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The British government has launched an investigation into renewable electricity deals, with growing concerns about the “green wash” of large power companies that claim to provide environmental benefits to consumers.
With the growing number of people moving to renewable energy deals, the government says it will evaluate how the sector is selling green electricity tariffs to consumers.
Warning: The companies are planning to tighten the rules to prevent green electricity tariffs from exaggerating local benefits – the Department of Commerce says the investigation will focus on labels such as “100% renewable” or “green.” ”It has always been purposeful.
As many as nine million British households are on the green tariff, and more than half of all new deals with energy providers now come with environmental benefits.
However, while some companies’ fossil fuels come from fossil fuels, they are now promoting their tariffs as “green”, warning of the dangers that could mislead consumers.
Under current law, suppliers can use a number of ways to achieve greenery, either by investing in renewable energy to use 100% of their customers’ revenue, or by purchasing electricity in conjunction with existing wind turbines or solar panels.
According to the government’s plan, energy companies buy Original Certificates, which are designed to show how much electricity they sell from clean sources.
When a supplier says that the 100% renewable energy tariff is supported in this way, it means that it corresponds to certificates representing the same amount of renewable energy as every megawatt of electricity used by its customers.
However, experts warn that the “doubling” of the UK’s renewable energy supply, as well as external renewables, is its own risk.
He said the government was considering whether to improve the reggae system. Energy suppliers may also be required to provide consumers with information about their green tariffs, such as wind or solar, and where and when renewable energy is included.
Energy Minister Anne-Marie Trevelian says some energy companies are overly concerned about the environmental impact of their products.
Millions of British families are choosing to change the green, and much and much of our energy comes from renewable energy. But when people sign up for the green tariff, I want them to know that they are investing in companies that choose to invest in renewable energy. It’s about making sure companies are as clear as possible about where they come from. ”
According to YouGov, two-thirds (62%) of energy consumers in the UK say their purchasing decisions have been affected by eco-friendly energy tariffs. However, 75% of trusted suppliers should be open and transparent about their tariffs, no matter how much they buy from their renewable energy.
Green Energy is one of the most vocal critics of green cleaning tariffs. In April this year, energy suppliers said they had been able to “mislead” consumers who were trying to do the right thing by choosing green.
The government is publishing a special call for “third-party intermediaries” such as “price comparison websites, auto-switching services and other brokers” in the retail energy market. These currently operate outside the rules of the retail market, and ministers are asking for comments on the need for a regulatory framework.
Consumer protection advocates and price comparison services also called for greater transparency in providers who sell their tariffs like green.
“More and more people are buying green tariffs, but it was difficult for billpayers to know exactly what was going on under these agreements,” said Richard Nuugg, chief of uswitch.com. We support any measures to reduce green tariffs for families.


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Sony Corp. this week said it intentionally introduced the Playstation 4 with a platform title to defuse the notion that the next-generation hardware would only cater to shooters and other realistic titles.
Shuhei Yoshida, President Worldwide Studios at Sony told EDGE Magazine this month that the tactic was meant to showcase the PS4 as a broad category machine.
“…we hate to see all the PS4 games being FPS or action-adventure or very photorealistic, you know big-budget blockbuster games,” Yoshida said.
“And you know people like these games but these are not the only kinds of games that people can have fun with.”
The PS4 will utilize a PC-like architecture with a x86-based CPU, PC GPU, 8GB RAM, and large local storage. The company did not provide specifications, though previous reports claim the hardware will utilize CPU and GPU technology by AMD.
The DualShock 4 controller will include a new touch pad, share button, headphone jack, and light bar that will interact with a new camera to track the controller.

domain: news


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Isuzu Malaysia has opened its latest 3S centre, in Seremban, to support the growing demand for its vehicles in the country. The new Ultra Gallant outlet in Rahang Baru is an integrated sales, service, spare parts facility..
The outlet sits strategically on Jalan Tampin, within easy access of numerous business operators in Seremban. It offers Isuzu owners and potential customers with a complete one-stop Isuzu facility including new vehicle sales, spare parts and service under one roof.
Isuzu Malaysia’s CEO Takashi Hata said that the new outlet was a reflection of the healthy growth enjoyed by Isuzu, especially in high-growth areas such as Seremban.


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Jersey Mike’s planning 6 new Cincinnati locations
Six new Jersey Mike’s Subs locations could be added in Greater Cincinnati under a restaurant expansion plan, said a local franchisee of the New Jersey-based restaurant chain.
Larry Rover, Cincinnati area director for Jersey Mike’s, said he’s scouting sites in Union Township, Cold Spring, Crestview Hills, Colerain Township, Deerfield Township and Liberty Township for new restaurants. The region has 15 locations open currently.
The most recent addition for Jersey Mike’s was in Fairfield at the site featuring regional retail draw Jungle Jim’s.
“In legacy markets after a brand refresh and remarketing, franchisees are excited about the brand,” Rover said.
Named one of the country’s fastest growing limited-service restaurants by Technomic, Jersey Mike’s opened 155 new locations in 2014. Cincinnati – where Jersey Mike’s has been for two decades – is among cities primed for more locations.
The Manasquan, New Jersey-based restaurant chain has 920 stores in operation now, but that number is expected to grow to more than 1,000 by year’s end, said Hoyt Jones, president of Jersey Mike’s Franchise Systems. Jones, who spoke to The Enquirer last week at the International Council of Shopping Centers’ RECon conference in Las Vegas, said 650 locations are in the pipeline to open in the next three or four years.
The company reported $525 million in sales in 2014, which was up 30 percent from the previous year.
“Larry’s done a fantastic job of stabilizing operations and recruiting for stores,” Jones said. “It’s the guys in the market that are doing it.”


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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week, Grace and Chris were joined by Mary Ann and Natasha to host the show. Our overdeveloped curiosity and sense of wonder filled in well for a short time. Today’s episode, unintentionally, was built around the theme of inclusion, from auto-insurance to women’s health and from payments towards knowledge.
Here are some details about what we did:
- We discussed UK’s Marshmallow’s unicorn status, its inclusive and big-data approach to car insurance. Elvie, a women’s tech brand, was also mentioned. Leap’s ambitious fintech venture, Leap, aims to provide financial products to gig workers by connecting directly with marketplaces. __S.6__
- After getting past the dollars and the deals, I indulged by bringing up my latest piece: Edtech leans into the creator economy with cohort-based classes. The core of the story gets into a ton of tensions, the biggest of which I’d pose as a question to you: should anyone be allowed to be a teacher?
- We then went into Mary Ann’s fintech world to learn what I called national BNPL week. This segment, if I can, is one of my favorites. We made sense of how it became a worldwide phenomenon and which new markets were emerging. And what that means for credit card industry. Here are some headlines that we saw.
- And then we ended by talking about an adorable, but potentially dangerous robot unicorn. Yep. That’s right.
Do you remember when everyone was imagining what the new normal would be? It’s now, I think.
Every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday at 7:00 AM PDT Equity is released. Subscribe to Apple Podcasts and Overcast as well as Spotify, Spotify, and all other podcasts.
Publited Fri, 10 Sep 2021 at 14:33.59 +0000


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In any business, it can be beneficial for your customers to know what they are buying, and at what price – and that applies equally well to dentists, as our dental accountants are only too aware.
The challenge is to make sure pricing structures are communicated clearly to patients, especially if you charge standard rates for work carried out, but those rates are not widely known among your users.
According to Mintel, doubts on costs are a major ‘teething problem’ for the dentistry market, especially within the NHS segment.
The consumer analyst found that 73% of patients thought it was clear they would be charged as an NHS patient – meaning more than a quarter were unclear on this.
Among young people the doubt is even greater, as only 61% of 16 to 24-year-olds said the same thing.
The doubts are not just an inconvenience – they could have a clear impact on the bottom line of those in the profession, and our dental accountants would suggest greater transparency where it is needed.
Mintel explains: “In an economic climate where real incomes have been squeezed and household budgets tightened, it is even more important that people are not dissuaded from attending essential check-ups.”


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WASHINGTON -Robert Bosch Power Tool Corporation announced the voluntary recall of some 22,149 SkilSaw 10-inch compound miter saws due to a laceration hazard.
No reports of injuries have been reported for the miter saws made in China and sold at Lowe's and QC Tanner from January to April of this year, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC).
CPSC said consumers should contact Bosch to receive a free lower guard replacement kit.
Have something to say? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.


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Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
We are still far from being a cashless society. But bit by bit, Canadian consumers and retailers are cashing out as they change their concept of how and how much to spend — using cash or, increasingly, other means.
“Many Canadians are still using cash for payments, especially for small-value transactions,” the Bank of Canada said Thursday.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“Cash use in terms of volume has fallen, while the cash value share has remained relatively constant,” the central bank notes in a new study. “This decrease is partly due to the increased use of payment innovations, such as contactless cards and stored-value cards, that compete with cash in terms of ease of use for small-value transactions.”
‘Thought it was going to be a big thing': Canadians haven’t been so quick to pay with their smartphones
As Canadians clamour for Apple Pay, could the tech giant have finally met its match?
Canada’s credit card war is shifting to new battleground
The Bank of Canada Review, a quarterly examination of trends and issues, highlights a decline of cash in the number of retail transactions between surveys in 2009 and 2013 — down 10 percentage points to about 44 per cent — and credit card use rose 31 per cent from around 19 per cent. Debit card use, however, declined to 21 per cent from 25 per cent. Still, when it comes to the total value of purchases, cash held steady at 23 per cent.


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As part of its Q1 2021 financial results report presentation, Movistar Colombia (Telefonica) reported a year-on-year growth of 51.6% on its FTTH customer base, which already features more than 366 thousand subscribers. Movistar also reported that its FTTH offering is already available in 43 Colombian cities.
‘This increase in the number of FTTH accesses shows the good reception that the commercial offer of this service has had in the 43 cities where it already operates, but, even more, the browsing speed that customers enjoy. Precisely, Movistar is the leading operator -by average download and upload speed- in most of the locations where it offers fiber’, they reported from Movistar, quoting information from the MinTIC.
The total number of clients which with the company ended the first three months of the year was 19.9 million. Regarding the pay TV customer base, Movistar Colombia reported that the deployment of FTTH has allowed its IPTV base to report a year-on-year growth of 96.6%, and reach 217 thousand accesses as of March 31st, 2021. In the mobile business, Movistar reported 16.7 million customers in March (a 5% year-on-year increase). In the postpaid sector, growth was 9.2%, while in the prepaid one, the year-on-year increase was 3.5%.


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PlayStation VR might be able to steal a march on its rivals with the news that two of its longest running titles are set to be available on the device.
During his press conference at Paris Games Week, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president and CEO Jim Ryan announced that Tekken 7 and Gran Turismo Sport will be VR compatible ahead of PlayStation’s entrance into the consumer virtual reality market.
Details on the games’ actual VR experience are in short supply, but since nearly all previously announced PlayStation VR experiences are played in the first person, we can assume that this will have a huge impact upon how the games might look and feel. For now though, Sony has teased audiences with a gameplay trailer that doesn’t show VR functionality.
Sony also announced at the conference that it currently has “over 200 developers” currently working on PlayStation VR titles.
Games already revealed by Sony for the device include: Robinson: the Journey — which casts the player as an explorer in a world populated by dinosaurs — and Until Dawn: Rush of Blood — a horror shoot-em-up developed exclusively for PlayStation VR. Another VR game that Sony announced is RIGS: Mechanized Combat League which, from the trailer, looks like a fast and frenetic first-person shooter.
Away from Paris Games Week, Sony has already confirmed a number of titles coming to PlayStation VR in 2016, including, Eve: Valkyrie, The London Heist, The Walk, Battlezone and Megaton Rainfall.
The PlayStation VR headset, formerly known as Project Morpheus, has no official release date or price, but it is expected to be released in the first half of 2016. Speaking to Bloomberg, Sony Consumer Entertainment’s president and global CEO Andrew House confirmed that the VR model is expected to be priced similarly to the PlayStation games console.


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Home sales in the Charleston region have been growing this year but slower than last year's pace.
Home sales by county
A total of 626 homes sold at a median price of $280,000. The hot spot for the county was Mount Pleasant, which totaled 210 homes sold at a median price $390,633. Other top areas were West Ashley (outside I-526) with 77 sales at a median price of $219,000 and North Charleston (outside I-526) with 64 sales at a median price of $131,295.
A total of 191 homes sold at a median price of $159,000. The most active area was Summerville/Ridgeville, where 85 homes sold at a median price of $173,000.
A total of 248 homes sold at a median price of $176,601. The most active area in the county was in the North area bordered by Jedburg Road, U.S. Highway 17A and College Park, with 59 sales at a median price of $171,500.
Source: Charleston Trident Association of Realtors
The Charleston Trident Association of Realtors reported Thursday that a total of 2,700 homes have exchanged hands at median price of $210,000 in the first quarter of this year.
Volume of home sales for the first quarter was 11 percent stronger than the three-month span in 2013. But that was slower than the 16 percent growth witnessed in the first quarter of 2013 over home sales in the same period in 2012.
Industry experts have predicted that home sales for this year will be slower than 2013 due to modest job growth. Job creation is a big factor in home sales because employment triggers consumer spending.
The median price for this year's first quarter was up 15 percent compared with the first three months of 2013. That was better than the 1.5 percent growth tallied in the first quarter of 2013. This year's home prices have been aided by a slim inventory, experts have said.
The quarter's report included the 1,100 homes that exchanged hands in March, up 3 percent compared with the same month in 2013.
Charleston County tallied 626 homes sold in the month, down 3.5 percent compared with March 2013. The largest growth was in Berkeley County, particularly Daniel Island and Cane Bay Plantation in Goose Creek, according to data. The county tallied 248 homes sold, up 23 percent compared with the same month a year ago.
The modest home sales growth in March comes on the heels of what was described by the Realtors group as a slower-than-expected February. Officials have pinned that month's slower activity on wintry weather.
The group said Thursday that the upcoming months are more promising as inventory is returning to the market just in time for the busier spring and summer months.
There were 5,873 homes listed as "active" for sale in the local Multiple Listing Service database as of Thursday. That's up 5.5 percent from 5,565 on March 10.
"As the spring buying season begins, the expected trend has continued - a small but sustainable increase in sales" said Corwyn Melette, the association's president. "The additional inventory will result in more interested buyers and help keep our market stable over the next few months."
That optimism was shared by some local agents, including Rob Woodul, broker-in-charge of Carolina One's Charleston Central office.
Woodul said home sales "finally popped" in the month of March, with activity picking up among new listings and buyer activity.
"We really saw buyers come out, and open house traffic has been up tremendously," he said. "With the limited supply we have, it has been very encouraging to see the buyers. We have seen a nice bump in activity and multiple-offer situations."
The association also revised its February transaction volume figure slightly higher to 813 sales at a median price of $207,000.
Reach Tyrone Richardson at 937-5550.


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The Net Neutrality Fight Will Continue
As expected, last week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to repeal so-called “net neutrality,” the principle that all web traffic should be treated equally regardless of connections to the big players or ability to pay extra for favorable treatment. Despite opposition from consumer groups, the Republican-dominated commission voted 3-2 in favor of the measure.
The big telecommunications companies—Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T, among others—had lobbied for the repeal of the 2015 regulation, arguing that the concept hurts investment and stifles innovation. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a former general counsel for Verizon, said, “What is responsible for the phenomenal development of the Internet? Certainly it wasn’t heavy-handed government regulation. The Internet wasn’t broken in 2015; we were not living in some digital dystopia.”
According to CNET: “Opponents of the rule change say it gives too much control to big broadband and wireless companies and would allow these players to act as gatekeepers to the Internet, deciding which services and websites consumers access and which they cannot.”
CBS News reported: “Thursday’s rule change also eliminates certain federal consumer protections, bars state laws that contradict the FCC’s approach, and largely transfers oversight of Internet service to another agency with relatively little experience in telecommunications policy, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).”
The problem, critics say, is that the two entities operate differently. The FCC is empowered to act before harm to consumers occurs, while the FTC can only act after the fact.
Although often cast as a partisan issue, a recent survey by the University of Maryland of 1,077 registered voters showed that 83% of Americans support keeping the existing rules. This includes 75% of Republicans surveyed, as well as 89% of Democrats and 86% of independents.
Those opposed to the rule change include consumer advocates, such Internet companies as Facebook and Google, smaller Internet companies like Etsy and Vimeo, non-profits such as the New York Public Library, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
CBS News asked Ryan Singel, media and strategy fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, to explain the possible consequences of the new approach:“ ... an [Internet Service Provider (ISP)] could demand that a service like Yelp pay $50,000 a month to reach its subscribers. That could lead to the creation of ‘fast lanes’ and ‘slow lanes,’ where companies [that] agree to pay that fee would be given preferred carriage, with its content delivered faster to the ISP’s customers. Smaller companies that don’t have the resources to pay up could be shunted into the ‘slow lane.’ ”
The Washington Post wrote:“ ... providers would have the ability to set up traffic lanes and likely business incentive to do it. AT&T, which is trying to buy Time Warner, might want to give priority to streaming HBO. Already, it streams its DirecTV Now service to AT&T customers without counting [that service] toward their data caps.”
What does this mean to you? If ISPs charge companies extra fees for faster service, those fees will eventually be passed along to the consumer. In addition, certain websites could slow down, or be unavailable entirely. If you own a website, it means you could lose your Google search engine optimization (SEO) ranking, because Google gives slower sites a lower ranking.
So what’s next in the battle?
“We will fight the FCC’s decisions in the courts, and we will fight it in the halls of Congress,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) said, vowing to introduce legislation to overturn the vote.
According to NPR, advocacy groups are expected to press Congress to stop the FCC’s vote from taking effect under the Congressional Review Act. In addition, the network reports that several consumer interest groups are planning to pursue a lawsuit challenging the decision. Finally, various state attorneys general are planning legal action to stop it.
A legal battle could drag on for months, if not years, analysts told The Post.
Billshark will continue to keep you up to date on this vital matter.


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(Adds Saudi Arabia, EssilorLuxottica)
July 8 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 2000 GMT on Wednesday:
** EU antitrust authorities have extended their investigation into Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica’s 7.2-billion-euro ($8.1 billion) bid for Dutch opticians group GrandVision by a week to Aug. 20.
** Saudi Arabia said it had completed the first batch of its flour milling sector privatisation, according to a statement by the state grain buyer and privatisation centre.
** Private equity firm KKR & Co Inc has agreed to buy retirement and life insurance company Global Atlantic Financial Group, the companies said.
** French TGV high-speed train maker Alstom said its discussions with the European Commission over the planned bid for Bombardier Inc’s rail division were going smoothly.
** Japanese trading house Itochu Corp announced a 588 billion yen ($5.5 billion) tender offer for the rest of convenience store FamilyMart Co, seeking full control of a business facing slow growth and tough competition.
** Scandal-hit Steinhoff International agreed to sell its stake in the struggling French unit of home furnishings chain Conforama to Mobilux Sàrl, the parent company of furniture retailer BUT, for a nominal amount, the company said.
** Russia’s Otkritie Bank sold around 3% of Russian gold and silver miner Polymetal via an accelerated book building (ABB) at a discount of around 3% to the market price, two sources close to the deal told Reuters.
** U.S. Insurer Allstate Corp said it will buy National General Holdings Corp for about $4 billion in cash, scaling up its auto insurance business at a time when the coronavirus has crushed traffic on roads and reduced claims.
** British private equity investment firm Novator Partners has bought a majority stake in Colombia’s Avantel and launched a restructuring of the business, the South American telecommunications company said.
** Property data and analytics company CoreLogic rejected an unsolicited $7 billion takeover offer from two investment firms, saying it expected to earn more this year and would buy back more of its stock. (Compiled by Sanjana Shivdas and Shanti S Nair in Bengaluru)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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- Markets Dow ekes out record close as oil plummets 8.9%
- Nation Slain Austin shooter likely had immigration beef, police say
- Nation Now Black Friday: Man stabs co-worker at Costco
- Shia LaBeouf: I was raped
- Obama immigration move may split faith coalition
- Report: Ryan Knight of 'Real World' dies
- 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' clip debuts
- College student with peanut butter allergy dies
- Protesters at Ferguson-area Target call for boycott
- Buh-bye! 5 awesome movies leaving Netflix
- Tom Brady vs. Aaron Rodgers meeting long overdue
- It's raining naked men: 5 craziest crimes of the week
Apple unveils its Black Friday deals
The 10 best photoshops shaming Colin Kaepernick
We've found 'em: Skip Black Friday lines with these deals
Blasts rattle Egypt amid calls for Islamic uprising
Test Drive: 2015 Toyota Camry nicely updated
49ers CEO apologizes for the team's embarrassing Thanksgiving loss
Black Friday shopping is fast and furious
Too little sleep poses long-term health risks, including Alzheimer's
Episode VII in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opens in theaters December 18, 2015.
With the holiday season in full swing, it's time to get shopping! Take a look at some of this year's hottest toys. Josette D'Ambrosi has more. Video provided by Buzz60
Benedict Cumberbatch, star of 'The Imitation Game' says he would like to get drunk with his character, Alan Turing, along with some other unusual choices. Video shot by Robert Deutsch for USA TODAY.
Few A-listers have flopped as hard and as frequently as the chameleonic Johnny Depp, but he don’t care about no stinkin’ box office bombs! USA TODAY’s Arienne Thompson kinda admires his who-gives-a-(bleep) attitude.
In response to the Ferguson grand jury decision, a group of over 100 demonstrators protested police brutality and called for shoppers to boycott Black Friday inside and around a Missouri Target.
John Leonard's father sent him frantic text messages after seeing a bad wreck less than a mile from his house, not knowing his son was killed in the crash.
Money expert Matt Granite knows how many Black Friday deals will accompany refurbished items this holiday shopping season. So heed his advice and only buy refurbished under these circumstances.
New Orleans natives talk about the pride and history behind one of Louisiana’s most beloved foods, which come into season in November.
Planning to travel for Thanksgiving? If packed planes and gridlocked highways aren’t your idea of good times this holiday season, check out Jennifer Jolly's tried and true travel tech hacks to ease your holiday headaches.
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade brings holiday spirit to NYC.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday pardoned a turkey named Cheese in an annual Thanksgiving tradition at the White House. The President even petted the turkey. His daughters however, declined the invitation.
Owner of a Ferguson antiques shop Jenice Andrews pleaded with looters not to destroy her business in Ferguson, unsuccessfully. She said her dream was shattered, but not broken."
Black Friday protesters gathered to draw attention to low wages and poor working conditions for Walmart employees.
Farmers bring flocks of sheep to the Eiffel Tower in protest against the government's protection of wolves, complaining that they are kill too many animals.
In Matt Granite's continued search to save you time and money, he's created a list of the biggest and most popular Black Friday deals, including iPad and laptop discounts.
Ferguson library stays open, gets outpouring of donations
Slain Austin shooter likely had anti-government motive
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CES 2016 has kicked of in Las Vegas in full force and it seems Huawei has some interesting announcements to make at the big event.
Huawei has a press event scheduled at CES 2016 today, and among the most notable things is an announcement regarding the Mate 8, a new tablet and possibly a new smartwatch.
The Chinese company introduced the high-end Mate 8 back in November and it seems we’re going to find out about the details such as its pricing and availability in the United States.
The company posted two more teasers on their Facebook page hinting at the launch of a new tablet focusing on rhythm and entertainment, as well as a new smartwatch.
This also discards a previous rumor which hinted that Huawei P9 is expected to see the light of the day at CES 2016, but it seems that’s not going to happen. The company may launch it a little later in March, as reported by earlier rumors.
The event will kick off in a few hours, we’ll update you as soon as the Chinese company make the announcements.
Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals
Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.


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By now, you may have heard about the unfolding scandal that has engulfed German automaker Volkswagen. On September 18, the EPA revealed VW had brazenly violated U.S. emissions standards by installing hidden software, called “defeat devices,” in its “clean diesel” models that could detect when cars were being tested for emissions. Pollution controls only worked when the cars were undergoing testing; otherwise, the cars would discharge harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx) up to 35 times over the legal limit.
What did VW do?
On September 22, VW admitted that 11 million of its clean diesel cars sold globally were installed with defeat devices – carefully hidden software intended to deceive environmental regulators. Around 482,000 vehicles in the United States are affected by the problem.
The software in the involved VW diesel models could detect when the vehicles were undergoing regulators’ inspection tests, which include emissions testing. EPA testing practices are known by automakers, and typically involve putting the vehicle on rollers and running it at certain speeds for specific amounts of time. When the software sensed the car was undergoing testing, it would instruct the engine and its NOx scrubber to activate all anti-pollution measures.
The vehicles in question ran normally without these measures.
For a free legal consultation, call 877-562-0000
Why VW did it?
Volkswagen has yet to provide an official explanation for why it cheated emissions regulations, although there is plenty of speculation. As Vox.com points out, you need to understand some basic differences between diesel and gasoline engines to wholly grasp the VW controversy.
The main advantage of diesel is fuel economy: the normal diesel automobile can travel about 30 percent farther than its gasoline equivalent on the same amount of fuel. Diesel cars also produce fewer carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The trade-off for improved mileage, however, is that diesel-burning vehicles produce far more NOx emissions, which are particularly harmful to human health and are a major source of smog.
Unlike Europe, where diesel cars are far more popular, the United States has imposed much stricter regulations since the 1970s on these sorts of emissions, helping to explain why diesel hasn’t caught on here up until recently. However, since the Obama administration began ramping up fuel-economy standards in 2009, the premium placed on better mileage has increased. Advancements in engines and emissions-control technologies, along with lower-sulfur fuel have combined with these new efficiency rules to give automakers incentive to pursue “clean diesel” vehicles.
You’ve probably seen the television commercial with the sarcastic grandmothers whipping around a test course in a diesel VW Golf, the selling point being that the automaker’s new diesels debunk old wives’ tales about being slow and underperforming.
However, a problem with clean diesel technologies, including NOx emissions controls, is they tend to degrade performance by making engines run hotter and wear out faster, while also reducing mileage – a key selling point of diesel. Emissions controls can also negatively affect acceleration and torque, negating the sort of claims VW makes in the aforementioned ad.
Ultimately, Volkswagen may have decided to cheat emissions regulations because it wasn’t able to deliver on diesel cars that were simultaneously “clean,” preserved fuel economy, and achieved desired performance – or at least not at VW’s desired profit margin.
How was VW caught?
An independent group called the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) conducted on-road emissions tests on Volkswagen’s clean diesel Jetta and Passat, designed to mimic the laboratory tests run by the EPA. This real-world testing showed a large discrepancy from the lab-based emissions figures for these cars. EPA and California regulators approached VW in May 2014 and ordered the automaker to investigate and fix the problem, which it claimed it did. Again, laboratory and real-world testing figures did not match up, at which point EPA regulators turned up the heat on VW – threatening to withhold approval on the company’s 2016 diesel line. Perhaps realizing the gig was up, VW admitted to the EPA the existence of defeat devices in its clean diesel cars.
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VW scandal highlights testing problems
Volkswagen’s use of defeat devices to dupe emissions regulators isn’t the first incident of its type – in fact, it’s not even a first for VW. In 1974, VW settled with the EPA for $120,000 for failing to properly disclose information about two devices that changed emissions controls in about 25,000 1973 models. VW admitted no wrongdoing in that case. More recently, in the 1990s, General Motors, Ford, and the American Honda Company have all had to pay millions of dollars to resolve similar cases.
These recurring scandals are at least partially attributable to the fact that regulators’ tests are easy to predict (they occur in laboratory settings and look for certain specific variables), and therefore are easier to game. The predictability of these tests is also supplemented by automakers’ development of increasingly advanced software that can fine tune and control engines. These factors work together to give some manufacturers a motivation to cheat the system.
Thus, VW’s current predicament probably won’t be the last of its type. Indeed, revelations from the current scandal have watchdogs and regulators now looking at other clean diesel vehicles.
Bloomberg reported September 24 that BMW is now under threat, too, after a diesel version of its X3 model had been found to exceed European emissions regulations. Given the drawbacks of clean diesel technology on performance, it is likely (if not probable) that other automakers have engaged in similar behavior as VW.
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Volkswagen is expected to recall the following affected diesel models:
- VW Golf 2.0L TDI (2010-2015)
- VW Jetta 2.0L TDI (2009-2015)
- VW Beetle 2.0L TDI (2012-2015)
- VW Passat 2.0L TDI (2012-2015)
- Audi A3 2.0L TDI (2010-2015)
At present, VW has not yet started mailing owners notices to take their cars into the dealership. It isn’t clear at this point what VW’s plan will be to fix the problem, although it could be as simple as modifying the fraudulent software. The EPA says affected vehicles do not pose a safety risk and remain legal to drive.
The sale of 2015 and 2016 VW diesel models has been halted for the time being.
The next step
Per EPA rules, Volkswagen could be fined up to $37,000 per vehicle sold with the problem software: this could amount to a total fine of up to $18 billion. Additionally, the company already has set aside $7.3 billion to spend on fixes and compensation.
Cory Watson Attorneys believes that manufacturers need to be held responsible when they intentionally mislead regulators and the public; to do otherwise gives them an undeniable incentive to cheat in future situations – with potentially fatal consequences.
Volkswagen thought it could outsmart the laws of our country, and breached the trust of its consumers for years. A lot of people bought the German automaker’s supposedly “clean” diesel cars out of an earnest desire to do their small part to help the environment. Volkswagen exploited their customers’ good intentions by selling them a false bill of goods.
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A fintech firm, be it B2B or B2C, raising a new, impressive round of funding in the Indian startup ecosystem is nowhere a new or surprising development.
If we specifically talk about B2B lending, in the past few months itself several startups including InCred, LendingKart, and CreditVidya have raised around $75 million in equity and debt capital altogether.
Capital Float has also been scouting for fresh investors after its talks with Naspers had fizzled out.
Indifi, an industry specific B2B lender’s latest round of funding is yet another testimony to this. The Alok Mittal-led firm, as per its latest RoC filings with Ministry of Corporate Affairs, has raised a $21.32 million (Rs 145 crore) Series C round led by CDC Group.
Existing investors Omidyar Network, Elevar Equity, and Accel India Ventures are also participating in the round. The company has also onboarded a new investor – Fair Finance Fund LLC. The brand name of this LLC is uncertain yet.
CDC Group picked up 71,08,870 Series C CCPS and 100 equity shares each at a price of Rs 140.67, adding up to an investment worth $14.71 million (Rs 100 crore) in the company.
Omidyar and Fair Finance Fund invested $1.53 million (Rs 10.39 crore) via 7,38,910 CCPS of same class each. Accel poured in $3.41 million (Rs 23.22 crore) and Elevar contributed Rs 99.1 lakhs through this round.
The 2015 founded firm last raised $10 million in a Series B round in December 2016.
Indifi is a B2B lending platform that provides term loan, line of credit, invoice discounting, and merchant cash advancing services especially customized for companies belonging to travel, e-commerce, hotel, retail, and restaurant segments.
The firm even partnered with Swiggy in October 2017 to provide loans to partner restaurants.
The company intends to use this funds for expansion, and modernization of existing business, development of infrastructure for future growth, capex, working capital requirements, and repayment of debts and other general corporate objectives in the foreseeable future, reveals the same filings by the company.
On the other hand, a tweet thread released by Unicon Baba in mid-July mentions that right before this round – the company has seen a minor change in the top management.
According to the same tweet, apart from this equity round, a debt round worth $70 million is also on its way. This round is apparently being funded by Northern Arc Capital, Manappuram Finance, Fullerton, and an unknown UK based bank.
However, any documents verifying this is yet to be filed with MCA.
Entrackr had sent detailed queries to the Co-founder and CEO of the firm – Alok Mittal. He declined to comment on the same.


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PARIS — In a move to ensure future supplies of the leather used to make its quilted handbags, Chanel has acquired French tannery Bodin-Joyeux, a specialist in supple lambskin.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but Chanel said the tannery would continue to supply its existing customers, said to include such luxury brands as Hermès and Louis Vuitton.
Founded in 1860, Bodin-Joyeux today produces about 500,000 skins annually and employs 100 people in Levroux, a town in central France.
“We use more than half of what they produce, so it’s an important supplier for us,” Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion, explained. “The idea is to ensure the continuity of the company.”
He noted it’s the first time Chanel has invested in a supplier so far upstream, speaking to the rarity of the enterprise and the raw material.
Chanel acquired Bodin-Joyeux from the Bodin family and said Frédéric Bodin would remain as president of the firm, originally a specialist in parchment and one of the last remaining makers of the stiff, thin skins, which are used primarily in bookmaking.
Chanel has purchased what’s known as “plongé” lambskin from the firm for almost three decades to realize its classic quilted flap bags, first designed in 1955 and retailing today for roughly 3,000 euros, or $4,075 at current exchange. Pavlovsky noted it takes three or four lambskins to create a handbag, depending on the size.
Bodin-Joyeux controls the entire tanning process, from beam house operations through to dyeing, enabling it to deliver a broad spectrum of colors, he added.
Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld are expected to showcase some luxurious quilted bags made with Bodin-Joyeux leathers on Tuesday when it presents its latest metiers d’art collection of luxury ready-to-wear for pre-fall in Dallas.
Pavlovsky noted Chanel is keen to ensure savoir-faire and production capacities around its iconic products. Last year, the firm acquired Scottish cashmere expert Barrie knitwear, maker of Chanel’s bicolored cardigans and other sweaters for more than 25 years.
The transaction is the latest signal that Europe’s big luxury groups are keen to secure suppliers of the rare raw materials and technical know-how needed to make their high-margin products.
EXCLUSIVE: @tomford is opening its first-ever beauty store. The boutique, which opens November 20 in London’s Covent Gardens, was designed with the over-the-top glam Ford is known for. Read the full story on WWD.com, link in bio. #wwdbeauty #wwdnews (📷: Simon Wagner) #TomFordBeauty
New York-based DJ @harleyvnewton threw a party to celebrate the holiday collection of her dress and pajama line @hvn at the Ladurée Beverly Hills. It Girls @katebosworth, @rashidajones and more joined in on the fun, which included cocktails, croque monsieur sandwiches and a photo booth. #wwdfashion (📷: Owen Kolasinski/BFA.com)
For the holidays, @Burberry partnered with 20-year-old artist @blondeymccoy on a series of three outdoor murals in downtown Manhattan. The murals are McCoy’s interpretation of a Christmas eve party, the idea of charity and the spirit of family. His third mural, pictured here, is the most personal. The image depicts McCoy’s grandparents and father in London’s Trafalgar Square in the Seventies. “My work often features lots of sentimental objects.” #wwdeye
For spring 2018, designers applied bold colors and cartoonish motifs on everything from sneakers and belts to key chains. See all the top men’s accessories trends on WWD.com. #wwdtrends (📷: George Chinsee; Prop Styling by @rnasti; Market Editor: @luiscampuzano)
The @dior-sponsored @guggenheim international gala pre-party has a history of drawing cool-girl musical acts to serenade the crowd –– and last night was no exception. @haimtheband performed songs both new and old, and lured a star-studded audience with the likes of Rebecca Hall, Kate Mara, Mamoudou Athie and more. #wwdeye (📷: @lexieblacklock)
In a partnership between the @metopera and the @englishnationalopera, “Marnie” was born. The opera, with costumes sponsored by @mrporterlive, is an adaptation of the 1961 thriller by Winston Graham. Arianne Phillips, who created the costumes, is no rookie: She’s styled Madonna for her tours and created costumes for a myriad of films in the past. Read WWD’s interview with Phillips, where she talks about her inspiration for the opera’s costumes on WWD.com #wwdfashion
@barneysnyc took a different approach to their holiday windows this year. Instead of Christmas decor, Barneys tapped @thehaasbrothers to tell a story of positivity, gratitude and inclusivity via heartwarming silliness and humor. “It’s about kids and it’s about coming together and being family and loving each other,” said Simon Haas. #wwdfashion (📷: @joshuascottphoto)
Beauty influencer @kandeejohnson makes her foray into hair care with a collaboration with @ogx_beauty — making it the first time that OGX has teamed up for a product creation. The collab includes shampoos and conditioners in three scents. At 39 and a mom, Johnson is a different profile than the emerging social media stars, but is considered one of the pioneers of the digital beauty influencer world. Read WWD’s interview with her on wwd.com, including the strangest beauty product she’s ever tried #wwdbeauty


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Sal Khan and his Khan Academy, already a disruptive force bringing open-source learning to students worldwide (not to mention a hero of my school-age kids), and Hyatt Hotels, the longstanding, growing group of hospitality industry brands, today announced a multi-year partnership to bring learning to Hyatt colleagues and communities around the world.
Indian-American hotelier Sant Chatwal-led Hampshire Hotels Management and its partner Castlewood Group plan to jointly set up 20 new luxury hotels across Asia in the next 10 years at an estimated investment of $2.5 billion. The partnership will open the first property under the Dream Hotels brand of Hampshire Hotels Management at Phuket in Thailand next month.
Leading Indian hotel group, The Park Hotels, have entered into management services and marketing agreement with Sahara Palace Marrakech.
the first Gateway branded hotel in the city of Pune and the 28th Gateway hotel in the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces' portfolio. It is also a first-of-its-kind joint venture between PSC Pacific, a Paranjape Schemes (Construction) Ltd, and Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces.


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Data and using it to deliver insights is the key to building the new economy according to Adelaide entrepreneur Kirk Drage who is a passionate advocate for start-ups.
In his presentation he told students that the employment and business opportunities of the future will come from disruptive innovation.
“It’s no longer sufficient to just sustain innovation whereby companies simply respond to customer feedback, he told the 60 Masters of Science in Information Technology students.
“Successful companies must embrace data and digitize. The jobs in the new economy will be in data analytics, digital transformation, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Kirk is the Adelaide City Entrepreneur-in-Residence and CEO of Leapsheep, working with business achieve hyper growth in the New Economy.


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Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade-book publisher, will launch PRH South East Asia in 2019. The announcement was made on the eve of the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair. The new publisher will be based in Singapore with a mandate to discover and publish local and international voices across English-language adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction formats for Singapore and Malaysia, as well as from Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei, and Myanmar. It will start with a list of about 50 titles a year. According to PRH, the establishment of PRH South East Asia marks the extension and expansion of its commitment to local publishing in Asia, which is currently represented by its Penguin Random House North Asia and Penguin Random House India companies.
Markus Dohle, Penguin Random House’s worldwide CEO said, “We are pleased to announce the launch of our Singapore-based Penguin Random House South East publishing operation, which joins our thriving imprints in India and China and our growing English-language publishing programs worldwide.”
Gaurav Shrinagesh, chief executive officer, Penguin Random House India and South East Asia, will oversee PRH South East Asia’s company, which currently is named Penguin Books Singapore. Shrinagesh said, “These are exciting times for book lovers, as publishing transcends geographies and languages to open access to literature from all over the world. PRH’s expansion into South East will broaden our audience reach and local consumer insights to create publishing opportunities to further develop our editorial portfolio by supporting local authors in emerging markets and building their audiences.” As its first hire, Shrinagesh announced the appointment of Nora Nazerene Abu Bakar as executive editor, effective November 2018, reporting to him. She will be responsible for building the local publishing list, managing acquisitions, and author relationships, with close retailer and marketing support initially from PRH India. The publishing house said that “her network of relationships and keen knowledge of the region will be key in establishing a publishing presence for Penguin Random House in Southeast Asia.”


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Mall of America expects 200,000 Black Friday shoppers, will have 180 stores open at midnight
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The Mall of America says more than 180 stores in the Bloomington megamall will open at midnight on Black Friday. That's about 35 percent of the approximately 520 stores that are at the mall. And the mall expects about 200,000 Black Friday shoppers this year.
The midnight opening time is three hours later than when Target (NYSE: TGT) stores will open on Thanksgiving, and four hours later than Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Sears and other retailers will open. Target opened at midnight in 2011, and said it is opening earlier this year to help families "create an after-dinner shopping event."
Last year was the first time that big retailers, including Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY), opened at midnight on Black Friday.
>Click here to read about what some shoppers thought about shopping at midnight instead of the traditional early-morning Black Friday opening times. The time change brought a lot of new Black Friday shoppers to the malls â€” young men. You can also see photos of what Mall of America looked like at last year's midnight opening.
Here are some of the Mall of America stores that will open at midnight on Black Friday:
Ed Stych assembles a daily stream of best-in-class information for entrepreneurs and top managers that appear in The Business Journals' national How-To blog.
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This news release rather thinly describes a study designed to demonstrate whether chemicals naturally found in soy-based foods and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and kale are linked to reduced side effects of hormone-related treatments among breast cancer survivors.
Although the release ably describes some of the reasons the dietary intervention might work and how, it offers no numbers or measurements to support the conclusion that these foods are associated with fewer menopausal symptoms such as fatigue and hot flashes. Nor does it describe how dietary data were collected, and thus how reliable they are. While it aptly cautions breast cancer patients not to start a soy-rich diet until further research is done, it doesn’t say why caution is recommend. Nor does it describe just how much of these foods might be considered beneficial or harmful in a normal diet.
So-called “chemoprotective” or “chemopreventive” components such as sulforaphanes found in broccoli sprouts and in soy products have for decades been the subject of studies designed to link them to lower prostate and other cancer rates and to other health benefits. If in fact dietary interventions can be shown to reduce common side effects of breast cancer treatments — particularly those that affect estrogen — women might be more interested in long-term therapies that suppress female hormones, and also greatly improve the quality of their lives. Thus, studies like this one are likely to make news, but readers need information that offers context, and the potential downsides as well as upsides.
While dietary interventions often are considered inexpensive, they are not free. The cost of adding cruciferous veggies and soy products to the shopping lists of potentially millions of women is worthy of a mention.
Beyond vague descriptions of benefits such as “fewer reports of menopausal symptoms,” the news release does not offer any meaningful measure of what the patient’s symptoms were at the beginning of the study and how much symptoms were reduced among those who ate “more” of the soy and cruciferous vegetable diets. It also isn’t clear on which menopausal symptoms were decreased.
The release responsibly devotes some attention to harms. It notes that in preclinical animal studies, “biologically active compounds present in both soy and cruciferous vegetables cause breast cancer cells to grow, but have opposite effects in animals that consume these compounds well before cancer is diagnosed and continue consuming them during and after cancer treatments.”
It also cautions that breast cancer patients shouldn’t start eating soy now if they haven’t consumed it previously, noting that more research is needed to understand potential risks.
Numerous studies have examined the impact of soy-based foods on women with breast cancer — with conflicting results — and we expect this debate will continue. Some recent studies suggest that eating soy, benefits women with breast cancer, particularly at the low rate it is consumed in the American diet.
Readers really would have benefited from some numbers in this release, particularly how the researchers measured diets, the range of reduced symptoms, and the number of women who experienced what range of symptoms and symptom reduction. None of that is included, nor would readers with cancer learn enough about the study population (the age range of the study participants, what stage of cancer, kinds of therapy, etc.) to make any sense of how or whether the findings relate in some way to their own experiences.
We did appreciate the framing of the headline and lede which states soy is “associated” with reduced symptoms. The release avoids overstating the benefit — something we see all too often in news releases.
No mongering. But more detail on the number of women who experience menopausal symptoms as side effects from cancer treatments beyond saying they “often” do would help put the problem in context.
There was disclosure of the funding sources, and the release tells us that the study authors had no financial conflicts of interest. Good job.
The news release could have noted whether or not most women’s symptoms resolve over time, and whether there are non-dietary means of reducing or coping with symptoms. There was no mention of any of the existing alternatives for helping reduce menopausal symptoms including medications and lifestyle changes.
It’s understood that soy and cruciferous vegetables are found in basically all grocery stores so we’ll rate this Not Applicable.
However, there needs to be more recognition that people who live in “food deserts” across the country — urban areas with limited access to affordable and fresh vegetables — cannot so easily access healthy food.
The release does a pretty good job of explaining “what’s new” about the study, particularly as it relates to the study population. We can’t be sure how generalizable the results are to all breast cancer patients.
The authors didn’t use unjustifiable language and did mention that more research is needed to confirm their study findings.


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Standard Chartered Women in Tech Incubator awards 5 businesses with KES 1.2 Million
The Standard Chartered Bank Women in Tech program has today awarded 5 participating businesses KES 1.2 million each in the culmination of the 5th cohort of the incubation program. The five businesses: Keyara Botanics, Learning Differently, Aurora Health Systems, Sello, and Digipath received their prize money in a graduation ceremony presided by the Chair of Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), Flora Mutahi; Standard Chartered Bank Kenya CEO, Kariuki Ngari; and @iBizAfrica Incubation Centre- Strathmore University Director, Dr. Joseph Sevilla. The event was attended by leading Kenyan women entrepreneurs Wandia Gichuru- CEO of Vivo Fashion Group; Winnie Ngumi- CEO Space and Style Ltd, and Joyce Mbaya – Founder & CEO, Zydii (WiT Alumni).
The 5th cohort of the Women in Tech program was launched in March 2022, attracting 207 applicants, 10 of whom were chosen to participate in the incubation program. Of these, 9 companies successfully underwent incubation for 3 months receiving training, coaching, and mentorship by @iBizAfrica-Strathmore University network of industry experts, Strathmore faculty, business leaders, experienced mentors, and professionals. This culminated into a rigorous and transparent pitching process for the KES 1.2 million ($10,000) business funding.
Speaking during the event, Kariuki Ngari, CEO & MD, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya & East Africa said, “as a bank, we are encouraged by the resilience and innovation of these women owned businesses and will continue to support the program as part of our Futuremakers initiative which aims to equip women with skills that help them earn, learn and grow. We are proud of this year’s winners and look forward to seeing their continuous growth and innovation even beyond Africa.”
The funding recipients were picked after a rigorous judging process undertaken by accomplished industry experts in both private and public sectors, seasoned entrepreneurs and academic thought leaders on solution innovation, availability of market opportunity, and social impact in Kenya, among other criteria.
Adding to this, Dr. Joseph Sevilla, Director @iLabAfrica and @iBizAfrica Research, Innovation and Incubation Centre, Strathmore University said, “Since 2017, we have received over 1000 applications for the Women in Tech Incubator Program, reflecting the need and demand not only for funding but also for mentorship, advisory, coaching, and networking opportunities for women-led businesses. The results of the program, which include increased revenue, team effectiveness, and adoption of efficient business models speak to the long-term impact and necessity for the program. Not only have these businesses generated increased revenue, but they have also helped to solve some of the most urgent needs in our society through technology. We are proud of the 9 businesses that have gone through extensive training and capacity building in the last 3 months and look forward to seeing continuous growth and impact from their businesses. We look forward to continuing to provide support for the businesses through our extensive network at @iBizAfrica and to our long-standing partnership with Standard Chartered.’’
This year’s cohort was geared towards women-owned businesses that incorporated global trends including emerging technologies, sustainability, and digital economy accelerants. Other selection criteria included: –
- A female-led start up business that solves social economic needs in Kenya
- A company that is tech-enabled or leveraging emerging technologies
- A business model with a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) alignment
- Clearly defined roles and a balanced skill set (team lead, business development, product development and marketing).
Profiles of Winning Companies
- Keyara Botanics:A skincare label that creates products that take care of your skin naturally with raw materials sourced from African farmers which are rich and of healing quality.
- Learning Differently Limited:A learning intervention platform tailor-made to support students/learners with learning disabilities. The courses/training equips parents, teachers, and caregivers with practical learnings that they can incorporate to support their learners.
- Sello Designs:A social business that designs and makes sustainable, durable, and timeless bags using leather and kitenge fabric.
- Aurora Health Systems:A wearable medical device that uses wireless technology to continuously monitor heart rate and abnormal ECG findings. Data is generated in real-time and linked to smartphones for a period of 21 days thus preventing acute cardiac conditions.
- DigiPath Africa:A Digital Marketing agency that helps organizations and individuals navigate their way online and take their products and services to existing/ new customers using digital marketing.
Futuremakers by Standard Chartered
Women in Tech program is part of the Bank’s community engagement strategy, Futuremakers by Standard Chartered. The bank is working with disadvantaged young people – especially girls and persons with disabilities to gain new skills and expertise to improve their chances of getting a job or starting their own business. Futuremakers empowers the next generation to learn, earn and grow by focusing on education, employability and entrepreneurship. The Women in Tech program is a partnership with @iBizAfrica – Strathmore University Incubation Centre.
Each year, the program trains more than 10 small and medium businesses leveraging on technology by offering mentorship, advisory, coaching, networking opportunities, access to seed capital, and investor forums that help mould their businesses to international standards. 30 start-ups have participated to date, and 15 have been awarded one million each in seed funding. 41 businesses have so far gone through the incubation process with the first four cohorts attracting 1,150 applications.
What’s your story? We’d like to hear it. Contact us via firstname.lastname@example.org.


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The PlayStation 4 has been a huge success for Sony becoming the second-best-selling console ever. Sony is looking to move that into success for its next generation.
New PlayStation boss Jim Ryan says that the company’s main goal is to move the community from the current generation to the PlayStation 5 more quickly.
In an interview with Games Industry, Ryan explained that Sony is preparing for a major launch next year, and the company wants to transition its PS4 customers to the next version as fast as possible.
He said that these are the gamers who are engaged and passionate about PlayStation that we’ve not even seen in the previous generations.
He added, As we move towards the next-generation in 2020, one of our tasks is to take that community and transition it from PS4 to PS 5 at a pace that we’ve never delivered on before.
It’s still unclear that how Sony plans to move the players along to the new console or this will impact its stated plans of releasing games cross-platform.
Ryan went on to point out that the developers and the publishers have given good feedback on the PS5’s development tools, something that was a particular issue with the PS3.
Gamers who upgrade from the PS4 to the PS5 version will want to keep the games they already own and play them on the new machine.
Ryan’s comment doesn’t specifically address the backward compatibility matter, one that’s about to be fully explained by Sony. But there’s no way Sony could secure a massive transition to PS5 without this feature onboard.
Finally, to achieve the massive PS5 adoption that Sony wants, the company will need to launch the console in as many markets as fast as possible, and Ryan’s comments indicate that Sony is working on a more cohesive strategy for launching the new console globally, while also catering to the various needs of different regions of the world
This comes as Sony reshuffles its management to prepare for the next generation, which includes a more globalized strategy.


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Red Berry Coffee Bar changed hands last week when a local fan of the artisan coffee shop stepped up to take over the business. Los Altos resident Stacy Savides Sullivan presides over Red Berry as the new owner, but founder Jeff Hampton is sticking around to help her learn the craft of coffee culture.
Sullivan said she hadn’t been pursuing a destiny of serial small-business ownership, but when Red Berry announced its impending closure in August, she didn’t want to lose the community resource she’d enjoyed thoroughly herself.
In addition to the eponymous coffee bar, the 145 Main St. space has included enough tables to provide some work space upstairs and out front, and many local residents scheduled small meetings and meetups over coffee, using Red Berry as that “third place” outside the home and office that now – during COVID times – seems like a distant but fondly remembered, dream.
“Bottom line, our family and friends just would not want to see Red Berry close down,” Sullivan said. “It’s been a go-to place for our family and friends in terms of meeting with people, hanging out, studying, enjoying it as a second office at times, enjoying the great food and coffee – that was it.”
Sullivan, who has worked at Google, now Alphabet, in people operations since 1999, focuses on the organization’s culture but said she likes to seize on opportunities to try new endeavors in her own life as well. She opened the Sweet Shop on Los Altos Avenue as a family-friendly neighborhood hangout in 2009.
“Running these small-scale enterprises, in general, I think they are really different than working in high-tech, but there are so many similarities around creating and providing an awesome culture and atmosphere where customers feel welcome, and high-quality products,” she said.
Hampton said he will be working with the coffee bar as an adviser, and customers will see many familiar faces on the premises. In addition to the current staff who are sticking around, a former barista is returning, Hampton said.
“We’re pretty happy about it; we were right at the edge where we thought we might have to shut the place down,” Hampton said of having been found by Sullivan.
He said a new round of lease negotiations this summer were the final “why now?” to depart the business he had begun in 2014.
Hampton and Sullivan are actively recruiting a new manager who can be the day-to-day anchor of fancy espresso on Main Street. Sullivan said that finding a counterpart she can fully trust to run the coffee bar is her priority for the near term, perhaps even someone who has already worked in Los Altos.
Preserving the vibe
Red Berry uses a rotating variety of coffee roasters, many local, to supply beans for its single varietal espresso and pour-over coffees. Sullivan said her intent is to continue Red Berry as she has loved it, not changing its essence but being open to gradual innovations in areas like food in the future. She said she’s “not a coffee guru,” more an appreciative audience for a deftly steamed oat milk latte, but that’s why baristas handle the technical prowess.
Because local coffee roasters rotate their beans through the shop, Red Berry’s baristas get constant feedback and skills sharing from the coffee savants who come through with the beans. Training staff on what parameters to use with each new bean provides the coffee roasters with assurance of a quality end product, and provides endless experimentation with critical feedback for the baristas, Hampton said.
“That’s always one of the things I like most,” Hampton said of surprising new customers. “A guy comes in off the street and has a cappuccino and the look on his face ... is absolutely gorgeous.”
New to Red Berry’s style of indie coffee? If you already enjoy drinking fancy coffee, try the Gibraltar at Red Berry. The 5.5-ounce drink pairs espresso with a small amount of milk that has been steamed to a lower temperature than in a cappuccino or a latte, bringing out the full-fat sweetness of the dairy. If you’re a novice in the world of artisanal espresso and would like training wheels, Hampton suggests a vanilla latte – comfortingly familiar, but at Red Berry made with not-too-sweet house-made syrup and those intriguing, often local, beans.
“It’s a tough time to start a business; I’m going into it with my eyes wide open. We’re in the red right now like most people, and I hope we can have the strong business that starts to come back after COVID,” she said. “It’s not a good time to buy a business, but I’m always up for a challenge – and this is a positive thing to do during a really rough year.”
For more information, visit redberrycoffeebar.com.


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Consumers around the world are rushing into the embrace of the smartphone market, according to new figures from eMarketer on mobile usage worldwide. By the end of 2014, we expect 1.76 billion people to own and use smartphones monthly, up more than 25% over 2013.
Just under one-quarter of the world’s total population will use smartphones this year—and by 2017, more than one-third of all people around the globe will be smartphone users. eMarketer’s estimates for smartphone users account for the number of individuals who own and use smartphones, regardless of the number of smartphones each of those individuals might have.
The total figure does not tell the entire story of global smartphone usage, and advanced handsets have already saturated more than half the population in many countries—or will in the next few years.
“By 2015, we project that 15 countries worldwide will have seen more than half their populations adopt smartphones,” said Monica Peart, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “The embrace of this technology among the approximately 500 million people in these countries who will be using smart devices by the end of next year will have a significant influence on media usage, ecommerce and marketing.”
Consumers in Asia-Pacific will account for more than half of all smartphone users this year, eMarketer estimates, totaling 951.0 million. South Korea is the world leader in terms of smartphone penetration, and these devices were in the hands of more than half its residents as early as 2012. Australia followed closely behind, becoming the only other country in Asia-Pacific to have more than half its population using smartphones in 2013; this year, Japan will reach the 50% tipping point as well. China will not reach majority-smartphone status until 2018; however, its smartphone user base is already the largest in the world by far—totaling 521.7 million this year, eMarketer estimates. Other emerging markets in Asia-Pacific will not reach 50% smartphone penetration during our forecast period.
Western Europe—the region with the second-largest number of smartphone users, with 196.6 million in 2014, eMarketer estimates—saw three Nordic countries reach 50% penetration last year, and this year, the Netherlands and UK will join them. In 2015, a raft of other countries, including the rest of the EU-5, will make the majority smartphone jump.
Like the UK, the US will also reach majority-smartphone penetration among its population this year, a major milestone for two of the most advanced internet markets in the world. The US remains the second-largest smartphone market worldwide, behind China, totaling 163.9 million users in 2014, eMarketer estimates. The US will retain that status until 2016, when India will take over the second spot. Canada will be soon to follow, with smartphone users surpassing 50% of its population in 2015.
eMarketer bases all of its forecasts on a multipronged approach that focuses on both worldwide and local trends in the economy, technology and population, along with company-, product-, country- and demographic-specific trends, and trends in specific consumer behaviors. We analyze quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of research firms, government agencies, media outlets and company reports, weighting each piece of information based on methodology and soundness.
In addition, every element of each eMarketer forecast fits within the larger matrix of all of its forecasts, with the same assumptions and general framework used to project figures in a wide variety of areas. Regular re-evaluation of each forecast means those assumptions and framework are constantly updated to reflect new market developments and other trends.
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2019 Technology Drivers Revealed in Dynamic EMS Report
A recent report from UK’s Dynamic EMS highlights the ups and downs within the supply chain and component manufacturing during 2018. From consistent acquisitions and mergers to an evergreen political environment and increased technology, the report confirms 2018 consisted of more positive than negative outcomes and predicts trends to look out for during 2019.
A key factor identified in 2018 that will impact 2019 is the involvement with three Chinese companies, YMTC, Innotron (Hefei Chang Xin) and JHICC’s trial production of DRAMs and NAND flash. It’s reported mass production to China’s first domestic chip will occur well into the first half of the year.
EMS landscaping was confirmed with a 5 percent growth in the European regions, based on the 2017 numbers. Dynamic EMS confirmed a total of 6 percent growth in revenue paired with consistent development and customer market wins.
Technology such as Fintech, IOT, BIOT, Augmented Reality, AI, and other automation initiatives are predicted to continue demanding increased development and advancement for operations. Additionally, the company outlined 3D component printing and trade tariffs with China on the forefront for the future of 2019. More specifically, the company will carefully watch China’s involvement as a component supplier.
Source: Dynamic EMS


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Machinery Planet (www.machineryplanet.ae) has launched a digital marketplace to facilitate business for heavy equipment owners and buyers in the GCC
Machinery Planet is a leading online classified advertising service for selling, buying and renting heavy equipment online. It stands as a hyphen between the buyers and sellers of heavy equipment, allowing them to interact, discuss, negotiate and close transactions in a timely, professional, transparent and cost-effective manner.
Machinery Planet aims to increase business between local and global heavy equipment companies with markets including Asia, Africa, Middle East and Europe by helping them interact on a single platform. Sellers have their own personalized accounts where they have access to a dealer page to showcase their machinery, share equipment listings thereby generating genuine leads easily and efficiently without hassle.
The Managing Director of Machinery Planet, Mohammed Hashmi, who has 30+ years of experience in the construction industry in the GCC says "It’s difficult to search for heavy machinery in the region, buyers have to call various sellers, wait for their responses and eventually compare excel sheets to choose from. This is a very time-consuming task. On the other side, heavy machinery owners find it difficult to market their presence online.”
Machinery Planet serves as a single platform for heavy machinery buyers to search and find their desired equipment without taking the hassle of contacting multiple sellers through traditional channels (of email and phone calls) and asking them for quotes. Buyers can view the details of machinery required and contact various sellers instantly.
Machinery Planet has received great initial response from stakeholders across various industries which deal with heavy machinery. The platform has seen visitors from UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, United States, Kuwait, Oman, Kenya, and from many more countries.
With the consumer behavior transitioning to online searches, it is foreseeable for sellers to market online to ensure continued growth. Google search history shows a growth of 90% in search volumes for construction and heavy machinery which further provides assurance of this transition from traditional classifieds to online classifieds.
Machinery Planet, www.machineryplanet.ae is an online marketplace targeting the 20 billion MEA heavy machinery market to make the process of searching, buying, renting heavy equipment easier, through one aggregated platform. Machinery Planet currently has more than 2000 machinery advertised on its portal. The team has already facilitated various transactions and is looking to expand rapidly in the UAE and GCC.


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On November 1st, Google started rolling out the November 2021 software update to its devices. The update is available for the Pixel 3a and later devices. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL were unheard of receiving this latest software update from the company.
According to reports, the November software update is about security fixes and some Pixel-specific non-security issues. Some Pixel devices were facing notification issues; no buzz with the notification message. Google fixes that with the latest update. The latest software update also covered some other audio issues.
The November software update also fixes an issue with wireless charging. It also improves the stability of certain third-party apps, auto-brightness response, transition animation performance in the Overview screen, Picture-in-Picture media playback, and connection stability.
This latest software update also fixes incorrect app icon issues, the way the keyboard overlaps certain apps and some issues with UI elements.
Not all of these fixes are for every Pixel device. These are the major issues Google is currently rolling out with the November 2021 software update. For a complete list of fixes, you may check “Google Android Pixel Security Update – Nov 2021” and “Android Security Bulletin—November 2021“.
As always, the rollout will start in phases. So if your device didn’t get it right away, you may have to wait for a little to get the updates. You may also keep on checking your device’s settings for the available updates.
It has been a long time since I joined Research Snipers. Though I have been working as a part-time tech-news writer, it feels good to be part of the team. Besides that, I am building a finance-based blog, working as a freelance content writer/blogger, and a video editor.


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Earlier this month, the Finnish Market Court ruled Arla Foods may no longer use the term 'Skyr' to market or sell products in Finland.
In the October 6 ruling, Arla was ordered to remove its Skyr from Finnish shelves by the end of the week.
Any violations of the Market Court ruling are punishable by a fine of €500,000.
The Finnish Market Court found in favour of Icelandic dairy cooperative, Mjólkursamsalan (MS Iceland Dairies), which sells Skyr in a number of markets, including Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
It argued that 'Skyr' is a trademark it owns, and not a generic product name.
"The Swedish dairy company Arla is no longer allowed to sell dairy products under the name ‘Skyr’ in Finland. The Swedish company has been selling products labelled Skyr in Finland for some time, marketing them as ‘the Icelandic super yogurt’,” MS Iceland Dairies said in a statement.
“A Finnish court has agreed with the Icelandic dairy MC that ‘Skyr’ is not generic product type but a trademark owned by MS.”
Speaking with DairyReporter, Outi Fagerlund, communications director, Arla Finland, said the company shocked by the Market Court ruling.
"We were surprised by the decision because Skyr is a generic term and in other countries the product is sold by different producers," she said.
The company - formerly Arla Ingman - is yet to decide whether it will appeal the ruling, Fagerlund added.
"We haven’t made a decision yet," she said. "Our lawyers are going through the decision. Then we’ll decide what to do."


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This Summit has ended, but you can follow all past and present posts about Google Analytics Summits on our GA Summit specific page.
Google announced today at the Google Analytics Summit a new approach to analytics – known as Universal Analytics – that will allow tracking across multiple devices and platforms including computers, mobile devices, point of service, game systems, and kiosks. This approach will also start using a single user tracking ID and provide offline tracking capabilities. The goal being to provide users with information across platforms and refocus digital analytics around the user.
With the updated platform centered around the user, the previous four _utm cookies will now be consolidated into one single _ga cookie that will allow a user to be tracked across their device. That combined with new offline conversion tracking capabilities that can import goals and other data via your current offline tools will finally allow marketers to close the gap between offline and online conversions.
For example, a user using a mobile device to browse a product who then purchases that product later on the site will start showing up as one unique visitor and customers who browse online but then come into the store to convert can now be tracked calculated along online conversions. There will even be the ability to upload customer demographics into GA that provide dimension widening capabilities.
In a nutshell, it’s been a bit year for Google Analytics and it’s going to be an even bigger year for Universal Analytics. Stay tuned as we provide more information as it unfolds.


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So says this long and ponderous profile story on the future of newspapers in The New Yorker, drawing comparisons of HuffingtonPost being the new incarnation of the American newspaper, online. On HuffPo, the story says the site has about $11 million at its disposal (that's the amount it has raised till date, and probably spent a big chunk of it; not necessarily at its disposal), and the site is poised to break even on ad revenues of somewhere between $6 million to $10 million this year ( HuffingtonPost co-founder Ken Lerer said in October last year that HuffPo is "now breaking even some months.").
"What most impresses advertisers--and depresses newspaper-company executives--is the site's growth numbers. In the past thirty days the site's unique visitors jumped to more than eleven million, according to the company. And, according to estimates from Nielsen NetRatings and comScore (NSDQ: SCOR), the Huffington Post is more popular than all but eight newspaper sites, rising from sixteenth place in December." Traffic number don't equate to revenues, but let's run with it for now. On whether it can replace newspapers online, writer Eric Alterman has this pithy analysis: "The notion that the Huffington Post is somehow going to compete with, much less displace, the best traditional newspapers is arguable on other grounds as well. The site's original-reporting resources are minuscule. The site has no regular sports or book coverage, and its entertainment section is a trashy grab bag of unverified Internet gossip. And, while the Huffington Post has successfully positioned itself as the place where progressive politicians and Hollywood liberal luminaries post their anti-Bush Administration sentiments, many of the original blog posts that it publishes do not merit the effort of even a mouse click."
Arianna, however, says that HuffPo will be adding more and more reporting. Of course, it could start by paying some of the contributors first. HuffPo CEO Betsy Morgan is speaking at our EconSM conference next month, where we'll question her on this and other topics.
Disclaimers: Greycroft Partners, an investor in HuffPo, is also invested in our company, and we have a headline syndication deal with HuffPo on its media page
By Rafat Ali


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Amid the wave of U.S. initial public offerings this year, it occurred to me that companies going public leave one world and enter another.
Startups come out of nowhere and burn down entire established industries, in part because they are small and scrappy enough that they can take the risk of ignoring rules — long-held conventions, business etiquette, dress code, branding and sometimes even the letter of the law — that their big-company competitors simply cannot.
Yes, the internet enables disruption. And certainly big companies can get complacent and bureaucratic, creating an opportunity for small competitors.
But when you think about it, big companies are just startups that won. There are plenty of hyper-competitive smart people in charge of big companies, backed by massive budgets. If all they needed to compete and win was better technology and more efficient management, they could easily make that happen.
So what’s really going on here? What’s putting big companies at such a disadvantage? If it seems like they are fighting with one hand tied behind their back, it’s because they are.
I would submit Peloton as Exhibit A.
When the stationary-bike maker was still playing David to the fitness industry’s Goliath, it was too small to attract much attention. Now that the company is going public, music publishers are suing Peloton for allegedly playing music in spin classes without paying a license fee. (Peloton objects to the claims of wrongdoing, and it’s countersuing.) It doesn’t matter who’s right here: This is a situation that Peloton probably could have avoided.
Startups are like speedboats blasting through the waves with the singular goal of grabbing market share. That is part of the startup playbook. Uber Technologies
By contrast, big companies are like large ocean liners, where the captain follows maritime law to a T. The expectation is a comfortable ride that always arrives on time, so when there is engine trouble or anything other than the pleasant day on the water that’s been promised, it’s news.
Think of it this way: It’s not that surprising that startups can gleefully torpedo big companies on the open seas.
There are four areas where I see this dynamic playing out:
Large companies’ mass-market customers are unforgiving. At least at the beginning, a startup’s customer base is composed entirely of early adopters, who are willing to trade nearly everything — top-quality service, reliability, etc. — for access to something new and interesting. Surprises are a selling point. Startups get a pass when it comes to standard business rules around service and quirks.
By contrast, large companies’ customers don’t want any surprises.
A startup has zero brand equity but endless options for how it presents itself and its products or services. It can change the brand all it wants by changing a name, reworking a website or overhauling the marketing message. Large companies don’t have this flexibility. They have too much invested in their brand to risk a pivot. And that puts them at a disadvantage to smaller companies that can adapt to whatever is trending in the market at any given moment. You can almost chart the growth of a company from startup to entrenched stalwart by how people react to their blunders. Coca-Cola
Most large enterprises are sitting on a tech stack that’s complicated, interconnected and rigid. It’s part of their competitive moat that ends up drowning them instead. Your typical startup, on the other hand, has no legacy systems, meaning it can overhaul everything overnight if need be. That makes startups much more agile, adaptable and better able to take risks. Take what happened at Equifax
Corporations are motivated to construct legal barriers, both to protect their businesses from competition and also to protect their interests in the market. Taxi drivers have their medallions, for instance. But in doing so they often end up constructing their own prison. Those barriers end up giving startups an advantage because they don’t necessarily have to follow those rules. Consider how Uber and Lyft
Those “unfair” advantages make it more difficult for large companies, even those doing the smart, forward-looking thing of investing heavily in innovation. Human nature tilts the field even further, because no one is as motivated to solve a problem as the startup founder they are competing against. And if anyone within a large company happens to come up with a solution and also has the maniacal, singular focus to execute on it, then comes the ultimate kick in the shins: They likely won’t solve the problem at the company itself, but instead find and market the solution at a new startup of their own creation.
Rather than merely waking up to the threat that’s lurking, corporate leaders need to start seeing those same threats as potential opportunities. They need to take a page from the people currently putting money into startups and aim wide and aim often, investing in the nascent competitors and technology that, with or without their help, may one day get big enough to disrupt them.
Culturally, there may be no bigger gap than the one between the people piloting boats and the pirates trying to ram them. That is why it is important to start the relationship long before there’s a hole in your hull.
Toby Krout is co-founder and CEO of Boomtown Accelerators.


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Yahoo Investors Tighten Screws as Patience Thins
Yahoo is facing new pressure from investor groups who oppose giving Chief Executive Marissa Mayer more time to show progress on her turnaround.
Canyon Capital Advisors, a Los Angeles investment firm that ranks among Yahoo's 15 largest shareholders, sent a letter to the board on Friday urging it to find a buyer for its core Internet business or the entire company, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Another Yahoo investor, New York hedge fund SpringOwl Asset Management, is proposing a new plan to slash the company's workforce by 75%, replace Ms. Mayer with an operations-focused CEO and bring in a strategic partner to help Yahoo navigate the tax issues surrounding its Asian assets.
Investor dissent is mounting in the wake of Yahoo's announcement last week to shelve a plan to spin off its shares in Alibaba Group Holding due to potential tax risks and instead explore a spinoff of its core Internet business. If the company proceeds with that plan, the maneuver could take more than a year, extending a turnaround attempt that has so far failed to produce signs of growth.
Ms. Mayer said Wednesday she would announce a more detailed reorganization plan next month.
Without a clear strategy from management, some investors are sending their own proposals to Yahoo's Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters to pressure the board to set a more precise course.
A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment.
The wide variance between the proposals put forth by Canyon Capital, SpringOwl and Starboard Value, the activist investor who has pressured Yahoo over the past year, highlights the different directions the Internet business could go if it chooses to abandon Ms. Mayer's turnaround.
"I disagree with this notion that Yahoo can't be fixed," said Eric Jackson, managing director of SpringOwl, which has $300 million in assets under management, including an unspecified stake in Yahoo.
Mr. Jackson said he has sent Yahoo's board a 99-page slide presentation which details a plan to turn around the struggling Internet business by slimming it down and focusing on a few areas where the company excels, such as its sports and finance sites.
He proposes cutting as much as $2 billion in annual costs by laying off 9,000 of the company's 11,900 employees and contractors, eliminating perks like free food, selling its iconic headquarters and leasing back only the office space it needs.
The investor is calling for new management, led by an executive with strength in operations, and suggesting that a strategic partner buy a stake in Yahoo through a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, deal and act as an adviser on the tax issues tied to its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Liberty Media, the investment group led by John Malone, would be an ideal partner, Mr. Jackson said.
Liberty Media didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Jackson estimates Yahoo could fetch about $6 billion if it sold its core business today. With cost cutting and improvements to profitability, he predicts it could eventually be acquired for more than $24 billion.
SpringOwl isn't a major shareholder in Yahoo, but Mr. Jackson said he has met with several of the company's largest investors to build support for his plan. He hopes to pressure Yahoo's board publicly, using his 67,000 Twitter followers, but will also consider waging a proxy fight.
Any proxy challenges would have to be filed by March 26, according to a Yahoo filing.
A separate challenge is emerging from investors who want Yahoo to sell now. In its Dec. 11 letter to Yahoo's board, Canyon Capital, which owns about 10 million shares, or 1.1% of the company, criticized directors for failing to prepare a backup plan to the Alibaba spinoff.
"Requiring shareholders to continue to wait for definitive action for another year or more -- and extending the tenure of senior management -- while the company evaluates this reverse-spin is simply unacceptable," the investor wrote in its letter.
Instead of giving Ms. Mayer more time, Canyon Capital is pushing for an immediate sale of all or parts of Yahoo's business. The firm is particularly concerned that Yahoo didn't include "any clear details in terms of analysis, process or timing" with its announcement.
Canyon's call to sell the business echoes a recent push by activist investor Starboard, which last month urged Yahoo to halt its Alibaba spinoff and find a buyer for the Internet business.
Starboard hasn't yet issued a public response to Yahoo's new proposal to spin off the core business and didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires