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Ikea might be famous for its self-assembly furniture and Scandinavian style, but bicycles? In a surprise announcement, the Swedish furniture company has revealed the Sladda, a straightforward machine for the urban rider.
Delve a little deeper and it makes perfect sense. Ikea is, it claims, keen to encourage a sustainable lifestyle and environmentally friendly transport options, but is aware that many people are put off by the maintenance required to look after a bike – chain cleaning, black messy grease, and so on.
So the company has created ‘Sladda’, a bicycle that’s designed to make life as easy as possible for the owner. “The focus has been to develop a bike that needs little maintenance, and is a viable transportation option for the urban environment,” the company commented in a press release.
Sladda, which translates as ‘skid’, is a unisex bike and hosts a raft of features that Ikea feels are ideal for the rider who wants a reliable, functional steed. A belt drive does away with the need for a dirty, oily chain, and is good for 15,000km, according to the company. The integrated full mudguards are a good idea for year-round use, as is pannier rack and front basket, and there’s a matching trailer available too, to take bigger loads.
The bike features a click system that allows the easy attachment of racks, and a pannier bag that doubles as a rucksack. Ikea also states that the bike is designed with an eye on future compatibility with third-party products.
Other features, as reported by the Core77 website, include sealed hub gears, an alloy frame designed to be light enough to lift up stairs, and a two-layer paint job that Ikea says will be robust enough to resist scratches. The handlebars are height-adjustable and, interestingly, the bike will be available with either 26in or 28in wheels.
The Sladda has already won a coveted Red Dot Design Award, an international competition that sees 41 design experts choose winners from approximately 5,200 contributions.
“At Ikea, we do not just make things; we use design to make things better,” said Marcus Engman, design manager at Ikea. “We work with what we call democratic design, where we make sure that our products have good function, are beautifully designed and can be used every day, while being environmentally sustainable – and available thanks to low prices. Awards like this show that we are on the right path. We are delighted that our colleagues in the design community appreciate our hard work to create products with great value.”
Ikea says the bike will be available from August 2016, though how widely available Sladda will be is yet to be confirmed. The projected price is €699 (International pricing TBC) which roughly equates to $797 or £557, or €499 for Ikea family members.


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The dust hasn’t even settled from Amazon’s out-of-the-blue acquisition of Twitch and there’s already another major change on the horizon for the gaming world. According to the Wall Street Journal, rumors are circulating that struggling software giant Microsoft is in serious talks to buy Mojang, the Swedish game developer responsible for Minecraft. The Journal cites their anonymous source as “a person with knowledge of the matter.” According to the source the deal could be worth as much as $2 billion and could be wrapped up as early as this week.
If the rumors are true, it could have a major impact on the growing community of video creators who have made Minecraft the center of their YouTube and Twitch channels. Mojang has, historically, been very easygoing in regard to fan-created content. The game maker has allowed the proliferation of fan-created mod packs and fan-administered game servers. Even though the Minecraft terms of service forbid operating “for profit” servers or the selling of modified content, the company has been reluctant to actually enforce those rules. More importantly, Mojang has never attempted to exercise its copyright to restrict the use of Minecraft content in videos or to claim monetization rights on those videos. All that could change with a large corporate entity like Microsoft at the helm. The company recently laid off some 18,000 employees and ditched its digital entertainment studio so it’s safe to say that profits are a priority these days.
While business, tech, and gaming bloggers have all run with the news, the YouTube Minecraft community has yet to register much of a reaction via social media. This isn’t the first acquisition rumor to be floated about Mojang. The popularity of Minecraft has made the company a hot property, but thus far founder and majority shareholder Markus Persson has repeatedly denied any interest in the massive payday that would come with any acquisition. In a post on his personal blog Persson, who is better known by his Minecraft handle Notch, wrote:
“Mojang does not exist to make as much money as possible for the owners. As the majority shareholder, I’d know. Every time a big money-making deal comes up that would make a lot of money, it’s of course very tempting, but at the end of the day we choose to do what either makes the most sense for our products, or the things that seem like fun for us at Mojang.”
As of now the deal is purely speculative. The Wall Street Journal did successfully call Amazon’s surprise acquisition of Twitch last month, but they also wrongly predicted that that same company would be acquired by YouTube. Even if it does become a reality Microsoft would be well served to stay the course with Mojang’s hands-off approach to fan content. YouTube creators have been the driving force behind Minecraft’s most recent wave of growth and discouraging the game’s vibrant creative community could render any investment, $2 billion or otherwise, totally pointless.

domain: news


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New Canaan freezes over after winter storm
New Canaan began freezing over Tuesday evening following a winter storm that brought snow and sleet to the town.
Residents were seen clearing slushy sidewalks as temperatures dipped down into the 20s. The low temperatures were expected to cause remaining snow to freeze, creating hazardous and slippery conditions.
Once the precipitation started clearing from the area, residents hit one of the few shops open downtown: Franco's Wine Merchants. One patron said that he was looking forward to a margarita after 14 snow-clearing jobs.
While most other stores on Elm Street remained closed, people were out working all day to prepare the strip for business on Wednesday.


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Google’s effort to keep its search bar alive on Apple iPhones turns out to be a bigger deal than many people suspected — especially since, as Bloomberg Business notes, Apple CEO Tim Cook has been criticizing Google for invading the privacy of users:
Apple received $1 billion from its rival in 2014, according to a transcript of court proceedings from Oracle Corp.’s copyright lawsuit against Google. The search engine giant has an agreement with Apple that gives the iPhone maker a percentage of the revenue Google generates through the Apple device, an attorney for Oracle said at a Jan. 14 hearing in federal court.
Rumors about how much Google pays Apple to be on the iPhone have circulated for years, but the companies have never publicly disclosed it. Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, and Google spokesman Aaron Stein both declined to comment on the information disclosed in court.
Cook has been positioning Apple as a champion of privacy, evenrefusing government demands for back-door access to encrypted information in the interests of fighting terrorism. He has lambasted competitors such as Google and Facebook for data-mining private customer information to optimize advertising campaigns.
Evidently a billion dollars goes a long way toward soothing such concerns. In fact, as Bloomberg puts it, Apple is benefiting financially from the exact same Google advertising-based business model Cook denounces as intrusive.
As for Oracle, they uncovered the details of the arrangement between Apple and Google as part of a lawsuit over Google allegedly using Oracle’s Java software for the Android cell-phone platform without paying for it.
“The showdown has returned to U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco after a pit stop at the U.S. Supreme Court, where Google lost a bid to derail the case. The damages Oracle now seeks may exceed $1 billion since it expanded its claims to cover newer Android versions,” Bloomberg reports.
When a pretrial witness revealed the amount of revenue shared between Google and Apple, a Google attorney argued that the percentage disclosed was “hypothetical,” and was not public information, since disclosing it could interfere with Google’s ability to negotiate other deals. Google and Apple both asked for the disclosure to be stricken from the court record, and while the judge originally refused, Bloomberg reports the transcript mysteriously vanished from the court’s computer system on Thursday afternoon, without a final ruling.


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The new Japan Yahoo-backed crypto exchange Taotao -formerly known as BitARG- will start next May to enable trading in individual cryptocurrencies.
The article was updated on 27 December, 2019 by Amicus.
26 March, 2019 | AtoZ Markets – The new Japanese cryptocurrency trading platform Taotao, formerly known as BitARG, is a 40% subsidiary of Yahoo! Japan. Among the cryptocurrencies that the new Japan Yahoo backed crypto exchange will allow trading will be Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
Margin trading is also available from Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ripple (XRP). Japanese corporation. YJFX, Yahoo! retail currency broker is responsible for the launch of the new cryptocurrency exchange. The corporation launches Yahoo backed crypto exchange one year after the BitARG acquisition. The new Taotao platform is supposed to be based on the BitARG system. Taotao received regulatory approval from the Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA) to enter the Japanese market.
Japan BitARG Deal Cost the Company About 2 Billion Yen
Bit Arg Exchange Tokyo was one of 16 cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan with the FSA license in early December 2017. A year ago, Yahoo! Japan acquired 40 percent of the crypto exchange. The Japanse financial services agency had approved the transaction. The Internet giant acquired BitARG through Tokyo-based YJFX, a retail currency broker founded in 2003 and wholly-owned by Yahoo.
According to the local press, the deal cost the company about 2 billion yen ($ 19 million) for a stake in BitARG. It consists of outstanding shares and newly issued shares. Since April 2018, a number of YJFX executives and engineers have focused on developing a new exchange system at BitARG headquarters.
The team also assured then that it would prepare the corporate governance structure, the client management system and the internal control system.
Japanese Financial Agencies Tighten Their Control After Coincheck Hack
The market was thrilled as the Japanese financial authority became more demanding after it failed to prevent Coincheck security breach in January 2018. After hacking the Japanese crypto exchange, worth $ 533 million, the FSA suspended two business exchanges and fined others, including Coincheck.
Japan announced then about imposing strict controls on organizations wishing to start exchanges. Especially after several hacks that have attracted international attention to the industry. Despite the licensing scheme, which first appeared in April 2017, attacks and thefts continued. Coincheck nevertheless managed to return to the market after the buyout.
Japan Remains Positive Toward Crypto Space
In recent years, Japanese legislatures have created a series of clear cryptocurrency management rules that support the industry. Also, in the country of the rising sun, a number of positive changes happened. That includes the possibility of accepting Bitcoin-ETF, new exchanges entering the market and many others.
Earlier this month, the new rules were introduced and approved, mainly related to the cryptocurrency margin trading.
Japan Yahoo Backed Crypto Exchange Pre-Launch Coming Soon
The Japan Yahoo backed crypto exchange initiated a pre-launch campaign where users can take part in promotions by registering an account. According to a March 25 ad:
“The pre-registration period is from today (March 25) to 17 April. In addition to being able to receive 1000 YEN in the pre-registration campaign, pre-registrants receive 1000 YEN in Lottery Campaign. 500 people will get 10000 YEN if they trade more than 250000 YEN during the trading period. It will be possible to participate.”
This announcement caused a real stir in the Japanese crypto community. It signaled that the Internet giant is expanding into a crypto industry. It is the first attempt of the Internet giant in the world of.
Will Yahoo acquire more cryptocurrencies in other countries? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.


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BEDFORD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Riser Foods, one of the first supermarket companies to put national brands in a food court, is now nearly out of the "food court" business altogether. "We don't even call them food courts anymore," said Fred DiQuattro, director of deli, bakery and seafood at the 38-unit retailer-wholesaler that operates supermarkets under Rini-Rego and Stop-n-Shop banners. The chain, which three years ago installed a Supreme Court -- the pioneering effort to bundle national ...
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Sixpoint Brewery founder Shane Welch is making innovation the “primary focus” of the Brooklyn craft brewery heading into 2018. In order to foster that spirit of innovation, Sixpoint formed a new product development team in August, and hired Eric Bachli as the “chief product officer.”
As part of Sixpoint’s ongoing commitment to innovation and continuous improvement, the Mad Scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind native mobile app. The app will enable Sixpoint customers to purchase beer directly from the brewery.
In our latest edition of People Moves: Caitlin Braam, the president of Seattle Cider Company and Two Beers Brewing, will depart the organization at the end of the month. Constellation Brands also confirmed that Dave Mills, chief sales officer of the company’s Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits brand, will depart the organization at the end of August.
Sixpoint Brewery is amped to announce the formation of a new Product Development team dedicated to taking innovation, R&D, and Mad Science to the next level. To lead that initiative, Sixpoint has signed on Eric Bachli, Dipl. Brew as Chief Product Officer. Bachli is coming to Sixpoint from Trillium Brewery out of Boston, MA, where he was the Head Brewer, leading all aspects of brewing operations.
The smash hit Broadway musical, WAITRESS is the latest Broadway show to create a craft beer for charity and partner with The Broadway Brews Project.
Another craft-focused contract brewing operation has entered the fray. Great Central Brewing Company (GCBC) broke ground on a new 32,000 sq. ft. contract brewing facility in Chicago last week. Scheduled for a summer 2016 opening, the brewery joins a growing list of craft-minded contract facilities established to help other small producers scale up, instead of focusing on their own in-house labels.
The craft beer scene is moving rapidly… think about the changes even since Global Warmer first hit the scene in 2013. But much of winter beer has stayed decidedly stuck in its tracks (frozen, if you will). Big sticky sippers dominate this time of year, oftentimes with spices. And hey, they have their time and place. But how about something you can slam all winter long?
For decades, wine was the pinnacle of class. Those who sought not just taste, but also considered region and age in their glass weren’t merely drinkers, but connoisseurs. That inherent sophistication had long been absent in beer, which was mostly inexpensive and uniform in flavor. In recent times, however, craft beer is often viewed as… Read more »
Introducing Global Warmer, Sixpoint’s newest offering, now available on Draft and in 12 Oz Cans. No one can deny the beer climate is changing. Global Warmer is a return to beer’s essential ingredients and a purist’s approach to the Winter Beer, a style often dominated by spices and holiday imagery. Sixpoint founder Shane Welch and… Read more »
Sixpoint Brewery has published a short documentary film to coincide with the company’s most recent beer release, 3Beans. 3Beans – a 10 percent ABV ale brewed with Romano beans, Cacao beans and cold-brewed coffee – is a collaborative effort between Sixpoint and two other Brooklyn-based companies, Stumptown Coffee and Mast Brothers Chocolate.
BROOKLYN, NY – Celtic lore spoke of a land where the beer fell in showers and the music of the gods could be heard. Brewed from beans and barley, this ale was so dark, rich, and satisfying that no gathering ever went unthankful. Prepared in cauldrons and consumed from horns, this was truly the drink… Read more »
Sixpoint has launched its latest canned creation, Apollo. The brewery’s summer seasonal, Apollo is Bavarian Wheat Ale checking in at 5.2 percent and 11 IBU’s. Below are some more details on the new release.
If you didn’t quite get your fill of ‘Beer Madness’ voting last month, you can now vote for America’s “Best Craft Brewery” in General Mills’ recently launched Munchies awards on taplespoon.com. The awards honor 20 categories of the most delicious food experiences America has to offer. Included in in the ‘Delicious Destination’ group are five… Read more »
Sixpoint Brewery announced on Monday that it would begin distributing beer to Wisconsin before the end of the month. The decision to head to ‘The Badger State’ was a personal one for company founder Shane Welch, who was born and raised there. “Nearly all of my family, both extended and immediate, still lives there,” he… Read more »
Year Round Beers
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Amazon has actually relatively been bringing shipping services internal as quickly as it can as the business increases efforts to get bundles to Prime members in simply one day. However although those common gray-blue vans and uniformed chauffeurs all have Amazon branding on them, a minimum of 250 farmed out business around the nation really do all the heavy lifting– a system that permits Amazon to skirt liability when heavy pressure on chauffeurs indicates catastrophe strikes, according to a brand-new report.
The business has actively urged workers to stop their tasks and go begin regional shipment companies it can contract with. Running under heavy pressure to make as numerous shipments as possible, as rapidly as possible, and with lax regulative oversight, chauffeurs providing products for Amazon have actually been associated with “hundreds” of crashes and other occurrences in the previous 5 years, BuzzFeed Report A minimum of 6 individuals have actually been eliminated in those occurrences, consisting of a 10- month-old infant.
Amazon-branded services now provide about half of all the business’s last-mile deliveries, bringing items from the regional storage facility to your doorstep. The United States Postal Service and UPS in between them deal with a big portion of the other half. Expert business shipment companies, such as UPS and FedEx, undergo heavy federal guideline, and their business automobiles undergo routine security assessments. However the exact same is not real for Amazon.
The “sprinter” design vans Amazon shipment services utilize fall simply under the weight limitation that would subject them to Department of Transport oversight, BuzzFeed notes. Amazon acquired about 20,000 of those vans from Mercedes-Benz in 2015, which it rents to the business that provide its items. The vans undergo annual state security assessments, as are traveler automobiles in the majority of states, however the automobiles are not held to the exact same examination, repair work, and upkeep requirements as a UPS truck would be.
” We have actually invested 10s of countless dollars in security systems throughout our network, and frequently interact security finest practices to chauffeurs,” Amazon informed BuzzFeed. “We are devoted to higher financial investments and management focus to continually enhance our security efficiency.”
Security training is likewise far more extensive at the huge shipment companies. Candidates and workers deal with drug screening and should pass entryway examinations prior to being worked with. “Even the most small minor car accident activate internal examinations that look for to determine who was at fault and how such mishaps can be prevented in the future,” BuzzFeed observes.
In many cases, however, it appears like nearly anybody with a chauffeur’s license can get a task providing Amazon bundles. A few of the claims submitted versus the business after crashes have actually recognized chauffeurs who had previous convictions for traffic offenses. One previous staff member of an Amazon shipment company informed BuzzFeed that in his very first week of training, the motorist he was watching very first backed into a light post prior to scampering, then he later on blew through a number of stop indications and eventually ran a traffic signal prior to crashing into a motorcyclist going the other method. The motorist at the time had actually been pulled over a number of times in the previous 8 years, BuzzFeed discovered: two times for going more than 20 miles per hour over the published speed limitation, and as soon as for running a stop indication.
The previous staff member informed BuzzFeed that he stopped on his very first day of driving solo after finishing his training. “I believed, ‘No, this is insane. I had 160 bundles and it was drizzling, you can’t even see,'” he informed BuzzFeed. “I took the truck back and went and informed the person, ‘This is it. I’m done.'”
The business likewise deal with little oversight for their own bad practices, BuzzFeed reports. Amazon agreements with a minimum of a lots business that BuzzFeed recognized as being “consistently taken legal action against or mentioned by regulators for declared labor infractions, consisting of stopping working to pay overtime, rejecting employees breaks, discrimination, unwanted sexual advances, and other kinds of staff member mistreatment.” 2 chauffeurs working for an Amazon shipment business in the Los Angeles location informed BuzzFeed they were motivated to avoid meals, utilize bottles rather of taking genuine restroom breaks, and not to use safety belt (which are needed in California) in order to move much faster.
The outsourcing issue
Amazon has a lot of business in counting on a shadowy network of third-party business to do company under its brand name banner. A substantial variety of “workers” for the majority of tech companies remain in truth workers of contracting companies.
” Gig economy” companies such as Uber and Lyft infamously categorize individuals doing the work for them as independent specialists, not as workers of the business, however lots of full-time employees for prominent tech companies are likewise really working for staffing companies or smaller sized intermediaries.
The work of material small amounts in specific tends to be contracted out to third-party companies. Numerous reports recently have actually exposed the bad workplace and absence of assistance the employees, who attempt to keep big platforms such as YouTube and Facebook useable, come across attempting to do the task.
Over half, about 54%, of Google’s around the world labor force remain in truth not Google workers at all, and these employees do not get the exact same levels of pay or substantial advantages. Aggravation from that labor force, more than 90,000 strong, bubbled over previously this year, leading to Google needing all the companies it contracts with to provide a $15 base pay, paid ill days, health advantages, paid adult leave, and tuition repayment advantages. About 90 agreement employees for Google in Pittsburgh, really workers of a business called HCL America, voted prior to Labor Day to unionize
Motorists for one Amazon shipment company did effort to unionize in 2017, BuzzFeed reports. Detroit-area employees for Silverstar Shipment voted 22 -7 to sign up with the Teamsters. Within weeks of the vote, the chauffeurs reported to the National Labor Relations Board that they had actually been fired in retaliation for signing up with the union. (The NLRB dismissed the retaliation charge, however it did eventually settle with Silverstar for more than $15,000 to settle other claims of anti-union activity.) A couple of months later on, Silverstar closed down its Michigan operation totally.
Not long after, Amazon held a conference in Chicago with management from regional shipment companies. “The entire function of the conference was to state to you, ‘Here’s how to not get unionized. Due to the fact that if you do, we basically do not desire anything to do with a union,” one guest informed BuzzFeed.


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Porsche has chosen its 75th anniversary to unveil its latest hypercar and successor to its 918 Spyder with the unveiling of the all-electric Mission X concept.
The Mission That means when it goes into production, which is what we suspect.
For more driving news and videos, visit Motoring >>
Although powertrain details are sketchy at best, the German marque claims it will have a power-to-weight ratio of one hp (0.735 kW) per kg and significantly more downforce than the recently released 992 911 GT3 RS.
The 900-volt system architecture also charges at least twice as fast as a Taycan Turbo S. According to Porsche, the electric motors are the next generation of permanent magnet synchronous motors (PSM) and they use far better cooling technology to pump oil into the copper promote windings for significantly improved heat dissipation compared to current systems.
The Mission X Concept rides on 20-inch wheels at the front and 21-inch wheels at the rear. Surprisingly, the Michelin Cup 2 R tires at the rear (315/20 R 21) are six centimeters wider than at the front (255/35 R 20). Clear aero blades can be seen on the rear wheals. You might also notice the modernized Porsche crest, which makes its debut on the Mission X.
Alongside Mission E (future of electric mobility) and Mission R (future of customer sport), the Mission X is, according to Porsche, the “vision for the next big step” to be experimental, exciting and extreme.
The unveiling of the mission
Noticeable is the use of a lightweight glass dome (with a carbon fiber reinforced plastic exoskeleton) that extends over the passenger and driver.
The interior is heavily driver-focused, with differently colored seats for added impact. The six-point harness is secured directly into the car’s monocoque chassis and the racing-style steering wheel shares many of the same characteristics as the GT3 RS, with numerous adjustment options and interchangeable systems.
It also has paddles… but for an electric vehicle, we’ve yet to figure out why.
In addition, the Le Mans-style racing doors are attached to the A-pillar and roof and open forwards and upwards, creating a futuristic look while also paying homage to the Porsche 917 racing car.
About the Mission
See gallery below:


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JOHANNESBURG - The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has welcomed the Competition Commission’s investigation into price-fixing allegations against pharmaceutical companies.
The investigation followed concerns raised by cancer organisations that medicines are overpriced.
The companies under investigation include Roche, Pfizer and Aspen.
The federation says as a result of exorbitant prices, most cancer patients in both the private and public sectors have died because they cannot afford treatment.
Saftu's Patrick Craven explains: “The South African Federation of Trade Unions is absolutely shocked that a small number of large pharmaceuticals are making huge extortion profits at the expense of very sick people. The Competition Commission has decided to investigate and we support it.”
(Edited by Shimoney Regter)


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Keep an eye on Advantix Systems, a company opening its world headquarters in Sunrise on Tuesday and winning accolades for innovations in air conditioning.
Advantix has nearly doubled sales this year, thanks to its patented technology in air conditioners. The machines use at least 30 percent less energy and slash humidity, helping hospitals, pharmaceutical plants, hotels and other businesses that need drier and cleaner air to operate.
The air conditioners have been recognized with a Stevie American Business Award, an international food technology award and an article in The Economist magazine this year. They also earn high marks from commercial users in South Florida, from condominium buildings to a gym and a school.
"Less children are getting sick," said Mariana Serralde, head of the school at Marware Montessori Academy in Hollywood, which installed Advantix this year to save money and improve air quality.
Advantix machines save energy by drying out the air as it's cooled. Conventional systems cool air down to the dew point, take out moisture through condensation and then, re-heat air to the temperature desired, using more energy. Advantix uses a saltwater solution — or patented "liquid dessicant" — to cool air less and pull out more moisture than most machines — all at once, officials said.
Reducing moisture matters greatly in humid places like South Florida and, it turns out, in about two-thirds of the United States that are not desert, Advantix president Hannah Granade, 34, said in an interview.
"It's not the heat, it's the humidity," as the saying goes. With drier air, there's less risk of mold. That means businesses can buy a smaller air conditioner. And they can set temperatures a bit higher to bring comfort to all, instead of keeping rooms so cold that many women wear sweaters, Granade said.
Crossfit ATP Fitness Gym in Dania Beach can attest to the difference. With Advantix, gym owner Juan Bacca said his second-floor workout area now is drier and no longer smells dank, letting him set thermostats higher. He rents his machine for about $265 a month and figures he easily recoups that by saving nearly $200 a month on energy bills and luring more parents to bring their kids to classes.
"I have people from out of town calling me about it," Bacca said.
Advantix does not release sales figures, but says it now has more than 800 units installed worldwide. Sales doubled since mid-2010 and should grow by at least 60 percent next year, Granade said.
Unlike many green products, prices are about the same as conventional machines, she said.
Indeed, the Harvard graduate is so keen on the technology that she left a top job at prestigious consulting firm McKinsey & Co, where she led a groundbreaking study on the economic payoff of energy efficiency, to take over at Advantix in 2010. That's when a private equity group bought the company and decided to expand it into the U.S. market, the world's largest for air conditioners.
Advantix started in Israel about 30 years ago when partners developed the machines to cool their ice rinks. They sold custom units at first and then began supplying pharmaceutical plants in India.
In the United States, Advantix opted to set up in South Florida because it's a strong market for its products, attractive to bring prospective U.S. customers and comfortable for Israeli companies, she said. But the business outgrew its North Miami space, opting to expand into 40,000 square feet in Sunrise.
The company now has about 40 employees in the United States, mainly in South Florida, and expects to add 15 or 20 more by 2014. That should help boost its job count worldwide – including its factory in Israel and offices in India and China – to nearly 200 employees, up from about 150 today, Granade said.


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It’s that time of year when everyone swears this is the year they are going to step their fitness game all the way up. For some, this means renewing their gym membership. But what can the folks who can’t afford an exclusive membership or don’t feel comfortable working out in front of other people do?
NBCUniversal has a solution for you: Radius Fitness.
The network’s newest platform is like Netflix but for fitness. Depending on which plan you choose, for as low as $9.99, Radius Fitness brings the gym and elite trainers to your living room. It works like an on-demand service, and you can customize your workouts — taught by a virtual trainer. So whether you are a marathon runner or are just starting to work out for the first time, there will always be a workout available for you.
Even better: You can access Radius on a range of platforms that include RadiusFitness.com, the Radius Fitness app for iPhone and iPad, a three-hour weekday block of TV programming on NBC Sports Network and soon through Xfinity On Demand.
“Radius marks an exciting evolution in the industry as we make premium fitness accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime by leveraging our media platforms, technology and partnerships," said Nick Lehman, president, Digital at NBCUniversal, who has led the development of the new brand.
"With fitness at the epicenter of today’s pop culture, now is the perfect time to introduce a new media brand that can capture and drive the explosion of innovation in the fitness space."
Another upside of Radius Fitness is that unlike DVDs, which can get tired real quick, these workouts change over time. So you can mix it up, which is really important in keeping folks motivated to keep working out. There are also a range of workouts that are 15 minutes or less for those who are short on time but still want to get it in.
Ready to get your sweat on? Get your free week trial here.
BET Health News — We go beyond the music and entertainment world to bring you important medical information and health-related tips of special relevance to Blacks in the U.S. and around the world. Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
(Photo: Stockbyte/Getty Images)
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From Pong, to 2D platforms and onto online first person shooters, our desire for an increasingly realistic gaming experience was always going to see platforms emerge where we combat our friends
, foes and flesh-eating zombies
using our real-world bodies. Skirmos, the latest take on the laser tag system, uses gun-mounted LCD display, radio-based dynamic scoring and open-source programming in an attempt bring the complex and varied experience of the modern multi-player shooter to life.
While the Xbox One
and PlayStation 4
have stolen the lion's share of hype surrounding next-gen gaming consoles recently, Valve has continued working away on its own entry into the console market. Last week, the company shipped Steam Machine
prototypes to 300 beta testers and made the first release of the open-source operating system that will power it, SteamOS, available for download.
With 3D printers dropping below the US$200 mark
, the home 3D printing revolution appears to be getting into full swing, which is great ... if you want to make things out of plastic. Unfortunately, the price of commercial metal 3D printers means the ability to print metal objects has remained out of reach of most people. That could be set to change with a team from Michigan Technical University building a 3D metal printer for under $1,500.
Intel's Futurist and Director of Future Casting, Brian David Johnson, was at this week's Maker Faire in New York City to introduce an open source, 3D printed companion robot called Jimmie.
For the last week, I've been living with a 3D printer – one of the cheapest on the market: the Flashforge Creator Dual. After 30 or so prints, I've discovered some of the foibles of home 3D printing, and some of the work-arounds. Is this a glimpse into the future of home fabrication, or a niche hobby piece? Grab some hairspray (seriously) and dive in as Gizmag reviews the FlashForge Creator 3D and, more importantly, takes a detailed look at the practicalities of 3D printing at home.
As the word "drone" has become so commonplace that you can literally build a UAV out of anything
, researchers are aiming to make the technology smaller and more usable in everyday practice. Bart Remes, project manager at the Micro Aerial Vehicle Laboratory at the TU Delft faculty of Aerospace Engineering, has led a group of researchers to the creation of the world's smallest autopilot.
As the Raspberry Pi Foundation (RPF) has worked to make computing more accessible, it has helped pioneer new ways of using technology. We've seen the versatile, board-based Raspberry Pi
enabling everything from robotic bartenders
to doggie treat dispensers
. The latest project featuring the Pi comes from Matthew Epler, whose Pi-powered Kinogarph digitizes old film stock at a fraction of the cost of conventional off-the-shelf systems.
Developers, makers, and hobbyists looking for a beefier alternative to Gizmag favorite the Raspberry Pi
will be delighted to learn that BeagleBoard.org has taken the wraps off a 1 GHz ARM-based board named the BeagleBone Black. Though it may look like a slightly more expensive outlay, its manufacturer says that by providing everything needed for display, keyboard and network connectivity right out of the box, the Black provides "a lower total cost of ownership than the nearest competitor."
Hot on the heels of InMoov
, the 3D-printable android, comes a similar but much less intimidating project for DIYers by Hello Robo. MAKI is a cute communication robot that can be assembled from 3D-printed parts and some off-the-shelf electronic components for less than US$500, making it an affordable platform for hobbyists and university labs. Hello Robo has opted to launch MAKI via crowdfunding site Kickstarter, where a $30 pledge will net you the 3D blueprints.
As smartphones become more akin to pocket-laptops, the evolution of mobile gaming is also forging ahead, going far beyond such classics as Tetris
. Yet touch screen control for complex gaming is inhibitive, and sometimes it’s just downright clumsy. XOPAD, a USB-based controller for Android phones, is looking to join a growing list of products that turn your smartphone into a fully-fledged hand-held gaming machine. The creators are also aiming to make it open-source for developers.


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But last year, all-electric vehicles accounted for just 5.8 percent of new cars sold in the United States. Mr. Biden last year signed a law designed to encourage Americans to buy more electric vehicles by providing up to $7,500 in tax credits to purchasers, but many foreign-made vehicles aren’t eligible for the tax credits.
Experts say that the new regulation provides an essential stick to go with the carrot of the tax incentives. Achieving the administration’s goals could be harder if auto companies succeed in weakening the rule. The Environmental Protection Administration published its proposed rule earlier this spring and it is in the process of soliciting public comments ahead of finalizing and implementing the rule by the first half of next year.
The auto companies’ concerns are expected to influence the final rule, particularly as Mr. Biden campaigns for re-election in politically critical auto-making states like Michigan and Ohio.
Background: The latest in a long fight over the future of the car.
The pushback against the rule is the latest in a yearslong back-and-forth between Washington and the auto industry over climate pollution.
Former President Barack Obama first increased fuel-economy standards in an effort to jump-start a transition to electric vehicles, and secured grudging support from the country’s Big Three automakers at the time because his administration had just bailed them out of bankruptcy during the global economic crisis .
Later, President Donald J. Trump rolled back the Obama-era rules so much that even some automakers protested that he had gone too far. Since then, Mr. Biden has sought to reinstate and expand the Obama rules. In 2021 he signed an executive order pledging to pursue policies to ensure that at least half of all new cars sold in the United States are all-electric by 2030.
But his administration took the auto industry by surprise this spring with the proposed rule that went considerably further. His proposal aims for 67 percent of sales of new light-duty passenger vehicles, from sedans to pickup trucks, to be all-electric by 2032.
What’s Next: Will the E.P.A. lower its targets?
Biden administration regulators are expected to weigh public comments before revising and finalizing proposals. Historically, many proposed environmental rules have been loosened to accommodate industry concerns.
The auto-lobbying group said it doesn’t oppose all regulations designed to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, but suggested in its comments that the Biden administration lower its target to 40 or 50 percent electric sales by 2030, rather than the 67 percent by 2032 proposed by the current rule.
In a blog post, John Bozzella, the president of the group, suggested that the Biden administration include plug-in hybrid vehicles in its target, rather than pushing for such rapid adoption of all-electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrids use internal combustion engines in combination with battery power.
Representatives from the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency didn’t return emails seeking comment.


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January's Allure cover featured a gorgeous, tawny-skinned Rihanna. In February, the In Style cover features Halle Berry, the Harper's Bazaar cover features Jennifer Lopez and the Elle cover features Jessica Alba (I'm going to forget that Alba once made the comment that she doesn't think of herself as Latina and pretend she's lost her mind).
Even the substance of these magazines are starting to change...in the past few months I've seen Allure do a story on global beauty (Aishwarya and Bipasha were both in there!) and Glamour regularly has diverse women of all sizes in their "fashion-help" sections. While I haven't seen much change in the editorials (with the exception of Liya Kebede in a recent issue of Harper's Bazaar), hopefully the modeling industry will start to embrace diversity as well and fashion magazines will continue this trend of incorporating women of all colors within its pages.


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WeldWerks Brewing Co. took home a bronze medal Thursday after competing the World Beer Cup Awards, a biannual competition that showcases thousands of beers from dozens of countries.
The brewery, located at 508 8th Ave., won the honor for its Peach Climacteric brew in the Fruited Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer division.
“For us, it was a really exciting win,” said Neil Fisher, the company’s head brewer and owner. “It reinforces the fact that we need to get our sour program up and running again.”
Fisher said the brewery started working on the beer one year ago. Brewed in oak-aged bourbon barrels, the beer was made with 1,600 Palisade peaches, Fisher said. While the company temporarily discontinued its sour brewing program, Fisher said it plans to bring it back, especially after Thursday’s win.
He said workers traveled to the competition in Nashville to collect the hardware and learn from other breweries there.
“We’re excited to bring the hardware back to Greeley,” Fisher said, adding that the brewery placed in the competition two years ago for its Puesta del Sol brew in the Vienna-style Lager category.
The World Beer Cup Awards event is hosted by the Brewers Association, which is based in Boulder.


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Autos Writer, CNN Money, CNN
money.cnn.com — Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk. Tesla Motors announced Wednesday that it has repaid a $465 million loan from the government nearly a decade before it was scheduled to do so. The electric-car maker received the loan from the Department of Energy in January 2010, and it made its first payment this past December.
money.cnn.com — The last time General Motors redesigned the Chevrolet Impala the goal seemed to be to create as dull and forgettable a car as possible. In that sense, the Impala was a major success. Few cars were as boring to drive or, once seen, faded from the mind so quickly.
money.cnn.com — Since 2010, the FTC has recorded more than 40,000 cases where scammers impersonate friends and family members. And officials think many more instances go unreported. Across the country, law enforcement officials are warning seniors to beware of so-called "grandparent scams," in which fraudsters are impersonating a grandchild in distress -- and begging for cash.
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CDMA HTC Wildfire S Arrives at the FCC
The HTC Wildfire S was just recently spotted with T-Mobile branding and we know that it would be hitting the stores on August 3. Now, new FCC documents suggest that the CDMA version of the handset has been approved and it suggests that the device may be heading to Verizon, US Cellular, Virgin Mobile or MetroPCS.
This is a budget smartphone from the Taiwanese manufacturer, powered by a 600 MHz processor which runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread and sports a 3.2-inch touchscreen display. It is not the most powerful smartphone, but the integration of Sense UI 2.1 makes it a neat budget-focused Android device.


text: Millions of Milkshakes has become one of the most publicized food and beverage brands in the world, as demonstrated by the incredible media it has garnered globally. From its one location in West Hollywood alone, the Millions of Milkshakes brand has been seen by over 500 million people around the world. The October 2011 grand opening of the first ever international Millions of Milkshakes in Dubai at the Dubai Mall was a worldwide spectacle featuring Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner on their debut trip to the Middle East. The global event, which was televised by the entertainments largest cable network E! and showcased Dubai, was featured on the hit TV show ‘Kourtney and Kim in New York’ and was covered by hundreds of other major television networks around the world.


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RIM just unveiled the BlackBerry PlayBook, a 7-inch tablet with all sorts of innovations from a new processor architecture to a never-before-seen OS. When it comes to market in early 2011, it will face up against two powerful competitors: the Apple iPad, with its hundreds of thousands of apps, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which we anticipate will be sold at subsidized prices by all four major US wireless carriers. Depending on when the PlayBook comes out, it may even be up against a new version of the iPad we haven't seen yet.
We still don't know the PlayBook's exact release date and price, and its powerful specs make us a little nervousbut we're willing to give it the benefit of the doubt so far. Here's how the BlackBerry PlayBook's specs measure up to the current iPad and to the US version of the Galaxy S.
Wendy Sheehan Donnell contributed to this story.


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The moving story of one man’s journey in business from boom to almost bust is set to be a best seller in Irish books shops this Christmas.
‘Shepherd’s Pie: Survival and recovery in a broken economy’ will be on the book shelves later this month and its author, well known Clonmel businessman George Mordaunt, is set to become a familiar name on television and radio shows.
George’s story captured national attention this time last year when his moving address to the Clonmel Chamber of Commerce Enterprise Conference reduced his listeners in tears. That day he spoke about how struggling businesses can lift themselves out of difficulty, but he also spoke about his personal journey.
Now he has written a book based on his words that day and he told The Nationalist that his message has never been as relevant as it is now. “Many people have travelled the same road,” he said, and his book includes tips for those experiencing the same problems he faced.
George believes that many Irish businesses are now dysfunctional not because of the recession but because of the reaction of business owners to the recession - and specifically their reaction to their banks. His books tells the effect this reaction has had on himself, his young family, his marriage and his business.
“For me I have found the book to be hugely therapeutic. In the therapy of reliving it I found how things should be done differently and now I am sharing that with people.”
Seeing his story published is exciting, he admits. “Personally I can’t believe I can walk into a book shop in Galway and see my book. It’s a huge achievement. I’m excited in terms of where it might bring me because I passionately believe in the story I have to tell.”
The book will be officially launched in The Narrow Space on October 27. It is already available for pre-order on Amazon.


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MANAMA: The Kingdom of Bahrain with 5500 years old Dilmun civilisation and yet a modern society continues to be a unique tourist destination in the GCC, a senior Government official revealed.
Sheikh Khaled Bin Humood Al Khalifa, Acting CEO of Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA), while addressing Bahrain’s travel and tourism industry leaders at Sabre and Gulf Air event on Tuesday said that the Kingdom of Bahrain would continue to modernise its tourist infrastructure including four more areas to develop beaches are being studied.
According to statistics, the tourism and leisure sector generates about $700 million a year, which is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, thanks to the Government’s focus on developing the tourism sector.
To a question about the aggressive investment plans for tourism sector by the GCC, Sheikh Khaled said that the Kingdom would continue to work closely with all stakeholders to take the tourism industry to a new level of excellence.
The key topic during the discussion was how the investment in technology can support the growth of Bahrain’s travel industry and contribute more to the gross domestic product (GDP). The event was hosted by Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain and travel technology leader, Sabre Travel Network Middle East (STNME), a longstanding joint venture partnership between Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR) a leading global technology provider to the travel and tourism industry.
Titled “Bahrain Travel Industry: Partnership in Synergy,” the event was held under the patronage of Sheikh Khaled Bin Humood Al Khalifa, Acting CEO of Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA), and was attended by government officials and industry leaders from Bahrain, the Middle East and Europe, to discuss economic opportunities and challenges, trends shaping the future of travel and the contribution of the sector to Bahrain’s economy.
Sheikh Khaled Bin Humood opened the event, sharing BTEA’s strategy and vision for travel and tourism in Bahrain and highlighting Brand Bahrain, an international campaign launched last month to promote the Kingdom as a top tourist destination.
Harald Eisenächer, senior vice president, Sabre Travel Network, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said Bahrain’s travel industry is growing and is expected to increase its GDP contribution to five percent this year. “Travel companies need to understand changing consumer habits and the impact mobile and online technologies are having on travel. Make sure you know what’s coming and invest in technology that will provide travelers a more personalized experience that will drive loyalty, while generating new revenue streams for your business,” said Eisenächer.
He also said that while internet penetration in Bahrain is almost 100 percent, e-commerce and m-commerce were still relatively low. “There’s still a lot of concern about shopping online and sharing credit card details, which is why Sabre developed a virtual payments solution to address payment security concerns. We spend a lot of time understanding future traveler needs, and helping our customers develop the right mobile and online strategy to cater to what their customers want today and in the future. Travel is continually transforming – it never stands still,” he said.
“Technology is a great enabler, and it has been widely adopted with growing numbers of travelers embracing the mobile revolution as they become increasingly tech-savvy,” said, Director of Information Technology, Gulf Air Dr. Jassim Haji.
He also reflected on the evolving travel experience and how various stakeholders within the industry need to step up and change their offering: “Travelers today have stronger voices that carry further thanks to the prominence of social media and its ease of use. That’s not all, coupled with travelers’ greater strength of voice is an evolved expectation. We now, more than ever, need to deliver a seamless travel experience that is convenient, flexible, friendly and – at all times – responsive to individual needs. At Gulf Air we are committed to driving the travel technology movement and supporting greater uptake of the latest travel solutions on offer.”
Jerad Bachar, Executive Director Tourism and Leisure Business Development at the Economic Development Board said around $33billion is being invested in infrastructure development projects which would reshape the tourism facilities and attractions across the Kingdom.


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China’s largest tech companies, including Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, are rushing to announce donations amounting to almost 1bil yuan (US$154mil or RM654.43mil) to flood relief efforts in central Henan province where heavy rains have killed at least 12 in the capital city of Zhengzhou and displaced over 100,000 throughout the province.
Alibaba, the owner of the South China Morning Post, has announced a 100mil yuan (US$15.4mil or RM65.44mil) donation to Henan. Its payment affiliate Ant Group will also donate 100mil yuan (RM65.44mil) while founder Jack Ma’s foundation said it will give 50mil yuan (RM32.72mil).
Social media and gaming giant Tencent, Beijing-based ByteDance, and on-demand services platform Meituan said they will donate 100mil yuan (RM65.44mil) each, according to separate company statements on Wednesday.
Chinese search engine Baidu announced a donation of 90mil yuan (RM58.92mil), while smartphone makers Xiaomi and Oppo as well as short video platform Kuaishou announced a donation of 50mil yuan (RM32.72mil) each. Internet security company Qihoo 360 Technologies Co and its chief executive officer Zhou Hongyi said they will donate 40mil yuan (RM26.17mil).
The rush of donations by China’s Big Tech, along with multiple corporate initiatives to help people and business in the flood-hit areas, come as the country’s technology firms are under scrutiny by both Beijing and society at large for putting profits before social responsibility.
The wave of donations announced by China’s technology giants came ahead of big state-owned enterprises and traditional industrial conglomerates. Foxconn Industrial Internet, operator of the world’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, also donated 100mil yuan (RM65.44mil).
Video clips of muddy water washing away cars and people on the streets of Zhengzhou, a city of 10 million, went viral on Chinese social media on Wednesday. Twelve of the 13 officially confirmed deaths were passengers trapped on the subway when floodwater poured into the underground tunnel. – South China Morning Post


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Three woman have accused the owner of a Coeur d’Alene consignment business of selling their possessions and pocketing the proceeds.
Owners of the goods - a pickup, motor home and antiques - estimated their combined value at more than $34,000.
All three woman told Coeur d’Alene police they signed contracts with Coyote Liquidators in August to sell the items.
Vida Everett, 57, of Post Falls, has not been paid for the 1992 Chevrolet Silverado pickup Coyote Liquidators sold at an auction on Aug. 20, according to a police report. Everett estimated the truck was worth $7,000.
Hayden resident Ada Nichols, 67, also has not received payment for a $17,000 motor home the business agreed to sell, the report said.
Ann Walsh, 50, of Coeur d’Alene, told police Coyote Liquidators agreed to sell $10,415 worth of antiques for her, but said she has not been paid, according to a police report.
, DataTimes MEMO: Cut in the Spokane edition.


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Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider’s summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.
The strength of the US dollar is forcing China down a path it has been trying to avoid for years, pushing it to slow the money machine that has propelled its economy since 2008. This is a moment many China watchers have been waiting for — it just didn’t come how, when, or why they thought it would.
In other news, the CEO of a $3.9 trillion fund giant has a message for money managers everywhere. George Soros reportedly lost about $1 billion after Trump’s election. And the CIO of a $490 billion fund told us the one “guaranteed losing approach” to investing.
In banking, a job advert for ‘Assistant Head Butler’ at Rothschild & Co offers a rare glimpse inside one of the oldest investment banks in the world.
In tech news, Amazon says it will create 100,000 full-time, full-benefit jobs in the US. Apple is reportedly planning a major push into original TV shows and movies. And Blackberry is quietly trying to make a comeback — but not with phones.
Here are the top Wall Street headlines from the past 24 hours
160 million Americans can’t afford to treat a broken arm – A lot of Americans are really struggling.
SAN FRANCISCO BANKER: Here’s why we could see up to 90 IPOs this year – With 2016 marking the second straight year during which we saw a meaningful decline in the number of technology IPOs (20 tech IPOs down from 34 in 2015, and 60 in 2014) we expect to see a significant rebound in the year ahead.
NYSE to expand floor trading to all US equity securities – The New York Stock Exchange will make all US securities available for trading on the NYSE floor by year-end, giving investors another, less speed-dependent, way to trade securities such as Nasdaq-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds.
Morgan Stanley weighs in on the 9 big questions that will dominate Wall Street in 2017 – Morgan Stanley has released a big report on the “Big Debates” of 2017, which highlights the key questions they think will shape global markets over the next 12 months.
VW pleads guilty to 3 felonies and will pay $4.3 billion relating to emissions scandal – Volkswagen announced that it will to plead guilty to three felonies as part of its settlement with the US government stemming from the company’s emissions cheating scandal.
McDonald’s is shopping 33% of its Japanese unit – McDonald’s is reportedly inviting bids for a significant stake in its Japan unit McDonald’s Holdings Co. Japan Ltd.
18 of the highest-paying consulting firms for MBAs – Even straight out of school, earning an MBA means a healthy salary bump for graduates, especially in lucrative industries like consulting.
5 ways to spot a fake diamond – One of the most common questions that gemologists are asked is how to tell the difference between a real diamond and a fake stone.
You can now fly from the US to Europe for $70 — but one day it might be free – WOW Air announced that for a limited time it will offer tickets from the West Coast of the United States to Europe for as low as $69.99.


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A new study by NPD shows that iPhone buyers were more like to have given up their Treos (by 10X) or T-Mobile Sidekicks (by 3X) for their iPhone while BlackBerry users were not attracted to the iPhone, probably due to lack of corporate e-mail support.
The iPhone caused an exodus from carriers, Alltel and T-Mobile took the biggest hit. Consumers who switched carriers to buy an iPhone were three times more likely to switch from Alltel or T-Mobile than from other carriers. Sprint and Verizon also lost customers to AT&T and the iPhone, but not nearly to the same degree, due to their existing over-the-air (OTA) music offerings, rich video and data services and 3G networks already in place.
The NPD Group: iPhone’s First Round Punch Lands Hardest on Treo and T-Mobile
iPhone is bridging the gap between consumer-focused feature phones and productivity-focused smartphones, according to new report.
Port Washington, NY, According to a new report from The NPD Group, a leading consumer and retail information company, early buyers demonstrate that the iPhone is managing to bridge the gap between content-focused feature phones and productivity-focused smartphones. NPD’s iPhone Report is a top-line view of initial buyers of the iPhone, which provides insight into how Apple’s entry into the market is affecting mobile phone product sales among consumers in the U.S.
“The iPhone’s Internet and media capabilities have resonated with consumers — especially those who previously owned Treos and Sidekicks,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD. “Its advanced operating system makes it competitive with smartphones for many tasks, while its sleek design and lack of expandability is reminiscent of fashion phones.”
Initial iPhone buyers were 10 times more likely than other new phone buyers to have previously owned a Treo and three times more likely to have owned a T-Mobile branded phone, such as the popular Sidekick model. Both the Treo and the Sidekick offer a physical keypad — something the iPhone, with its touch screen-based interface, does not. In contrast, iPhone buyers were no more likely than the average buyer to have previously owned a Blackberry. “The iPhone’s lack of corporate email support appears to make it less appetizing to current Blackberry owners,” Rubin said.
Information included in this statement is based on NPD’s iPhone Report, which includes detailed demographic information on buyers and a comprehensive analysis on how and why they purchased the device, how many buyers switched carriers, a breakdown between AT&T and Apple store sales, and consumer purchase motivators and influencers. Surveys were received from more than 13,000 consumers who acquired mobile phones within the prior 30-day period — among this group, more than 200 purchased a new iPhone. The data was weighted, balanced and projected to represent the total U.S. population.


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The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, a piece of legislation that would change international rules about sharing of data among governments, passed Congress Thursday, as part of the omnibus spending bill, and the president signed it into law. AppleInsider – Frontpage News
(Reuters) – Amazon.com became the second most valuable publicly listed U.S. company on Tuesday, surpassing Google parent Alphabet for the first time. Amazon shares finished up 2.69 percent at $ 1,586.51, for a market capitalization of $ 768 billion, underscoring Wall Street’s confidence in its relentless expansion into cloud computing, grocerie…Read More Apple – VentureBeat
Late Tuesday night the family of Stephen Hawking announced that the physicist has passed away at the age of 76. Awarded more than a dozen honorary degrees, Hawking theorized that black holes emitted a form of thermal radiation, and contributed to wor… Engadget RSS Feed
As demand for wearable electronics continues to grow, Apple has taken a decisive lead away from rivals Fitbit and Xiaomi, IDC reports today. Apple dominated the wearables market during 2017’s holiday quarter with a 21 percent market share and led the category for the year with a narrower but still solid 15.3 percent share.
Apple’s wearable leadership in 2017 is a major step up from 2016, when the company had less than half of then-leader Fitbit’s 22.5 million shipments, and 5 million fewer than Xiaomi. At the time, Xiaomi’s wearable shipments were growing much faster than Apple’s, but that turned around for 2017.
Thanks to strong sales of the Apple Watch Series 3 and a comparatively weak holiday quarter for Fitbit, Apple shipped 8 million units worldwide to Fitbit’s 5.4 million, with Xiaomi at 4.9 million. For the year, Apple shipped 17.7 million units to number two Xiaomi’s 15.7 and Fitbit’s 15.4 million. IDC said that the 1 percent or less difference between Xiaomi’s and Fitbit’s numbers made them a statistical tie for second place.
Collectively, 37.9 million wearables were shipped in the 2017 holiday quarter, up 7.7 percent over the 2016 quarter. All five of the top companies in the space shipped over 1.5 million units, though once again, the “Others” category was the largest — both for the quarter and year, with 15.6 million shipments in the quarter and 55.5 million for 2017. This means over 40 percent of wearable shipments continue to come from smaller players, though the number is falling as larger brands — particularly Apple — continue to grow.
Apple’s overall strength for the year was largely the result of its holiday performance, as IDC pointed out that “4Q17 was the first quarter that Apple held the market leader position all to itself after spending several quarters close behind Fitbit or Xiaomi.” The firm suggested Apple was picking up upgraders from basic wearables, as well as people interested in the Apple Watch Series 3’s cellular connectivity.
IDC noted that Huawei had the largest growth in the top five, though its focus on China has been “somewhat detrimental,” as the brand receded slightly on the world stage. Similarly, though Xiaomi’s shipments have been fairly steady, the company predominantly sells to Chinese customers, with under 15 percent of shipments going outside the country.
The firm was positive on Fitbit, noting that while its shipments were down, the company has been deepening its health care reach and setting the stage for future growth. It also characterized Garmin’s slight increase as attributable more to fast growth in its smartwatches than to its basic fitness trackers. Interestingly, it had nothing to say on Fossil, which was the fifth-ranked wearables vendor for the year but not a leader for the quarter.
Sex-trafficking victims, prosecutors and state attorneys will be able to sue websites that host ads and content linked to the sex trade under the bill the House has just approved. The bill called "Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Traffick… Engadget RSS Feed
Verizon has just announced a couple of changes to its network, including a new 500MB plan for $ 30, the addition of 3G mobile hotspot to Prepaid Unlimited, and Travel Passes for prepaid users that’ll make visiting Mexico and Canada a little bit easier. This news comes after last month’s addition of 500MB of LTE per day to Go Unlimited customers in the same two countries.
A man who claims to be a time traveler from the year 2030 has apparently passed a lie detector test when giving a handful of predictions about the future.
The man, known only as “Noah,” insists that he must remain anonymous and that his face must be blurred. Noah also claims that he is 50-years-old, but has taken an “age rejuvenating drug” to make himself appear 25.
Noah has previously given some predictions about the future in an interview with YouTube channel Paranormal Elite. But this time around, another YouTube channel, Apex TV, has subjected Noah to a lie detector test while he gave many of the same predictions.
Among them are forecasts about Trump being re-elected president, humans reaching Mars in 2028, and the introduction of robots that can independently operate a home. Noah added that artificial intelligence will be “huge,” phones will only get bigger, and that a Google Glass-like device will “take over” within the next decade.
Interestingly, Noah also said that time travel has already been invented but is being kept secret — and will only be made public in the year 2028. Also, someone named Ilana Remikee is apparently going to be president in 2030.
Noah claims to have hard evidence proving all of these predictions, but can’t give us it because of “paradoxes.”
Is It Fake?
The general scientific consensus is that time travel into the past isn’t possible. But suspending disbelief, there are other issues with these predictions.
Polygraph (or “lie detector”) tests are notoriously easy to beat, and their value as instruments capable of catching untruths is becomingincreasinglyweaker. According to the American Psychological Association, “most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraphs can accurately detect lies.”
It’s also a bit suspicious that “Ilana Remikee” doesn’t show up in any Google queries or vital record searches. To be president in 2030, one would have to have been born in the U.S. (natural-born-citizen clause) in 1993 in order to be 35 (the minimum age) in 2028 (the closest election year to 2030). That person would be 24- or 25-years-old currently.
Super Mario Run arrived on the Play Store nearly a year ago, after a brief exclusivity period on iOS. It quickly became a hit, and gained a spot on our best Android games of 2017 list. Now it has passed 100 million installs on the Play Store.
The game has been updated a few times since release, and the full unlock price has dropped to $ 4.99 at least once.
Google has published its monthly analysis of Android market share today, and we have some big news. For the first time in history, the most used version of the OS is now Nougat – which launched in August of 2016, almost 18 months ago. It takes the crown from Marshmallow, in fact its predecessor. Nougat is now at 28.5% of the pie (up from 26.4%), while Marshmallow dropped to 28.1% (from 28.6% last month). Lollipop completes the podium, still commanding 24.6% of the market at this time. While all the older versions of the OS lost market share, Oreo is still gaining. At the same…
A new month means new Android platform distribution numbers, and this month’s stats show that a milestone has been reached.
Google today posted its latest Android distribution figures, showing which versions of Android accessed the Play Store during the 7-day period ending February 5. Android Oreo (8.0 and 8.1) combined for 1.1 percent, the first time that we’ve seen Oreo break 1 percent usage.
Usage of Android Nougat (7.0 and 7.1) grew this month compared to last month, finishing at 28.5 percent in February. Android Marshmallow (6.0) wasn’t so lucky, slipping half a percent to finish at 28.1 percent usage.
Android Lollipop (5.0 and 5.1) usage fell this month, too, ending up with 24.6 percent. Android KitKat (4.4) usage also fell, finishing at 12.0 percent.
Rounding out this month’s Android distribution numbers is Android Jelly Bean (4.1-4.3) dropping to 5.0 percent usage, Android Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) slipping to 0.4 percent, and Android Gingerbread (2.3) dropping to 0.3 percent.


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Hyderabad based application development platform ONGO Framework has acquired digital marketing startup HockyStick Media in a cash and equity deal. The details of the deal remain undisclosed.
ONGO has also raised ₹7 crores ($1 million) from a clutch of angel investors led by its existing investor Mitesh Majithia.
The new acquisition will help ONGO to help provide end-to-end digital solutions by integrating HockyStick’s digital marketing solutions.
The fresh funding will be used to boost talent acquisition, technology innovation, and marketing efforts.
HockyStick was founded by ex-Google employees Shrikanth K and Abhijit Gogoi in 2016, with its headquarter in Hyderabad. The startup enables businesses to establish their online presence through cutting-edge digital marketing strategies.
It provides various services to help its clients through search engine optimisation, content marketing, web analytics, email marketing among others.
While ONGO Framework was founded by Rama Krishna Kuppa and Anasuya Akilla. It integrates innovative technologies such as Cognitive Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with industry-specific solutions to create a robust platform for businesses to grow.
Speaking on the acquisition, Rama Kuppa, Founder & CEO – ONGO Framework, said, “After having served thousands of customers and multiple channel partners, we observed that most companies feel challenged in leveraging and promoting their digital assets. Strategically, the Hockystick acquisition is aimed to fill this gap.”
ONGO Framework will be looking to drive the growth of small business as new businesses look to integrate online solutions to expand. It will leverage HockyStick’s technology to further its goals.
ONGO is expected to cross annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $1 million for the current fianncial year. Post acquisition, it is targeting $10 million in ARR by March 2020.


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Early Black Friday Sales: Are You Shopping Tonight?
Several large retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target and Toys ‘R’ Us, are offering deep discounts today–instead of waiting until Black Friday. Their goal is to boost sluggish retail sales, which have only seen a 4.1 percent growth in November and December (about flat with last year’s growth), according to the National Retail Federation. The decision has stirred up controversy with consumers and Wal-Mart employees alike, but did the negative press keep you from taking advantage of early Black Friday sales? Share your thoughts!


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UK nightclubs could reopen with "entry" checks according to the latest government guidance.
The Times has obtained leaked information from the government and hospitality industry detailing that although clubs are "a challenging area to operate under any form of physical-distancing requirements" they could be allowed to reopen with "entry checks".
This would include temperature checks and hand sanitisation upon entry and socially-distanced queuing.
The Times has splashed on new guidance concerning pubs, restaurants, hotels and gyms. The big headline is that the two-metre rule will be relaxed and that pubs, cafes and restaurants will be able to reopen on July 4.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce the news publicly soon.
Details concerning nightclubs are fewer than for other parts of the hospitality and leisure industry and no date has been given for their reopening.
However this is the first time that the government has addressed nightclubs at length, which is surely cause for cautious optimism.
Clubs with outdoor spaces look set to lead the way this summer. Studio 338 in South East London recently announced that it would be hosting outdoor events from July.


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Donkey Kong vs. the World: Nintendo Bets Big on Wii U
- 6:30 am |
The key word was stubborn.
In 1981, a young Shigeru Miyamoto was looking for a name for his new, revolutionary videogame character. It was a gorilla, and he had decided that it would be an unusually stubborn ape. So he turned to the Japanese word for “stubborn” in a translation dictionary and picked out one of the English equivalents. Donkey Kong was born.
The character would star in the first project that the 29-year-old Miyamoto was overseeing personally at Nintendo. He had come to the company straight out of art school, and had no grasp of the intricacies of the Zilog Z80 microprocessor that powered Nintendo’s arcade machines. He just wanted to make a game in which a villainous, and stubborn, ape tossed obstacles at a character controlled by the player while it glared and grinned and pounded its chest arrogantly.
Miyamoto already knew what Nintendo’s engineers, who actually knew how the hardware worked, would say about his creation: No. A character with shifting facial expressions and flailing arms would use up the limited memory that was required to run the rest of the game. Donkey Kong was impossible.
But Miyamoto was stubborn too. He anticipated the engineers’ objections to his elaborate game idea. Drawing a series of pixelated images on graph paper, he laid out how the big gorilla could be broken up into sections, each with its own simple animation. “The parts were moving separately, even though it looks like they were all moving together,” he later recalled. “The engineers sometimes said ‘no’ to me, but in this case they said ‘OK, that’s going to work.’”
Today, Miyamoto’s stubbornness is woven into Nintendo’s DNA. As the console maker gears up to launch its new Wii U on Sunday, it is thumbing its nose at all of the prevailing trends in the game industry. Pundits say Nintendo should do everything differently: Dump hardware and put its popular games out on smartphones; ditch the disc and embrace a digital-only business model; pursue free-to-play games with in-app purchases. But its president, a former game designer, says he believes 99-cent apps are killing the game business like a virus. And Shigeru Miyamoto, the company’s game design genius, who went on to create Super Mario and countless other legendary titles, is unwavering in his belief that the real future of home gaming is a crazy idea Nintendo tried 10 years ago and failed at.
A Reputation For Being Loud
Miyamoto told me the Donkey Kong story in 2003 at Nintendo’s headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. After the worldwide success of Donkey Kong, he designed many more arcade hits. As the business model of the games industry shifted from arcades to home consoles, he had overseen the development of hundreds of games that have sold over 4 billion copies. In the process, Miyamoto had risen to become the head of all of Nintendo’s game development efforts and the manager of the company’s Entertainment Analysis and Development division. By the time I first spoke to him, Nintendo had begun marketing Miyamoto as a sort of Willy Wonka of game design, complete with a big goofy grin and a childlike sense of wonder.
That, he said at the time, was not the way he was perceived within his company. “I think that I have a reputation for being loud, being hard on everybody, sticking to minute detailed points,” he told me. “Many would maybe agree that I am a person who even at midnight fights for his own opinions.”
Nintendo was built on Miyamoto’s convictions. Everyone said the American game industry was dead after Atari’s bust; Nintendo refused to believe it and single-handedly resurrected the industry through its tenacity. Rivals introduced portable game systems with color screens; Nintendo dug in its heels with the cheap black-and-white Game Boy for nearly a decade and made a killing.
But its refusal to follow trends sometimes hurt, big time. When the rest of the gaming industry moved to the CD-ROM, Nintendo felt it best to stick with cartridges. What resulted was nothing less than a mass exodus of nearly all of its publishing partners, which moved to the far less risky disc medium and away from Nintendo.
When I sat down with Miyamoto in 2003, there was a growing sense that the stubbornness that had served it well was now destroying Nintendo. The videogame industry had changed drastically, and Nintendo refused to go with the flow. Everyone, including Wired, had advice for the company as it prepared to release its next console: Ditch the cartoony aesthetic for a gritty cinematic game that could appeal to 18- to 25-year-old men, refocus the console around online connectivity, or simply get out of the hardware business entirely and sell software that runs on Microsoft’s and Sony’s machines.
Nintendo rejected all of this advice, pursuing its own vision of simple, immediately gratifying gameplay experiences for all ages. And over the next few years, it experienced a level of success that the game industry had never seen before. The Wii outsold its more technologically sophisticated rivals, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, by tens of millions of units. The Nintendo DS handheld became the best-selling gaming device ever, moving 150 million units. Twelve of the top 20 best-selling games of all time were made by Nintendo for the Wii or the DS. By 2007, the company had a market cap of $73 billion, making it the second biggest company in Japan, well ahead of Sony and just behind Toyota.
It was one of the most dramatic corporate turnarounds of the last decade. But now, Nintendo needs to reinvent itself all over again. Wii peaked early and sales crashed. Smartphones and tablets are eating the lunch of the formerly lucrative gaming handheld business; U.S. sales of the new Nintendo 3DS were lower in the same period of 2012 than they were when it launched in 2011, even after a price drop. Earlier this year, the company posted its first loss since it went public in the 1960s, and recently cut its forecasts for the current fiscal year.


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Serena Williams slayed all the way with an eye-popping display on Wednesday evening as she joined husband Alexis Ohanian at Adweek’s Brand Genius Awards in New York City.
The Grand Slam champ, 37, showed off her cleavage in a low-cut dress that mixed check fabric with sparkly sequins. She increased the wow factor with stunning diamond earrings and silver heels.
Posing for photos alongside his wife, Reddit co-founder Alexis, 35, looked dashing in a smart black tuxedo, white shirt and black tie. The couple welcomed daughter Alexis on September 1, 2017, and tied the knot in a star-studded ceremony on November 16.
Serena was at the event to be honored with the trade publication’s 2018 Brand Visionary Award which was presented to her by Anna Wintour.


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Heightened consumer pressure on companies to behave responsibly has led to frequent accusations of greenwashing: a practice by which an organization insincerely displays concern for the environment in an attempt to improve their reputation, and further their own agendas.
Suddenly is seems as though everyone is talking about clean tech's demise. It’s true that the signs have not augured well: The federal government made a bad bet on Solyndra. Policies supporting wind and solar are expiring. Venture capital funding for clean tech went down in 2011. Last month, Wired published an article claiming that “the clean-tech bubble has burst.” The argument was that antsy venture capitalists had tried to import the get-rich-quick ethos of the internet to clean tech, where investments take longer to pay off. That didn’t work. Therefore, clean tech is screwed.
The Wired article was correct in its conclusion that venture capitalists are not going to build the wind and solar projects that will wean America off of coal and oil. That’s not their job, and there are signs that more patient investors—banks, for instance—are becoming more comfortable with funding those projects. But risk-loving venture capitalists are still interested in clean tech projects. While their investments in clean tech did drop last year, it was a mere 4.5 percent decrease from 2010 funding. Meanwhile, investment levels are up 29 percent over dismal 2009 recession levels, and up 16 percent over healthier 2008 levels.
Facebook’s decision to sell stock to the public for the first time dominated business news last week. The announcement came after a year of internet companies going public with massive fanfare—the professional network LinkedIn, social gaming company Zynga, and Groupon with the largest public launch since Google’s in 2004.
After years of speculation about a public offering, Facebook is the only one of its major rivals—Google, Amazon and Apple—to remain privately owned. The company’s impending arrival at the public auction block seemed preordained.


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“Drinking beer is part of our culture,” said Le Tuan Linh, 32, a PR manager at a property business. He and his friends often start the evening with “1-2-3-Zo” before each downing a glass of the amber nectar.
“When we drink beer we can relax, so we often go for a drink after we leave the office,” he said, hoisting a mug of draft beer.
|Men drink Sabeco's Saigon beer on a roadside restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam November 29, 217. Photo by Reuters/Kham
Vietnamese people also have a habit of discussing business over a beer, and the more lager downed, the closer they move to a deal.
Vietnam’s beer-friendly culture stands out compared with other emerging Asian countries like India and Indonesia. In Hanoi, streetside draught beer is as common as coffee.
This market for beer is becoming ever more attractive to global giants that have been racing for stakes in local brewer Habeco and its bigger rival Sabeco, both of which the Vietnamese government plans to privatize.
Recently, Thai Beverage bought a majority stake worth US$4.84 billion in Sabeco.
Thai Bev’s local unit, Vietnam Beverage Co Ltd, won the 54% Sabeco stake on offer at an auction last month.
The Sabeco deal is expected to help Thai Bev tap into Vietnam’s beer market, worth about US$6.48 billion last year, where a young population and booming economy counter the drawbacks of political resistance, a high minimum bid price and a cap on foreign ownership.
The Thai owner of Sabeco plans to increase the brewer’s annual output to 1.9-2 billion liters of beer in 2018 from 1.75 billion liters in 2017, said company execs.
|A man pours Saigon beer to cups in a restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam November 15, 2017. Photo by Reuters/Kham
The domestic market share held by Sabeco is also expected to increase to 50% from 40% on the strength of Thai Beverage’s retail network.
Many international brewers, including Australia's leading beer company Carlton & United Breweries and Denmark’s Carlsberg, have expressed interest in acquiring shares in Habeco, Vietnam’s third-largest beer company by sales.
Carlsberg has already edged closer to reaching an agreement with the Vietnamese government to increase its stake in Habeco. The brewer, which already owns 17.3% of Habeco, has been discussing its priority purchase rights with the Vietnamese government for years.
“Carlsberg, the Vietnamese government and Habeco have reached a common understanding on a number of issues during the negotiations, and we expect this will accelerate the process,” Reuters quoted a Carlsberg spokesman as saying.
The government said last month it expects a stake sale in Habeco to be completed in the first quarter of 2018.
Vietnam has one of the world’s most attractive beer markets, buoyed by a young population that consumed nearly 4 billion liters last year.
An expanding Vietnamese middle class and youthful population have helped drive a 300 percent surge in beer demand since 2002, according to market research group Euromonitor.
It estimated per-capita consumption reached 40.6 liters in 2017, making Vietnam the biggest beer consumer in Southeast Asia.
According to research group Nielsen, the market for canned and bottled beer, not including draft, is worth US$2 billion a year, accounting for 23% of Vietnam’s total fast moving consumer goods market, and growing in double digits.
“We call it a superstar category,” said senior executive at Nielsen Cao Thuy Linh. Brewers have benefited hugely from Vietnam’s growing thirst for beer.
The market share of Dutch group Tiger and eponymous brands in Vietnam increased to 23% in 2015 from 17% in 2009, according to market research organizations Canadean and Bernstein.
The Financial Times quoted Andrew Holland, an analyst at French bank Societe Generale, as estimating that Vietnam accounts for 10% of Heineken’s profits, and is its second-biggest generator of earnings after Mexico.
The local beer market is expected to thrive in the coming years as the Vietnamese thirst grows.
Vietnam will represent half of Japan’s Sapporo Holdings Ltd’s overseas beer sales in the next decade, Bloomberg quoted Mikio Masawaki, general director of Sapporo’s Vietnamese brewing unit, as saying.
At the crowded beer outlet, with young female waitresses wearing short skirts displaying the logos of local and international brewers, Linh said he will continue to drink beer with friends two or three times a week.
“They are happy times for me,” he said. “There's not much entertainment around here, so if I did't drink beer I don't know what I'd do with my free time.”


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Chick-Fil-A is a favorite among Auburn students as both locations on campus have long lines and wait times throughout most of the day. This year, it also has the honor of being named best on-campus dining by The Plainsman staff.
Students can order at the counter or through GrubHub, which requires a check-in process. Check-in stands can be found around the student center for convenience. Declining balance, cash and credit cards are accepted at both locations.
The Chick-Fil-A in the student center is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, so students can grab a quick breakfast before class or late dinner in the evening. The Village location is open an hour later and is open on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Both locations are closed on Sundays per the company policy.
Students can order all the classics from the chicken sandwich to a chicken nugget meal, and even big-ticket items like frosted coffee. Other options may vary from other Chick-Fil-A restaurants found off campus.
So go get your Chick-Fil-A comfort meals, whether it's been a long day or you just need something reliable. Just be wary of the long lines.
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If you were one of the millions of people who searched for toilet paper this year amid the coronavirus pandemic you might have picked up some Cottonelle Flushable Wipes as an alternative if you weren’t buying them already.
Now, Cottonelle has issued a recall for specific lots of Cottonelle Flushable Wipes and Cottonelle GentlePlus Flushable Wipes manufactured between Feb. 7 and Sept. 14.
Specific lot numbers found on the bottom of the affected packaging can be used to identify if the product is a part of the recall or you can use the lot number checker on the Cottonelle website here.
“The affected product could show the presence of a bacterium (Pluralibacter gergoviae) which naturally occurs in the environment and in the human body,” according to Cottonelle. “Pluralibacter gergoviae rarely causes serious infections in healthy individuals. However, individuals with weakened immune systems are at a heightened risk of infection.”
The company reported that they are experiencing high call volumes as a result of the recall and encouraged consumers to reach out via the website at Cottonelle.com and submit requests through the ‘Contact Us’ form.
There is no need to return the product to the store and all other Cottonelle products with codes not included in the recall are considered safe to use.
If you do not find the answer you need from the Cottonelle website, please contact Kimberly-Clark’s Consumer Service team at 1-800-414-0165 regarding the recall.


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If the 2021 International Contemporary Furniture Fair held in Manhattan every year was any indication, there is no shortage of homegrown talent in the field of design.
From sculptural furniture that incorporates living plants, to skillfully digitalized tripped out wallcoverings — all these goods have one thing in common: They are made in New York.
And for so many in this local design community, lifestyle changes during the pandemic not only fueled inspiration for new, more purposeful designs, but led to growth in sales.
“Consumers continue to invest in their living spaces,” said Phil Robinson, show director of ICFF. “There is more visibility for local businesses because of supply chain delays and consumers have had to tap into more local resources, which can deliver design products more quickly.”
In Brooklyn, Robert Remer, principal designer at Opiary, a biophilic design and production studio, explores the many possibilities for glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) — a material he prefers for its strength and versatility.
Remer and his team of artisans create weatherproof made-to-order statement pieces like tables, chairs and sculptural accessories which incorporate design elements that allow for living greenery.
“Our pieces are inspired by the dialectic of nature and culture and involve natural processes and man-made systems in their composition,” says Remer. “It’s important that living nature is in every one of our pieces to reflect the quality of our environment, whether indoors or out, and to remind us of who we are and where we came from.”
Not too far down the road in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, another local favorite churns out hand-screened and digital wallcoverings that transcend the ordinary.
Flavor Paper has easily made wallpaper and wall decals a hot commodity by bringing iconic patterns from legendary contemporary artists — from Andy Warhol to Jen Stark — to scale with the notion that nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.
Their wall art has earned permanent residency at design institutions like the Brooklyn Museum; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; and abroad at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
Other highly covetable objects made locally are of the illuminating kind.
Feyza Koksal Kemahlioglu, founder and design director of Feyz Studio, manufactures customized lighting fixtures that can take up to 12 weeks to complete.
Kemahlioglu works with her team at Brooklyn Glass to perfect techniques and manufacture each piece to specifications like glass color, metal finish and sizing orientation — whatever you can imagine is possible.
A unique aspect of her work is how she incorporates meerschaum, a claylike material sourced and finished by artisans in her native Turkey.
“I love handcraftsmanship and I’m very attached to my Turkish culture and history,” she said. “It is very important for me to use components of it or reference it in my art.”


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Attracting more than 18,000 visitors, Hillhead is famous for its live demonstrations and wide range of equipment that is put through its paces in a quarry deep in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside.
Davis Derby have exhibited StedFAST and TruckLOG products at the biennial event for a number of years and know how important this show is for attracting visitors from across Europe, not least to see the spectacular live demonstrations, plant, equipment and latest technologies.
This year’s trade fair promises to be bigger and better than before, which reflects the developments in the StedFAST and TruckLOG range of specialist conveyor protection systems.
Business director Richard Locke said that this year will offer an exciting opportunity to demonstrate their range of products: ‘Located in the main pavilion, we will showcase our conveyor belt fault-detection system using WiPAN technology.
‘With big cost savings and a significant reduction in downtime this new technology has been designed to integrate directly into the conveyor pull-key system and provides real-time data and condition monitoring.’
Davis Derby is world renowned for the design and development of cutting edge electronic safety products and control monitoring systems to mines and quarries all over the world.
Hillhead takes place from 26-28 June 2018 at the Hillhead Quarry near Buxton in Derbyshire. For more details visit www.hillhead.com


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Lighting Science Group appoints James ‘Jim’ Haworth new chairman of the Board of Directors
June 30, 2011 | By Alyssa Dalton
June 30, 2011 – Lighting Science Group has appointed its chief executive officer, James “Jim” Haworth, to its board of directors and serve as chairman of the board.
“Jim brings immense experience, insight and vision to the table, and that’s exactly what Lighting Science Group needs,” said Rich Weinberg, former chairman and current vice-Chairman and director of Lighting Science Group. “We have some of the most advanced and affordable LED lighting products on the market, but equally vital to our company’s assertion of leadership in the lighting technology sector is the collective expertise of our directors.”
“It’s an honor and privilege to join the Lighting Science board and to be appointed its chairman,” said Jim Haworth. “For years, high-output and low-cost LED lighting products have been just out of reach, but our world-class team of scientists, engineers and assemblers has revolutionized the science of light in America to produce lighting products that deliver on the promise of LED technology.
“Our LED products deliver substantial energy savings over traditional lighting options, and also offer unparalleled quality, performance and longevity,” he continued.
Prior to joining Lighting Science Group, Haworth served as vice-president of marketing and strategy with Philips Professional Luminaires North America.
For the past three years, Haworth was responsible for all upstream marketing functions of Philips’ lighting business and he employed his “unparalleled familiarity” with the LED landscape to manage Philips’ mergers and acquisitions activities, said the company. Prior to joining Philips, Haworth served as president and CEO of JJI Lighting Group, which he sold in 2006 to Genlyte Group, which was subsequently purchased by Philips in 2008.
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Business Roundup for November 11
November 11, 2012
BCT announces addition of Dalton CHARLES TOWN — Bank of Charles Town (BCT) is pleased to announce the addition of David Dalton as a retail loan officer, located in Berkeley County at their......
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Today, 2K revealed the first six fighters players can expect to find in WWE 2K16. The latest WWE entry from 2K is projected to offer the largest playable roster in the history of the franchise.
WWE 2K16 will feature current WWE Heavyweight Champion, Seth Rollins along with WWE Superstars Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose and Bad News Barrett. They will be joined by WWE Diva, Paige, and NXT Superstar, Finn Bálor.
More information on the rest of the roster is expected in the coming weeks.
WWE 2K16 launches October 27 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 3.