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· Company forecast thousands more people will need affordability support to over coming 12 months
· Targeted package of £65m to help those struggling to pay
Anglian Water is today announcing an unprecedented £65 million package of tailored affordability support for customers this year as the cost of living crisis bites – the largest ever offering from a water company.
The package offers a range of tailored services to support those in need. Discounted tariffs mean eligible customers can get up to 50 per cent off their water bill, plus the company also offers affordable payment plans, payment holidays in certain circumstances, and direct support through the Anglian Water Assistance Fund, which is specially designed to help to cover the cost of bills when people are going through the most challenging times.
The commitment, which comes as Anglian Water announces its full year results to March 2022, is part of a longer-term package that will see the water company set aside £232 million between 2020- 2025 to help those customers who need it most.
Last year, the company provided over 320,000 people with affordability support, but this is expected to increase by thousands this year, as customers struggle with rising inflation.
Anglian Water’s Director of Customer and Wholesale Services, Pete Holland said:
“We know this year is going to be incredibly challenging for a large number of our customers. We’re incredibly proud of the support provided over the last year but it is clear that the next 12 months are going be tougher, and we all need to take action.”
“The coming year will see us put forward the biggest package of support we’ve ever provided, meaning we can help even more people in a way that’s tailored to their individual circumstances. Whatever the circumstances, our message to customers is simple: if you’re struggling, please get in touch. The sooner we talk, the sooner we can help.”
The support package will also signpost customers to potential government benefits they may be able to claim. In 2021-22 alone, £1.7million of potential benefits were identified and highlighted to those who may qualify for extra help, with some customers receiving up to £3,000 of extra benefits following Anglian Water’s assessment.
Wendy, aged 79, from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire benefited from Anglian Water’s ExtraCare service. Faced with a higher water bill, Wendy contacted Anglian Water’s customer care team to see what they could do. After analysing Wendy’s bills, the ExtraCare team noted that Wendy was entitled to additional housing benefit, worth around £200 every month.
Wendy said: “Money is incredibly tight for me at the moment. Whilst I have kept myself afloat over the last couple of years, the huge uplift in the cost of living has put me under considerable strain – both mentally and financially. That’s why an annual increase of £60 a year in my water bills caused me serious concern. It might not be a lot to most people, but when you haven’t been able to afford a new pair of shoes in over two years, it is. I can’t thank the Anglian Water team enough for the assistance they gave me in analysing my finances and finding out that I could be entitled to additional benefit. The team were so helpful and this will be life changing.”
Anglian Water is also supporting the Government’s Household Support Fund for those in financial hardship, distributing around £500,000 to those who are struggling most to pay their bills.
It provides additional support for customers in vulnerable circumstances through its Priority Services Register. This Register provides help to a wide range of people, from those with sight, hearing, or mobility difficulties, to parents with babies under 12 months old and those with long or short-term medical needs.
Customer service teams receive extensive bespoke training to support customers with a wide range of challenges. In addition to the above support, Anglian also partners with over 150 charities and organisations, including Kidney Care UK, Carers First and Scope, to provide tailored support and raise awareness of the help on offer
During the pandemic Anglian Water distributed a £1 million Positive Difference Fund, benefiting more than 100,000 people in the East of England through more than 160 community groups.


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Corporate Finance Veteran Brings 25+ Years'Experience to Semiconductor IP Innovator
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - March 18, 2008 - MIPS Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of industry-standard architectures, processors and analog IP for digital consumer, home networking, wireless, communications and business applications, today announced the appointment of Maury Austin as the company's new chief financial officer, reporting to President and CEO John Bourgoin. Austin brings more than 25 years of financial experience to the company, including executive positions at Apple Computer, General Electric Company and Portal Software.
"I am pleased to welcome a seasoned, versatile financial veteran such as Maury to our team," said John Bourgoin. "Following the acquisition and integration of Chipidea, MIPS Technologies has entered a new phase, with two strategic business groups and an aggressive growth strategy. Maury's impressive depth and business acumen will be critical for MIPS, and I look forward to his contributions and leadership as we continue to drive innovation in the global IP market."
Austin is experienced in all aspects of corporate finance and strategy, including business model development and implementation, investor relations, mergers and acquisitions and corporate funding. Most recently he served as SVP & CFO of Portal Software, Inc., where, working with the executive staff, he drove redevelopment of the company's business model and was instrumental in its subsequent acquisition by Oracle Corporation. Austin also played critical roles in improving shareholder value at Southwall Technologies, Symmetricom, Inc. and Vicinity Corporation. Austin holds a bachelor of science in finance from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.
"I have been impressed with MIPS Technologies' innovation, growth and technology initiatives over the years," said Austin. "I look forward to joining a seasoned team as the company continues to build on the strength of its IP model in the embedded market-throughout the digital living room, mobile market and beyond."
About MIPS Technologies, Inc.
MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NasdaqGS: MIPS) is the world's second largest semiconductor design IP company and the number one analog IP company worldwide. With more than 250 customers around the globe, MIPS Technologies powers some of the world's most popular products for the digital consumer, broadband, wireless, networking and portable media markets-including broadband devices from Linksys, DTVs and entertainment systems from Sony, DVD recordable devices from Pioneer, digital set-top boxes from Motorola, network routers from Cisco, 32-bit microcontrollers from Microchip Technology and laser printers from Hewlett-Packard. Today, the company owns more than 400 patent properties (patents and applications) worldwide. Founded in 1998, MIPS Technologies is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices worldwide. For more information, contact (650) 567-5000 or visit www.mips.com.

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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) believes that the next financial year, 2007-08, will be another good year for the government in terms of growth in tax revenue.
It wants 75% of the incremental tax revenue to be used for development and even has a formula suggesting how this amount be allocated—35% for education; 35% for infrastructure; 20% for health care; and 10% for other developmental expenditure. The recommendation, from India’s most powerful industrial lobby, is indicative of the larger concerns of Indian companies.
CII believes the government needs to make a huge investment up-front to keep the economy growing. It wants gross capital formation in infrastructure to touch 11% by 2011-12.
Such demands also highlight a growing belief in both industry and the government that the fate of companies and entire industries is no longer dependent on a few provisions in the Budget.
“I would like the finance minister to do nothing as far as the auto-component industry is concerned. The industry has done well,” said Surinder Kapur, chairman, Sona Group, which is in the business of auto components.
That doesn’t mean the industry does not have any demands of Budget 2007.
Over the past three years, industry’s revenue and profits are up, but so is tax outgo. Various industry sectors now want the government to return the favour by rationalizing the tax regime.
“The next tax rate on companies should be between 25-30%,” said Rahul Bajaj, chairman, Bajaj Auto (it is now 33.67%).
“By net tax, I mean the impact after surcharges, cesses and exemptions; I am in fav-our of removing all surcharges and exemptions, barring the one on research anddevelopment.”
Industry would also like the Budget to reduce import tariffs on a clutch of products; although the peak rate of customs duty has been reduced to 12.5% from 1 March 2006, several products continue to attract high rates of duty, sometimes as high as 150%.
Most sectors still have specific demands. For instance, Arvind Parakh, the chief executive officer of corporate strategy and finance for Omaxe Ltd, a real-estate developer, wants an extension of the tax exemption for lower middle class and middle-class housing, and D.S. Kulkarni, chairman and managing director of an eponymous Pune-based developer, says interest rates on housing loans should be reduced.


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On July 27, 2020, Victoria and Keenan Walter and Victoria Oxenyuk sold their three bedroom, three bathroom home at 7872 N.W. 11th Place, Plantation to Karen Dianne Baxter for $310,000.
The last time this home sold was Feb. 6, 2015. It last sold for $209,000.
In July 2020, 153 properties sold in Plantation.


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The Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Mizuho Bank have agreed to provide loans of US$24 million and $17 million to retailer AEON Vietnam to fund its southern expansion.
The funding will help the Japanese retail giant open a store in each of Binh Duong and Long An provinces, according to a statement from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation on Tuesday.
It now has six major shopping centers in the country and plans to expand to 30 by 2030 as part of its strategy to prioritize Vietnam over all other markets.
Yoshida Akio, representative executive director of the company, told Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in May that Vietnam, where it has invested over $1.18 billion so far, was its biggest investment destination globally.
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Windsor Marketing Group (WMG), an innovative in-store marketing group based in Suffield, CT, has expanded its marketing internship program for college students looking to embark on careers in marketing.
Windsor Marketing Group was founded in 1976 as an innovative in-store marketing group that creates, produces, and delivers shopper marketing programs that inspire and influence in-store buying patterns. The company utilizes cutting-edge technologies and creative innovations to assist its nearly 200 associates in serving over 3,000 retailers in the United States, including many of the nation’s largest retailers.
Marketing interns in the WMG program are exposed to all aspects of the company including marketing, sales, operations, finance, strategic planning, and research. The participants are also tasked to work on specific projects, such as market segmentation, development of the company’s concept lab, or devising strategies to forward WMG’s sustainability initiatives.
Currently the company employs interns from several leading universities in the Northeast including Bentley University which continues a longstanding working relationship with that institution. In March of this year, WMG presented the Marketing / Communications Career Conference on the campus of Bentley University.
The conference featured 50 marketing and communications professionals from media, marketing and consumer package goods firms including HubSpot, EMC, Arnold Worldwide, Hill Holliday, New England Patriots, Dunkin’ Brands, Macy’s Entertainment Group, Fidelity Investments, and Windsor Marketing Group.
“As a socially responsible company, Windsor Marketing Group believes in the benefits of giving back to the community and future generations through this internship program,” said Kevin Armata, Founder and CEO of Windsor Marketing Group. “We also benefit greatly from the program as our future workforce could very well be coming from this talented pool of candidates.”
Prospective candidates for the Windsor Marketing Group Marketing Internship Program can send inquiries to firstname.lastname@example.org.


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Nissan Forklift Corporation Joins Forces with TCM America to Form UniCarriers Americas Corporation
Marengo, IL – Nissan Forklift Corporation, North America announced that it has joined forces with TCM America under a new name, UniCarriers Americas Corporation effective April 1, 2013. UniCarriers Americas Corporation is a division of UniCarriers Corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. UniCarriers Holdings is the parent company of UniCarriers.
Although the company has a new name, its employees, tried-and-true, high-quality processes and best-in-class products remain the same. With head offices in Marengo, Ill., the new company will continue its commitment to excellence and its drive to be a valued partner across its network of authorized dealers.
“We are excited to combine the resources, service and strong brand promise of these two companies to form a stronger market presence that will offer a broader range of products and technical service with the UniCarriers brand,” said Peter Kruse, president, UniCarriers Americas Corporation. Kruse is leading the management team of the new entity.
“To assume our role as a leader in the material handling industry, this merger creates a world-class global brand built on the combined strengths of Nissan Forklift and TCM,” added Kruse. “UniCarriers will be stronger and even more successful as one company.”
UniCarriers will encompass five brands: Nissan Forklift, TCM, Atlet, Barrett and UniCarriers. To transition the brand equity of the non-UniCarriers brands to UniCarriers, all trucks will display a “by UniCarriers” endorsement beginning June 1, 2013.
Material handling equipment will be the sole business of UniCarriers, rather than a peripheral business unit. Separately, the global rankings of Nissan Forklift Corporation and TCM Corporation were 11th and 15th respectively, according to the Weltrangliste 2011/2012 list of the top global manufacturers. United, UniCarriers has jumped to number seven on the list.
“To be competitive, not only do manufacturers need to deepen their local understanding of customers’ needs, they must also broaden their global presence,” said Kruse. “We’re deeply committed to making this transition successful and making it a success for our employees, dealers, suppliers, and end customers.”
The UniCarriers customer-centric approach will define everything it does from product development to service and delivery. “Our tenacious attitude, collaborative approach and innovative spirit will continue to define and drive who we are,” Kruse explains. With its focus solely on material handling equipment, UniCarriers will offer a more extensive portfolio by adding additional sustainable and efficient products and solutions to its offering. “Our customers are looking for answers to complex logistics challenges. UniCarriers will deliver,” promises Kruse. “At the core, we are the same passionate people, offering superior products and solutions. Most importantly, we are committed to excellence. This is true not only for our business enterprise, but for our customers as well.”
The company will continue its pledge to protect the environment, and operate as a green company.
About UniCarriers Americas Corporation
UniCarriers designs, manufactures and supports a complete line of material handling equipment that offers features resulting in greater reliability, higher productivity and lower total operational costs. Headquartered in Marengo, Ill., UniCarriers Americas has a network of more than 235 authorized dealerships with over 350 locations across North, Central and South America, as well as additional worldwide locations. www.unicarriersamericas.com
For more information, contact UniCarriers Americas, 240 North Prospect Street, Marengo, IL 60152. Phone (815) 568-0061. Visit www.unicarriersamericas.com or send email to firstname.lastname@example.org.


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You would definitely recognize New Era caps around the streets of Toronto and across Canada. This family owned company that has evolved into a global lifestyle brand with a sports heritage dating back 90 years.
Last month New Era donated 1,260Lbs of new hats to Brands for Canada that will be distributed to our partner agencies and given to families across the country.
If you’re a fan of our local Toronto Blue Jays, you might be interested to know about the Jose Bautista Capsule collection. Shop all caps at neweracap.com and support your favourite team, while knowing New Era is giving back via Brands For Canada.


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Fashion retailer Ted Baker has posted an improvement in annual performance and was upbeat about prospects after an encouraging start to the new financial year.
Ted Baker said it had benefited from post-pandemic trends such as the return to offices and social events, as well as from progress with its turnaround strategy.
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Cellular carriers, used to competing amongst themselves, are facing a new rival in fast, affordable VoIP architectures. Will it be a fight to the finish? Or can these two turn competing interests into complementary models—and make business the big winner.
by Tim Scannell
These are the best of times and potentially the worst of times for cellular service providers in the United States.
On the one hand, the industry has never looked better. Wireless subscriber numbers are increasing at a healthy clip, and sales of multimedia-capable and data-ready cell phones are at an all-time high. Cingular Wireless, the nation’s largest service provider, just reported a surge in customer subscriptions, boosting its subscriber base to well over 57 million.
Handset shipments are also at an all-time high, up more than 22 percent over last year, with a significant number of these small devices capable of taking advantage of faster and more data-minded 3G wireless networks. Nearly 19 million smartphones were shipped worldwide in just the second quarter of this year, representing a jump of about 55 percent over the same quarter last year, notes researcher Canalys. Much of this demand is being driven by the availability of higher-speed cellular networks and the rising use of mobile, converged-capability handsets as replacements for handheld computers in the enterprise.
There are a few clouds on the horizon, however, that may ultimately rain on this wireless parade. Evolving and newer technologies not only promise much faster access speeds and reliability but in some cases may be more pervasive and much cheaper than cellular data connections. These technologies include:
- Mobile WiMAX, which borrows from cellular’s approach of using multiple transmission sites and nodes, but offers much faster broadband-class speeds and is battle-ready for congested subscriber areas;
- Metro-wide Wi-Fi networks, which are already popping up in municipalities across the country and blanketing them with cheap and reliable wireless access;
- Mesh networking, which can include a variety of different technologies, from Wi-Fi to WiMAX, but provides an always-on failsafe network.
U.S. cellular service providers aren’t sitting idly by waiting for that rainy day, however. Most have been investing heavily in higher-speed wireless technologies and infrastructures that will eventually provide broadband-class data environments for subscribers.
Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, for example, plan to roll out CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A network technology sometime before the end of this year. The technology promises peak downlink data rates of up to 3.1 Mbps and up to 1.8 Mbps in the uplink. Verizon inked a deal in July with Nortel Networks to provide the necessary hardware to build this network in top U.S. markets.
Just the Beginning
Most wireless carriers agree that 3G is finally here and ready for mass adoption. A number of carriers are also moving to take these communications architectures to the next level by bumping up to 3.5G technology, with a software upgrade called High Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA. This will essentially move 3G closer to delivering on its original promise of broadband speeds. There are now roughly 108 operators worldwide committed to this technology, says the GSA, although most activity will initially be centered outside the United States.
Closer to home, nearly all of the top U.S. wireless carriers have launched or are at least in the process of testing higher-speed 3G networks, with an eye toward using these networks to expand their data services business. The lone exception is T-Mobile USA, which has yet to launch a 3G network within the United States.
“They have implemented Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi hotspots instead and just didn’t get into the 3G game in the U.S.,” says Stéphane Téral, a principal analyst with Infonetics Research. “They don’t have a 3G spectrum, but are making up for it in another way.”
Over the past year or so, T-Mobile has focused much of its attention and resources on building its customer base and fighting a customer satisfaction battle with bigger players such as Cingular. T-Mobile added 700 new cell sites in Q106, for a total of 33,600 nationwide. It has also put more effort into catering to users of converged devices, such as the RIM BlackBerry and the T-Mobile Sidekick, and now supports more than 1.2 million users of these devices.
Text and multimedia messaging account for a significant portion of T-Mobile’s bread-and-butter revenue, with a total of about 6.9 billion SMS and MMS messages flowing through its network in the first part of 2006, says the company. This strategy may, in fact, give T-Mobile an edge in the battle for subscribers, since it has a more vested interest in converged technology devices that mix cellular with Wi-Fi and even evolving infrastructures such as WiMAX.
“You really have to look at how the cell phone is used,” explains Infonetics’ Téral, noting that some service providers have found that up to 70 percent of cell phone usage occurs within a building or the home. “Why would you need a cellular network if 70 percent of all calls are being done from inside a building?”
In this case, WiMAX and Wi-Fi would be seen as complementary technologies to cellular, especially when users channel more data-intensive applications over these networks and more broadband-capable communications pipelines are needed. “Then you can automatically switch to WiMAX,” says Téral.
The VoIP Push
The cellular carriers have recently taken their street fight indoors and mounted a campaign against Wi-Fi and eventually WiMAX on their home turf, which now includes the inside of office buildings, hospitals, airports and even scattered Wi-Fi hotspots.
The crux of these campaigns is that cellular coverage follows you as you exit the building, without any need for re-authentication or reconnections. However, the rapid spread of municipal Wi-Fi systems and Wi-Fi mesh networks may soon negate that argument, especially as more business and consumer users opt for voice over IP (VoIP) telephones as an alternative to traditional phones and cellular devices.
The number of VoIP subscribers in the United States is expected to nudge the 32.6 million mark by 2010, which means that roughly 40 percent of all broadband households in the country will soon be a part of the VoIP movement, says market researcher eMarketer. This compares with about 5.2 million VoIP subscribers and an expected 9.6 million users by the end of this year.
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is more conservative in its outlook, but nonetheless gung-ho on growth projections for VoIP. Its research shows that VoIP usage in the U.S. will grow at a annual rate of 43.9 percent and will most likely reach 18 million subscribers by 2009. It is important to note, however, that the TIA primarily tracks telephone-based VoIP activity and not PC-to-PC activities, which is why its figures may vary from eMarketer’s forecast.
This surge in VoIP activity and interest may be part of the reason that Verizon earlier this year filed a lawsuit against VoIP service provider Vonage, claiming the company stole its VoIP technology and is using the design of its gateway interfaces between packet-switched and circuit-switched network without proper licensing or authorization. Some analysts claim the suit has no technology teeth, but it does create a legal headache for Vonage as it continues to push the VoIP alternative.
When the dust settles, the winner will be the wireless technologies that can provide the best, fastest and most widespread coverage and do so at the right price, with support for a variety of applications.
Despite the growth of VoIP, the fight for subscribers and business users may ultimately be fought on a data battleground, since many small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) increasingly rely on instant messaging to keep in touch with mobile workers and customers. Approximately 37 percent of the SMBs in North America have deployed or are presently rolling out carrier-based mobile data services. Another 13 percent are evaluating these services, or are in the midst of a pilot, says Forrester Research, compared with 29 percent of these SMBs using or currently deploying data applications based on Wi-Fi.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why wireless carriers are eyeing IP-based communications infrastructures as complementary architectures, or as backhaul alternatives that might replace expensive T1 lines. It is also one of the reasons why WiMAX is generating a strong buzz right now, and major companies continue to pour money into research and new deployments.
Earlier this year, for example, Intel and Motorola spent a combined $900 million to buy into Clearwire, a fixed WiMAX service provider that presently serves 200 cities and towns in the United States, Ireland, Belgium and Denmark. The proprietary service operates on the 2.5GHz licensed spectrum and provides downlink speeds of 1.5 Mbps and uplink rates of up to 256 Kbps.
Intel hopes to use its investment in Clearwire to steer development in mobile WiMAX, which is expected to be a strong competitor to 3G and emerging 4G cellular services. The company will also parlay that investment to create an instant market for its 802.16e-compatible WiMAX chips, codenamed Rosedale 2, which support a standard that can handle both fixed and mobile WiMAX duties.
The Rosedale 2 chips are expected to be commercially available in laptops and other mobile systems as early as next year. Meanwhile, Motorola is one of the first to incorporate 802.16e technology in a series of prototype handsets that will be used in a WiMAX trial in Japan this month.
“Mobile WiMAX is really a direct competitor to mobile cellular, and we will soon be seeing a ‘clash of titans,’” says Greg Caltabiano, president and COO of SOMA Networks, a broadband wireless solutions provider that specializes in WiMAX technologies.
Speeds with 3G technology are much faster than they were a year or two ago, says Caltabiano, whose company admittedly has a more than passing interest in broadband-class WiMAX and wireless VoIP than cellular architectures. But, “to our understanding, there are no mobile operators in the world that are truly offering broadband to the home at the all-you-can-eat price points that are being offered by the fixed WiMAX carriers,” says Caltabiano. “The networks just aren’t optimized, and the mobile frequencies are very expensive and scarce.”
Cellular has a very narrow bandwidth, which the carriers are desperately trying to stretch, adds Ellen Kirk, VP of marketing at Tropos Networks, a provider of mesh networking solutions that
combine multiple communications architectures, including Wi-Fi and WiMAX. While 3G networks play well with faster WiMAX systems, they are really not in the same league, “because data is all about bandwidth and how much you can put through that pipe, and we have an inherently fat pipe,” says Kirk.
Best of Both Worlds
Not everyone agrees that WiMAX is positioned to give 3G cellular a solid beating when it comes to broadband access. While there are more than 150 802.16d fixed WiMAX deployments and trials worldwide today, according to the nonprofit industry group WiMAX Forum, there are little if any 802.16e mobile WiMAX trials in existence. This is a concern, since it is mobile WiMAX that will give 3G cellular the most problems in terms of competition and broadband acceptance, say the experts. On the other hand, there is lots of data capacity now available on the cellular side, and metro-scale Wi-Fi systems are quickly emerging that could fill in any speed gaps that exist.
Cellular, Wi-Fi and mesh networking “are great technologies, but they solve different problems,” says Caltabiano. In the end, all of these architectures may be more complementary than competitive. Fast, affordable, more ubiquitous communications options are bound to result, and it’s both global and local enterprises that will come out on top. //
Tim Scannell is president of Shoreline Research and frequently writes about mobile and wireless topics.


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Sun July 22, 2012
Murray ABC Coordinator Outlines the Lengthy Process of Going “Wet”
This past week voters in Murray and Marshall County voted on alcohol sales in their respective communities. Marshall County residents answered “no,” but voters in Murray said “Yes.” Murray, currently allows liquor by the drink sales in restaurants. Those restaurants must garner 70% of their revenue from non-alcoholic products. Voters chose to expand alcohol sales to include package stores, but now, old ordinances must be reviewed and new one's drafted before licenses can be issued and stores opened. Shelly Baskin spoke with Murray’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Coordinator Harla McClure on Friday, to find out how long residents will have to wait to buy alcohol in the city.
Wet Dry Vote


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Tag:serenade of the seas
Serenade of the Seas which is a Royal Caribbean cruise ship made an unexpected diversion yesterday by calling at Bermuda.
Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas hasn't been having a good time no thanks to a water pipe which has caused delays, power failure and slight damage to the cruise ship.
It's being reported that from 2015 Royal Caribbean will no longer be sailing any ships from New Orleans after the Serenade of the Seas...
Royal Caribbean announced yesterday that the second ship in the Quantum class Anthem of the Seas will be joined by two other ships in...


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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The slow economic recovery should continue over the next few months, the Conference Board said Monday.
The index of leading economic indicators rose 1.4% in March, marking 12 consecutive gains, following an upwardly revised increase of 0.4% in February. Analysts polled by MarketWatch had expected a gain of 1.3% in March.
Going forward, the strength of demand "remains the big question," said Ken Goldstein, economist at the Conference Board.
"Improvement in employment and income will be the key factors in whether consumers push the recovery on a stronger path," Goldstein said.
The interest rate spread and average weekly manufacturing hours made the largest positive contributions in March, while the real money supply and manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods made the largest negative contributions.
The coincident index, which measures the current economy, rose 0.1% in March, matching February's rate. The indicators in the coincident index are the same ones used by the National Bureau of Economic Research to judge whether the economy is in a recession.
All four of the indicators in the coincident index rose in March. The largest positive contribution came from nonfarm payrolls. For March the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy created 162,000 jobs -- the largest seasonally adjusted increase in three years -- boosted by hiring for the Census and a rebound from bad weather. The other three coincident indicators are personal income less transfer payments, industrial production and manufacturing and trade sales.
"Payrolls employment made its first substantial contribution to the coincident economic index, suggesting a recovery that is beginning to gain traction," said Ataman Ozyildirim, an economist at the Conference Board.
In March, seven of the 10 leading indicators were positive: the interest rate spread; average weekly manufacturing hours; index of supplier deliveries; stock prices; building permits; average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance and manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials.
However, some of the positive components "look unsustainable," wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics, in a research note.
"We look for a much smaller increase in the index in April," Shepherdson wrote. "The index, in our view, fails to reflect the ongoing disaster in the small business sector, so it is very likely overstating growth substantially. Taken at face value over recent months it suggests the economy is booming. It isn't, and it isn't about to start, either."
The Conference Board reported that these indicators were negative contributors in March: the real money supply; manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods made the largest negative contributions and the index of consumer expectations.


text: When Google and Universal Music Group announced their VEVO premium music videos site last week, we initially assumed it was a Google thing, and that UMG had signed up to it. Not so.”VEVO will be run by Universal Music, but we are providing the technology and sales capabilities,” Google’s director of video partnerships Patrick Walker tells Music Ally. “Their aspirations are beyond their own content, but they will drive the business terms and relationships.”This is a pretty important aspect of VEVO that may affect its chances of signing up other major and independent labels, who may be concerned about UMG having access to data on the consumers watching their videos. That said, US online TV portal Hulu has proved that this kind of approach can work, although it started as a joint venture between two studios – NBC Universal and News Corporation – rather than one.However, if Google is powering VEVO for UMG, couldn’t it do the same for other major labels if they wanted to go it alone? “We’re always looking to do deals that make good business sense,” says Walker. “If a group comes to us with a smart and sustainable business model, we’ll look at it. We don’t do deals that are exclusive, and we always try to be a neutral provider of technology. So we are definitely open to proposals.”Walker was talking as part of an interview in this week’s Music Ally Report, which was published today. For a free two-week trial of our premium service, which includes access to that and our archives of other reports, click here.


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CHICAGO , Oct. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DC-DC converter market size is projected to grow from USD 4.9 billion in 2022 to USD 6.4 bill
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A truck driver is dead and two others are injured after a semi truck plowed through a restaurant in New York on Monday morning.
The accident happened on June 20th in Poughkeepsie, Ne
Two truckers will be awarded more than $145,000 in back wages and damages after their company disciplined and fired them for refusing to drive while fatigued or sick.
According to a
A regional rigid plastic packaging maker is rebranding from a long-time family name to a new identity company officials said better describes a widening view and an appetite for growth.
A popular trucking mobile app released a list of the nation’s top truck stops for parking availability.
On May 3, 2022, Trucker Path released their Top 20 Parking Availability Rankin


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There's a little bit of good news on the trade front. After months of haggling and finger pointing, the world trade talks that collapsed in disarray last December now appear to have new life. Negotiators are heading back to the bargaining table in Geneva in hopes of bringing a new world order to trade. There's no guarantee of success, but resumption of the talks reflects a new pragmatism among trading partners.
The breakthrough came with the European Community's willingness to accept a U.S.-backed approach for reducing farm subsidies that distort trade. While the EC made no specific concessions in agreeing to negotiate cuts in three areas of farm subsidies--domestic price supports, export subsidies and import barriers--the move is a significant advance over the community's obstinacy last December when talks unraveled over agricultural issues. The U.S. was insisting on certain levels of reductions.
Eliminating subsidies and supports on farm products is a primary goal of the talks. Negotiations began in 1986 among 105 nations with the goal of promoting free trade by cutting tariffs and extending rules to cover agriculture, services, textiles, investments and intellectual properties.
The breakthrough comes just in time for the Bush Administration to seek an extension from Congress by Friday for the so-called fast track negotiating authority, which expires June 1. Meanwhile, the EC is facing a hefty $7-billion increase in the cost of its 1991 farm subsidy programs. They may be even more costly if world commodity prices drop necessitating an increase in subsidies and supports.


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The implications of last week's Supreme Court of Canada copyright decisions seem readily apparent to just about everybody - other than Access Copyright. There have been numerous posts analyzing the decisions, all of which recognize the expansion of fair dealing. Yet in a release posted hours after losing at Canada's highest court, the copyright collective implausibly claimed that the decision "will have a limited impact on the importance of the Access Copyright licence to the education community" and that it "leaves copyright licensing in the education sector alive and well." To support the claim, Executive Director Maureen Cavan argued that the specific case only covered about seven percent of the copying done in K-12 schools.
The strategy of claiming that little has changed may have worked with some institutions after the 2004 CCH copyright decision, but it is very unlikely to do so this time.
It is true that the specific case involved a small percentage of overall K-12 school copying, but the court's fair dealing analysis applies to all copying, not just the copies at issue. In this specific case, the court ruled the Copyright Board's analysis of the fair dealing six factor test was unreasonable, an unmistakable signal to reverse its ruling. More broadly, the decision eviscerates the current Access Copyright business model that is heavily reliant on educational revenues. The decision does not create a free-for-all - schools will continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on books, database licences, and transactional licences - but the need for an additional Access Copyright licence for schools at all levels is now unquestionably in doubt.
Just how badly did Access Copyright fare at the Supreme Court?
As Oracle desperately tries to reanimate its wretched, failed attempt to destroy everything Sun Microsystems stood for and end computer science as we know it, there’s never been a better time to rock one of these “You Wouldn’t Reimplement an API” tees, which were an underground hit during the earlier trial.
This is a pretty amazing vacancy: “You will lead Consumer Reports in our effort to realize a market where consumer safety is protected through strong encryption; consumers’ rights to test, repair, and modify their devices are supported by copyright, security, and consumer protection laws; and consumers are empowered to make informed choices about IoT products […]
These days, the vape market is saturated with low-quality products, making it nearly impossible to separate the gems from the duds. The Atmos Rx Dry Herb Vaporizer stands out from crowd for two reasons: its impressive battery life and durable construction. This high-end little gadget is compact enough to fit in your pocket, and packs a powerful punch, […]
If you’re like us, you occasionally get ambitious with your dinner and try to cook multiple sides plus a main dish. These efforts usually end as a cold meal plus a pile of dishes to wash. MasterPan Multi-Sectional Meal Skillet makes it super easy to make multiple dishes at once without the hassle. This heavy gauge bottom pan […]
The Lytro Illum is our all-time best-selling camera and here’s our best deal yet. Apply the code “Lytro10” to save an extra 10% off on this camera’s mind-blowing functionality in this exclusive one day only sale.


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Rise in demand for lightweight materials and increase in R&D expenditure by developed and developing countries have boosted the growth of the global graphene composites market. however, high cost of graphene-enhanced composites hinders the market growth. On the contrary, surge in graphene producers is expected to open lucrative opportunities for the market players in the future.
As per the report, the global graphene composites industry was pegged at $13.1 million in 2019, and is projected to reach $109.4 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 37.5% from 2020 to 2027.
Request PDF Brochure: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/10029
- The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the automobile and construction industries, which in turn, hindered the demand for graphene composites.
- The pandemic impacted the chemical industry and hampered the supply chain to a greater extent, which affected the raw material procurement.
- As majority of the event cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic, the demand for graphene composites has decreased.
By product type, the polymer-based segment held the largest share in 2019, accounting for nearly half of the global graphene composites market, due to its adoption in numerous applications such as automotive, aerospace, and energy storage & generation. However, the ceramic-based segment is projected to register the highest CAGR of 38.8% during the forecast period, owing to its superior mechanical strength, high conductivity, and thermal resistance.
Get Detailed COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the Graphene Composites Market @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/10029?reqfor=covid
By application, the automotive segment dominated in 2019, contributing to nearly one-third of the global graphene composites market, due to high demand for lightweight vehicles, which consequently, surges the demand for graphene composites. However, the aerospace & defense segment is anticipated to register the highest CAGR of 38.3% during the forecast period, owing to increased contribution of developing regions such as APAC and LAMEA in the aerospace and defense sector.
By region, the global graphene composites market across Asia-Pacific, followed by North America, held the largest share in 2019, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the market. The region is expected to showcase the highest CAGR of 38.1% during the forecast period, owing to rise in consumer bases such as automotive, aerospace, and construction industry.
Major Market Players
- Ad-Nano Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Ad-Nano Technologies)
- G6 Materials Corp (G6 materials)
- Haydale Graphene Industries plc. (Haydale Graphene)
- Graphene Composites (GC)
- Graphene One LLC.
- Graphenano Group (Graphenano)
- XG Sciences
- NanoXplore Inc.
- Graphmatech AB (Graphmatech)


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A plethora of recent research has predicted continued and rapid growth for next-generation mobile networks across multiple industry areas, and now a study from Juniper Research is forecasting a corresponding boom in 5G‑compatible devices which will gain a majority share of smartphone sales revenue by 2025.
This means 5G smartphone revenue could reach $337bn by 2025, said the 5G Smartphones: Trends, regional analysis and market forecasts 2021-2026 report, up from $108bn in 2021.
The study predicted that successful handset suppliers would be those whose products include radios that are able to process large bandwidths and ultra-low latency to ensure that handset users are able to use cloud computing services efficiently, while remaining price competitive.
Drilling deeper, Juniper anticipated that increasing the availability of lower-tier 5G smartphones was a key driving force that has been and will be crucial to propagate 5G handset adoption in emerging markets. To that end, it said that by 2025, global Android smartphone prices would be 65% lower than global iOS smartphone prices.
It predicted that this lower average cost would lead to Android dominating 5G handset markets in regions such as Latin America, but by contrast, the enduring popularity of iOS devices in developed markets would make 40% of global 5G smartphone revenue attributable to North America and Europe by 2025.
Going forward, Juniper urged mobile handset makers to ensure hardware maximised the benefits of future mobile cloud computing solutions. It emphasised how mobile cloud computing enables service providers to offload intensive tasks to the cloud, freeing on-device resources for essential handset processes.
It also cautioned that long-term 5G smartphone shipment revenue would be limited by impending “right-to-repair” legislation in North America and Europe, as more handset users choose to repair older models rather than upgrade to newer generation devices.
Commenting on the findings of the study, Juniper report author Adam Wears said: “The effect of these [market forces] will not be felt initially, as consumers adopt 5G smartphones to leverage the high speeds and reduced latency of 5G networks. Hardware vendors must use this opportunity to build out new device capabilities to encourage consumers to continue regularly upgrading and avoid churn to competitors.”
The Juniper study is the latest in a line of predictions showing the impact 5G is already having on smartphone users worldwide. A study from Ericsson in May 2021 highlighted changing smartphone usage behaviour. One of these – and a detail that has been reported by other sources showing how remote workers have increasingly depended on their phones for connectivity – is that as many as one-fifth of 5G users are already reducing Wi-Fi use on their phones indoors because of the benefits of 5G mobile connectivity.
Read more about 5G smartphones
- Apple has injected much-needed life into the smartphone market with its 5G iPhone 12 line and Gartner says it was the top phone manufacturer in the fourth quarter of 2020.
- After a down 2020, global smartphone sales will bounce back this year, with Gartner expecting 11% growth and cheaper 5G phones giving shoppers an incentive to buy.
- Arrival of 5G-enabled iPhones, particularly in Europe and North America, along with momentum in China, to push worldwide 5G connections to 3.6 billion by 2025.


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Does the future of automobiles involve those vehicles doing the bulk of their driving themselves? That depends on who you ask. Lucid Motors’ CEO recently suggested that the technology was still a few years away, while Tesla has continued to press forward on its Full Self-Driving feature. The latest development here? According to a recent article at Engadget, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to all Tesla owners in North America — provided they have $15,000 to spend on the feature.
As Teslascope reported, Tesla recently dropped two requirements to upgrade to the latest version. Previously, drivers would need to have a safety rating of 80 or above and to have logged 100 miles on autopilot before being able to do so.
Tesla’s Elon Musk took to — not surprisingly — Twitter to announce the upgraded and widely-available feature. “Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option,” Musk wrote. “Congrats to Tesla Autopilot/AI team on achieving a major milestone!”
And if you’re still skeptical of Full Self-Driving Beta — well, there are understandable reasons for that as well. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has investigated the program in connection with a crash, and expanded that investigation to include more incidents earlier this year.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.


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The deal, which was announced last November, will see Treehouse take on 9,500 ConAgra employees and “the vast majority of ConAgra private label operations”, including 32 manufacturing facilities in the US, Canada and Italy.
Following the acquisition, Treehouse Foods will have revenues of $7bn and employ around 16,000 staff across more than 50 manufacturing facilities.
At the time of the initial announcement, Treehouse said the acquisition would establish it as “an industry leader in customer brands and custom products with significant scale, scope and skill and enables us to extend our reach in the grocery store by over 10 shelf stable and refrigerated food categories.”
Driving shareholder value
"We are pleased to have closed the acquisition, and will continue to focus on driving shareholder value and offering our customers value without compromise through economies of scale, quality products and superior customer service," said Treehouse chairman, president and chief executive officer Sam K Reed.
Under the deal, ConAgra sold the vast majority of its private label business – including cereals and snacks operations – just three years after it acquired them from Ralcorp Holdings for $4.95bn.
Some private-label operations described as having a strong connection to ConAgra Foods’ existing Consumer Foods business were not part of the sale, including canned pasta, cooking spray, peanut butter, pudding/gels and Gelit frozen pasta.
Retained: HK Anderson and Kangaroo
ConAgra has also retained the brand equities, trademarks and business portfolios of the baked snacks brands HK Anderson and Kangaroo.
The company said the $2.7bn sales proceeds would be used primarily as debt reduction, adding it expected the transaction to result in a tax asset of $1.6bn that can be used to offset potential future capital gains over the next five years.
“The sale of the private-label business to Treehouse Foods is another important step for ConAgra Foods as we continue to transform the company to drive sustainable growth, more consistent performance and deliver enhanced shareholder value,” said ConAgra president and chief executive officer Sean Connolly.
ConAgra last year announced it was shedding 1,500 jobs and splitting into two separate companies - one to manage its brands and the other its frozen potato products business.
Treehouse has financed the deal through $775m in aggregate principal senior notes due 2024 with a 6% annual interest rate, and common stock issuance of 13.3 million shares at $65 per share. The remainder of the purchase price was financed under the company's revolving credit facility.
The ConAgra private-label businesses will operate as Treehouse Private Brands which, together with Bay Valley Foods, will be the operating platforms of Treehouse Foods.


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Steve Madden, a well-known manufacturer of fashionable shoes and accessories for men, women and children, announced the acquisition of the fashion brand Blondo, specializing in waterproof leather shoes.
Founded over 100 years ago, the Blondo brand sells products in bulk, including to many American and Canadian shopping centers and boutiques, as well as online through its own online store.
Edward Rosenfeld, Chairman and CEO of the Steve Madden Group, commented on the situation as follows: “We are delighted to complete the purchase of Blondo, a brand that combines fashion and function. Blondo's authentic waterproof leather shoes complement Steve Madden's portfolio perfectly. It seems to us that the use of our proven business model and built infrastructure will enable the global expansion of Blondo's business. "


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Considering the news that flowed from the Hewlett-Packard Summit 2011 and the HP APC conference in March, it’s not surprising that HP ruled the SearchITChannel.com top stories in March. Some VARs liked what they heard from HP CEO Leo Apotheker (fewer budget cuts), but many weren’t sure what to make of his software-and-cloud strategy. One big theme from APC was whether HP’s new TouchPad with WebOS could compete with Apple’s iPad for business users. Also in the mix was the billionaire and former VAR Mark Cuban’s message to VARs that home integration is an untapped market. Take a look at the top five SearchITChannel.com stories from March.
1. HP VARs wary of Apotheker's vision
Most HP VARs were intrigued by but unsure about Hewlett-Packard’s cloud computing and software strategy as outlined by CEO Leo Apotheker at the HP Summit. They wanted to hear more at HP’s Americas Partner Conference, and some wondered whether Apotheker’s cloud strategy would include partners beyond large service providers. And, many wondered if Apotheker was the right man to lead HP going forward.
2. Mark Cuban to VARs: Go home
When Mark Cuban, former VAR and current billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, says a product or service is hot, smart VARs pay attention. Cuban said that there is a white-hot market for home VARs who specialize in traditional PC network integration and home entertainment. HP SMB home VARs (or “Larrys,” as HP channel chief Stephen DiFranco likes to call them) already make money setting up customers’ wireless networks for computing and audio-video systems.
3. HP TouchPad seeks to exploit iPad Achilles’ heel
HP will use its much-hyped and yet-to-ship TouchPad/WebOS combination to take aim at the iPad’s lofty perch among business users. Attendees of the HP APC conference were intrigued by the idea that WebOS is more open than the Apple iOS and more locked down than Android, but HP needs to back up its promise that the products will be available come summer.
4. Cloud, software push puts HP at odds with Microsoft
The main questions HP VARs asked themselves after Leo Apotheker presented his vision of Hewlett-Packard as a software and cloud computing company were: Will the company compete with Microsoft in the cloud and will HP-Microsoft partners get caught in the crossfire? And, perhaps most important, how will VARs fit into the overall cloud equation? VARs told SearchITChannel.com that HP offers some quality software but hasn’t sold it very well. This made VARs ponder how HP’s cloud offering would be different from Microsoft’s and why it would potentially ram heads with the software giant.
5. Hewlett-Packard SMB Central courts smaller VARs with new portal, MDF
The new HP SMB Central portal is supposed to give SMB VARs new perks, such as $1,500 in market development funds per quarter to make it easier for them to gain access to notebooks, desktops, printers and servers and other products that especially suit SMB accounts.
Check out the most-read SearchITChannel.com stories for February 2011.


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E-commerce giant, Amazon India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government’s industries and mines department to push e-commerce trade, import, and export for MSMEs from the state.
Gujarat government will also share the technical specifications of digital marketing with MSMEs who can then market their products better in the international market and boost sales.
“We will train and onboard Gujarat-based MSMEs on Amazon Global Selling platform to sell goods to Amazon customers across 200+ countries and territories,” Amazon said in a statement.
The program includes training and webinars to onboard the exporters from MSMEs based in Gujarat. Through the program, the exporters will have the excess to customers presence on Amazon across 17 foreign marketplaces.
The training and workshops are intended to assist MSMEs with the information and tools they need to onboard their brands and expand their organizations universally utilizing Amazon Global Selling.
“Gujarat has vibrant gems and jewelry, apparel and textiles and handicraft sector which is held together by lakhs of MSMEs. One of our key priorities has been to boost exports from Gujarat and through this partnership with Amazon, we aim to empower lakhs of MSMEs in Gujarat to embrace e-commerce exports,” Vijay Rupani, Chief Minister, Gujarat said in a statement.
Amazon had earlier signed similar pacts with Karnataka, Punjab, others to help local MSMEs export their products through the Global Selling platform.
“The Amazon Global Selling program has already enabled more than 70,000 Indian exporters to cross $3 billion in cumulative exports, showcasing millions of Made in India products to customers across the world. The program is witnessing tremendous momentum with increasing interest from exporters across India,” said Abhijit Kamra, Director, Global Trade, Amazon India.
In April this year, Amazon had said that it had in total digitized 2.5 million MSMEs in India since its India foray in 2013. The total online business exports by more than 70,000 MSMEs by means of Amazon Global Selling worth more than $3 billion had helped create close to 1 million direct and indirect job opportunities in India.
In January 2020, Amazon had focused on carefully empowering 10 million MSMEs in India alongside empowering MSME exports worth $10 billion and creating 1 million new job opportunities by 2025.


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Down 25% in Tuesday trading — and down another 25% today — power systems supplier DPW Holdings (DPW) stock is in freefall, and it has only itself to blame.
One week ago, DPW published a press release advising investors that in consequence of its stock trading for too long at too low a share price (i.e. about 14 cents), the NYSE American exchange had informed the company that it must either conduct a reverse stock split or be delisted from the exchange.
Faced with this choice, DPW chose Door No. 1, and on August 6 executed a 1-for-40 reverse split (i.e. if you owned 40 shares of DPW before the split, then now you own only 1). Immediately following this split, the company further shook investor confidence by announcing an “at the market” offering of common stock, designed to raise as much as $5.5 million in new capital through issuance and sale of common stock “from time to time” — at whatever price investors might be willing to pay for the stock at such time.
But wait. It gets worse.
On August 6, DPW also filed an 8-K report with the SEC, advising that when it reports its quarterly financial results a week from now, it expects to report only $12.7 million in revenues booked over the first six months of 2019, an increase of just $0.1 million, or less than 1%, from last year’s first half.
Granted, DPW also advised that it expects its net loss to shrink. But given that the company just got finished reporting a 30% increase in sales from Q1 2018 to Q1 2019, the fact that sales for Q1 and Q2 combined will show almost no growth implies that a rather steep decline in Q2 sales is likely. In fact, by my calculations, for DPW to report only $12.7 million in sales for its fiscal first half, after reporting $6.9 million in sales in Q1 alone, Q2 sales will have to fall to just $5.8 million this year — a decline of roughly 22% year over year.
Chances are, it’s this rapid drying-up of sales in Q2 that investors are focusing on today (and yesterday). And viewed in this context, the fact that DPW will lose a bit less money, by making a doing a lot less business, is not being interpreted as particularly “good news.”
So what’s an investor to do in the face of all this? Buy more, or sell?
Let me run a few facts by you and see if you can guess the answer:
DPW is not profitable today, and hasn’t earned a full-year profit since way back in 2011. In the interim, it’s managed to rack up losses of about $46.5 million.
DPW has no profits and no free cash flow. Its revenues are falling, and it’s carrying more than $19 million in debt, with less than $2 million in cash on hand to pay it with. The dilutive stock offering it just announced will raise only enough cash to pay off a fraction of its debt.
So … does that sound like a “buy” argument to you? (Hint: It isn’t).
To find the better stocks try TipRanks’ Analysts’ Top Stocks tool. It will help you identify the stocks that have received the most bullish recent ratings from the Street’s top analysts. These are the analysts that consistently outperform the market with the highest success rate and average return.


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Microsoft Boost Xbox Features With Xbox SmartGlass
Microsoft has widened the functionality of its Xbox platform with the introduction of Xbox SmartGlass. The new platform and update will allow the Xbox 360 to connect to your PCs, Phones and Tablets and show content. According to Microsoft SmartGlass will make “entertainment more engaging, web surfing more effortless and playing games more immersive”, by delivering companion content and control to enhance a TV experience.
With SmartGlass your phone and tablet us updated with what you are watching on TV and present bonus features, something like BD Live but for mobile devices. You can also easily present a play list drawn up on a tablet on your TV or control your websites on the TV with a swipe, pinch or zoom a tablet’s touchscreen.
“With Xbox SmartGlass, we are lighting up entertainment across your phone, tablet, PC and TV in a completely new way”, said Don Mattrick, President of IEB at Microsoft. “If you love to play games, watch TV and movies, surf the web or listen to music, there has never been a better time to be on Xbox”.
Xbox will get its own Internet Explorer this quarter in all countries with Xbox and Xbox Live, said Microsoft. There is a host of sport channels coming to the Xbox platform for users in the US and Worldwide.


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Cutback: J.C. Penney Co. Inc. said it is restructuring its data-processing operation, eliminating 300 jobs. The Dallas-based retailer said the consolidation of its four major data centers into a single center will save the company $11 million, or 10 cents a share, a year, starting in the fiscal year ending in January 1995. It said 140 jobs will be created at a new Dallas computer center. The four centers to be closed are in Columbus, Ohio;
Reno; Dallas; and Lenexa, Kan.


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NTDA Allied Member Karmak Inc., a provider of dealer management solutions for the heavy-duty industry, partnered with Utility Trailer Sales of Arizona, a multi-location Utility dealership headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, on a summit hosted exclusively for Fusion clients. Attendees from across North America toured Utility of Arizona’s facility to see how Fusion is being utilized in their dealership, and took part in a deep dive into Fusion’s features with Karmak experts around industry trends and best practices.
“We are pleased to have partnered with Karmak on our recent summit,” says George Cravens, President of Utility Trailer Sales of Arizona. “This event was attended by Utility dealers also running Fusion. It’s a great opportunity to talk through how our demographic can better leverage the tools available to us.”
“Spending face-to-face time with our clients allows us to better understand their challenges and needs so we can ensure that Karmak is on the right track,” said Reid Heiser, Director of Accounts for Karmak. “A huge thank you to Utility Trailer Sales of Arizona for opening their amazing facility to host the event, and to our other Utility customers who joined us.”
Serving more than 2,200 locations across North America, Karmak is a leading provider of business management solutions in the heavy-duty industry. Karmak’s flagship Windows-based product, Fusion, is designed specifically for the heavy-duty industry. To learn more, visit www.karmak.com.


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BAGUIO CITY The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, requested the Cordillera office of the Land Transportation Office (LTO-CAR) to grant a 30-day moratorium on the apprehension of drivers of food deliveries for them to upgrade their non-professional licenses to professional licenses.
City legislators reached the decision after LTO-CAR legal officer Jessie Balagot informed them that based on provisions of Republic Act (RA) 4136 or the Land Transportation Code of the Philippines, motorcycle drivers used to ferry goods and people should possess a professional drivers license.
Earlier, the council invited representatives from the motorcycle food deliveries, City Permits and Licensing Office, LTO-CAR, Land Transportation Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) concerning issues on food deliveries.
Representatives from Grab Food, Food Ninja and Food Panda admitted that most of their motorcycle riders hold non-professional drivers licenses while working with the food delivery companies serving the needs of the residents during these community quarantine periods.
In line with the request, the food delivery companies committed to comply with the prevailing regulations providing for the upgrading of the non-professional licenses of their motorcycle riders to professional licenses but the LTO-CAR should give them sufficient time to comply with the established rules.
The council recognized the quality services provided by the food delivery companies to the residents during these quarantine times but reminded the company officials to LTO rules and regulations governing their operations, especially in ensuring their drivers possess professional drivers licenses before being allowed to delivery food to customers.
Balagot said he will bring the matter to the attention of the LTO-CAR regional director for appropriate action.
Food delivery companies disclosed a number of their riders were apprehended by elements of the LTO Flying Squad for possessing non-professional drivers licenses and were meted a fine of P3,000 each, but the one-year suspension of their licenses had been appealed for reconsideration by the LTO-CAR regional director whose decision on the matter is being awaited.
Grab Food, Food Ninja and Food Panda representatives stated that they were not aware of such LTO requirement as most of their riders allegedly work on part-time basis but committed to comply with the same once there will be a moratorium allowing their drivers to apply for the upgrading of their licenses and take the computerized examination for such purpose.
Food Panda has some 200 riders while Food Ninja and Grab Food have 50 riders each that cater to the food delivery requirements of residents who want to stay home during the community quarantine period.
By Dexter A. See
Photo by Joseph B. Manzano


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SmarTire Full-Year Revenue up 136 per cent
SmarTire reported record revenue in 2006 of $3.5 million, compared to $1.46 million in 2005. Net loss for the year totalled $29.4 million, compared with $16.1 million a year ago. Losses for the year increased significantly primarily due to non-cash interest charges of $23.2 million in 2006, compared to $3.6 million in 2005.
SmarTire president and CEO Dave Warkentin said: “We made progress this year on several fronts. Our partnership with Dana Corporation has propelled our company to a promising new level. Since signing our marketing and distribution agreement last October, Dana has represented SmarTire at numerous conferences and helped us expand our sales and distribution channels. New customers include companies such as Prevost, Camping World, Medtec, Pierce, Van Hool, Fleetwood, ABC and others. This played an important role in the 136 per cent increase in revenue. The result is a strengthened business model that makes us optimistic about the years ahead.
“Our current plan for fiscal year 2007 is to continue to expand sales into the commercial vehicle market and achieve another year of revenue growth. As the new president and CEO, I believe the company has a bright future. We have an outstanding management team that is dedicated to building a successful business for our shareholders. Our technologies, such as the SmartWave product offerings, have been validated by a number of vehicle companies that rely on SmarTire to satisfy safety concerns and the increasing demands for wireless remote vehicle diagnostics and fleet management. I look forward to reporting future progress.”


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BlackBerry has stated its "Guardian" program will be extended to cover even those apps that have been downloaded from external app sources such as the Amazon app store. This, the company claimed, will provide for an extra layer of security for users by minimising risks of their BlackBerry 10 devices getting infected with malware.
The BlackBerry Guardian program that incorporates Trend Micro's Mobile App Reputation Service, as mentioned in the company Business Blog, would be available free for users of the BlackBerry Classic along with other future BB 10 devices including the Passport. The company further revealed that exiting BB 10 users will be brought under the ambit of BB Guardian program via an update to their exiting BB 10 OS.
The development couldn't have come at a better time. There has been a recent discovery of a critical vulnerability that the mojority of Android devices are believed to be susceptible to. Much of it has to do with the unique identification of each app and the way it can be used to impersonate trusted application by hackers to carry out malicious acts.
As per Jeff Forristal, the chief technology officer at Bluebox Security that hit upon the key shortcoming in Android, anyone can come up with a security certificate imitating to have been certified by any of the hard coded certificates authorised by Android. This will grant the app with the malicious certificate the same rights and privileges as the authorised application.
Termed "Fake ID," such a security lapse can, in turn, allow the attackers full access to another app and the data it stores. In the worst case scenario, the entire device might have to face the brunt of the attack, warns Forristal, as reported in PC World.
Meanwhile, in a related development, BlackBerry has stated it has acquired Secusmart, a company that excels in providing voice and data security solutions. The German firm has been partners with BlackBerry in the pursuit of providing end-to-end security solutions to companies and governments but will now be under its direct control, mentions The Guardian.
Voice encryption has shot to the limelight in view of the mass international snooping as revealed by Edward Snowden, raising security and privacy issues on a worldwide scale.


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Google has a larger reason to be fearful of Facebook. Like Apple, the social network envisions a world where its users stay on Planet Facebook or Planet Apple, where they are indulged with a variety of services or apps that keep them from leaving these walled planets. Google’s vision revolves around an interplanetary universe that is the entire Internet. “Facebook and Apple have a more closed world mentality,” Sergei Brin told me in an interview this week.
Of course, Brin insisted that Google was not becoming defensive. “Always we’ve grown up with competition and difficult risks,” he said.
Translation: Google is scared of Facebook!
Government is another reason for Google’s defensiveness, for everywhere the company turns—the European Union, China, the Muslim world, the U.S.—governments challenge Google over its size, its privacy or copyright policies, its fundamental belief that information should be free and available to all.
The stock market, like the press, focusses on these negatives, which is a reason Google’s stock price has been flat and the company has been portrayed as a Microsoft-like tired giant. Analysts note how Google’s search and revenue growth has slowed, often ignoring the fact that Google is no longer the “one-trick pony” famously disparaged by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. For years its YouTube has dominated, with about forty per cent of all Internet video viewing. But it was losing money. This year, for the first time, YouTube is making money. By introducing more professionally produced content, including pay-per-view movies, YouTube is now providing a predictable place for advertisers to lodge its friendly products. With more ad revenues, YouTube is poised to accompany search as a second trick. And there is a third Google trick: Android. Already this operating system for mobile smart phones is outselling the iPhone, and enjoys a twenty-five per cent world market share. All Google has to do is take a slice of the advertising revenues that will one day flow to the fastest-growing consumer device on the planet. Goodbye one-trick pony.
This past year, Netflix and its founder, Reed Hastings, replaced Google as the great disruptor. Rather than be frozen with DVDs, as Blockbuster was, Hastings has transformed Netflix from a snail-mail DVD-delivery company to an Internet movie-streaming company. Now he entices movie studios with big bucks for the right to download the programs they make for television networks, which angers the TV networks that thought they had purchased the exclusive rights to two showings of these programs. It angers local TV stations, who cry that it will kill their ability to make money on reruns. And Netflix offers huge sums to movie studios whose DVD business shrivels and who view Netflix as another distribution platform, which enrages cable networks like HBO or TNT which have laid out large sums for these same movies. In the coming year, YouTube and Google TV—like Apple’s iTunes and Amazon—aim to chase Netflix, giving Hastings a reason to be defensive.
Comcast is one of those cable companies concerned about Netflix. Sometimes overlooked, however, is an internal conflict that will surface soon after they acquire NBC. In a relatively rare instance of the networks behaving proactively rather than defensively, NBC, Fox, and ABC joined to create Hulu, an online site where viewers could download network shows for free with ads. Cable companies like Comcast pay for those same shows to air on cable platforms. Why would they want them to compete for free? Or even for the small “premium plus” payment Hulu is now offering for earlier airings of hit shows? They won’t.
Many of us in the media cheered when Newsweek was rescued from certain death. The wealthy businessman Sidney Harman paid a small sum and announced that he expected the magazine to once again make money. He undertook a prolonged search for an editor and finally reached agreement with Barry Diller as co-owner and the talented Tina Brown as the editor of both Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Diller, like Harman, said he that together the two money-losing ventures would be profitable.
Translation: We didn’t do it to make money. We did it because owning a news organization confers other benefits.
I was wrong this past year to believe a dedicated reading device like Amazon’s Kindle would lose ground to multimedia tablets like the iPad. By slashing the price of his Kindle, Jeff Bezos keeps selling them. But the so-called “Jesus tablet” introduced by Apple did bolster publishers in their battle with Amazon. Since the iPad was introduced, followed by other tablets such as Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Amazon’s share of e-book sales has dropped from eighty to sixty per cent. And now Google’s eBookstore enters the fray, granting publishers more leverage. For now. Today publishers largely control the price of their e-books. But the digital trend is always for prices to drop. As they do, publishers confront another headache: authors and their agents alarmed that publishers have gained control of the price of e-books but are providing authors with a reduced royalty.
Magazine publishers were wrong to believe Apple’s iPad would be a “Jesus tablet.” In the traditional magazine realm, publishers have a direct connection with their subscribers. They usually have your credit-card number and know your name and a fair amount about you. In their parlance, they “own the customer.” In Steve Jobs’s world, he owns the customer. A reason there are so few magazine apps on the iPad is that Jobs refuses to share customer information or cede control.
Finally, one communications book that received a lot of deserved notice this past year was Tim Wu’s “The Master Switch,” which traces the perilous rise and sometimes fall of information giants. A media book that passed largely unnoticed was Paul David Pope’s “The Deeds of My Fathers.” Unlike Gay Talese in his extraordinary “Honor Thy Father,” the son of Generoso Pope is not always reverential to his father, who built a National Enquirer tabloid empire that spawned media children that today feed on the crumbs left by the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. He reveals, for example, how his father’s cement and then media business was lubricated by the mobster “Uncle Frank” Costello. The book is unusually honest, which was not a theme in ample supply this past year.
Read more from The New Yorker’s 2010: The Year in Review.
Photograph by Paul Sakuma/AP.


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LG Marquee (Sprint Optimus Black): First Press Shots
It looks like Sprint’s version of the LG Optimus Black — dubbed the LG Marquee, we recently learned — will bring a little less black than the global version, adopting a gray pinstripe for the back battery cover. Other than that slight change, however, Sprint’s LS855 looks very much like the P970 which has been selling internationally for some months now.
Although Marquee promises to deliver one of the brightest screens on the market, the rest of its specs are pretty mid-range: 1GHz, single-core OMAP 3630, WVGA resolution, 512MB RAM, and a five-megapixel camera. Last we heard, Marquee was scheduled to ship on October 2nd, and should also find a spot in the lineups of US Cellular, Alltel, and Virgin.


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UPDATE (11/25): According to @NintenDaan on Twitter, all of the Nintendo items in Happy Home Designer originally spotted in the video below will be available to players in Japan on December 1st.
Japan can get all of these items starting December 1! 😮 pic.twitter.com/MlzYMfoGeI
— Daan Koopman (@NintenDaan) November 24, 2015
There’s no word yet on when the items will reach Animal Crossing players in the West. We’ll make sure to share any news with you regarding the items as soon as we get wind of it!
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer allows players to upload their custom house designs online, and just recently, a very interesting house was spotted in a YouTube video (discovered by Nintendo Actu that has since been removed by Nintendo). The video clearly displayed video game themed items not yet made available to the public. Vivid images of consoles like the 3DS and the Wii U, along with shelves of amiibo and video games, were among the Nintendo products spotted in the house creation.
The items displayed in the screenshots are currently unaccessible in the game and are not present in the Happy Home Designer book/guide that has been released. It’s likely that the items are located on game cartridges but are not yet accessible until Nintendo allows them to be unlocked in a possible future DLC pack. The same has gone for previously released DLC for other games, such as Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros.
Needless to say, these video game items raise the hype even more for the most recent popular Animal Crossing release. We’re looking forward to learning more about how and when they’ll finally be accessible!Leave a Comment


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To recoup money lost by members of the now-shuttered Lehigh Valley Racquet and 24-7 Fitness Clubs, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office is petitioning a judge to keep frozen several of the company's bank accounts.
In the petition filed Monday, the state lays out its plan to intervene in the lawsuit between the Bank of Camden and the incorporated businesses that operated the 24-7 Fitness Clubs in Bethlehem, South Whitehall and Upper Macungie townships.
The fitness clubs closed abruptly the evening of April 8 without explanation from owners. Members who arrived the next day found a printed piece of paper saying the club was no longer in operation.
John F. Brinson, who established the clubs in the late 1970s, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2012, citing millions of dollars in debt. It was unclear who owned the company when it unceremoniously closed its doors in mid-April.
The state has received about 90 complaints from members of the fitness club, according to the court filing. Members reported financial losses ranging from $24 to $900 per individual, court papers say. The state believes some of the money held in Wells Fargo bank accounts used by the Lehigh Valley Racquet and 24-7 Fitness Club owners includes these payments by consumers and should be returned.
Attorney General's Office spokeswoman Carolyn Myers said the state can't say for certain they'll be able get money back into members' hands.
"We can't make that promise," Myers said. "But we're going to try to do what we can."
State law requires a health club to maintain an irrevocable letter of credit for $50,000 for each club location to provide refunds in the event of bankruptcy or other disruption of service, court records say. The petition notes that if the Lehigh Valley Racquet and 24-7 Fitness Clubs did not have that letter of credit stowed away, the club was were in violation of state consumer protection laws and could face penalties. The state says they've yet to determine whether the club held such lines of credit.
A hearing is slated for June 25 in Lehigh County Court.


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BRET MICHAELS Challenges The Public To A Fitness ContestMarch 10, 2012 / 863 reads / No comments yet
Bret Michaels announced yesterday that he will issue a fitness challenge to the public that will "Rock The World." Michaels joins the champions of health on GoodChime! to foster greater awareness to the importance of healthy living and physical activity for young adults. "I'm excited to be part of the GoodChime! Champions of Health, and working with Sreedhar and his team to use social media for social good," said Bret.
"We are honored to be working with Bret Michaels, a role model in his battle against type 1 Diabetes, and we are very excited to be able to reach a worldwide audience through Bret," said Dr. Potarazu, founder of GoodChime!
GoodChime! is a revolutionary new social media platform where people engage in meaningful dialogue within a safe community, and participate in activities relevant to their health needs. Leveraging the power of celebrity brand, GoodChime! engages consumers as active participants in better managing their health.
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BRET MICHAELS B*M*B Green Bay, WI (March 29) Video Footage Available
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BRET MICHAELS "I Could Have Died"
April 17, 2010 / 1228 reads
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XinFin Network, a cryptocurrency-focused platform that provides services to financial institutions and other groups, has revealed a new advisor, Andre Casterman. Casterman was once head of Corporate and Trade at exSWIFT, according to a press release from the group.
Speaking on the matter is Atul Khekade, the Co-Founder of XinFin, who said:
“There is a growing acceptance in the role that digital assets will play in the future digital economy. The most significant move is actually coming from the regulators themselves as some want to stay ahead of the curve and have therefore adapted their regulatory frameworks to support wider adoption of digital assets.”
He also notes that the guidance of Casterman should ensure XinFin’s swift expansion into the “alternative finance industry.” Essentially, the platform will support its customers by providing smart contracts and Internet of Things integration, acting as a decentralized space to make payments and other services.
Casterman spoke on the matter himself as well, stating:
“SME financing remains a huge opportunity for alternative lenders, incumbents. The availability of advanced technology with progressive regulatory action offers new business opportunities for SMEfocused lenders. The XinFin digital asset infrastructure is designed to be regulated under communitydriven governance models and through regulated institutions.”


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The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Advertising and Processing Cooperative Ltd (Campco) is witnessing a regular advancement in producing of cocoa centered items on rising demand from bulk consumers these kinds of as Amul.
Production at the multi-condition co-operative’s chocolate manufacturing unit in Puttur, Dakshina Kannada district has viewed an increase of around twenty.04 per cent in the past four many years. Also, the creation less than Campco’s have manufacturer also elevated by 35.96 per cent throughout the period of time. The creation at the chocolate manufacturing unit — which was at thirteen,328.15 tonnes throughout 2016-seventeen — elevated to 15,956.06 tonnes in 2019-twenty.
Important advancement motorists
On the variables fuelling the advancement of chocolate manufacturing unit, SR Satishchandra, President of Campco, informed BusinessLine that the semi-completed products these kinds of as cocoa mass and cocoa butter have obtained superior demand from the industrial buyers. The cooperative marketed seven,853.37 tonnes of semi-completed/industrial items throughout 2019-twenty valued at ₹152.twenty crore.
Campco procured around 6,975.95 tonnes of moist and dry cocoa beans throughout 2019-twenty. He said that the cooperative is buying cocoa from equally the domestic and intercontinental market. The share of the cocoa relies upon centered on the intercontinental marketplaces, he said.
Of the full creation at the manufacturing unit, Campco’s have brands’ share elevated to 11,652.91 tonnes throughout 2019-twenty as from eight,570.eighty two tonnes in 2016-seventeen.
ALSO Examine Campco to market areca, pepper on e-commerce system quickly
As portion of its system to grow market for items less than its have manufacturer, Campco a short while ago introduced two new eclair items.
HM Krishna Kumar, Managing Director (in-charge), said the cooperative introduced two eclair items – ‘Elaichi Eclair’ and ‘Creamy Eclair’ – on December eight.
Stating that ‘elaichi’ is a frequently favored flavour among all the age teams, he said it has obtained all-natural cardamom powder ingredients. Another just one is an eclair with milk and honey flavour. The cooperative will be developing around one hundred tonnes per month of each and every of these items. It has a target of around 200 tonnes for these two items. At existing, Campco has milk and caramel flavoured eclairs, he said. On the selling price, he said that these two new items will be priced at ₹1 per eclair.
He said the co-operative has been upgrading the ability of the manufacturing unit at Puttur. It has purchased a cocoa powder pulverising plant of 400-five hundred kg/hour ability from Italy costing around ₹4.fifty five crore.
The cooperative is preparing to introduce some extra new items quickly, he said.
ALSO Examine Campco main seeks FPO design for upgradation of PACS
This aside, Campco has introduced its cocoa-centered items on an e-commerce system. Kumar said that the cocoa-centered ingesting chocolate manufacturer – ‘Winner’ – has a superior demand on the e-commerce system. ‘Campco Winner’ experienced nearly 60 per cent share in the full cocoa-centered items of the Campco offered on the e-commerce system, he said.
Satishchandra said that Campco has an distinctive chocolate kiosks at Puttur. It is also preparing to open up these kinds of distinctive chocolate kiosks at vacationer areas, he said.
The price of the chocolate-centered items exported has also elevated significantly. The cooperative exported chocolate-centered items truly worth ₹22.eighty one crore throughout 2019-twenty as from ₹16.seventy five crore in 2018-19. It has exported chocolate-centered items truly worth ₹13.23 crore in 2016-seventeen.
Satishchandra said that the cooperative, which attained a full turnover of ₹1,848 crore from all the segments, is targeting a turnover of ₹2,000 crore for the recent money calendar year. Campco would like to increase the volume of invest in of arecanut and rubber throughout the calendar year. He hoped that the target can be attained as the valuation of these commodities are superior now.


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Good Smile Company kicked off SmileFest 2022, where they unveiled a number of exciting and new anime figures for future release!
Here are all of the Gundam model kits that have been confirmed for 2022 release so far!
A new CCS Toys Lazengann Gurren Lagann figure was announced and it comes with a throne!
A look at and review of all of Kotobukiya’s Fire Force figures that have released so far!
Taito announced a new Mai Sakurajima figure from Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai!
Kotobukiya revealed two new Genshin Impact figures of Lumine and Aether!
A new set of Radio EVA figures of Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Kaworu, and Mari were announced by HOBBY MAX!
I’ve been collecting anime statues for years. Here are the best sites to buy anime statues on and a few you may want to be wary of!
Looking for trustworthy online stores you can buy anime figures from? Here are our recommendations on where to buy anime figures!
Hobby Max revealed two Nana figures of Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu!
The Expo 2020 Dubai Japan Pavilion PR Ambassador Gundam has subtle yet bold details that differentiate it from the original!
The most expensive anime funko pops your money can buy! Updated yearly.
F:NEX’s new Japanese doll Albedo figure was made in collaboration with the long-established doll store Yoshitoku!
Taito’s new Himiko Toga figure shows her seated on a pile of loot full of stuffed animals, clothes and more!
Bandai Spirits are coming at us again with yet another exciting MGEX release, the MGEX Strike Freedom Gundam that has a multilayered golden inner frame!


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Ad delivery firm Extreme Reach has agreed to buy production services specialist Talent Partners for an undisclosed price from the Carlyle Group and other minority shareholders.
In its announcement Monday, Extreme Reach vowed to improve the processes covering work by actors in the arena of digital video ads.
Talent Partners is a key player in the advertising business. In 2014, it worked for more than 750 agencies and production company clients worldwide, representing more than 1,500 brands, and made payments to more than 75,000 actors and other commercial talent totaling more than $1 billion in transactions.
Its services to advertisers and agencies include management of talent contracts and payment and the handling of rights and royalties for commercials across TV and digital video advertising. Talent Partners operates offices in five markets across North America and the United Kingdom, with over 250 employees and $60 million in 2014 revenue.
Under the deal, the Talent Partners offices and employees will be immediately integrated into Extreme Reach, giving it more than 1,000 employees. The Carlyle Equity Opportunity Fund will retain an ownership position in the combined company.
Extreme Reach noted that digital video is one of the fastest growing advertising formats with audiences having become more fragmented — leading to talent and rights processes breaking down with resulting inefficiencies and significant unexpected costs.
“In the digital video advertising realm, more than a third of all ads do not follow legal contracts for talent and rights,” said Tim Hale, chief talent officer at Extreme Reach. “This could lead to millions of dollars in unexpected costs across the industry. By acquiring Talent Partners, we have a unique opportunity to move the industry forward. Our leading talent and rights solution is fully integrated with our TV and digital video advertising platform, and each step in the advertising process is seamlessly connected to the next.”
The acquisition was financed by a combination of equity and debt financing.
SAG-AFTRA’s master contract with the ad industry will expire on March 31.
Rockdale Partners acted as the exclusive financial adviser and the firm of Pierce Atwood acted as legal adviser to Extreme Reach in the transaction. The firm of Goodwin Procter acted as legal adviser to Talent Partners. JPMorgan and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey acted as joint lead arrangers for the debt facility.


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Yesterday, many users complained about the lack of YouTube functionality, based not only in the video service’s site, but also on mobile apps. This problem was faced by people worldwide, not just Pakistan, and it occurred at around 3PM PST. The problem that users faced was that they could not access anything for more than an hour. Not only was YouTube music affected, but YouTube TV too was affected, all due to the service disruption. And while many have speculated as to why exactly the site was down, no one has been able to pinpoint exactly where the issue was, though many have gone on to report that it was linked with some internal issue.
So basically, even after more than two hours, the company was still working it out – trying to figure out exactly where the problem was. And it is true that many social media platforms have remained down, and that is happened on more than one occasion, however, this is for the first time that we’ve seen YouTube down for such a substantial amount of time.
Must Read: OnePlus 6T to ship with Android Pie
YouTube TV has no doubt seen issues with relation to Pakistan. In recent memory, the site was down during the summer world cup, and, not to mention, the site remained banned for a huge period of time, as the government of Pakistan banned the website for the publication of an anti-Islamic film.
Also, though it is not related to the issue, just for your information, Google is now introducing something called audio streaming and download quality controls for YouTube music for Android. This new video streaming quality controls will have new options in the setting menu, which will range from the likes of low, to the likes of normal, high, and always high. These new options will make way for the users to choose the quality of the video content that they want to watch on YouTube. So in simple words, users will quite easily be able to choose the quality of the video content, all on the basis of their requirements, and on the basis of the capabilities that their internet might possess.