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'The gay males get upset': New York maternity store offers new mothers 10 per cent discount... but only if they're lesbians
New mothers in Brooklyn's desirable Park Slope neighbourhood will be delighted to hear they can get 10 per cent off at their local maternity store.
But there's one condition - they have to be lesbians.
The owner of Boing Boing breastfeeding and baby store is offering same-sex female couples the exclusive 'hardship' discount because she says they earn less than men.
Controversial discount: Store owner Karen Paperno says she doesn't care if the offer is politically incorrect - but some gay men have complained
Karen Paperno started the promotion three months ago, and said she doesn't care if people think it's politically incorrect.
She said most shoppers are 'tickled' by the offer, displayed on a gold plaque behind the till at the Brooklyn shop, but some gay men have taken offence.
Mrs Paperno - who is straight - told the New York Daily News: 'My heart goes out to lesbian moms.
'Women still only make 77 cents on the dollar, compared to men. Financially, women have a much harder time of it.'
She opened the shop in Brooklyn's exclusive Park Slope neighbourhood 15 years ago, and said she started the discount in part as a tribute to the area's sapphic roots.
'Hardship' offer: Lesbian mothers can get 10 per cent off all stock at Boing Boing - because its owner says they earn less than men
She told the Brokelyn blog: 'My first day here I saw a big pin on the sidewalk for the Lesbian Herstory Archives and I thought, "what a cool neighbourhood".'
Lesbian couples can enjoy the discount across the store's range of breastfeeding accessories and baby clothes.
The offer gets about one taker a day, and customers don't have to prove their sexuality - although Mrs Paperno said little 'experimenting in college' doesn't count.
As far as she knows, no straight couples have tried to get in on the reduction yet. She said: 'This neighbourhood is way too honest.'
Cheaper for some: Lesbian mothers can get 10 per cent off the breastfeeding equipment and baby clothes on sale at Boing Boing
The overwhelming reaction has been positive, but some customers have looked at the placard 'questioningly', she said.
She told Brokelyn: 'The lesbians love it and the gay males get upset. But their disposable income is so much higher than women’s. Men just make more than women.'
As far as she is concerned, she isn't breaking any anti-discrimination laws, and says the offer is no different from the hardship discounts she has offered needy couples in the past.
She told the New York Daily News: 'It's not politically correct, but
neither am I. Never have been, never will be.
'This is my store, and I can choose to do this discount for the people who need it most.'
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RIM acknowledged that many its users have reported delayed message deliveries on Wednesday, although it remains unclear what the culprit might be. “We’re getting reports that some users are experiencing delays,” RIM said on its official Twitter account. “We’re investigating and will update you ASAP.” A BlackBerry outage affected millions worldwide for several days during October. The downtime resulted in a class-action lawsuit and could cost RIM an estimated $100 million.
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September 21st, 2021
September 20th, 2021

domain: news


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The report by the environment, food and rural affairs (EFRA) select committee said around 18p a litre went missing between the farm and retailer.
The committee said the missing money was being swallowed up by the dairy processors’ costs and called on them to justify to farmers why they needed such a large chunk of the retail price to meet their costs.
The missing money is a symptom of the wider atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust in the dairy sector. The committee recommended improved co-operation and dialogue across the entire supply chain and that the government should take steps to improve transparency.
This view was echoed by the National Farmers’ Union which welcomed the report. “The missing 18p is part of the lack of transparency. There needs to be greater co-operation, both vertically
and horizontally across the chain. We need to be working to try and bring everyone together.”
Jim Begg, director general of the Dairy Industry Association, said:“There is much misunderstanding about how the dairy markets work, and there is responsibility on everyone to improve communications and understanding.”


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Investing Lessons from Research in Motion's Latest $500 Million Blunder...
Last week (on Friday after market close, no less – the time when companies send bad news they hope the market will forget about by Monday), Blackberry smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIMM) dropped a bombshell, announcing that not only was its Playbook line of tablet computers floundering – not news to anyone who watches these things – but that the company would incur a massive $485 million charge in Q3 from writing off excess Playbook inventory and expenses.
The amount was so staggering that many analysts and industry observers were left wondering exactly how the company could have screwed up so badly. However, given RIM's decline in its core smartphone market – it's been rapidly bleeding market share for a few years now – there was little chance the company could make a tablet play successful. While RIM's most ardent fans insisted that the company was simply down but not out, the writing has been on the wall for some time that this company has lost its mojo. This latest blunder teaches some important lessons that all technology investors should understand.
How RIM Got Here
Research in Motion makes the once über-popular Blackberry email phone. In 2005, you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a banker or business executive frantically thumbing away on one. But for the past few years, the rallying cry at headquarters has probably sounded a bit like, "Blackberry is dead! Long live the Blackberry!"
Blackberry's secret to its former success? Real-time communications and enterprise-grade features.
Prior to the Blackberry, getting email on the phone was a slow and tedious process. Blackberry made it easy and fast. Instead of polling servers every hour or so over a very slow connection and downloading everything, their servers pushed each email to the phone as soon as it arrived. No more getting an email an hour or more after it arrived – instant access on the mobile phone was a reality with the Blackberry. It may seem trivial in the age of the smartphone, but when it launched this was a huge differentiator.
RIM did the same for messaging, too. Thumbing out SMS messages on the popular alternative Nokia feature phones was a task best left to adroit pre-teens with little other choice in phones. For users with a Blackberry, not only was typing out messages easier, but its proprietary BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) app made the messaging experience much more like then-popular instant messaging programs on the computer, with real-time status and near-instant delivery.
RIM did both of these with support from its best partners: carriers and enterprise IT departments. Phone carriers loved Blackberry. They could sell data (much cheaper services to provide) on top of their voice plans to make extra profits. All they had to do was throw some Blackberry enterprise servers – conveniently managed by RIM itself – onto their network and voilà: real-time email and a flood of cash from users with a must-have desire for access on the go.
Enterprises were the same. IT departments could bolt Blackberry enterprise servers onto their corporate mail systems and RIM would help them beam email straight to the device by relaying it all through the company's fast and secure servers… simple to deploy and much better than the alternatives of the day. IT departments loved Blackberries.
Research in Motion meanwhile made profits two ways: from the sale of cheap and simple devices that just did email well, and by collecting big user-licensing fees from enterprise and carrier customers which anted up to provide the improved email service to their users. Buying the server meant you could only buy Blackberry phones. Buying a Blackberry meant you needed the server. A virtuous cycle if ever there was one.
But then along came Apple's iPhone. It's a story that does not need retelling other than how and when exactly the iPhone really became a threat to RIM.
When the iPhone was released, it had limited capabilities, really. Other than a much-improved web browser (a huge thing in its own right), it did not have any particular killer features to differentiate it. It did offer a sleek look and simple interface – big improvements over virtually all other confusing proprietary interfaces on the market before it. But that was not in and of itself a reason to buy a phone for most people, other than early adopters and diehard Apple fans.
Most important for RIM, though, email was still better on the Blackberry. The iPhone experience was great – a big, clear touchscreen for reading and (for those who didn't require a hardware keyboard) a decent touchscreen keyboard. But you could only get messages from low-security consumer email systems like Gmail and Hotmail. No work email on the iPhone. Not for enterprises using Microsoft Exchange, the most popular system by far. Those customers were stuck with Blackberry.
However, as Apple started providing updates to its phone over the ensuing months and years, it eventually made two critical choices that managed to turn Blackberry's strengths into weaknesses. The first was to address the email issues.
Blackberry's "in" with IT departments put two great big targets on its back.
For one thing, the pervasiveness of the Blackberry Enterprise server was a constant thorn in the side of email system vendors like IBM and Microsoft. It was a constant reminder to IT departments of features they lacked out of the box, and an extra cost for the customer. With IT departments in a constant push to trim budgets, they demanded that the vendors add encryption and so-called "push" email that would get mail to the devices faster than was possible with the slow polling intervals most phones endured in checking for new mail.
All the vendors quickly responded to add these features, but the problem was that they couldn't make them work with Blackberry phones. RIM itself made sure of that, to protect its email server revenues. That left only a handful of less popular phones that were compatible… that is, until the iPhone added enterprise email support. Once that was the case, IT departments had a wildly popular phone supported out of the box with the email servers. They could get executives their "Crackberry" fix and save the company some money in the process by ridding themselves of Blackberry servers. In fact, since many users had already bought their own iPhones, many companies saw an opportunity to stop buying phones for employees and just open up their email to end users who buy their own phones, saving even more.
The other major move Apple made was to ditch the idea of a single-purpose device. Nokia made the best phones, many agreed. Blackberry made the best email devices. The iPhone? Initially just a good web-browsing phone – until Apple created the App Store.
When Apple relinquished a little bit of control and opened up to outside developers, the iPhone ceased being just a phone with web and email and truly became a general-purpose computer. You could play games, edit spreadsheets, get better messaging apps, watch videos, and much, much more. Apple realized what RIM did not – that by winning developers over it could make its phone appeal to vastly more users, save the expense of developing many of those apps themselves, lock in customers to its platform, and make a lot more money in the process. The App Store became Apple's equivalent to Enterprise Server revenue – the competitive advantage and the kicker on top of the phone sale. And it did it while making RIM's competitive advantage much less valuable.
What really lost the smartphone wars for Blackberry/RIM was its "Not Invented Here" mindset. Instead of embracing developers, the company initially responded by ignoring the demand for apps. Then it followed by hand-selecting a few apps to make half-baked experiences work on the phone. On the surface it was trying to play the 80/20 rule, getting Facebook and a few other super-popular apps running well enough on its device to not see mass defections.
Underneath there was a bigger problem: The phones had not been designed with apps in mind. The developer experience was awful. Building for RIM devices was slow and cumbersome. And it was downright impossible to reach all phones, because screen sizes and capabilities were all over the map.
RIM scrambled desperately, trying to build a new OS in-house. Later it scrapped that effort and bought a company called QNX in the hope that it could use that company's OS as a base for more app-friendly development. To date there are only a handful of QNX-based devices on the market – more are due soon – but even when they become more widely available, Blackberry will be starting from scratch, as all its users will need to upgrade to a new phone to have access to its app store.
In the meantime, Apple has built an insurmountable lead. More than 18 billion apps have been downloaded to iOS devices to date. Those users will never be able to switch back to Blackberry without losing their apps. And even Blackberry users can get their email on an iPhone these days, thanks to Microsoft and other email vendors.
By not embracing application developers, Research in Motion condemned its phones to quickly fall behind in terms of features available. One company simply cannot keep pace with thousands of outside companies producing tens of thousands of applications.
On top of all that, Google happened.
Copying the best part of Apple's phone model and Microsoft's PC model, and adding a little open-source twist of its own, Google suddenly surged to a dominant position in the smartphone landscape. Its Android operating system was open source. That means developers and device manufacturers both love it because it is easy to get and really cheap. And because so many device makers adopted it, phones are widely available and affordable. The net effect has been an explosion of demand for Android phones and thus for their app store as well. Just this week, Google announced it has reached 10 billion app downloads by its users:
Add those to Apple's 18 billion, and you have an awfully steep hill for RIM to climb.
Android and Apple's app platforms are also transferrable to their tablet devices with little work. RIM promises to provide the same with Blackberry 10, based on QNX, just as its Playbook tablet is. But it will be starting in the wrong direction, with its least-popular item the sole source of apps today.
We'll get to the Playbook in a moment. But first we must note that RIM's downfall is not solely attributable to its lock-in to a business model that is under siege from a 360-degree competitive assault. The company made mistake after mistake, tarnishing its brand image and showcasing the major flaws of the platform for businesses and consumers alike. To list them all would make a novel, but a few key ones stand out clearly…
Massive service outages exposed the flaws in the central model of its email system for all to see. IT managers had to answer hard questions about disaster preparedness, outsourcing critical functions, and how they could not have a backup. This left IT departments in search of alternatives to the Blackberry, which they found in the combination of email systems they already owned and consumer smartphones like the iPhone.
A kerfuffle over security with the governments of both Saudi Arabia and India turned into an international issue when RIM exposed their attempts to coerce the company into letting them spy on encrypted emails. What the company intended as a demonstration of its independence and commitment to protection of customer data, as well as the quality of its encryption software, ultimately backfired. Again, IT departments were reminded of the system's centralized architecture and how that made the company an easy target for governments looking to subpoena information, shut down services, or just universally spy.
These drawbacks were revealed as acute risks for enterprises running their own email, leading them to pressure vendors like Microsoft to support mobile email better, and companies like Apple to build enterprise email, including encrypted email support, into their devices. Sensing the market opportunity, the competitors jumped in with both feet, preaching lack of dependence on RIM's proven shaky service and some isolation from that giant temptress of the surveillance state.
Simply put, RIM failed to recognize when its business model – proprietary, centralized, closed device, and server ecosystem – became its own worst enemy. And by the time the company finally saw the writing on the wall, it was too late.
The results have been astounding, with market share for RIM dropping from over 60% less than a decade ago to below 20% today. It's now dwarfed by both Apple and Google, with even Windows Mobile gaining against it.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The company's big hopes of resurgence were pinned not only on the back of the revived, developer-friendly smartphone platform but also on a grand entrance into the ultra-hot tablet computer market. However, the company brought some of its old business model thinking to the market with it and botched the rollout of its new product altogether.
The Playbook Problem
Which brings us to this week's news: the incredible, nearly half-billion-dollar write-off of Playbook expenses. The exact cause of the write-off is unknown, as RIM is not providing much in the way of details. No surprise there. But we can speculate. With the number that high, and estimates of the cost of the device – made by well-known ODM Quanta out of easily priced parts – running at only about $200 a pop, the latest news means than RIM could be looking at writing off as many as 2.4 million devices.
If this is the case, it could mean the company far overbought the devices. Or possibly, it had a minimum device commitment in its contract with Quanta, guaranteeing certain milestones that were never met. Either way, a massive strategic mistake was made.
The device's sales started off strong enough, as would be expected with an installed base of tens of millions of smartphone users. Among them are bound to be many remaining fans. The company reportedly sold 500,000 Playbooks during its first quarter of availability, but sales then fell off a cliff, to 250,000 in Q2 and just 150,000 in the most recent quarter. Even if initial sales levels had held up, RIM would have bought or guaranteed enough inventory for well over a year – completely unnecessary in today's "just in time" inventory world.
What's happened to hurt sales this much and stifle what looked like a promising launch? First and foremost is the device's bad design concept. To make a Playbook work, you must have a Blackberry. That limits the functionality of the device for many users and takes them entirely out of the market.
This as well as problems with the interface design and quality of the browser software led to many scathing reviews of the device online and in magazines and newspapers. Not all were bad, but those that were had to leave any well-informed consumer with lots of lingering doubts.
The device was also initially priced on par with the iPad, a media darling with high customer satisfaction ratings. That severely limited sales. Price drops helped a little, but RIM was not willing to let the price fall low enough to really set itself apart.
That was the case until the recent release of Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet. Priced at just $200, the device has effectively the same specifications as the Playbook and is made by the same ODM, but comes in at $300 less than the Playbook's original iPad-like price tag. The Kindle Fire has not been around long enough to dent sales significantly, but the pervasive rumors of an Amazon tablet cooled the market for non-Apple tablets for much of the summer and fall. And the Kindle Fire's lower price structure has also forced Blackberry to match it – dropping the Playbook price about $300, or 60%, in a few months' time.
To be more precise, "forced" is actually too strong a word here. Apple wasn't compelled to lower iPad prices in response, after all. But the iPad is faster and a better quality device. Reviews of the iPad are glowing. And it works great on its own – no iPhone required. All the Kindle Fire really did was further expose how weak the value proposition is for the Playbook for anyone other than a hardcore Blackberry fan.
The Playbook's run is not over yet, of course. RIM has a big software update on the way to fix the glaring design flaws. But with its opening salvo a nearly complete miss, the company will need a miracle to catch up to market leaders Apple and Google (whose Android software also powers the Kindle Fire). They offer users access to millions of apps right out of the gate, leapfrogging RIM once again.
As an investor, it is important to take away a few lessons from Research in Motion's struggles. First and foremost, a company can rarely be successful in a new market when it's not successful in its core. And at the core, Research in Motion is a smartphone company that's losing the smartphone war.
Sure, Apple reinvented itself first through the iPod and then through the iPhone to the point that today more of its profits come from iOS devices than from Macs. But a few important things differentiate yesteryear's Apple from today's RIM.
One is that Apple had already successfully relaunched the Mac before the iPod came around. With the iMac and OSX, the company was growing market share once again in computers, and the extra profits could be put to use building the new businesses without rushing. And the core success let top brass focus on making the new ventures a success without worrying about the constant care and feeding of a struggling legacy product line. Add in the positive PR momentum and the story is complete – reviewers can gush about how good the gadget is instead of ending each article with musings about why the company is failing, thereby scaring away potential buyers.
In addition, the iPod did not require a Mac to be successful. The halo effect of excited iMac buyers and all the company's positive buzz at the time helped lift the iPod's sales (something that later reversed when the iPod became the top seller), but had the Mac lineup faltered during that time the iPod could have survived just fine without it. The Playbook, on the other hand, literally requires a Blackberry to work. With market share falling – and many of the users still left on the platform eyeing their neighbor's copy of Angry Birds on the iPhone or Android – that requirement immediately killed any hopes the company had of making the Playbook successful. Until that requirement is removed, the Playbook is dead in the water.
Finally, it's hard to turn around an aircraft carrier. In order for Research in Motion to truly compete with Apple and Google, the company needs to abandon its proprietary lock-in to the Blackberry server and the revenue stream that comes with it. The company must embrace phones that work with every email system equally well, instead of limiting its market to large enterprises on the hopes that security and speed alone keep them differentiated. Those hurdles are just too easy for competitors to jump, and without owning the core email system, RIM will always be vulnerable to competition from both sides of the platform. Instead, RIM needs to get developers on board with its platform, something that clearly still has not happened. Horrific developer accounts of working with the Playbook have made the rounds on the Internet ever since the device was released.
Instead of really tackling its core problems, Research in Motion is just throwing good money after bad. Proof in point: the company's response to the Playbook fiasco might have been to can the project and turn its undivided attention to stemming losses in its core business. But no. The company, in its own words, "now believes that an increase in promotional activity is required to drive sell-through [of the PlayBook] to customers." That is to say, RIM intends to follow up a bad product launch and a $485 million write-off with better commercials!
Granted, changing direction with a company of this size is difficult. It's much easier to keep doing what you are already doing than to radically alter course.
But so far, RIM hasn't really shown that it grasps the full extent of its problems. Without a more drastic change to its business model, the company is trying to steer with its hands tied behind its back. It's unprepared to endanger the revenue stream from the server business, in hopes of catching competitors that are now years ahead in consumer and developer adoption.
Research in Motion might redirect the ship yet, but the signs aren't promising… and even if they do effect a turnaround, they may just have waited too long.
[Technology is an exciting sector for investors, but weeding out companies best left alone is difficult to do on one's own. That's where Casey Extraordinary Technology comes in… and right now you can get a year's subscription for free just for taking the Casey Energy Report for a risk-free trial..]
Bits and Bytes
We've written at length about the booming cybersecurity industry that has sprouted up around protecting yourself and your business from the mushrooming threats to your data and networks from outsiders and inside saboteurs alike. And we've profited handsomely from investing in some of the most innovative players in the security hardware and software spaces. But was it all for naught? Perhaps – if you believe a claim by WikiLeaks that documents it released last week provide evidence of a "secret new industry" of mass surveillance. The 287 documents released by WikiLeaks come from 160 companies in 25 countries. They detail various commercial products and services offered to governments and law enforcement officials interested in intercepting online communications or eavesdropping on computer use. While we would categorize the WikiLeaks release as not only unsurprising but expected, the implications are profound. No longer is web censoring and total cyber surveillance simply the realm of authoritarian regimes; it is now SOP for defense departments across the globe.
Liberty is fragile, and those who would encroach upon it for their own benefit will be always with us. At the same time, technology is neutral. It can be put in service to the advancement of civilization, or it can be turned against us. It doesn't care. Hopefully, we still have time to choose the former over the latter.
Next to heart disease, cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US, resulting in over 560,000 deaths annually. Statistics from the National Cancer Institute indicate that approximately 35% of people with cancer will die within five years after being diagnosed.
Two particularly hard-to-treat cancers include pancreatic (which Steve Jobs finally succumbed to just recently) and brain. In this year alone, it's estimated that there will be more than 50,000 deaths in the US from pancreatic and brain cancers. Since these types of cancers have shown such resistance to treatment, it's particularly exciting when an advancement is made in the fight against these dreaded diseases. In a new study published in this week's edition of Nature Medicine, scientists have identified the protein CPEB4 as a "cellular orchestra conductor" that activates hundreds of genes associated with tumor growth. One of the conclusions highlighted in the study is that in the tissues examined – pancreas and brain – CPEB4 is not detected in healthy cells but only in tumorous ones. Thus, inhibition of this protein would provide a highly specific anti-tumor treatment and with few adverse effects, "one of the main drawbacks of many cancer therapies," says Pilar Navarro, a researcher specializing in pancreatic cancer.
Most astronomers today are fairly certain that most, if not all, of the estimated 125 billion or so galaxies in the observable universe – our own included – have a supermassive black hole at their centers. And astronomers have just discovered the two biggest observed to date – each with a mass equivalent to 10 billion suns. To put things in perspective (if that is possible), the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way is only about 3.6 million solar masses. Prior to this discovery, approximately 63 supermassive black holes had been found in the cores of nearby galaxies, the largest of which equaled 6.3 billion solar masses. The new discovery is significant because these two black holes are far more massive than they should be given the size of the galaxies they reside within, a fact which should help teach scientists much about how galaxies form and grow.
Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs has become Amazon's best-selling book of 2011, a particularly impressive feat since the book did not debut until late October.
On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that it had opened formal antitrust proceedings to investigate whether five of the world's best known publishers, with the help of Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in Europe. The publishers allegedly conspired with Apple due to fears of Amazon's growing popularity and e-book pricing structure.
Want to know what draws peoples' attention on your profile page? Here's an imperfect but interesting study that provides a few observations.
Chief Technology Investment Strategist


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Fans who purchase season tickets to the Erie SeaWolves in February will be raising money for the United Way. For every season ticket package purchased, the SeaWolves will donate $25 to the United Way. If 100 packages are sold, the ‘Wolves will double the donation and send $5,000 to the United Way.
The SeaWolves and the United Way will also partner with Save-A-Lot for the “Strike Out Poverty” promotion. Every time a SeaWolves pitcher strikes out a batter at Jerry Uht Park, Save-A-Lot will donate $2 to the United Way. Last year, the promotion raised just under $2,000.


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This is most likely not impressive to PC gamers at all, but for those wondering if there really is a visual difference between the last generation and the new generation, here's a video for you to see for yourself.
This video follows up on the screenshots Konami released earlier this week that presents the differences between the consoles. It's striking how subtle the differences are, yet they make huge improvements overall, particularly in the environments.
Ground Zeroes, the prologue for Metal Gear Solid V, will release on March 18, 2014 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software that delivers a personalized and more interactive shopping experience for the exploding population of mobile users worldwide. The software incorporates new social networking capabilities and the ability for retailers to reach consumers with personalized promotions, coupons and other content, regardless of how or where the customer chooses to shop with them.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO )
Advancements in mobile devices are reshaping the way customers interact with brands, expanding beyond mere information exchange to true online commerce. Increasingly, the beneficiaries of this growth are online retailers. According to independent research firm, Forrester Research, Inc., consumer retail sales from websites is projected to reach $211.7 billion by 2012 in the United States alone, up from $125.1 billion in 2007.*
The new software underscores IBM's commitment to the mobile space. In June, the company announced a five-year, $100 million research initiative aimed at improving mobile services and capabilities for businesses and consumers worldwide.
Automating the Mobile Shopping Experience
To meet this demand, IBM is introducing WebSphere Commerce 7, a new release of its industry-leading e-commerce software that enhances the shopping experience for mobile consumers. The new IBM Mobile Store solution improves the shopping experience from start to finish, enabling customers to more easily browse an online store, conduct side-by-side product comparisons, then view store locations, check inventory availability and complete the purchase.
Shoppers can even place orders online and pick up their merchandise at the closest store -- which can be automatically mapped out for them on their mobile phone. With the new IBM technology, retailers can also instantly deliver timely, relevant and personalized brand information and promotions, based on past purchases, to a customer's mobile device through text messages or e-mail.
According to IBM's Institute for Business Value, the number of mobile users will grow by 191 percent from 2006 to 2011 to reach approximately one billion users worldwide.** These numbers are being driven by people in both industrialized as well as developing nations. Because broadband access remains difficult in many places, hand-held devices are often the only means of access to the Web.
Li-Ning, China's leading sports brand, has experienced steady growth in online sales since launching its e-commerce site in 2008. With e-commerce largely untapped in China, Li-Ning has become a pioneer by embracing IBM technology, which helps its customers view top-selling merchandise and detailed product information on a homepage they can easily customize.
Li-Ning intends to expand beyond these basic functions to take advantage of IBM's new commerce software, which will allow customers to access its site through cellphones and other hand-held devices. The company plans to more easily connect with their customers so that they can deliver personalized content, promotions and other information. Li-Ning also intends to pursue the newest trend in online commerce -- reaching customers through social networking sites.
"Chinese consumers are just beginning to appreciate the benefits of shopping online," said Shelly Lin, Director of e-Business at Li-Ning Company Limited. "Mobile commerce is the next wave of opportunity for us. Working with IBM WebSphere Commerce, we are intent on pursuing a strategy that helps us connect with shoppers that is advantageous to both us and our customers."
Using Online Social Networks to Help Sell
IBM's new software allows retailers to more effectively leverage the growing influence of online social networks, bringing brand and product discussions back to the retailer's site and converting them into transactions.
For example, with one click a product review or blog post with a link back to the retailer's site can automatically be sent to Facebook or other social networking sites. Online sellers can augment their brand experience further with rich content that includes ratings and reviews and threaded discussions with photo sharing.
Sam Ash, a leading retailer of musical instruments and DJ equipment, is using WebSphere Commerce to drive the customer's online experience, using it as a base to provide customer-provided ratings and reviews. It is finding success combining this feature with performance simulations of products they sell. For example, they created a "virtual cymbal room" where shoppers can test the actual sound of cymbals the company sells.
"By using IBM's WebSphere Commerce, Sam Ash.com has been able to enhance the shopping experience in ways that we never believed were possible," said David Ash, CEO at Sam Ash.com. "We want to provide our online customers with more ways to research and virtually test drive our products online. Our site has proven that it resonates well with shoppers."
The mobile and social commerce aspects are enhanced further through another new IBM capability called Cross-Channel Precision Marketing, which gives retailers the ability to understand customer buying behaviors and respond by delivering targeted promotions or other content instantly. For example, if an online buyer abandons a sale before checkout, a coupon or other incentive could be immediately forwarded to the shopper's mobile device to help revive the transaction. A shopper who is using their mobile phone while at a store to research a product could be similarly targeted, as could someone reviewing a product on the retailer's site. This lets retailers establish an ongoing and dynamic relationship with their customers and tailor responses as the customer's behavior changes over time.
"New sales channels and points of interaction now define and fragment the consumers' retail journey, forcing companies to change the way they market, build relationships and deliver brand value," said Beth Smith, vice president of WebSphere at IBM. "WebSphere Commerce is designed to help retailers around the world execute marketing campaigns and build rich customer relationships that span sales channels and interaction models."
WebSphere Commerce 7 also has enhancements that better address the needs of businesses selling to other businesses online, through a new Web 2.0-based B2B store solution. This features a fast product finder, mini shopping cart, drag and drop shopping capability and the ability to manage multiple saved orders. Traditional B2B sites are cumbersome to use and often require customer service calls to complete sales. As e-commerce becomes an increasingly important sales channel for businesses, the IBM B2B store solution delivers rich B2C-like features to business customers while supporting contracts, advanced procurement options and a more streamlined checkout process.
WebSphere Commerce comes with and leverages the strength of the IBM WebSphere Application Server and DB2 to attain high transaction volumes, reliable, and highly available operation as well as the integration to back-end systems and applications using SOA interfaces. WebSphere Commerce 7 includes new out-of-the-box integrations to social networking offerings such as IBM Lotus Connections, Bazaarvoice and Pluck SiteLife.
Recognized as an industry leader, IBM® WebSphere® Commerce software provides companies of all sizes with a powerful customer interaction platform for cross-channel and online commerce, supporting all of a company's business models while providing a rich, differentiated customer experience. Powerful out-of-the-box capabilities for marketing, catalog management and merchandising help companies revolutionize customer shopping experiences across all sales channels from online and call centers to mobile and in-store. More information is available at www.ibm.com/websphere/commerce.
IBM WebSphere Commerce 7 is immediately available starting at about $30,000 for 100 Processor Value Units (PVUs).
* Forrester Research, "State of Retailing Online 2009: Marketing" by Sucharita Mulpuru, June 5, 2009.
**IBM Institute of Business Value, "Go Mobile, Grow" by Christian Seider, Sean Lafferty and Dr. Sungyoul Lee, 2008.
Broadcast quality and streaming video is available to registered journalists and bloggers at http://www.thenewsmarket.com/ibm.
Contact: Rebecca Mettler IBM Media Relations 760-946-2760 email@example.com
SOURCE IBM Corporation


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ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – In an effort to prevent young people from starting smoking, Albany County will vote on legislation Monday that, if passed, would make it the first county in the state to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarette and tobacco products.
According to the legislation, known as local law “E”, 81% of youth who have used a tobacco product say the first product they used was flavored. The legislation also notes that every year, nearly 480,000 people die prematurely in the United States from smoking-related diseases.
“Flavored e-cigs for example have chemicals in there that is
linked to respiratory problems, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease,”
said Caitlyn O’Brien from the American Heart Association.
While the American Heart Association is in favor of the ban, the NY Association of Counties is not, saying that it is currently illegal for minors to purchase the products affected by the ban anyway.
Jim Calvin, of the New York Association of Convenience Stores says a ban will not stop adults from finding the flavored tobacco products.
“It will be very easy for adults to still get it by crossing county lines in Albany or Saratoga, but we will lose that business,” said Calvin. “Both the tobacco and ancillary sales. And Albany County will lose sales tax revenue on those purchases.”
A vote is expected to take place at 6:30 tonight at the Albany County Courthouse.


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This article was originally published by GuruFocus on March 25, 2014
By Sarfaraz A. Khan, Research assistant: Gohar Yousuf
Oracle (ORCL)'s latest earnings release had two big positives; 25% growth in cloud computing and a turnaround in hardware business with 6.6% growth. However, Oracle’s total revenue growth continues to remain below 5% level as the company faces tough competition in its key areas.
In its quarterly results announced on March 18, the company’s revenue increased 3.9% from the same quarter last year to $9.31 billion while net income rose 2.4% to $2.57 billion, or $0.56 per share. This translated into adjusted earnings of $0.68 per share. On the other hand, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.70 per share from revenues of $9.36 billion, as per data compiled by Bloomberg.
In the earnings release, the biggest positive was .. read the full article at GuruFocus


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Feb 25, 2020
New organic field crop operations up 14% in 2019
U.S. farmers harvested nearly 3.3 million acres of certified organic field crops in 2019, driven by 14% more organic field crop operations, according to a report.
Mercaris – a market data service and online trading platform for organic, non-GMO and certified agricultural commodities – recently released its Final 2019 Acreage Report. The report shows the number of growers converting land to organic production increased from 2019.
In the report, released Feb.24, final numbers beat previous estimates. The added production varied by region, but boosted the U.S. organic harvest, offsetting the impact of its rainy growing season, according to the report.
According to the report:
- 1.1 million acres of organic hay and alfalfa were harvested over 2019, up 8% from the previous year, with 11% more certified organic operations.
- 13% more certified organic operations harvested organic corn over 2019, offsetting a significant decline in the number of acres harvested per operation.
- Certified organic operations harvesting organic soybean reached 2,835, up 11% from the previous year.
- Harvested organic wheat acres, mostly driven by expansion in the High Plains region, grew 16% over the previous year.
“While growth in the organic industry was anticipated, the 14% (year over year) expansion in certified organic field crop operations well exceeded expectations. Overall acreage expansion did prove to be limited by weather throughout the growing season,” Ryan Koory, Director of Economics at Mercaris said in a press release. “That said, the addition of new organic growers suggests that 2020 could see organic production reach new record highs.”
Mercaris focuses its data and services on identity-preserved commodities, including organic and non-GMO corn, soybean, meal and organic wheat, and other small grains markets across all regions of the United States and Canada, and recently launched an organic dairy initiative.
The full report is available at Mercaris.com/Analysis-Acreage.


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New software platform promises quick, cheap inference – as long as you own FPGAs
Programmable chip designer Xilinx has launched a set of tools and services for AI-based video analytics, collected under the Smart World banner.
At the core of the new offering is the Xilinx Video Machine-learning Streaming Server (VMSS), which enables use cases including facial recognition, virtual fencing, crowd statistics, traffic monitoring, and object detection.
When combined with Xilinx Alveo FPGA cards, the Smart World platform promises lower latency and lower TCO in video-based inferencing workloads than a comparable GPU-based setup.
Xilinx says deterministic low latency in particular makes it suitable for ‘critical’ safety and security applications in industries like healthcare, construction, and manufacturing.
The company has also unveiled the Xilinx App Store, intending to simplify the process of purchasing and deploying FPGA software from Xilinx and its partners.
The need for speed
Xilinx is credited with launching the first commercial Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) back in 1985. Unlike most conventional chips, FPGAs can be configured by the end-user to serve a variety of purposes. Thanks to their flexible nature, they have found applications in industries including defense, manufacturing, supercomputing, telecommunications, and healthcare. More recently, they have been positioned as one of the answers to the challenges of running AI at scale.
At the end of 2020, semiconductor giant AMD announced it would purchase Xilinx in an all-stock deal worth $35 billion, subject to regulatory approval.
As the company awaits its fate, it continues to advance its roadmap – and its goal of making FPGAs more developer-friendly. Its latest offering hopes to solve specific problems facing machine learning models that are applied to video surveillance footage. The Smart World platform is designed to be deployed at the edge of the network or in small regional data centers, to enable near-instant inferencing.
It can support multiple neural networks on a single card with sub-100ms end-to-end pipeline latency, and simultaneously process a large number of video streams – up to 32 for a single server equipped with an Alveo U30 for transcoding, and a U50 for machine learning. All this with an average power budget under 50W.
One interesting feature enabled by FPGAs is the ability to run different hardware-accelerated functions at different times of the day: for example a retailer might use their cards for customer tracking during opening hours, and to support video compression or database workloads during the night.
Some of the first examples of applications built on top of VMSS by Xilinx partners include inference accelerators, solutions for model training at the edge, and smart building software. One such partner, Aupera, built a system for Tencent that processes its smart building footage on-premises – the hardware takes the brunt of compute, so the only items shipped to cloud data centers are VOD and metadata, enabling reported 90 percent savings on bandwidth costs.
In its own presentation deck, Xilinx conceded that VMSS might not be the perfect fit for every video analytics use case – traffic monitoring, smart logistics, and preventive maintenance might be better served by Nvidia’s Deepstream SDK. But the company is bullish when it comes to applications that require the lowest latency and complex forms of computer vision.
“If you take a typical AI-based video analytics application, it is trying to infer the maximum amount of information from a particular scene with the smallest amount of time, with the least resources, and of course, spending the least amount of money,” Guru Parthasarathy, strategic market and ISV ecosystem development lead for the Data Center Group at Xilinx, told AI Business.
“So, particularly, if you apply this concept to a critical application, which is which is meant to save lives, then all of these become very important – being able to execute at the lowest latency possible, being able to run multiple models concurrently, so that you can infer maximum instantaneously from the event which is happening.”
Meanwhile, the Xilinx app store is meant to further simplify testing and purchasing of hardware-accelerated applications on Alveo cards. It includes a selection of containerized apps for specific use cases that already include anti-money laundering, live video transcoding, and the new Smart World AI-based services.


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The Media Village has bought a Konica Minolta Bizhub Press C1100 as it prepares for further digital growth.
Mark Kerridge has stepped down as managing director of Benson Group, the £120m turnover packaging printer that was acquired by Graphic Packaging International earlier this year for £100m.
Commercial and trade printer Normanton Advertiser has invested in a Polar 56 ECO from Heidelberg to replace an older model.
Severn has invested in an AMS Astrojet M1 printer and StudioRIP Inkjet Edition software.
Label printer Stampiton Labels has invested in an MPS EF flexo press to futureproof the business.
RNB Group has made a six-figure investment in expanding its facilities and range of services on the back of new business wins.
Millnet Document Solutions, the joint venture between Yolanda Noble and document management specialist Millnet, has been placed into administration after a key client significantly reduced its work and...
Antalis UK will rebrand its packaging business as Antalis Packaging as of 1 January 2015 to consolidate its corporate identity under the single Antalis brand.
Paper merchant and convertor Vision Paper and Board, part of the Middleton Paper Group, has increased its Calisto Hi Bulk gloss and silk range by adding new grammages and sizes.
Packaging businesses are gearing up for next month's introduction of new EU regulations that require changes to the information that is displayed on food packaging.
CFH Docmail has been appointed to Lot 2 of the £1.2bn General Practice Systems of Choice (GPSoC) framework agreement for its hybrid mailing services, including Docmail and the newly-developed ROVa.
Marketing mail revenues are up by 5% at Royal Mail, while its parcels business is being revamped with new options in the face of stiff competition and the adverse affects of Amazon’s own delivery network....
GF Smith paper consultant Megan Simpkins has given a speech at No.10 Downing Street in support of charity Dimbleby Cancer Care.


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Spanish developers The Game Kitchen‘s brutal Metroidvania title Blasphemous was one of the surprising games of 2019 that turned out to be quite good. It was originally a Kickstarter that started gathering funds way back in 2017. And to be honest, developers definitely deserved all the help they got because Blasphemous was one of my favorite games of 2019 as it was a pleasure to play from both visual, and gameplay standpoint.
Prepare to return to Cvstodia in free DLC, Penitent One?
If you are also like me and enjoyed Blasphemous through 2019, I have some good news for you. In a recent tweet, the developers announced the game’s first DLC, Penitent One. Although we have no official release date yet, the DLC will be totally free. You can check out the official announcement below.
A new year has dawned.?
Your duty not done.?
Prepare to return to Cvstodia in free DLC, Penitent One.?
— Blasphemous (@BlasphemousGame) January 1, 2020


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BREWER — Brewer-area businesses are being called to help with the increasing need for food in the greater Bangor area by participating in the “Food Fighter Challenge.”
Participating businesses agree to keep a collection box where customers, clients or people frequenting the business may drop off nonperishable food items in support of the Brewer Area Food Pantry. Each business competes to collect the most food and win a monthly “traveling” trophy awarded to the business that collects the most pounds of food each month. At the beginning of each month, the challenge restarts, giving another business the opportunity to claim the trophy.
Food insecurity is a crisis in Maine, impacting 11.4 percent of households in the state, or more than 153,000 people. OHI and the Brewer Area Food Pantry have been working hard at meeting the community’s need for food assistance for nearly a decade. In recent months, the cost of food has increased and there has been greater demand in the Brewer area for the food pantry services.
“Food insecurity in our community is affecting many of our neighbors with the rising cost of living,” said Ashlee Black, with the Simpson Team-Realty of Maine. “This is putting an incredible strain on our local food pantries. As businesses operating in Brewer, we must band together to meet the growing need.”
Not only will participating businesses be vying for the traveling trophy and bragging rights, through their efforts, they truly are making a difference for their neighbors who are food insecure right in their own community, according to Deb Smith, OHI director of intellectual and developmental disability services and managing director of the Brewer Area Food Pantry.
Interested businesses will have a collection box dropped off to them and can keep the box for as many months as they would desire. Once a box is nearing capacity, the business calls the food pantry and a volunteer will collect the food from them. If a business would like to take part or to learn more about the services offered by the Brewer Area Food Pantry, call 207-989-3200 or send a message to the pantry’s Facebook page.
Located at 222 North Main Street in Brewer, the pantry is open every Monday and Wednesday. The pantry primarily serves neighbors of the Brewer and Eddington area but is open to anyone in need who meets the U.S. Department of Agriculture Emergency Food Assistance Program income guidelines. About 64 percent of people supported by the food pantry are seniors and children.


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When it snows, customers can be seen cleaning out grocery store shelves of milk and bread. You might think snow means a business boom for grocery stores, but snow storms can actually cool off those profits.
When meteorologists say snow will hit the ground, people hit the grocery stores, buying staples like milk and bread like they're about to starve.
"Business just booms before the snow storm hits. There's no question about that," said Donnie Caffrey, owner of Good Foods Grocery.
But costs can take the bang out of that boom. Before the storm, stores often have to pay extra staff hours to load up the shelves.
"They start to pre-load us with the milk and things like that," explained Martin's Regional Vice-President Jim Scanlon.
If the power goes out, stores have to scramble, making sure doors are closed on freezers and refrigerators, and pulling plastic covers over open coolers, to keep the cold air in. That's because back-up generators usually power the lights, not the refrigerators.
"We push everything back that's refrigerated," said Scanlon. "If we think it's going to be an extended period of time, we typically have dry ice on hand."
Dry ice, extra labor, the costs add up.
"You have refrigerated trailers on site. That's an additional diesel cost," added Scanlon.
If dairy products or meats get too warm, they have to be tossed.
"You have to go throw it in the dumpster. You have to record it for your insurance purposes. It's a mess, an absolute mess," said Caffrey.
Surprisingly, they say delivery trucks usually make it if the roads are passable.
"We may have late deliveries, but typically we do not have no deliveries," said Scanlon.
Scanlon says Martin's stores stay open during storms, but smaller stores may close. That's a lost day. It takes another day or two for customers to come back when the roads are clear.
"If snow hits on a Wednesday, you're pretty much down on Thursday, Friday and Saturday," said Caffrey.
The bottom line? They say the boom minus the costs makes it a wash.
"You had a lot of business up front. You lost some, came back slower. It ends up being a fairly normal week, thank goodness," said Caffrey.
Saturday, July 26 2014 2:09 PM EDT2014-07-26 18:09:07 GMT
A mysterious 'Woman in Black' has been spotted around the Tri-State in recent days, causing social media to erupt with questions about her identity. According to WATE in Tennessee, the Sullivan CountyMore >>
A mysterious 'Woman in Black' has been spotted around the Tri-State in recent days, causing social media to erupt with questions about her identity.More >>
Monday, July 28 2014 7:11 AM EDT2014-07-28 11:11:00 GMT
It's no exaggeration to say history is about to unfold tomorrow in Downtown Richmond. Former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen are going on trial, battling corruption charges and battling to saveMore >>
It's no exaggeration to say history is about to unfold Monday in Downtown Richmond. Former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen are going on trial, battling corruption charges and battling to saveMore >>
Monday, July 28 2014 11:09 AM EDT2014-07-28 15:09:42 GMT
Chesterfield Police are looking for the man who they said ran from officers Sunday night. The chase started about 8 p.m. Sunday night along James Street near Virginia State University. Officers saidMore >>
Chesterfield Police are looking for the man who they said ran from officers Sunday night. More >>
Monday, July 28 2014 1:00 AM EDT2014-07-28 05:00:55 GMT
Copyright 2014 WWBT NBC12. All rights reserved.More >>
Sara Bruehl, 18, was killed after a stranger shot her in the head, while she was driving, 15 years ago this summer. Sara's mother is using every avenue, including social media, to hunt down her daughter's killer.More >>


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Napster chief executive Bill Patrizio has big plans for the future.
Today, there are 175 million or so music subscription subscribers around the globe, he told a Midem audience in a June 7 keynote Q&A at the annual music industry conference in Cannes, France.
The number of paying customers is going to balloon in the next decade, he said – something with which any market researcher and industry executive would concur.
“Some projections are 800 million subscribers,” Patrizio (pictured) continued with little pause. “A billion subscribers.”
Far more people will pay money to stream, anytime and almost anywhere, music from catalogs with 40 million or more songs – and especially new, favorite music people mostly want to hear, Patrizio continued.
“The expectation is that growth is going to continue well into the future. Products will be more diversified than the similarities seen in today’s crop of services. Leading-edge technologies – such as 5G wireless – will allow for new consumer experiences and new ways to engage with the artist. And the market will be large enough for a diversity of companies.”
Wherever the subscription business goes in the next decade, Napster wants a seat at the table.
Patrizio, who moved from Napster’s interim to full-time CEO in February, doesn’t seem fazed that his company is playing in a market governed by far more massive, better-funded competitors.
“Patrizio envisions Napster capturing a small but meaningful share of a $20 billion or $25 billion global recorded music market.”
Instead, Patrizio envisions Napster capturing a small but meaningful share of a $20 billion or $25 billion global recorded music market in a decade or so.
Patrizio admitted the largest services would command 80% of the streaming market in the future, but eating scraps isn’t necessarily a bad idea: 20% of a $25 billion streaming market is a $5 billion opportunity.
The best of the second-tier companies, therefore, can watch more substantial services like Spotify and Apple battle from afar and run a successful business on a piece of a $5-billion market.
The obvious question, however, wasn’t adequately answered during Patrizio’s Q&A: can Napster compete?
Napster – an outgrowth of the peer-to-peer service that operated under the Rhapsody brand in the U.S until 2016 – can survive if it benefits from the current streaming bonanza that’s helped push the global industry to double-digit growth in 2017.
Napster’s true progress isn’t known, however. The company doesn’t release the internal metrics – such as revenue or subscriber counts – that would give transparency to the company’s operations.
Although Napster is not a publicly-traded company, some essential information about its financial performance is hiding in plain sight: Real Networks, a publicly traded company, owns 42% of Napster and included some figures, reflecting Napster’s total performance, in its 2017 annual report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in February.
The short version: Napster missed the party in 2017.
After climbing steadily until 2016, Napster’s revenue sank from $208.1 million in 2016 to $172.4 million last year.
As global streaming revenue jumped by about 41% last year, Napster was unable to capitalize on swelling demand that propelled some of its larger competitors.
The company’s bottom line showed evidence of cost-cutting and improved efficiency, however: Napster’s net loss improved 63% from $35.5 million in 2015 to $13.1 million last year.
With a revenue drop probably came a decline in subscribers. Has that happened? Napster stopped releasing its subscriber count three years ago. However, the publicly available information allows for a fair estimate.
Napster used to announce when it reached specific mile markers. Based on that information, along with given revenue figures, it’s possible to estimate Napster’s average revenue per user.
“With revenue dropping, Napster looks likely to have had fewer than 2.56 million subscribers by the end of last year.”
The company announced it passed 2.5 million in February of 2015 and 3 million five months later in July.
Come to the end of 2015, Napster said it had almost 3.5 million subscribers. At $201.9 million in revenue in 2015 and an estimated 3 million median subscribers, average revenue per user was $5.61.
An estimate for 2017 subscribers depends on ARPU, since revenue is known. Should a 2015 ARPU be used to calculate 2017 subscribers? Not if ARPU had changed. It’s possible.
For instance, Spotify’s ARPU fell from $7.32 in 2016 to $6.28 in 2017 due to discounts such as student and family plans. But let’s assume Napster’s ARPU remained steady over two years.
At 2015’s $5.61 ARPU, Napster would have had median subscriber counts of 3.09 million in 2016 and 2.56 million in 2017. But keep in mind those are the median counts, not the year-end counts.
With revenue dropping, Napster would have had fewer than 2.56 million subscribers by the end of last year.
There’s no reasonable combination of numbers that would suggest Napster, like its peers, is sharing the immense growth in paid streaming.
As Spotify and Apple Music have exploded, it appears Napster has retreated. Spotify subscribers grew from 50 million subscribers in February of 2017 to 75 million at the end of March 2018, a 50 percent jump in 13 months.
Apple Music reached 40 million in April, fewer than three years after its launch. Pandora has about 5 million subscribers to its premium and ad-free radio services.
“Licensing costs took about 84% of Napster’s revenue in 2017.”
The subscription music business is tough financially. At best, subscription service will pay rights owners around 70% of revenue – but it can go higher.
Licensing costs took about 84% of Napster’s revenue in 2017. (On a related note, Spotify had gross margin percentages of 13.6 percent and 20.8 percent in 2016 and 2017.)
In 2017, after paying rights holders, Napster was left with $27.2 million.
Napster has occasionally needed help and twice received support from its two largest shareholders, RealNetworks and Columbus Nova Technology Partners.
In December 2016, Real Networks and Columbus Nova each loaned Napster – then Rhapsody – $5 million for “general operating purposes” portioned out as $3.5 million in December 2016 and $1.5 million the following month.
That year’s net loss on paper was $14.9 million.
More loans came in the second quarter of 2017 when Napster defaulted on loans to senior creditors.
As a result, to loans from RealNetworks and Columbus Nova defaulted, too – a cross-default in financial parlance. The default didn’t necessarily arise from a failure to pay.
A default can occur when a company misses a covenant like, just as examples, minimum revenue or a maximum revenue-to-debt ratio (there’s no evidence Napster has outstanding long-term debt). In any case, the lenders gave Napster time to remedy the situation. In October, Napster obtained financing from a new lender to pay its existing debt.
Napster also acquired a revolving credit facility that RealNetworks and Columbus Nova have guaranteed up to $2.75 million each. As of February, Real Networks has not paid anything under the guarantee.
All this is not to say Patrizio can’t turn things around.
Two themes he repeated at Midem were innovation and segmentation. As for coming tech innovations, Patrizio believes 5G wireless download speeds will allow for new features and experiences.
Speaking about segmentation, Patrizio pointed to an enterprise business to complement the core consumer product.
Napster will have partnerships with companies with, as he phrased it, “manifest destiny to participate in music.”
Partners could open new revenue stream—think voice-activated speaker manufacturers, cable companies, mobile carriers, hip clothing stores, grocery chains not own by Amazon et al.
And although it went unmentioned, Napster partnered with SoundMachine, a commercial background music company, to provide a music subscription service for retail businesses.
As a phrase of the financial world goes, past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes.
A bounty awaits if Napster can figure things out.Music Business Worldwide


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Cosmopolitan Connections: “The Unleashed Swimwear Bikini Model Event!”
By Joe Buda
Photos by Roger Bennett
Shawna Bradshaw, Allex K, Yvette Brown and Kendall Ricci
Over 100 people descended on The Deuce Lounge at the Aria Resort when Yvette Brown’s Cosmopolitan Connections presented “The Unleashed Swimwear Bikini Model Event!” on Wednesday, May 23.
The event featured swimwear designed by Kendall Ricci, owner of Unleashed Swimwear, modeled by the exquisitely beautiful Shawna Bradshaw and Allex K.
Kendall first worked with Yvette, founder of Cosmopolitan Connections, on a fashion show “a little over a year ago.”
“She (Yvette) asked if I’d like to join her,” Kendall recalled. “I said ‘absolutely.’”
Yvette remarked, “We like to support local business owners and entrepreneurs and showcase them at our events.”
According to Kendall, “Swimwear is really important to me. It’s my passion!”
Kendall strives to create swimwear that can fit a diverse crowd of women.
According to Shawna, the swimwear is amazing. “Finding monokini-style bathing suits that actually fit is phenomenal,” remarked Shawna.
Allex added, “The bikinis are amazing.”
The crowd was energetic and upbeat from the time the event started at 7 p.m.
“I think it is a brilliant turnout.” Yvette stated in regards to the attendance. “I am very impressed with how many of our Cosmopolitan connected turned out for the event.”
“I’m very grateful,” added Yvette.
Kendall commented on the attendance as well, “It’s a great, great turnout, a lot of people wanting to get the word out, wanting to be part of it.”
“I love it. There’s a lot of interesting people,” Allex remarked. “Everybody’s welcome.”
“It’s amazing, very classy,” Shawna added. “Her (Yvette’s) events are always spectacular.”
The Deuce Lounge was a great place to have the event, according to Yvette. “We just love the venue, The Deuce Lounge,” she explained. “It’s intimate and it’s in the Aria, which I love.”
Yvette added. “It’s The Light Group, and they set a great atmosphere with the music and the 2-for-1 drinks for our guests for social lubrication.”
“They also give us complimentary admission into Gold Lounge afterwards as an added bonus,” Yvette continued. “So we can continue working on our relationships.”
For more information on Unleashed Swimwear, please visit their website here: Unleashed Swimwear.
For upcoming Cosmopolitan Connections events, please visit their Facebook page here: Cosmopolitan Connections Facebook.
Next up for Cosmopolitan Connections is “The Via Brasil Steakhouse & Locq Fortune Event!” on May 30 at Via Brasil Steakhouse. Via Brasil Steakhouse is located at 1225 S. Fort Apache Road.


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Bitcoin broke briefly above a key resistance stage at $56,000 on Friday, whereas ether’s slowly catching as much as bitcoin’s good points.
- Bitcoin (BTC) buying and selling round $55,512.76 as of twenty-two:00 UTC (5 p.m. ET). Gaining 6.60% over the earlier 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour vary: $50,821.47-$56,283.55 (CoinDesk 20)
- BTC trades above its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bullish sign for market technicians.
Some are attributing the astonishing rise of bitcoin’s value, together with a short while above $56,000, to the super demand from consumers trying to hedge in opposition to inflation.
“By means of the insatiable buy-side strain from exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers, closed-end funds and enormous public companies including bitcoin to their positions, demand is massively outstripping provide,” mentioned John Willock, chief government at digital asset alternate Blocktane. “I really feel assured that we gained’t see a large crash like post-2017.”
The primary publicly traded bitcoin ETF in North America, managed by Canada-based Function Investments, noticed a powerful $165 million worth trading volume on its first day of buying and selling, nicely above a typical Day One for a Canadian ETF. (TradeBlock, a CoinDesk subsidiary, is the index supplier of Function Investments’ bitcoin ETF.)
But, there are nonetheless a number of psychological boundaries for bitcoin to interrupt, even because it handed a key milestone of $1 trillion in market capitalization.
Whereas the 10-figure market cap probably makes bitcoin go from “a magic web cash meme” right into a largely acknowledged funding asset, it additionally poses some psychological challenges to some consumers, who might promote some bitcoin for profit taking.
Within the derivatives market, bitcoin’s value may very well be examined at round $56,000, in accordance with Andrew Tu, an government at quantitative buying and selling agency Environment friendly Frontier.
“Based mostly on choices open curiosity, it appears like $56,000 is the following massive resistance,” Tu mentioned.
Some are taking it a step additional. Michael Burry, “The Large Brief” investor and founding father of the Scion Asset Administration, mentioned in a now deleted tweet, “In an inflationary disaster, governments will transfer to squash rivals within the foreign money area,” including “$BTC #gold” to the tip of the tweet.
Nevertheless, whereas many purchased into bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative at first of the coronavirus pandemic, bodily gold has misplaced worth yr so far whereas bitcoin has skyrocketed.
Ether close to $2K, DeFi drives Binance’s BNB
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Friday, buying and selling round $1,951.37 and climbing 0.63% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
With ether’s new all-time excessive may very well be seen on account of bitcoin’s surge, factors reminiscent of institutional curiosity and fast development of decentralized finance (DeFi) have additionally been shifting its value greater.
However a lot of the chatter within the altcoin market is centered on BNB, the native token to Binance, the No. 1 cryptocurrency alternate by spot buying and selling quantity. BNB noticed a seven-fold return on a year-to-day foundation and its market capitalization has handed that of the stablecoin tether (USDT) to take third place behind bitcoin and ether.
BNB’s explosion is probably going a result of a rare development in PancakeSwap, a DeFi mission based mostly on Binance’s Binance Sensible Chain. Buying and selling volumes on the Ethereum-based Uniswap’s clone have grown over 1,000% for the yr so far, and its personal CAKE token has shot up by over 2,000% yr to day, in accordance with Messari.
CoinDesk beforehand reported that buyers have purchased centralized alternate tokens like BNB hoping to outperform bitcoin whereas appearing extra like fairness. Nevertheless, the dangers are additionally apparent: in contrast to shares, alternate tokens are unregulated. Thus, as they tackle extra equity-like habits, the regulatory uncertainty solely grows.
Digital belongings on the CoinDesk 20 are blended on Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
- Oil was down 2.56%. Value per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $58.97.
- Gold was within the inexperienced 0.34% and at $1781.33 as of press time.
- The ten-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Friday leaping to 1.34%.


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Pearson-owned book publisher Penguin today looked on the verge of making peace with competition regulators in Brussels as it offered to scrap an ebook-pricing arrangement with Apple.
HarperCollins, Hachette and two other big publishers have already settled with the EU over claims the book firms and Apple wanted to keep prices of ebooks high. All five publishers denied any wrongdoing.
Shareholder revolt on Barclays report
Barclays faces shareholder opposition over its use of international accounting standards after the Local Authority Pension Funds Forum, whose members hold £115 billion of assets, said it will vote against the bank’s annual report at the AGM next week. But the forum said it would support the election of new chairman Sir David Walker.
Lower winter losses boost Dart’s profits
Dart, the company behind the Jet2 airline and package holiday company, said profits for the year just ended will be higher than the City had expected because of lower winter losses.
It said forward summer booking for the airline are in line with its planned 13% increase in seat capacity. Dart’s shares, which have doubled in value over the last 12 months, gained 14.25p to 162.5p.Reuse content


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Samsung, the South Korean technology giant, has reported a 25pc rise in third quarter profits, as revenues from memory chips soared.
The world's largest technology firm by revenue said profit in the three months to September 30 rose to 8.24 trillion won (£4.8bn), from 6.56 trillion won a year ago.
The previous record was 7.77 trillion won set in the second quarter.
"Despite currency depreciation in emerging markets, increased price competition and global market uncertainties, we were able to reach record earnings driven by solid earnings in our core businesses including memory chips and smartphones," said Robert Yi, Samsung's senior vice president.
"Although we expect demand to increase next quarter due to peak seasonality, lingering macro-economic issues and intensifying market competition will remain in the fourth quarter," he added.
Stagnant growth in sales of the company's flagship Galaxy S smartphones was offset by strong sales growth in the cheaper end of the smartphone market.
The semiconductor business saw the biggest gains, with a 12pc percent spike in revenue over the previous quarter to 9.74 trillion won.
The bulk of that came from the memory chip business which attracted revenue of 6.37 trillion won.
"Looking ahead, mobile DRAM shipments will stay strong with the release of various low- to high-end smartphones as the holiday season nears," the company said.
Third quarter operating profit in the semiconductor business more than doubled from a year ago to 2.06 trillion won.
Samsung's mobile unit still accounted for two-thirds of the company's operating profit in the third quarter, but has been slowing down as the market for premium smartphones becomes increasingly crowded and prices drop.
Analysts estimate Samsung sold between 85m to 89m smartphones during the quarter, including the company's latest Galaxy S4 smartphone.
"An upswing in shipments of mass market models helped to improve earnings," the company said.
Oh Young-Bo, an analyst at Hanmag Securities, said Samsung's mobile segment had performed better than expected, with the strong sales of low and middle-end smartphones covering falls in profit margins.
"This is something positive," said Mr Oh, who predicted that overall operating profit would touch a new record of around 11 trillion won in the fourth quarter on seasonal sales.
"Memory chip prices will stay high and sales of graphic DRAMs will go up with the new Sony Playstation model to hit the market soon," he added.
Samsung's consumer electronics unit - the company's second largest in terms of sales - continued to struggle in squeezing out profits. Margins were at 2.9pc as new demand for TVs remained weak.
Edited by Szu Ping Chan for telegraph.co.uk


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Simba Infrastructure Limited, in partnership with Avaya, recently organised an Avaya Innovation Day forum designed to exclusively enhance customer experience and fulfilment. The event provided insight to the needs of businesses in Nigeria in building connected experiences required for effective digital transformation.
At the innovation day which held in Lagos, Avaya and Simba showcased a variety of new products, including its flagship cloud based social media product called Avaya Ava. It is a cloud-based messaging-agnostic solution that offers Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities for social messaging integration. Other products on display were the enhanced Avaya Equinox Softphone, Avaya Vantage Video Phones, Chatbot and several other solutions for work collaboration and secure video conferencing.
Speaking at the event, the Executive Director of Simba Infrastructure, Sanjay Vaswani, assured customers and other participants of the organisation’s full commitment to providing unique information technology (IT) services across the lifecycle of business operations. According to him, “As an Avaya exclusive partner in West Africa, Simba Infrastructure has achieved the competency to provide matchless IT services around the Avaya solution portfolio. We deliver customised communication infrastructure solution to our valued customers and provide strategic partnership to Avaya in the digital transformation journey.”
Top executives from Avaya who spoke at the event, emphasised that digital transformation was a key factor in accelerating experiences and business growth through the adoption of mobile digital services, enabling next generation interactions and driving change in customer experience.


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Restaurant business boomed in 2014
Restaurants did well financially in 2014, according to new figures from the industry branch organization Visita, with sales between January and November rising by 4.2 percent, compared to the year before.
During the last decade, only in 2007 and 2012 has the industry seen more dramatic increases in sales.
Total turnover for the year landed at SEK 110.5 billion, according to the preliminary numbers.
Sales volume at cafes and pastry shops went up by 8 percent, for example. However, fast food restaurants only saw sales go up by just over 2 percent.
According to Visita, the number of full-time jobs within the restaurant industry rose by 4,000 in 2014.


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Bitcoin prices traded lower Tuesday as thought leaders shared differing opinions and the much-anticipated Consensus conference in New York failed to offer much in the way of a meaningful rally for the cryptocurrency market.
The No. 1 cryptocurrency by market value traded around $8,550 on subdued volume in afternoon action. Most of the other top cryptocurrencies joined bitcoin in its price decline.
Here’s what you need to know in crypto for Tuesday, May 15.
Fed’s Bullard on ‘Non-Uniform’ Risks
Speaking at the Consensus 2018 event in New York on Monday, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard explained that cryptocurrencies have begun to operate as non-uniform currencies, as there are more than 1,800 cryptocurrencies, many of which trade at different prices at the same time in the same local markets. Non-uniform currencies such as these have, at least historically, been rejected and replaced in financial markets, Bullard suggested. That means bitcoin and its crypto cohorts have quite a ways to go on the road toward ubiquity in global financial markets. “They’ve got to compete just like everybody else … welcome to the currency competition game,” Bullard said. “Cryptocurrencies may be unwittingly pushing in the wrong direction in trying to solve an important social problem, which is how best to facilitate market-based exchange,” Bullard said. The dollar, on the other hand, is backed by a stable government with direct and sensical monetary policy and persistently low inflation — because of that, it can better achieve the goals and meet the needs of the market. “The dollar is in great shape and will stay in great shape because it’s been the winner for a long time,” Bullard said. “Unless we screw up, I think the dollar is going to remain the dominant currency.”
Blockchain as ‘Magic Dust?’
After Amber Baldet, former blockchain head at Action Alerts PLUS holding JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) , introduced a new project called Clovyr at Consensus this week, the venture sparked a fierce debate over the merits of blockchain technologies. Clovyr is a decentralized app store that allows users to access projects both public and permissioned plus enterprise networks. According to Jimmy Song, Blockchain Capital partner and noted bitcoin maximalist, the app is nothing more than a collection of “buzzwords.” Speaking on a panel with Baldet and Joseph Lubin, founder of ethereum startup Consensys, Song argued that companies can’t use “magical blockchain dust” to solve their problems. He illustrated how many are using buzzwords including blockchain, interoperability, open-source, enterprise-focused, etc., to draw in investment and cover blemishes. After Song said he doesn’t see much other than bitcoin gaining traction in the next decade, Lubin said he would bet Song “any amount of bitcoin” he’s wrong. The two said they would work out the bet on Twitter.
“In 5 years most of the projects in this space will have been for nothing. Especially the enterprise ones,” says @jimmysong to which @ethereumJoseph soon says he’ll bet “any amount of bitcoin” Song’s wrong 锟斤拷 #Consensus2018
Kinsey Grant (@KinseyGrant) May 14, 2018 Mayweather-Backed ICO Founders Indicted
The founders of Floyd Mayweather-backed cryptocurrency firm Centra Tech have been indicted by a grand jury and accused of fraud, a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced this week. Raymond Trapani, Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas allegedly planned to defraud investors through a token sale labeled as a “scheme to induce victims to invest million of dollars’ worth of digital funds for the purpose of unregistered securities.” Authorities recovered more than $60 million in funds from the founders. Centra Tech’s token sale had been endorsed by heavyweight boxer Mayweather, and the company claimed to have relationships with Visa Inc. (V) and Mastercard Inc. (MA) , which authorities said never existed.
Consensus Could Rake in Big Bucks
As the Consensus event nears its close, the total attendee count has proven staggering. The flagship conference, regarded by most as the biggest industry event of the year, more than tripled attendance in 2018, with the total nearing 8,500 people. The final estimate came from Barry Silbert, CEO and founder of Digital Currency Group (DCG). Silbert’s DCG owns Coindesk, the firm behind Consensus. About 2,700 people attended the Consensus event in 2017, meaning the annual summit grew nearly 215% in a year. Most tickets for the conference cost about $2,000, and Consensus could rake in $17 million in ticket sales alone.
Final attendee count for #Consensus2018: ~8,500
Barry Silbert (@barrysilbert) May 14, 2018


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Russian turkey producer Damate is planning the biggest kosher meat processing plant in the country, targeted at establishing exports to Israel, the company revealed, according to Global Meat News.
The facility, built in the Kamensky district of Russia’s Penza region, will have a production capacity of 70,000 tons of various turkey meat products per year. The new plant is scheduled to be commissioned in 2021.
In a press release earlier this month, Damate said it chose the Penza region, where the company runs its poultry farms. By separating production lines, the plant could manufacture kosher and halal meat products, as well as handling poultry for conventional slaughter, Damate said.
The new plant would manufacture both chilled and frozen turkey products, with equipment to produce tinned meat, canned meat, meat paste and so on. Damate plans to sell products from the new plant on the Russian market, as well as export them to Israel and the Middle East.
The company signed an investment agreement with the Russian Government on the project during the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi in February. However, so far, no details have been released about the agreement and whether the company would be granted state aid.
Although kosher food is now more widely produced in Russia, demand in this segment still far outstrips supply, according to Alexander Boroda, chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. The number of companies engaged in manufacturing kosher food in Russia has increased from only three in 2007 to 250 in 2017, Boroda estimated.


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NEW YORK (AP) — Target, looking for ways to add sales, is relaunching its Target Circle loyalty program including a new paid membership with unlimited free same-day delivery in as little as an hour for orders over $35.
The loyalty program called Target Circle 360 will launch with a special offer for new members for $49 per year from April 7 through May 18. The current Target Circle program has more than 100 million members. The relaunch comes as Target aims to copy the success of Amazon’s juggernaut Amazon Prime and follow Walmart’s membership program.
Target unveiled a series of steps at its annual investors’ meeting Tuesday that aim to rejuvenate sales and traffic. Target will refresh its stores, and over the next decade, the Minneapolis discounter will build more than 300 new stores.
Separately, the Minneapolis-based discounter reported a 58% increase in fourth-quarter profits and handily beat Wall Street expectations as the retailer cut costs and maintained a lean inventory during the critical holiday season.
Revenue rose slightly from a year ago and also topped projections. Comparable sales — those from stores or digital channels operating at least 12 months — slipped 4.4%. But the declines slowed compared with the 4.9% drop in the third quarter and 5.4% drop in the second.
Target offered a cautious outlook on sales and profits.
“This is a unique moment to clarify our roadmap for growth,” Target’s CEO Brian Cornell told investors at the meeting in Manhattan.
Target is more vulnerable than Walmart and other big box discounters. More than half of its annual sales come from discretionary items like toys, fashion and electronic gadgets, things that many Americans have stopped buying.
Target has been trying to strike the right balance between offering good value while also infusing its stores with trendy goods. Last month, the retailer launched a new collection called Dealworthy which features nearly 400 everyday basics starting at less than $1, with most items under $10. They include clothing and accessories, home items and electronics.
At the same time, Target’s deal, struck last year, with designer Kendra Scott to offer exclusive collections of earrings, necklaces has resonated with shoppers. So has its new kitchenware brand under the discounter’s own label Figmint.
Target has been laser-focused on inventory levels after being burdened with heavily stocked warehouses in the summer of 2022. The inventory glut forced it to discount heavily to clear out those goods.
As for its membership program, Target will continue offering its free-to-join membership with personalized deals, member-exclusive sales throughout the year and additional perks and saving. But new for members: deals will now be applied automatically at checkout so customers don’t have to search for or add individual offers. Target said that members of the free Target Circle membership program already shop five times more and spend five times more than non-members.
Target Circle (formerly called Target RedCard) credit cardholders will be able to sign up for Target Circle 360 at $49 per year if they have their card saved to their Target profile, the company said. Customers without a Target Circle Card will pay $99 per year. Cardholders will also be offer an extra 5% offer instantly on top of the Target Circle deals.
In comparison, an Amazon Prime membership costs $15 a month or $139 annually and includes free streaming of its Amazon Video, among other perks. The Walmart Plus program for free shipping costs $12.95 per month or $98 in annual fees.
Target reported net income of $1.38 billion, or $2.98 per share, for the three-month period ended Feb. 3. That compared with $876 million, or $1.89 per share, for the year-ago period. The bottom-line results for the latest quarter well surpassed estimates of $2.42 per share, according to FactSet.
Revenue rose 1.7% to $31.92 billion, above projections of $31.83 billion.
Traffic for both stores and online combined fell 1.7% during the latest quarter, but that was an improvement from the 4.1% drop in the third quarter.
For the current quarter, Target expects a comparable sales decline of 3% to 5%. Analysts are expecting a 3.6% drop, according to FactSet. It forecast adjusted earning per share to be in the range or $1.70 to $2.10. Analysts expect $2.08 per share.
For the full year, Target anticipates comparable sales unchanged to up 2%. Adjusted earnings per share should range from $8.60 to $9.60, Target said. Analysts are expecting $9.15 per share, according to FactSet.
Target shares rose more than 11% to $167.33 in midday trading.


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“The focus of CargoX is laser-sharp - make the paper Bill of Lading a thing of the past, and put it on blockchain, to enable fast, cost-effective and safe transfer of ownership of this most precious document,” founder and ceo Stefan Kukman told Seatrade Maritime News.
The independent supplier of blockchain-based Smart Bill of Lading solutions this week demonstrated its production-ready solution CargoX Smart B/L on a test shipment from Shanghai to Koper and aims to have case studies published in the near future.
Noting that other blockchain-based solutions have mostly been used for other purposes such as data gathering and aggregation, validation, processing, and so on, Kukman claims he has not seen any direct competition with a blockchain-based Bill of Lading product that has been demonstrated to work live yet.
“Our solution and ecosystem can coexist with other solutions in the blockchain space, and integrations are always possible with existing ERP systems. This gives us a huge advantage, as there are no major IT-system overhauls needed,” he added.
Meanwhile, although Kukman agrees common logistics platforms will probably be built based on one of the public blockchain networks, the technology itself does not preclude multiple projects working well with each other.
“We believe blockchain itself, as a technology, is something we can address simply as “internet 3.0”. It is a common, public ledger that enables data transfer in a safe and publicly validated transactional environment. So, one logistics blockchain project can be completely different from another one. The public blockchain itself, if the Ethereum Network is used, for example, is in this case the common platform, on which various blockchain use-cases are defined and marketed,” Kukman said.
“We first started by building the Smart B/L solution to prove the value adding capability of the blockchain in the case of the document based processes, and we will build other products within our open ecosystem, according to our aggressive roadmap,” he added.
CargoX has previously announced that it is partnering with Swiss freight forwarder Fracht to use its Smart B/L product as well as with OceanX a sea freight network specialist.
Kukman claims that apart from these publicly announced deals, CargoX has many other trial partners and customers who do not want to be identified for business reasons.
“We are confident that our solution is ahead of the competition in this specific segment, and there is a lot of interest, so we are looking forward to bringing the Smart B/L to the logistics sector as a standard,” he added.
Going forward, Kukman declined to disclose CargoX’s business projections, but “we stand firm in our confidence”, he reiterated.
Nevertheless, as with any new technology, reservations persist. Among issues raised are legal ones. For example according to law firm Fichte & Co, the international multi-jurisdictional nature of data processing in blockchains could raise questions on governing law and jurisdiction.
“Without clear provisions on governing law and jurisdictional clauses in the smart contract, issues on conflict of laws may arise. In order to avoid such situations, it is imperative for a smart contract to contain such data,” Fichte & Co said in an article.
The firm also highlighted possible issues with how defective arbitration clauses due to coding error would be treated by the forum and whether they will go to court or stay in favour of arbitration.
“We have a strong sense of responsibility towards business, and we know the legal implications and possible disputes regarding the Smart B/L. We have invested heavily into verifying and validating our solution, and our legal efforts are directed by Patrick Vlačič, a top legal expert in the field of maritime, transport (air, rail and road) and insurance law to help us manage any legal questions,” Kukman said, adding that Vlačič was previously Slovenia’s Minister of Transportation.
Kukman also pointed out that CargoX has put a lot of emphasis on cybersecurity issues. “We are collaborating with top cybersecurity experts to verify and validate our systems and the information flow. All data in the CargoX Smart B/L solution is encrypted and extremely safely stored,” Kukman assured.
In the midst of the rapidly evolving trading environment, Kukman said the logistics platform recently launched by IBM and Maersk has been taken into consideration all along. “Our roadmap was planned with this in mind, and we already committed to providing two new products in the coming months, which will complement the Smart B/L and offer a wide array of business opportunities to those who are thinking ahead and who are planning to use blockchain in their IT-business strategy,” he said.
“We have been working on the Smart B/L solution with a laser focus to provide this specific solution to solve one of the current biggest pain-points in the industry, and we have succeeded in providing the platform ahead of the giant duo,” Kukman added.
He reiterated that collaboration rather than competition should be the way forward. “We believe that we are all together building a great blockchain-based logistics ecosystem where coexistence is default and solution openness will be considered a standard feature.”
However Kukman pointed out that commercial realities cannot be ignored. Pointing to the fact that Maersk’s TradeLens has only attracted one other shipping line, he suggested this might be a sign the platform is not sufficiently neutral to attract the other lines. “Even though the platform is traded as an open platform, there is Maersk who is still involved, and the blockchain technology used is not of public nature. Private blockchains void all the benefits of using blockchain, and centralized solutions always add to business uncertainty,” Kukman noted.
“Besides, in such a fragmented global market of NVOCC and shipping lines, there is not much chance that lines would want to use a competitor’s platform,” he added.
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