are held on site at Repligen’s facilities, and Repligen have increased column parts for more popular column dimensions for rapid, ‘just in time’ manufacturing with a very short and impressive leadtime - since we know speed it key.”
The deal is not exclusive as customers can still buy Purolite’s resins for use in alternative chromatography systems, but Major said Repligen’s OPUS columns are “the market leader in the pre-packed column space. This is in part why Purolite has chosen to endorse OPUS.”
Repligen is a long-term supplier of Protein A ligands for Wales, UK-based agarose chromatography resin maker Purolite.
“All our launched products today use ligands from Repligen,” Major said. “They are the largest global producer of protein A ligands, which means our end users benefit from their expertise in ligand innovation and manufacturing.”
Repligen has also been a long-term ligand supplier for GE Healthcare, though for its latest resin offering GE has opted to manufacture it in-house at its site in Uppsala, Sweden and through a second undisclosed supplier.
Major said Purolite is unlikely to look to make its own ligands, and will continue working with Repligen.
“Repligen has protein A manufacturing capability both in Lund, Sweden and in Waltham, USA that supports a globally separated dual sourcing manufacturing capability. This commitment to security of supply really negates any need to consider manufacturing outside of this agreement.”


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Courts Mammoth is having a 4-day Black Friday sale featuring cash discount of up to 50% OFF
This year the Amazon.co.uk Black Friday Sale will run from 17th to 26th November – 10 days of incredible deals! The Amazon.co.uk Black Friday Deals Store will be open from 00:00 on Friday the 17th November until 23:59 on Sunday the 26th.
Amazon.com has started their Black Friday deals and offers. The once-in-a-year annual sale runs from 17 November through 25 November 2017, 4pm (local MYT dates).
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REFUSING to wear a face mask when you’re out “is as bad as drink driving”, experts have claimed.
The president of the Royal Society has slammed the government for its confusing message on the use of face masks and coverings in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic.
⚠ Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates
People in the UK have been told to wear masks on pubic transport
People in the UK have been told to wear masks on pubic transport Credit: PA:Press Association
At present, people in the UK have been urged to wear a face mask or covering when using public transport.
This is while people have also been advised to wear masks when in supermarkets.
Venki Ramakrishnan said other countries have managed to implement the use of face masks into their daily lives so there was no reason why the UK should not have implemented a more stringent policy.
He said not wearing a mask should be seen as a social taboo and added that the message from the government had “not been clear enough”.
“Perhaps people do not really understand the benefits or are not convinced of them. Whatever the reasons, we need to overcome our reservations and wear face coverings whenever we are around others in public.
“It used to be quite normal to have quite a few drinks and drive home, and it also used to be normal to drive without seatbelts.
“Today, both of those would be considered antisocial, and not wearing face coverings in public should be regarded in the same way.”
He said the use of masks lowers the chance of future surge and lockdowns which are “economically and psychologically disruptive”.
His comments come after new research was released that detailed the effectiveness of the use of face masks and coverings.
One study, by the Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE) group said masks could reduce the risk of transmission and can also provide benefits to those who wear them.
If you’re in a crowded setting, you ought to wear a mask
Prof RamakrishnanRoyal Society
While another paper from the Royal Society’s Science in Emergencies Tasking Covid-19 group, highlighted how behind the UK was compared to other countries.
It claims that in April the uptake of people wearing a mask in the UK was 25 per cent.
It claimed that countries such as Italy had a 83.4 per cent uptick, while the US had 65.8 per cent and Spain had 63.8 per cent.
Prof Ramakrishnan said masks need to be treated like any other item of clothing and added that we need to get used to wearing them.
People wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus, walk in downtown Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, May 26
People wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus, walk in downtown Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, May 26Credit: AP:Associated Press
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he added: “I think what we would like for the Government is to be a bit stronger and clearer about the messaging and require it whenever you are in crowded public spaces where you cannot get more than two metres away from the next person.
“If you’re in a crowded setting, you ought to wear a mask.”
He said “outdoors was less of a problem” for transmission and that mask-wearing was largely required in indoor settings.
Charities have also warned that there are exemptions to the rules and said that not everyone is physically able to wear a mask or covering.
People have been urged to wear face coverings on public transport but charities say this is not possible for everyone
People have been urged to wear face coverings on public transport but charities say this is not possible for everyoneCredit: Getty Images – Getty
Sarah MacFadyen, head of policy at Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation said not all conditions are visible and added that people need to remember this when they see others not wearing coverings.
“While we all need to be taking precautions and that includes wearing face coverings where advised, we MUST NOT stigmatise people with respiratory conditions who are already very worried about the risk that Covid-19 poses to them and may be venturing outside this week for the first time in months.
“Since the rules around wearing face coverings on public transport have been brought in, we have heard from people across the UK who have been publicly confronted by strangers, leaving them feeling anxious and humiliated.”
Many businesses that reopened this weekend made sure their staff were wearing face mask and in some circumstances even visors.
Face masks have been a hotly debated topic during the coronavirus pandemic as many people have questioned how important they are in preventing infection.
People in the UK have been advised not to purchase surgical coverings due to a shortage or personal protective equipment for NHS workers.


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The avant-garde Swiss manufacture Richard Mille has made a name for itself among watch enthusiasts and collectors by pushing the limits of not only what is possible within the constraints of fine watchmaking – but also of what a high-end watch is capable of.
For Richard Mille this road was paved with watches that were not only remarkably complicated, but also almost unbelievably light – let’s take a look at the brand’s top five lightweight watches.
The Richard Mille RM27-01 came as an update to the original watch made for Rafael Nadal – the world famous tennis champion who has helped the Swiss watch manufacturer make headlines when Nadal wore the RM27 tourbillon while competing at the world’s greatest tennis tournaments. The RM27-01 weighs just 19 grams thanks to a novel – and extremely strong – case material of anthracite polymer injected with carbon nanotubes, as well as its use of grade 5 titanium for the movement’s larger components. The movement is suspended inside the case through four braided steel cables, each with a diameter of just 0.35 millimetres.
The Richard Mille RM27-02 is the latest addition to the RM27 line-up created for Rafael Nadal and it features a QTPT case, where hundreds of layers of extremely thin filaments of quartz crystal and white resin are bonded together to create a light and extremely durable material. Some of the movement’s redesigned bridges are in carbon fiber, to further reduce weight, and gone are the previous model’s cables to secure the movement. A more colorful successor to the monochromatic first Nadal tourbillon, the RM27-02 further pushes the boundaries with the use of exotic materials.
The Richard Mille RM59-01 was designed for another world-class athlete, the Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake. Featuring a carbon nanotube infused case for extreme lightness and rigidity, it’s equipped with four three-dimensional, curved movement bridges that are shaped like Blake’s fingers while performing his record-setting runs. Underneath the bottommost bridge is a tourbillon, to ensure a unique mix of high-performance and refined watchmaking.
The Richard Mille RM35-01 is another timepiece that bears the Nadal name – although this time around it does away with the tourbillon, as its RMUL3 caliber features a traditional escapement to display hours, minutes and seconds. Despite being entry-level, the case is in NTPT carbon, another material exclusive to the brand and made by Swiss materials specialist NTPT – short for North Thin Ply Technology. The case comprises hundreds of ultra-thin layers of carbon fiber, molded into one and then milled into the trademark Richard Mille tonneau shape. Super light and yet again, extremely durable, the RM35-01 is a great option for those looking to do without a tourbillon – and spend a bit less.
RM011 Red TPT Quartz
The very latest piece that Richard Mille debuted is the Richard Mille RM011 Red TPT Quartz, offering a blend of red TPT quartz composite and NTPT carbon. The result is a bold timepiece that goes well with the motor racing inspired RM011 Felipe Massa line of watches. Paired with a handy chronograph movement that features an annual calendar, and paired with a matching red rubber strap, the RM011 Red TPT Quartz is expected to be as light as the brand’s other carbon NTPT offerings – but with a new and indeed very bold look to spice things up even more.


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Food waste is an unfortunate and common occurrence. While the vast majority of food waste comes from unused food in homes, a not insignificant portion of food waste occurs during transportation: basically, anytime between when the food is harvested to the time it hits a grocery store shelf. Part of the reason for this waste has to do with how the food is stored during transportation, including a lack of effective storage mechanisms.
In an effort to combat food waste in this arena, researchers with Empa’s Biomimetical Membranes and Textiles lab and researchers at the University of Bern and South Africa’s Stellenbosch University have developed digital replicas of citrus fruit that could help monitor transportation conditions for fruit vegetables and reduce food waste. The digital fruit is described in a recent article published in Nature Food.
To start, researchers looked at how citrus fruits, specifically, are currently transported throughout the world. They took advantage of universal temperature sensors available in every transport container to look at 47 different containers and how citrus fruits fared throughout their entire journey (about 30 days). This included how the storage container environments caused damage to the fruit (including decay or mold). Unfortunately, researchers found that about half of all fruit shipment containers did not maintain an optimal temperature and moisture environment for the fruit to survive, causing damage to a significant amount of fruit.
However, turning the temperature down isn’t exactly the answer. While cold could prevent certain kinds of problems (such as the presence of fruit flies), temperatures that are too cold can damage fruit. The goal, in other words, is to strike some kind of balance. Cue the digital fruit, a secret imposter among real fruit.
Researchers believe their tool can help provide more real-time monitoring of shipping container conditions, helping determine an effective balance between different environmental factors that can affect fruit. The hope is that the digital produce can simulate exactly how different fruits and vegetables experience different temperatures and moisture levels with greater precision.


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Businesses complain about Charter phone outages
- Who to call about phone problems
- Call the company%27s national help line at 888-438-2427 for help
- Customers experiencing persistent problems can file a complaint at 800-646-6150 or PSC_complaint@mt.gov
Several Great Falls-area businesses have complained to the Montana Public Service Commission about occasional breakdowns in the phone service provided by Charter Communications that they said brought operations to a standstill, prevented customers from paying with credit cards and more regularly made it difficult for customers to call in.
The Great Falls school district's business manager said such phone outages create problems when parents can't call their children's schools and could be a particular concern if they occurred when the schools were on lockdown because of safety issues.
During the most recent outage, last Friday morning, Charter's phone service was out for about 41/2 hours to mostly Great Falls-area commercial customers because of "an interface failure in which network equipment was not properly communicating," said Brian Anderson, a regional communications director for Charter out of Fort Worth, Texas.
Responding to a Tribune inquiry listing several complaints by area businesses and the Great Falls school district, Anderson issued a statement on Wednesday.
"In recent months, Charter Communications has experienced sporadic telephone outages impacting the Great Falls area," he said. "These outages were unrelated and the result of isolated equipment issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this had caused our customers.
"Charter remains committed to providing our Great Falls customers with the best possible voice, video and data services. To that end, Charter is investing millions of dollars in new infrastructure in Great Falls."
Anderson said Charter opened a new headend, or local master facility, near the University of Great Falls campus that houses its network equipment and a new store front that customers can visit at 1301 11th Ave. S., No. 1.
He said Charter is "continuing to take additional steps to improve our local service," but declined to provide more comments about other complaints.
Montana Public Service Commissioner Travis Kavulla said the state regulatory body has received 47 complaints about Charter's service in the last six months, with many coming from the Great Falls and Havre area.
While it is not clear whether a state utility commission has regulatory power over the type of computer-based phone service, voice over Internet protocol or VoIP, that Charter uses, Kavulla urged dissatisfied customers to let the PSC know so it can determine the extent of the problem and whether to act.
Four business owners or managers told the Tribune the over-arching problems has been occasional phone outages that limited their business operations. Two mentioned more frequent difficulty with customers calling in.
"Ever since Charter took over for Optimum, our service has been unreliable, with frequent breakdowns in our phone service," said Tom Wilson, owner of Data Northwest, a Great Falls company that sells and services computer systems throughout the state.
Charter purchased the assets of the broadband provider that offered cable-television, Internet and telephone services to 375,000 customers in Montana, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming for $1.625 billion in February 2013 and assumed operations in Montana in July 2013.
Wilson cited two recent phone system outages as being particularly disruptive to his business, in which calls for service to its Missoula, Bozeman and Billings offices are routed through the Great Falls office.
Charter's phone lines were down nearly all day once in late January and for five or six hours in mid-February, he said.
"We can't receive computer service calls from customers if the Great Falls lines are down and can't provide IT service to them," Wilson said.
A local Charter representative expressed concern, and because he complained persistently, the company provided credit on his bill for time when the phone lines were down, Wilson said. But that didn't make up for the time when his 18 employees around the state couldn't do their job because the phones were down, he said.
"Charter owes everybody in Montana reliable service," Wilson said.
Shawn Brown, manager of Kohoutek's Liquor Store, said the business has been a phone customer of Charter for two or three months, and experienced a couple of long phone outages during that time it never had experienced before.
"The downed phone line made it impossible for our staff to get access to our credit card line, which was an inconvenience for me and the customers who wanted to pay that way," Brown said.
"The last time it occurred, I told Charter it was costing our business money and we wouldn't hesitate to look elsewhere for phone service if the issue isn't cleared up."
Brian Patrick, director of business operations for the Great Falls school district, said Charter's lengthy phone outages this year and a few minor ones last year "are definitely a concern for the school district."
"Schools are in a unique situation," he said, "because parents want to phone in and find out what's happening if schools have a safety situation requiring a lockdown or shelter in place."
Such situations are somewhat mitigated now days because the school district can use Facebook and Twitter to notify many members of the public during such situations, he said, but basic phone access is still vital.
Two other Great Falls business owners also expressed concern about the sporadic phone outages and said they have experienced more frequent difficulty with customers trying to call in to their businesses.
Bud Hudson, owner of Mr. Tuneup, said his auto repair shop had problems for nearly seven months with dropped calls, in which the connection to customer phone calls was abruptly cut off, and missed calls, in which callers later told him their phone calls to the business rang several times and either went to an automated call can't be completed message or a rapid busy signal.
Hudson said Charter maintenance people changed his modem several times and tried other equipment changes, and he talked with Charter engineers over the phone, but the situation never improved.
He said he and his wife estimated they lost $2,000 to $3,000 in business a month, especially from potential first-time customers who probably ended up calling another maintenance shop when they couldn't call in.
Last week the business switched service to Century Link. Hudson said the same phone system worked fine under previous Bresnan and Optimum owners and seems to be working again.
Doug Palagi, owner of The Do Bar, said his business's phone and Internet service "has been extremely poor since Charter took over."
It has been difficult for customers to call in to ask about bar activities, he said, because calls often don't ring through and sometimes get connected to an automated message saying the voice mail system is full, even though bar does not have a voice mail system.
Palagi said he has called Charter a few times but was unable to schedule an appointment to get the phone situation remedied. He said he also was notified his business had an old Bresnan Internet account, and he tried unsuccessfully three or four times to register for a new one. Consequently, he said, he lost five years' worth of emails and contact information.


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I couldn’t be happier about Pinterest’s prediction of the top two womenswear colour trends of the year: Mint Green and Blush Pink. Using their smart as a whip “Pinsights” to pull out the key colours in fashion and home related pins, they announced the revelation that they expect to see a rise in these shades on the highstreet. With Blush being pinned 100 per cent more since February and Mint not far behind at 40 per cent since December, these amounts are set to increase more over the summer months.
While Pinterest’s efforts to use their trendboard site for data collection on trends is certainly an admirable use of their success, I for one am sceptical of the quality of this data given that it is based on what people are already doing solely on their platform and not much else. It would appear I’m not alone as Pantone executive director stressed the need for a science to colour prediction rather than basing decision on “mass reaction”. Pantone have stated Rose Quartz and Serenity as the colours of the year which is at complete odds with Pinterest’s prediction- I guess time will tell! I’ll leave you with these beautiful Mint and Blush colour stories, all images are pinched from Pinterest:


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The sale of shingles vaccine of GlaxoSmithKline beat market expectations and the continued good performance of the company’s older medicines, including HIV treatments prompted the drug making company to raise its annual profit forecast for the second time this year.
Following the announcement by the British drug maker about its expectations of profit for the year to by roughly flat at constant currency resulted in the shares of the company rising as much as 3 per cent. The company had earlier forecast a drop in yearly profits of between 3 and 5 per cent.
Since taking over in 2017, a plan to rejuvenate GSK has been chalked out by the company’s CEO Emma Walmsley. That plan includes a spin off or sale of a number of businesses of the company. Further, a joint venture for over the counter product that include Sensodyne toothpaste and Panadol painkillers, has been forged by the company with Pfizer’s consumer health division as a part of the plan.
The company has also been able to focus more on its pharmaceuticals business as well as to create a new pipeline of treatments, including its shingles vaccine, Shingrix, because of GSK’s leaner structure.
The vaccine’s performance was praised by Walmsley because it has done better than the expectations of the company.
“Shingrix will be a material contributor to the company’s growth for some time,” she told reporters.
GSK has sometimes found it hard to keep up with demand. “Obviously it (Shingrix) has performed ahead of our initial expectations, which is why we have been working extremely hard on improving and accelerating our supply,” Walmsley said.
There was a 76 per cent jump in the sales of the vaccine at £535 million, which was launched in 2017, which was way beyond what analysts had been expecting at £464 million because of good sale in the United Sales where doctors are making more recommendations for immunisation for patients. In the third quarter, this performance propelled the vaccines business of GSK to register a growth of 15 per cent to reach £2.31 billion which surpassed consensus estimates.
In the first nine months of this year, the sale of Shingrix have already reached £1.24 billion and it seems that the business is likely to beat estimates of analysts at £1.52 billion for the entire 2019.
A lower expected effective tax rate of around 17% for the year, increased investment in research and development and operating performance was reflected in the new profit forecast, the company said.
The US drug maker Pfizer’s older brands helped to boost the sale of GSK’s joint venture with Pfizer with sale at £2.53 billion.
“Any difference between the preparation for the risk of a no-deal scenario and an ordered planned one in January is de minimis because that all happened over the last couple of years,” Walmsley said.
(Adapted from Reuters.com)


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Qualcomm hit by Icera allegation
June 18, 2010 // Peter Clarke
Mobile communications technology company Qualcomm Inc. could come under an investigation by the European Commission after allegations that it has used incentives to try and dissuade customers from dealing with U.K. company Icera Inc.
Icera (Bristol, England) has complained to the European Commission and the complaint is being investigated but is still in its early stages, according to sources.
Icera makes software modems and supporting silicon to provide cellular broadband in 3G dongles and handsets. Icera's adaptive modem technology is focused on 3G (HSPA+, HSPA) and 2G (GSM, GPRS, EDGE) cellular voice and data modem chipsets and firmware, with 4G (LTE) scheduled in the near future. Icera executes the entire modem in software on an Icera-designed application-specific processor.
The company, founded in 2002 and still privately held, has been competing against larger and more-established players such as Qualcomm and ST-Ericsson. Icera CEO, Stan Boland, complained about unfair competition from an unnamed rival during panel at a one-day conference in London in May organized by the Global Semiconductor Alliance. A fellow panelist that day was Michel Hardies, scientific officer for nanoelectronics at the European Commission. Icera has now gone further and made a formal complaint.
However, the exact nature of the complaint is not known. It is believed that Qualcomm has offered patent-related deals to some customers.
Icera declined to comment.
"We do note, however, the similarity between Icera's allegations and those in complaints made previously to the EU, which apparently failed to persuade the Commission and were ultimately withdrawn. We believe the new allegations to be equally meritless," a Financial Times report quoted Qualcomm as saying.
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Internet of Things (IoT) manufacturer Ciseco has launched the Raspberry Pi ‘Wireless Inventors Kit’ (RasWIK), featuring 88 pieces to provide everything a Pi owner needs to follow a series of step-by-step projects or to create their own wireless devices, without the need for configuration or even writing code.
RasWIK has been designed to be highly accessible, demystifying the dark art of wireless and enabling anyone with basic computing skills to begin building wireless devices with a Raspberry Pi. You can create anything from a simple traffic light, to a battery monitor, or even a temperature gauge that sends data to the Xively IoT cloud so billions can access the data.This month, Ciseco is giving away twelve Raspberry Pi Wireless Inventors kits, worth £49.99 each for EETimes Europe's readers to win.
And the winners are...
In our previous reader offer, Farsens was giving away five kits for EEtimes Europe readers to evaluate its FenixVortex, Kineo and X1 wireless, battery free sensor tags.
Lucky winners include Mr A. Neil from the UK, Mr. E. Delvaux from Belgium, Mr Lengal from the Czech Republic, Mr H. Bijlsma from the Netherlands, and Mr G. Pfaff from Germany. All should be receiving their packages soon. Lets wish them some interesting findings with their projects.
December 15, 2011 | Texas instruments | 222901974
Unique Ser/Des technology supports encrypted video and audio content with full duplex bi-directional control channel over a single wire interface.