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SM and BDO win sustainability awards
SM Investments Corp. and BDO Unibank, Inc. received top honors for their performance in sustainability initiatives from media company Asset Publishing and Research Ltd. based in Hong Kong.
SM Investments won the coveted Platinum Award at the recent The Asset ESG Corporate Awards 2021 for the 13th consecutive year. BDO also received the Platinum Award for the 12th consecutive year. The awards ceremony ended in February.
The award recognizes companies from Asia for their performance in parameters such as financial management, corporate governance; and social and environmental responsibility.
SM Investments has also been recognized as the Best Investor Relations Team, the 4th time the company has received the award from The Asset.
“We are grateful for this recognition which reflects our commitment to the environment, our social responsibilities and the highest standards of corporate governance. These awards confirm our efforts to ensure that the needs of all our stakeholders are met,” said Timothy Daniels, SM Investments consultant for investor relations and sustainability.
Petron among top taxpayers and importers
Petron Corp. was again named by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) as a top taxpayer and importer in the Philippines for 2021, demonstrating the oil company’s commitment to nation building.
The award ceremony took place on February 23 during BOC’s 120th anniversary celebration.
Petron has consistently ranked as the largest contributor to the government’s fuel-marking program, which aims to tackle tax leaks linked to fuel smuggling. Of the 35.92 billion liters of fuel tagged since September 2019, Petron accounted for 8.69 billion liters or 24%.
At the Petron Bataan refinery in Limay, Bataan – the only remaining refinery in the country – representatives from the BOC, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Ports Authority of the Philippines and the Bataan Free Zone Authority are regularly witnesses to all import, domestic and export activity. , highlighting the company’s transparency.
LWUA will open field offices soon
Guiling “Gene” A. Mamondiong, administrator of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), announced that the agency was expanding its operations beyond its headquarters in the nation’s capital to make its services more accessible to population.
According to Mamondiong, LWUA will start opening satellite offices across the country with mobile water treatment vehicles from this month. He said six field offices were in the works, with the one in Davao City to be launched on March 8.
“This will make LWUA more responsive and immediately accessible to those living in the countryside,” he explained. “They don’t need to fly to Manila to get the help they need, especially in times of calamity.”
The Head of LWUA added that all field offices would be staffed by LWUA staff headed by a licensed civil engineer. Each office would develop plans and programs in conjunction with the Regional Development Council (RDC). It is also responsible for monitoring and supervising the performance of water districts under its jurisdiction.
Mamondiong added that after Davao City, field offices would be established in Lucena City (Quezon), San Fernando (La Union), Tacloban City, Cagayan de Oro City and Bicol. Field offices will cover the respective regions, from Region I to BARMM.
He said the LWUA would need the full cooperation of local government units as well as other government agencies such as the Department of Land Reform and the Department of Public Works and Highways.
Mercury Drug’s Summer Suki Splash Promotion at Enchanted Kingdom
To celebrate the 77th anniversary of the nation’s largest drugstore, Mercury Drug Corporation is teaming up with the nation’s favorite theme park for a magical treat this summer. All Mercury Drug Suki and My Wallet cardholders can get a dose of fun and thrills when they take advantage of Enchanted Kingdom discount tickets for just P877.00 with a FREE Philusa product.
Mercury Drug’s Summer Suki Splash promotion runs from March 5 through April 3.
Incredible blowout from AllHome
AllHome’s Ultimate Summer Blowout Sale, which runs until March 15, offers incredibly low prices on a wide selection of products and discounts of up to 80% on selected items. AllHome makes it easier and more exciting for you to get your home fresh and ready for all the fun and thrills of summer. From tiles, kitchen appliances, furniture and fixtures to dishes and even gadgets, AllHome has you covered.
For some intimate and safe summer parties, light colored tiles or bold colors from brands like Rossio, Lustro will instantly brighten up your walls and floors, and for a fraction of its usual cost.
Trendy dinnerware pieces like mugs, pitcher sets and more are up to 80% off. For the kitchen: air fryer, a single induction cooker with saucepan or a Garett blender – all of these items, you get two for the price of one.
Added to this are smart LED TVs, comfy linens, a Finestra aluminum casement window or Georgian Matwood baseboard. Coffee tables, bed frames and sofas are also on sale.
For gadgets: Huawei Y7P, Philips headphones, Huawei wireless headphones and JBL wireless headphones at low prices.
AllHome, the trusted one-stop-shop, with its full range of quality product choices ranging from hardware, construction, tile and sanitary ware, furniture, appliances, linens and even housewares , has 57 stores nationwide.
Opening of Jollibee in Vancouver
Jollibee Foods Corp. opened its store in Vancouver, Canada, with nearly 5,000 customers lining up to welcome the region’s first Jollibee.
Located on Granville Street in the heart of Vancouver’s downtown entertainment district, the new flagship store marks Jollibee’s first premier location in the province of British Columbia and its 23rd store in Canada.
This is the first Jollibee to open in the Western region of Canada and brings the chain’s presence to four of the five most populous Canadian provinces – Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. .
Jollibee said it will open in two more Metro Vancouver locations by the end of this year – Strawberry Hill Shopping Center in Surrey and Cambie Street near Vancouver City Hall in the center. -town.
Cloud Campus Jeepney
To showcase its Cloud Campus work-from-home solution, Teleperformance Philippines launched the Cloud Campus Jeepney, a cloud-connected mobile workstation that simulates a fully-enabled work-from-home experience.
Featured at the Sunlife Amphitheater, the Cloud Campus Jeepney is a functional cloud-connected mobile workstation that will allow people to work and stay fully connected even while on the road. It showcases the digital capabilities of TP Cloud Campus solutions, providing visitors with a fully connected work-from-home experience. The Jeepney will be parked at the amphitheater until March 6, 2022 and will soon be traveling to various locations in Metro Manila.
Launched in early 2021, the Cloud Campus solution is Teleperformance’s groundbreaking and innovative new global operating model, purpose-built to enable a socially enriched work-from-home environment, enabling brands to easily grow their business and deliver superior customer experiences through to Teleperformance’s unique technology. , cloud-centric solution.
Interaction experts from home can work from anywhere and stay connected to their Teleperformance team through Cloud Campus hubs, packed with innovative features to help employees stay engaged and connected, while maintaining operational efficiency.
Currently, there are two main Teleperformance Cloud Campus hubs located in TP Fairview, Quezon City and TP Aura, Taguig City and several smaller kiosks that serve as the operational command center for virtual teams.
An SRP for Land Cruiser
Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) does not require additional premiums for reservations and purchases of the recently launched Land Cruiser 300 (LC300)
TMP said production of the new LC300 has not been spared by the global parts supply shortage in the manufacturing sector caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further contributed to the imbalance in supply and demand. demand for this highly anticipated model.
Global demand for the continued to grow, leading to longer wait times for fans in the country.
In the meantime, TMP reiterated that under its “One Suggested Retail Price Nationwide” program, customers should expect consistent prices whether they shop in Luzon, Metro Manila, Visayas or Mindanao.
Epson introduces the HyFlex classroom
Epson has introduced the HyFlex Classroom configuration, a hybrid and flexible classroom designed to accommodate the simultaneous teaching of in-person and online learners by reflecting real-time changes directly on the screen.
It works by having interactive projectors flash learning materials onto the whiteboard, screen or classroom wall, allowing teachers to use them as visuals and freely annotate the projected content for students. explain further.
The teacher can see and monitor students at home using a secondary projection (optional installation) at the back of the classroom. Meanwhile, on-site students can connect their laptops to the main interactive projector to view and annotate on their own screen using the video conferencing app’s annotation feature – see changes and annotations in time real projected on the screen.
To maximize the potential and functionality of this setup, Epson recommends using the full range of Epson products – the interactive projector, the ELPDC21 document camera, the multifunction printer and an entry-level projector. optional.


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Fintech News Canada: Prodigy and also FinConecta team up to speed up the circulation of Fintech services in Canada, the United States and around the globe
Prodigy Ventures Inc. (TSXV: PGV) (" Prodigy" or the " Business") today announced it has actually signed a brand-new Partnership Agreement with FinConecta (AANDB Technology, Inc.), a international technology firm dedicated to increasing digitization of finance and also open banking.
Under the terms of the arrangement Prodigy will offer consulting, assimilation and also took care of services to make it possible for the rapid deployment of FinConecta's advanced API (Application Programing User interface)- based system. With each other, Prodigy as well as FinConecta will work to increase digital transformation as well as Open Banking, promoting brand-new use cases and company opportunities for all present and future gamers in the monetary sector.
" Our objective at Prodigy is to deliver Fintech advancement", said Tom Beckerman, Prodigy's Chairman as well as Chief Executive Officer. "We are delighted to partner with FinConecta, and also take advantage of their world-leading system. We know that there is great demand at our financial institutions as well as leading enterprises to provide cutting-edge Fintech remedies to their customers. This Alliance is purpose constructed to provide on that pledge."
Jorge Ruiz, FinConecta's Founder and CEO commented, "Our best-of-breed system, integrated with Prodigy's proven record of quick innovation and also service shipment to large banks as well as ventures, will certainly be a breakthrough in the Fintech space. Together, our Partnership will supply basic, fast, reliable as well as scalable solutions that change economic services and also ecommerce."
Prodigy as well as FinConecta's Alliance will certainly enable banks to increase their journey in the direction of screening remedies and running evidence of ideas to generating income from APIs and also introducing brand-new offerings much faster. FinConecta's middleware also supplies a directory of curated Fintech firms that provide digital solutions to financial institutions on a SaaS design and also the ability to access multiple solutions with a solitary assimilation, 10 times quicker.
For Fintechs already running in Canada and the United States of America or going to do so, this Partnership uses global direct exposure to prospective clients, a comprehensive sandbox to examination products, and also a solitary combination through stabilized APIs, giving them access to core financial systems without needing to integrate with them individually.
Regarding Prodigy Ventures Inc - Fintech News Canada
. Prodigy delivers Fintech development. The Company supplies leading edge systems, consisting of IDVerifact ™ for electronic identity, and also new Fintech systems for open financial and settlements. Our solutions service, Prodigy Labs ™, integrates and also customizes our platforms for distinct business customer demands, as well as provides modern technology services for digital identification, repayments, open financial as well as electronic transformation. Digital improvement solutions consist of technique, architecture, style, project management, nimble advancement, top quality engineering and team augmentation. Prodigy has actually been acknowledged as one of Canada's fastest growing firms with numerous awards: Deloitte's Fast 50 Canada and Rapid 500 The United States And Canada (2016, 2017, 2018), Branham 300 (2017, 2018), Development Checklist (2018, 2019 and also 2020), Canada's Leading Growing Companies (2019 and also 2020).
- Fintech News Canada
FinConecta is a global technology firm devoted to speeding up digitization of finance and open banking. Founded in 2016, headquartered in Miami, as well as with operations in numerous nations around the world, FinConecta is a FDX Member and AWS Advanced Companion. Discover more at https://finconecta.com. Fintech News Canada.

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Key takeaways from IMVC 2019, the Israel Machine Vision Conference
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the IMVC (Israel Machine Vision Conference), the largest conference of its kind in Israel. The conference brings together innovative startups and powerful companies to discuss the latest innovations in image processing, computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning. It also showcases research through student demos and posters.
Summing up all the amazing and futuristic innovations showcased at IMVC and its numerous conferences would be a challenge. Therefore, we chose to mention the ones we liked the most, especially around Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is no longer a thing of the future, but is happening right now as we saw at IMVC.
Image Processing And Facial Recognition Will Become A Must
KanduAI presented its solution in the “Startups and Demos Zone” sponsored by BOSCH. Displayed was KanduAI’s facial and object recognition app. The application can capture an image from its surroundings or from any screen, detect and analyze people or objects in a fraction of a second.
Automotive AI : Simulate Real Life Situations to Anticipate Accidents
1 Billion. This is the number of miles one should drive in order to experience all possible hazardous scenarios. So, it’s no surprise that autonomous vehicles, expected to hit the market a few decades from now, are still delayed by the critical concern for safety. Some startups began paving the way for truly safe, autonomous cars. These companies use Artificial Intelligence R&D by training machines to understand traffic and anticipate all possible situations.
Guy Tsafrir, from Cognata Ltd., presented the company’s simulation platform, which provides a virtual road environment based on real maps. The software accurately simulates real-world test driving in order to support innovation in the field of autonomous vehicles. The Cognata platform uses deep learning technology to generate a 3D map of any city, including all roads, buildings and even traffic lights, out of photographic maps like those found on Google Earth®. The system then integrates historic data on local weather and lighting conditions. The result: a virtual reality simulator that can simulate real-life interaction between car sensors and actual driving situations. How does it work? Cognata’s technology is feeding in different times of day and driver behavior, in a lifelike environment of an actual city. It looks really cool, too! According to Tsafrir, Cognata’s deep learning platform can train ADAS systems to understand the billions of scenarios that may occur on the road.
Another exciting Israeli company, Vayavision, developed a cutting-edge 3D environmental model -this time for vehicle perception in the real world. Their model applies vision algorithms and deep learning to fuse data from their lidar system, which measures distances via cameras and radars, creating an upsampled high-resolution 3D model. This allows for high detection of all surroundings and potential threats facing autonomous cars. Vayavision’s system can detect objects and dangers even when sensors don’t work properly.
Self-driving cars may be all the rage these days, but railway transport is here to stay and train collisions remain all too frequent. RailVision, a start-up from Ra’anana, presented an Advanced Early Warning System that can automatically detect obstacles on a train’s path. They use advanced visualization and image processing to anticipate objects up to several kilometers away, in all weather conditions. The platform goes beyond visualization by monitoring infrastructure conditions in real time to predict malfunctions and by using Big Data to model behavioral and environmental trends that could put trains at risk of accidents.
Retail Is Being Digitized thanks to AI
How does the location of a product on a store shelf affect sales? Dolev Pomeranz presented
Trax Retail, a solution that can generate maps enriched with data, such as product category and location. Mobile robots scan all the areas of a store from all angles. Data is gathered and analyzed to understand how consumers react to product location and optimize how goods are laid out in retail areas. When entering in the store, customers can connect to an app and preselect their favorite products or discounted goods. The app displays a real-time map, guiding them to the right shelf.
The impact of artifical intelligence within every industry is truly fascinating as companies continuously look for challenging ways to improve and compete with each other.
To know more about KanduAI’s technology, please contact us.


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Fast Beetles are usually rare, boisterous, and a little bit weird … but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The outrageous rallycross Beetle was teased in February, and Volkswagen has announced the definitive car that will run in the VW Rallycross D.C. event this weekend, as well as the Red Bull Global Rallycross championship throughout the year.
It looks a little tamer that the sticker-emblazoned concept, but the overt cooling vents and enormous wing hint that this hippie mobile has more than flower power under its hood.
“The Beetle boasts a unique appearance and state-of-the-art technology,” said Jost Capito, director of Volkswagen Motorsport. “It will sweep fans off their feet.”
The rallycross Bug is powered by a 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinder that produces a whopping 544 horsepower, making an impressive 340 hp-per-liter.
The enormous power is sent to all four wheels via a six-speed sequential gearbox and is managed by multi-plate, limited slip differentials both at the front and back.
The Beetle weighs less than 3,000 pounds (pre-sticker weight), allowing it to hit 60 mph in just 2.1 seconds. That’s faster than a McLaren P1, LaFerrari, Ariel Atom 500, and most sport bikes. Obviously, this isn’t a production car, but comparisons to real-world hypercars make this Bug even more impressive.
The Beetle will be driven by Tanner Foust (of Top Gear US) and the aptly named Scott Speed in the third round of Red Bull’s Global Rallycross championship. Until now, Speed has been piloting the 7UP Volkswagen Polo in the series, which has garnered the team two victories.
“The Polo has already proved super-competitive,” said Speed, “and we are really looking forward to racing a car that has been engineered specifically by Volkswagen Motorsport for GRC competition.”
Foust echoed Speed’s enthusiasm, saying, “I know I can’t wait to race the No. 34 Rockstar Energy Drink Beetle. There’s no cooler looking car in the series.”
- Volkswagen finally squashes the Beetle with 2019 Final Edition
- At Bonneville, a 210-mph Volkswagen Jetta is nothing unusual
- Volkswagen built a 210-mph Jetta, and broke a land-speed record with it
- Behind the Wheel episode 3: Tim Walbridge’s ’65 Volkswagen Bug named Rusty
- Volkswagen shows us the workaholic side of its modern-day classic van


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EA Customer Service says Battlefield 2042 players are “very happy with the game”
It seems that Battlefield 2042 players are very happy with the game, as long as the players you ask work for EA customer support.
It’s fair to say that Battlefield 2042 had a rocky launch. Despite an insurmountable amount of hype en route to launch, the game launched half-baked to a sea of angry gamers.
Many gamers feel cheated by DICE and EA, especially those who spent more than $100 on the game. Currently, there are even rumors circulating on the internet suggesting that Battlefield 2042 will become free-to-play.
After all, many Battlefield players report that they already can’t find a game because the servers are empty.
And with over 90,000 mostly negative reviews on Steam, Battlefield 2042 actually has fewer players than Battlefield 1 and 5.
But despite some fans calling Battlefield 2042 “one of the biggest disappointments in gaming history,” it seems EA Support has other ideas.
UPDATE: Battlefield 2042 Season 1 Release Date Delayed to Summer
Battlefield 2042 is getting praise from “very happy” players, says EA Support
In a new post on the Battlefield 2042 subreddit, a fan shares their interaction with EA Customer Support.
Reddit user beach13 had an interesting interaction with an EA representative, who told them that players were “very pleased” with Battlefield 2042.
Beach13, one of the only players still asking for refunds for the new game, was trying to persuade EA customer service to give them their money back. We’ve actually seen some users successfully get refunds for Battlefield 2042 after all this time, so fair game for them.
But after expressing their opinion that Battlefield 2042 was “a huge flop [that] did not succeed”, it seems that EA support disagreed.
The rep even went so far as to state that Battlefield is getting praise from fans. Additionally, the EA rep reports seeing “very satisfied players with the game.”
Read more: Battlefield 2042 Voice Chat is in the works but doesn’t have a release date
Battlefield 2042 receives praise from fans?
We certainly won’t pretend that every gamer hates Battlefield 2042, not by a long shot. But we also expect that Battlefield 2042 players who have been in contact with EA Support are most likely there due to a negative experience.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that this EA support employee can’t exactly mention that the publisher is disappointed with the title – whether that’s true or not.
Some Battlefield 2042 fans even want EA to scrap the game and start over, claiming it can’t be saved. But what the title really needs is a bit of communication.
As of now, DICE is still hard at work creating a dashboard, which is expected to drop in February. And it’s been more than 70 days since the game was launched without knowing when season 1 will arrive!
The only details we have on the new Battlefield 2042 map come from leaks. And the game only had to remove its new Battlefield Portal Zombies mode after it became an XP farm.
It is clear that something is very wrong with 2042 as it is. But it’s not like EA Support can just admit it.


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Well-known iOS developer ih8sn0w has announced that the restore-based jailbreak utility Sn0wbreeze has been updated to version 2.9.3 with additional support for the Apple TV 2 units on firmware version 4.4.3 / 4.4.4 and fixes for rare issues with iOS 5.0.1.
Considering that Apple has already pushed out iOS 5.1, the additional Apple TV 2 support for the older firmware versions does look like unnecessary. But the update can be handy for those users who have previously dumped their SHSH firmware signatures for untethered jailbreak, Redmond Pie reported.
ih8sn0w mentioned in his release notes that while using Sn0wbreeze to jailbreak the Apple TV 2, users might see a blank black screen for about sixty seconds on the initial boot post jailbreaking, which, according to him, is normal.
The Redmond Pie report also stated that Sn0wbreeze v2.9.3 can be used to jailbreak iOS 5.1 tethered on all iOS devices except iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the new 3rd-gen iPad and Apple TV. To download Sn0wbreeze v2.9.3, click here.
For instructions to use Sn0wbreeze to perform a tethered jailbreak on the latest iOS 5.1 firmware for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, click here.
iOS 5.1 Untethered Jailbreak - The Progress So Far
It's just a few months ago that the jailbreak dream team achieved a long-cherished success by announcing the release of Absinthe, an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1 for iPhone 4S or iPad 2 powered by Apple's A5 chip. Now, it seems the jailbreakers are back to work once again in an effort to find an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1.
At the time when Apple's New iPad hit the stores in the US, the iPhone Dev Team offered key information, maximizing the chance for an eventual jailbreak on the new tablet. The team looked buoyant over the eventual jailbreak as three different methods were under process.
On March 17, the entire jailbreak community got a pleasant surprise as reports surfaced saying that the new iPad had been jailbroken untethered by the iPhone Dev Team and that all the three jailbreak methods had been successfully tested on the new iPad. Thus, it was confirmed that not just one, but three different third generation iPad jailbreaks were created, thanks to hackers MuscleNerd, i0nic and chpwn.
However, the iPhone Dev Team said in a blog post that the successful jailbreak attempts didn't necessarily mean that the new iPad jailbreak would be available to the public anytime soon.
It turns out that all three of the jailbreak methods mentioned above have had great success today! We're off to a good start (but remember there's still lots of work to do)!
In a bid to let the public know about the progress on the iOS 5.1 jailbreak scene, French iOS hacker Pod2g took to his Twitter account on Friday and said that there is currently no ETA for when the untethered jailbreak will arrive for iOS 5.1.
But right now we (cdev) have some pieces of a userland jailbreak, but we miss some, and even if we had them all, there's weeks of work, Pod2g tweeted.
Although there is no official ETA on it yet, it can be safely assumed that one of the three methods, developed by the jailbreakers, is likely to be released in the very near future.
Must Read Articles:
- iPhone 5 Release Date 2012: Reasons Why June Launch Looks Plausible, But October Makes Sense Too
- Apple iPhone 5 vs HTC One X And Samsung Galaxy S3: Get Ready For Fierce Smartphone Encounter
- Android 4.0 ICS Update: Ice Cream Sandwich ROM For AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note Leaked
- Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date: 10 Million Units Reportedly Pre-Ordered; But Is Launch Delayed Due To S2 ICS Update?


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The Louvre doesn’t want you to photograph the or pose for selfies in front of its glass pyramid. That’s one takeaway from the museum’s “A Look at the Louvre,” a video series it’s created alongside Pinterest, as part of a recently announced collaboration.
With around 10 million followers across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, the world’s most popular museum doesn’t lack for online attention. What it wants is for visitors to venture beyond the beaten path and discover something new—something they will presumably post about, or pin, instead.
“Our original series offers a new experience of the Louvre,” Johan Gipch, Pinterest’s Head of Content for Southern Europe, told Artnet News. “Art is one of the most popular categories on Pinterest and so the series offers the museum as a source of inspiration and a place to explore.”
Each of five the snappy 90-second videos highlight an unusual aspect of vast Parisian institution. There’s one to teach photographers how to use the museum’s many windows, another devoted to romantic nooks that wonders how many trysts the Court Marly’s marble sculptures have witnessed, and a sweeping tour of the Salle des Etats’ paintings that dares visitors to “miss the unmissable” and give the the cold shoulder.
Both French and English language versions have been created and the videos will be posted on Pinterest’s Daily Inspiration page in France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States.
The Louvre was a relatively early Pinterest adopter, joining the platform known for its vibrant pin boards in 2012. It has more than 40,000 followers and uses the account to share stills of its remarkable collection, the occasional gardening tip, and art from home projects. The account draws an average of 230,000 views each month, with its drawings and sculpture posts receiving the most attention, according to the museum’s communication department.
The campaign arrives at a challenging moment for Pinterest. After going public in April 2019, the platform saw its user base and value boom during the lockdown months of the pandemic, only to see the growth ebb away in 2021 (it lost nearly 50 million active users). Part of its bid to regain ground and users involves forming new cultural partnerships in a bid to raise the quality of its content. Earlier this year, for example, Pinterest worked with French painter Alain Godon on a series of short videos as part of its Creator Originals program.
“These art collaborations are attractive to our audience for this category,” Gipch said. “The collaboration with the Louvre opens the door to future projects and discussions are already underway in France, but also around the world.”


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Opinion News - Inside FMCG
The Parliament passed the Government’s personal income tax plan this month.
Amazon has reshaped retailing permanently and is one of the top three most valuable companies in the world.
Health minister Greg Hunt’s recently announced national prevention strategy must give high priority to tobacco control.
Consumers increasingly expect organisations to walk their talk and demonstrate they make a positive impact on society.
The government’s refusal to “split the bill” holds the first hostage to the fate of the third and least affordable.
Water industry has responded with disappointment to latest ruling in favour of Kimberly-Clark flushable wipes.
Inside FMCG chats to Patch Strips founder James Dutton.
Tips for business leaders to build a more connected team that collaborates and thrives.
Face Halo founder Lizzie Pike talks to Inside FMCG about changing the way the world removes makeup.
Today’s standard microbial tests are a hit and miss method of spotting contaminations.


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Debenhams has unveiled a new concession partnership with home and furniture brand Maison Du Monde.
The French firm, which currently only operates online in the UK, will open shop-in-shops in three Debenhams stores – Westfield, Birmingham and Manchester – this Spring.
The concessions, marking Maison Du Monde’s first bricks-and-mortar venture on these shores, will stock “decorative items and small furnishings”.
The department store retailer said the partnership forms part of its Debenhams Redesigned strategy and will enhance its presence in the UK homewares and furniture market.
Maisons du Monde was founded in France in 1996 and boasts an international network of 313 stores, an e-commerce platform operating in 11 countries and several catalogues. In 2017 it generated €1,011m in annual sales.
Debenhams chief executive Sergio Bucher said: “As part of our Debenhams Redesigned Strategy, we are looking to work with strategic partners that can deliver new and complementary product offers for our customers.
“We believe that its fresh and differentiated ranges will reinforce Debenhams’ position as a major player in the UK homeware and furniture market.”


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As our climate changes, so will our diets. Fix’s Future of Food Issue explores that reality through the lens of foods that show what sustainable, equitable, and resilient eating could look like. Try them yourself with the recipes in our Climate Future Cookbook.
The herd settles under hangar-like roofs, crowding in the shade to escape the 120-degree F heat. Overhead, propeller-sized fans and industrial air coolers roar into action as chilled water circulates through the troughs. Soon, the cattle, as seen in a newsreel, seem none the wiser to the scorching conditions outside — or at least comfortable enough to pump out milk in volumes once possible only in cooler climates.
A desert dairy ranch seems a bit dystopian, a vision of a distant, overheated future. But as more of the world develops a craving for cheese, ice cream, and lattes, cattle farms like this air-conditioned operation in Dubai are appearing in unexpected places.
Globally, the $871 billion dairy industry relies upon some 270 million cows to produce more than 600 million tons of milk annually. All of those bovines consume vast resources — feed, water, land, and, often, hormones and antibiotics — and each one can burp about 220 pounds of methane per year, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Meanwhile, the world’s appetite for dairy is exploding. With the market projected to reach over $1 trillion by 2026, simple economics would dictate the need for many more cows. Although plant-based analogs have never managed to fully capture the taste and texture of the real thing, a new crop of startups say they’ve found a better way to remove cows from the equation — by milking microbes instead of udders.
Using precision fermentation, a process commonly used to produce insulin and vitamins, food technology startups are cultivating microbes to produce milk proteins such as casein and whey. Thriving on just water and carbohydrates, the genetically engineered yeast and fungi pump out the creamy base for dairy products to deliver the same taste, texture, and performance — froth, whip, melt, and all — as their bovine-sourced counterparts. It’s an innovation that could send dairy stampeding toward a more sustainable future. Already, the German startup Formo is looking to replace a tenth of Europe’s conventional supply by 2030.
Bring this solution into your kitchen
“It’s a big ask,” says Oscar Zollman-Thomas, a business analyst for the Berlin-based company. “But we’re making milk without cows, so we may as well shoot for the stars.”
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Unraveling the secrets of bovine genetics took a huge leap in 2009, when scientists from the U.S. National Institutes of Health sequenced the genome of a cow from a Montana ranch. Five years later, two bioengineers copied the genetic code for producing whey, a key component of milk that’s responsible for its swirl, into the DNA of yeast, programming the microbes to brew dairy protein instead of alcohol.
They then founded Perfect Day, the world’s first lab-grown dairy company, to launch a new field of moo-less milk products made from precision-fermented whey. The startup’s pilot batch of ice cream proved to be a big hit, with all 3,000 pints selling out within hours. Evolving into the industry’s mother cow of sorts, the Berkeley, California company now supplies alt-dairy whey to producers who use it to craft a wide range of consumables.
“We were flabbergasted by how beautiful this protein was,” Lizanne Falsetto, the founder of Betterland Milk, says with a reverence often reserved for prized cattle.
The company, in Napa, California, uses Perfect Day’s powdered whey to reconstruct milk from its core components: protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water. The lightness of the alt-whey, Falsetto says, makes it highly soluble and stable when suspended. The result is indistinguishable from cow milk — velvety smooth straight up, thick and foamy when frothed into a latte.
Nutritionally, it’s superior. While its protein levels match those of whole milk, Betterland’s formula requires just one-third of the sugar and no cholesterol-laden animal fats. “And unlike plant-based proteins, there’s no off-taste or color,” she adds. The product also has a 12-month shelf life, unrefrigerated. “It acts, looks, and performs better than [cow] milk.”
Dairy produced from microbial proteins is also more efficient, generating less waste and greater yield. Precision fermentation shrivels dairy’s environmental footprint by skipping past the cow straight to the foundation of the end product. Microbes such as yeast and fungi are programmed to brew a specific protein — whey or casein — in a soup of water, sugar, and micronutrients. The genetically engineered microflora are filtered out, and the result is subsequently isolated and dried, then concocted into everything from yogurt and creamy cheese to butter pecan ice cream. Compared to conventional dairy, an independent life cycle analysis commissioned by Perfect Day finds a reduction of 97 percent in carbon emissions, 99 percent in water consumption, and as much as 60 percent in energy.
Those benefits are especially striking when making cheese, a process that converts a gallon of milk into just one pound of food while leaving three quarts of whey as a by-product. Cow-to-curd cheese requires more water per pound than beef or lamb, and trails just behind red meat in greenhouse gas emissions and land use.
“From an environmental point of view, cheese is the sore thumb of the dairy industry,” says Matt Gibson, founder of alt-dairy startup New Culture in Emeryville, a city near San Francisco.
New Culture produces precision-fermented casein, the protein that gives cheese its chew, melt, and stretch, to create mozzarella. The average American consumes more than 12 pounds of this beloved pizza topping annually. Introducing a cow-free version “gives us the biggest opportunity to make a meaningful impact on the environment,” says Gibson.
He knows it’ll take a convincing product to win over the market — though the “zero-cholesterol” and “lactose-free” labels may help spur sales. Neutral in taste, conventional mozzarella leans on casein strands to give it texture and mouthfeel, qualities Gibson finds lacking in plant-based versions. Because vegan cheese uses starch and oil emulsions as a proxy, it doesn’t have the same toothy bite and resistance. Real dairy protein from microbes “makes our cheese a delicious experience,” he says — stretching, bubbling, browning and all.
* * *
For the nascent microbial dairy industry — most of these startups plan to launch their offerings in the next year — creating products indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts is by far the biggest priority.
Swaying the market ultimately comes down to taste and price, says Jason Rosenberg, head of business development for Remilk. Unless they’re on par with tried-and-true goods, “you’re really missing the mark on making significant change.”
Confident in its aim, the Israeli startup begins construction later this year on what will be the world’s largest precision fermentation plant. Located in Kalundborg, Denmark, the 750,000-square-foot facility will churn out dairy proteins in volumes equivalent to 50,000 cows per year. (To put this in perspective, Australia’s 4 million-acre Alexandria Farm, one of the world’s largest cattle ranches, counts 55,000 heads.)
Rosenberg hopes the facility will serve as the blueprint for an efficient and vastly expandable system — a hub-like model that leverages a worldwide dairy production and distribution infrastructure to get dairy proteins to consumers as milk products.
CEO Aviv Wolff aims to make Remilk “the largest dairy company in the world.” The bullish and radical vision is imperative, these enterprises maintain, to shake up a gargantuan and untenable system of food production.
To be clear, these startups are all poised to install themselves into a well established industrial food network. Perfect Day and New Culture, for example, have teamed up with agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland — a company with a record of falling short on its carbon capture goals — to tap its extensive manufacturing infrastructure. And for the industry at large, the sheer scale of mass production means a heavy reliance on conventional sugar sources such as corn, a crop found to be a major contributor to air pollution.
“You have to be pragmatic in bringing [the technology] to market,” says David Bucca, founder of Change Foods, another alt-cheese company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Successful and timely implementation requires practical choices that include sourcing cheap, abundant commodity inputs. Otherwise, he adds, “the whole thing would fail, and then you’re not displacing anything.”
The U.S. dairy industry has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050, Bucca notes — a tall order that calls for major disruptive technologies. “There’s only so many solar panels you can put on. [Precision fermentation] is a way to actually move the needle,” he says.
The disruption does face some pushback. Genetically engineering a microbe to excrete milk proteins is “the definition of unnatural,” the nonprofit Non-GMO Project states. And the dairy lobby, wary of plant-based and lab-cultured doppelgangers, has pushed to restrict labels such as “milk” strictly to cow-derived products, through measures like the Dairy Pride Act in the U.S. A similar initiative, Amendment 171, was rejected by the European Commission last year.
Alt-dairy advocates call the label debate a distraction. “It feels like the smallest part of the argument that we should be having,” says Formo’s Zollman-Thomas. He points to chymosin, another dairy protein found in rennet, a key ingredient in cheese. Traditionally extracted from the stomachs of calves, most of the world’s supply has long been produced through precision fermentation. “People have been happily eating products made through this technology for much of their lives,” he adds.
Because the proteins are biologically identical to those in cow milk, the alternative category applies to the process more than the product itself. As alt-dairy enters the mainstream, Zollman-Thomas sees that its rise could benefit small-scale farmers and producers. As precision fermentation eases the pressure on factory and commodity farming, he says, they will be able to command premium prices for dairy products made with milk from animals raised humanely and sustainably. Besides, “all of our inspiration comes from those traditional players,” he adds. “To disregard [them] would be a total dereliction of duty.”
* * *
Proponents of alternative dairy argue that, ultimately, the upward trend of global temperatures and population growth will leave us little choice but to embrace new sources of old favorites.
“We have to drastically change the way we produce our food,” says George Monbiot, a British environmental writer and producer of Apocalypse Cow, a documentary that explores the impacts of cattle farming. “Otherwise, we are jiggered.”
Raising animals to feed a growing, protein-hungry world, he says, is no longer sustainable. Yes, animals are vital to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, Monbiot concedes. Many are in rural, developing regions of the world, largely in the Global South, where marginal land often limits farming options. But as industrial grazing and agriculture mushroom, their effects on climate change will disproportionately impact those areas, he says, putting that very population at greater risk of extreme temperatures, drought, and weather.
The world needs a large-scale, top-level intervention, Monbiot states, and few solutions rival the efficiency of a microbe in nutrient conversion. Even soybeans, among the highest sources of plant protein, require 1,700 times more land to net yields equal to precision fermentation, research shows. With the technology, “you don’t need fertile land, you don’t need a lot of water. You can do it anywhere,” he says, using a wide range of inputs and energy sources.
Monbiot envisions a largely decentralized system, one that unshackles communities from heavy global supply chains and import dependency. “In my ideal world, every town would have its own brewery producing precision products to meet local tastes and needs,” he says.
The appeal of microbrewed milk and cheese aside, it’s a vision of a world that will need far fewer cows, and in which the remaining ones will have a lot more room to roam — hopefully without air-conditioning.
Read more about the future of food:
- The Indigenous tribe reviving native camas and the prairies that sustain it
- At an urban farm, a community connects to their food and to each other
- Pets eat a lot of meat. Feeding them insects could lower their carbon pawprint.


text:
|By Business Wire
|July 30, 2014 04:16 PM EDT
GameStop (NYSE: GME), a family of specialty retail brands that makes
consumers' favorite technologies affordable and simple, announced today
that its GameStop Technology Institute (GTI) business unit has entered
into strategic partnerships with Shelfbucks, BestFit Mobile and Dynamic
Signal to further extend its focus on driving technological innovation
and change within its store environments.
Dedicated to harnessing the power of new and emerging technologies to
better address the needs of today’s empowered and informed consumer, GTI
was launched by GameStop to pursue an open innovation strategy whereby
the Company partners with leading organizations and institutions to
explore and build best-in-class research and development capabilities.
GTI was created to understand the drivers surrounding the evolution of
the retail industry and advance the pace of change – always keeping the
customer experience in mind. With these new partnerships the company is
further executing against this overarching goal to create and implement,
within its global retail locations, the next generation of business
applications for the sector as a whole.
Ongoing Commitment to Innovation to Meet Evolving Needs of
Working to develop retail solutions that create a positive in-store
experience is a key priority for GTI. With this focus in mind, GameStop
is partnering to bring Shelfbucks’ iBeacon Platform and BestFit Mobile’s
ProxDK solution, into to its brick and mortar retail locations. Through
the deployment of these new communication capabilities, the retailer is
launching a big differentiator in consumer engagement technology –
putting the customer in control of the shopping experience. While
today’s customers are traditionally bombarded with promotional offers
the minute they enter a retail location, GameStop shoppers will need to
take proactive steps, moving smartphones close to beacons installed on
store shelving to instantly receive real-time, customized offers via the
retailer's app. As a result, customers will be able to receive digital
content that is specifically tailored to their areas of interest when
they need it most – shopping inside a physical GameStop store.
Under the terms of the agreement with GTI, the Shelfbucks iBeacon
Platform will provide the configuration, deployment and ongoing
operation/support for the in-store beacons, as well as the platform to
integrate with GameStop’s promotions; while BestFit’s Mobile ProxDK
solution will enable for seamless consumer engagement based on a user’s
proximity to beacons. Moving forward the collaboration between the three
technology providers will also serve as a basis for future retail
innovations related to enhancing customer experiences in physical stores.
“Digitization of the physical retail space has always been a top
priority of GTI as we look to further GameStop’s evolution as a
technology provider,” said Charlie Larkin, senior director, technology
innovation at GameStop. “Through our partnership with Shelfbucks and our
initial deployment of their iBeacon Platform, there are numerous ways to
leverage the emerging technology to deliver a next-generation shopping
Beginning this September, GTI will formally deploy the iBeacon Platform
in approximately 36 locations in its Austin and College Station, Texas
test markets. Following the initial test period, GameStop will assess
the customer adoption and business value of the promotional capabilities
with the potential for the possibility of an additional roll-out in
another 60 stores by the end of the year.
Amplifying the Employees’ Voice Via Social Media Initiatives
Since the first GameStop opened twenty years ago, store employees have
always played a critical role as informal ambassadors for the retailer’s
brand. Today, recognizing the need for a more sophisticated approach to
managing the GameStop conversation externally, GTI is partnering with
Dynamic Signal to deploy a cloud-based solution designed to amplify the
voice of employees online while taking into account the unique nature of
content management at GameStop.
Leveraging Dynamic Signal’s VoiceStream technology, GameStop is able to
unite with interested employees to drive awareness, reach and engagement
in an easy-to-use, brand-safe environment. Moving forward, GTI will now
rely upon the VoiceStream platform to facilitate every aspect of this
process – helping to identify, recruit and engage advocates and
providing them with the tools to share GameStop approved content via web
and mobile devices.
“The development and deployment of traffic driving technology is a
critical component of GTI’s focus on innovation and interaction at the
store level,” said Jeff Donaldson, senior vice president of GameStop
Technology Institute. “Recognizing that the interaction between our
employees and the customers in the local community is the most valuable
type of relationship, we committed to working with Dynamic Solutions to
put a technology platform in place that amplifies those conversations
beyond the brick and mortar location to create lasting value for all
For more information about Shelfbucks’ leading iBeacon promotion
platform, visit http://www.shelfbucks.com.
For information about the Dynamic Signal’s VoiceStream technology
platform, please visit http://dynamicsignal.com.
About GameStop Corp.
GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company
headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, is a global, multichannel video game,
consumer electronics and wireless services retailer. GameStop operates
more than 6,600 stores across 15 countries. The company’s consumer
product network also includes www.gamestop.com;
a leading browser-based game site; Game Informer® magazine, the world’s
leading print and digital video game publication; and www.buymytronics.com,
an online consumer electronics trade-in platform. In addition, our
Technology Brands segment includes our Simply Mac, Spring Mobile and
Cricket stores. Simply Mac, www.simplymac.com,
operates 23 stores, selling the full line of Apple products, including
laptops, tablets, smartphones and offering Apple certified warranty and
repair services. Spring Mobile, http://springmobile.com,
sells post-paid AT&T services and wireless products through its 210 AT&T
branded stores. Cricket Wireless, www.cricketwireless.com,
is a new AT&T brand offering pre-paid wireless services, devices and
related accessories. We operate 37 Cricket stores in select markets
throughout the United States.
General information about GameStop Corp. can be obtained at the
company's corporate website. Follow GameStop on Twitter @ www.twitter.com/GameStop
and find GameStop on Facebook @ www.facebook.com/GameStop.
There is an ever-growing explosion of new devices that are connected to the Internet using “cloud” solutions. This rapid growth is creating a massive new demand for efficient access to data. And it’s not just about connecting to that data anymore.
This new demand is bringing new issues and challenges and it is important for companies to scale for the coming growth. And with that scaling comes the need for greater security, gathering and data analysis, storage, connectivity and, of course, the...
May. 6, 2016 01:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,366
The IETF draft standard for M2M certificates is a security solution specifically designed for the demanding needs of IoT/M2M applications.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Brian Romansky, VP of Strategic Technology at TrustPoint Innovation, will explain how M2M certificates can efficiently enable confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity on highly constrained devices.
May. 6, 2016 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,405
trust and privacy in their ecosystem. Assurance and protection of device identity, secure data encryption and authentication are the key security challenges organizations are trying to address when integrating IoT devices. This holds true for IoT applications in a wide range of industries, for example, healthcare, consumer devices, and manufacturing.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Lancen LaChance, vice president of product management, IoT solutions at GlobalSign, will teach IoT developers how t...
May. 6, 2016 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 835
When it comes to IoT in the enterprise, namely the commercial building and hospitality markets, a benefit not getting the attention it deserves is energy efficiency, and IoT's direct impact on a cleaner, greener environment when installed in smart buildings. Until now clean technology was offered piecemeal and led with point solutions that require significant systems integration to orchestrate and deploy. There didn't exist a 'top down' approach that can manage and monitor the way a Smart Buildi...
May. 6, 2016 10:53 AM EDT Reads: 193
So, you bought into the current machine learning craze and went on to collect millions/billions of records from this promising new data source. Now, what do you do with them? Too often, the abundance of data quickly turns into an abundance of problems. How do you extract that "magic essence" from your data without falling into the common pitfalls?
In her session at @ThingsExpo, Natalia Ponomareva, Software Engineer at Google, will provide tips on how to be successful in large scale machine lear...
May. 6, 2016 10:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,597
SYS-CON Events announced today that Peak 10, Inc., a national IT infrastructure and cloud services provider, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 18th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Peak 10 provides reliable, tailored data center and network services, cloud and managed services. Its solutions are designed to scale and adapt to customers’ changing business needs, enabling them to lower costs, improve performance and focus inter...
May. 6, 2016 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,528
Digital payments using wearable devices such as smart watches, fitness trackers, and payment wristbands are an increasing area of focus for industry participants, and consumer acceptance from early trials and deployments has encouraged some of the biggest names in technology and banking to continue their push to drive growth in this nascent market. Wearable payment systems may utilize near field communication (NFC), radio frequency identification (RFID), or quick response (QR) codes and barcodes...
May. 6, 2016 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,106
You think you know what’s in your data. But do you? Most organizations are now aware of the business intelligence represented by their data. Data science stands to take this to a level you never thought of – literally. The techniques of data science, when used with the capabilities of Big Data technologies, can make connections you had not yet imagined, helping you discover new insights and ask new questions of your data.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Sarbjit Sarkaria, data science team lead ...
May. 6, 2016 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,318
SYS-CON Events announced today that Ericsson has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON's @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York, New York.
Ericsson is a world leader in the rapidly changing environment of communications technology – providing equipment, software and services to enable transformation through mobility.
Some 40 percent of global mobile traffic runs through networks we have supplied. More than 1 billion subscribers around the world re...
May. 6, 2016 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,445
We're entering the post-smartphone era, where wearable gadgets from watches and fitness bands to glasses and health aids will power the next technological revolution. With mass adoption of wearable devices comes a new data ecosystem that must be protected. Wearables open new pathways that facilitate the tracking, sharing and storing of consumers’ personal health, location and daily activity data. Consumers have some idea of the data these devices capture, but most don’t realize how revealing and...
May. 6, 2016 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 828
The demand for organizations to expand their infrastructure to multiple IT environments like the cloud, on-premise, mobile, bring your own device (BYOD) and the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow. As this hybrid infrastructure increases, the challenge to monitor the security of these systems increases in volume and complexity.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Stephen Coty, Chief Security Evangelist at Alert Logic, will show how properly configured and managed security architecture can...
May. 6, 2016 08:45 AM EDT Reads: 682
The IoTs will challenge the status quo of how IT and development organizations operate. Or will it? Certainly the fog layer of IoT requires special insights about data ontology, security and transactional integrity. But the developmental challenges are the same: People, Process and Platform.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Craig Sproule, CEO of Metavine, will demonstrate how to move beyond today's coding paradigm and share the must-have mindsets for removing complexity from the development proc...
May. 6, 2016 07:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,090
Artificial Intelligence has the potential to massively disrupt IoT.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, AJ Abdallat, CEO of Beyond AI, will discuss what the five main drivers are in Artificial Intelligence that could shape the future of the Internet of Things.
AJ Abdallat is CEO of Beyond AI. He has over 20 years of management experience in the fields of artificial intelligence, sensors, instruments, devices and software for telecommunications, life sciences, environmental monitoring, process...
May. 6, 2016 06:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,538
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Chris Klein, CEO and Co-founder of Rachio, will discuss next generation communities that are using IoT to create more sustainable, intelligent communities.
One example is Sterling Ranch, a 10,000 home development that – with the help of Siemens – will integrate IoT technology into the community to provide residents with energy and water savings as well as intelligent security. Everything from stop lights to sprinkler systems to building infrastructures will run ef...
May. 6, 2016 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,357
We’ve worked with dozens of early adopters across numerous industries and will debunk common misperceptions, which starts with understanding that many of the connected products we’ll use over the next 5 years are already products, they’re just not yet connected. With an IoT product, time-in-market provides much more essential feedback than ever before. Innovation comes from what you do with the data that the connected product provides in order to enhance the customer experience and optimize busi...
May. 6, 2016 02:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,450
Manufacturers are embracing the Industrial Internet the same way consumers are leveraging Fitbits – to improve overall health and wellness. Both can provide consistent measurement, visibility, and suggest performance improvements customized to help reach goals. Fitbit users can view real-time data and make adjustments to increase their activity.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mark Bernardo Professional Services Leader, Americas, at GE Digital, will discuss how leveraging the Industrial Interne...
May. 6, 2016 01:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,457
The increasing popularity of the Internet of Things necessitates that our physical and cognitive relationship with wearable technology will change rapidly in the near future. This advent means logging has become a thing of the past. Before, it was on us to track our own data, but now that data is automatically available. What does this mean for mHealth and the "connected" body?
In her session at @ThingsExpo, Lisa Calkins, CEO and co-founder of Amadeus Consulting, will discuss the impact of wea...
May. 6, 2016 01:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,289
Increasing IoT connectivity is forcing enterprises to find elegant solutions to organize and visualize all incoming data from these connected devices with re-configurable dashboard widgets to effectively allow rapid decision-making for everything from immediate actions in tactical situations to strategic analysis and reporting.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Shikhir Singh, Senior Developer Relations Manager at Sencha, will discuss how to create HTML5 dashboards that interact with IoT devic...
May. 6, 2016 12:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,502
Whether your IoT service is connecting cars, homes, appliances, wearable, cameras or other devices, one question hangs in the balance – how do you actually make money from this service? The ability to turn your IoT service into profit requires the ability to create a monetization strategy that is flexible, scalable and working for you in real-time. It must be a transparent, smoothly implemented strategy that all stakeholders – from customers to the board – will be able to understand and comprehe...
May. 5, 2016 11:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,397
A critical component of any IoT project is the back-end systems that capture data from remote IoT devices and structure it in a way to answer useful questions. Traditional data warehouse and analytical systems are mature technologies that can be used to handle large data sets, but they are not well suited to many IoT-scale products and the need for real-time insights.
At Fuze, we have developed a backend platform as part of our mobility-oriented cloud service that uses Big Data-based approache...
May. 5, 2016 04:00 PM EDT Reads: 817


text:
October 29, 1976
A new Old San Francisco Mint souvenir medal, dated to mark the completion of the restoration of the national landmark building, is part of the celebration planned to coincide with the public opening of the display of the 1907 Indian Head $20 gold pattern at 10 a.m., Tuesday, November 9, 1976, at the old Mint, Mrs. Mary Brooks, Director of the Mint, announced today.
The design of the bronze medal, 1-1/2″ in diameter, is to feature a portrait of Mint Director Mary Brooks on the obverse and a view of the Old Mint and the date November 9, 1976, on the reverse.
Visitors may purchase bronze blanks for $1.00 and strike their own medal on the specially-automated 1869 press in the Old Mint Museum—or purchase the new medal over-the-counter at the Old Mint.
A limit of 10,000 specimens of the new souvenir medal has been set and they will be available for sale only at the Old Mint in San Francisco. No mail orders will be accepted.
The Old Mint Museum, Fifth and Mission Streets, San Francisco, California, is open to the public Tuesday through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is no admission charge.


text:
Sony Gives More Details on Boosting its First-Party Game Development Pipeline
Sony Interactive Entertainment's boss talks about plans to expand the first-party development pipeline further compared to fiscal year 2017 and 2018.
During the Q&A session of the recent Investor Day hosted by Sony Corporation in Tokyo, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO John Kodera was asked to provide further information on the plans to provide more first-party games for PlayStation consoles.
Kodera-san talked about the first-party pipeline (the games in development at first-party studios), mentioning that there are “a few items” in development as always. Yet, compared to fiscal year 2017 (from April 2017 to March 2018) and fiscal year 2018 (from April 2018 to March 2019, IE: the current year), the pipeline is going to be further “improved and increased,” so expenses are likely to increase accordingly.
Later in the Q&A, Kodera-san also added that investing in first-party games does not just mean increasing the number of IPs, as Sony owns existing IPs like Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War, and “successful and powerful” IPs should be made into franchises so that “the business associated with them can be expanded.”
The further improvement of the first-party development pipeline from April 2019 is certainly interesting, as it could indicate that Sony intends to have an ever stronger first-party support for the PS5 (or whatever the next-generation PlayStation console will be called).
A more interesting detail can be seen in the slide below related to the current fiscal year (until April 2019), showing that research and development investment has been increased. Interestingly, this is a further increase from the fiscal year 2017, in which R&D investment was already boosted.
That being said, Kodera-san declined to comment to specific questions regarding the next-generation PlayStation console.
If you still don’t have a PS4 you can grab one on Amazon.


text:
CNBC found that start-up Ramp is tracking publicly traded competitor Bill.com with a free invoice management and payments platform.
The start-up has grown rapidly this year by offering small and medium-sized businesses a cashback card paired with software that shows customers ways to save money. Ramp says transaction volume has increased 50% in the two months since the company last raised funds, at a valuation of $ 3.9 billion.
To sustain this growth, the New York start-up is targeting Bill.com, a fintech company that automates the processing and payment of invoices, said Ramp CEO Eric Glyman. Paying bills is a time-consuming, practical, and error-prone process for most companies, he said.
“Our software takes minutes to type and much more to make sure you’re doing the right things in seconds,” said Glyman. “Finance teams are tired of using three or four systems just to make payments and close their books.”
It took Ramp a year to develop the feature that uses an artificial intelligence technique called optical character recognition to extract information from invoices and fill out forms automatically. Feedback from some of the hundreds of customers who used bill payment in the pilot has been positive, Glyman said.
While Glyman estimates its competitor has a small fraction of the overall odds, Bill.com’s market cap has grown from less than $ 3 billion to about $ 30 billion in less than two years.
Bill.com shares fell 4.7% on Tuesday.
Ramp is giving away its software in the hope that it will lead to new customers and deeper relationships with existing customers, Glyman said. About 20% of Ramp customers use Bill.com’s services, he said.
“The current plan is that we want to start doing this completely free of charge for anyone who signs up,” said Glyman. “I think that’s pretty annoying, but it’s great for customers.”
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text:
February 17, 2024
KARACHI: Pakistan auto manufacturers have urged the government to scrap its decision to increase sales tax on larger vehicles — 1400cc and above — lamenting it would hurt the industry which is already suffering, The News reported Saturday.
Earlier this week, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) approved the increase in sales tax to 25% from 17% as a part of a revenue-raising measure to meet the fiscal targets set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Following this decision, the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) said that the move was unfair and counterproductive, as it would only affect the domestic car makers and not the importers of used cars, who enjoy lower taxes and have captured a large share of the market.
In a letter to the Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar, the association's director general, Abdul Waheed Khan, said the tax hike would further reduce the demand for locally made cars, which have already seen a sharp decline in production and sales due to inflation and low demand.
“It is like killing someone dead,” he said.
The letter enclosed a five-year comparative chart of production and sales of automobiles produced in the country that showed a continued decline in production and sales.
“The automobiles are demand elastic items whose sales would further go down with an increase in the prices; hence the increase in the sales tax would be counterproductive,” he said in his letter.
The taxes on locally produced cars have further increased while the taxes on the import of used cars have remained unchanged, thus making a case of negative protection to locally made cars. Thus, the used cars have managed to fill the market vacated by locally produced cars. Previously, the market share of used cars was around 10%, which has gone up now to 30%.
“This causes a loss of foreign exchange and loss of legitimate revenue to the government. We are very surprised to note that this measure will additionally generate revenue of Rs4 billion, which is highly unlikely,” the director general added.
“We are apprehensive that the measure would eventually result in a drop in the volumes with a consequent drop in the revenues. The measure in question would only be hurting the economy, enhancing negative sentiments for consumers and losing investor confidence in investment in Pakistan.”
The PAMA requested the minister not to further burden the local industry with an increase in the rate of sales tax to 25%. “This proposal to increase the rate was earlier turned down when it was discussed with industry representatives; OEMs and vendors,” Khan added.


text:
The Wii is getting a new game unlike other ninja games( ninja gaiden) it is actually getting a mini-game type game that teaches you to get ninja like reflex's.
A nonviolent ninja game? That's blasphemy and I'm going to tell!!
A non violent ninja game is like non alcoholic vodka; what's the point?
Yes because all ninja's are born like shadow-crawling-fighting- machines. .....
this sounds like a very interesting game to me.. they need to just nail the controls
N4G is a community of gamers posting and discussing the latest game news. It’s part of NewsBoiler, a network of social news sites covering today’s pop culture.


text:
25th anniversary marked
10 November 2015
At the recent Fork Lift Truck Association (FLTA) 2015 AGM the Association’s President, Martyn Fletcher, presented Flexi articulated forklift truck technology pioneer, Narrow Aisle, with an engraved plaque to mark Narrow Aisle’s 25th year as an FLTA member.
Commenting, John Maguire, sales and marketing director of the company, who received the plaque on Narrow Aisle’s behalf, said: "We are very proud to have reached such a significant milestone in our relationship with the FLTA and are looking forward to working closely with the Association and our fellow FLTA members for many more productive years.”
Martyn Fletcher commented: "At a time when trade bodies across all industry sectors are under pressure to demonstrate that they represent good value for their members, the fact that companies such as Narrow Aisle actively engage with us for so many years is a strong endorsement of the services and benefits that the FLTA delivers.”


text:
Google's Android One Initiative Launches In MyanmarBy cheatmaster 10:30 Sun, 25 Jul 2021 Comments
Google has launched its Android One program in Myanmar, making it the seventh Asian country (and eighth overall) where the company's low cost smartphones will be sold.
In Myanmar, the Mountain View-based company has partnered with Cherry Mobile, which is also its partner in Philippines. The first Android One smartphone, dubbed Cherry Mobile One, will go on sale in Myanmar on Friday, carrying a MMK 1,09,000 ($99) price tag.
Specs-wise, the device is powered by a 1.3Giga Hertz (GHz) quad-core processor, and sports a 4.5-inch FWVideo Graphics Array (VGA) (480x854 pixels) display. It comes with 1GB Random-Access Memory (RAM) and 8GB expandable internal moemory, and packs in a 1700mAh battery.
In terms of camera, the Cherry Mobile One features a 5MP rear unit and a 2MP front shooter. It runs the latest version of Android (Lollipop 5.1.1), and also offers dual-SIM support.
"We hope the arrival of Android One helps put remarkable smartphones into the hands of more people across Myanmar, and we see forward to working with our partners to launch more devices in more countries over the coming months," assumed Caesar Sengupta, VP, Product Management at Google.
Source | Via
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It's the happiest time of the year for retailers when Christmas music begins playing on local radio stations.
The earlier it begins playing on stations the higher the ratings and, according to one station manager, the more inspirational buying power for women.
WMYI, the Greenville-based MY 102.5, began playing Christmas music two weeks ago. Its night and weekend airwaves are filled with the sounds of the season, from 7 p.m. until midnight during the week and the weekends until Thanksgiving when the entire program schedule will be Christmas music.
No one seems to love it more than women.
They are inspired to shop early and buy presents for friends and family. Christmas music has that affect on women, said Greg McKinney, program director, for
McKinney says listeners want Christmas music early.
"We draw mainly female audiences," said McKinney. "And women are all about Christmas." McKinney said that as women are shopping for their gifts and wrapping presents they enjoy listening to the music.
WMYI began playing Christmas music at the beginning of November in 2001 and it received a lot of listener support.
McKinney also said that his station receives the highest ratings during this time of the year because of the music.
Complaints are not in short supply however. According to McKinney, the positive and negative comments are 50/50.
The station welcomes its listeners to call in with their requests. One of McKinney's favorites is Vince Vance and the Valiant's version of "All I Want for Christmas", also a favorite of the listeners as one of the most requested songs.
The classics are also popular. McKinney said his station "doesn't just play the same couple of songs over and over. We have a lot of variety, and people like that."
WLFJ, HIS Radio 89.3 also Greenville-based, recognizes that its listeners want the music. "If you like Christmas music, our station is definitely the place for you," said Gary Miller, assistant program director for the station.
However the station will not begin playing Christmas music until Thanksgiving Day.
Miller said his listeners do not want the music before then. They feel it is just too early," he said.
Beginning Thanksgiving, the station plans on following a Christmas format until Christmas. Its annual "Festival of Carols" will be Dec. 24 and 25 when the station will play Christmas music for 48 hours with no interruptions.
"It becomes like a background tool while people are enjoying time with the family and unwrapping presents," Miller said.
Miller did say, though, that he understands why other stations are playing the music so early. "From a numbers standpoint, the ratings come back very high especially with women," he said. From a business standpoint, stores like that it encourage customers to get into the spirit."
Thus people begin shopping earlier, resulting in more profits for the businesses during their most wonderful time of the year.


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AMD's stock is on the rise because of Wall Street's faith in Jaguar and hUMA. But are two technological wins enough to keep the company afloat?
AMD’s stock had a very good week last week.
The underdog chipmaker’s shareprice was flirting with the $4 mark, as it hit a high of $3.79 mid-way through Friday’s trading day before resting at $3.60. This is up from $2.65 when the week began, and the stock’s 52-week low of $1.71 from November 2012. Considering these numbers AMD’s stock ended the week with a gain of 36.4%, returns not seen since the company was looking down at Intel as the inferior chipmaker.
What does this rally mean? Wall Street has faith in AMD, particularly AMD’s upcoming Jaguar architecture and heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access “hUMA” technology.
A Jaguar in every living room
It isn’t new news that AMD’s Jaguar architecture, the successor to its popular Brazos line, will be powering the next-generation Xbox and Playstation.
Having Jaguar architecture in both next-generation game consoles would be a license to print money for the company as AMD. It also gives AMD incredible clout in defining the next generation of API standards; developers will be lining up to consult with AMD on how to make their games look the best on the consoles of next. But Jaguar is also something more, and something Intel hasn’t done. Jaguar is the first step towards heterogeneous computing, an evolution towards a totally integrated CPU and GPU.
Better living through hUMA
The ability to effectively integrate the GPU and CPU, eliminating the bottlenecks of GPGPU (General Purpose GPU) computing is a bridge that only AMD has been able to cross. While Mark Cerny PlayStation 4’s lead architect Mark Cerny let out a few spoilers of the existence of such a heterogeneous architecture existing on AMD’s hardware a few weeks ago, it wasn’t until last week that AMD officially announced hUMA for this summer’s upcoming Kaveri core.
Considering market demands, growth is not necessarily going to be in high-power high-cost chips. Should hUMA work in the real-world as advertised, it will allow the company to attain some serious growth in the mobile and tablet marketplace.
Caution going forward
While hUMA and Jaguar’s place in the next-generation game consoles can do a lot to drive the company forward, it still has to contend with a collapsing PC market. However, this collapsing market has hurt its rival Intel more than it has hurt AMD. Although AMD’s stock has jumped 50% over the past 12 months, it is still down 50% for past year.


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Meanwhile, some commodity groups recorded a decrease in export turnover such as coffee and cashew nuts, with decreases of nearly 12% and more than 7%, respectively.
In terms of structure, the group of heavy industrial goods and minerals was estimated at 57.58 billion USD, up 33% over the same period last year, accounting for more than 55% of total merchandise export turnover. The group of light industry and handicraft products is estimated at nearly 37 billion USD, up by nearly 28% and accounting for more than 35%. The group of agricultural and forestry products was estimated at over US $ 7.3 billion, up nearly 9% and accounting for more than 7%. The group of seafood products reached 2.39 billion USD, up more than 6%, accounting for about 2%.
The US is the largest export market of Vietnam with a turnover of more than 30 billion USD, an increase of 50% over the same period last year. China is the second largest export market with an estimated turnover of US $ 16.8 billion, an increase of more than 32%. Next is the EU market, with a turnover of 12.6 billion USD, an increase of more than 18%.
In the opposite direction, April’s import turnover was estimated at 27 billion USD, down more than 5%, of which the domestic economic sector reached 9.8 billion USD, down nearly 5%, the FDI area was estimated at 17.2 billion USD, down 5.4%. However, the import turnover in April increased by nearly 44% compared to the same period last year, in which the domestic economic sector increased by 36.3% and the FDI sector increased by nearly 48%.
Generally for 4 months, import turnover was estimated at more than 102.6 billion USD, up 30.8% over the same period last year, of which the domestic economic sector reached 35.69 billion USD, up 24, 8% of the FDI sector reached more than US $ 66.9 billion, an increase of more than 34%.
Accordingly, 19 items with an import turnover of over US $ 1 billion, accounting for more than 77% of the total import turnover, of which 3 items were imported with over US $ 5 billion. The turnover of electronics, computers and components reached $ 22 billion, accounting for nearly 22% of the total import turnover, up nearly 25% over the same period last year. The turnover of machinery, equipment, tools and spare parts was estimated at 14.8 billion USD, up nearly 32%. Phones and accessories reached 6 billion USD, up 44%.
Regarding the import structure, the group of materials for production was estimated at more than USD 96.3 billion, an increase of more than 31% over the same period last year and accounting for 93.9% of the total import turnover of goods. Among them, the group of machinery, equipment, tools, means of transport and spare parts has the largest import turnover, estimated at nearly $ 47 billion, up nearly 30% and accounting for nearly 46%. The second largest group of raw materials, fuel and materials, is estimated at nearly USD 50 billion, up 33% and accounting for more than 48%.
China is Vietnam’s largest import market with a turnover estimated at more than 33 billion USD, up nearly 48% over the same period last year. Next is the Korean market, estimated at nearly 17 billion USD, up nearly 17%. The ASEAN market ranked third, with an estimated turnover of more than US $ 14 billion, an increase of more than 48%.
The General Statistics Office estimates that Vietnam exported $1.29 billion in the first four months of the year, of which the domestic economy imported more than $9.9 billion and the FDI sector (including crude oil) exported more than $11.2 billion.
Source: ndh.vn – Translated by fintel.vn


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September was another strong month for the Torrance real estate market but overall market is in danger of slowing down the next few months due to a lack of inventory. For the month of September there were 92 homes sales throughout the various areas of Torrance, including 10 sales in Hollywood Riviera.
The median sale price was $541,875. Both the number of sales and median sale price compare favorably month to month and year to year. August of this year saw 82 sales recorded with a median sale price of $540,000. For September of 2011 there were only 71 sales at a median price of $530,000.


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The Press reports:
Outgoing Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt racked up nearly $9000 on his ratepayer-funded credit card in the last year, including more than $120 on two visits to the bawdy Hooters restaurant in the United States.
Figures released to The Press under the Official Information Act show Marryatt twice visited the restaurant chain in Phoenix, Arizona, famous for its young busty waitresses. He was there on a council managers’ conference a year ago.
Cr Tim Carter, who chairs the council’s audit and risk committee and often signed off credit card reports from senior staff, said he was “struggling to understand how spending money at a Hooters bar was council business”. Mayoral candidate Lianne Dalziel has also called for more transparency on council spending.
To be fair to Marryatt, you do need to eat while at conferences and Hooters do have absolutely delicious buffalo wings. Best I’ve had in America.
But it is a pretty dumb move to choose Hooters as an eating establishment, when the ratepayers (or taxpayers) are paying the bills. I would never go to Hooters if I wasn’t paying the bill myself.


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With the widespread availability of the Internet and broadband service, consumers readily adopt new options for accessing, viewing, and experiencing media in all its various forms. This year’s CQ study showed technology companies topping the charts in the media category, while traditional media companies were largely rated in the negative.
Manila Austin, PhD
VP, Research at C Space
…they prefer technology companies to traditional media.
I’m old enough to remember when there were only four “real” TV channels. Even ten years ago, Netflix wasn’t streaming, and we still looked to “cable” for media entertainment. Traditional television broadcasting companies had control over their markets; similar to those companies today that have established infrastructures in place, thwarting would-be competitors.
But recent technological innovation has changed all that, of course. With the widespread availability of the Internet and broadband service, consumers readily adopt new options for accessing, viewing, and experiencing media in all its various forms. In fact, this year’s study showed technology companies topping the charts in the media category. Google, Netflix, and Amazon were the three highest rated media companies in 2016 (with CQ scores of 4.58, 4.10, and 3.98 respectively).
In contrast, traditional media companies were largely rated in the negative, with their average CQ dropping a dramatic 9.11 year-over-year. And the major broadcasting companies do appear to be struggling to find growth (the industry saw an $18 billion shortfall in revenue in 2015, and the value of the Dow Jones Media Index fell from $811 billion to $640 billion between August 2015 and February 2016).
The technology sector, however, shows the opposite trend. The soaring popularity of technology companies rated within and as part of the media category represents a larger shift that is as dramatic as it is telling. And we have every reason to expect that this rate of change and extra-category disruption within all industries will increase. On average, companies’ lifespan on the S&P 500 is now only 15 years (a 50-year reduction over the last century); and experts predict that, within five years, the majority of companies in that index will be ones we have never even heard of yet.
It’s not so far fetched to imagine that, in another five years, every industry will see technology companies – ones with the creativity and operational agility to meet new consumer demands – outperforming their traditional counterparts. And I’m not talking about inventing new functionality for the sake of having something different to offer; more bells and whistles. To be relevant, companies must use technology to stay in step with what matters most to consumers; delivering new functionality and creating new options that show consumers they are understood, respected, and valued.
Getting customers, keeping them, growing them – keeps us all in business. But today’s customers have more means, power, and control to circumvent traditional business offerings to get what they want, when, and how they want it.
As industries become commoditized and as companies within those industries struggle to differentiate their offering from competitors’, the subtle, emotional, and intangible brand behaviors CQ defines become ever more important. Ultimately, whether or not a company intuitively “gets” its customers may be the most important differentiator in a fractured, crowded marketplace. Developing this kind of intuition is the ultimate path to winning customers’ share of heart.
The above is an excerpt from our Customer Quotient™ (CQ) research.


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Online retailer jumps the gun, reveals Asus Zenfone 3 India pricing ahead of launch
The Asus Zenfone 3 is yet to be officially launched in India (the event is scheduled to kick off today at 4PM IST), but one online retailer has gone ahead and revealed the pricing information for the device.
A offer page on Snapdeal has revealed that the device will carry a price tag of INR 21,999, which translates into around $330 at current exchange rates.
The page further reveals that the device will be available in two variants, having 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch display, respectively. The INR 21,999 price is apparently for the model with 5.2-inch display and 3GB RAM.


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PETALING JAYA: Oil palm planters, particularly companies which comply with tighter sustainability standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), will have better support in their credit profile ratings, according Moody’s Investors Service.
Three Moody’s-rated palm oil producers – Sime Darby Plantation Bhd (Baa1 stable), IOI Corp Bhd (Baa2 stable) and Indonesia’s Sawit Sumbermas Sarana Tbk PT (B1 stable) – are pursuing full RSPO certification and are unlikely be affected by the recent RSPO revised principles and criteria (P&C).
“Therefore, the companies are likely to be in compliance with the revised RSPO requirements ahead of the 12-month grace period.
“Among our rated issuers, Sime Darby Plantation is best positioned for sustainability practices.
“It is the largest producer globally of certified sustainable palm oil, producing 20% of global output, and one of the founding members of the RSPO,” said Moody’s in a report.
The rating agency added that IOI Corp, another RSPO founding member, had enhanced its sustainability practices.
Last month, the RSPO officially closed its complaint from 2016 in recognition of IOI’s continued commitment to a number of practices, including no development in high conservation value areas.
Amid growing awareness and demand for sustainable palm oil production, Moody’s expected companies that have RSPO certification to be better positioned to benefit from the favourable long-term outlook for palm oil demand.
According to Oil World, an independent global research firm on oil seeds, global palm oil consumption will rise to 85 million tonnes by 2025 from 62 million tonnes in 2016.
The RSPO is an association of palm oil industry stakeholders that promotes the growth and use of sustainable palm oil products.
Key elements of the updated criteria are related to halting deforestation, protecting peatlands and strengthening labour rights.
The RSPO’s P&C offers a generic standard that defines the criteria for the manufacturing of sustainable palm oil at the palm oil mill and production standards applied during the planting and harvesting process.
It is one of the most widely-used certification standards globally and seeks to address environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in the palm oil sector.
“We expect that palm oil producers with well-established sustainability practices will have an edge in terms of better access to larger customers, which are increasingly adopting more stringent sustainability policies, and to funding, as the ESG criteria are becoming increasingly important considerations for investors and lenders,” said Moody’s.
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PayPal to be accepted at 15 major retail chains
- Adrian Burns, Business First
(Page 2 of 2)
The Puget Sound Business Journal wrote last month about how tech companies including Amazon.com and Facebook and PayPal are moving into the world of mobile payments, though consumers still place more trust in banks.
PayPal didn’t give a timeline for when it will be available at the retailers, nor did it detail how its platform would work. Customers shopping at any Home Depot, however, can now pay with PayPal by either using a PayPal card or by providing a mobile phone number and PIN code. The company made a video showing how this works.
Expect PayPal to continue to move into this new territory. In addition to announcing plans to begin offering PayPal at some larger retailers, the company also said it was accelerating its push into smaller retailers.
“In addition to announcing these 15 new major retailers, we were also pleased to announce new deals that will enable us to reach ‘mid-market’ businesses across the U.S.,” the company said. “This includes businesses with multiple retail locations as well as those that might only have a few store locations but possess more sophisticated payment and inventory management systems.”
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In the month of October Dave Pasternack wrote an article Troubled times for SEO firms where he critically pointed out that marketers are discovering that SEO isn't rocket science. Since this article critically backlashed so Dave has given another interview to DM News Is SEO “rocket science?”: A Q&A with Dave Pasternack.
Dave Pasternack tries to clear his stance and says, “a small percentage of readers with an inferiority complex who happen to call themselves SEO experts. The article was about the apparent demystification of the SEO field. In other words, a growing number of companies are realizing that their sites need to be designed in accordance with the basic SEO guidelines described by Google, and that this knowledge should be and is becoming incorporated as a core competence of their internal Web teams.”
He adds, “if the web team consistently follows the rules when putting up new content, then no “fixing” or “tweaking” is necessary. Plus if the content is great, with some marketing, it will get inbound links just as Larry [Paige] and Sergey [Brin] at Google calculated.”
However, it seems that many people are still not satisfied with Dave Pasternack stance. But instead of being angry like the previous time they are amused. Lee Odden in his post Good SEO Humor says, “So, ongoing SEO and link building is relegated to “great content” and “some marketing”. That’s it! That’s all you need! Wow, SEO firms and client companies world wide will be so happy to hear that. LOL
Thanks to Dave’s insight, SEO agencies can throw in the towel and clients will be successful in the natural search results purely based on “great content” and “some marketing”. Now I know why Dave’s company moved away from SEO to all PPC six years ago. The lack of results from “some marketing” must have been embarrassing!”
To add to all the past events Threadwatch has decided to launch a Dave Pasternack SEO Contest
Whoever ranks #1 in Google for Dave Pasternack at noon Eastern on March 1st, 2007 wins $1,000 from Threadwatch. In addition to the $1,000 prize for the top ranking site, Threadwatch will also give away $100 to the most interesting PPC ad running at that time, as voted for by our editors.
Now lets wait and watch whether Dave goes ahead and gives another interview in defense of his interview.