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Rarely far from controversy, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman caused quite the stir in his New York Times column a couple weeks back.
Krugman argued that e-commerce giant Amazon "has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt Americans". Furthermore, state intervention was necessary to protect the public.
Amazon drew Krugman's ire thanks to its dispute with publishing house Hachette over what share of its book sales should go to the online retailer.
Krugman blasted Amazon for using "robber baron type power" in the book market to squeeze suppliers and said "public action" was required to crack down on Amazon's aggressive tactics.
Krugman classified Amazon not as a monopolist but a monopsonist. A monopsonist being the dominant buyer of goods or services in a particular market, with the power to drive down the prices set by suppliers.
Many economists and commentators agreed with Krugman that Amazon holds this position but then asked "so what?".
If Amazon can drive down the prices of its suppliers and pass those benefits on to consumers in the form of cheaper products, this is something to be welcomed not deplored.
A plurality of a panel of expert economists at the University of Chicago's Initiative on Global Markets, which comments on controversial economic issues of the day agreed that regulation was not the answer to alledged problem of Amazon's monospony.
48 per cent of panel disagreed with the statement:
Amazon has sufficient monopsony power that regulatory intervention is likely to make consumers of books better off, taking into account implementation costs and the effect of intervention on incentives?
Just 10 per cent of the experts agreed, with 42 per cent saying they were uncertain. Joseph Altonji, Thomas Dewitt Cuyler Professor Economics at Yale University, said:
Intervention is costly and premature. So far, book consumers have probably benefited.
Fellow Yale professor Judith Chevalier agreed:
Currently, I cannot identify a specific practice that it would be sensible to address with a regulatory intervention.
Krugman did not outline exactly what kind of action should be taken against Amazon, but he cited Standard Oil as a company that had "too much power" and had a comparable market share to Amazon.
Thanks to US antitrust laws. in 1911 the US Supreme Court ruled that what was formerly the world's largest oil refiner needed to be broken up into smaller companies.


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Mother: Peanut Butter Cheerios A Worry
January 13, 2012 by UPI - United Press International, Inc.
ALBUQUERQUE, Jan. 13 (UPI) — Parents of some children with peanut allergies say they are worried the Multi Grain Cheerios Peanut Butter cereal may set off a reaction.
Jodi Loftis, of Albuquerque, said her 9-year-old daughter knows to avoid certain candies and granola bars that may contain peanut ingredients and now she has to watch out for the new cereal from General Mills Inc.
“Even as a 9-year-old, you can continue to tell her every day, every week, make sure you don’t share any foods with anybody,” Loftis told ABC-TV News. “But sometimes it’s hard for a 9-year-old to remember that.”
Other parents said they are worried about cross-contamination at facilities manufacturing both traditional Cheerios and the new peanut butter Cheerios.
In a statement, General Mills said the company it had “complete confidence” that Multi Grain Cheerio Peanut Butter will not cross-contaminate other Cheerios varieties.
“General Mills employs the most stringent allergen control practices in the industry,” the cereal company said. “The food industry and the allergen-sensitive community have worked together diligently to educate consumers that allergens are best identified on product labeling. That’s why we’ve made it a top priority to ensure that our packaging and labeling clearly communicate what’s inside the box.”

domain: news


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You've Got Nerve: AOL Won't Let Customers Go
All Vincent Ferrari wanted to do was cancel his AOL service. But tales of AOL's reluctance to let customers go are legendary, so Ferrari decided to record his phone call.
The resulting audio of the five-minute conversation, recorded a week ago between Ferrari and an AOL customer service representative named John, has made national headline news, and resulted in a perfect example of how poor customer service can critically damage a company's image. AOL has since issued an apology and says the employee is no longer with the company. In a broadcast network interview on Wednesday, Ferrari when asked if he felt bad that John had been fired, answered, "Not so much."
"This is business reaching a new height of arrogance," says Lior Arussy, founder and president of Strativity Group, a customer experience management research and advisory firm. "Many companies say they don't have the money during economic downtime to delight customers, but this is an uptime, yet they're still repeating the same behavior. They treat customers as subjects of their empire."
After having spent four minutes navigating AOL's IVR system, then after having spent 11 minutes on hold, Ferrari spent a further five minutes speaking with John, who repeatedly attempted to sidetrack Ferrari from canceling the account. Despite Ferrari's insistence that the account hadn't been used in months and his computer didn't even contain the software, the CSR argued that the account should be kept based on recent usage. After making it clear he wanted the account cancelled, Ferrari was told by John it was in his "best interest to listen to me" and when "that epiphany happens, why don't you just give us a call back." After spending another minute going through an automated goodbye, Ferrari's account was finally cancelled. It took 21 minutes.
"I'm in the cellular business, so I understand that you have to try to retain your customers because you exist by the existence of your customers," Ferrari said during the TV interview. "There comes a point when you have to realize I'm committed to canceling. You're not going to get me back. Just cancel the account."
Trying to sell to a customer at the moment of cancellation is a notion that Arussy has always disputed. "At that point the customer has already given up on the company's ability to deliver up to the value you've promised them."
The best a company can hope for in a situation like this is to inquire if it can revisit the customer after they've tried the competition, according to Arussy. It also worries Arussy that such arrogance was displayed by a low-level CSR, as opposed to a C-level executive or manager. "We don't usually see this sort of behavior from employees, because they would never take this kind of crap as a consumer themselves."
If CSRs are treating customers in this manner, the company's problem is coming well before the point of training, call center scripts, or processes. "This is a problem with hiring," Arussy says. "The corruption or arrogance of the company permeated itself all the way to the individual, and that's not the sort of person you want to be employing as a CSR."
Dissatisfied QM 2 Passengers Rock the Boat
Marriott Vacation Club Time Shares Customer Data


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They are young entrepreneurs, who have been inspired to start their businesses, turning their ideas into reality. They are participants in the just concluded Junior Chamber International (JCI) Lagos Metropolitan Chapter Young Entrepreneurs fair held at Alausa, Lagos State, writes DANIEL ESSIET.
Shade Odu and Ayodele Emabaye are crafts entrepreneurs. They are both graduates and partners in a thriving crafts making business. One thing they have in common is that they realised early in life that they have to work hard to make it.
During the Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU) strike in 2012, Shade decided to explore business opportunity in crafts. Eventually, she underwent training on how to produce handmade bags. This gave birth to an enterprise that deals in handicrafts, including African attire, bags, pottery objects, and many other locally-made gifts.
They started with N40, 000 and today, the business is worth N100,000. They were at the just concluded Junior Chamber International (JCI) Lagos Metropolitan Chapter young entrepreneurs fair held at Alausa, to display their wares .
Speaking with The Nation, Shade said she and her partner have come a long way and been through challenges. Starting was rough with the challenges they faced in marketing their products.
Initially, she said they had a challenge of getting market because people prefer leather bags.
According to her, many Nigerians do not appreciate and value Made-in-Nigeria products, meaning the business sometimes has to depend on a handful of clients. Sooner, the products started getting good publicity in her locality and today, she is happy with the returns.
Gradually, they are now being known for their exquisite craftsmanship. They have mastered the art of turning their designs and business into a reflection of their own passions and priorities.
She said some of their customers are based in Ibadan,Oyo State, adding that residents are slowly embracing the culture of buying fabrics, made crafts and gifts, especially the locally-made pieces.
Ambitious to see the business flourish in the long-term, Shade is hoping to expand the business into key emerging markets, using different outlets. Many think the ultimate achievement of any business person is accumulation of huge sums of money. Shade, however, said their greatest achievement is the experience they have got from running the business and the opportunities it has presented to network with people. They have created more bags and handicrafts to sell. The demand for their products has increased.
With hard work, determination and resilience, many Nigerians have been able to build their dreams of success. Another participant, Favour Ozuonim Ashien, owner and Chief Executive Officer of Fanim 18 Enterprises, said she started her business selling smoked fish. She studied chemical engineering at Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, Delta State. In 2015, she got a small loan under the Bank of Industry (BoI) Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund (GEF). The BoI special N2 billion empowerment programme is serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). She was given a loan after she presented a bankable business plan. Today, under the brand name eatrite, she packages smoked fish, cray fish, hot chili pepper, pepper soup spices. She has also packaged shrimps. She has a factory at Ikorodu. She acknowledged that she has many challenges, which include penetrating the market since it was a new product. However, things are slowly changing.
JCI Lagos Metropolitan Chapter President, Mrs Yetunde Doyin-Ishola, said the organisation is focused at developing young people in the business environment. According to her, the young entrepreneurs fair is part of the 60 years celebration of the organisation. She believes the future of nation’s best and brightest small and medium sized businesses will in turn determine that economic health. The fair showcased a variety of handicraft items made by young entrepreneurs. A variety of products, ranging from food items to footwear were exhibited.


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- Daily Zen
Sears Corps has had a tough time dealing with the holiday season. The parent company Sears Holding Corps, an Illinois based company, will close more than 100 full-line Sears and Kmart stores in move to improve and accelerate the transformation of its business.
What & Why
The closings are a result of poor holiday season sales during Christmas, which is the most crucial time of year for retailers. Sears Holdings Corps said it has yet to decide which stores to close. Sears would not want to discuss how many, if any, jobs would be lost.
Sears Corps has been long known as the pillar of American retailing and began with a mail-order record in the 1880s.
The announcement of 100+ stores closure from Sears Corps came less than two weeks after getting state tax breaks worth $150 million. The State Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago said, “We are shocked and disappointed.”
This has rattled the Illinois Officials. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago said, “We gave Sears Corps a beautiful incentive package. They put a lot of pressure on us to do this package because they wanted to stay in Illinois, and I think there’s some explaining that has to be done by Sears.”
Sears Corps said that it would no longer sustain marginally performing locations; but rather focus on stores that make money.
Eddie Lampert, hands-on chairman of Sears Corps has failed miserably to reverse the company’s fortune, leading Sears Corps to the latest and most visible move.
The scenario worsened after rivals Wal-Mart and Target Corp. spruced up stores in recent years, while Sears Holdings dealt with falling sales and perceptions of dull and old-fashioned merchandise.
Quite a few analysts wondered if it was really too late, bothering whether the retailer can manage to pay for to upgrade stores as it burns through its cash reserves.
A spokesman for Sears Holdings said, “The timing of the announcement was in line with the company’s usual practices. We typically publish a release after the holidays, as the fourth quarter is the critical performance period.”
Sears Corps is now focused on improving its business and continuing to be a strong and contributing Illinois business community member.
Sears Holdings believes that the ongoing pressure on profit margins along with declining sales and rising expenses has been responsible for pulling its adjusted earnings lower.
Sears Corps also predicts fourth-quarter adjusted earnings to be less than half of the $933 million. Sears said yesterday that closing the Kmart and Sears stores will generate $140 million to $170 million of cash from inventory sales and leasing or sales of the locations. The chain plans to reduce fixed costs by $100 million to $200 million.


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Sharp elbows are no longer a necessary requirement to survive Black Friday in 2017. The American-imported shopping bonanza introduced by Amazon led to stampedes at Asda in 2014 as fights broke out over cut-price flat-screen TVs. But last year Tesco’s barriers went untested and TV crews outnumbered the number of early-morning shoppers on Oxford Street.
Consumer habits have evolved so rapidly that shoppers increasingly prefer to snap up bargains from their mobile screens rather than tackle bustling crowds on the high street.
But while Black Friday has become an established part of the spending calendar, retailers worry about the discounting drive destroying their peak trading season profits.
This year’s event, which is officially meant to start on November 24, is expected to once again be dominated by online spending as the retail trend for clicks over bricks continues.
British shoppers are expected to spend £7bn this year, 20pc more than last year and 15 times more than when Black Friday was brought to these shores by Amazon in 2010.
But part of the reason for the soaring spending figures is because retailers are stretching the November promotional period for longer than ever before.
Last year saw the introduction of the ghastly “Black Fiveday” to festive vocabulary as retailers started to discount for five consecutive days from the Thursday before to “Cyber Monday”.
Just one year on, the term “cyber” has become outdated as the overwhelming majority of spending will be online anyway.
“Black Friday is no longer about one single day, or week – it looks set to take over the whole month,” commented James Webster, of online consultancy firm Salmon. “Retailers have realised the opportunity it holds to create an ongoing experience that can help grow their customer base and loyalty, and so it is now an expectation.”
While 62pc of 2,000 consumers surveyed by Retail Economics said that they would spend less this year, partly because of a lack of interest in the event, a third of consumers said they would do even more of their Black Friday shopping online this year.
“This shift in spending is anticipated by retailers, three-quarters of whom thought online would be more popular this year”, commented Richard Lim at Retail Economics.
This year Argos is attempting to claim the crown for the longest period of promotions with a 14-day-long sales event. The company, which is attempting to transform itself from a laminate catalogue retailer to digital powerhouse, attracted more than 12m visits to its site during last year’s Black Friday, with 75pc of those through mobile and tablet devices. Now owned by Sainsbury’s, the chain is expecting even more this year and has ramped up its delivery service with same-day Fast Track delivery slots over Black Friday and rolling out Argos concessions into supermarket stores.
“We have been busy preparing for the Black Friday period for many months, ensuring our digital channels, stores and distribution centres are all geared up in anticipation for high levels of demand,” John Rogers, Argos boss said. “Black Friday and Cyber Monday have definitely changed how people shop for Christmas, with many using it for the initial burst of gift buying in the festive season, whether they choose to shop in store, online, or by mobile.”
Amazon, meanwhile, is running discounts on products, including its voice-activated devices, for 10 days.
It has even opened a pop-up shop in Soho, central London, to showcase its best promotions. Analysts say it is further evidence of how retailers are blurring online with physical stores.
For many traditional names, they will be hoping the rise of “click and collect” online orders lures shoppers into their stores. The hope is that customers will then be encouraged to spend more money while they are there. However, despite generating billions in sales, Black Friday is seen by many experts as a destructive force.
It wreaks havoc with the traditional festive spending calendar and encourages discounting at a time when shoppers would have ordinarily been willing to pay for Christmas presents and other items at full price.
“It has warped the seasonal calendar but after a pretty tough October people are placing their hopes on Black Friday to help rescue their 2017,” commented Rob Baxter, of KPMG.
Last month non-food sales fell to their lowest level for five years, according to the BRC-KPMG sales monitor, largely because warm weather dampened demand for winter clothes. “We expect more retailers to take part in the event this year in an attempt to stimulate the waning demand they have faced over September and October,” commented Eleanor Parr, retail analyst at GlobalData. Around 40pc of UK consumers said they were waiting for Black Friday sales to make their big- ticket purchases with around half delaying their spending for over a month, according to TopCashBack.co.uk.
Analysts warn the introduction of early discounting is reducing retailers’ profitability during their peak trading season. Not only does it make shoppers reluctant to spend money earlier in November as they wait for the promise of promotions, it also threatens to ring the death knell for Boxing Day sales as many shoppers will have already spent their hard-earned cash when December 26 arrives.
With retailers’ profits already under pressure from a weaker pound, analysts reckon that many will be unable to offer the level of discounts advertised last year.
“Black Friday is enormously destructive,” commented Richard Hyman, an independent retail expert. “It has meant that either retailers are no longer selling at full price, which is brand damaging, or they are shipping in product on special order which is of lower quality and then just as brand damaging. The shine has well and truly come off the golden quarter.”
Marks & Spencer boss Steve Rowe, who is attempting to steer a turnaround of the retailer by weaning it off discounting, has declared that there will be “no Black Friday” for the high street bellwether this year.
“We might do a couple of deals, but we are focused on improving value,” he said. “When we did it three years ago it just sucked a load of business out of the following three weeks. I think that the Black Friday customer is interested in buying online things like toys and electricals and that’s not us.
“People need to trust that they will be paying one price for a product and not for it to change the next day. It’s an American import that I reckon many retailers wish hadn’t arrived.” Meanwhile, other high street players are gearing up more than ever with many fearing that they can’t afford not to take part in the event.
Ray Kelvin, founder of Ted Baker, said: “We are reluctant about Black Friday and we won’t be reducing that much, but the customer has come to expect discounts and considers you to be almost rude if you don’t,” he said.
“You have to join in with Black Friday but it’s not a trend I particularly enjoy. The Americans brought us over Halloween in a big way and now we have Black Friday – I think the second one is scarier!”
Department stores John Lewis, House of Fraser and Debenhams will all be running Black Friday events while AO, Blacks, Currys PC World, Halfords, ShopDirect and Wiggle began running promotions last week.
Dino Rocos, operations director at John Lewis, described Black Friday as “the busiest and most dynamic day in British retail”. “We are as best prepared as we can be but it is our customers who will decide the exact pattern of trading,” he said.
Last year John Lewis, which price matches to other retailers’ promotions, reported the biggest week for sales in its 150 year history over the Black Friday period with online sales up 17.6pc year-on-year.
The short, sharp burst of online spending is placing huge demands on retailers’ technology capabilities.
Delivery logistics groups Royal Mail, Hermes, DPD, Yodel and UPS will be taking on an additional 19,050 vehicles to support the rush of Black Friday deliveries. Shoppers now expect websites not to crash under pressure and demand next-day deliveries.
Last year, video game retailer Game Digital and Currys PC World both suffered website outages with shoppers tweeting in frustration.
The rise of social media has meant that customer complaints about missing orders or website crashes can become news in record time.
The online evolution of Black Friday has become another headache retailers must suffer in having to keep up with demands of modern-day shoppers.


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Om Malik has published a prediction that in 2006, voice will be (nearly) free. As the likes of Yahoo, SipPhone, and Sun Rocket battle it out to be the low (or no?) cost leader, metered long distance and local calling will go the way of the dodo. That’s been my view for a long time. Andy echoes with "of course, nothing is free", which is absolutely true. We’re seeing a commoditization of basic voice, which necessitates the introduction of new models — both economic and technology models.
I’ll add a prediction of my own: 2006 will see the failure of multiple "telephony on IP" plays — the companies that simply replicated the PSTN on broadband. To survive in this new market you are going to have do do more than sell a near-zero commodity at a "better" price.


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That is 13 seconds faster than the last Panamera record holder, a 2016 Turbo.
Most of us know the Porsche Panamera as a fast, comfortable, and well-built SUV alternative that may not have always been that attractive. According to an announcement by Porsche on Thursday, we can also imagine this as the four-door executive king of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.
By this I mean that the Panamera – the not yet officially announced facelift conviction – has set a Nürburgring lap record with driver Lars Kern at the wheel of just 7:29:81. That's about 13 seconds faster than the last Panamera that drove around there – a 2016 Turbo model.
For more of it
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Well, here's the thing – since Porsche has not yet unveiled this Panamera, it can't really say which trim level set the record, but based on a conversation with Porsche representatives, one can assume it's a high one . spec. Turbo model with at least 600 hp. In other words, there is a lot to be happy about when Porsche pulls the sheet off the vehicle soon.
Interestingly, Porsche states that this record was set for Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires – a damn serious rubber for a large lead car – but that those tires would be available as an option on the vehicle as soon as they became available.
"The Panamera has always been an exclusive touring sedan and a real sports car at the same time. With the new model, we have improved these properties even further," said Thomas Friemuth, Vice President Product Line Panamera, in a statement. "In addition to the increased engine power, improvements have been made in the areas of cornering stability, body control and steering precision. These improvements benefit both daily comfort and performance. The lap record is impressive proof of this."
Porsche will present the updated Panamera at the end of August and you can bet that we are there (digitally) to provide you with all the facts and figures.
The 2019 Porsche Panamera Turbo is the four-door coupé for the sports car obsession
View all photos


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The new Dunkin’ Donuts in Ballston, at the corner of N. Stuart and 9th Streets, is now open for business.
The small donut shop replaced the former Quizno’s in the corner of the National Science Foundation building at 4201 Wilson Blvd. Dunkin’ Donuts signed its lease for the 1,000-square-foot space in April.
The location — Arlington’s sixth, not including locations in the Pentagon and Reagan National Airport — opened yesterday. It doesn’t have any seating inside, but has a small handful of outside tables.


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Whitegoods at K/BIS: Green, Clean and Flatscreened
It’s 90 degrees in Las Vegas this week, but the convention center is being chilled by a new crop of refrigerators with features ranging from “french doors” to removable wireless TV’s. Over 40,000 retailers, designers, builders and buyers have gathered to see the high-end coolers, some selling upwards of $4000, and the many other appliances on display at the 2007 Kitchen/Bath Industry Show & Conference (K/BIS) running through Thursday. 900 vendors are showing in the North and Central halls, including all the major CE brands.
First day press conferences revealed a new generation of “green” home appliances, expensive washers that promise to pay for themselves eventually by using less hot water (Samsung) or barely agitating your clothes (Haier). LG and Samsung are once again showing refrigerators with interactive LCD touch-panel screens on the door. Sharp is spotlighting a new generation of “microwave drawers” designed to live under the counter, dishwasher-style.
Stainless steel is still the most popular and the premium-priced design color on kitchen appliances, but bright, primary-colored washers and dryers dot the showfloor in “tango red” and “midnight blue.” Lines on all appliances, save some Italian custom retro-ovens, are clean and simple.


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A range of Lancashire’s fastest growing firms have made the shortlist of the Scaleup Business of the Year Award at this year’s Be Inspired Business Awards (BIBAs), organised by North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce.
Those shortlisted for this year’s award include manufacturers, engineering companies, a utilities contractor, export company and a personal fitness organisation, with the shortlisted firms coming from all areas of Lancashire.
This is the third year of Two Zero’s support of the scaleup award, which recognises firms that can demonstrate year-on-year scaleup growth through innovative products, services, management techniques and processes.
Amin Vepari, programme manager of Two Zero said “We are proud to be partnering with the BIBAs to support the scaleup category once again. The awards are a great platform for businesses to gain recognition for their passion, innovation and commitment to high growth.
“Two Zero’s mission is to help leaders of Lancashire scaleup businesses realise their ambition, and it’s great to see some of the fantastic stories from this year’s shortlist.
“The businesses are a great reflection of the diversity of the Lancashire economy and we hope to be able to support their continued future growth through our fast-growth programmes and networks. We wish them all good luck on the night!”
The full shortlist for the awards is below:
- Adlington Welding Supplies (Adlington Group)
- LCM Environmental Services
- Scope Fire & Security
- Sovereign Beverage Company
- Standfast & Barracks
- STORTEC Engineering
The BIBAs winners will be announced at the awards ceremony at Blackpool Tower Ballroom on Friday September 15.
Businesses can find out more about the BIBAs here


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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Halloween is not the same this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it doesn't mean an end to all the fun!
Different community groups are holding drive-thru Halloween events this year due to the pandemic. But one event to note is giving out free candy and a ton of other free stuff.
Community organizer Kim Isaac is partnering with Cone Health, Bojangles, Backpack Beginnings, and Wrangler: Kontoor for some amazing giveaways.
Along with candy and candy bags, trick-or-treaters will receive free food from Bojangles, free clothes, and jeans from Wrangler: Kontoor Brands, free book bags, books, bus passes, resources for rental and utility assistance, and even free COVID-19 testing.
"The kids and their families will get their candy, get food, get clothes and Moses Cone is one of the sponsors so they're going to be doing free COVID testing, which is amazing," Isaac said.
The event this Saturday is a drive-thru event, so families should stay in their cars when driving up to receive all this free stuff. If you walk up, the event is also designed as a grab and go service. Isaac explained what that means.
"Kids can drive-thru with their parents and one of the volunteers will actually hand them a bag of candy. I know we'll probably get quite a few walk-ups so to keep them safe we are going to be practicing social distancing and everyone will need to wear a mask," she said.
If you get out of your car or walk up you will also be required to have your temperature checked before going to each station.
The "Kandy for Kids Fall Fun Event" is on Halloween, which is Saturday, October 31st. It's from 1 pm to 3 pm at the Renaissance Shopping Center located at 2525 Phillips Avenue in Greensboro.


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LAS VEGAS — Nintendo Co.'s upcoming Wii U game console will come with a controller that has a big, touch-enabled screen. At first glance, that seems like an obstacle to the kind of casual multiplayer gaming that made the first Wii console such a breakout hit.
But in demonstrations Tuesday, the company emphasized that the Wii U will work with the cheaper, stick-like Wii controllers as well, making family multiplayer games feasible.
The Japanese company is giving some journalists hands-on time with the console on the sidelines of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which started Tuesday in Las Vegas.
It's the second time the U.S. media is getting a glimpse of the device, which was first shown in June. Nintendo said the device will go on sale after the next Electronic Entertainment Expo gaming trade show in Los Angeles in June.
Nintendo went against conventional wisdom with the original Wii in 2006. The quirky, cheap game console relied not on high-end graphics and complex buttons to lure in hard-core players, but on simple motion controls to lure in everyone.
Although the company successfully courted casual gamers with the Wii, it is now facing increased competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other devices that offer simple games. It had hoped to win new gamers through a 3-D handheld device. But sales were slow, and Nintendo slashed prices on the 3DS within six months.
The Wii U will be sold as a bundle with one touch-screen controller, which is almost as big as the game console itself. Nintendo hasn't said what the package or an extra controller will cost. Touch screens are expensive, often accounting for nearly half of the cost of a phone or a tablet computer.
Nintendo's demonstrations reveal that the touch-screen controller is designed to work with older controllers. For example, in one of Nintendo's demonstration games, four players with Wii remotes chase a fifth, who uses the touch controller. The fifth player uses the screen on the controller to guide his movements, which are thus kept secret from the other players. The other players keep track of their own movements on the TV screen.


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/ MEDIA STATEMENT / This content is not written by Creamer Media, but is a supplied media statement.
The 7th annual Manufacturing Indaba will cover a range of topics pertinent to Africa’s manufacturing industry. The event comprises an exhibition and a conference. Conference topics will be conveyed through comprehensive panel discussions led by industry experts, investors, policy-makers and government representatives. The various topics will be meticulously unpacked and discussed by leaders who have proven to be experts in each domain and such dialogues will give rise to multiple ground-breaking ideas and strategies.
Sage, the market leader in cloud business management solutions, will be sponsoring a key panel discussion which will focus on how to have a sustainable and profitable manufacturing business in the era of COVID-19. This session will be moderated by Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and will incorporate insights about the journey to manufacturing excellence. As the pandemic continues to spread, manufacturing businesses will need to restructure their operations to maintain production and remain solvent while protecting their workforce.
Amid plummeting oil prices and demand, supply chain bottlenecks, spending slowdowns and concern over the credit markets, manufacturing entities are especially vulnerable to the current economic turmoil. Not only is the bulk of their workforce employed in on-site jobs that cannot be done remotely, but they face reduced demand for industrial products.
Gerhard Hartman, Vice President, Medium Business, Sage Africa & Middle East, will be one of the panellists at this key industry event. Hartman directs and oversees the expansion of Sage’s accounting and finance, human resources, and payroll business across Africa and the Middle East. As a key technology partner to many leading manufacturers within the region, he will be sharing the insights Sage has witnessed in the industry’s response to 2020.
“African manufacturers are adressing the new operational challenges triggered by the pandemic, while also looking beyond COVID-19 to consider how they can compete more effectively on the global stage in years to come.
“The disruption we have witnessed has accelerated key technology trends. What has also been significant to see is how leaders have supported their workforce to enable agility, and create business resilience – ultimately streamlining production, enhancing supply chain management and boosting quality,” he says.
This important two-day conference, attended by industrialists, technological experts, high-level executives and government officials from across the African continent, is to be hosted virtually on 9th and 10th December 2020. Keeping abreast of innovative methodologies and technologies is imperative to achieving and maintaining a competitive manufacturing environment on both a local and global scale, and the upcoming Manufacturing Indaba intends to enlighten attending industrialists on how to do so.


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The Spiders are back – and we’ve gone Digital
We’re excited to announce the launch of the 24th Spider Awards. In years past the Spiders have focused on websites, apps and content but as the world undergoes a digital transformation – so have we. With a sparkly new brand and 24 exciting categories open for entries we’re dedicated to recognising the companies who drive digital excellence in every aspect of their organisation. Entries are now open until the 20th of September.
As part of our evolution we’ve created 3 key pillars for our categories – Create, Campaign and Industry. We wanted to make sure we encompassed all elements of the digital arena to include the human, the brand and the technology. As in previous years, a special recognition award will be awarded to a Digital Hero, a true leader of digital in Ireland.
The winners of the iconic Spider trophies will be announced on the 21st of November 2019, at the Concert Hall, RDS Dublin. Expect a night of black-tie glamour with the ‘who’s who’ of Irish Digital.
This year also marks a very important anniversary in the world of digital with 2019 being the 30th year of the World Wide Web. We’ll be looking back on our humble beginnings and the key milestones that have led to this year’s transformation.


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MarketLine Intelligence Center. MarketLine Intelligence Center. Apple's HomePod so far an also-ran with 6 percent of smart speaker market. Apple was late to bring out its own smart speaker, and it shows.
Only 6 percent of smart speaker users in the US had one of the tech titan's HomePod devices as of the end of June says a report Thursday from market researcher Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. In comparison, Amazon stayed No. 1, with 70 percent, and Google remained second, with 24 percent. The number of devices in use in the states hit 50 million. Top 10 Countries Leading the Artificial Intelligence Race. The current ravishing trends of Artificial Intelligence is hailing all the industries across different countries.
AI has the power to recognise faces, run autonomous cars, deliver better online outcomes and strengthen business in various industries. Not too much of surprise, the developed, developing and under-developed countries all are focusing on AI adoption for better futuristic opportunities and development. While AI technology is flourishing within and beyond the circumference of the world, some major AI powers are working hard on winning the race. Here is a list of top 10 countries leading the AI rush all across the globe. China China has always held ambitions significantly high for becoming AI Superpower of the world. Moreover, the country has published a number of research papers on deep learning which is comparatively more than other leading countries. United States of America The United States of America is giving a tough competition to China in terms of becoming AI superpower.
AI Index 2018 Annual Report. Artificial Intelligence: Definition, Types, Examples, Technologies. AI shouldn’t stop at reaching the human level it must go beyond the capabilities of humans for it to reach its peak potential.
Definition: To be franker there are too many definitions some common of them are as follows. The ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.A machine completing the tasks which involve a certain degree of intelligence which was previously deemed only to be done by humansIs the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. These processes include learning, reasoning, and self-correction.The capability of a machine to imitate the intelligent human behavior. How AI is helping fashion designers forecast trends. Accenture. What the post-digital era will look like Today, digital technology is a strategic priority for every business.
In the Accenture Technology Vision 2019 survey of more than 6,600 business and IT executives, 94 percent of respondents said the pace of technology innovation in their organizations had either accelerated or significantly accelerated over the past three years. Given their collective prioritization of digital technology, every company will eventually converge on the same turning point—one where digital-era technology, which began as a differentiating advantage, is something expected from every business. In other words: The digital playing field will eventually even out.
So, what will this new, “post-digital” world look like? Companies already face a new level of expectations from consumers, employees and business partners. Baidu Research. Artificial Intelligence – What it is and why it matters. The term artificial intelligence was coined in 1956, but AI has become more popular today thanks to increased data volumes, advanced algorithms, and improvements in computing power and storage.
Early AI research in the 1950s explored topics like problem solving and symbolic methods. In the 1960s, the US Department of Defense took interest in this type of work and began training computers to mimic basic human reasoning. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) completed street mapping projects in the 1970s. What is AI? What does artificial intelligence do? - CBBC Newsround. Getty Images Artificial intelligence - or AI for short - is technology that enables a computer to think or act in a more 'human' way.
It does this by taking in information from its surroundings, and deciding its response based on what it learns or senses. It affects the the way we live, work and have fun in our spare time - and sometimes without us even realising. AI is becoming a bigger part of our lives, as the technology behind it becomes more and more advanced. Machines are improving their ability to 'learn' from mistakes and change how they approach a task the next time they try it.
Some researchers are even trying to teach robots about feelings and emotions. Smart Home Devices & Home Automation Systems. An error occurred while cancelling your delivery.
Please try again later. An error occurred while processing your purchase. Please try again later. John Paul - Concierge services, client acquisition and loyalty programs. Leading Emotional Intelligence and Voice Analysis. The Washington Post's robot reporter has published 850 articles in the past year. It’s been a year since The Washington Post started using its homegrown artificial intelligence technology, Heliograf, to spit out around 300 short reports and alerts on the Rio Olympics.
Since then, it’s used Heliograf to cover congressional and gubernatorial races on Election Day and D.C. -area high school football games, producing stories like this one and tweets like this: The Associated Press has used robots to automate earnings coverage, while USA Today has used video software to create short videos. Amazon Devices Event – September 2019. Amazon’s new $200 Echo Look camera will judge your outfits. Amazon today announced a new device for the Echo family: the Echo Look, a “style assistant” camera that helps catalog your outfits and rates your look based on “machine learning algorithms with advice from fashion specialists.”
Imagine it as a smart mirror of sorts — you can talk to the Echo Look to take full-length photos or short videos to check out your outfit from seldom-seen angles. The Echo Look first leaked as a “security camera” back in March, and the photo matches exactly with what Amazon has announced today.


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Microsoft seems to be hinting at a post-consumer product existence when they announced they were shuttering their Groove service. It seems like Google is slipping into the current Microsoft spot with their line of consumer focused Chromebooks and smartphones, while Microsoft becomes the new IBM by servicing the enterprise?
Oracle was all over the place this week. Larry Ellison took shots at Amazon again while announcing AI functions within their product set. Oracle is also confident they will take the lead in the cloud by helping companies keep costs flat. Oracle might be keeping their female employee’s salaries flat as their board is rejecting requests to undergo a gender pay study.
Apple, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft purchased companies over the last week, giving the M&A section a much needed boost.
- Apple quietly acquired computer vision startup Regaind
This is Apple’s standard statement to confirm an acquisition. From what I understand, Apple acquired Regaind earlier this year. The company had raised a bit less than $500,000 (€400,000) from Side Capital.
Regaind has been working on a computer vision API to analyze the content of photos. Apple added intelligent search to the Photos app on your iPhone a couple of years ago. For instance, you can search for “sunset” or “dog” to get photos of sunsets and your dog.
In order to do this, Apple analyzes your photo library when you’re sleeping. When you plug your iPhone to a charger and you’re not using your iPhone, your device is doing some computing to figure out what’s inside your photos.
- Toshiba Strikes $17.8 Billion Deal to Sell Semiconductor Unit
On Thursday, the Japanese conglomerate said that it had signed an almost $17.8 billion deal to sell its memory chip business to Bain Capital and other investors. Now, the question is whether the deal can withstand the legal talons of Western Digital.
Toshiba said in a statement that it would sell to a holding company called Pangea, which was founded explicitly for the sale. The sale, which comes after an acrimonious auction marked by confusion and reversals, could give Toshiba a booster shot to recover from billions of dollars of losses from its American nuclear power unit.
Pangea is buying Toshiba with around $1.9 billion from Bain Capital and $240 million from Japan’s Hoya. South Korea’s SK Hynix will pay $3.50 billion while U.S. investors, including Seagate Technology, Kingston Technology, Apple, and Dell Technologies will pitch in $3.7 billion. Loans will account for another $5.3 billion of Pangea’s funding.
- Amazon has acquired 3D body model startup, Body Labs, for $50M-$70M
TechCrunch has learned that Amazon has acquired Body Labs, a company with a stated aim of creating true-to-life 3D body models to support various b2b software applications — such as virtually trying on clothes or photorealistic avatars for gaming.
One source suggested the price-tag Amazon paid for Body Labs could be $100M+. However a second well-placed source suggested it’s closer to $70M than $100M — so we’re pegging it at between $50M and $70M.
- Microsoft acquires social virtual reality app AltspaceVR
At a special event today in San Francisco, Microsoft announced that it has acquired social VR app AltspaceVR.
The virtual reality social networking app allows users across headset and web platforms to join 3D chat rooms to play games, watch videos and attend events.
- IBM Set To Acquire Sydney-Based Digital Consultancy Firm
Computing giant International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is set to acquire the Sydney, Australia-based digital consultancy firm, Vivant Digital. The digital consultancy firm uses technology, data and behavioral science to assist clients in coming up with a business strategy and the acquisition is thus meant to bolster IBM iX, the digital transformation agency of IBM. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close before the year ends, were not disclosed.
The Sydney-based digital consultancy firm was started in 2008 and with a specialty in distribution industries and financial services, some of its clients include Australia Super, Qantas, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank. Currently the workforce of Vivant consists of between 50 and 70 workers who are located in both Melbourne and Sydney. Some of the employees will have be laid off though the exact number has not been determined.
- Oracle adds AI development service to platform offerings
Zavery says Oracle is trying to make it easier for customers to build AI applications. “What we find with these frameworks and tooling, is that it’s not easy to set up as an integrated offering, and the evolution is happening so fast that it’s tough to keep up with what you should be using in terms of APIs around that.” The service is designed to alleviate those issues for developers.
- GE picks AWS as preferred cloud provider
“Adopting a cloud-first strategy with AWS is helping our IT teams get out of the business of building and running data centers and refocus our resources on innovation as we undergo one of the largest and most important transformations in GE’s history,” Chris Drumgoole, GE’s CTO and Corporate VP, said in a statement. “We chose AWS as the preferred cloud provider for GE because AWS’s industry leading cloud services have allowed us to push the boundaries, think big, and deliver better outcomes for GE.”
- AWS fires back at Larry Ellison’s claims, saying it’s just Larry being Larry
When Oracle chairman Larry Ellison announced his company’s new autonomous database product at the Oracle OpenWorld conference keynote, he took several minutes to disparage AWS, one of his chief rivals in the cloud market. As market leader, Amazon stands firmly in Ellison’s crosshairs, but AWS took exception to his comments, and decided to issue a public rebuke.
“Yeah, that’s factually incorrect. With Amazon Redshift, customers can resize their clusters whenever they want, or can scale compute separately from storage by using Redshift Spectrum against their data in Amazon Simple Storage Service and pay per query for just the queries they run,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch.
They went on to berate Ellison, saying, “But, most people know already that this sounds like Larry being Larry. No facts, wild claims, and lots of bluster.”
- Oracle CEO Mark Hurd: IT spending is flat, and cloud is the only way out
On top of that, Hurd (pictured) said in returning to a theme he has sounded before, Silicon Valley has contributed to IT’s difficult situation by making too many piece parts that it leaves customers to cobble together — with increasingly unsatisfactory results, such as the recent massive Equifax data breach, partly blamed on the company’s inability to patch problems in critical software quickly.
“Tech innovation and customer adoption happening faster than IT can keep up,” he said, given that many companies still depend on 20-year-old systems and apps, requiring 80 percent of their budgets to be spent on maintaining them rather than adding more innovative technologies. “We’ve told customers to put all this complexity together. That complexity has driven to this very difficult environment to maintain and to innovate.”
- Infinidat worth $1.6B after Goldman investment of $95M
Data storage company Infinidat Inc. has raised $95 million from a growth equity wing of Goldman Sachs, indicating that the 6-year-old company continues to find traction in a market where others have stumbled recently.
The Series C round, led by Goldman’s Private Capital Investing division, valued Infinidat at $1.6 billion, according to the company. TPG Growth, which had valued Infinidat at $1.2 billion in a $150 million round two years ago, also participated.
- Why the Internet is worried that Microsoft’s consumer services are doomed
It’s not an idle question. Every cancelled consumer product—the Zune music player, Windows phones, the Microsoft Band—resurfaces the same angry protest: Doesn’t Microsoft care about consumers?
If “care” means app development, yes: Both the Zune and Groove Music Pass evolved into reasonably good services, even if few used them. If “care” refers to marketing, though, you already know the answer: In general, no. And if you follow the money—which in this case, comes mostly from Microsoft’s enterprise businesses—that’s most likely the real reason why no Microsoft consumer service can feel completely safe.
Microsoft Shutters Groove Music, Will Move Users To Spotify
Microsoft announced today that it will soon shutter both its Groove Music Pass streaming service and the ability to purchase songs and albums in the Windows Store. The biggest surprise isn’t that the service never took off, it’s that Microsoft has partnered with Spotify to move all its Groove Music Pass customers over to Spotify.
- Apple’s Global Web of R&D Labs Doubles as Poaching Operation
Nothing unusual about that for a company that spends $11 billion a year on R&D. Look a little closer, however, and you’ll notice that many of these labs are located near companies with a strong record in mapping, augmented reality and other areas Apple is pushing into. In several cases, these companies lost employees to Apple not long after the iPhone maker came to town. Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment.
- Larry Ellison loves to rail against Amazon but this analyst says Microsoft is the real enemy
“Microsoft is their big competitor,” says Larry Carvalho, lead analyst on platform-as-a-service at IDC.
Amazon may be a giant in the cloud world but Microsoft is a bigger threat to the types of big business customers that Oracle depends on.
“Oracle is about two to three years behind Microsoft,” Carvalho tells Business Insider.
- AOL Instant Messenger to Sign Off
AIM’s fate follows the path of other older messaging platforms that have shut down in recent years including MSN Messenger in 2014 and Yahoo Messenger last year.
The move also offers reminder on how AOL, formerly called America Online, has struggled to turn its early internet dominance into leading the next generation of internet services. The chat platform grew from 13 million users in 1997 to 65.5 million users in 2000. It isn’t immediately clear how many users the platform has currently.
Interesting timing due to last week’s podcast.
Introducing a new section on the Supplier Report (sadly there are so many incidents, that it needs its own section)…
- Whole Foods Discloses Data Breach
The grocery-store chain, now part of Amazon.com Inc., AMZN said its restaurants and taprooms use a separate checkout system and information of its grocery shoppers weren’t affected. Amazon transactions were also not accessed in the breach, Whole Foods said in a statement on its website.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: We will regret sacrificing privacy for national security
Microsoft has been fighting the US government since 2014, when the justice department served the company with a subpoena for emails stored in Irish servers. Microsoft has refused, arguing that permission to access data stored abroad needs to be given by the overseas government.
Nadella said tech companies understood the need for national security, but added: “If in that context we sacrifice our enduring value around privacy, then I think as a society we will regret it.”
He called for a “new framework of laws”, which would account for the free flow of online information across national boundaries. He said current laws were created “for a different era.”
- Yahoo Triples Estimate of Breached Accounts to 3 Billion
The figure, which Verizon said was based on new information, is three times the 1 billion accounts Yahoo said were affected when it first disclosed the breach in December 2016. The new disclosure, four months after Verizon completed its acquisition of Yahoo, shows that executives are still coming to grips with the extent of the security problem in what was already the largest hacking incident in history by number of user accounts.
A spokesman for Oath, the Verizon unit that now includes Yahoo, said the company determined within the past week that the break-in was much worse than thought, after it received new information from outside the company. He declined to elaborate on that information. Compromised customer information included usernames, passwords, and in some cases telephone numbers and dates of birth, the spokesman said.
- Out with the old, in with The New – outsourcing re-invented at Accenture?
Outsourcing is rotating to The New…we are now selling more and more of those services based on automation, robotics, intelligent solutions based. We are re-inventing application services to differentiate. To some extent you can segregate the market between the players still trying to sell more harder of the legacy older classic IT, and [The New] players and we’re part of that camp. We are re-inventing this service by providing much more of the new technologies and new features to capture more growth, Our outsourcing business is double-digit and is very vibrant, [but] it’s because it does what [it does] to the New, and not because we’re trying to sell more of the legacy.
- I am just going to leave this one right here…
Oracle’s board vows to fight gender pay request
The board of directors at Redwood City-based enterprise software company Oracle says it plans to unanimously oppose a shareholder’s request for more data around gender pay equality at the company’s annual meeting in November.
Arguing against the proposal in a regulatory filing Thursday, Oracle said 25 percent of its board members were female and that each of its 75 Oracle Women’s Leadership groups internally were led by women.
Women make up 29 percent of Oracle’s global workforce, Pax World Mutual Funds says.
“The business case for gender diversity is well-established; a growing body of evidence links greater board and managerial diversity with better company financial performance,” Pax World Mutual Funds wrote in its proposal. “…Research also shows that greater gender diversity brings increased innovation, better problem solving, stimulated group performance and enhanced company reputation.”
- Amazon Must Pay $300 Million in Back Taxes, EU Says
The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust regulator, ordered Luxembourg to recoup €250 million ($294 million) from Amazon. The sum, identified as unpaid taxes over an eight-year period, amounts to one of the largest-ever tax recoveries under EU state-aid rules.
The EU said Luxembourg had granted the e-commerce giant illegal state aid in the form of a 2003 sweetheart tax deal, prolonged in 2011, that illegally lowered Amazon’s tax payments to the Grand Duchy to the disadvantage of the company’s rivals.
Photo: Meiying Ng


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PETALING JAYA: With the year-end school holidays approaching, retailers are pushing to significantly boost sales to end the year on a high note despite the cautious consumer sentiment.
Malaysia Retail Chain Association (MCRA) president Datuk Seri Garry Chua said as consumer’s propensity to spend is a bit cautious, shopping malls have to spend money to boost festive season mood as people now tend to look for more “experiential and interactive” malls.
“If the malls can bring in more excitement and more activities, I think a lot more foot traffic will come into the malls, ” he said.
He added that retailers too have to come up with more “bargain and value-for-money shopping” as well as implement ease of payment services such as Alipay, Touch ‘n Go eWallet and Boost that would benefit not only locals but also tourists.
With less than two months to the end of the year, Chua said the government should also boost local tourism to encourage Malaysians to spend locally, adding that Malaysians still have buying power.
Chua noted that if there is a big arrival on international tourism, it can also help the retail scene tremendously as it has a “big multiplier effect”.
Sunway Shopping Malls and Theme Parks chief executive officer H.C. Chan said the last quarter of the year has always traditionally been a peak season for retailers.
“We normally anticipate higher footfall and patronage during this time.
“However, we are cautious that the protracted trade war and economic uncertainty will weigh in on consumer sentiments.
“Hence, shopping malls will need to embark on delivering additional value to shoppers to spur spending, ” he said.
Chan said for its malls, it would be adopting a festive theme that covers both Christmas and Chinese New Year celebrations where each of its retail establishment will adopt a sub-theme to suit its captive markets.
“For us, it is important that we deliver a memorable experience to shoppers, ” he said, adding that Sunway Velocity Mall and Sunway City KL will be holding New Year countdown celebrations.
However, Bumiputra Retailers Organisation president Datuk Ameer Ali Mydin found that consumers sentiment was generally positive but noted that consumers would spend on necessities rather than non-essential items.
“When it comes to the year end period, parents tend to spend money for back-to-school necessities because education is an important part for every parent, ” he said.
Ameer, who is also Mydin’s managing director, said the hypermarket would be focusing on back-to-school essentials and expects the sales growth during that period to be the same or slightly higher than last year.
IOI City Mall Putrajaya head of advertising and promotions Joyce Chew said most of its tenants have started year end promotions.
She said the mall would be holding several activities to encourage shoppers to come to their premises.
Several other malls in Klang Valley have also said they were putting up decorations and giving out “rewards” for shoppers to encourage spending this year end.
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Don’t miss Commerceweek, February 28–29 in NYC, to explore the technology and trends fueling commerce. Get strategic insights from leaders at The New York Times Advertising, Turo, TikTok and more. Register.
When the iPad launched, magazines rushed to shovel expensive rich-media features into their tablet editions. But now that they have to create editions for the new Kindle Fire and Nook Color and their ilk, some are downplaying the need for often-expensive enhancements.
Publishers say their research shows having a tricked-out app isn’t the highest priority. “The number one benefit is to have a great reading experience reading the tablet,” says Steve Sachs, executive vice president of consumer marketing and sales at Time Inc.


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FedEx and rival UPS have won China's approval to operate domestic express services in selected cities, better positioning the U.S. delivery giants to capitalize on the country's growing prosperity.
While it's good for future prospects, it's unlikely to change anything for Chinese customers or the companies in the short run.
"An important take-away is that, for FedEx and our customers, it's business as usual for our international and domestic services in China," said FedEx's Shea Leordeanu.
The State Post Bureau announced on its website last week that Memphis-based FedEx would be licensed to provide domestic express service in eight cities and Atlanta-based UPS would be licensed to operate in five. The cities covered by FedEx's license are home to nearly 100 million people and include some of the country's biggest manufacturing centers.
"FedEx is committed to China and remains focused on growing our business together with our customers," Leordeanu said.
FedEx has been serving China since 1984. International flights serve Guangzhou, the Asia-Pacific hub, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu.
The company moved into China's domestic
market in 1999 through a joint venture partnership with Chinese-owned Da Tian W Group. FedEx bought out the partner and launched FedEx China in 2007 as a wholly foreign-owned enterprise. It now serves 400 cities.
FedEx China doesn't operate aircraft, instead relying on a partner, Yangtze River Express (YRE), to transport shipments within China.
FedEx has been working to obtain express delivery permits since China enacted a new postal law and instituted the permitting system in October 2009, Leordeanu said.
FedEx's license will initially be limited to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Dalian, Zhengzhou and Chengdu. UPS, which has an Asia Pacific hub in Shenzhen, was granted a license to provide domestic service to that city, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Xi'an.
Transportation consultant Satish Jindel of SJ Consulting looks for both companies to move deliberately.
"It's not as exciting as it was two or three years ago," Jindel said, citing slower growth in China and globally, political turmoil in China and pressure for FedEx to ramp down its domestic network in the United States. Meanwhile, UPS is busy with the acquisition of TNT Express in Europe.
Jindel said the licenses apparently open the door for the U.S. companies to operate their own aircraft on approved intra-China routes, but for FedEx, "unless they can operate that network cheaper than YRE, why do you need to do it at this time, with all this?" going on.
"It's good for them to have it," Jindel said. "It gives them the ability to take advantage of it when they're ready to fully assess where to operate."
"I don't think it's going to be in calendar 2012," he added.
Analyst Helane Becker of Dahlman Rose & Co. said, "I think that although the awards granted were limited, it is important for FedEx and UPS to gain a foothold in the country. It is growing rapidly, and given the size of the country and the growing middle-class, the express companies want to be a part of the growth.
"Also, for FedEx, it is a key part of their go forward strategy: expand international to expand operating margins."
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Following the news that directors of two autodealerships, Rokku Autodealer and Tal-Qasab Autosale, have been taken in for questioning by police over the suspected tampering of mileage gauges on imported Japanese cars, a local car dealer has publicly stated it has no links or affiliation with Rokku Autodealer.
George and Rocco Car Centre, located in Naxxar, made the statement on Sunday, and appears to have done so due to the possibility that the name ‘Rocco’ and ‘Rokku’ may be confused by the public.
The company also stressed that its sister operation, Paul and Rocco service station, also has no affiliation with Rokku Autodealer.
Indeed, while the accusations against Rokku and Tal-Qasab surround the importation and tampering of Japanese second-hand cars, George and Rocco offers local and UK imported second-hand vehicles.
News of the possibility of mileage tampering was first broken in June 2022 by Malta Today, which at the time reported that as many as 300 cars may have been affected.
The alleged racket began in 2019 and saw high-mileage vehicles purchased below market price in Japan brought to Malta where their gauges had been tampered with, tricking customers into thinking they were purchasing less-used vehicles.
On Sunday (yesterday), the Times of Malta reported that directors from both of the autodealers suspected of tampering with vehicles had been taken in for questioning as police determine whether to press charges.
‘New competitors bring challenges, but also give us a great opportunity to be even more customer-centric,’ says CEO Jonathan Shaw.
Social platforms are an integral part of modern marketing campaigns
Boeing has come under increased scrutiny after a window came off during an Alaska Airlines flight last January


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The “pandemic clauses” mean rent payments will be reduced if a non-essential store is forced to close due to a lockdown.
Retailers taking new leases are reportedly seeking “pandemic clauses” to ensure rent payments will be reduced if the store is forced to close as a result of a local lockdown.
An increased number of retailers are seeking such clauses following the government’s newly imposed tier system in England, and other local restrictions across Scotland and Wales which are impacting the high street dramatically.
Last week, shops selling non-essential goods closed in Wales for a duration of 17 days as the country went into a national ‘firebreak’ lockdown.
Meanwhile in Scotland, non-essential retail remains at risk of temporary closure if a proposal by First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, featuring localised top-tier restrictions is approved. If implemented, those areas placed in Tier Five will face a near lockdown situation, the difference being that schools can remain open.
The Sunday Times has reported that companies such as Schuh, the VF corporation – which owns The North Face and Timberland – and Sports Direct are among the most recent retailers using the process.
The clauses are structured so that the rent is halved when an enforced closure takes place in the case of a local lockdown. In some cases, if a lease is based on turnover, the base rent will fall by half.
Shopping centre owners Hammerson and British Land have reportedly already agreed leases on these terms, as retail tenants and landlords continue negotiations over easement measures such as rent holidays or deferrals, which many tenants need to avoid going bust due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic. Landlords are struggling to keep tenants and have been forced to offer more favourable terms. Quarterly rent collections continue to be incomplete, with many landlords claiming that less than 50% of rent has been collected from their tenants of retail premises.


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The Chamber of Official Automotive Importers and Distributors (CIDOA) denied that the sale of high-end zero kilometer vehicles bears any similarity to situations of some years ago, during which the sale of imported vehicles as an alternative to buying cheap dollars pushed patents to levels close to a million units.
In this sense, the chamber that groups importers without a factory in the country indicated that the expectation of total sales for this year “it has a ceiling of 250 thousand units, the smallest volume since 2002, when the forecasts prior to the COVID-19 pandemic hovered around an already low target of 400,000 units. “
With the parallel dollar between 120 and 130 pesos, against an official dollar of around 70 pesos, the gap became very attractive for not a few savers who can sell their tickets in the parallel market and, with the obtained pesos, buy imported cars from high-end that quote their price to the official dollar. As Clarín revealed in recent weeks, there are many dealerships where both queries and reservations grew remarkably of that kind of units.
But from the CIDOA camera, headed by Hugo Belcastro, they pointed out that even with more operations, total sales continue on the ground, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Far from constituting a boom, the operations that have been carried out online and in the salons of sales since its reopening in some districts, represent a small contribution to the recovery of both terminals and dealer networks, whose sales had fallen by up to 90%. As of May 19, patents fell 54% compared to the same period of the previous year and 47% in the accumulated for the year, “said the entity.
During Cristina Kirchner’s second term, especially in 2013, the disparity between the official dollar and the “blue” had stimulated sales of vehicles such as refuge of value against the depreciation of the peso. But in that period, vehicle imports generated real imbalances in the national balance of payments: in total, that year more than 980,000 units were patented. And as the Minister of Production, Débora Giorgi, pointed out at that time, only the importation of high-end cars from outside the region (not counting the hundreds of thousands imported from Brazil) had generated a deficit in the trade balance of more than $ 1 billion.
This time, according to CIDOA, the accounts are very different. Today prices contain more than 50% taxes, “said the entity, which emphasized internal taxes, a tax that had already risen in 2014 in response to that situation and that Alberto Fernández’s government raised again as soon as he took office in December. “Mid-range cars pay today an internal tax of 25% and high-end taxes of 54%, in both casesadditional s to 38% of import tariffs and statistical fees “.
In this context, according to CIDOA, the weight of those imported from outside the region decreased significantly: “The brands associated with CIDOA have represented in recent years between 2% and 5% of the market “, added the entity, “which is an indicator of the low incidence of terminal activities not based in the context of total external purchases in the country and, therefore, in the trade balance.”


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Social Network Tagged Acquires hi5
On the face of it, the move makes sense. Join hands with other peer group firms rather than toiling hard to add the next bunch of users. Afterall, Tagged's active user base is expected to rise two fold to around 20 million a month, while the number of registered users will more than triple to 330 million.
Given that just about one in ten Tagged users also happen to be a hi5 user, the deal would not end up creating a dud with lot of overlapping users.
Incidentally, post-acquisition, Tagged plans to leave hi5â€²s website up and running, allowing users to enter the Tagged site through hi5â€²s domain. So it's not a buy and kill strategy either, atleast to begin with.
Just about three years ago when the social networking sites exploded, hi5 was one of the top three social networks (though still behind MySpace and Facebook. But once Facebook pressed on the accelerator it hi5 kind of floundered. In February, it had acquired the social game developer Big Six, with the strategy that hi5 will reinvent itself as a social gaming company.
Though, Tagged has a fairly small presence in the USA, it has gained good traction in Southeast Asia, South America as well as some European countries like Spain, Portugal and Romania.
Unlike Facebook, which is focused on connecting people who know each other, Tagged is designed to be a network for meeting new people through games, gifts, browsing features and a lot more. It would hope with new users entering from hi5 deal, it can stand on its own as social networking moves to the next level.


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The earnings came even though GM plants cranked out 200,000 fewer vehicles than they did during the same period in 2019, the last comparable quarter before the coronavirus pandemic.
GM also boosted its net income guidance for the full year to $7.7 billion to $9.2 billion, and pretax earnings of $11.5 billion to $13.5 billion. It had been $10 billion to $11 billion.
GM executives said Wednesday that they expect tight inventory and high prices to continue through the year as the chip shortage lingers into 2022.
CEO Mary Barra cautioned that the fast-spreading coronavirus delta variant could cause supply chain problems down the road. But she said GM is managing through the shortages by allocating scarce chips to higher-demand vehicles such as pickup trucks and large SUVs.
The company also has plans to handle future shortages by collaborating with semiconductor manufacturers, she said.
“There is still more variability than I’d like to see,” Barra said Wednesday. “This is something we will work our way out of, and it won’t be an issue as we move forward over a little bit longer period of time.”
The average GM vehicle sold for nearly $44,000 from April through June, the company said, and it was up nearly $3,000 over that in July.
Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said the high prices at present come from high demand for more higher priced trucks and SUVs with a “very rich mix” of options being purchased by consumers. Barra said the prices will subside a bit as inventory grows, but she still expects them to be strong as GM adds electric vehicles to its lineup.
Excluding one-time items, GM made $1.97 per share, beating Wall Street estimates of $1.82. Revenue was $34.2 billion, which also exceeded analysts’ estimates of $29.92 billion, according to FactSet.
The profit eclipsed the same quarter in 2020, when GM lost $806 million as plants closed and sales slumped at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
GM shares fell 3.7% in trading before Wednesday’s opening bell, to $55.77.
From April to June two years ago, GM factories produced more than 785,000 vehicles, according to the LMC Automotive consulting firm. But LMC estimated that fell 38% to 569,664 last quarter as GM ran short of semiconductors and had a herky-jerky production schedule with plants shut down on and off through the quarter.
Just Tuesday, GM announced that pickup truck plants in Flint, Michigan, Silao, Mexico, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, would be closed next week due to the chip shortage. Production is to resume on Aug. 16. But factories in Tennessee and Mexico that make cars and SUVs that were down since July 19 will come back on line Monday.


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Pixelmage Games has canceled its Kickstarter for Hero's Song a week into crowdfunding, despite being touted as one of Kickstarter's Project of the Day. The developer blamed the slow funding for the project on having few physical Kickstarter rewards and not enough gameplay videos.
According to the, "After looking at our funding levels and the reality that we aren't going to reach our funding goals, we've decided that the best thing to do is to end the Kickstarter. We sincerely appreciate all of the support we got from the backers and the Kickstarter community."
The developer went on to note that this was their first Kickstarter and they made a couple of rookie mistakes. "We put a lot of time and effort into the Kickstarter, but it's obvious missing things like physical goods hampered our efforts," the studio admitted. "It's also fair to say because we're early that we didn't have enough gameplay to show the game off enough to get people over the hump."
That's not to say Hero's Song is dead. The developer secured enough private investors to make the game a go. "The good news is that our Investors are backing us all the way and we're going to get Hero's Song done exactly when we said we would." Pixelmage promises to remain "transparent" and will be holding Twitch streams in the future, showing off pre-release gameplay.
Hero's Song is to be a retro-styled open world rogue-like RPG that dynamically reacts to a player's gameplay decisions. The Kickstarter goal was $800,000, but after a week, it had raised $136,849.


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THE WASHINGTON POST – Every day before work, orthopaedic surgeon Nick DiNubile swallows a 1,000-milligramme (mg) capsule of turmeric as a hedge against joint inflammation.
“As an ageing athlete with joint issues, it’s an integral part of my plan to keep moving,” said DiNubile, who would rather take a dietary supplement than a prescription medication or a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). “I like the safety of it.”
DiNubile, who practises in the Philadelphia area, said he was persuaded by research suggesting the supplement showed some efficacy against the pain and inflammation of arthritis. But he warns: “You’ve got to give it time – about two months – and not everyone responds. You have to be honest with yourself about whether it provides any improvement.”
He believes it has helped him. “Is it the placebo effect?” he said. “I don’t think so.”
The National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) said there isn’t enough data from human studies to determine the efficacy of turmeric supplements. Most of the available research comes from labs – in cell lines and animals – rather than in humans.
WHAT IS A TURMERIC SUPPLEMENT GOOD FOR?
Turmeric is a plant in the ginger family native to Southeast Asia. It is used in various dishes such as Indian curries and historically has been used in Eastern Asian medical systems, such as in India and China.
Non-traditional approaches are not typically regarded as mainstream, but natural plant-based therapies have long been dominant in many developing countries and enjoyed heavy use historically, especially during pandemics.
Turmeric has been promoted for numerous ailments, including arthritis, digestive disorders, respiratory infections, allergies, depression and dementia. (Curcumin, which gives turmeric its yellow colour, is a major component of turmeric. The two names are often used interchangeably, with the activities of turmeric commonly attributed to curcumin and vice versa).
Research suggests that curcumin is an anti-inflammatory agent and a strong antioxidant, that is, a substance capable of neutralising dangerous free radicals. (Free radicals are unstable molecules produced during cell metabolism which can build up in the body, causing damage to other cells and raising the risk of cancer and other diseases).
IS IT SAFE TO TAKE TURMERIC SUPPLEMENTS?
It’s probably safe (for those who aren’t pregnant) to take orally in the recommended amounts, says the NCCIH, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. (Recommended amounts are usually found on bottle labels. DiNubile suggests 1,000mg a day).
Turmeric is difficult to study because curcumin is unstable and poorly absorbed, the NCCIH said.
“There is a mountain of literature on curcumin, but the vast majority is preclinical,” or tested in the lab, “which can’t be easily projected to how it will or will not work in humans”, said D Craig Hopp, the NCCIH’s deputy director of extramural research. Also, numerous clinical trials have not been able to replicate the activity observed in cells or animals, a fairly common occurrence not only in herbal medicine but also in pharmaceutical research, he said.
Rui Hai Liu, professor of food science at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, agreed that what happens in the test tube doesn’t always happen in humans.
“Many diseases result from oxidative stress, and curcumin is an excellent antioxidant, but we still don’t have enough data from humans” to prove these effects, he said.
“In general, marketing moves faster than the research on any supplement,” said Michael Ormsbee, professor of nutrition and integrative physiology and director of the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine at Florida State University’s College of Health and Human Sciences.
For those experiencing pain and inflammation, or who engage in physical activities that induce chronic inflammation, however, “turmeric use seems to have some evidence to a mild benefit”, he said. Ormsbee cited one study that reported four weeks of curcumin supplements of 1,500mg daily was as effective as 1,200mg daily of ibuprofen for the symptoms of knee osteoarthritis.
“Individuals’ responses are almost certainly to vary with use, and more research is needed for other purported benefits of turmeric extract,” he said.
But “there appears to be little downside to including turmeric extract in the diet”, he added.
Debbie Fetter, a nutritional biology expert, said it is hard to evaluate human studies of the product. “It’s difficult to compare across studies because of the variability in the curcumin used, as products can differ in composition and dose,” said Fetter, an assistant professor of teaching at the University of California at Davis.
WHO SHOULDN’T TAKE TURMERIC SUPPLEMENTS?
Turmeric should be avoided during pregnancy and breastfeeding in amounts greater than those found in foods, the NCCIH said.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN TURMERIC SUPPLEMENTS?
Turmeric or curcumin is poorly absorbed, thus many supplements combine it with piperine – black pepper extract – or with lipids such as soy lecithin to improve absorption. When buying turmeric supplements, check the label to see if these have been added.
Fetter said consumers should inform their doctors when they take turmeric or any dietary supplement.
Side effects usually are minimal, but some people have reported experiencing gastrointestinal distress – diarrhoea – after taking it, she said.
ARE TURMERIC AND OTHER SUPPLEMENTS REGULATED?
Americans seem to like their dietary supplements. Nearly 60 per cent of United States (US) adults reported taking them, mostly multivitamin-mineral products, vitamin D and Omega-3 fatty acids, according to 2017-2018 survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Also, millions of Americans rely on what are known as home remedies to treat various ailments, a term used along with “complementary” or “alternative” medicines to distinguish them from Western practices, which often rely on doctor visits and conventional drugs.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate dietary supplements the way it does conventional drugs, which must demonstrate safety and efficacy before the agency will license them. Supplements, on the other hand, do not require FDA approval before they can be marketed.
Supplement companies must have evidence that their products are safe, but don’t have to provide it to the FDA to sell their products. Moreover, the agency can’t act against a potentially dangerous dietary supplement until it already is on the market.
Dietary supplement labels may include certain types of health-related claims, but they must be followed by the words: “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”


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The funnyman recently announced he would be reprising his bumbling boss character from TV comedy The Office for a "couple of very cheap, very low key warm up gigs".
Tickets for two London shows went on sale on Tuesday (01Oct13) and sold out in less than one minute - and those who were lucky enough to get their hands on them have already started selling them on secondary ticketing sites at hugely inflated prices.
Unlucky fan Julie Shaw took to Twitter.com to share her disappointment, writing, "Annoyed ticket scouts got there first, £3549.95 for three Brent tickets!!!"
Gervais spotted Shaw's tweet and responded to her directly, urging fans not to shell out thousands for tickets which originally cost less than £20.
He replied, "f**king disgusting. Please no one buy them."
Gervais and his team reportedly reached out to editors at Seatwave.com and Viagogo.com to make their feelings about the extortionate sales clear, and Seatwave bosses have since deleted all such sales from their reselling website, according to Music Week.


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Connecting state and local government leaders
Autonomous vehicles get packages out quicker while potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
Using drones for the last mile of package deliveries uses less energy and creates fewer emissions than conventional means, a new study shows.
As consumers, we’ve gotten used to the immediacy of deliveries. Order a product one day and have it at your house the next. But the logistics behind this massive movement of goods—and its environmental impact—mean that better solutions are needed to balance consumer demand and the energy consumption of “last-mile” deliveries.
To address this issue, researchers looked at what they refer to as “an increase in the demand for last-mile delivery while trying to reduce the environmental impacts of the transportation sector.”
Many companies are exploring using autonomous vehicles to perform last-mile delivery, says Thiago Rodrigues, a PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
“We focused on understanding the impacts on the energy consumption and GHG emissions of this transformation in how we deliver packages,” Rodrigues says.
The experiments began by defining the principles that influenced an aircraft’s overall energy consumption. “Most of the literature in this field is focused on helicopters,” Rodrigues says. “So we adapted the physical model and created an experimental protocol to replicate the flight conditions expected during last-mile delivery.”
The team learned that both payload mass and total flight duration were the main contributors to the drone’s overall energy consumption. “For small packages with high aggregated value, such as medical supplies and electronics, the quadcopter drones showed a considerably low energy consumption per mile traveled compared to other transportation modes.”
Surprisingly, drone speed and wind speeds had little impact on the drone’s overall energy consumption, Rodrigues says. Testing took place with the drone flying at speeds between four and 12 meters (about 13 to 39.3 feet) per second. During that time, the wind conditions varied from two to 16 knots.
“Drones can have up to 94% lower energy consumption per package than other vehicles,” Rodrigues says, adding that the overall amount of emissions reduction depends on the intensity of the electricity grid in an area. “Regions with cleaner electricity would benefit more from adopting drones to transport small packages.”
While the researchers determined multiple benefits in utilizing small drones, Rodrigues admits that there are still operational and regulatory challenges that need to be addressed before drone deliveries become a reality.
“However, a few drone delivery operations are already being implemented, with medical supplies and even groceries being safely delivered by drones. These operations are leading the way in expanding the use of drones in all last-mile delivery sectors.”
These successful operations may make the prospect of a drone delivery more enticing to consumers. Rodrigues believes that people are already receptive to the idea, stating that in a recent study, more than 60% of online customers says they’d be willing to pay extra to receive their packages using autonomous delivery robots.
There’s also the issue of larger packages, which cannot be delivered by small drones. Rodrigues suggests that electric cargo bicycles and other ground autonomous delivery robots could be an energy-efficient way to get these items to customers.
The new study appears in the journal Patterns.
The Department of Energy funded the work.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University


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The first two years of Nintendo Switch have been studded with successes: the console has been much appreciated by the public and critics, has sold well and has raised the fate of the brand after the lackluster period of the never too beloved Wii U .
The third year of the console's life will probably be the most important one for the overall judgment on the hybrid machine of Nintendo . Although the company had to lower the target from 20 to 17 million units sold ( Shuntaro Furukawa spoke of insufficient efforts to make the console appealing to new customers, but many think that the 20 million was an ambitious goal), some believe that the numbers of the console are destined to go up
Let's talk about Atsushi Hosokawa, of Media Create who stated in a recent interview with Bloomberg that the numbers of Switch will continue to grow in its third year of life and that the peak therefore will have its own during the fiscal year that will open in April 2019. Analysts are still a bit 'divided about , the answer on who will have been right we will surely have it in the months to come.
Hosokawa has also talked about the life span of Switch, and expects the life cycle of the console will be about seven years, which would mean that Ni ntendo will support its own machine until 2024, and then concentrate on new hardware as per tradition.
What do you think? Is this an estimate that you share?


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RWC has won the 'Commercial HVAC Product of the Year - Components and Peripherals' Award at the H&V News Awards.
RWC is delighted to announce that they have been awarded the Governor Community Award by the school.
With sustainability at the forefront of RWC’s vision, we have switched to low-energy servo-hydraulic machines that produce double the output per cycle.
EMEA Strategy and transformation lead Pasha Khan, has been nominated and recognised for the WE50 awards, in association with The Guardian newspaper.
RWC proudly announces their partnership with Harlington School, dedicated to inclusivity and helping the community.
RWC launches a new Reliance Valves website to further unite their family of brands and enhance user experience
RWC launched the second of a collection of new EMEA websites on June 16 2022 to further unite their family of brands with a consistent and bold visual identity.
RWC brings the push-fit innovation to the ‘HIP Meet the Lecturers 2022’ event series, targeting plumbing and heating colleges in the UK.
RWC launches its new Reliance Valves MultiSafe Leak Detection System, designed to constantly monitor water usage to safeguard plumbing and heating systems.
Reliance Valves’ popular Tenant Valve Plus is enhanced to bring even more benefits to specifiers and contractors.
RWC has been nominated as a finalist for ‘Brand of the Year’ category at The Drum B2B Awards 2020.
RWC has launched its first ever Reliance Valves range that features push-fit connections from JG Speedfit.
The compact design and finish makes it the ideal choice for high specification washrooms or applications where safety also needs to be aesthetically pleasing.


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Dell Computer continues to dominate the PC hardware market, even though overall PC shipments for the second quarter are lower than the same quarter a year ago. But Dell was able to increase year-over-year shipments for the quarter, maintaining its lead over Compaq in the United States and closing the gap between it and Compaq worldwide. Compaq sold 3.8 million machines in the quarter, giving it 13.2 percent of the worldwide market, down from 14.3 percent for the previous year. But Dell Computer rose to 11.5 percent of the worldwide market, with 3.5 million units shipped. Analysts cite Windows 2000's slow adoption as a major factor in the sluggish growth of the PC industry.
"Corporate America is still slow to adopt Win2K and seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach to upgrading hardware," says IDC analyst Gabrielle Griffith. The market for PCs in the United States and Europe has matured, according IDC, while the corporate buying cycle hit a low point during the Y2K changeover. With that past, however, and with Microsoft shipping its first service pack for Win2K soon, more companies will soon begin the long upgrade process to Win2K.
Rounding out the top five in the worldwide PC hardware market are Hewlett-Packard (HP) at number three with 7.5 percent of the market,followed by IBM and Gateway


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It’s time to say goodbye to the second app that Wandle Software released: www.cut, the “no touch” URL shortening app. I’ve dropped the price to zero and it will be removed from the store in a few days. It’s never easy to end of life a product, but the fact is the use case for […]
What happens to Wandle Softwares’s app when iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra come out?
The iOS 8 update for www.cut. Finally.
I’m pleased to announce www.cut version 3.2.1, which I like to call the Ted Rogers release.
Available now on the App Store, a new update to www.cut.
New versions of all our apps coming soon!
Quiet year for Wandle Softare? I don’t think so!
Apple has been playing around with some of the prices in the App Store. Here’s how it affects Wandle’s apps.
www.cut gets support for the new iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation).
What Yummy, www.cut and iOS6 will look like together.


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Australia’s leading automotive organization is calling for the taxation of electric vehicle owners to be rolled out on a national basis.
Victoria joined South Australia in announcing that it will introduce a charge for electric vehicles to offset losses in excise duty on fuel.
Electric cars will receive a tax of 2.5 cents per kilometer, while drivers of low-emission cars will be charged two cents per kilometer.
Environmental groups have criticized the plan, which will cost the average electric car driver between $ 260 and $ 300 each year.
Australian motorists currently pay 42.3 cents of fuel excise for every liter of gasoline and diesel purchased.
– Aus Automobile Assoc (@AAAcomms) November 21, 2020
Michael Bradley, CEO of the Australian Automobile Association, said states deserve to be commended for their “leadership position”.
“The technological changes we are seeing in the automotive market are good for consumers and the environment, but they will also significantly undermine the federal budget and its reliance on fuel excise revenue to fund fuel projects. transport, “he said in a statement on Sunday.
“The federal government needs to step in and ensure that tax changes are nationally consistent, fair and progressed in a way that does not discourage technology transition.
Mr Bradley said 80% of respondents to an AAA survey this month agreed that electric vehicle owners should somehow contribute to the costs of roads.
A similar proportion supported keeping any load at a level that would not discourage adoption of electric vehicles.
And to be clear: it is both the labor and coalition governments that are calling for taxes on electric vehicles. 🤦♀ https://t.co/oiAuOTIxTm
– 🌏 Deputy Zali Steggall (@zalisteggall) November 22, 2020
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas dismissed the idea that the new levy would discourage potential buyers.
“Even after the introduction of this charge for the use of our road network, drivers of electric vehicles will pay between 40 and 45% less than motorists driving a gasoline or diesel car,” he said.
Over $ 45 million is budgeted to accelerate vehicle adoption.
“Technology, not the tax”, eh? SA has decided to tax EVs with Vic and NSW to follow and Morrison doesn’t care about EV goals and initiatives. Again, we are lagging behind the world – Norway will account for 100% of new car sales by 2025 and even China 40% of total car sales by 2030
– John Hewson (@JohnRHewson) November 22, 2020
Electric Vehicle Council Director General Behyad Jafari said the announcement was counterproductive and made no sense.
“Fuel excise revenues are not quarantined for roads and will decline in the long run,” he said.
“But as we move away from gasoline and diesel, illnesses from air pollution and other costs associated with climate change will also decrease.
“The time has come to encourage electric vehicles, not to withhold them with a new tax.”
SA expects their yet unspecified charge to raise $ 1 million per year starting next July.


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Nothing to wear? Never again will you have to struggle with your wardrobe choices as a new app, set to roll out later this year, will use collected data every day for a week and recommend and design a dress for the user according to their content.
The "data dress" technology is a collaboration between Google and Ivyrevel, and is based on Android's Awareness API, which lets apps "be aware of all aspects of a user's environment," according to a post on the Android Developers' blog."Where do you regularly eat out for dinner or hang out with friends? Are they more casual or formal meetups? What's the usual weather when you're outside?" writes Google's group creative business partner Jeremy Brook in the post.
Currently in Beta testing by some of the world's most well-known fashion influencers, the app's one-of-a-kind designs will literally put couture in the palm of your hands.
Visit www.ivyrevel.com for more information