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Walgreen chief executive unafraid of risky moves
Greg Wasson gambled away about $60 during the 2½ years he lived in Las Vegas. All of it came while he was parked at some low-stakes slot machine, waiting for his out-of-town guests to wrap up their requisite casino visit.
Wasson, 53, says he doesn’t have the stomach to gamble.
But since the small-town Indiana native rose to the top job at Walgreen Co. in February 2009, he is earning a reputation for making big bets and taking risks.
First came the 2010 acquisition of the New York pharmacy chain Duane Reade Inc. for $1.1 billion, which at the time was the largest deal completed by the traditionally conservative Deerfield, Ill.-based drugstore operator.
In 2011, Wasson shelled out $429 million to buy Drugstore.com, a deal meant to augment Walgreen’s online presence.
Late last year, he made the decision to walk away from more than $5 billion in annual business tied to the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co.
Investors sent Walgreen’s stock price tumbling, but Wasson insists the decision was in the long-term interest of the company.
Now Wasson has upped the ante again.
For the first time in its 111-year history, the nation’s largest drugstore chain moved to expand beyond its North American footprint with a $6.7 billion cash-and-stock deal to acquire a 45 percent stake in the European pharmacy and health-and-beauty retailer Alliance Boots GmbH.
The deal, expected to close by Sept. 1, will create the world’s largest buyer of prescription drugs, with a network of 11,000 stores in 12 countries.
It includes an option for Walgreen to take full control of the Swiss-based Alliance Boots in about three years for an additional $9.5 billion in cash and stock, and the assumption of the company’s substantial debt.
In the eyes of Walgreen investors, it’s a risky bet. Wasson defended the Boots move in a meeting with investors. He called it “a once-in-a-lifetime brand and asset that could set this company up for the next 10 to 20 years.”
Wasson faces the monumental challenge of stitching together two blockbuster brands with long histories at the same time he is reinventing his business at home.
Last week, Walgreen announced the purchase of a regional drugstore chain focused on the mid-South for about $438 million from Stephen L. LaFrance Holdings Inc. of Little Rock, Ark. The chain includes USA Drug, Super D and May’s drugstores.
Whether the string of deals pays off might well define Wasson’s career.
Since Wasson graduated from pharmacy school at Purdue University in 1981, his life has been consumed by all things Walgreen.
He started as an intern gofer, took his first job there as an assistant store manager and never looked back.
He spends most Saturdays holed up in his airy fourth-floor suite in a suburban office park in Deerfield. Members of his executive team are expected to be at his side.
His wife, Kim, spent 17 years working for the company. His younger brother, Brad, has carved out a 30-year career at Walgreen. A sister, Terri, manages a Walgreens in Chicago.
It’s not uncommon for him to send his deputies emails after midnight.
“Guilty,” he said.
When he picks up a book, it’s almost always a nonfiction work about health care or a biography about successful political or business leaders.
Even when Wasson retreats to his property on a private lake in southern Indiana for a respite with his family, his baggage usually includes two “big items to think through,” each related to Walgreen.
“There’s just too much to do,” said Wasson, who is stoic, yet warm. “The world is moving too fast.”
Amid the most dramatic overhaul in the U.S. health-care system in 50 years — and at a time of unprecedented upheaval in the industry that works in the space between his pharmacies and insurance companies and employers — Wasson is leading Walgreen through a major reinvention.
Much like he did with the Duane Reade deal in 2010, Wasson is hoping to co-opt the best innovations and forward-looking strategies employed by Boots’ 3,300 stores and implement them in his nearly 8,000 Walgreens.
Wasson wants his stores to be known as a destination for “health and daily living.” He wants his customers to take their medications as prescribed. He wants them to go in for immunizations and vaccinations. He wants them to turn to store pharmacists, nurse practitioners and doctors for primary care.
In short, Wasson believes Walgreen can and will play a much larger role in the delivery of health care.
Walgreen has built or converted about 200 stores to so-called Well Experience stores with additional medical staff. It plans to convert 200 more by the end of the year.
“We think we have a tremendous opportunity to roll out new and unique services to patients,” Wasson said. “We can really help fill in some of the gap in primary care and access to health care in this country. It’s good for our patients, and it’s good for us.”
A teenage Greg Wasson managed waste collection — that is, the draining and disposing of sewage waste harvested from holding tanks in parked campers.
“We worked really, really hard, but we just didn’t know anything different,” said Brad Wasson, who is group vice president of Walgreens Health Systems Solutions Group. “We didn’t realize we were running a business, but we were learning very basic leadership and relationship skills.”
Although neither of Wasson’s parents attended college, they expected each of their children to pursue an education beyond high school. All of them did.
Wasson had a couple of relatives who were pharmacists, and they steered him to Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy.
After managing a series of stores in Houston, the Wassons moved to Milwaukee, where Greg became a district manager at age 27, a position he called “intimidating” because many of the 30 or so store managers who reported to him “had been working in stores longer than I had been alive.”
From there, they moved to Boston, where Wasson spent seven years managing a three-state region where Walgreen was trying to get a better foothold.
Wasson was promoted to a regional vice president of store operations in 1999 and three years later was named president of Walgreens Health Initiatives, which handled mail-order, specialty pharmacy and pharmacy benefit management services. In 2007, he became chief operating officer, a position that has led to promotions to CEO.


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After a difficult 2020 and second wave, now vaccination drive has gathered momentum, and travel business is showing signs of a sustained resumption this time. In such a scenario, the survey throws up certain interesting insights on the future of travel industry.
About 83 percent of the agents surveyed have catered to first-time customers (those who never used travel agents’ services before). This is a key indicator of how an increasing number of travelers are now turning towards travel agents and trip planners. Compared to large OTAs and marketplaces, travel agencies are being preferred as the need for personalization, and real-time connectivity has increased significantly in the post pandemic times.
Speaking about this, Arun Bagaria, co-founder, TravClan said, “The global tourism industry has endured a major existential challenge and is now confidently overcoming this on the basis of knowledge gained during the last one year. The streamlining of processes and progress of vaccination programs is likely to result in strong recovery in the market within the next 6 months or so. We have been able to generate a number of highly impactful insights into the travel industry’s operations.”
The buoyancy about post-pandemic travel demand is making even those agents re-enter the world of tourism who had earlier shut shop fearing the collapse of global travel business. In fact, the survey reveals that most of the travel agents believe that travel operations will resume faster than expected earlier and international travel is also expected to resume in several major markets by October 2021 with several countries like Maldives, Thailand already announcing phased re-opening.
Adding further, Arun Bagaria, said, “Travel agents are evolving to service the needs of the future travelers by building trust and high quality service at a time when travel regulations are changing frequently. The travel agents who traditionally functioned offline are also now rapidly adopting the new technologies and becoming travel planners and actively carrying out marketing activities on social media. At TravClan, we have consistently worked towards making digital transition smooth, affordable and easy for millions of travel companies in India and across the world.”
A lot of uncertainty has gripped the travel sector during the pandemic due to the constantly changing operational scenario, restrictions on certain services, destinations and customer concerns. However travel agents are now evolving into new agent travel entrepreneurs and rediscovering themselves to meet the demands of the traveler!

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Fed Later? RTP Now? ACH Today? The Fastest Path to Real Time Success.
The number of RTP-connected financial institutions are set to triple within the next 12 – 18 months, according to a recent 2021 Volante Survey and Real-time payments are the number #1 missing capability for FIs when prioritizing for modernization.
For the industry to maximize the benefit of faster / real-time payment rails like Same Day ACH, The Clearing House RTP(r), Zelle and the future FedNow, banks need their new product and services, to run on these rails.
Real-time payments are a critical component of the current payments landscape. It is important to understand the market conditions that are contributing to the urgency of real-time capabilities to fully grasp opportunity cost for financial institutions that do not meet the growing demands of business clients.
In this lively and interactive session, you will learn more about:
1. The acceleration in RTP adoption
2. The current demand curve for real-time payments, in the US
3. The compelling use cases that will shape innovative real-time payments experiences
– Speaker: Anoop Basavarajaiah, Director Payments- Americas, Volante Technologies
– Speaker: Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service, Mercator Advisory Group
– Moderator: Ryan Mac, Editor-in-Chief, PaymentsJournal


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Apple Is Investigating ‘Swelling’ iPhone 8 Batteries
The swelling battery phenomenon has been surfacing since late September.
CNet recently rounded up reports of the issue, finding fewer than 10 cases spread across Japan, Greece, Canada, China, and Taiwan. Photos shared on social media have shown the phone’s screens pushed away from their bodies. Some are of phones that have been used, while others show apparently new phones cracked open in their boxes.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
More details reported by MacRumors indicate that some of the phones showed the problem after charging overnight. The site describes the issue as a “battery failure” and says it shouldn’t be surprising that a few of the millions of iPhone 8 delivered in recent weeks showed faults.
There have also so far been no reports of scorching or explosions related to the new iPhone, which should calm worries of a catastrophic design flaw similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 meltdown. Samsung’s phones caught fire frequently enough that they were recalled en masse, costing the Korean firm an estimated $5 billion including lost revenue.
Apple has been tight-lipped in its response about the “swelling” batteries, saying only that it is looking into the issue, without providing further details. A battery industry analyst speaking to The Verge, however, suspects that Apple executives are “in crisis mode” as they scramble to make sure the isolated reports don’t point to a larger issue.


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After a brief delay and more than a year of chatter, Advanced Micro Devices has announced the availability of its first 16-core Opteron server chips, which pack the largest number of cores available on x86 chips today.
Israeli government websites were up and running again Monday, after what the government described as a "server glitch" at a server farm took several of them offline.
By launching the Open Compute Project as a stand-alone foundation, Facebook is hoping to further standardize the market for data center equipment, thereby reducing costs and vendor lock-in, the new foundation's board members said at a press conferenc...
Facebook has begun building a data center in Lulea, Sweden, where it will benefit from cheap electricity and year-round free air cooling, the company announced Thursday.
IBM on Wednesday introduced mainframe and Power-based systems for analytics in an effort to compete with Oracle's Exadata.
Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced new servers that come pre-configured with Microsoft software to help companies deploy virtualized workloads more quickly.
It can't be easy working for Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Just ask John Fowler, the head of Oracle's systems business, who's spent the past two weeks trying to convince customers that Ellison didn't really mean it when he said Oracle is "phasing out" it...
SPEC, the standards body for performance benchmarks, has developed a tool-kit to help more accurately measure the energy efficiency of servers.
Oracle has launched its new Sparc T4 processor, along with new hardware that it hopes will turn up the heat on server rivals Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
Oracle is hoping to capture the fancy of smaller companies enamored with its Exadata data-processing machine, announcing Wednesday the availability of a new database appliance configured for SMBs' needs and budgets.
Micron today released its first entry-level solid state drive (SSD) aimed at being used as a boot drive in servers or for I/O intensive read applications, such as video streaming in cloud computing environments.
In 2001, VMware delivered its first virtualization products for x86 servers, setting off what has become one of today's biggest tech trends. But the benefits of virtualization, particularly its ability to allow users to rapidly provision new workload...
Cisco Systems emerged from 150 days of restructuring on Tuesday as an aggressive competitor, laying out some of the problems that led it to make changes, while saying its rivals are in even worse predicaments.
Servers with new Xeon E5 chips based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture will become available early next year, Intel officials said on Tuesday.
An IT services company in China has picked an IBM mainframe to provide online services for up to 300 million citizens, including many in rural areas who will access the services through kiosks in community centers and other public places, IBM said.
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Batteries are destined to change the future in many ways. One of those ways is by completely disrupting the fossil fuels industry by replacing gasoline powered vehicle with electric vehicles. What is one of the key limiting factors on battery production? Cost. The cost of battery production has dropped significantly in recent years, but it is still expensive to produce batteries. Not to mention, the energy contained in batteries is still substantially less than that of gasoline or other fossil fuels. Therefore, significant obstacles must still be overcome. Even with these obstacles, batteries will someday replace the need for fossil fuels in many applications. Electric cars have recently changed from a niche novelty into a mainstream reality. The main reason for this is because of the decrease in cost and availability of batteries. What was once a very expensive component to produce is now much less expensive. Experts at Bloomberg Energy Finance predict that batteries must reach approximately $100 per kilowatt hour to produce. Current battery production costs are somewhere around double that, and at the rate that production costs have dropped, this goal should be attainable by the year 2025. Additionally, demand for electric vehicles continues to increase. A report from Bloomberg states that worldwide demand for electric vehicles will continue to increase rapidly in the next 30 years. By the year 2040, nearly half of new car sales are forecast to be electric vehicles, up significantly from the roughly 3 percent of sales that electric vehicles currently make up. Aside from transportation uses, batteries will also continue to enhance and improve the world’s power grid. Technologies such as wind power will be able to take advantage of improving battery technology by using batteries to store energy and release it into the power grid when electricity demand is high but wind production is low. This will benefit many types of renewable energy technology as the world’s energy consumption continues to rise.
-taken from www.bloomberg.com
light are being used to notify pedestrians of automated vehicle travel. It is
well known that automated vehicles are a thing of the future, and that future
is quickly approaching. The streets that have been shared by pedestrians and
vehicles driven by other people will soon be shared with vehicles driven
completely automatically. There are still many obstacles, literally and
figuratively, that must be overcome before driverless cars become a reality.
One of the main hinderances to future development of automated vehicles is the
dangerous or untrustworthy perception held by the public eye. How will
automated vehicles properly indicate to surrounding pedestrians the path that
the vehicle plans to travel? Jaguar Land Rover has developed a system that will
help to inform pedestrians of nearby driverless cars and their planned
behavior. The technology uses a series of light beams that are projected out of
the front of the driverless vehicle and onto the roadway surface. The light
beams run the width of the vehicle and spread apart when the automated vehicle
is traveling faster and move closer together at slower speeds. During
acceleration and braking, the spacing between the light beams changes, to
notify surrounding pedestrians of the vehicle’s planned actions.
Currently, Jaguar Land Rover is developing the technology concurrently while studying the effects of automated vehicles and the “trust” level that pedestrians have around these driverless machines. In order for the automated vehicle technology to launch effectively, pedestrians and the general public must wholeheartedly trust the actions of driverless vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover is studying how to increase this trust level. Current studies show that approximately 41% of pedestrians observing the behavior of automated vehicles are concerned about sharing the roads with robot-controlled machines. The projected light beams are designed to increase the public’s trust of driverless vehicles and will be a key safety feature for automated vehicles moving forward.
-taken from www.sae.org
A competition to help influence new drone technologies is
being put together by Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the United
Kingdom’s Defense Science and Research Laboratory. The competition will find
the best drone design to help with fighting wildfires, and will use new drone
technologies such as drone swarms. The competition is being called the “Swarm
and Search AI Challenge: Fire Hack” and is designed to promote drone swarm
technologies used in a real world scenario. Drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,
are becoming more and more popular for many different applications. Their small
size and simple design bodes well for situations unsuitable for humans, and new
technologies are turning drones into massively capable little machines.
The idea of drone swarms is a relatively new concept. A
drone swarm would consist of a large number of independently flying drones that
are computer controlled. The drones would all be “aware” of each other to avoid
in-air collisions, be fully autonomous, and would be able to fly together in
close proximity, with the same goal of each delivering a small payload, perform
widespread searches of an area, of other related functionality. It’s easy to
envision how drones could be effectively used to fight wildfires: the drones could
deliver a fire suppression payload quickly and effectively, and a drone swarm
could cover a large area of wildfire.
Aside from the above mentioned usage, the Swarm and Search AI Challenge: Fire Hack competition aims to show how drone swarms could be used to effectively map out a wildfire area from a safe location. Benefits of using multiple drones for mapping include the ability to cover a large area quickly, and the ability to create almost real-time updated maps of wildfire spread in an area that would otherwise be too dangerous for firefighters to enter. Capabilities discovered during the challenge may be further developed for military applications. The competition will culminate in March, 2019.
-taken from www.sae.org


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Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail is expected to sell between 350,000 and 400,000 copies its first sales week in stores, making it the presumptive #1 album when sales figures are announced next week (July 17), according to billboard.com. The sales projections are based in part on pre-orders through digital retail outlets.
If Magna Carta Holy Grail does indeed debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart next week, it would be Jay-Z’s thirteenth #1 album, as per Billboard. Jigga already holds the record for the solo artist with the most #1 albums in music history. The Beatles, who have 19 #1 albums, are the only artists with more #1 albums than Jay-Z, according to the story.
Jay-Z gave away 1 million copies of the album via Samsung users July 4 and the retail version of his album became available today (July 9). The next sales tracking week ends Sunday (July 14).
Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that it was changing the way it certifies releases as gold and platinum, in part because of Sumsung purchasing 1 million copies of Magna Carta Holy Grail. “Going forward, sales of albums in digital format will become eligible on the release date, while sales of albums in physical format will still become eligible for certification 30 days after the release date,” Liz Kennedy, Director, Communications and Gold & Platinum Program, RIAA, wrote on riaa.com July 1. Traditionallly, a release is certified gold once it sells 500,000 units and earns platinum status once it sells 1 million units, and had been available for purchase for at least 30 days.
Jay-Z’s most recent solo studio album, 2009’s The Blueprint 3, debuted at #1 and sold 476,000 copies its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Hov returned to the #1 spot two years later with Kanye West for the Watch The Throne album, which entered the charts at #1 with 436,000 units sold its first week, as per Billboard.
UPDATE: Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail is expected to sell 528,208 copies its first sales week in stores, making it the #1 album in the country, according to hitsdailydouble.com. The final sales figures will be released tomorrow (July 17).
Magna Carta Holy Grail will become Jay-Z’s thirteenth #1 album, according to billboard.com. The site initially reported that Magna Carta Holy Grail would sell between 350,000 and 400,000 units.
Ciara’s self-titled album is slated to be the #2 album in the country. It is expected to sell 57,515 units its first week in stores, according to hitsdailydouble.com.


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Last November, after finding out that Farmforce had helped some of their members source nearly 200,000 metric tons of sustainable cocoa, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) was more than happy to welcome us into their community. It definitely helped that WCF members like Cargill or GCB Cocoa had already recognised the top-class standards of our advanced traceability solutions. But we care about being an active member. This is why we’ll be in Brussels on October 26-27, right at the peak of the harvesting season, to take part in the WCF’s 2022 Partnership Meeting. Throughout this leading event, covering the most pressing issues and the latest innovations in sustainable cocoa farming, we’ll be brainstorming with producers and other stakeholders from each segment of the value chain.
A New Anti-deforestation Tech
When talking about sustainability and traceability in agriculture, deforestation is currently one of the top supply chain issues for cocoa and will be a trending topic during the conference. Even more so now that the European Parliament voted to pass a stricter version of the law initially drafted by the European Commission, restricting European market access to cocoa that can be verified as deforestation-free. As first mile experts, Farmforce is on the front line of tackling this sustainability and compliance challenge and has already developed an Integrated Deforestation Monitoring solution. Coop managers can easily verify whether their cocoa farmers’ fields have any historical forest cover loss by mapping fields with their electronic devices. This package of features, traceability and integrated deforestation monitoring, will allow coops to show exporters that their cocoa doesn’t come from deforested land.
On top of that, collecting feedback from several WCF members and other first mile stakeholders, we’ve been fine-tuning our deforestation monitoring solution. Designed with multinational corporation’s (MNCs) due diligence in mind, our Enterprise features are designed with the EU regulatory framework in mind. Thanks to this smart addition, which will be released by the end of this year, MNCs can check thousands of cocoa plots for deforestation monitoring compliance at a time. By doing so, we’ll let exporters future-proof their revenues from the sale of cocoa-based products in Europe while safeguarding farmers’ livelihoods.
Meeting a First Mile Traceability Champion
But we won’t be the only ones putting a spotlight on the first mile of the cocoa beans supply chain. Mr Ousmane Traoré, the Chairman of the Board of the cocoa cooperative Ecakoog, was invited by the WCF as a speaker. By harnessing our food tech as part of our Fairtrade pilot phase in Côte d’Ivoire, Ecakoog became a cocoa traceability champion. While being aware that production traceability has a cost, Mr Traoré recognised that having a first mile tracking tool such as Farmforce could supercharge his business growth. And he put that intuition into practice. Since investing in Farmforce, Ecakoog substantially increases the number of cocoa producers he is working with. Our advanced traceability solutions played a key role in achieving this outstanding result. In fact, when implementing agroforestry, which Mr Traoré is deeply keen on, Ecakoog could track farmers’ yields and prove their increase. This undeniable success gained him the recognition of local producers and international buyers. Mr Traoré cooperative has grown so much that it will be the first one to test out our Enterprise deforestation tracking feature.
Curbing cocoa-driven deforestation is no longer table talk for the EU. Although this is good news for the environment, it will require all actors involved in the cocoa value chain to implement extra efforts to comply with the more stringent regulations. That’s why Farmforce has brought up a tangible solution to the WCF table that will enable both coops and MNCs to continue their business as usual.
Aside from making cocoa forest-friendly, we have other ambitious projects in the pipeline, and the participation in the WCF event is giving us other things to look forward to in the short, medium and long term. First, we’ll reconnect with our existing customers and perhaps meet new ones. Besides fostering business opportunities, we also want to enrich our knowledge by catching up on any recent developments in the cocoa arena so that we can maximise our positive impact.


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The Old Town Quilt Guild will sell member-made table runners, table toppers and placemats during the Oct. 3-6 festival at the Jonesborough Visitors Center.
Proceeds from the sale will again go to the Jonesborough Area Ministerial Association, a group of churches that operate a food pantry for residents in Jonesborough, Telford and Limestone.
Guild member and Table Runner Committee member Ginny Sharrow said the $2,600 raised last year for JAMA exceeded everyone’s expectations.
“We had no idea we would raise that much, but now that we’ve done it, we would like to raise that much again,” she said.
In 2017, guild members collaborated on a single quilt, which sold for $1,300. The following year, Sharrow said members thought making and selling smaller items would appeal to more buyers.
“Everyone’s in love with Jonesborough when they come here for the festival, and we’re capitalizing on that,” she said. “They want to take home a piece of the town and that wonderful feeling you get when you’re here.”
The quilting group has been busy sewing the items since last year.
Sharrow estimated there will be 140 carefully crafted pieces available at prices between $20 and $40. Normally, such items would sell for at least $75, considering the fabric and time spent making them.
The available decor items suit all four seasons and holidays like Halloween and Christmas. Some special designs include fabric depicting local barns donated by quilt supply shop Tennessee Quilts.
In addition to the JAMA fundraiser, the guild takes on other charitable causes, like sewing pillowcases for young patients at Niswonger Children’s Hospital. New patients are issued some of the hundreds of pillowcases made each year, and when they’re discharged from the hospital, they can take the cases with them.
Sharrow said it’s causes like those that help the guild fulfill its mission of community service.
With about 50 members, the close-stitched group also serves as a social outlet.
Before she moved to Northeast Tennessee from North Carolina to be closer to her children, Sharrow said she first made sure there was a local quilting group.
“I wasn’t worried about making friends, because I knew I would meet quilters,” she said. “I knew whatever church I find and whatever guild I find, there would be people I could be friends with.”
The Old Town Quilters welcome new members from any skill level. The group’s members meet monthly from September until June on the second Tuesday, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Fellowship Building next to the railroad track behind the Jonesborough United Methodist Church on Main Street.


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A lot has happened since our update on the alternative protein industry in Singapore! Just last week, on 10th June, Eat Just’s Good MEAT hosted the grand opening of the largest cultivated meat production facility in Asia. Another Singapore-based startup that has made amazing progress is Next Gen Foods, which uses its innovative foodtech to develop plant-based foods. It has started with its plant-based chicken consumer brand “TiNDLE”. TiNDLE has been recognised as the ‘fastest growing plant-based food brand in APAC’ by Green Queen and have raised $100 million in the largest Series A plant-based meat deal ever according to Forbes Magazine.
Singapore has been deemed by alternative protein startups such as Next Gen Foods as the perfect place to launch their brand due to it being a global hub for business, communications and finance in general. The country has also been recognised as a place where startups in the food industry are able to gain access to MNCs and world-class research facilities. Moreover, Singapore is also seen as an ideal location for testing alternative products in the market due to the high level of education of the general public as well as a growing awareness of the importance of sustainable food consumption choices. Amazing work is being done in Singapore’s alt protein industry and in this article, we will be highlighting 3 Singaporean companies: Shiok Meats, Pullulo and Karana, who are taking novel steps in this sector.
Shiok Meats is the first cell-based meat company in South East Asia, they are using cellular technology to sustainably produce seafood such as shrimp, prawn, crab and lobster. Despite the amazing pace of progress they have made in the past few years,, Dr Sandhya Sriram, the Founder and CEO of Shiok Meats stated that ‘we were the first cultivated seafood company in Southeast Asia so we did face a lot of backlash. The biggest challenge we have moving forward is getting our price down and we are looking to figure out how to produce multiple tons of our product everyday and I’m looking forward to that happening in the next couple of years’. Shiok Meats continues to overcome the challenges they face each day and is set to launch their first product in the consumer market in 2023.
Another company to look for is Pullulo. They are a fermentation-enabled protein ingredient company developing microbial protein for various food applications. Their innovative protein is highly nutritious yet affordable, allergen-free, non-GMO, vegan, and Halal and is less susceptible to supply chain disruptions. Many of their products also integrate agricultural by-products, upcycling our waste in the process. Pullulo is targeting both the alternative protein mass market and the underserved healthcare catering and food services. Their work will be especially beneficial for countries like Singapore which have aging populations and you can find out more about them in this short film.
Lastly, we have Karana, who have been called the ‘Asian food brand of the future’. They are a plant-based alternative company, creating innovative alternative protein products with meat-like textures using a variety of biodiverse ingredients with an emphasis on jackfruit. They have rapidly grown since being founded in 2018 and have launched their products in multiple restaurants in Singapore, Hong Kong and USA. You can find out more about the delicious products they offer by clicking here. Keep an eye for their new products and expansion plans!
And VC funds, Big Idea Ventures (BIV), continue to strive to support the next generation of alternative protein startups through direct investments and our accelerator programs. “Big Idea Ventures is excited about the future of food in Singapore. As the first fund and accelerator focused on alternative protein offering dedicated support and mentorship,, Singapore gets stronger every day as the food innovation hub for Asia and the rest of world. If you are a founder of a plant based, cell based or fermentation enabled company, there has never been a better time to be starting and growing a food company in Singapore. Join our Big Idea Food Competition coming up later this year. Let’s work together!’ said Andrew D. Ive, Founder and Managing General Partner of Big Idea Ventures.
The rapid growth in Singapore’s alternative protein industry has been made possible due to the development of an ecosystem of large corporations, government partners and venture capitalists to provide the innovative companies with the support they need to grow. Government entities such as the Economic Development Board (EDB) have been supporting the companies who have been making a mark in the industry. “We have focused on making Singapore a global innovation hub for sustainable Agri-food technologies, so as to solve for urban food challenges faced by countries throughout Southeast Asia and beyond. For instance, we are exploring the rise of hybrid products that combine the benefits of plant-based and fermented or cultivated protein. This is already being applied in local cuisine, such as Good Meat Asia’s satay (bite-sized pieces of cultivated chicken on skewers).
By partnering with companies pioneering nutritious, tasty and innovative food solutions, we hope consumers around the region will have more options. And as the alternative protein industry grows, there will increasingly be exciting job opportunities to shape the future of food. We will continue supporting companies that are helping the global food industry become more sustainable, affordable and accessible to global consumers.” – Mr Damian Chan, Executive Vice President, Singapore Economic Development Board.


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What does the Android Wear announcement mean for Samsung and other Android smartwatch makers? What does it mean for developers?
Tuesday's debut of Android Wear made it clear that Google is committed to the wearables space, and smartwatches in particular. It makes sense: If wearables are going to be the next big platform, it's in Google's best interest to be there and be there early.
Motorola and LG are first out of the gate with Android Wear devices — both expected to debut this summer — and we expect to hear more announcements in the coming weeks and months.
For some ecosystems, an announcement like Android Wear would be a boon for both existing developers and hardware partners, especially in a white-hot space like wearables. The open nature of Android, however, makes the situation a little more complicated.
The modular — and open-source — nature of Android means it can run on a variety of devices, from TVs to watches to refrigerators to cars. For more than a year, various companies have released Android-powered smartwatches. In fact, at CES 2014, I would say that Android ran on the majority of the devices we saw.
Android tablets revisited?
This is something we've seen happen before. Ahead of Google's introduction of a tablet-optimized Android (Honeycomb) in early 2011, dozens of companies were already in the process of putting Android — then designed for phones — on tablets. Samsung was the most prominent company to get an early jump on the Android-tablet train, releasing the Galaxy Tab in fall 2010.
The original Galaxy Tab was one of the first "real" Android tablets — even if it was essentially just an oversized 7-inch phone. (Hey, in 2014, a 7-inch phone isn't out of the question.) Still, you had to feel for Samsung when Google unveiled its tablet-optimized OS with Motorola a few months later, making the Galaxy Tab obsolete overnight.
Samsung was also early on the smartwatch train. Last fall, Samsung unveiled its first smartwatch, the Android-based Galaxy Gear. Last month, the Korean giant unveiled its next generation of smartwatches, the Gear 2 and Gear Neo. Feeling that Android might be too heavy for a smartwatch (and perhaps wanting to have more control of the overall ecosystem), Samsung opted to base the Gear 2 and Gear Neo on its own Tizen operating system, not Android.
Confusingly, however, Google cited Samsung as an Android Wear partner in the official announcement, indicating that we might see an Android Wear-based Gear device in the future.
The smartwatch ecosystem: it's complicated
Smartwatches and wearables are the new hotness. This much is clear. But for developers who want to write apps specifically for a smartwatch — or want to make sure their existing apps integrate well with a smartwatch — developing for these devices is getting complicated. Fast.
With the announcement of Android Wear, there are now three significant smartwatch platforms:
The Tizen-based Samsung Gear
And that's without mentioning Sony's Android-based Smartwatch 2 SDK, the Qualcomm Toq and any number of other smartwatch and wearable devices on the market.
Because Pebble is the only major smartwatch that has robust iOS and Android support, if a developer has an app that runs on both platforms and wants to integrate it with a wearable, that may be the easiest place to start. Moreover, because Pebble is handles notifications quite well, some app makers might not even see the need to make a specific app.
That leads us to Android Wear and the Samsung Gear. SDKs are available for both platforms, though both are in the early stages of development.
Although developers should be able to integrate their apps to work with both systems, the way each platform works is different enough that I'm not sure how much code can be re-used between platforms. As a result, most developers will probably choose to support one platform or the other — rather than both — at least in the beginning.
Choosing a platform, especially in a burgeoning space like smartwatches is tricky. When deciding between Samsung Gear or Android Wear, the question is even more complex. The fact that Android Wear will support lots of different Android smartphones might make it the winner at first blush. After all, the Gear 2 and Gear Neo — like the original Galaxy Gear — will only work with Samsung phones.
Of course, Samsung is the dominant Android phone maker, especially in the western world. An argument could be made for supporting the ecosystem that is tightly integrated into the most popular phone for a platform, rather than the platform at large.
Good news: it's still early
Although I'm concerned with how quickly the smartwatch ecosystem may become fragmented, I don't want to be a fear-monger or discourage anyone from developing for any wearable platform.
The reality is, we're at the very beginning stages with this stuff. The Gear 2 doesn't ship for another month and we probably won't see any Android Wear devices until June or July.
Moreover, the development platforms themselves are still in their infancy.
The current developer preview for Android Wear mainly addresses how notifications are displayed and the user can interact with them on a smartwatch. There are specific UI considerations developers need to take for customized integration. There's also documentation for how to support voice input from a notification, such as replying to a text with by dictating a response with your voice.
On the Samsung Gear side, developers are encouraged to build web apps that tie into specific APIs on Samsung devices, as well as access to some of the hardware on the smartwatch itself.
Again, both of these ecosystems are early.
And although the two worlds seem disparate now, I fully expect to see some sort of cross-platform framework for wearables that can support Pebble, Samsung Gear and Android Wear in the future. How good it will be, who knows, but you know it's coming.
Developers — does platform support have any impact on what type of device you want to build for? End users — how important are apps and ecosystem to you when considering a smartwatch?


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This week will see another hefty fuel price hike of 5% month-on-month for the two grades of petrol at R18.11/ litre (unleaded 93) and R18.30 (unleaded 95), which is 22% and 21% higher respectively year-on-year.
©Phanuwat Nandee via 123RF
The two grades of diesel will increase by 4% month-0n-month and 16% year-on-year to R15.63/ litre (500ppm) and R15.66/ litre (50ppm). The increase was underpinned by a combination of a 4.5% m/m rise in crude oil prices to US$74/ barrel and a further 1.4% m/m depreciation in the Rand/ US dollar exchange rate to R14.54 in June 2021.
This comes at a time when farmers are busy delivering a huge grain and oilseed crop of 17.07 million to the country’s silos and gearing themselves for the onset of the 2021/22 planting season in just over a month’s time, if rains permit.
The availability of fuel at the right time and price is critical for a successful operation across the agriculture value chain. Not only fuel is impacted, but the cost of imported agriculture inputs such as fertiliser, pesticides, and herbicides will also increase especially given the recent constraints with the availability of ingredients to produce certain fertilisers and the higher cost of shipping.
The harvested crop is also being transported to various storage bins across the country including the export markets, therefore further fuel hikes will dent producer margins. Grain producers and logistics companies in the agriculture value chain will feel the pain, as closer to 80% of grain is transported by road.
Livestock and horticulture with citrus harvest in its infancy will also be affected in terms of distribution across the country, as well as exports. Mounting cost pressures will eventually erode producer margins and a potential inflationary pain on consumers.


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Statiq, Zoomcar join hands to accelerate EV-based travel in country
Under this agreement, Statiq, along with Zoomcar, will enable EV owners to host on Zoomcar and earn additional income by sharing with guests
NEW DELHI: Homegrown electric vehicle charging network startup Statiq on Tuesday announced its partnership with car-sharing marketplace Zoomcar to accelerate EV-based travel in the country.
Under this agreement, Statiq, along with Zoomcar, will enable EV owners to host on Zoomcar and earn additional income by sharing with guests.
"This collaboration will provide the much-needed impetus to the EV charging ecosystem. At the same time, it will increase the popularity of EVs among non-EV owners helping to foster a culture of clean mobility among the public," Akshit Bansal, Co-founder and CEO, Statiq, said in a statement.
The company said that the Delhi NCR region will be a pilot for this agreement, and in time, it will be expanded to other cities, including Mumbai and Bengaluru.
With this, EV owners would now be able to list their cars as hosts on Zoomcar, said the company.
"At Zoomcar, we strive to be at the forefront of creating innovative solutions that can help shape the mobility industry. We're confident that this partnership will provide both our host and guest customers with a hassle-free EV-sharing experience," Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder Zoomcar, said in a statement.
Moreover, while Statiq backs up this adoption with its accessible, affordable, and reliable network of charging stations, this move is also expected to spur and accelerate increased EV adoption in the country, the company added.


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WiTricity Scores Deal with Toyota
Watertown, MA-based WiTricity, a developer of a wireless charging system for electric cars and plug-in hybrids, has formed a technology partnership with Japan-based Toyota Motor Corporation. The deal includes a Toyota investment in WiTricity, reported to be in the single-digit millions of dollars, according to Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe. Earlier this month, Delphi demoed a vehicle-charging system developed in partnership with WiTricity at a conference in Detroit. WiTricity started in 2007, based on wireless-power technology from MIT, and had raised just over $15 million as of last fall.
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The truth remains: digital empires rise and fall like tides, but YouTube has long held the crown as the biggest seller of online ad space.
Yet, as the dust settles one month after a seismic revelation, the titan of video-sharing finds itself ensnared in a whirlwind of controversy. The stage for this drama was set by critical reports from Adalytics Research, unveiling a shocking lack of transparency in media buys on YouTube. The tremors of this revelation are still rippling through the industry, shedding light on deeper systemic issues.
Adalytics Research, an independent watchdog in the advertising sphere, turned the spotlight on YouTube earlier this year. Their report sent shockwaves through the industry, revealing the extent of brand safety concerns surrounding advertising on YouTube.
One issue that struck fear into advertisers was the apparent ease with which their ad spend ended up being placed on Google Video Partners, a realm far removed from the content they intended to support.
At the heart of the matter was YouTube’s long-standing policy of negative-option provisions in its Google Video Partner program. This program, which is an integral part of YouTube’s advertising offering, often funneled advertisers into content unrelated to YouTube itself. Advertisers were, in essence, passengers on an unpredictable journey through the vast landscape of online video.
The Battle for Accountability
In the wake of Adalytics’ damning report, a battle for accountability and transparency has ensued. Google, YouTube’s parent company, has vehemently pushed back against the accusations, even going so far as to release an analysis countering Adalytics’ claims. The key contention lies in YouTube’s alleged targeting of ads to children, a practice fraught with ethical and legal ramifications.
According to Google, Adalytics made two fundamental errors in its research. First, it limited its investigation to impressions served on Made-for-Kids (MFK) channels rather than individual videos. This oversight, Google argues, led to an inaccurate portrayal of personalized ads on MFK content. Furthermore, Google contends that all ads served on MFK videos are targeted using contextual signals, such as viewing behavior, and never rely on personal information like age.
Despite these counterarguments, the battle rages on. Advertiser representatives, working through trade bodies, are demanding answers from Google, and talks between the parties continue. Some advertisers have even requested refunds, claiming that the Adalytics report prompted their actions.
The Enigma of Google’s Dominance
Google’s dominance in the digital advertising landscape is a central theme in this unfolding drama. Over the years, the tech giant has skillfully woven a web of interdependencies, making it indispensable to advertisers. They have successfully lured clients and agencies into their ecosystem, offering a seemingly simple solution in a complex world. The promise of connecting various advertising components, coupled with the allure of impressive results, has ensnared many.
Yet, the question that arises is whether this dominance has led to complacency. Some in the industry have argued this past month that Google has been grading its assignments for too long, leading to a situation where accountability becomes elusive. The dependency on Google’s stack has become a double-edged sword, with the industry grappling with the dilemma of holding Google accountable while simultaneously being beholden to it.
Regulatory Scrutiny Looms
Amidst this storm, regulatory scrutiny looms on the horizon. YouTube’s plans to leverage its co-viewing data, along with allegations of misdirecting advertiser money to low-quality partner sites on the open web, have piqued the interest of the Media Rating Council. This oversight body is now closely examining the Google platform, raising further questions about its practices.
In response to these challenges, Google is rolling out a new policy called “Limited Ads Serving.” This policy imposes a “get-to-know-you period” for new advertisers, during which their ad impressions may be restricted. Google will evaluate factors such as user feedback, adherence to advertising policies, and completion of the Advertiser Identity Verification process to determine when new advertisers can expand their reach.
Adalytics’ research has even caught the attention of lawmakers. Senators Ed Markey and Marsha Blackburn have written a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan, urging the agency to investigate Adalytics’ claims. They contend that YouTube and Google may have violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and its 2019 FTC consent decree. COPPA mandates that online platforms obtain parental consent before collecting data from users under the age of 13, a rule that could have far-reaching consequences for YouTube.
One month after the Adocalypse, YouTube finds itself at the center of a maelstrom. The advertising industry grapples with a reckoning, and the media behemoth is forced to confront the ghosts of its past actions. The road ahead is uncertain, but what remains clear is that transparency and accountability have become the rallying cries in an industry reshaped by revelations and repercussions.


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Toshiba showed a series of glasses-free 3DTVs at this year's CES. The TVs were showing Square Enix RPG Final Fantasy XIII. The combination may be with us sooner than you expect too.
According to Engadget
, the newest brand of 3DTVs will become available to the consumer public around the end of the fiscal year, providing a release window of early 2012.
The displays will allow users to watch 3D programming without the need for glasses and news website Reuters
has reported that the Toshiba will "probably launch two [retail] models, one over 40 inches and another over 50 inches".
Toshiba's head of visual products Atsushi Murasawa told reporters (of the 3DTVs) that: "These will not only be for the Japanese market, but also America, Europe and China."
Excited at the prospect of glasses-free 3D gaming? And would you want to see FFXIII
playable in 3D too? Feel free to post your thoughts in the Comments section below.


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Not having the right connections is a big reason for why women owned MSMEs do not grow faster: Saritha Venumbaka, WEConnect International
There is an upward trend because of several factors, the primary one being the changing social dynamics, that are shifting things in favour of women entrepreneurs. However, they still need assistance, says Saritha Venumbaka, WEConnect International.
Anushruti Singh June 27, 2022
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Women owned MSMEs, particularly micro businesses, have grown in India over the years. According to government statistics, the number has increased from 2.15 lakhs in FY11 to 1.23 million in FY21. As a result, the share of women owned MSMEs in the overall MSME base has increased from 13.72 per cent to 20.37 per cent in the last ten years.
It’s a remarkable difference, but we can’t ignore the fact that women owned businesses continue to face numerous challenges for a variety of reasons. Not to mention the fact that the pandemic has thrown many of them into deep water. Simultaneously, various reports highlight a funding gap that is further impeding their growth.
WEConnect International is one of the organisations that is working to uplift women owned MSMEs. It collaborates with over 160 multinational purchasing organisations with a combined annual purchasing power of more than $1 trillion that have committed to sourcing more products and services from women owned businesses in over 130 countries, including India.
Saritha Venumbaka, COO at WEConnect International, spoke to SME Futures one-on-one about supplier diversity, women owned businesses, digital accessibility, and capacity building.
Globally and in India, the role of women in entrepreneurial endeavours has expanded in the past decades. What are the factors behind this growth?
Women’s entrepreneurship has recorded a significant increase in India and across the world. For example, statistics show that about 14 per cent of entrepreneurs in India are women.
There is an upward trend because of several factors, the primary one being that the social dynamics have changed and shifted in favour of women entrepreneurs. Further, research shows that there is a desire among Indian women to be financially independent and move away from their traditional roles, and entrepreneurship is an avenue for financial autonomy.
A second cause of women’s entrepreneurial growth in India is that women are moving from the traditional sectors to streams like STEM, supply chain and logistics. The increase in their information and knowledge combined with the opportunities that have been afforded to them in the newer sectors have served to induce their growth and inculcated a desire among women to become entrepreneurs.
Thirdly, women have access to information and are applying that for creating businesses¾these women are motivated not by necessity but from a deep desire to do something better for themselves, for their communities and for their families.
Fourth, government support is also an important factor, and when we look at today’s government programs, it is obvious that there is a lot more emphasis on gender equality.
Be it from international financial institutions or government programs for promoting girls, all these women-centric schemes are focused on empowering women and creating environments that are supportive of women owned businesses. For example, policies offering tax-rebates in India and in other countries as well for women’s entrepreneurship help in creating environments that support the women who wish to succeed in business.
Fifth, the women entrepreneurs of today have more access to funding. Traditionally, access to financing was restricted for women entrepreneurs but now different types of loan programs, schemes and financial institutions have been established with the sole intent to encourage women entrepreneurs.
While all of these advancements are positive, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, specifically for supporting women entrepreneurs in gaining access to markets.
Every business owner is trying to sell their goods to buyers, and WEConnect International is helping to connect women business owners with multinational corporate buyers who are interested in supporting women entrepreneurs and diversifying their value chains.
WEConnect International recently hosted events in Mumbai and Bengaluru that acted as match-making sessions for the buyers and the sellers. Governments also play a key role in increasing market access for women entrepreneurs and local governments in India have worked hard to make strides in promoting digitization and globalization in an effort to help all businesses, women-owned businesses in particular, to gain access to new markets for scaling their businesses.
When it comes to the economic side of business ownership, women are still lagging. How are you enabling women owned MSMEs to become competitive in the value chains?
Generally, women’s businesses are linked to the traditional sectors like food processing, textiles, handicrafts and so on. But I would like to tell you that the WEConnect International network has over 15,000 women owned businesses across 130 countries from a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, distribution, professional services, retail, pharma and from other non-traditional sectors as well. Our multinational corporate member buyers are looking to women owned businesses for creative ideas in all sectors, not just in the traditional ones.
At WEConnect International, we assist women owned MSMEs in improving their competitiveness through multiple targeted interventions. Through our capacity-building programs, our women owned businesses develop skills to be competitive and win contracts from large buyers. In fact, in Bangladesh, 78 per cent of the women owned businesses that attended our capacity-building programs funded by The World Bank, achieved an increase in revenues close to 42 per cent.
WEConnect International also provides independent third-party verification about whether a business is 51 per cent owned, managed and controlled by women, and this verification is recognised by our corporate member buyers as a gold standard certification.
Ultimately, the mission of WEConnect International is to drive money into the hands of women owned MSMEs and as a one-of-a-kind organisation, we facilitate the linkages between women owned businesses and our member buyers, ultimately creating business value, the realisation of opportunities and the improvement of both the local and the global economy. When women business owners win, everybody wins.
How are you addressing the need for accelerating digital accessibility among women entrepreneurs?
First and foremost is the identification of women owned businesses. It is very difficult to locate women owned businesses unless they have a huge market and a social media presence. At WEConnect International, we provide free registration for women owned businesses. We have over 170 large multinational corporate member buyers who are advancing supplier diversity and inclusion and want to buy from businesses that are women owned.
WEConnect International’s global women owned business supplier platform creates a unique digital network where the women can do business between themselves and reach the member buyers with whom they would ordinarily not have any connection. Not having the right connections is a big reason for why women owned businesses do not grow faster.
Next comes certification. To get certified, women owned businesses are required to pay a fee based on their location and the size of their business. Certification provides a legitimate base, and it is what our member buyers look for to determine, confirm and validate that the business is 51 per cent owned, managed and controlled by one or more women.
Further comes the capacity-building program. These days, many organisations are providing a plethora of capacity-building programs for women entrepreneurs but what is important is that these programs actually help women owned enterprises in doing business with their buyers.
At WEConnect International, women-centric member buyers are provided with a list of products that they are looking to buy, and our capacity-building programs are tailored towards helping women entrepreneurs to build capacity in order to enter the value chain and do business with the large multinational buyers. Similarly, just like our recent capacity-building programs in Bangladesh, we offer such programs in India and across the rest of the sub-continent as well.
We also work with governments to improve opportunities for women owned MSMEs. One important initiative that governments are employing worldwide, including in India, is creating infrastructure for the digital economy.
These programs are creating an environment to enhance the digitisation of the supply chains. As a result of the increase in digitisation, there is a need for more awareness around cyber-security and for more proficiency with digital technology, both of which are critical components of the in-person trainings that we have been providing to women entrepreneurs in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Cybersecurity is an important area for any MSME. Do you feel that women entrepreneurs are recognizing the threat that it poses to their businesses?
Talking of cybersecurity, there is a clear and growing threat across the world and in India. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) reported more than 2.12 Lakh cybersecurity incidents this year (till February). Those who attended our recent capacity-building courses are very much aware of the risks and have learned the details and the insights about the mitigation tactics that are needed to prevent cyber-attacks. The class also offered tips and best practices for preventing and managing cyber-attacks. I believe that there is a clear awareness among the women MSME owners about this threat, and they are working on it.
What kind of programmes is WEConnect International implementing for women owned businesses in India?
WEConnect International provides women owned businesses with identifications, certifications and connectivity with their corporate buyers and with each other. When buyers do business with women owned businesses, it increases their supply matrix diversity. So, there is a positive ripple effect that is happening across the globe due to these efforts to support women entrepreneurs.
We do extensive ecosystem research before we go into a new country to understand several factors about it, like the landscape for women entrepreneurs there, the positive aspects of the country that promote women entrepreneurship, the key stakeholders there who influence the ecosystem and the prospective buyers from the country who are interested in growing their supply chain. We identify women owned businesses to help them with their capacity building across their marketing strategies, their social media presence and reach, as well as in their internal operations like finance and human resources and we also help to connect them with their buyers.
Women entrepreneurs often do not understand the criteria for doing business with the multinational corporate buyers. Understanding the process and understanding how to promote their respective businesses are integral to the success of women owned businesses. WEConnect International’s programmes are tailored to help them to succeed in the value chain and to raise their awareness.
Also Read: Top 5 Social Media Management Tools for SMEs
WEConnect International also helps women owned businesses to expand their networks. We facilitate “Meet the Members” events both in person and virtually to help women entrepreneurs to connect with each other and with our corporate member buyers. These networking events continue to be one of our most popular offerings because of their unique value proposition and their community-building effects.


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Amazon’s Kindle Fire will grab 50 percent of Android tablet sales in 2012, building on its success from this year, according to an investment analyst.
Kindle Fire is the only tablet in the market to mount a credible challenge to Apple’s iPad, but it has had to do so by selling at cost, Evercore Partners analyst Robert Cihra wrote in an investment note reported by CNNMoney.
As noteworthy as that challenge is, it still won’t make much of a dent in Apple’s market lead, he said. Moreover, he asserted, it could make that lead starker by driving from the market Android tablet players who can’t compete with Amazon’s “razor blade” strategy. That strategy, hatched by King Gillette at the beginning of the 20th century, was to sell his hardware — the safety razor — at or below cost so he could land long-term customers for his content — razor blades.
While Kindle Fire could capture 50 percent of the Android tablet market next year, selling tablets isn’t the issue for Amazon, according to Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group, a market research company.
“They’re selling lots of tablets at $199, but they’re not making any money at $199,” Baker told PCWorld. “Their goal is to create a long-term value proposition in terms of selling music and movies. What matters to them is creating that ecosystem around their content services.”
As soon as Kindle Fire hit the market, stories began to appear that mainstream personal computer makers were preparing to concede the tablet market to Amazon and Apple. A report in DigiTimes, a publication that pays close attention to what’s happening at the manufacturing end of the supply chain, said upstream sources believed players such as HP, Acer, Asustek and Dell “will gradually phase out” of the market.
Baker discounted that notion, saying that “most of the PC and phone OEMs realize they need a play in the tablet business. I don’t think they’re going to give up.”
Hardware makers will also be drawn to the tablet market next year by more powerful processors and the entry of Microsoft into the fray. Tablets sporting Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip will tempt slate shoppers with muscular performance. Meanwhile, Microsoft has begun hammering out deals with chip makers in preparation for making tablets based on its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.
Despite all that activity, Evercore analyst Robert Cihra expects Apple’s tablet domination to continue. Fourth-quarter shipments of iPads are less than he originally predicted — 14 million rather than 15 million — but he attributes that to inventory reductions in anticipation of an iPad 3 launch in March.
Follow freelance technology writer John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter.


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NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street traders sometimes root for year-end "Santa Claus rallies," but on Friday, hardly a creature was stirring. Stocks finished slightly higher on the quietest full day of trading in more than a year. The Dow picked up 15 points, closing at 19,933. The S&P 500 gained nearly 3 points to end the day at 2,263. And the Nasdaq rose 15 points to 5,462.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil futures are a little higher. Benchmark U.S. crude added 7 cents yesterday to close at $53.02 a barrel in New York. At the same time, Brent crude, the international standard, rose 11 cents to close at $55.16 a barrel in London.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine managers fired by Whole Foods supermarkets for allegedly manipulating a bonus program are filing a class-action lawsuit against the grocery chain. The lawsuit filed this week in D.C. Superior Court claims the managers were fired for blowing the whistle on a company-wide practice of not paying bonuses earned by employees.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first treatment for children and adults with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disorder marked by progressive muscle weakness that's the most common genetic cause of death in infants. The drug, Spinraza, was approved after granting it fast-track status. It was developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals of Carlsbad, California, and Biogen of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Biogen will market it.
NEW YORK (AP) — The importance of the holiday shopping season is slipping a bit. November and December now account for less than 21 percent of annual retail sales at physical stores, down from a peak of over 25 percent. Experts believe it'll keep dropping thanks to a number of factors. Many people are shopping for the holidays all year long now. Heavy discounting has diluted sales, and with big promotions throughout the year, shoppers no longer hold off making their biggest purchases until the holidays.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Arena TV hosts suit up for Rio 2016 Olympics -Astro Arena partners with Kinslager
Kuala Lumpur, 21 July 2016 – Astro Arena and Kinslager Tailor & Boutique sealed a partnership on the sponsorship of corporate attire for Astro Arena’s hosts at the latter’s boutique in Nu Sentral today in preparation for Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The partnership entails German tailoring specialist Kinslager supplying exclusive corporate attire designed according to the physical attributes of Astro Arena’s 20 sports hosts. With this, the hosts will be sporting a fresh and dynamic image in time for the world’s greatest multi-sports event that will run from 3 until 21 August, 2016.
Apart from sponsoring the attire, which will include blazers, jackets and skirts among others, Kinslager will also provide image consultancy services to the hosts, as part of Arena’s talent development programme, to raise the level of professionalism in sports broadcasting during the two-year partnership. And beyond Rio, Arena’s host will continue to don Kinslager apparel during regular programmes, including during their coverage of the SEA Games to be held in Kuala Lumpur next year.
Astro’s Vice President of Sports Business, Lee Choong Khay hailed it as a positive development, and commended Kinslager, a corporate company, for sponsoring the attire for Astro Arena’s hosts. He also said that the tie-up is testimony that the sports broadcasting industry has high commercial value and that the partnership is timely with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games just around the corner.
“We have always been open to cooperating with the corporate sector to elevate the broadcasting standard of local sports. We trust this partnership will help raise the profile of our hosts and give them a boost to deliver an even higher level of professionalism. The concept of providing image consultancy services is an added plus as it will help our hosts communicate more effectively and inspire confidence on air.”
Meanwhile, Kinslager founder and chief executive Niels Strohkirch said the collaboration with Astro Arena began with Kinslager suiting up the broadcaster’s hosts for the 28th SEA Games in Singapore last year and added that he was pleased to seal the partnership with a 2-year deal.
"We are proud of this partnership given that Astro Arena is a reputable brand name in the sports broadcasting industry and plays an important role in raising the standards of local sports as well as Malaysian sports personalities.”
“Fashion and sports never used to mix, but now, they are fused together, and many world class athletes are seen to place high importance on looking good in the latest fashion when they are in sports action, which has resulted in them garnering even bigger fan bases. These developments in the world of sports sparked the collaboration between us and Astro Arena, and we hope to carve a name for ourselves among sports personalities in Malaysia.”


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Fitbit has issued a product recall for around 1 million of its Ionic smartwatches because the device’s battery could overheat and pose a burn hazard to users.
According to a statement from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Fitbit has received at least 115 reports in the United States of the lithium-ion battery used in the watch overheating.
The agency said it received 78 burn reports, including four reports of second-degree burns and two reports of third-degree burns.
In a statement emailed to USA TODAY, Fitbit said incidents like this are “very rare” and don’t impact the company’s other smartwatches or fitness trackers.
“Customer safety is always Fitbit’s top priority and out of an abundance of caution, we are voluntarily recalling Fitbit Ionic smartwatches,” Fitbit said in its statement.
RECALL DATABASE:Check USA TODAY’s recall list for the latest updates.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR INTEREST RATES? :Fed chair could offer hints on inflation curbs as war in Ukraine escalates
Customers can check if their Ionic watch is affected by checking the model number on the back of the device where the band attaches. The following models are recalled:
- Ionic FB503CPBU (Slate Blue/Burnt Orange)
- Ionic FB503GYBK (Charcoal/Smoke Grey)
- Ionic FB503WTGY (Blue Grey/Silver Grey)
- Ionic FB503WTNV (Adidas Edition, Ink Blue and Ice Grey/Silver Grey)
The watches were sold at national retailers including Best Buy, Kohl’s and Target, as well as online through Amazon.com and Fitbit.com between September 2017 and December 2021, the CPSC said.
Consumers are asked to contact Fitbit to receive a prepaid package to return their device for a $299 refund.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.


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by Ron Gregory
SUMERCO — Ivy Branch ATV Resort owner and operator Ben White said he was “more that a little ticked off” when he returned to his resort Sunday morning.
White explained that he left the Lincoln County business at 12:30 a.m. and “returned a few hours later” at about 6:45. What he did not expect to find was that a thief or thieves had taken advantage of his absence to rob the business.
Later Sunday, he shared a list of items stolen along with offering a reward for information leading to the return of the items stolen.
Among the things missing, White said, is a Stihl chain saw, a new water hose still in Lowe’s packaging, four new Cabela’s padded lounge recliners, tan in color and still in packaging, a Sony AV receiver, a DirecTv receiver, a stereo speaker 10-channel mixer, a 60-inch LG television, and many Dewalt hand tools.
White said video cameras designed to focus on deer at the site recorded the vehicle involved in the theft as a white Nissan Titan pickup truck. The license plate included 7G78 in its lettering.
Many of the items stolen were to be used in this week’s US Army 101st Airborne Reunion.
To reach White, call 304-395-0000.


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Software company LiveTiles (ASX: LVT) is continuing its operational hot streak with yet more company metrics milestones being hit today.
LiveTiles told the market that its annualised recurring revenue (ARR) reached A$15 million at the end of the last financial year, up from A$4 million in the previous year. Overall, ARR has grown by 275% in the last 12 months.
LiveTiles has experienced exponential growth over the past year including a strong 315% revenue increase. The software developer has also just recently completed its high-profile switch to its New York headquarters and continues to expand its product range via a growing relationship with Microsoft.
The recent decision to acquire Hyperfish, a recognised leader in next-generation employee profile and directory management software, was considered as a crucial step for the company to realise its artificial intelligence-focused strategy to deliver the next generation of applications.
Furthermore, LiveTiles is developing its very own line of AI-powered functionality that looks set to revolutionise how businesses maintain their operations and empower users to develop their own intelligent workplace experiences.
In its most recent update, LiveTiles says that early adoption of its LiveTiles Bots has been “stronger than anticipated” and adds that an ongoing joint campaign with Microsoft in North America continues to strengthen brand and product awareness.
According to LiveTiles, its services are aimed at various industry sectors including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, professional services and education. Some of the more avid early adopters of LiveTiles’ AI solutions have been Fortune 500 companies including the likes of Microsoft and N3.
Some of its other customers include a major global airline, one of the world’s largest brewers and a major mining and metals company based in Australia.
LiveTiles’ strategic relationship with sales and marketing consultancy and execution firm N3 is “progressing well”, the company said.
A team of 60 dedicated sales and marketing personnel (based in Rochester, New York) were on-boarded and trained during the June quarter. This initiative is now generating high volumes of leads and sales opportunities across the US.
The company said that another year of strong recurring revenue growth is expected in this financial year, driven by sales and marketing investment, Microsoft co-marketing initiatives and demand for recently launched AI products.
“Our significant investment in sales and marketing throughout FY18, together with the recent launch of our AI products, co-marketing initiatives with Microsoft and the launch of our N3 partnership, gives us great confidence in our plan to deliver another year of strong revenue growth in FY19,” said Karl Redenbach, chief executive officer of LiveTiles.


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After announcing a major Canadian investment last month, Stellantis has revealed details of what it intends to do with two of its facilities in Windsor and Brampton, Ontario.
The automaker will retool the Windsor plant to build a large electric vehicle (EV) platform capable of travelling 500 miles (804km) on a single charge. The plant will stop building the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Dodge Challenger in 2024.
Stellantis, which owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands, said the Brampton plant will build an unannounced vehicle, and will provide more details at a later date.
The details come one month after the automaker announced plans to spend $3.6 billion on the two facilities. The money will go towards retooling the facilities, Windsor in 2023 and Brampton in 2024, to build flexible multi-energy vehicles and the “electric vehicles of the future.”
Additionally the company will expand its Automotive Research and Development Centre.
The Canadian investment is part of a broader $45 billion investment globally for the company to secure its long-term electrification strategy.


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Our COVID-19 small business economic response includes:
- An immediate six (6) month rebate on fees for Food Act registrations and Footpath Trading permits.
- Three (3) month rent deferral to commercial tenants of Council owned buildings.
- Access to Council’s hardship policy to property rates on Commercial properties where their business has been extensively impacted.
To ensure a quick reimbursement Council staff will be contacting you within the next two weeks.
Australian Government support
As the COVID-19 situation continues to unfold we encourage you to be aware of the Australian Government's economic response to the Coronavirus - read the announcement here.
The economic support package includes an economic stimulus package for small business including:
- Increasing the instant asset right-off
- Boosting cash flow for employers
- Backing Business Investment
- Employer Finance and Business Obligations
- Support available for sole traders
Victorian Government support
All businesses across the state can access information on dealing with COVID-19 by calling the Business Victoria hotline on 13 22 15.
The Victorian Small Business Commission fact sheet on difficulty paying the rent fact sheet may also assist.
Information for food businesses
The Australian Government has prohibited all dining (inside and outside) in all cafes and restaurants to reduce the risk of Coronavirus (COVID-19). Only takeaway and delivery services are permitted.
We are strongly committed to assisting proprietors of local food businesses to remain open for business by transitioning to takeaway and delivery services.
Resources to assist you
How to keep food safe in your business including food hygiene, food handling, preventing food poisoning and much more
Materials to display in you food business
Stay up to date with the latest COVID-19/Coronavirus information from the Department of Health and Human Services


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Tax lawyers and House members wrestled with how to best tax purchases made over the Internet on Wednesday, mulling such options as levying taxes based on the retailer’s location instead of the purchaser’s address.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte started by declaring that the Marketplace Fairness Act the Senate passed last year — which authorizes states to compel online businesses to pay sales taxes — is a nonstarter in the lower chamber. He went on to say he wants to start “winnowing down” alternative proposals to put online retailers on an even foothold with brick-and-mortar stores.
Currently, tax laws require businesses to have a physical presence in a state to collect sales taxes on purchases made there. Goodlatte acknowledged local businesses could be hurt as consumers take their shopping online to avoid paying sales tax.
“Many argue that unfair sales-tax laws are contributing to [the decline of traditional retailers],” the Virginia Republican said. “The committee is sympathetic to the plight of traditional retailers. It is serious about searching for a solution that the various parties can accept.”
Goodlatte did not lay out a timeline for legislation, but Democrats urged quick action.
“This issue is a prime opportunity for all of us to work in a bipartisan basis on legislation,” ranking member John Conyers said. “But it is imperative that we do so this year.”
The Michigan Democrat said he would have preferred to mark up the Senate bill, but was pleased the issue was being addressed.
Opponents to the Senate bill have argued it would burden online retailers with meeting tax requirements for the country’s nearly 10,000 taxing jurisdictions, and the tax lawyers who spoke Wednesday said their options would solve that concern.
One alternative — origin sourcing — would levy state sales taxes based on the retailer’s location rather than the purchaser’s address.
“Simply treating remote sales in the same way that we already treat brick-and-mortar sales would level the playing field in an honest way,” said the R Street Institute’s Andrew Moylan.
Detractors said such a proposal could set off a “race to the bottom,” causing retailers to rush en masse to establish locations in the five states that don’t currently collect sales tax. Others argued for keeping consumers’ tax contributions local.
“If I buy something in Washington, I don’t want to pay Washington,” said Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama. “I want to pay where my kids go to school.”
Another proposal floated by the Simon Property Group’s William Moschella would simply ban transactions that don’t meet the sales-tax laws of the state to which the product is shipped.
Others touted the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, a 24-state effort to make sales taxes simpler and more uniform in order to pave the way for a nationwide online sales tax.
Consumers are technically obligated to pay a use tax on sales-tax-free online purchases, essentially giving their state government an equivalent amount. But fewer than 2 percent of online shoppers pay the tax, and some estimates peg the lost revenue to state governments at $23 billion. Many governors have expressed a desire to collect that extra cash flow, and some have pledged a reduction in other taxes if online sales tax revenues start rolling in.
Meanwhile, traditional retailers have backed the Senate bill, as has Amazon — which has an increasing footprint as it expands its warehouses into more states. EBay has led much of the opposition to legislation.
The chief issue raised by opponents is the difficulty for online retailers — especially smaller ones — in correctly assessing sales tax for buyers all over the country. Compliance issues could lead to out-of-state audits and cause expensive litigation for retailers, some members said.
Advocates said those concerns are overblown, responding that simple software could make compliance easy. But that didn’t satisfy some Republicans, who said the Affordable Care Act’s rocky rollout has made them leery of government-touted software fixes. “We can’t compute our way out of a paper bag,” said Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas.
What We're Following See More »
Twenty-one states, the District of Columbia and several public interest groups filed the first major lawsuits Tuesday to block the repeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules. The FCC's rules had prohibited Internet providers from slowing down or blocking websites. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is leading the states' suit, said that the FCC’s repeal was “arbitrary” and “capricious” and violates federal law. The suit comes just a day after Democrats in the Senate said they were inching closer to acquiring the votes needed to pass legislation overturning the FCC's rule change. It has garnered the support of all 49 Democratic senators as well as one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
"A former C.I.A. officer suspected of helping China identify the agency’s informants in that country has been arrested, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. Many of the informants were killed in a systematic dismantling of the C.I.A.’s spy network in China starting in 2010 that was one of the American government’s worst intelligence failures in recent years, several former intelligence officials have said. The arrest of the former agent, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, capped an intense F.B.I. investigation that began around 2012 after the C.I.A. began losing its informants in China."
"Three-quarters of the members of a federally chartered board advising the National Park Service abruptly quit Monday night out of frustration that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year. The resignation of nine out of 12 National Park System Advisory Board members leaves the federal government without a functioning body to designate national historic or natural landmarks. It also underscores the extent to which federal advisory bodies have become marginalized under the Trump administration."
"House GOP leaders on Tuesday night pitched a new strategy to avert a looming government shutdown that includes children's health funding and the delay of ObamaCare taxes. Lawmakers need to pass a short-term stopgap bill by midnight Friday, when money for the federal government runs out. The latest GOP plan would keep the government’s lights on through Feb. 16, and be coupled with a six-year extension of funding for the popular Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The continuing resolution or CR would also delay ObamaCare's medical device and Cadillac taxes for two years, and the health insurance tax for one year starting in 2019."
"A key Senate negotiator and White House official on Tuesday expressed little hope for an immigration deal this week but nonetheless predicted that Congress can avoid a government shutdown." Marc Short, the White House Capitol Hill liaison, said he's optimistic about a deal on DACA overall, but not this week. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn also said he doubts an agreement can be made before week's end.


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The global chip shortage could soon create some unexpected allies in Japan. As Reuters Reports, Nikkei Sources claim Sony and TSMC are “considering” jointly establishing a semiconductor factory in Japan’s western Kumamoto Prefecture. TSMC would have a majority, according to insiders, but the plant would operate on Sony land near that company’s image sensor factory. The Japanese government would reportedly cover up to half of the $ 7 billion investment.
The plant would supply chips for cameras, cars, and other uses. Accordingly, the auto parts giant Denso should be interested in the project. If the project progresses, the factory would be operational by 2024. Sony and TSMC have declined to comment despite TSMC’s earlier announcement that it will “actively review” plans for such an effort.
A joint facility would not be surprising. Some analysts assume that the global chip shortage will persist through 2023, assuming that demand will not grow faster than forecast. This would help Sony, TSMC, and the larger Japanese tech industry bounce back from the scarcity, not to mention the stability. It could also act as a hedge – Japan, Sony and TSMC would not have to worry about the tensions between China and the US threatening manufacturing in Taiwan.
The factory could be ready at just the right time. By 2024, highly connected and semi-autonomous cars should be the order of the day, and it’s no secret that cameras also play a crucial role in budget smartphones. A new facility could be critical to keeping these technologies on track.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team independently of our parent company. Some of our stories contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.


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PRIME Minister Voreqe Bainimarama is urging businessmen to incorporate sustainability into their business plans.
He made this comment at the 2017 Prime Minister’s International Business Awards at the Grand Pacific Hotel on Saturday night.
Mr Bainimarama said the government’s ambition was to create an economy that was not only viable but also environmentally sustainable.
“My Government’s ambition is to create an economy that is not only viable in the medium and long term, but also environmentally sustainable and socially responsible,” said Mr Bainimarama.
“Tonight, I urge all of you to incorporate sustainability into your business plans.
“It is imperative that we realize the importance of a sustainable and green economy.”
He said in order to preserve the interests of Fiji’s economy and the future generation there must be a balance between development and sustainability.
“For the future of Fiji’s economy and the future of our children, we must strike a balance between development and sustainability,” he said.
He further added that adopting a sustainable business model would help businesses adopt to innovations while serving the country.
“By adopting a sustainable business model, you will not only serve Fiji, and invest in our future, but you will also be helping your businesses to adopt innovation, new technology and be more prepared and resilient in an ever-changing global environment and more extreme climate,” he added.
“And by embracing a commitment to sustainability, you will help to build on the momentum that we are seeing out of our pre-COP.”
Source: The Fiji Times
Date : October 23rd, 2017


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It seems as though Google is set to give Amazon and Barnes & Noble a run for their money in the e-books market with news that e-books are finally coming to Google.
The project has been delayed several times but Google Editions is now due to go live by the end of the year in the U.S. followed in January by an international launch. The online bookstore will provide millions of books free but users will also be able to download copies to e-readers, computers and phones at a default price of 80% of the print edition’s lowest price, according to the Los Angeles Times, sourced from the Wall Street Journal.
It will also be possible for users to purchase books from other online retailers and then transfer them to a Google account- linked digital library. It will be interesting to see how Barnes & Noble and also Amazon respond to the competition as up until now both companies had been the main players in the e-books market.
For more on this go to latimes.com. Will you be heading to Google Editions? We’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the new e-book service so why not send us your comments.
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LynkU is the first website dedicated to providing information about which shops and designers are holding sales, both on the high street and online.
The site offers promotions for partner retailers and a ‘deal of the week’ section, where shoppers can find out about big discounts. LynkU lists dates and details of well-known events, such as the international designer sample sale Billion Dollar Babes.
Site co-founder Rob Gorton said he hoped the London agency, part of the Fishburn Hedges group, could put LynkU on the map.
Alan Twigg, associate director at Seventy Seven, will lead the account, which adds to the agency’s portfolio of digital clients.
Seventy Seven’s roster includes web tool Lycos and booking website Hotels.com.