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--Price drops threaten companies' core market
--Video volume grows yet margins pressured
--Akamai, Limelight finding revenue growing slowly in new high-margin Web services
By Drew FitzGerald
Exploding Internet data loads have put companies responsible for its distribution in a quandry--not because traffic is too heavy, but because managing it has become too cheap.
For years, pioneers of the so-called content delivery network--such as Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) and Limelight Networks Inc. (LLNW)--earned a windfall off the Internet's growth by deploying machines that help customers download popular data faster. Yet sustaining that expansion has grown harder in recent years because of growing competition, often from their own customers, which have been lured into the business by the lower costs.
As a result, content delivery providers have had to diversify into other business lines, such as Web security, an effort that has progressed in fits and starts.
Content delivery networks remain a crucial Internet cog. They work by cutting the distance information travels through intelligent caching--storing commonly used content in databases closer to the customers demanding it.
"The Internet basically would stop working without CDNs today," said James Segil, president of EdgeCast Networks Inc., a privately held content delivery network based in Santa Monica, Calif. "If it weren't for caching content at the edge of the Internet, the whole thing would fall apart."
Content delivery networks began as services offered by independent providers like Akamai and later attracted interest from Internet backbone companies, such as Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT). Cable and telecom companies also jumped into the market, adding pressure on pure-play content delivery networks to keep their services unique.
The rush is driven by consumers' exploding demand for digital information, especially video. The market for content delivery services generated $2.7 billion last year, according to network-gear maker Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO).
Falling prices have stunted some of that growth opportunity, however. The average cost of wholesale content delivery dropped at least 15% last year, according to Dan Rayburn, principal analyst at research firm Frost & Sullivan. That's made other business lines even more important to the survival of companies.
"If they just sold CDN, I don't think they'd be profitable," Mr. Rayburn said of Akamai. "The problem is, those businesses outside CDN haven't grown as fast as they expected."
Akamai managers say they've recognized telecom customers' desire for more control and responded with new business models, one of which licenses Akamai's own technology for a fee. The company in November struck a deal with France Telecom (FTE, FTE.FR) to license a content delivery service to business customers, for instance, expanding its addressable market.
"We've always said that do-it-yourself is our largest competitor," Chief Executive Tom Leighton said in an interview. "I think we'll continue to see companies return to the Akamai platform after experimenting with [other models]."
About 60% of Akamai's revenue now comes from more specialized businesses like its website acceleration network and its security products, which avoid some of the pitfalls of distributing cheaper data like video content in bulk. Revenue from those specialized businesses grew 20% in the latest quarter--faster than the 11% increase in the CDN business.
Akamai's stock has still dropped to about $37 from its nearly $60 high six years ago, when overall revenue was growing roughly 50% each year.
High-volume media delivery has taxed the top line at Limelight even more, analysts say. Core content delivery still accounts for about 65% of the lossmaking Tempe, Ariz., company's top line. Its stock has fallen 84% since its initial public offering at $15 a share in 2007.
Limelight's losses reflect the threat of relying on an older business model that's growing less profitable each year. Research firm DeepField Inc. estimates content delivery networks now provide 53% of most large Internet service providers' traffic, yet the sector's recent growth hasn't always helped networks' bottom lines.
"Margins from Netflix are negative," said EdgeCast's Mr. Segil. "It's a bad business to cover them."
Write to Drew FitzGerald at firstname.lastname@example.org
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Sales at German sportswear firm Adidas rose between 15 and 20 percent to more than 20 billion euros ($24 billion) in 2017, helped by growth in China, North America and ecommerce, Chief Executive Kasper Rorsted said on Wednesday.
An Adidas spokeswoman said there was no change to the company's forecast for sales to rise at a currency-adjusted 17-19 percent in 2017. It reports annual results on March 14.
Adidas shares were up 1.6 percent at 1015 GMT, the biggest increase on the German blue-chip index.
Analysts are forecasting a headline sales increase of 11 percent to 21.3 billion euros for 2017, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon.
Speaking at a conference on Asia in Duesseldorf, Rorsted said Adidas saw huge potential in China, which is its most profitable market.
Asked if he could imagine a Chinese investor becoming an anchor investor in the company, Rorsted replied that he could imagine everything.
($1 = 0.8189 euros)
(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi Writing by Emma Thomasson Editing by Arno Schuetze and Mark Potter)

domain: news


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Danone has recorded a fall in sales of 2.5% on a like-for-like (LFL) basis for its third quarter, a result which the company claims is ‘broadly in line with expectations’.
The owner of Evian and Volvic saw an improvement in its Waters business versus the 28% decline in sales seen in Q2. However, sales still dropped 13.5% on an LFL basis, with volumes decreasing 8.1%.
The quarter saw a ‘strong acceleration’ of Danone’s Essential Dairy and Plant-based (EDP) division with LFL sales growth of 3.7%.
The firm’s Specialized Nutrition business experienced a 5.7% decline in sales in Q3, taking it into negative growth for the first nine months of the year, with a 0.2% decline on an LFL basis.
Registering overall sales of €5.82 billion for the quarter, Danone also announced several business changes ‘to progress with its adaptation plans to a new Covid-world’.
These include the appointment of two macro-regional CEOs, in charge of Danone international and Danone North America, and a COO in charge of a newly created design-to-delivery function, integrating research & innovation, cycles & procurement, operations, and quality.
Meanwhile, the company says that current CFO, Cécile Cabanis, is leaving in February 2021 after 16 years with Danone and will be succeeded by Juergen Esser, current CFO of Danone’s Waters and Africa divisions.
Danone has also revealed that it will be conducting a full strategic review of its portfolio of brands, SKUs and assets starting with an immediate review of its strategic options for Argentina, the Vega brand and ‘possibly further assets’.
“Our Q3 results reflect how much the Covid-world and its cohort of sanitary measures, border closures, uncertainty in consumer sentiment and some structural changes affect our business,” said Emmanuel Faber, chairman and CEO of Danone.
“As we expect continued volatility in our other businesses in the short term, the return of EDP growth beyond 3%, both for Q3 and YTD (and stellar performance of plant-based) is a north star to our ambition to reconnect as soon as possible with our 3-5% mid-term profitable growth agenda. Our discipline on portfolio focus and capital allocation will be an additional enabler.”
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New WeatherBreak website launched
WeatherBreak has launched a new website for its trade customers including installers, architects, local authorites and developers. The new site features newly commissioned photography of the WeatherBreak factory in Luton and also includes an online library of policies, technical specifications and stunning installed products.
For over 30 years WeatherBreak has manufactured and fabricated conservatories, doors and windows from the heart of Luton. Recently the directors have invested heavily in new production equipment to ensure that they can continue to offer a cost effective and swift service to its clients. With the recent addition of an aluminium production area it can now manufacture contemporary bi-fold doors which are very popular with homeowners and commercial clients.


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Americans spent $17.6 billion on Valentine's Day this year, second only to Christmas in consumer spending, according to the National Retail Federation.
Overall spending was up 8.5 percent over last year, with the majority spent on spouses on items like flowers, candy, gift and greeting cards and jewelry. The average person spent just over $126, with men outspending women nearly two to one.
Although $17.6 billion may sounds like an exciting boost to the economy, the number is actually a very, very small percentage of overall consumer spending.
"It is a drop in the bucket in a way but something is better than nothing and right now it looks like anything is good for us as far as increasing spending is concerned," Metro State College Economics Professor Dr. Kishore Kulkarni said.
He says consumer spending accounts for about 65 percent of the overall $15 trillion GDP, so around $9.75 trillion a year. If you do the math, that leaves this year's Valentine's Day at less than two-hundredths of a percent.
"It is a small step and hopefully we take a lot more steps for the economy to rebound," Kulkarni said.
Kulkarni says although the spending bump is nominal, any positive reports may boost the confidence of corporate leaders and investors.
"As a businessman I definitely like to see this kind of thing happening because higher spending gives a better idea for businessmen to go invest some more in the future," Kulkarni said. "That is a positive sign. If you think this is a small step, try a negative alternate. That clearly gives a very pessimistic feeling to the businessmen so this is definitely a better step."
To read more Valentine's Day spending reports from the National Retail Federation log onto their website: http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&id=629.
(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)


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Google Assistant is about to get a bit smarter, thanks to third-party developers.
The Alphabet-owned company said Thursday it is opening up its digital assistant with new tools for developers who want to interact with customers through Google Home, its always-listening smart home speaker. The tools, called Conversation Actions, will allow developers to engage with users in conversational form to answer questions, provide assistance and eventually sell products and make bookings.
Powered by artificial intelligence, the idea is for Google Assistant to learn about you and your behavior so it can provide answers catering specifically to you. Partnerships with IFTTT, Samsung, Philips and Nest will allow Google Home to control home electronics.
"To be a truly successful Assistant, it should be able to connect users across the apps and services in their lives," Jason Douglas, product management director for Actions on Google, wrote in a blog post Thursday. "This makes enabling an ecosystem where developers can bring diverse and unique services to users through the Google Assistant really important."
By opening up its platform to other companies and developers, Google is beefing up its assault on, Amazon's internet-connected speaker. Google has already reportedly approached the home audio community's biggest names to help it spread its platform by building devices that work like its Google Home.
Developers can request to become an early access partner for upcoming platform features.


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UPDATE: The article was updated to include the date of the Dior show in Hong Kong.
Dior is set to bring its 2024 men’s pre-fall collection to Hong Kong on March 23, 2024, according to media reports. The show will showcase designer Kim Jones’s designs for the men’s pre-fall collection, but there are no details about the venue.
This will be the first show that the luxury fashion house will bring to the city since 2014, when it staged a women’s haute couture show, apart from a menswear presentation in 2016. The fashion house has had a presence in Hong Kong market since 1980, with 11 boutiques in the city, six of which feature the menswear line.
The news comes after Louis Vuitton showcased Pharrell’s pre-fall men’s line in Hong Kong at a show at the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui on November 30. The event was a star-studded affair, with high-profile celebrities and A-listers from Hong Kong and Asia — such as film star Chow Yun-fat, members of the Cantopop boy band MIRROR, and Korean actor Song Joong-ki — in attendance, set against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour.
Header image credits: Dior


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South Korean automaker Hyundai will not sponsor the China Ladies Open this year, officials in Seoul said Tuesday, amid an "escalating diplomatic row" over the deployment of an "advanced" U.S. missile defense system in South Korea, according to YONHAP. A Hyundai exec said that the automaker's Chinese unit, Beijing Hyundai Motor Co. -- a joint venture between Hyundai Motor and BAIC Motor Corp. established in '02 -- will not be the title sponsor for the CLO, which is part of the China Ladies Professional Golfers' Association Tour. The CLO has been called the Hyundai China Ladies Open since '10. The national championship of China "has been also one of the popular tournaments for South Koreans." Hyundai said that it will "pull out from the Chinese event because its title sponsorship deal has expired, emphasizing it has nothing to do with issues surrounding the THAAD missile defense system." But the local golf community "suspects that the automaker's decision is related to the situations in China." A Korean LPGA official said, "(Hyundai) didn't tell us why it's not going to sponsor the event. We just think Hyundai's declining sales in China have something to do with this problem" (YONHAP, 9/12).
Marketing and Sponsorship
Jaguar will launch a one-make Formula E support series in '18 that will be "the world's first championship for a production-based electric car," according to Scott Mitchell of MOTORSPORT. The Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY will join the Formula E package for the '18-19 season, becoming its first dedicated support category. While details of the technical specification, calendar and price "will not be confirmed until next year," Jaguar's announcement that it will be a 10-round series suggests it will be featured at "all Formula E events." It will be capped at 20 drivers, including a "VIP" entry at each round, "while the format will comprise a practice and qualifying session and a 30-minute race." The series will coincide with the launch of the I-PACE, Jaguar Land Rover’s first all-electric vehicle, in the second half of '18. JLR's "special vehicle operations department will build the racing versions of the all-wheel-drive five-seater sports car," which should begin testing early next year. Jaguar Racing, which operates the Formula E team, will run the cars. JLR CMO Gerd Mäuser, the chair of the Jaguar Formula E team, said, "We've always said we want to prove our electrification technologies on the track -- this is the proof" (MOTORSPORT, 9/12). REUTERS' Alan Baldwin reported Mäuser expects the series to serve as a "ladder" for young drivers into Formula E. The series "is increasingly of interest" to major manufacturers, with Mercedes and Porsche due to enter season six in '19-20. Other manufacturers already involved in the electric series include BMW and Audi as well as Renault, Citroen and India’s Mahindra (REUTERS, 9/12).
League Championship side Derby County revealed that its longest-standing partner, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, extended its relationship with the club. Toyota has been an official partner of the club for more than 25 years. It signed a three-year renewal which will run until the summer of '20. Toyota will continue to sponsor the West Stand and showcase its branding on the interior and exterior of the stand. In addition, Toyota has an exec box at Pride Park Stadium. The automaker also retained the naming rights for the Toyota Suite, the Rams' most popular matchday hospitality option which hosts more than 200 guests for each home fixture (Derby County).
The World Surf League and Jeep announced a long-term renewal and expansion of their global partnership. Jeep will remain the WSL's exclusive global automotive partner and the naming rights partner to the WSL Jeep Leaders Tour Rankings for the men's and women's Championship Tour. The partnership dates back to May '15, when Jeep became the first exclusive automotive partner of the WSL. The renewal will run through '20, when surfing will make its debut on the world stage at the Tokyo Olympics. Jeep will continue to sponsor the Jeep Leaderboard and the Jeep Leader Jersey. A new Jeep Leader Jersey and new branding across digital and broadcast Jeep Leader graphics, as well as a locker room design for Jeep frontrunners, were unveiled at the Hurley Pro and Swatch Pro at Trestles, Calif. Jeep will sponsor six WSL Qualifying Series events in key markets around the world (WSL).
Japanese online retailer Rakuten signed the "largest of the NBA advertising patch deals this week," buying the space on the Golden State Warriors' jersey "for the next three years," according to Darren Rovell of ESPN.com. Sources said that the deal is worth $20M a year, "nearly doubling the second-highest deal," signed by the Cleveland Cavaliers with Goodyear. The Warriors will "sport Rakuten's genuine logo with red and black on their white jerseys and a white version of the logo on the blue-and-slate jerseys." Warriors CMO Chip Bowers said, "We actually had multiple finalists. This was not the biggest deal that we were offered." Bowers added that the team "felt it was important for the deal to be done with a worldwide brand." Rakuten, which made San Francisco its North American HQ in '15, was "aggressive in its bid to land the deal." Rakuten Founder & CEO Hiroshi Mikitani "reached out to the team and showed up in person at the first meeting." Rakuten has "ratcheted up its sponsorship spending as of late." In July, its name "started appearing" on Barcelona's kit in a deal worth €220M ($263.2M) over four years. The Golden State sponsorship comes with "six other designations that last longer than three years." Rakuten will be the team's official e-commerce, video-on-demand and affiliate marketing partner. Rakuten's cashback website Ebates will become the team's official shopping rewards partner; its messaging service Viber will be the official instant messaging and calling app; and its bookstore Kobo will be the official e-reader partner (ESPN.com, 9/12). The deal also includes naming rights to the Warriors' practice facility, which will be called the Rakuten Performance Center. The practice rights component of the deal runs for two years until the team opens the new $1B Chase Center in San Francisco. The practice facility will be on the grounds of the new venue. This marks the first time the Warriors have had a practice center sponsor. The Warriors said that CAA Sports worked with the team on the deal (John Lombardo, Staff Writer).
Barcelona and Head & Shoulders announced a partnership deal in China that will see H&S' Super Fresh Male Line become the club’s official shampoo in China. The shampoo brand created the "H&S-Barça Locker Room," a tour of Beijing's Workers' Stadium, at the announcement of the agreement (Barcelona).
WWE announced Anheuser Busch, Mission Hills China, Cooper Tires and Gym Max will sponsor the first live WWE event at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center Arena on Sunday. WWE Live China marks WWE's return to China following last year's show at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai (WWE).
Premier League side West Ham United announced an agreement with Hantec Markets as the club's official Forex partner. The company signed a three-year partnership and will take ownership of the club's fantasy football content (West Ham United).
Cricket South Africa extended its deal with financial services company Momentum for the next five years. Momentum will remain the title sponsor of all one-day cricket in South Africa, as well as the naming sponsor of the national women's team. The new agreement also incorporates school-level developmental initiatives (Cricket SA).


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Paragon Media is a particular curiosity writer that prints titles corresponding to Australian Males’s Health and Ecogeneration. Paragon chief govt Ian Brooks confirmed the talks and mentioned he was hopeful of finalising the deal.
“Males’s Well being and Girls’s Well being are the strongest well being and health manufacturers in Australia and we now have lengthy recognised their distinctive worth as a channel for advertisers,” he mentioned. “These mastheads, in an expanded print and digital ecosystem, will proceed to be vital on this section and we’re hopeful that discussions will be concluded.”
Brag Media, the brand new writer of Rolling Stone Australia, will even launch a brand new journal within the subsequent few weeks. It’s unclear whether or not it will likely be a former title from ARE Media. ARE Media workers are at the moment de-commissioning Harper’s Bazaar whereas Hearst continues talks with potential patrons.
Earlier than closure, Harper’s Bazaar, which was printed for greater than twenty years, had a mean readership of 177,000 per situation. Males’s Well being had a mean of 318,000 readers per print version and Girls’s Well being had 268,000, based on figures from Enhanced Media Metrics Australia.
It’s unclear when the brand new journal titles will seem on newsagent and grocery store stands. Journal publishers have been knocked through the coronavirus pandemic by a big discount in spending from advertisers and lots of have been compelled to droop the printing of titles and slash jobs. Bauer even tried to renegotiate the terms of its acquisition of Seven West Media’s journal division Pacific. Almost 400 jobs in the magazine industry were lost within the first six months of the 12 months.
The $40 million sale of Pacific to Bauer closed in Might after a tumultuous few months. It meant standard titles corresponding to New Thought, Marie Claire and That is Life have been introduced into the identical firm as Australian Girls’s Weekly, Girl’s Day and Take 5! However shortly after the deal, the homeowners of Bauer determined to promote the entity to personal fairness, a transfer which prompted further job cuts and magazine closures.


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As a drug salesman, Mike Courtney worked hard to make health care expensive. He wined and dined doctors, golfed with them and bought lunch for their entire staffs — all to promote pills often costing thousands of dollars a year. Then he joined the Traitors Club of former pharma reps……….
Former Pharma Reps’ New Mission: To School Docs On High Drug Costs
By Jay Hancock June 8, 2017
As a drug salesman, Mike Courtney worked hard to make health care expensive. He wined and dined doctors, golfed with them and bought lunch for their entire staffs — all to promote pills often costing thousands of dollars a year.
Now he’s on a different mission. When Courtney calls on doctors these days, he champions generic drugs that frequently cost pennies and work just as well as the kinds of pricey brands he used to push.
Instead of big pharma, he works for Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP), an Albany, N.Y., insurer. Instead of maximizing pill profits, his job is to save millions of dollars by educating doctors about expensive prescriptions and the stratagems used to sell them.
“Having come from big pharma, I do really feel my soul has been cleansed,” laughs Courtney, who formerly worked for Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. “I do feel like I’m more in touch with the physicians” and plan members, he added.
Costs for prescription drugs have been rising faster than those for any other health segment, marked by high-profile cases such as the reported 400 percent increase for Mylan’s EpiPen and 5,000 percent spike for Turing Pharmaceuticals’ Daraprim.
Consumer groups and medical societies have tried to spread the word about expensive drugs. Startup GoodRx lets patients compare retail prices online.
CDPHP is one of the few insurers to have taken the battle against pricey pills a step further. It is recruiting across enemy lines, hiring former pharma representatives and staffing what may be a new job category: a sales force for cost-effective medicine.
“Insurers are taking matters into their own hands,” said Lea Prevel Katsanis, a marketing professor at Canada’s Concordia University who specializes in the pharmaceutical industry. “They’re saying, ‘We can’t really rely on drug companies to talk to doctors about what’s cost-efficient.’”
If insurance companies can curb drug costs, premiums paid by employers, taxpayers and consumers need not rise as fast.
Two years ago, when one company increased the cost of a common diabetes medicine to 20 times what it had been a few years earlier, Courtney and five other former pharma and medical-device reps working for CDPHP knew what to do.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals had cranked up the price of one common dosage of its Glumetza medicine for lowering blood sugar to an astonishing $81,270 a year, according to Truven Health Analytics, a data firm. Meanwhile a similar, generic version can be bought for as little as a penny a pill.
Because Glumetza was on CDPHP’s list of approved drugs, the insurer and its members had to pay for it when doctors prescribed it, resulting in millions in extra costs and stinging copayments for patients.
Dr. Eric Schnakenberg, an upstate New York family medicine doctor, was shocked when patients began complaining about what he assumed was an inexpensive prescription. Doctors are famously unaware about the cost of the care they order, a situation exploited by drug sellers and other vendors.
While physicians’ electronic prescribing programs and even pharmaceutical guides like the Physicians’ Desk Reference contain prescribing information — some are even peppered with ads — they contain no specific information about prices. Drug sales reps who visit their offices don’t highlight high prices as they drop off free samples, and drugmakers can quietly, but substantially, hike the price of a drug from one year to the next.
“As physicians, we’re blindsided by that,” Schnakenberg said. “We get patient complaints saying, ‘Hey, I can’t afford this,’ and we say: ‘It’s cheap!’”
After Courtney and his colleagues alerted doctors to what Valeant was up to, all but a handful of the 60 plan members who were taking Glumetza switched to metformin, the generic alternative. That saved about $5 million in a year.
Following an outcry over its practices, Valeant agreed last year to raise annual prices by no more than single-digit percentages, the company said through a spokesman. But such hikes could still outpace the inflation rate.
Using ‘Those Powers For Good’
Cardiologist John Bennett got the idea to hire pharma reps a few years ago, after he became CDPHP’s chief executive. He knew reps are smart, genial and motivated. Overhiring by pharma had put many back on the job market.
His sales pitch to them, he says half-jokingly, was: “You know everything they taught you in big pharma? How would you like to use those powers for good?”
Pharma companies spend billions on TV ads, doctor blandishments and expensive salespeople to keep prescriptions flowing.
Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and other sellers responded to critics a few years ago by restricting gifts of entertainment, coffee mugs and some meals. But the industry’s ethics code still allows lavish consulting contracts for doctors and sponsorship of physician conferences as well as meals for doctors and their staffs who listen to an “informational presentation” from sales reps touting expensive pills.
“When those products go generic, nobody’s promoting them anymore,” Courtney said. Generics makers lack big marketing budgets. CDPHP’s remedy: The insurer promotes generics with its own reps.
“It’s a great idea,” said Alan Sorensen, an economist at the University of Wisconsin who has studied drug prices. “Even a small moving of the needle on their [doctors’] prescribing behavior can have a pretty big impact on costs.”
At first the team concentrated on educating doctors about cheaper alternatives to Lipitor, a widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering medicine, and Nexium, for stomach problems. That saved around $10 million the first year, much in the form of copayments that would have been owed by plan members.
Recently the plan has focused on Seroquel, a branded antipsychotic that costs far more than a similar generic. Switching to the generic saves $600 to $1,000 a month, estimates Eileen Wood, the insurer’s vice president of pharmacy and health quality.
CDPHP’s repurposed reps have helped keep the insurer’s annual drug-cost increases to single-digit percentages, whereas without them and other measures “we would certainly be well into double-digit” increases, she said.
Educating doctors about drug costs is part of a larger push for “transparency” in an industry where Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt says consumers face the same experience as somebody shopping in Macy’s blindfolded.
Current research by the University of Wisconsin’s Sorensen finds physicians with access to data about drug prices and insurance coverage are more likely to prescribe generics.
That gives Courtney and his colleagues a fighting chance, even if, he said, “we don’t have the freewheeling, unlimited green Amex card like I did back in the day.”
KHN’s coverage of prescription drug development, costs and pricing is supported in part by theLaura and John Arnold Foundation.


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Nike has released a twist on their famous "just do it" campaign as a PSA against racism in the United States.
The simple video begins:
“For Once, Don’t Do It... Don’t pretend there’s not a problem in America... Don’t turn your back on racism.”
The PSA ends with "Don't think you can't be part of the change. Let's all be apart of the change."
Nike has addressed racism in the past with their campaigns, one of which featured former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, who sparked controversy for kneeling during the national anthem as part of a peaceful protest.
Kaepernick's ad told fans "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything."


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The Journal of Data Technology and Computer Science (JITeCS) is a peer-reviewed open entry journal printed by Faculty of Laptop computer Science, Universitas Brawijaya (UB), Indonesia. With a 4-yr CS degree, college students can discover employment as programmers, software program engineers or IT professionals. People are spending an rising amount of time watching different individuals play video games on-line, too. The statistics evidence the impression of digital media communications at this time. However, comparisons to total inhabitants are less consultant when it comes to social media, because most platforms prohibit use by kids.
Pastikan konten advertising berjalan dengan baik dengan, perhatikan juga kompetitor Anda apa saja yang mereka tampilkan pada ide konten. The Federal Commerce Fee on Wednesday announced that Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion wonderful over privateness violations and its failure to inform tens of hundreds of thousands of customers about a data leak that happened years ago. 2. The social panorama will evolve: with a number of the world’s prime social platforms dropping users over prolonged durations, it is possible that we’ll see some attrition and consolidation in the social media trade over the approaching months.
This would possibly seem stunning in comparison with transmission chain studies that found, quite the opposite, that a story with adverse content material had an advantage in terms of likelihood to spread and to not be distorted (Bebbington et al., 2017 ). This adverse bias, when it comes to favoring attention and memorization, has been confirmed in several experiments, and there are evolutionary reasons to suppose that adverse info ought to be more salient than positive one (Fessler et al., 2014 ). One strategy to reconcile these findings with the outcomes of Berger and Milkman ( 2012 ) may be indeed to think about that they studied a paradigmatic case of digitally-mediated preservative transmission, whereas the findings supporting the importance of a destructive bias come from cases of reconstructive transmission, or just related to recall.
It’s been over a year since Techworld last spoke to Naimish Gohil, CEO and founder of edtech firm Satchel In that point, Satchel has been recognised as ‘Edtech Innovator of the 12 months’ on the annual Techies awards for the second 12 months operating and has launched a handful of new products designed to enhance the training expertise for each college students and teachers.
Digital marketers (pemasar digital) terbaik adalah yang memiliki gambaran jelas tentang bagaimana setiap kampanye digital advertising yang dia miliki mendukung tujuan penawarannya. Tambahkan pranala wiki Bila dirasa perlu, buatlah pautan ke artikel wiki lainnya dengan cara menambahkan “” dan “” pada kata yang bersangkutan (lihat WP:LINK untuk keterangan lebih lanjut).


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Looks like LinkedIn is introducing its own AI-powered tool for generating ad copies.
The tool suggests different versions of ad text by using data from a marketer’s LinkedIn page and Campaign Manager settings.
This feature is currently being tested in North America and will be expanded to new regions in the future. LinkedIn is leveraging OpenAI models to create the copy suggestions.
The goal is to help marketers boost creativity, save time, and focus on producing impactful campaigns. LinkedIn has been actively using generative AI across its platform, including for conversation starters, profile bios, and recruitment posts.
The trend of using AI for ad copy is also seen in Meta and Google’s marketing solutions. As the competition in advertising grows, AI tools are becoming essential for marketers to streamline their processes and optimize their campaigns.


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Rage website launched
EA today announced the launch of the official site for Rage.
Video game news headlines delivered to your inbox daily. Click here to subscribe.
We just launched the interactive teaser site for RAGE, the upcoming game from id Software. Visitors will follow the story of a lone survivor which will continue to unfold, revealing more to explore and interact with every two days.


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Canadian retail sales declined more than anticipated in July, but they may rebound slightly in August, Statistics Canada data revealed on Friday. This indicates that interest rate increases by Bank of Canada are slowing consumer spending.
Statistics Canada data revealed that July’s retail sales declined 2.5%, which was the first drop in seven months. It also missed analyst predictions of a slump of 2.0%. The decrease was driven by lower gasoline prices, while sales volumes also fell 2.0%.
An initial estimate indicated that August retail sales rose 0.4%.
Karyne Charbonneau (executive director of economics at CIBC Capital Markets), stated in a note that “Canadians might have started to respond to higher interest rates.”
The Bank of Canada raised its policy rate by 75bps to 3.25% earlier in the month. It also stated that it expects further increases. In six months, it has increased its policy rate by 300 basis points.
Royce Mendes, chief of macro strategy at Desjardins Group, stated that while consumers may be reducing their spending, the demand for Canadian goods and services is still exceeding supply.
“The Bank of Canada must continue to hike rates. However, it gives us more confidence that a 50bp increase in October will be our final increase in this cycle,” he wrote in a note.
The money markets expect a 50 basis point increase in October, and a 25 basis point move by year’s end to bring the rate up to 4.0%.
The Canadian dollar traded 0.3% lower at 1.3528 against the greenback, or 72.92 U.S.cents.


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He has changed his mind.
A few months ago, billionaire George Soros bet on Ford, convinced that the strategy of the legacy carmaker, to close the gap with Tesla in the race to develop electric vehicles, was the right one.
Last year, the financier continued to buy Ford’s debt. In the second quarter of 2022, Soros held $29.5 million in debt from Ford. He continued to massively acquire the group’s debt during the three months that followed.
According to regulatory filings, the Democratic Party mega-donor held bonds with a face value of $78 million as of September 30, 2022. The paper was convertible into shares. Three months later, Soros had bought more debt from Ford (F) – Get Free Report. He held bonds with a face value of $78.7 million.
This investment showed that Soros was seduced by CEO Jim Farley’s strategy, which has made Tesla its main competitor. The company plans to spend $50 billion on electric vehicles between 2022 and 2026. It previously planned to spend $30 billion in the five years ending in 2025. To gain market share fairly quickly, the Blue Oval offers two models in the most lucrative segment of the market: SUVs and pickup trucks; the Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV and the The F-150 Lightning, the electric version of the iconic F-150.
Soros Buys Put Options
Last year, the Blue Oval doubled the number of battery powered vehicles, or BEVs, delivered to consumers. The company delivered a total of 61,575 units, which is a new record. In detail, Ford delivered 39,458 Ford Mustang Mach-E, up 45%, 15,617 F-150 Lightning and 6,500 Ford E-Transit vans.
Production of the F-150 Lightning and the E-Transit van started in 2022. Ford is planning their production ramp up this year. It still said that the F-150 Lightning was already the top fully electric pickup in the U.S.
“The F-150 Lightning was the No. 1 electric truck in America in December and the best-selling electric truck in the U.S. since its launch in May with 15,617 electric trucks sold,” the company said in a statement last January.
The pickup truck had already received more than 150,000 reservations.
But despite Ford’s promises to increase production, Soros has changed his investment strategy on the automaker. As of Mar. 31, he sold all of the Ford debt he held. And the most striking thing is that he acquired 1 million put options, i.e., the right to sell Ford shares at a locked-in price sometime in the future, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
If the share price of Ford goes down, Soros will make a profit. Basically, the billionaire believes that there is a downside to Ford.
Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Soros’ bet against Ford comes at a time when the automaker is ramping up production of electric vehicles. This transition significantly affected the first quarter performance of Ford Model e, the division housing the BEV and growth operations.
The Stock Is Up 8%
It appears that Ford Model e recorded a loss before interest and taxes of $700 million. This is $100 million more than in the fourth quarter of 2022. The margins are also in the red. The EBIT margin (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes), which allows investors to assess the true cost of the activity, is -102.1%. This is more than twice as much as in the fourth quarter of 2022, a period during which the EBIT margin was -40.4%.
On the revenue side, the sales of electric vehicles, amounted to $700 million in the first three months of the year, is less than half of the $1.6 billion in revenue generated by Ford Model e in the last quarter of 2022.
One fact is striking: Ford only delivered 12,000 electric vehicles in the first quarter, which means that the carmaker lost $58,333 for each clean car sold during this period.
Ford explained this poor performance by higher costs, mainly higher engineering, and spending-related expenses, commodities and other inflationary pressures. Weak sales volumes are due, the carmaker said, to scheduled downtime at the Cuautitlan assembly plant in Mexico, to increase the Mach-E capacity to 35 jobs per hour.
Production of the Ford Mustang Mach-E is expected to reach 270,000 units in 2023, the automaker had previously indicated. To achieve this, the carmaker had planned to significantly ramp up production at the Mexican plant. But to prepare for it, Ford had to pause production at the Mexican facility starting last January.
“Without pauses in production of the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning and EV volumes comparable to those in Q4, Ford Model e’s Q1 EBIT margin would have been roughly flat quarter-to-quarter,” a spokesperson said.
Soros seems skeptical about Ford’s near-term performance, unlike other investors, as Ford’s stock is up 8% this year.
Stock market regulations require managers of funds with more than $100 million in US equities to file a document, known as a 13F, within 45 days of the end of the quarter, to disclose their holdings in stocks that trade on US exchanges.
The value of Soros’ US equity portfolio decreased by almost 11% quarter-over-quarter to $6.5 billion. Soros Fund Management is a family office that manages public and private equity.


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No motorcycle needs to make 200 horsepower, with as much torque as a Hyundai iMax people mover. These are figures of absolute excess – and that's the point. The Lightning LS-218 will be a truly, horrifyingly fast motorcycle, the fastest on the planet. And it's set for release this summer in America.
You may notice that we're getting a touch excited about electric motorcycles right now – and with good reason. The segment is coming of age at the moment, finally beginning to deliver bikes with practical range and genuinely exciting performance to go along with all their many well-known ancillary benefits.


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Motorola has Android 4.4 on its mind, as should be patently obvious from the pace at which it’s been working to make KitKat available to its users. We just told you a couple hours ago about the Verizon Moto X update going official, and we’ve already started getting confirmation from subscribers. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however, and now we’re learning more about the Android 4.4 fate for a number of the company’s older Androids.
Earlier this month, we saw Motorola confirm KitKat updates for the Moto X (obvo) and this year’s Droid Ultra series (Mini, Maxx, and all). For a bunch of other models, details simply weren’t ready yet. Well, today we see that Motorola’s update status tool has some new information to report, revealing that members of last year’s Droid RAZR HD family, including the RAZR M and developer models, are in-line to get some Android 4.4 updates of their own.
Beyond those, we see the Atrix HD on AT&T and the Electrify M on US Cellular are also tapped to make the journey to Android 4.4. Sure, there are plenty of Motorola models we’re sad to see getting letting left behind, but we’re still happy that as many are being updated as they are.


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The local opticians has raised more than £800 for charities and good causes in the past year.
Specsavers in Falkirk held a number of fundraising events in 2016, with proceeds donated to Strathcarron Hospice and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Holding fantastic fundraisers
The store held a Macmillan coffee morning to raise funds for the charity and also raffled a number of fantastic prizes, including a pair of hearing aids worth £2,000, in aid of Strathcarron Hospice during the store’s 25th anniversary celebrations.
Zander McNaughton, store director of Specsavers in Falkirk, said: ‘We are delighted to have raised such a fantastic amount for two vital causes this year.
‘We raised more than £620 for Strathcarron Hospice alone. This money will help the hospice to cover its running costs and enable it to continue its incredible work.’


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Minister Warns Over Organic Air Freight Limits
By Rebecca Smithers, (Monday, September 17 2007)
Food miles alone, or the distance food has travelled, is not the best way to judge whether the food we eat is sustainable. Driving six and a half miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK.
Restricting UK imports of air-freighted organic fruit and vegetables from developing countries such as Africa would have a "disastrous" impact on the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, a government minister warned today.
The trade minister, Gareth Thomas, was speaking at a London seminar organised to debate the possible impact of a certification ban being considered by the Soil Association.
Earlier this summer, the association's independent standards board launched a public consultation to help decide how best to respond to growing consumer concerns about air freight's contribution to climate change.
The options proposed for discussion included taking no action, labelling, or the phased implementation of a selective or general ban.
Yesterday the International Trade Centre (ITC), an agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation, emphasised its opposition to a ban as it published the initial findings of research into the potential financial impact on farmers and exporters in developing countries and importers in the European Union.
Mr Thomas said today: "Food miles alone, or the distance food has travelled, is not the best way to judge whether the food we eat is sustainable. Driving six and a half miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK.
"We need a better-informed food miles debate. Long-term, the only fair option is to ensure the prices of the goods we consume, including organic produce, cover the environmental costs wherever the goods are from. We also need a labelling system that tells consumers about how the product is reducing poverty."
Mr Thomas said the long-term impact of a ban would be "disastrous" for communities farming the food.
"Demand for air-freighted organic fruit and vegetables is growing, particularly for ready-to-eat fruits and salads which mean work for farmers and jobs for food processors," he said. "The products can only be air-freighted and the market's potential growth will be cut short by an air-freight ban."
The research by the Geneva-based ITC revealed that most organic fruit and vegetables sold in the UK was imported from the least developed or lower-middle income developing countries, to the benefit of rural communities there.
Preliminary figures from Kenya and Ghana suggested that more than 2,500 workers could lose their jobs as a result of the proposed restrictions, with knock-on effects for approximately 15,000 dependents.
Alexander Kasterine, an ITC expert on trade and the environment, said: "Organic certification has been hugely successful in reducing poverty for thousands of African farming families. A ban on air-freighted products could be catastrophic for them, while making no contribution to mitigating climate change."
Air-freighted organic imports consist mainly of exotic fruits such as pineapple and mango - which make up almost half of the total volume - plus peas, beans and salad vegetables. The main countries exporting to the UK are the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Ghana and Egypt.
The Soil Association consultation closes at the end of the month and a final proposal is due to be unveiled by November.
Originally appeared in Guardian.


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India launches $6.7 billion plan to boost ronics manufacturing
By Sankalp Phartiyal
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India launched a $6.65 billion plan on Tuesday to boost ronics manufacturing, saying it would start by offering five global smartphone makers incentives to establish or expand domestic production.
The go nment is offering a production-linked incentive (PLI) involving cash worth 4% to 6% of additional sales of goods made locally over five years, with 2019-2020 as the base year, technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told a news conference.
Names of the five companies, which would have to meet investment and sales thresholds to be e gible, were expected to be announced in the next two months, ministry offi als said.
Five Indian firms would also be sed for the PLI scheme, which, along with two other related initiatives, could help India produce smartphones and components worth 10 trillion rupees ($133 billion) by 2025, Prasad said.
The smartphone industry has become a showpiece for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make In India' drive. The go nment now wants to make the country an export hub.
Global players such as Samsung and Tese firms Foxconn and Wistron, which both supply Apple, have already ramped up local production, attracted by India's huge market of 1.3 billion people.
The new plan also includes schemes to drive up production of components and create manufacturing clusters with pre-built factory sheds and common facilities for companies to move in immediately.
The problem with India is they struggle to produce enough power for factories. Toyota had this issue until they installed solar panels to supplement the go nments power.
Too little too late!
This is a good start. You cannot compete with on labor costs but you can produce phones and equipment for India and India people (1.3 billion) in India. It is never too late to do something good for the people of India after 70 years for congress co ption.
With a population of 1.3 Billion Smart, Tech Savvy, Yuppies, India is a Huge market, waiting to be tapped.
India is finally following 's footsteps. It took 30 years to get there.
Brilliant move by Modi. India will be the big beneficiary as the world pulls supply chain out of . India wins
Some body should teach this guy that India is at the bottom of Global Hunger Index. Solve that first.
US needs to help india gear up cell phone production. Great competition on esting phones. Result in price drops, long overdue.
Great move. Get all manufacturing out of .
Great news take all manufacturers out of and take them to India and other Asian countries.
why Modi is not offering to help Pres Trump on the national prest he is facing in USA ? he can be a third mediator !
Indias 1.3 Billion economy in which Not half can afford cell phones. Pretty Funny
India has been trying for years to compete with and it has always failed and will fail again and again. India does not have the infrastructure
Plz invest in self-sustaining toilets. Or , chai stalls.
This plan will fail because of the economic instability of India, and India will be separated to several new countries in the next decades
India is not serious about investments. They are only doing it grudgingly.
Modi is on the move to revitalize the Economy.
pls dont belive what ever he say buch of lyes
Indias technologies are some of finest in world like cow powered cars. They also have outdoor toilets to Poo Poo in the nature
No incentives for Huawei?
India is not a good place to invest.


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Sony's nasne device highlights four-screen promise
Device will record and play broadcasts and video, integrating smartphones, PCs, PlayStations and tablets
Published: 17 April, 2012
Sony plans to launch a device to epitomize its promise of a four-screen content strategy to revive its ailing fortunes. The Japanese giant's next digital media recorder, the 'nasne', will be able to capture and stream video to Sony smartphones, PCs, tablets and PlayStation consoles.
The announcement came hard on the heels of new CEO Kazuo Hirai's outlining of a turnaround plan which emphasizes all kinds of mobile devices as well as gaming. His background is in the games and content elements of Sony, and he aims to de-emphasize the flagging TV business in favor of harnessing all the firm's diverse electronic gadgets and digital media assets, to create a unified content experience.
The nasne builds on an existing peripheral for the PlayStation, the 'torne' external TV tuner (called Play TV in Europe), but is a standalone gadget with its own 500Gbytes hard drive and a USB connection to attach further external storage. It will go on sale in Japan in July, with international plans still being finalized. It will feature inputs for terrestrial and satellite TV, at a price of ¥16,980 ($210).
It is the latest in a series of products and services to integrate Sony's different products under a common interface, allowing users to watch and record TV broadcasts using dedicated software on PlayStation consoles or Vaio TVs, and to access the recorded shows from the Vita portable game console, Xperia smartphones, and Sony tablets. It can also stream live or recorded shows to two such devices over a home network, and allows any device to use it as a network drive via the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) specification.


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MUM Danielle Baxter was rushed to A&E after she was poisoned by eating rogue courgettes she grew during lockdown.
Danielle, 38, was taken ill within hours of eating them in a roasted vegetable dish.
She had planted Unwins seeds.
Last night, its parent company Westland suspended sale of its courgette packets.
It came as it was revealed garden supplier Mr Fothergill’s has recalled a batch of courgette seeds after families felt unwell.
Danielle said: “I had a high temperature and I was vomiting and had diarrhoea.
"I phoned 111 after seeing online that courgettes can produce poison.
“The paramedic told me to get checked out at A&E straight away.
"I didn’t start feeling better until five days later.”
Some courgettes can produce abnormal amounts of cucurbitacins — a chemical that causes nausea and stomach upsets.
Five years ago a German OAP died in a case linked to poisonous veg he used in a stew.
Carer Danielle, of Southend, Essex, said: “I didn’t even know there was a risk with courgettes.
“I enjoy gardening but don’t know much about it. I don’t think I’ll grow courgettes again.”
Guy Barter of the Royal Horticultural Society advised families to throw away any courgettes that taste bitter.
Most read in UK News
He said: “The bitterness is a sure sign something is amiss.”
Westland said: “This extremely rare occurrence can be caused by certain growing conditions rather than the seed itself, however, as a precaution we have temporarily suspended shipments while we investigate.”
Mr Fothergill’s said: “We’ve never had a batch of seeds like this in our 40+ year history.”


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With the release of the iPad Mini 6, Apple recently updated the look of its portfolio.
With the iPad Mini 7, the manufacturer is anticipated to make just minor changes or stick with the current design.
A Display Upgrade
Many complain that the iPad Mini 6’s display is unimpressive and that the jelly scrolling bug is annoying.
The iPad Mini 7 is anticipated to have a more sophisticated panel.
Apple is aiming to integrate OLED technology into its iPad lineup, but it will probably only be available on the most expensive tablet.
Most likely, the iPad Mini 7 will still have an LCD display.
There is no truth to earlier claims that the display’s refresh rate could be increased to 120 hertz.
The device’s battery specifications have not yet been made public.
Processor and operating system
In the near future, it seems unlikely that the iPad Mini will be powered by a M CPU.
A high-end A-series processor, presumably the A16 or A17, will likely power the iPad Mini 7.
At debut, the tablet will probably be running the newest iPad OS version.
The current model is over a year old, so the likeliest scenario would be an iPad Mini 7 announcement sometime in late 2023 or early 2024.
Prominent Apple analyst Ming Kai Kyo also predicts a launch around that time.
History of the iPad
Development of the iPad
The first tablet computer by Apple was called the Newton MessagePad 100 in 1993
The first MessagePad was a touchscreen device, but it wasn’t capable of much beyond basic computer operations
The Newton MessagePad was not the only tablet computer Apple was working on at the time. They were also developing a prototype tablet called PenLite, which never made it to market because Apple was afraid that it would take sales away from the MessagePad.
The tablet line was officially discontinued in 1998 after the release of several other MessagePad models.
It wasn’t until 2007 that Apple returned to the mobile-computing stage with the iPhone.
The Launch of the iPad
The iPad was formally revealed on January 27, 2010, at an Apple Press Conference in San Francisco.
It was released to the American market on April 3, 2010, and only the Apple Store was able to sell it.
Apple released the 3G-enabled iPad on April 30 after less than a month.
Outside of the US market, the iPad was initially made available on May 28, 2010, in Australia, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the UK.
It was distributed on June 23, although Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, and Singapore were among the countries that had to wait.
The Name "iPad"
Apple wasn’t the first to come up with the name “iPad.”
In 1994, Intel was working on a tablet device called the information pad or IPAD for short, but the project didn’t get very far.
After Apple announced the device, the internet was flooded with feminine hygiene jokes, referring to the “connection” between hygiene products and the name “iPad.”
Some women found themselves grossed out by the cringe-worthy name at first, but the situation settled down quickly.
On the other hand, most male users didn’t see an issue with the tablet being called “iPad.”
In fact, many claimed that iPad was a much better name for the tablet than iSlate or iTablet, which were a few of the options in iPad’s early development.


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EC investigates tax relief for UK gaming firms
The European Commission is investigating a British tax relief scheme for games companies over concerns that it gives the UK industry an unfair advantage over the rest of Europe.
Britain says the tax break is essential to support an important cultural mass market.
Alice Baxter reports.
27 Sep 2013
- From the section Business


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Researchers developing safeguards against product pirates
Researchers are developing technical safeguards.Credit: © Volker Steger
Researchers in Germany are instructing companies and developing ways to safeguard against product pirates.
The researchers at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC advise companies on how best to protect their products and IT services.
AISEC said pirated goods cost the German industry billions and machine tool manufacturers were becoming a growing target. Around one third of companies had seen their business eroded by cheap imitations of their products, especially manufacturers of textile machines, compressors and plastics processing equipment, it said.
“Most companies have absolutely no idea just how easily their products can be copied,” said Bartol Filipovic, head of the product protection department at AISEC.
AISEC said most companies reacted only once counterfeits of their own products were on the market. In addition to conducting research, AISEC’s most important role was instructive, and it offers a service that analyses a company’s product protection.
The researchers said companies should make sure that suitable protection mechanisms were placed deep within the hardware when developing each new product range.
“The optimum scenario is for clients to consult AISEC before completing this phase, and have their developers share the proposed hardware setup, circuit diagrams and software with AISEC’s product protection team – in strictest confidence, of course. AISEC’s researchers analyze this information to identify any weaknesses and offer suggestions for making the product more secure,” AISEC said.
It was definitely worthwhile for companies to analyse and develop suitable technical safeguards, said Filipovic. “The service we provide is less costly than the damages inflicted by product piracy.”
AISEC said companies that implemented its recommendations enjoyed at least five to ten years relief from attacks by product counterfeiters.
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The famously known meme-coin (DOGE) trading volumes shot up 1250% close to $1 billion in the Q2, 2021. This remarkable score is recorded in the world’s top cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase. Dogecoin is so popular in the crypto industry with numerous investors and as an additional asset it is the favorite coin for Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. Mostly, Musk’s tweet has super power on the price value of Dogecoin.
DOGE in Crypto market
Moreover, the average daily volume of Dogecoin in the first quarter is just $74 million a day. Then the value of the meme coin skyrockets up-to $995 million per day in the April to June time-period. Notably, the overall global trading volumes of DOGE rose up-to $18.82 billion per day amid volatile markets. But at the same time high volatility is always risky for crypto crashes due to huge trading volumes.
Significantly, Dogecoin market price was $0.004 at the start of the year 2021. Then gradually the price went 50% high due to the tweet of Musk regarding the dogecoin. In February, the researchers were curious to find out the moves of Musk on cryptocurrency prices. In the methodology, the researchers found six twitter events from 2020 and 2021 which reflected more on the trading volume of DOGE.
Thus, some celebrities have superior power on affecting the price surges of the cryptocurrencies. For instance, the SNL night on May 8th, 2021 raised the Shiba Inu-themed coin to reach its ATH to $0.731. Also, after a lot of shouts from Musk, DOGE market value decreased 75% after its all-time high of $0.181.
Dogecoin Remains competitive
Besides many controversies and arguments from crypto proponents, Elon Musk and investors the performance of Dogecoin remains high. It is competing with the top and famous digital currencies Bitcoin and Ether. Moreover, Ethereum is moving forward on an average volume of 53% per day on global exchanges. Whereas, bitcoin is dipping down 14% from its price value in the crypto market. Thus, Ethereum is surpassing Bitcoin in the crypto market. Importantly, the main reasons for bitcoin’s fall is China’s crackdown on bitcoin mining and Musk removing the bitcoin payments for Tesla products.
Additionally, world’s top crypto exchanges listed Dogecoin on their platforms during this second quarter of the year. Doge is now available in Gemini and eToro from May, and Coinbase in June. More so, Coinbase reveals the overall cryptocurrency trading volumes which shows 32% increase worth $19 billion on daily crypto transactions. Thus, this data covers more than 5% of transactions with a combination of DOGE during the Q2.
According to CoinMarketCap, Dogecoin price is $0.176853 USD at the time of writing. More so, these digital currencies play a vital role in all industries and businesses at present. Therefore its prices hit record highs before the year end.
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Wednesday, 25 March 2015
2014 was a “black year” for trade. There was a record amount of restructuring, and turnover fell for the first time in 15 years, the sector’s federation Comeos said on Wednesday. Comeos says that 3,581 trade workers were affected by the announcement of a collective sacking. The number of recruitments has also continued to go down, with a fall of 2.39% compared to 2013, and 6% over the last few years.
As for profitability, it fell by 20% in ten years, Comeos added. Prices in shops have also gone down since March 2014. By type of product, electronic goods have bounced back slightly from a bad year in 2013 (-2%) and increased by 1.4%. This is mainly thanks to sales of mobile phones. The turnover for DIY products fell slightly (-0.3%), due to the humid summer. Lastly, the Fashion branch recorded a slight increase in turnover (+1.3%) after a big fall (-3.9%) in 2013.
“Last year was clearly the worst year ever for trade”, said Dominique Michel, administrative delegate for Comeos, who was quoted in a press release. “By going past our margins and increasing productivity, we managed to hold out for a few years. But that couldn’t continue: last year, we had no choice but to reduce costs, which made restructuring inevitable”, he said. He called on the government to “look at the restructuring problems in the sector, which suffers from lack of flexibility and high salary costs”.


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Earlier this week we saw leaked images taken from a 2013 Mazda MX-5 Miata brochure, containing a subtly altered, more aggressive looking roadster.
Read This Article
A classic example of disappointment that plagues the automotive industry comes when concept cars come to fruition as production vehicles.
Just a week after we first saw the 2014 Mazda3 hatchback, the Mazda3 sedan has emerged from the depths of the internet.
First there was a video clip, which concentrated on the 2014 Mazda6 headlight.


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Tag Archives: Kato
Equipment: Coming This Fall from Diamond Select Toys: Cobra Kai, Captain Carter, Doctor Strange and More!
It’s almost May, which means a new batch of items is up for pre-order from Diamond Select Toys and Gentle Giant Ltd.! As seen in the new May Previews Catalog from Diamond Comics, this batch of upcoming fall items includes … Continue reading
It’s almost February, which means it’s time for a new round of pre-orders from Diamond Select Toys and Gentle Giant Ltd.! This month, there are new products from Marvel, Star Wars, Ninja Turtles, Green Hornet and Godzilla, and they’re coming … Continue reading
Equipment: New Products from Diamond Select Toys and Gentle Giant Ltd…with New Marvel and new Star Wars
A new Previews catalog is on its way to comic shops, and it’s got a new batch of Diamond Select Toys and Gentle Giant Ltd. products for you to pre-order! Not only does this month kick off the first-ever Green … Continue reading


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We generally just try to report on the story here at CleanTechnica, rather than be the story, but I guess that sometimes it simply can’t be helped. Case in point: the Connecticut Auto Dealers Association recently put together a new anti-Tesla website referencing CleanTechnica content — rather out of context, to my eyes, though.
This “Tesla Crash” website — which is exactly what it sounds like — has of course referred to, among other things, our coverage of the rather high repair costs for a Model S that received what seems to be minor damage in an accident. Possibly a legitimate issue for some, which is why we covered the subject, but it should be stated up front that surveying strongly suggests that it’s not an issue for many — as Tesla was actually just rated by Consumer Reports as possessing the highest repair satisfaction in the industry, better than independent repair shops and dealerships.
The fact that Tesla’s electric vehicle repairs are relatively expensive isn’t exactly surprising, as the vehicles are themselves quite expensive — and are of a novel design as compared to industry standards, necessitating specific skills/experience. While there may (or may not) be some issues with graft as concerning Tesla-certified body shops, and a lack of competition — as discussed in our earlier article — that doesn’t really have anything to do with Tesla’s direct sales model.
And, for that matter, graft is an issue with nearly all body shops — certainly not just Tesla-certified ones. Again, consider that Tesla dominated the recent Consumer Reports survey concerning customer repair satisfaction.
Connecticut native (and writer for CleanTechnica + Gas2) Chris DeMorro provides some thoughts:
What’s more, the President of the CT Auto Dealers Association Jim Fleming can’t even get basic facts straight, stating there are just a “handful” of Tesla owners in Connecticut, when in fact there are over 500. Where I come from, 500 is a lot more than a handful, and he then goes on to compare Tesla to Yugo. Yes, yes he did. He also says consumer protections would be lost. What consumer protections Jim? Specifics here, because so far in my experience, going to a car dealership is nothing but negative. If I never have to buy a car from a dealer again, I’ll die a happy man.
But maybe I am being unfair to Connecticut car dealers? I mean, if they’re serious about selling plug-in cars, surely they’ve helped craft the sorts of laws proven to encourage EV ownership? They sure did…for themselves! Yes, the car dealer lobby convinced legislators to award the automaker that sells the most plug-in cars, instead of offering consumers a rebate or tax credit like so many other states do. Our charging infrastructure is pretty pathetic too, consisting mostly of singular Level 2 charging stations located on college or government campuses. So what exactly are the benefits for plug-in car buyers in Connecticut?
From the state’s own website: “Electric vehicles have an annual registration fee of $19, a savings of $47 over the registration of a conventional vehicle!”
And that’s it. That’s the environment car dealers have created for plug-in vehicles in Connecticut. What a bunch of clowns.
You know Jim, maybe if Connecticut’s car dealers had done more than create an award for themselves, I’d be inclined to say hey, maybe we should let them sell Tesla vehicles the way they want to sell them.
Lmao. 😀 You can only talk like that about a place after having lived there for a long time.
Perhaps I’m wrong to think this, but there’s really something rather comical to my mind about many of the dealership associations’ efforts to fight Tesla (like the “Get the Facts” campaign). They are in such an indefensible position to my eyes, after so many decades of people having no option other than to get ripped off by some scummy sort at a dealership, who’s really going to side with them against direct sales?
It seems like it’s just a matter of time — though, corrupt politicians and a dysfunctional legislative system can no doubt aid in delaying that inevitability. For some time anyways, not forever…
Image Credit: Public Domain
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Less than 18 months after launching The Blast Furnace, the company's first mobile game studio, Activision (ATVI -0.8%) says it's "exploring all our options" regarding the U.K. studio as part of its efforts to align its 2014 resources with "anticipated business requirements."
The Blast Furnace has been responsible for mobile games Call of Duty: Strike Team and Pitfall!. Compared with Electronic Arts (delivered $124M in mobile revenue last quarter), Activision has maintained a small mobile profile. Activision Publishing chief Eric Hirshberg stated last year he thinks "consoles are still the go-to" for his company.
More than a few major game developers have struggled to effectively monetize mobile titles in the face of intense competition and fickle consumer tastes. Activision's comments come ahead of its Feb. 6 Q4 report.


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NEW YORK-An annual index released by Deloitte LLP and the Manufacturing Institute shows that Americans view manufacturing as the most important industry for a strong national economy. There is a wide perception gap, however, between the public's highly positive views of manufacturing's contributions to America's economic success and their negative views about pursuing a career in manufacturing.
The survey,“Public Viewpoint on Manufacturing,”which assessed public perceptions and understanding of a range of issues related to manufacturing, shows that the majority of respondents (71%) view manufacturing as a national priority with 59% agreeing that the U.S. manufacturing industry effectively competes on a global scale. These results fall in line with public perceptions that manufacturing plays a larger role in overall economic prosperity compared to the technology, energy, healthcare, retail, communications and financial services industries.
"The public’s ranking of manufacturing as the top industry of importance to our economy, as well as its belief that U.S. manufacturers can compete globally, is very telling," says Craig Giffi, Deloitte LLP vice chairman and U.S. Consumer & Industrial Products industry leader. "Americans clearly still believe that manufacturing remains the backbone of the economy."
Most also agreed that America's manufacturing industries have a significant impact on their standard of living (81%) and on national security (68%). When asked what industry they would most want to have creating 1,000 jobs in their community, respondents listed manufacturing as their top choice, followed by technology, energy, healthcare, retailing, communications and financial institutions.
While Americans view manufacturing as the most important industry for a strong national economy, the index shows that they are not pursuing careers in manufacturing. Only 17% named manufacturing as among their top two industry choices to start a career, and only 30% of parents said they would encourage their children to pursue jobs in manufacturing.
"These are jobs Americans want for their friends and neighbors-but not for themselves or their family members," says Giffi. "America's belief that manufacturing jobs are not clean, safe or interesting may have been accurate at one time, but it’s no longer the case."
"This survey sheds light on a massive disconnect we are facing in manufacturing," says Emily DeRocco, president of the Manufacturing Institute. "People have an outdated image of manufacturing and the career opportunities available. Cutting-edge technology has transformed manufacturing in ways that are hard to imagine if you haven’t visited a factory lately. Jobs now require postsecondary education, skills certification and credentials across a broad range of high-quality, middle-class career paths. The reality is that manufacturers offer high-paying jobs and rewarding careers for American working men and women. Our job is to close the gap between perception and reality, which will help fuel the industry’s growth and prosperity."
Respondents agreed with that conclusion. The majority (77%) believe that the United States needs a more strategic approach to develop its manufacturing base, and 74% said that the United States should further invest in manufacturing industries.
Finally, though Americans believe manufacturing is disadvantaged in the areas of corporate tax policies (46%), trade policies (45%) and general government business policies (45%), they are adamant on what gives the United States the upper hand. By far, the public sees technology use and availability (77%), skilled workers (74%) and energy availability (72%) as resources that give the nation its competitive edge.
The survey was commissioned by Deloitte and conducted online by an independent research company in May 2009. The survey polled a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Americans and has a margin of error for the entire sample of +/- three percentage points.
View survey findingsHere.


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The convenience and time savings that come with online shopping have made it an ever more popular choice with shoppers in recent years. Of course, having those online purchases delivered right to your front door is also very appealing. But unfortunately, where new trends turn up, so do new types of crooks. According to one recent survey, about 210 million packages were stolen from Americans’ front porches in the past year alone. That is a very serious problem for both online retailers and shoppers alike.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.edgeimpulse.com/blog/porch-pirates-no-mo-with-the-help-of-fomo


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F-Pace Leads Way to Surging Jaguar Sales
When the F-Pace dropped last year, many people were wondering why it took Jaguar so long to get into the hottest game in town: SUVs. Well, apparently Jaguar’s timing was just right, because they’re selling the hell out of the new model.
Along with the newish XE compact luxury sedan, the F-Pace is leading the way to monster sales gains for the venerable British marque. According to Bloomberg, Jaguar “sales in October more than tripled, and for the year, they’ve reached 23,568, up 93 percent, the most among brands tracked by Autodata Corp.”
93 percent! And that’s while auto sales in the U.S. are generally slowing down. Well, unless of course you’re one of those “smaller luxury brands with new SUV offerings.” Like Jaguar. And Land Rover for that matter, whose sales are up 7.8 percent.
Making those Jaguar and Land Rover sales gains all the more impressive is the fact that they come in the face of sales dips for BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus. Of course those brands are much bigger than JLR, who this year may see a combined 100,000 U.S. sales for the first time since 2002.
That’s thanks in large part to F-Pace and XE buyers, 90 percent of whom are new to Jaguar. And those buyers are certainly younger, which is why Jaguar can now boast about having “12 percent of customers under 35.”
So not only does today look good, but so too does the future.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>


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When U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan played in the 2015 Women’s World Cup, merchandise for the victorious U.S. team was in such short supply that her family couldn’t find any. So her father printed a flag and his daughter’s name on a few dozen T-shirts for family and friends.
Four years later, gear was still scarce for the 2019 Women’s World Cup, despite the success of the previous tournament. This time, Ms. Morgan and teammates Allie Long and Kelley O’Hara created shirts that said “USA vs Everybody” and offered them online. They rang up more than $1 million in sales in less than 30 days, Ms. Morgan said.
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Leeds wholesale bakery supplier Walker Humphrey has turned to Dawsongroup and a contract hire option for its latest fleet enhancements. The family-run firm has taken on a pair of DAF CF 18 tonners under the finance arrangement and is now looking at replacing all its 16-tonne vehicles through the contract hire and rental business. Walker Humphrey general manager Simon Rennison said: “We knew our existing 16-tonne vehicles were good for deliveries to smaller customers in towns and villages locally, even […]
Isuzu Truck UK has supplied a further 50 13.5-tonne refrigerated trucks into the national distribution fleet at JJ Foodservice.
Rivus Fleet Solutions has opened a new “flagship” garage in Southampton, 60% larger than its predecessor and capable of being able to support HGVs.


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The latest rumour concerning Apple's next smartphone claims that the firm is working to make the handset super-thin – an iPhone Air, if you will.
According to the ever-springing font of rumours that is DigiTimes, Asian component manufacturers are shrinking the thickness of multiple components for the iPhone 6 – including the chassis, display, and battery.
The measurements of the battery are mentioned specifically, with the new iPhone having a battery which is only two-thirds the thickness of the power plant in the iPhone 5 (2mm as opposed to 3mm).
The iPhone 5S (opens in new tab) was hardly thick at 7.6mm, either, so we could be looking at a 6mm or a fraction over handset. The source of the speculation says that the battery has a similar capacity, so should provide the same longevity (going backwards on that front is not really an option for Apple, let's face it).
The iPad Air saw Apple trim 1.9mm off its predecessor's thickness (opens in new tab) of 9.4mm, but of course, we're not likely to see quite that much shrinkage on a smaller phone.
DigiTimes (opens in new tab) also noted that the component makers are "facing technological difficulties" in terms of even maintaining yield rates, which is something we've already heard buzz about – particularly as concerns the larger rumoured iPhone phablet, the 5.5in display of which has supposedly caused trouble which will delay this model.
It's expected to arrive a month or so later than the 4.7in iPhone 6, which should launch mid-September. Production of the 4.7in iPhone 6 is literally just about to kick off (opens in new tab), or so we've heard.
For a full roundup of all the latest rumours and updates on the iPhone 6, check out our rolling live coverage (opens in new tab).


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HTC Exodus 1S: as impressive in theory as it is dismal on paper
HTC's fall from grace has been a remarkable one. But it seems that the firm isn't quite done falling just yet.
Over the weekend, it announced a new device in its crypto-focussed Exodus range. Dubbed the HTC Exodus 1s, it's about as uninspired a phone we've seen debut in 2019.
Up front, there's a 5.7-inch 720p display. Behind that, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 chipset from 2017 lies alongside 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Thankfully, there is a microSD card slot - a glimmer of hope, at least.
The phone also features 13MP cameras front and back, a headphone jack (woot!) and a microUSB for charging and data connectivity.
Oh, and there's also a 3075mAh battery, and, to round up the package that was clearly designed two years ago but only made it to fruition this week: Android 8.1 Oreo.
This will cost potential buyers 219. And this in a world where Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi all offer better bang-for-the-buck.
A pocket Bitcoin node
HTC's trump card, or unique selling point at least, is the Exodus 1s's focus on cryptocurrency. It's reportedly the first smartphone that can run a full Bitcoin node.
Essentially, using this device, those wanting to send and receive Bitcoin can fully validate transactions and blocks, without the need of a PC.
It's a big development for a very specific list of clientèle, and could be huge in the coming years. But by then, the Exodus 1s may not even have the hardware to keep up.Feature image: HTC
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Well, that's not entirely fair if you are a firm believer in the future of blockchain technology and crypto currencies in the end user space. That was the spotlight
Taiwanese electronics manufacturer HTC has launched its latest blockchain phone Exodus 1s. The company claims that users can run a full Bitcoin node on the device to support the Bitcoin network. Blockchain phone in
HTC launches today its newest smartphone, the EXODUS 1s. The new phone is purported to be a lower-cost version of the HTC EXODUS 1, which included a built-in hardware wallet. The EXODUS 1s, however, will
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As positive COVID-19 case numbers continue to increase across the state, CVS Health announced today that they are expanding their COVID-19 testing program with 14 additional test sites at select CVS Pharmacy drive-thru locations across the state. The opening of additional test sites Friday, June 12, add to the 35 locations previously opened by CVS Health across Arizona.
A complete list of CVS Pharmacy drive-thru test sites can be found here.
CVS Health provided these details about the drive-thru testing:
- The new sites will utilize self-swab tests and will help enable the company’s goal processing up to 1.5 million tests per month, subject to availability of supplies and lab capacity.
- Self-swab tests will be available to individuals meeting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria, in addition to state and age guidelines.
- Patients must register in advance at CVS.com beginning Friday, June 12, to schedule an appointment.
- There are no out-of-pocket costs for these tests for both insured and uninsured patients.
- Patients will be required to stay in their cars and will be directed to the pharmacy drive-thru window or a location in the parking lot at a few stores, where they will be provided with a test kit and given instructions.
- A CVS Pharmacy team member will observe the self-swab process to ensure it is done properly. Tests will be sent to an independent, third-party lab for processing and the results will be available in approximately three days.
Additionally, St. Vincent de Paul announced Tuesday, June 9, that it has launched rapid COVID-19 testing with CVS Health at the nonprofit’s Virginia G. Piper Medical & Dental Clinic for the uninsured in Phoenix. Licensed health care providers from MinuteClinic, the retail medical clinic of CVS Health, and CVS Pharmacy colleagues are staffing the new testing operation.
Testing at St. Vincent de Paul’s clinic, located at 420 W. Watkins Road in Phoenix, will be free and open to the public by appointment only. Patients will need to pre-register in advance by calling 602.850.6940 to schedule a same-day time slot for testing. A personal vehicle is not required for testing and results will be provided on-the-spot. To be eligible for testing, patients will need to meet criteria established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in addition to age guidelines.
Photos courtesy of CVS Health


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Realme has confirmed that it’s now working on the world’s first smartphone camera with 64MP Samsung GW1 sensor and this phone will debut first in India in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Realme CEO Madhav Sheth took to Twitter to announce its new premium killer which will come with the Samsung GW1 64MP with 1/1.72 sensor and 1.6µm pixel. Sheth revealed that the upcoming Realme premium killer will be able to capture improved lowlight shots.
Sheth further added that Realme will launch their upcoming premium killer with a 64MP camera first in India before the rest of the world. He also shared an image taken from the unnamed phone, the watermark on which days “64MP AI Quad Camera”. Sheth has also revealed, in a reply to a user that, the Realme premium killer phone will be unveiled by Q4 2019.
Samsung GW1 image sensor will be larger than that of the current line of 48MP sensors and will use Pixel-merging Tetracell technology to merge 16MP images into one thus providing a 64MP shot. While a standard 48MP camera bins pixel snaps that compare to a 12MP 1.6-micron pixel camera, the 64MP GW1 sensor will bring pixel binning equivalent to a 16MP 1.6-micron pixel shot.
Like it says on the shared image, the upcoming Realme phone will come with three more sensors alongside the primary 64MP lens. This will thus be the first Realme phone with a quad-camera setup and we can expect Realme to add an ultra-wide camera, telephoto lens and a depth sensor to its new premium killer phone.
We hope to know more about the Realme’s premium killer smartphone with 64MP Quad Camera soon.


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At that time, Apple said the report would include “meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for different reasons, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, objective data regarding search queries and results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.”
In this first report, in addition to details like the number of total apps, how many app submissions were reviewed (6,101,913), and how many were rejected (1,679,694), Apple has statistics for things like reasons apps were rejected, apps removed from the store listed by category, and apps removed from the App Store due to government takedown demands. The report also says there were 36,974,015 registered Apple developers and that it terminated 428,487 developer accounts. And the “average weekly number of customer accounts searching the App Store” was 373,211,396, meaning that a lot of people are checking out the store on a weekly basis.
I really recommend scanning the report itself. It’s only two pages long, so it’s easy to digest. In 2021, Apple promised that this report would be released on an annual basis, so I’m curious to see how things change when we can look at the 2023 report next year.
This isn’t the only App Store data Apple shared this week. The company also revealed that it blocked $2.09 billion in fraudulent transactions on the platform last year. And there’s always the possibility that Apple shares more data soon at the Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off on June 5th.


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WASHINGTON - Singapore is working on establishing a Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) with the United States and wants to conclude it as soon as possible, certainly before the end of the year, said Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong.
He was speaking to an audience at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Thursday (Oct 7).
This follows successful VTL pilots with Germany and Brunei, he said.
"We are also continuing to facilitate the arrival and return of American work pass holders from the US to Singapore, so that your companies can operate at full strength," he added.
Mr Gan is on a four-day trip to the US, during which he will also be in New York.
He told the audience at the US Chamber event that Singapore recognises the need to strike a balance between saving lives and protecting livelihoods.
Close to 85 per cent of Singapore's population is fully vaccinated, with a majority of new Covid-19 cases experiencing mild or no symptoms, he said. The death rate remains low.
Singapore is also offering booster shots to seniors; and encouraging widespread testing and making available self-administered test kits for early detection, he said.
"With these measures in place, we plan to safely open our borders in a calibrated and concerted manner," Mr Gan said.
"As a hub for business and travel, it is important for us to remain connected to the rest of the world."
The VTL scheme was launched in Singapore on Sept 8 with Brunei and Germany taking part for a start.
Fully vaccinated travellers under the scheme will take up to four Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction tests in lieu of serving a stay-home notice.
They must also have stayed in Brunei, Germany and/or Singapore for the last 14 days prior to embarking on a journey.
While in Washington, the minister is due to meet, among others, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
He will be signing a Partnership for Growth and Innovation with Secretary Raimondo.
"Under that initiative, the digital economy is one of four key pillars...that we will work on together," Mr Gan said in a speech at the Chamber.
On the broader economic front, Mr Gan said Singapore and the US can cooperate in three key areas - supply chain resilience, the digital economy, and the climate crisis.
Covid-19 exposed the vulnerabilities of global supply chains, with lockdowns disrupting production and cutting off supply sources, leading to global shipping delays and freight price increases.
"We must not only keep supply chains open, but also ensure that they can withstand future disruptions, from pandemics or other crises," Mr Gan said. "To achieve this, global cooperation is essential."
Even at the height of the pandemic, Singapore was one of the few countries which maintained free flow of goods and services and did not impose export controls, including on masks and PPE, to the US.
Singapore can play a strategic role in maintaining diverse and adaptable supply chains, he added. Its strong global connectivity makes it a resilient hub for countries and companies to anchor their supply chains.
"Singapore and the US will hold a high-level bilateral dialogue on supply chain resilience...to continue this important conversation," said Mr Gan.
He noted that the pandemic had accelerated the transformation of the digital economy.
South-east Asia's digital economy is projected to triple in size to US$300 billion (S$408 billion) by 2025, he said.
"Singapore is investing in digital infrastructure to enhance our capabilities in the digital economy, and encouraging our businesses and people to adopt new digital solutions and skills," he added.
"We are also collaborating with like-minded international partners through Digital Economy Agreements, to create a conducive, secure, and enabling environment for our businesses and workers to access opportunities.
"Growing the digital economy would help guard against the digital divide, enabling growth for services trade, and benefiting companies of all sizes, especially small and medium sized companies."
On the threat of climate change, Singapore was also a strong supporter of multilateral action, and saw opportunities for businesses to reinvent themselves and stay relevant, he said.
"Those who can quickly embrace sustainability will in fact reap first-mover advantages," he said. "We… want to work with partners to shape a sustainable future together through Green Economy Agreements."
"We are keen to partner the US in this effort," he said.
"Singapore and the US have shared a robust and enduring friendship… underpinned by shared values, especially the importance of global stability and a rules-based international order which enable countries to prosper together" Mr Gan added.
"Today, the US is Singapore's largest foreign investor and third largest goods trading partner," he said. Singapore is the US' second largest investor from Asia "Singapore's imports and investments account for over a quarter of a million jobs in the US," Mr Gan said.
US businesses should support free trade and economic integration in the region, he said.
"Opportunities abound, but we must work fast and work together to seize them, especially when the benefits of free trade and economic integration are now being questioned."
Correction note: An earlier version of the article said that travellers under Singapore's VTL scheme with Brunei and Germany must also have stayed in Brunei, Germany and/or Singapore for the last 21 days prior to embarking on a journey. It should be 14 days.