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Rumor has it that Cabela’s, a specialty retailer of outdoor apparel and equipment, and Costco, a membership-only warehouse club, could both be coming to the Capital Region! The Times Union has reported that land behind the newspaper’s plant along Exit 4 of I-87 is in the process of being sold to a Massachusetts-based developer who has plans to put up a 50-acre shopping center on the site, with Cabela’s and Costco as prospective tenants.
The next step in the process will be taken when the Colonie Zoning Board of Appeals discusses the developer’s proposal on May 21. If all goes as planned, construction could start as early as the end of this year and would likely take two to three years to complete. In addition to the two primary retailers, the shopping center would also house two restaurants and smaller retailers, which would result in the employment of 250-300 people in total.
Although this project could bring great benefits to the community, there is one major concern echoed by local residents and businesses alike: traffic. The shopping center entrance would be located off Maxwell Road behind the Colonie town library, and many people have pointed out that the two-lane suburban roads in this area are already overly crowded during peak times. In response to these concerns, The Times Union cited the town’s recognition that a formal traffic study still needs to be done.
Although there is still a long way to go in the development process and nothing has been confirmed, it’s a possibility that the Capital Region could become home to some big new retailers in the near future!


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Oil and gas firm KOSMOS Energy has partnered the Accra-based Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) to launch a corporate social investment programme that will assist entrepreneurs working in high impact sectors with funding and support.
Kosmos Energy has launched the Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC), which will operate out of the MEST incubator facility and looks to apply commercial solutions to social and economic challenges in Ghana by using a market-based approach that facilitates private sector enterprise and entrepreneurship.
Each year, the KIC will choose a focus sector, with the first 12 months of the programme targeting agriculture, where it aims to nurture the development of market-based solutions that address various development challenges across the sector’s value chain.
The centre will adopt a three-part approach to assisting local tech startups, fostering partnerships to allow entrepreneurs and larger companies to collaborate to tackle challenges. It will also provide incubation to promising startup companies, while selected startups will receive funding and technical assistance to scale their products.
Joe Mensah, vice president and Ghana country manager at Kosmos Energy, said the KIC reflected the “contrarian thinking and entrepreneurial spirit” that had helped his company grow, but this time Kosmos would be the angel investor supporting small startups.
“In the process, we hope to play a role in solving some of Ghana’s most pressing developmental challenges. The programme aims to increase the interest of the youth in agriculture, which so far has been regarded as a dull and unrewarding activity despite the huge potential for economic growth that it offers and the crucial importance to the national economy,” he said.
“While our core competency is technology, we are not tied to a particular industry or even geography, as shown by the current spread of our companies. We are, however, very excited to specifically include agriculture as part of our focus, given that it presents an immediately relatable application of technology which is relevant in our part of the world,” said Juliana Taylor, head of operations and strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa at MEST.
She said Africa is often characterised as the ‘next frontier’ and an opportunity for growth, which in turn raises questions over sustainability and food security.
“Sadly, as we envision this growth and its related requirements, agriculture – a key part of the conversation – is often excluded and de-prioritised, especially in instances when employment and technology are part of the conversation,” Taylor said.
“Through this partnership, we hope to actively work towards dispelling this notion by identifying some of the very real ways in which there is overlap and driving towards workable solutions.”
Startups and entrepreneurs with products or solutions addressing challenges in the agricultural sector are encouraged to share their ideas with the KIC here.

domain: news


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Saudi 'non-oil sector grew in October'
Riyadh, November 15, 2010
Strengthening domestic demand led to an improvement in overall business conditions in the Saudi Arabian non-oil producing private sector during October, according to Saudi British Bank (SABB).
Although growth of new export work slowed since September, the expansion in total new orders accelerated, leading companies to increase both activity and employment levels, the bank said in its “SABB-HSBC Purchase Managers’ Index (PMI), a composite indicator designed to provide a single-figure snapshot of the performance of the non-oil producing private sector, for October.
However, price pressures built up alongside demand, with both total input and output price inflation accelerating on the month, it added.
Rising to 59.9 in October, from 58.4 in September, the PMI signalled a sharp gain in the health of the economy. Moreover, the rate of improvement was faster than the series trend, it stated.
The total new order receipts at Saudi private sector companies rose substantially in October and at the fastest rate since July. This was despite growth of new export business easing to a series record low.
Panellists cited favourable economic conditions, greater demand and successful promotional activities as the key factors driving overall new order levels higher.
Greater volumes of new work led the Kingdom's private sector firms to raise output, employment and purchasing more sharply in October, the SABB report said.
Activity increased at a considerable pace, while job creation was solid. Growth in both variables was the fastest since June. Meanwhile, buying activity expanded substantially, it stated.
The volume of unfinished business at Saudi private sector firms grew in October, bringing the current run of accumulation to ten months. The rate of increase was solid and the most marked since July. Panellists attributed the rise to heavier workloads, the report said.
Total input price inflation accelerated to a solid rate in October. Data showed that faster rises in both purchasing and wage costs supported the latest increase.
'Prices paid for raw materials and semi-finished goods climbed sharply and at a series record rate. Higher commodity costs and unfavourable exchange rate fluctuations were the key contributors to purchasing price inflation,' according to respondents.
Meanwhile, salaries rose moderately, which panel members linked to higher production and solid business conditions.
As a result, private sector companies passed on part of their greater cost burdens to customers last month through higher charges, the SABB report added.-TradeArabia News Service


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A monopoly is either what the government says it is or what a dominant company’s competitors claim. The government’s opinion is the only one that counts, however, as Sprint will find out as it protests the new AT&T buyout of T-Mobile.
The seminal legislation that determines monopolistic behavior is the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. Theodore Roosevelt’s administration used it to effectively break up Standard Oil. In the 20th Century, the Justice Department’s battle against AT&T lasted from 1974 to 1982 and ended when Ma Bell agreed to spin off all its local operating companies.
The government has brought several actions against large American tech companies. IBM fought the Justice Department for more than a decade in the 1980s over charges that it had a hardware monopoly. The Justice Department brought a case against Microsoft in 1998 which claimed that the world’s largest software company used its leverage in the PC business to block other firms from entering the computer operating system market The government was able to get very modest restrictions on Microsoft’s behavior. Microsoft also spent years fighting similar accusations in Europe.
A common definition of a monopoly is when a company has such effective control of its market that it can set prices and stifle innovation by depriving competition of any chance of profit. The offending company only has to continue to do extraordinarily well in its field regardless of what antitrust regulators have to say. 24/7 Wall St. found ten instances that could be considered de facto monopolies though the government will not take action in each case.
People may be surprised to learn that all of the monopolies on the list are technology companies. That has been the case for over more than 30 years. Industries which are large but only recently established are often controlled by just one company. That was true at the dawn of the oil industry at the end of the 19th Century. It was equally true when the PC was introduced widely in 1980. Microsoft offered the only PC operating system that had enough market share to make it viable so that computers could have a common language. That dominance fed on itself as the number of PC manufacturers and users rose.
Each of the companies on this list certainly has a huge lead in market share. Each has also been deft at keeping competition out of the market by financial strength, innovation, or use of the outright leverage it has because of its advantage in related markets.
In mid 1990’s, there was relative parity in the search engine market. Companies such as Excite, Lycos, and Altavista and Ask Jeeves each had its own piece of the market. This all changed when Yahoo, MSN and Google came on the scene in the late 1990’s. The former search leaders were bought out or went bankrupt one after another. By 2006, the the search engine market was split among the three companies. Six years ago, Google’s market share was 36.4%, compared to Yahoo!’s 30.6% and MSN’s 16.5%. It was Google’s search results, perceived by many to be superior, and its powerful branding which helped the company take control of the search engine business. As of this month, Google’s share has risen to 90.1%. Its closest competitors, Yahoo! and Bing, each have roughly a 4.2% share, according to Statcounter.com.
>Product: Windows Operating System
>Market Share: 89.7%
>Competition: Mac OS X, Linux
Microsoft is no stranger accusations of market domination. In 2000, the company’s massive market share, due the ubiquity of its operating system, led the US Department of Justice to accuse it of abusing its monopoly power. Today, Microsoft’s Windows operating systems still controls the majority of the market. According to analytics firm Net Applications, Microsoft had just under 90% market share as of February 2011. As recently as February 2008, the company controlled more than 95% of the market. Still, it is difficult to argue that Microsoft’s power is experiencing a significant decline when the second most popular operating system, Mac OS X, represents just over 5% of the market.
It is hard to believe that MySpace once controlled social media. In July 2006, according to Nielsen, Facebook had approximately 8 million active users, while MySpace had 100 million and was growing. This all changed as Facebook opened first to high school students, and finally to all Internet users. Now, according to Experian, MySpace is not even the No. 2 site among social networks, with only 1.6% of social media visits per week, compared to YouTube’s 19.8% and Facebook’s 63.8%. In 2009, according to the Financial Times, the social media giant was sued by a startup competitor, Power.com, for “restricting users” and “stifling competition.” Facebook won the suit.
>Product: Digital Video Streaming
>Market Share: 61%
>Competition: Blockbuster, Hulu, Vudu
Netflix’s style of DVD rental-by-mail revolutionized the video rental business and is largely responsible for competitor Blockbuster’s bankruptcy. The company continues to lead the rental market, holding much greater market share than competitors Redbox and Blockbuster. Today, Netflix is again changing the video industry through online streaming. According to research company NPD Group, Netflix has 61% of the digital video market. The next greatest market share belongs to Comcast Corp, with only 8%. Since last November, when Netflix introduced its streaming-only plan, more than 2.5 million people, over one third of Netflix subscribers, have signed up. Netflix has announced plans to further the reach of its streaming service through partnerships with companies such as Facebook, adding to the likelihood that its market share will expand even further.
Intel is by far the world’s biggest chip manufacturer. Lately, the company has been accused of being an illegal monopoly. In the past two years, Intel has settled lawsuits brought by rival chip maker AMD and the Federal Trade Commission for several billion dollars. These suits, however, haven’t had an impact on the company’s dominance of the microchip industry. As of the fourth quarter of 2010, AMD’s share of the chip manufacturing market was 12.1%, compared to Intel’s 80.3%.
Apple was once an also-ran in the personal computer industry, which was dominated by Microsoft’s operating system. Apple has effectively turned the tables in the portable device business because of the success of the iPhone, iPad, and the OS that powers them. Apple dominates two critical sectors, tablet computers, with the aforementioned iPad, and music downloads with the iTunes store. Apple’s introduction of the iPad in 2010 was viewed by some as an arrogant attempt to sell the unsellable, something that was neither a smartphone nor a laptop. Instead, sales exceeded even the most optimistic expectations, and the iPad has since been a major new source of revenue for the company. Thus far, competitors like BlackBerry and Samsung can’t seem to make a product capable of getting a foothold in the market. According to Forbes, as of fourth quarter 2010, Apple controlled 73% of the tablet market, with Samsung commanding 17%.
Introduced in 2001, Apple’s iTunes music store is the reason most people no longer buy music in stores. The ease and selection of purchasing digital music exploded soon after the store was created, and nothing has been able to compete with iTunes’ sales. According to Reuters, the store’s closest competitor, Amazon, accounts for less than 10% of digital music sales, with iTunes commanding roughly 70%. Reuters has reported that the Justice Department is conducting an antitrust investigation of iTunes.
Also Read: Facebook’s Valuation Warning: When Yahoo! Was Worth More Than Intel, Verizon, and Pepsi
>Market Share: 67%
>Competition: Barnes & Noble, Sony
According to a report by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. published in February, Kindle’s market share of e-readers is 67%. The second most popular e-reader is the Nook, which has 22% of the market. The success of e-readers has revolutionized the publishing business. Ebooks outsold paperback books for the first time in January of this year. This trend has caused Barnes and Noble to refocus its business, and pushed Borders Group into bankruptcy. According to The American Association of Publishers, e-book sales rose to $441 million in 2010, up from $169 million the year before. The market shows no signs of slowing down, and the popularity of Amazon’s Kindle shows no signs of waning.
Sirius XM Radio is the holding company of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, the country’s two largest satellite radio providers. At one time the companies were fierce competitors, and both were losing money. In July of 2008, the only two satellite radio companies in the country merged. The merger was deemed legal after more than a year of deliberation by the Justice Department. Today, the company is the only satellite radio provider in the United States.
PayPal is the undisputed leader in online payments. The company, which is owned by eBay, currently manages more than 232 million accounts worldwide. In 2007, two antitrust lawsuits were filed against eBay with regards to its relationship with PayPal, however both were thrown out. Recently, Apple and Google have announced new payment services, though it is unlikely that they will take significant market share from PayPal.
-Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter, Charles B. Stockdale


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When the Petersen Automotive Museum displayed a 1971 Land Rover Series III 109 Station Wagon adorned with dancing figures, energy-emitting UFOs and squiggles, jaws dropped.
It’s not every day an automotive museum gives the nod to fine artists like Keith Haring.
Now that vehicle painted in 1983 by the late New York pop artist during an artist-in-residence at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland is part of a first-of-its-kind exhibition dubbed “The Unconventional Canvases of Keith Haring,” opening Saturday through June 4.
The show features a collection of four cars and one motorcycle never before shown together, and that’s not all.
“For an automotive museum to include art in a variety of ways is new and fresh, and it has never been done before either,” says Terry Karges, executive director the Petersen, the architectural icon recently voted World’s Best Automotive Museum by a panel of 25 international judges in London.
Since its $125 million redesign, the museum has broadened its focus to include art and culturally oriented exhibits.
“It’s a very exciting time for us, and we’re honored to be able to display Haring’s work,” Karges says. “He’s such a popular artist.”
Haring rose to prominence in the 1980s and quickly became one of the world’s most preeminent artists. He used his popularity to spread important messages, such as his free-form figures that became a symbol of AIDS awareness.
But the artist, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1990, at age 31, was also known for creating works on unconventional surfaces, ranging from large mural projects on buildings to his chalk drawings on expired subway ad panels.
“I like to say it’s art for all,” says Brittanie Kinch, the exhibition’s guest curator. “He was trying to spread messages to whoever wanted to consume art, and by putting art on vehicles is a great concept because they roll. Unfortunately, after he painted them they became art, and they were no longer driven.”
The exhibition includes a 1987 Honda CBR1000F Hurricane, one of a handful of motorcycles painted for the Fast Art Gallery in New Jersey.
The motorcycle is emblazoned with lines to represent speed.
As Kinch explains, the artwork he created helps to “document this crossover between the fast culture that was embodied by Japanese street bikes of that era and street art.”
Another vehicle in the show is a 1962 SCAF/Mortarini Mini Ferrari 330 P-2, a miniature replica of the racing car entered in the Le Mans Classic designed for children in the Little Big Mans.
Haring, who was artist-in-residence at the 1984 Le Mans, designed the car with such signature imagery as clocks, a car, and jubilant figures.
“The whole image set evokes the atmosphere of people, noises and speed going on around him,” Kinch says.
While the Petersen has focused on style and design in the past, cars as art take it to a new level.
“Cars used as a canvas by an artist is a whole other unique opportunity to introduce people to the museum,” Karges says. “When they see how we showcase automobiles as art, they’ll have a whole new appreciation of what an automotive museum can be.”


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Kris Jenner accidentally crashed into Chrissy Teigen’s coffee table Sunday night.
The reality-TV momager, 62, whose daughter Kylie Jenner recently welcomed her first child, a daughter, was celebrating the Super Bowl at Teigen and John Legend’s home when the snafu occurred.
“If anyone’s in the market for a slightly used table, the Kris Jenner just fell into it … it’s customized,” Teigen quipped over Snapchat, panning over to Jenner, who was holding a bag of ice.
“It’s very, extremely valuable now,” added Teigen, 32. “If anyone wants to make a bid on this, we’re willing to let it go.”
But the damage wasn’t done: The expectant supermodel also displayed a makeup stain Jenner left on her sofa.
“This is where I did the faceplant,” Jenner quipped. “This is also very valuable.”
The table has yet to turn up on eBay.


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Calgary passes new bylaw on single-use plastics
Posted Jan 18, 2023 12:46:22 PM.
Last Updated Nov 19, 2023 11:08:27 AM.
Many Calgary retailers have already eliminated plastic bags from their establishments, and by this time next year, they’ll no longer be an option anywhere.
After hours of deliberation Tuesday, city council passed a bylaw introducing new regulations on single-use plastics.
It’s part of Calgary’s reduction strategy on single-use items, including plastic bags, utensils, straws, and stir sticks.
Beginning in January 2024, Calgarians will have to pay a minimum of 15 cents for paper bags or $1 for reusable bags at checkout counters, if they haven’t brought their own.
Sage Pullen McIntosh, director of communications for Calgary Co-op, says the grocery store is generally in support of a plastics-reduction bylaw, however she says there is something the city may have overlooked.
“We have removed our own plastic shopping bags from all of our locations — food, wine spirits beer, gas stations, home healthcare, cannabis — back in January of 2020,” Pullen McIntosh said.
“What we wanted to do was speak to council about our compostable shopping bags. We know, since introducing those in 2019 and creating those in cooperation with the City of Calgary, that they are well-loved and they are well-used by our community. So, [we] just wanted to raise the profile of those compostable bags, and see if it was possible for an exemption in the bylaw.”
Pullen McIntosh adds it’s unclear whether or not council will allow exemptions for Co-op compostable bags. She says the bags contain zero per cent plastic and are made to go in city-provided green bins.
Co-op’s bags cost 15 cents each, and anytime members bring their own reusable bags the company donates three cents to the Calgary Co-op Foundation.
“That goes to a variety of charities inside the city and surrounding areas to improve food security and reduce food poverty,” Pullen McIntosh said. “We really wanted to have a cost-effective alternative for our members when they do their shopping if they forget their bags, they do have the 15 cent compostable bags. We also do sell our own reusable tote for a dollar and have a couple of different options.”
She adds using paper bags to carry groceries can be “challenging,” adding they are easily broken and susceptible to leakage when wet.
“We also know that as far as from an environmental standpoint they do use more energy to create,” Pullen McIntosh said. “So, for us, having a product that we worked hard to develop in cooperation with the City of Calgary we just want to be able to keep these bags in place if at all possible.”


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SINGAPORE - As the haze blanket thickens in Singapore, an increasing number of locally-based companies are beginning to take preventive measures aimed at safeguarding the health of their employees.
Since late last week, the city-state has been plagued by a haze caused by forest fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island.
While PSI levels remained in the unhealthy range for most of the week, air quality worsened drastically to a high of PSI 321 on Wednesday night, and then peaked at PSI 371 at 1pm on Thursday.
PSI levels above 300 are considered hazardous by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
Goodstuph, a local marketing and creative agency, was one of the first few companies which announced a work-from-home-day on June 20.
On Thursday, the agency posted a note on its official Facebook page to say that the company would be extending work-from-home-day till Friday if necessary.
Pat Law, owner and founder of Goodstuph, also posted a note on her own page to urge other companies to allow employees to work from home.
The posting has since been updated with a list of more than 80 other firms which have stopped or changed operations as a result of the haze.
Companies which have allowed staff to work from home from Thursday include Singapore Tourism Board, Mindshare Social, Singapore Korean International School, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, Thomson Reuters, Lenovo Singapore and more.
Operations suspended include delivery services by McDonald's Singapore, Popeye's, Pizza Hut, KFC and Pasta Mania.
Here is the full list Ms Law has posted so far:
1. Kinetic Singapore
3. Ben Qwek & crew
6. XM Asia Pacific (source: Celeste Ang)
7. SingTel Digital Marketing team (source: Miguel Bernas)
8. Dimension Data Asia Pacific (source: Tannia Goh)
9. McDonald's Singapore Delivery (source: Ng Wai Mun)
10. Peek! (source: Chia Aik Beng)


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AWS started way back in 2000 as a way to help other retailers manage e-commerce operations, but it soon expanded into much more when key project members managed to convince Bezos that improving and evolving Amazon’s own infrastructure may hold the key to a new business model. In 2006, the product as we know it today launched into public availability and proved to be a pioneer for the entire cloud computing industry, offering cloud storage, hosting, and a suite of other tools for managing entire digital infrastructures in remote data centers. The division now pulls in roughly $6 billion every quarter and continues to grow at breakneck pace. It earned $17.5 billion in revenue in all of 2017 and regularly outperforms the company’s entire North American retail division in terms of profit.
In March 2015, it was reported in The Verge that Amazon will be removing non-compete clauses of 18 months in length from its US employment contracts for hourly-paid workers, after criticism that it was acting unreasonably in preventing such employees from finding other work. Even short-term temporary workers have to sign contracts that prohibit them from working at any company where they would "directly or indirectly" support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon, for 18 months after leaving Amazon, even if they are fired or made redundant.
You already know you can save big on Amazon Prime Day 2018, but with these Amazon shopping hacks you can save even more. When you shop through RetailMeNot, you get $10 cash back on orders of $100 (or more) on Amazon. Another excellent way to save every day, not just Prime Day? Download the Honey app, which automatically searches and applies discount codes at check out and gives you points every time you shop online (once you accrue a certain number of points you can cash them in for a gift card).
In 2013, Amazon secured a US$600 million contract with the CIA, which poses a potential conflict of interest involving the Bezos-owned The Washington Post and his newspaper's coverage of the CIA. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said, "It's a serious potential conflict of interest for a major newspaper like The Washington Post to have a contractual relationship with the government and the most secret part of the government." This was later followed by a US$10 billion contract with the Department of Defence.
In November 2013, Amazon.com announced a partnership with the United States Postal Service to begin delivering orders on Sundays. The service, included in Amazon's standard shipping rates, initiated in metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and New York due to the high-volume and inability to deliver timely, with plans to expand into Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix by 2014.
With all the reasons to celebrate and get ready for dress season, we're coming in full swing with spring dresses for prom, graduation dresses, and crowd pleasing wedding guest dresses. The wildest time of the year is soon to follow with festival season! We'll be dressing down in stunning swimwear & rocking our hottest outfits to feel that festival fire under the desert sun. See you there, babe!
Yet despite having a hand in so many different industries, consumers largely trust Amazon with everything from their personal information and buying habits to the literal conversations they have in their own homes. According to a study The Verge conducted in partnership with consulting firm Reticle Research last year, Amazon is the most-liked and trusted technology brand by a wide margin. One likely explanation there is that the company has a strong relationship with its customers, thanks in part to its zealous commitment to low prices and a seemingly never-ending quest to make modern life more convenient.
While sites like eBay and Craigslist allow you to list any item barring certain exceptions, Amazon asks that you find a similar product in its database. If you can’t find a similar product, Amazon has a procedure for creating a new product page. You should be aware, however, that new products often require additional approval from Amazon before listing can occur.
But one of the biggest differences between Cyber Monday and Black Friday remains: the style of shopping, says Vice President of PR and Events at Slickdeals, Regina Conway. “For example, we see more sitewide discounts or category-wide discounts on Cyber Monday, whereas Black Friday will often have very specific products such as electronics and home goods at deep, deep discounts,” she says. “However, more merchants have started advertising specific product deals on Cyber Monday and vice versa, so the holidays are starting to have more crossover.”
When it comes to last-mile delivery, Amazon has publicly disclosed its work on drones and the Prime Air program to use those unmanned aerial vehicles to drop packages on our doorstep. The project has been in the works since 2013, and it’s hit a few snags as the regulation of US commercial drone operations has been a slow and often painful process for companies trying to get operations off the ground.
Bezos selected the name Amazon by looking through the dictionary; he settled on "Amazon" because it was a place that was "exotic and different", just as he had envisioned for his Internet enterprise. The Amazon River, he noted, was the biggest river in the world, and he planned to make his store the biggest bookstore in the world. Additionally, a name that began with "A" was preferential due to the probability it would occur at the top of an alphabetized list. Bezos placed a premium on his head start in building a brand and told a reporter, "There's nothing about our model that can't be copied over time. But you know, McDonald's got copied. And it's still built a huge, multibillion-dollar company. A lot of it comes down to the brand name. Brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world."
Whether you're cleaning the garage or cleaning yourself, preparing for work or preparing a snack, you'll enjoy using brilliant items from HSN. Find a great present for a friendly coworker or a personal and thoughtful item for your close family member. Browse these highly-rated items today and discover gifts of many styles and sizes for all the important people in your life.
In September 2017, Amazon announced plans to locate a second headquarters in a metropolitan area with at least a million people. Cities needed to submit their presentations by October 19, 2017 for the project called HQ2. The $5 billion second headquarters, starting with 500,000 square feet and eventually expanding to as much as 8 million square feet, may have as many as 50,000 employees. In 2017, Amazon announced it would build a new downtown Seattle building with space for Mary's Place, a local charity in 2020.
Quick-Step flooring has earned the prestigious FloorScore certification for indoor air quality by passing the most stringent tests in the world. All Quick-Step products are officially FloorScore certified, giving families living on our flooring peace of mind that they are bringing a product into their home that meets strict indoor air quality standards.
Amazon runs data centers for its online services and owns generators or purchases electricity corresponding to its consumption, mostly renewable energy. Amazon contracted with Avangrid to build and operate the first wind farm in North Carolina to power Amazon's Virginia data centers. The wind farm was built and began operating in December 2016 despite opposition from President Trump and some North Carolina Republican legislators.
Amazon has separate retail websites for the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India, Mexico, Singapore, and Turkey. In 2016, Dutch, Polish, and Turkish language versions of the German Amazon website were also launched. Amazon also offers international shipping of some of its products to certain other countries.
When it comes to TV sales personalities, none are more famous and revered than the late Billy Mays. Mays ran commercials for dozens of different products, but perhaps the most popular of those products was OxiClean, which is an easy to use, non-toxic, and remarkably effective cleaning detergent that can take care of dishes, polish silver, and clean virtually anything else. Billy Mays put his trademark enthusiasm behind the product, and its quality is known worldwide.


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Elon Musk, the founder of the electric car company Tesla, has assured through Twitter that Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to hold talks to buy his company in 2017. According to Musk, at that time he approached the CEO of the apple company to propose the operation and he rejected the meeting.
At the time, Tesla was valued at $ 60 billion, ten times less than the company is now worth. Musk acknowledges that the attempted conversation took place “during the darkest days of the Model 3 show,” a period when his company was in financial trouble.
As the BBC recalls, during that cash crisis Tesla experienced, the billionaire businessman told his employees that his factory was facing a very tough period. He even went as far as tweeting about having to sleep in the factory itself while trying to fix the company’s production bottlenecks. Tesla, which managed to overcome those problems, has posted consistent profits since the second half of last year.
In the third quarter of this year, Tesla obtained the best results in its history, with a net profit of 331 million dollars, 218% more than in the same period of 2019, which allowed it until that date to accumulate profits of $ 435 million in nine months. In October, the company also reported a record in the delivery of vehicles in the third quarter, 139,300, which represents an increase of 7% year-on-year.
Musk’s comments on Twitter about this attempt to reach out to Apple come just after it was revealed that Apple plans to be ready to produce its own autonomous car by 2024. The apple company has made it clear that it has its own ambitions in this industry and has hired several former Tesla executives, in addition to buying some companies specializing in autonomous driving technologies.
Both Tesla and Apple have experienced a stock market rally since 2017. Tesla has increased its capitalization by 1,400%, although the iPhone maker remains the most valuable company in the world, with a capitalization of $ 2.2 trillion. Tesla is worth more than 606,000 million.
Also following the news that an Apple Car could arrive in a few years, the CEO of the Volkswagen automotive group, Herbert Diess, has assured that they await the arrival of new competitors to the mobility sector that will accelerate the change in the industry and that could become a bigger challenge than traditional competitors like Toyota.
“We are looking forward to the arrival of new competitors, which will undoubtedly accelerate the change in our industry and bring new skills,” said Diess in a publication on his Linkedin profile, collected by Europa Press, after being asked about the information from Apple.
For Diess, the “incredible” valuation of this company and its “virtually unlimited” access to resources “instill a lot of respect.” “The most valuable company in the world will once again be a mobility company. It could be Tesla, Apple or Volkswagen,” he added.


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With three directing projects in the works, Eva Longoria will have no trouble calling the shots at the first show for her affordable Eva Longoria Collection on Sept. 13.
The Oscar-winning costume designer Jean Louis, whom Galanos worked for at Columbia Pictures, urged him to open his own business, which he did in 1951.
Shoppers bound for Prada, Henri Bendel, Abercrombie & Fitch and other stores near Trump Tower had to ask for permission from police to gain access.
Charles and Ray Eames’ oeuvre covered furniture, films, photographs, drawings, sculptures, paintings, textiles, models, stage props and graphic design.
For the 12 months ended June 2017, 30 percent of the combined dollar volume of bras, panties and shapewear stemmed from plus-size purchases, according to The NPD Group.
The General Catalyst-led Rough Draft Ventures is supporting Zorpads financially and with mentorship.
Founder and chief executive officer Veronica D’Souza is relying on production in a Peruvian prison to try to transform poverty-related crime into fair wages, skills and hopes for a better future.
Adam Dalton Blake, Tiffany Huang and Ghazaleh Khalifeh have each been tapped to have their designs displayed on nearly 40 million bottles of LIFEWTR for its Series 3.
The premise of Consenses is an artistic version of the children’s game “Telephone,” where one creative draws inspiration from the work of the previous one.
With this fall’s opening, the Ivanka Trump Collection store will be the only freestanding boutique in the U.S. for the brand.
After helping Rihanna get suited up for last weekend’s Crop Over Festival in Barbados, Destiney Bleu’s collaborative swimwear with Minimale Animale will debut next week.
The Olympian will be talking up his new Rizzoli-backed book “Russell Westbrook: Style Drivers,” which is set to hit stores early next month.


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LONDON — Refresco Gerber, one of Europe’s largest bottlers of soft drinks and fruit juices, said on Tuesday that the expected price range for its initial public offering could value the company at up to 1.29 billion euros, or about $1.36 billion.
Refresco Gerber, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, expects to price its stock at €13 to €16 a share, raising as much as €594 million. That would value the company at €1.29 billion at the top end of the range.
If an overallotment of shares is fully exercised, the company would expect to sell shares representing up to 54.2 percent of its capital. The company announced its plans for an I.P.O. this month.
“The anticipated listing is a milestone development for our company; an important step that will enable us to continue our ambitious plans to provide a high-quality bottling platform that meets our customer needs in each of the countries they operate,” Hans Roelofs, the Refresco Gerber chief executive, said in a news release.
Refresco Gerber expects its shares to begin trading on Euronext in Amsterdam on March 27.
The I.P.O. will consist of new shares issued by Refresco Gerber and a sale of about 30.9 million shares held by Refresco Gerber’s private equity owners, which include 3i Group.
The company expects to receive gross proceeds of €100 million from the offering, which will be used to repay debt and give it additional financial flexibility.
Institutional investors and retail investors in the Netherlands and certain institutional investors in other jurisdictions will be able to buy shares in the offering.
Founded in 1999, Refresco Gerber has significantly expanded its business through a series of acquisitions, the most recent being Gerber Emig in 2013. It employs about 4,100 people in nine countries.
In 2014, the company reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortization of €208.2 million, compared with €139.7 million in 2013.
JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse are serving as joint global coordinators on the offering.


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The shipping industry is vulnerable to hackers, as cargo ships begin to use more and more connected devices and automated systems while traversing the open seas. These cyber security loopholes could be...
With just four months to go, firms will struggle to achieve compliance
New semiconductor design could completely change system architecture by enabling brain-like computers
'Bio-inspired' computer systems would disrupt the traditional Von Neumann architecture
Ocado's technology business starting to gain traction with third major customer signing-up
Test used Micius satellite as platform for quantum key distribution


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When it comes to Apple’s iPhone vs. Google’s Android, there’s a “simple reality that will determine who comes out ahead in this Battle of the Titans,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek.
“It’s Apple’s first mover advantage. Already, thousands of developers have already created apps for the iPhone, and many are making real cash money on the more than 100 million apps that have been downloaded fromthe AppStore so far. Had Apple and Google announced their SDK on the same day, these developers may have created versions for both right away. That didn’t happen, though,” Burrows reports.
“Since Android came nearly six months later than Apple, many will likely take a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to Android. That creates a chicken-and-egg conundrum for Android, seems to me. If top developers are waiting and seeing while iPhone sales zoom ahead, it could impact or at least temper Android’s ability to get off the ground,” Burrows reports.
“Take Pandora, the popular Internet radio site. It’s had huge demand for its service since setting up shop on the AppStore. “The iPhone eclipsed all of our other mobile Internet partners in about 12 hours,” says CTO Tom Conrad. As of my visit to Pandora earlier this month, 10% of its listenership was already on the iPhone—a huge number for what had been a PC-dominated service,” Burrows reports. “What about Android? While Conrad thinks its very promising, ‘we don’t have anyone working on Android. We want to be where our customers want us to be.’ Until those customers demand Android, it sounds like Pandora will keep its focus on iPhone.”
Full article here.
iPod touch. Never forget iPod touch. Add in the millions upon millions of iPod touch units already in action and those coming this Christmas — and beyond — and you’ll have an even clearer idea why developers are focused on Apple’s products over all others.


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Western University to produce 1,000 medical face shields for COVID-19 fight
Western's machine shop laboratory usually reserved for building machine prototypes
Western University says it has designed a cheap, adjustable medical face shield that can be used by frontline healthcare workers in their fight against COVID-19.
Anxiety among area healthcare workers has been building in recent days in anticipation of a coming surge of infections and dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment such as N95 surgical masks, which are known to block the virus from entering a person's airways.
Medical face shields help extend the life of surgical masks by creating a clear barrier between a healthcare worker's face and the patient in order to prevent contact with droplets from infected patients that contain the virus.
"If somebody sneezes and that mist, I guess you call it, [the face shields] are going to cover the whole face so it can't come in through your eyes or your nasal or anything," said Clayton Cook, the manager of Western's university machine services, the on-campus shop that designed the masks.
The masks are clear plastic sheets with velcro straps so they can be adjusted to fit a person's head.
The machine services shop came up with the design after it received a request from the administration to create a medical face shield that could be manufactured quickly and cheaply on-campus in order to supply local healthcare workers on the front lines.
"The hospitals don't have enough from what I'm understanding," Cook said. "We have two people in the shop that have spouses that work in the medical field so it's pretty heart warming to see everybody step up to the plate."
The shop has a staff of 15 that normally churns out prototype machines and custom made research equipment for industries ranging from the oil and gas sector to medicine.
Could churn out 300 masks a day
Cook said the masks received approval from Health Canada earlier this week and are currently being field tested by frontline doctors and nurses at London Health Sciences Centre.
Once they receive approval from the hospital, the lab will go into full-scale production, churning out 200 to 300 shields a day, with the first 1,000 shields donated to the hospital at no cost.
After that, Cook said London armsmaker General Dynamics has offered to retool its production line to manufacture the shields in addition to what the university is already producing.
"They've offered should the demand be there, they're willing to produce it," he said.
Some might see it as fitting, since many have already compared the battle against COVID-19 to a military campaign. Cook said many people see it that way and he's had many offers of help.
"It's amazing how many emails I've gotten," he said.
The trouble is Cook needs to keep his numbers down in the shop in order to avoid creating the close quarters environment in which the spreading virus thrives.
"I don't want more than three people in the shop at a time just to keep our distance up," he said. "You want to keep everyone safe."


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Olympus ($OCPNY) is seriously mulling whether to raise about $628 million to bolster its finances in the wake of a massive accounting scandal. The odds are 50/50 that the Japanese maker of endoscopes and cameras will do this either by forming an alliance with a competitor or selling shares to the public, company president Hiroyuki Sasa confirmed to Bloomberg.
Sasa told Bloomberg that an alliance would allow Olympus to pursue its own business strategy. And the company has already resumed discussions with companies, such as Sony, Panasonic and Fujifilm, among others, on forming just such a relationship.
Fujifilm CEO Shigetaka Komori said in a previous interview that he would welcome an alliance, even though Olympus hadn't seemed interested then, Bloomberg noted. And Panasonic had been rumored as recently as two weeks ago to want to invest as much as $635 million into Olympus, which would make it the company's largest shareholder. Such an alliance would also make sense, considering Panasonic makes lots of medical device-related products, including flat panel display monitors and radiation measurement systems.
At least one analyst sees Olympus' endoscope business as the biggest lure for any sort of partnership, considering the division is Olympus' largest business segment and represents two-thirds of the global market. An alliance would help the other company win new customers or expand into the medical equipment industry, Tomoki Komiya, an analyst with Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities said in the Bloomberg story.
But the selling of shares could also help propel new growth for Olympus' medical equipment/endoscopy business and also sell more cameras, Bloomberg notes. Sasa told the news service that Olympus hasn't set a final deadline for a decision but wants to make one "as soon as possible, even tomorrow if that's possible."
Either way, something must be done. Olympus acknowledged late last year that it hid $1.7 billion in loses over 20 years, a scandal that lead to new leadership, a new board and the loss of nearly half the value of its shares. Olympus has launched a slew of medical equipment products since then, and is slashing 2,700 jobs and restructuring plants to bolster its finances. As Bloomberg points out, the company's stock has actually gained 17% so far this year.
- read the Bloomberg story


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The Chinese government has fined both LG Display and Samsung over charges related to allegedly fixing the prices of LCD panels.
China's National Development and Reform Commission fined Samsung $16.2 million, while LG received a $18.6 million fine.
Also handed fines for alleged price fixing were four Taiwanese firms -- Chi Mei Optoelectronics, AU Optronics, Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. and HannStar Display. The total fine charged against all six companies is $56 million.
All the aforementioned display makers had been accused of fixing prices on LCD panels they sold to Chinese TV makers from 2001 to 2006. From the total amount of fines, nine TV makers received $27 million as a refund.
"From 2001 to 2006, six companies involved held a total of 53 rounds of 'Crystal Conferences,' claiming that they exchange information on the global LCD panel market," said a National Development and Reform Commission official. "Those involved turned out to have negotiated prices or manipulated prices, hampering the legitimate rights and interests of other parties and consumers."
The aforementioned display makers are now required to extend the unpaid warranty period for the TV manufacturers, with the fined parties promising to adhere to Chinese law.


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Thu, Feb 18, 2010 | 18:30 GMT
Yakuza 3 gets new shots, trailer
Sega’s sent out a fresh batch of media for Yakuza 3 to celebrate the release of the demo on the PlayStation Store earlier today.
It’s after the jump.Five screen as well as a new video detailing the characters for the game. What more could you want?
It’s out on PlayStation 3 in the UK on March 12.


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The retail technology week in numbers
1,200…Amazon plans to open a fulfilment centre in Bolton in 2018, creating 1,200 new, full-time permanent jobs, including operations managers, engineers, HR and IT specialists. Bolton will be equipped with Amazon Robotics technology. The robots slide under a tower of shelves where products are stowed, lift it and move it through the fulfilment centre.
Last year, the e-tailer announced that it would open fulfilment centres in Daventry, Doncaster, Warrington and Tilbury in 2017. The Daventry site opened in February while Doncaster, Warrington and Tilbury have recently started their operations. Amazon says that it has invested £6.4 billion in the UK since 2010 in its UK-based research and development, head office and fulfilment and logistics infrastructure.
$9 billion…Kroger is set to retool around 20 to 30% of its 2,793 stores as part of its Restock Kroger campaign. The US giant will spend $9 billion in capital investments over the next three years, with the aim of boosting its operating margin by $400 million.
Two million…PayPal has announced that more than two million US retailers will soon be able to offer Venmo as a payment option at checkout. Venmo users will be able to use their app balance or linked cards and bank accounts anywhere PayPal is accepted in the US via the mobile web.
14%...UK online retail sales were up 14% year-on-year in September, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. But whilst this was the third strongest growth rate so far in 2017, there were signs of macroeconomic pressures influencing shopper behaviour.
24%...Click & Collect is driving in-store sales across Europe, according to the JDA/Centiro Customer Pulse Report Europe 2017, conducted by YouGov.
This surveyed 8,238 consumers in the UK, Germany, France and Sweden. 24% of European adults (23% in the UK) bought additional items while picking up their order. At the same time, however, 55% of European adults (56% in the UK) experienced a problem with an online order during the last 12 months. UK shoppers are ahead of the curve when it comes to Click & Collect use: 54% used it in the last year (the European average was 42%). Meanwhile, 56% of European shoppers used a mobile device in-store (51% in the UK).
10… Kohl’s has launched its new Amazon Smart Home Experience in 10 stores across the Los Angeles and Chicago areas. These will sell the e-tailer’s smart home products and also offer customers free, Amazon returns.


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New plant varieties are created and sold every year, whether they’re roses or petunias. Yet, are these new varieties really what us gardeners want and need, or are they just another way to make money?
Considering the amount of time we spend in bed, it’s so important to find the most comfortable mattress you can. Personally, I’d always been wary of memory foam mattresses, until the day that I actually tried one…
Would you be sad to see the back of the ice cream van? Did LG’s response to a telly dilemma show a company tuned in to its customers? This, and much more, in your comments of the week.
Well what do you know – Vodafone is putting its prices up again for existing pay-monthly contract customers. It was almost a year ago since it last put prices up. This is turning into a recurring nightmare.
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, has publicly apologised for the state of its widely ridiculed new Maps app. It’s an incredible, and near-unprecedented, admission of failure. Well I didn’t see this coming!
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the kitchen, it seems that some washing machine doors may be falling out or exploding, leaving kitchens covered in shards of glass. Has this happened to you?
Picture this. You walk into a fast food restaurant, ask for a tasty burger to sate your appetite, and the assistant asks you if you want fries with that? Upselling like this is pretty harmless, until it’s done badly by your bank.
Over the years millions of people have claimed back mis-sold PPI. Our new research suggests the money banks have allocated for compensation is set to run out. We need banks to confirm more’s on the way.
It’s a time of austerity and we’re all affected, carmakers included. Maybe it’s no surprise there’s been an increase in cross-brand collaborations, with many cars launching that are almost identical under the skin.
More grandparents are using equity release to help their family. Yet, is it really that sensible to release money from your home when it can be such an important safety net?
How many times have you worked through your lunch break, or been sat at your desk long after hours for no extra pay? Well – today you have an excuse not to, as national ‘Go Home On Time Day’ is launched.
The poor old ice cream van is dying out. Its catchy jingles and flake-topped Mr Whippies are apparently melting into mere memories. At least that’s what the latest figures suggest.
In this guest post for Which? Conversation, Pat McFadden MP explains how the government has tasked the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards to investigate the state of British banking…
In mid-November the world’s first lab-grown burger is due to be eaten at a press conference. Dr Neil Stephens, a sociologist at Cardiff University, weighs in on the debate of ‘in vitro’ meat.


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Performance footwear and apparel brand Woodland is expecting around Rs. 1,200 crore in sales this financial year.
Confirming the same, Aero Club chief executive Harkirat Singh said it would help the brand reach its pre-Covid numbers as customers return to stores.
He further added that Woodland currently has a pan-India network of 550 stores. It had closed 50 stores during the pandemic.
“However, new stores are popping up which are actually large-format stores, and gradually they will revert to their original size,” Singh added.
It should be noted that most of the new stores would come to metropolitan cities and existing markets. The company would also open stores in new cities and upgrade some small existing old stores.
On the company’s revenues for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, Singh said they hit about 75-80% of pre-pandemic levels.
Although stores are now retracing their steps, Singh said, online stores would also continue with offline stores. “I don’t see the online business going down because the convenience of shopping online is there,” Singh added.
Recently, the company launched a new brand “A Skating Monk”, which is a high-end streetwear brand, targeting a niche of young consumers with its range of shoes, clothing and accessories.
Read also: Indian footwear and outerwear brand Woodland is stepping up its apparel push


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It’s time for Pa Games to get its act together.
We’re a small company, so the idea of having a commission from Pa Games is pretty rare, but now it seems inevitable that Pa Games will start selling games.
Pa Games isn’t the only big name in the industry that’s looking to capitalize on the mobile platform.
Google is also getting in on the game-focused craze, launching a mobile-focused mobile-gaming company.
And, in early 2018, Nintendo was already making its own foray into the mobile game market.
The latest news is that Nintendo will soon be launching a new mobile-only game called Super Mario Run, which will allow players to explore a 3D environment.
“We are excited to launch Super Mario Runner in 2017 as a new entry in the Mario franchise, following on from Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart: Double Dash,” Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement.
What we need to do is take our platform and put it in front of the next generation of players who are interested in making games, and that’s where we think Super Mario Running can be a part of that.
“Super Mario Run will be playable on the Nintendo Switch and 3DS.
The game will be available from June 5 to July 31, and will be free to download from the Nintendo eShop.


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Over the past 12 months, beauty brands have increasingly launched sub-brands to acquire customers and grow revenue.
First, there was the fragrance brand Kayali, launched in November 2018 by Huda Beauty. Then came Clarins with the January launch of My Clarins, aimed at millennial women. Tarte debuted a lower-priced brand, Sugar Rush, in February, followed by Glossier with its expansion into more cosmetic products with Glossier Play in March. More recently, in May, Kylie Cosmetics launched Kylie Skin.
The impetus for the creation of sub-brands is largely the hyper-segmentation within beauty (which exists across other industries, too), said Courtney Scharf, svp of research services for consumer insights group Trend Hunter. Because brands have intentionally carved out specific consumer types — think of the distinctive no-makeup makeup look and archetype of Glossier girls — those brands then have to develop new brands to expand their appeal to different consumers. And, while some brands like cosmetics brand Too Faced are trying to branch out into new categories like skin care within their core brands, that transition can be difficult for consumers to accept and therefore gives brands more reason to try and start from scratch.
“Consumers today expect brands to reflect who they are and who they want to be, so if a brand like Glossier were to branch out to glamorous, highly pigmented makeup without that separation of a sub-brand, they could very well end up alienating the fanbase that drove their initial popularity,” said Scharf.
A brand’s and sub-brand’s creation process and operations often vary, depending on whether the original brand is a relative newcomer or a heritage company. Conglomerate companies typically have two options for significant innovations — buy or build. They can acquire a brand to fill a whitespace or build it out themselves since they have larger, more experienced teams and bigger budgets. For example, Clarins assessed that it had the brand equity and means to create their own millennial-targeted brand with My Clarins and relied on the established research and development operations of the parent brand to do so, in addition to in-house marketing and communications teams.
“What our [young] consumer is looking for is a balanced, healthy diet to stay in shape. So, to ensure the [same wellness] for their skin, Clarins laboratories have developed My Clarins,” with more natural and botanically-derived ingredients said Marie Helene Lair, Clarins’ scientific communications director. In addition to traditional retail partners like Macy’s and Ulta, My Clarins is sold through new partners, like online clothing retailer Asos. Meanwhile, Sugar Rush by Tarte appears to only be sold through TarteCosmetics.com and at Ulta. Tarte declined to comment for this story.
Younger companies, on the other hand, are building out dedicated teams for their new brands. For her standalone fragrance brand, Kayali, influencer and Huda Beauty founder Huda Kattan appointed new teams for its product development and marketing. The brands rely on the same finance and supply chain teams, however, and a LinkedIn posting seeking a packaging designer indicates that the role would be responsible for both brands, as well. Founded in 2013, Huda Beauty has been valued at $1.2 billion by private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, which acquired an undisclosed minority stake in December 2017.
Kylie Skin was also built out separately from Kylie Cosmetics, per an Instagram post by Kylie Jenner on May 10. But the reason for this is somewhat distinct from the efforts of Huda Beauty because Jenner’s first brand Kylie Cosmetics is mostly run by vertically-integrated company Seed Beauty. According to Richie Siegel at Loose Threads, it appears that no one from Seed Beauty’s team is working on Kylie Skin, likely as an effort to create a brand worth acquiring by a company such as Coty Inc.
The primary exception to this rule is Glossier, which built Glossier Play entirely in-house and with the same teams that manage Glossier. Currently, Glossier is comprised of one-third tech positions, and those positions will eventually reach 50 percent. According to Ali Weiss, Glossier svp of marketing, the decision to approach Glossier Play as a sub-brand was motivated by a desire to “carve out a new way for our customers to ‘play’ and participate in Glossier.” The company declined to cite sales expectations but said 82% of Glossier Play purchases also contained Glossier products, and that the majority of customers buying Glossier Play are repeat customers.
“We saw an opportunity to push our creative and product development boundaries while staying committed to creating something that clearly fit within the Glossier universe,” she said.


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In 2015, GlaxoSmithKlein and Novartis completed a deal worth more than $20 billion that combined the two companies' assets. In November of that year, various sources reported that the newly created company planned to launch a review of its agency partners to effectively reset its global relationships.
This week, the company made what it called an "agency simplification" by consolidating its creative, digital, content, PR, expert and shopper marketing accounts with nine agencies across four holding companies. Publicis Groupe was the biggest short-term winner, with the lion's share of the business going to that company and its chief rival, WPP.
"GSK Consumer Healthcare has just completed a rigorous marketing agency roster review to strengthen agency partnerships to deliver effective marketing and accelerate brand growth," reads an internal memo acquired by Adweek today. "This follows the set up of the joint venture between GSK [Consumer Healthcare] and Novartis, which has cemented GSK's position as a world leader in consumer healthcare and accounts for 25 percent of GSK turnover."
WPP had been the dominant holding company on the business, and earlier today The Drum reported on an internal email stating that Sir Martin Sorrell's network had been "working hard" to beat Publicis. But the new arrangement again splits the majority of the business between the two holding companies. After winning Novartis's Theraflu and Voltaren in a 2004 review, Saatchi & Saatchi will continue to serve as global agency of record for those two, which are both among GSK's top seven global "power brands." Grey Worldwide will handle the rest of the "power" group after adding nasal decongestant Otrivin to its existing roster, which previously included four other brands.
An internal memo sent out this morning from Grey CEO and chairman Jim Heekin reads, "We now serve five out of seven of GSK's most important global brands including Sensodyne, Poligrip, Parodontax and Panadol. This is a tremendous vote of confidence in our partnership that began in 1955."
While Publicis and WPP are the new arrangement's biggest winners, GSK also extended its relationship with Havas and sent new business to IPG, naming the latter's McCann Health as one of its expert marketing partners while tasking top communications firm Weber Shandwick with advertising, digital, content and PR responsibilities. On the WPP side, WPP Digital (which is led by Wunderman Health) will work on both digital and content while Ogilvy Commonhealth with share responsibilities on the expert business and Geometry Global will handle GSK's shopper marketing accounts. Havas will work on digital and content-related marketing efforts.
Omnicom was the designated loser in this deal as none of its agencies appear on GSK's final list. Beyond the major holding companies, Edelman will share PR and content duties with Weber Shandwick.
According to the memo, "Agencies were evaluated on a number of different criteria with those selected demonstrating key capabilities, talent and capabilities on a global scale to meet our objectives." All of the aforementioned shops had been working with GSK in some capacity before this development, and an unknown number of agencies were dropped from the client's roster.
"At the center of our [Consumer Healthcare] strategy is our focus on seven power brands," the memo states, adding that these seven brands have "a global presence, proven track record and a higher gross margin than average, and we expect them to deliver double market growth rate." The memo claims that these products, combined with "12 core brands with regional opportunities," will account for 90 percent of GSK's future growth.
The note concludes, "The transition to the new model will take place over a period of time, and we are currently working through the specific allocations of work by area and brand."
This announcement follows a late 2015 global media review that saw GSK stick with incumbents PHD (Omnicom) and MediaCom (WPP). Kantar Media and other sources have reported that GSK spends nearly $1 billion on measured media in the U.S. each year.


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GLOBAL REPORT—The lines between leisure travel and business travel are blurring, leaving hoteliers and travel managers alike scrambling to meet the expectations of the next generation of corporate travelers.
Millennials raised on intuitive search and booking platforms are finding themselves forced into outdated hotel experiences that fail to meet expectations and antiquated travel-management platforms dictated by corporate travel policies.
Hoteliers and travel managers need to embrace the leisure experience and put it in a context that’s congruent with managed travel, said Nick Vournakis, senior VP and GM for Carlson Wagonlit Travel Canada.
Vournakis was one of six panelists who discussed the next generation of corporate travelers, among other topics, during a session titled “Travel Industry Leadership: Managing through Constant Change” last week at the Global Business Travel Association Convention in Boston.
The key is identifying with this customer segment and understanding what they want from the travel experience, said Don Jones, VP of corporate and travel sales for the Americas at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Often that varies by destination, he said.
Often that means intuitive platforms that allow for easy-to-use search and booking. The proliferation of innovative distribution channels emerging in the leisure space is case in point.
Beyond that, it might be a matter of producing a hotel experience or product that complements the niche’s expectations, Jones said.
“It’s really rethinking ‘What does check-in look like in Palo Alto versus what check-in might look like in Santa Barbara,’” he said. Each property has unique business draws that attract various clienteles. The hotel experience should reflect that with more personalized approaches to service.
At the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, for example, managers witnessed a notable drop off in the usage of the property’s concierge desk because corporate travelers were using online tools to research the destination before and upon arrival. The desk has since been converted to a coffee bar, which has generated a significant uptick in traffic.
The next generation also might have different expectations about the hotel product in general, said Phillip Pena, senior VP, global head of hotel and ground transportation at Citigroup.
As a travel buyer, the group surveys its travelers annually to discern their needs and wants. He said the younger generation is asking for a diversity of hotels, such as more Andaz- and W-type properties, to be included in corporate programs.
“Our travelers, 35% said they wanted more boutique-style, more social-type hotels for their travel experience,” he said.
Give them what they want
The way Vournakis sees it, there are three things that really matter to the next generation of business travelers: context, flexibility and mobility.
Context is all about orientation. Corporate travelers want information to help them navigate their surroundings. Location-based push notifications, constant feedback from peer networks and the ability to seamlessly navigate are all key, he said.
That involves a lot of crossover with social media, Jones added.
Flexibility is a facet of control, Vournakis said.
“We know what they will expect in the future is flexibility,” he said. That will push the boundaries that govern traditional travel policies. “We need to start thinking about the traditional travel policy very differently,” he said.
Mobility might be the most important, the panelists agreed.
Millennial business travelers want to be connected at all times, said Vournakis of Carlson Wagonlit Travel Canada. He cited a study the company did in Australia that found 41% of business travelers would refuse to go to a location where they were not connected.
The next generation of corporate travelers assumes a reasonable amount of safety and security, comfort and the ability to be productive and stay connected, said Lane Dubin, VP/GM and head of sales for American Express Business Travel. “Mobile is the platform that will allow them to do all those things.”
Hoteliers who respond with key mobile initiatives to meet those needs have a leg up, he said. Dubin pointed to research conducted by American Express Business Travel that found out of 100 travel policies the group studied none addressed mobile interaction.
Four Seasons is one of many hotel chains trying to push innovation in the mobile space. Jones said the company is making efforts to expedite some of the more tedious aspects of travel on behalf of its next-gen road warriors.
He cited advances in check-in technology as one example. A technologically savvy traveler might receive a notification on his iPhone upon landing in New York. “We would like to check you in,” Jones said. Upon confirming the check in, the hotel would send him a key code so the traveler could bypass the front desk and go straight to his room.
The next generation of corporate travelers is beginning to expect that level of digital interaction during a hotel stay, Jones said. Hoteliers have to make sure the technology corporate travelers have in their personal lives also exists in hotels.
Online reviews are another good example, Jones said, pointing to Four Seasons’ inclusion of TripAdvisor reviews on its websites. “It’s such an honest … and immediate dialogue,” he said.


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PIP Owner Arrested in France - Report
Mas is wanted for questioning over allegations that his company produced defective silicon breast implants.
In Cyprus, there are an estimated 115 women whose silicon breast implants are from the Dutch company Rofil Medical, which sold type 'M-implant' products made by Poly Implant Prothese (PIP).
Health Minister Stavros Malas launched an investigation into the situation after France and Britain decided to fund operations to remove them. There are 30,000 women in France who may opt to remove the implants, which could rupture and leak silicon gel, say experts. An additional 40,000 PIP implants were used in the UK, according to news reports.
The chances of the implants rupturing range between 1-3.6 percent, according to analysts, and there are fears that they may cause cancer after nine women connected with a court case against PIP in France were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. The UK initially rejected the possibility that the implants caused cancer or that they need to be removed but has since decided to do an urgent review of the risks, say UK news reports.
PIP has closed down after a recall of its products in 2010 and reports that the silicon it used in its implants were made of a sub-standard gel normally for industrial uses, like the production of mattresses.
The Health Ministry will start a monitoring programme for those women with the suspect breast implants, and around 20 of them have already visited a state hospital to get more information.
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TI announced the OMAP 5430 for the first time back in 2010, and I remember how excited people were about it, even though they should’ve moderated their excitement a little bit. The chip wasn’t supposed to come out for 2 years and who knows what we would see until then! Well, the OMAP 5430 is getting closer and closer to being introduced into the market, and TI is starting to show us more demos of it to get us excited about it once again.
The test ahead of Computex, seems to pit a tablet running the dual core Cortex A15 with an overclocked PowerVR SGX 543MP2 GPU versus the new iPad with the dual core A9 CPU and a PowerVR SGX 543MP4 GPU. The benchmark test is [...]
ARM has completely dominated the mobile market for more than a decade, with over 90% market share, but it wasn’t until the rise of modern smartphones that we started to witness chips more powerful than anyone could have ever imagined we’d see in phones — chips that are now even starting to threaten Intel’s dominance and their status quo computing architecture.
Starting with the ARMv7 architecture and the first Cortex CPU based on it, the A8, we already began to think of these devices as superphones or mini-computers once the 1 GHz barrier was broken. Then came the dual core Cortex A9 chips and, [...]
For more than half a year, we’ve had more than enough Galaxy S3 rumors. Some of them were pretty crazy, like the 1080p screen, while others were predictable (the quad core Exynos 4412 chip). Samsung delivered some of the more predictable ones, while it failed to hit the target on others (Pentile screen), and also disappointed some people with the design and build quality. These have been some of the major flaws of all Galaxy S devices, and yet Sammy didn’t do much to address them.
So with that in mind, you should always be at least a bit skeptical about all rumors, especially the ones appearing months ahead of the supposed launch of a device. But as the [...]
Although it was officially unveiled way back in February at the MWC, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet hasn’t yet seen the light of day. Initially set to enjoy a June worldwide release, the 10-incher was recently pushed back to a yet to be specified launch date.
If you remember, we told you about a month ago that we’re suspecting the delayed launch to be caused by one or several technical changes Samsung is planning to make to the Note 10.1 we saw in February. Now, this suspicion seems to gain confirmation, as the guys at nordichardware.com are reporting to have caught a glimpse of a Galaxy Note 10.1 with a couple of very significant alterations.
First of all, [...]
We’ve known about the Exynos 5250 for a while now, thanks to other rumors. As such, none of the specs leaked from the slideshow captured by SemiAccurate are breaking news, but it’s certainly nice to get confirmation, not just for the Cortex A15 CPU, but also for the Mali T604 MP4 GPU and the LPDDR3 1600 MHz RAM that this chip supports.
The Exynos 5 will have a dual-core 2 Ghz Cortex A15 chip, coupled with the next-gen Mali T604 GPU built on the Midgard GPU architecture, that should be several times more powerful than a Mali-400 (5x according to ARM). It will also have 2.1 Gpixels/s rendering speed and 12.8 GB/s 64 bit memory bandwidth, which should help a [...]


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When is the best time to eat a donut? Trick question, any time is the optimal time for donut-ing, which is what we in the donut-eating biz call eating donuts. Krispy Kreme understands this, which is why they’re about to open a 24-hour flagship store in New York City’s Times Square. Fresh donuts will be served every day of the week, all day, and the store will reportedly have all the outlandish trappings one would hope to find in a Times Square-based flagship — think M&M’s World, but better because it never closes.
The store will be massive, at 4,500 square feet — which is about the size of a small mansion — and will be located at 1601 Broadway on the corner of 48th Street. A lot of floor space is a good thing, it means we won’t have to shove anyone over to get our donuts — not that that is a thing we’ve ever done, or aren’t totally willing to do again if someone gets in our way.
Visitors can expect to find much of the massive floor space devoted to merch and interactive experiences, including views of Krispy Kreme’s signature conveyor belt donut-making process, allowing guests to immerse themselves in the full donut-making experience, from the employees mixing ingredients, to the moment the fried dough rings pass under a glaze waterfall. It sounds delicious.
Krispy Kreme is preparing for their new flagship to serve more customers than any of their other locations in the world, and as an act of convenience has decided to include a walk-up window for those who just want donuts, not a donut and a shirt with a donut on it. To which we have to ask, who wouldn’t want that?
“Our direction is to be the most loved sweet treat brand in the world… In the most iconic city in the world, The Krispy Kreme Times Square flagship will showcase our brand on the global stage and inspire customer wonder,” said Krispy Kreme President and CEO Michael Tatterfield in a statement.
While we certainly don’t need a massive store to express our love for fried dough and sugar rings, we’ll definitely take it.


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Amazon debuts the powerful Kindle Fire HDX 7 and 8.9
0. phoneArena 25 Sep 2013, 03:30 posted on
It wasn't too long ago when Amazon's brand biggest tech achievement was trading online. Thing sure have changed since, for the e-tailer is quickly growing into a quite ambitious project, and one that works...
This is a discussion for a news. To read the whole news, click here


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For so long, Ugg has lived on the edge of high mold — even after a spring ’17 coordinated effort with Preen by Thornton Bregazzi that involved trim hidden, bow-tied stage shoes, a critical takeoff from the brand’s mark ill defined sheepskin boots. In any case, now, after a few feature shaking appearances at Paris Men’s Fashion Week, it looks as if Ugg is at long last being grasped by the form first class.
It began when creator Glenn Martens of buzzy streetwear name Y/Project made over Ugg in his licensed boot’s picture: stretching it to hit the thigh, slumping it to an emotional degree and outsizing its general outline. It promptly partitioned the web.
Also, most as of late, Ugg discovered its second key partner in Sacai, a Japanese extravagance mark supported by form’s most persuasive road style stars and editors. Planner Chitose Abe displayed her fall ’18 prepared to-wear men’s gathering and, in a shocking move, picked Ugg to finish her layered, utilitarian-meets-streetwear looks. In dark or camel darker, these Uggs weren’t controlled to an unrecognizable degree — they remained consistent with the first yet were truncated to a shin stature and sewed with a stout sew upper.
Read More : REVIEWS ADIDAS’S BOOST
As it turns out, Ugg’s choice in men’s ready-to-wear partners is part of a bigger strategic move. “We are doing many things at the moment on a macro level — building our spring-summer business. Men’s is incredibly important,” Andrea O’Donnell, president of fashion lifestyle brands for Ugg holding company Deckers Brands, told WWD. “We want to protect what we have, which is a special classic franchise, but we are also doing a lot to focus and reimagine Ugg with a fashion spin.” Goal achieved.


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A rise within the amount of complaints about mis-sold PPI and payday advances has generated a 44% general boost in the amount of claims against monetary businesses within the last half of 2017 states the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) вЂ“ a 12% enhance from the very very first 6 months.
Complaints information simply released by the payday loans Mount Dora Florida regulator implies that in the half that is second million complaints had been gotten by businesses with 41% being about PPI. A complete of 13per cent had been about present reports and bank cards accounted for 9%.
PPI claims due date
Complaints about PPI had been the greatest for four years as thousands and thousands of brand new claims four weeks had been gotten after the launch of the regulatorвЂ™s вЂDo It NowвЂ™ campaign.
The ВЈ42 million customer understanding campaign urges anybody who believes they could have already been mis-sold in order to make a PPI claim ahead of the due date year that is next.
brand New complaints
There have been 1.55 million brand brand new complaints within the six thirty days duration, leading to ВЈ2.05 billion being compensated in compensation вЂ“ a 19per cent enhance in the very first 1 / 2 of the 12 months.
Total settlement paid to date appears at ВЈ31.9 billion and it is rising on average by ВЈ1.3 billion four weeks.
Numbers through the Financial Ombudsman provider (FOS) additionally reflect the rise in complaints about payday advances.
Market leader Wonga went into management just a couple weeks hence, blaming the boost in complaints about historic mis-selling of loans, also it now seems the market that is new, money Euro Net UK, are being struck difficult.继续阅读


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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Allegion plc (NYSE: ALLE), a leading global security products and solutions provider, has made, through one of its subsidiaries, an equity investment in European IoT mobility platform developer Conneqtech.
Founded in the Netherlands in 2014, Conneqtech develops platforms that enable connected mobility with GPS and rental tracking, specializing in IoT solutions for bicycles, as well as healthcare applications. Conneqtech has already partnered with one of Allegion’s leading portable security brands, AXA, to develop the AXA Connect. The solution allows cyclists to stay in touch with their bicycles via a smartphone. Bicycles can be followed live, traced and protected against theft using a personalized app.
This is Allegion’s second European IoT investment in 2018, as Allegion Senior Vice President and President of EMEIA Lúcia Veiga Moretti also announced a strategic investment in smart-home innovator Nuki in February. She noted that Allegion is committed to leading the electromechanical convergence in the security industry across all of its businesses.
“We are excited to be working with another pioneer in the European IoT markets – Conneqtech,” Veiga Moretti said. “Allegion’s Global Portable Security business is a leader in the marketplace with the continued innovation of our trusted AXA, Kryptonite and Trelock brands. As we look for new ways to provide increased value for our customers, complementing our strong mechanical heritage with intelligent solutions is at the top of the list.”
Allegion and Conneqtech will work together to continue developing best-in-class connected solutions and bring them to new markets.
“We believe that Allegion is a partner who’s truly committed to industry-leading innovation,” said Conneqtech Founder and CEO Bart Visser. “Our team looks forward to driving the next generation of e-bike solutions together.”
The partnership is consistent with Allegion’s strategy to drive growth and create shareholder value by investing in new technologies.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements that relate to the acquisition’s impact on the company’s financial and operational performance, the acquisition’s ability to drive growth and the integration of the acquisition. These forward-looking statements are based on the company's current available information and its current assumptions, expectations and projections about future events. They are subject to future events, risks and uncertainties - many of which are beyond the company’s control - as well as potentially inaccurate assumptions, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information on these factors and other risks that may affect the company's business are included in filings it makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including its Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2017, and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2018, and in its other SEC filings. The company assumes no obligations to update these forward-looking statements.
Allegion (NYSE: ALLE) is a global pioneer in safety and security, with leading brands like CISA®, Interflex®, LCN®, Schlage®, SimonsVoss® and Von Duprin®. Focusing on security around the door and adjacent areas, Allegion produces a range of solutions for homes, businesses, schools and other institutions. Allegion is a $2.4 billion company, with products sold in almost 130 countries. For more, visit www.allegion.com.


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Home Tags Burgers
Today we talked to JonEvan Jack's owners, Nathan and Miranda Brown, about how the restaurant got started and what guests like you can expect.
Meteorologist Eric Burke learns about Lexington Burger Week from Shakespeare and Company.
At least two people have reported finding worms in food from McDonald's restaurants in Mayfield and Draffenville.
Street Craves & Freakin’ Unbelievable Burgers are saying “thank you” to all of those who have served the country or are currently serving in the armed forces this Veterans Day.
Kentucky State Police are announcing a fundraiser to be held for Trooper Cameron Ponder's family.
During the week of July 6-12, twenty Lexington restaurants will be participating in Burger week, and will each feature an off-the-menu burger for $5 in a competition to decide the most unique burger of Lexington.


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Ash Trees in Danger in Mature Forests
From earlier this year, the Forestry Commission has been detecting a devastating disease in ash trees, as per revelations of a recent report. While the previous cases were noted at sites in Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire, the Chalara Fraxinea fungus is now being feared to turn into an outbreak in mature forests in the UK.
The team says that the outbreak may prove as lethal for the trees as Dutch elm disease did in the 1970s and 1990s. Concerns are high and therefore, the government is being urged by conservation campaigners to conduct a meeting to discuss the solution to the issue.
As per the report, the disease causes the trees' leaves to go brown and then drop. Also, the crown and branches are realized as dead. It is being said that nine in every ten trees affected by the virus tend to die eventually.
The disease has not even left other parts of Europe as the ash population in Denmark has almost been destroyed. Also, Poland has faced this tree destruction some 20 years back. However, a decision to ban the tree's imports was taken.
But, the study already shows a strong foothold of the bug in mature forests. "We have stepped up our efforts to tackle this disease as a priority", said head of the plant health service John Morgan.
New Zealand News
- Porsche reportedly developing electric version of 718 sports car
- Tesla Model Y Performance becomes little bit more expensive to order in China
- Porsche’s recently unveiled Mission R Concept previews electric race cars of future
- Chinese manufacturer GAC’s Aion V e-SUV can charge 0-80% in just 8 minutes
- Oshidori International exits Japanese casino race, citing serious ethical irregularities
- Plug-in cars’ share grows to 32% in Netherlands in September 2021
- Italian motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi enters e-bike business with VR46 MTB range
- Micro Mobility shows off production version of Microlino 2.0 and 3-wheeled e-scooter
- Chinese electric motorcycle maker Evoke Motorcycles to set up shops in Spain
- TenneT adds more electric BMWs to study use of EVs to support power grids


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Huawei introduced the new smartphone, Huawei Enjoy 50z, alongside the Y61 launch for the Chinese market. Huawei Enjoy 50z comes with a 6.52-inch display with IPS LCD level with HD+ resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. There’s a 5MP selfie cam with a waterdrop drop style, while a 50MP primary camera with an f/1.8 aperture was added to this phone; the company added a 2MP macro cam also a 2MP depth sensor.
The smartphone uses an octa-core processor, but it’s still an unknown chipset. The Enjoy 50z is paired with 6GB RAM and 128/256GB storage options. The smartphone has a 5,000 mAh battery and supports a 2.5W charging; this phone comes with HarmonyOS 2.0. There’s a dual-band Wi-Fi support, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
Huawei Enjoy 50z comes in three color options, including Sapphire Blue, Mint Green, and Magic Night Black colors. The 6/128GB model will cost CNY 1,199 (172), while the 8/256GB model will cost CNY 1,399 ($201). This smartphone will start selling on December 26.
At the same time, the company introduced the nova 10 SE for the Chinese market. The 6/128GB variant costs around CNY 1,999 ($287), while the 8/256GB variant costs around CNY 2,299 ($330). Huawei listed these smartphones on its official website, and users can purchase them from retailers.


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Gears of War, the Microsoft video game franchise, is being adapted into a feature film.
The announcement was made during a livestream for the release of the third person shooter game
"Gears of War 4", which will be released on October 11. The fil...
Gears of War, the popular video game by Microsoft and Epic Games, will be made into a feature film, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "Gears of War" is Microsoft's second best selling videogame franchise; Halo is number one.
Legendary Pictures will b...
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US: Heelys posts Q3 net loss of US$1.1m
- Q3 net loss of US$1.1m
- Net sales $10.8m
- "Adversely impacted by the tough economy"
Wheeled footwear firm Heelys has swung to a third quarter loss, as sales more than halved in the period.
The company reported a net loss of US$1.1m in the third quarter of the year, compared to income of $0.8m in Q3 2008.
Net sales for the third quarter of 2009 were $10.8m, compared to $23.8m in the corresponding period a year ago.
Selling, general and administrative expenses, excluding litigation settlements and related costs, were $3.6m compared to $6.6m in the same period last year.
Tom Hansen, chief executive officer of Heelys, said: "Like our retail partners, our business continues to be adversely impacted by the tough economy and the holiday season remains a major question mark.
"However, we have made significant reductions in inventory and continue to scrub every aspect of our business to find more operating efficiencies and reduce costs in every possible way. And we are working diligently to rebuild the brand and increase visibility as well as implementing several new product development initiatives."
Click here to view the company's full third quarter earnings statement.
Help test our new apparel sourcing tool.
Wheeled footwear firm Heelys has announced a new sourcing agreement with TGB, a subsidiary of Anthony L & S....
Footwear specialist Heelys has moved to "significantly reduce" the number of SKUs it sells through retail channels after posting another loss in the last quarter of 2009....
Wheeled footwear seller Heelys has made several staff changes as part of a 2010 business plan....
- China leads US apparel sources with falling prices
- Hard hit Turkish industry is not knocked out
- "Power of the many" drives change at Otto Group
- Vietnam grows share of US apparel imports in 2016
- US apparel sector braces for potential cost hikes
- US Q4 in brief – Foot Locker, Nordstrom, Carter's
- Bangladesh crackdown has cost garment sector $100m
- Adidas and Burberry recognised for sustainability
- Inditex and H&M boycott Dhaka Apparel Summit
- Macy's will "do the right thing", says Lundgren
- When Things Go Wrong - A Practical Guide to Managing Common Problems in Apparel Sourcing
- Outdoor performance apparel 2016: A broader perspective
- Technical textile markets: product developments and innovations, December 2016
- Southeast Asia strategic sourcing review – a focus on Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar
- Global market review of lingerie – forecasts to 2022


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"There is still so much for our brand to learn about the autonomous delivery space," said Dennis Maloney, Domino's senior vice president and CIO. "This program will allow us to better understand how customers respond to the deliveries, how they interact with the robot and how it affects store operations. The growing demand for great-tasting pizza creates the need for more deliveries, and we look forward to seeing how autonomous delivery can work along with Domino's existing delivery experts to better support the customers' needs."
"Nuro's mission is to better everyday life through robotics. Now, for the first time, we're launching real world, autonomous deliveries with R2 and Domino's," said Dave Ferguson, Nuro co-founder and president. "We're excited to introduce our autonomous delivery bots to a select set of Domino's customers in Houston. We can't wait to see what they think."


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The Straits Times Now with 3D Effect
Today's edition of The Straits Times arrives with something extra, an added dimension.
Dispersed all over the newspaper are news pictures, information graphics and commercials, which have been published in 3D.
And there are over 30 pages with 3D elements in today's edition.
To have a look at the extras that are marked with a logo carrying the words 'Best viewed in 3D', a pair of disposable 3D glasses have been given.
This incursion into 3D makes The Straits Times the first English newspaper in the area to hit onto such technology on such a big scale.
The 3D components were all made by reporters and other workers of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) utilising the latest technology, and enhanced for newspaper publication.
Ms. Angelina Choy, The Straits Times' Art Editor, said that the procedure of creating images in 3D is lengthy.
For photographers, getting pictures, which were apt for 3D, needed a trained vision. They had to search for subjects, which were located in a dirt free milieu.
Editor, Mr. Han Fook Kwang said that apart from allowing ST's 1.4 million readers to get the news from an unusual viewpoint, the 3D technology is one technique that the paper is continually looking to get better.
New Zealand News
- Porsche reportedly developing electric version of 718 sports car
- Tesla Model Y Performance becomes little bit more expensive to order in China
- Porsche’s recently unveiled Mission R Concept previews electric race cars of future
- Chinese manufacturer GAC’s Aion V e-SUV can charge 0-80% in just 8 minutes
- Oshidori International exits Japanese casino race, citing serious ethical irregularities
- Plug-in cars’ share grows to 32% in Netherlands in September 2021
- Italian motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi enters e-bike business with VR46 MTB range
- Micro Mobility shows off production version of Microlino 2.0 and 3-wheeled e-scooter
- Chinese electric motorcycle maker Evoke Motorcycles to set up shops in Spain


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MANILA – The continued increase in the number of Filipinos vaccinated against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and the arrival of more vaccines are expected to further boost gains in trade and the economy’s recovery.
In an economic bulletin issued on Wednesday, the Department of Finance (DOF) cited the 26.8-percent year-on-year expansion in external merchandise trade to USD15.8 billion last June and the 26.1-percent increase as of the first half this year to USD89.2 billion.
“With trade activity continuing to show recovery, the arrival of additional vaccines and the ramped-up vaccination drive for economic frontliners will help the Philippines sustain the gains in containing the virus and eventually lead the way to economic recovery,” it said.
The bulletin said growth in merchandise trade in the first six months this year is just 0.4 percent lower than its level in the first half of 2019, or before the pandemic hit.
Specifically, the total value of imports last June reached USD9.3 billion while exports totaled to USD6.5 billion.
While new Covid-19 variants like the Delta, which are more contagious, pose greater impact on the economy, the bulletin said the government is doing its best to address its spread.
“The government will continue to be vigilant and effectively manage the additional risks posed by the more infectious variant with the appropriate measures, lest the green shoots in the economy be stamped out completely,” it added.(PNA)