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Tel Aviv-based Pounce, a mobile shopping app that surfaces deals from retailers, as well as a way to shop print ads and catalogs from your smartphone, has been acquired by visual search company Slyce for $5 million in shares, cash and earn-out incentives. The deal wasn’t entirely a talent grab either, says Slyce, as the company was already on track to roll out a consumer-facing app of its own. The technology from Pounce is helping it to speed things up.
Additionally, the technology from Pounce will be offered to Slyce’s retailer customers.
Pounce, for a bit of background, is the main product from BuyCode, founded in 2012. The app was tackling one of the harder aspects to mobile shopping: the checkout process. But instead of strictly going after e-commerce website integrations, for example, the app worked with retail partners and other third parties to link item photos to inventory and pricing information. The end result was an app that allowed consumers to scan items – like retailer circulars or magazine ads – or browse through a series of deals, then checkout in just a couple of clicks.
It was an e-commerce experience, essentially, since the retailers’ commerce platforms were involved in making the sales happen, but it was one that began through a different sort of user activity – scanning and snapping, not surfing the web.
As of last year, the app supported retailers like Macy’s, Ace Hardware, Target, Toys “R” Us, Babies “R” Us, Staples, Best Buy, and more. More recent integrations included other large brands like Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay.
According to Slyce, one of the things that made Pounce’s technology desirable was that it allowed customers to continue to checkout items from multiple retailers’ commerce platforms after entering in their payment information just one time. That’s still a difficult aspect to mobile shopping today, which a number of companies are tackling, including PayPal with its new SDKs and One Touch product, as well as Google with Google Wallet, and Apple more recently with its Apple Pay for mobile apps.
Now image recognition startup Slyce has something similar, thanks to this acquisition.
For those unfamiliar with Slyce, the Toronto-based image recognition startup itself offers similar technology to “Amazon Flow” or Amazon’s Firefly feature in its new Amazon Fire smartphones. Firefly lets you point your Amazon phone at objects in the real world, and then buy them (from Amazon, naturally!).
Slyce, meanwhile, has been partnering with major retailers so they can offer the same to their own customers, as well as video and audio recognition, QR and barcode scanning, and NFC. Once items are scanned with Slyce, they can be purchased immediately.
However, Slyce had been focusing on retail customers until now, not the consumer. That will change in Q4 2014 when the company rolls out its own consumer app that will be capable of recognizing objects in the real world and enabling one-click purchases. Call it “Amazon Firefly” for the rest of retail, perhaps. Pounce fits in nicely by helping Slyce save on development time and investment with its B2C strategy.
Following the acquisition, Pounce’s team will join Slyce and CEO Avital Yachin will join the company’s executive team.
“We’re incredibly excited to be acquiring both the technology and the immense talent that Pounce comes with,” said Slyce CEO Mark Elfenbein in a prepared statement. “We are consistently looking to add and perfect the functionality we can offer major retailers with the Slyce visual search platform.”


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Online betting firm Betway likely to sign a €5million shirt sponsor partnership with Sevilla FC.
Spain.- Betway is set to replace Marathonbet as the shirt sponsor of Spanish La Liga football side Sevilla FC in a €5million deal.
The deal comes just in time for the 2020/21 season and as ad restrictions come into force in the country.
The sponsorship deal would be Betway’s largest marketing commitment in Spain and would come amid the introduction of tight restrictions on advertising during sporting events
According to Spanish football site Palco23, Betway is the favourite to step in as Sevilla FC’s third shirt sponsor in as many seasons.
The site claims that Betway has offered the club €5million per season, which would make the sponsorship deal Sevilla’s biggest yet.
Betway has previously sponsored smaller La Liga sides Deportivo Alaves, CD Leganes and Levante UD. Sevilla FC is currently in the third position in the league.
Marathonbet is believed to have withdrawn its sponsorship of the football club after the sudden postponement of the current La Liga season owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Betway’s sponsorship deal would come as Spain prepares to enforce a new federal code on gambling marketing across all verticals.
In April the Ministry for Consumer Affairs fast-tracked provisions of a Royal Decree that bans all betting-related advertising during sports broadcasts.
It could be a risk for the club since Consumer Affairs Minister Alberto Garzon has said that the ban on advertising is only the first phase of an overhaul of the gambling sector, with more restriction and monitoring to be introduced in the next months.

domain: news


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Disheveled, eyes bruised with fatigue, and feeling grungy after two days of showerless toil, 190 video game designers, artists and programmers disembarked on Saturday afternoon from the rain-slicked California Zephyr at the Emeryville, Calif., Amtrak station. The travelers — some of whom had come from as far away as Zambia and Pakistan — had taken part in Train Jam, which uses the trip from Chicago to this city just north of Oakland as both an opportunity and a time frame for strangers to come together and, amid laptops, headphones and virtual-reality headsets, create video games.
“You will never know true happiness until you’ve showered after a 52-hour-long train ride,” Adriel Wallick, the event’s organizer, wrote on Twitter after arriving in the Bay Area.
Ms. Wallick, 29, an independent game developer from the Netherlands, conceived Train Jam as a way of making a creative venture out of the journey to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the world’s largest annual gathering of game makers. Ms. Wallick said the idea came to her during a trip from Boston to Seattle three years ago: “I realized that a cross-country train ride would work perfectly as a game jam,” she said, referring to the increasingly prevalent events in which participants develop video games over an allotted time period.
And the views aren’t bad, either. Along the 2,438-mile route, the train weaves through the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, shifting scenery from cities to mountains to deserts. “It’s hard to not be inspired by all of the changes and beauty around you,” Ms. Wallick added.
Each of the 50 or so video games made during Train Jam will be playable throughout the week at the cavernous Moscone Center, where the conference is being held. More than 26,000 people are expected to attend the 30th Game Developers Conference, which began on Monday and ends on Friday. That these little games are being given a platform on such a sizable stage is indicative of the industry’s kaleidoscopic expansion. Today a video game like Minecraft, originally built by a lone programmer in his bedroom, competes with the titans of the industry, such as Call of Duty and FIFA, which are made by a battalion of workers and supported by the screaming winds of multimillion-dollar marketing.
That kind of blockbuster game making is a high-risk venture, with spiraling budgets and development cycles that can last three years. Unproven ideas are perilous, leading most studios to cling to bankable sequels. Game jams, by contrast, are a low-risk way to experiment with new concepts without the need for a commercial aesthetic, an apolitical stance or a bug-free release. Two recent games — Surgeon Simulator, about a hapless surgeon, and Goat Simulator, about an anarchic goat — are among the well-known irreverent games to spring from game jams.
Even the games that don’t blossom into commercial releases can be useful.
“It is a place to fail, happily,” said Susan Gold, founder of Global Game Jam, which invites people to join in, wherever they’re based, during a 48-hour period.
Two days is enough time to explore an idea without burning out, and at these jams, programmers, writers, musicians, artists and project managers can all find a use for their talents. The format also encourages networking and stepping outside a rigid development repertoire. For those who usually work with sprawling teams, a game jam can break the monotony and bring fresh focus. For independent game makers who work alone, it can be an opportunity to test an idea, socialize and share skills.
Train Jam accentuates the sense of expedition that comes with all creative work. Like any collaboration, game making is full of diversions and rewrites. A train journey, by contrast, is mostly predictable; the landscape may change, but everybody starts and ends at the same point. Placing game making within the context of a journey provides useful constraints.
The term “game jam” was coined by the wunderkind programmer Chris Hecker, known for his work on the pioneering artificial-intelligence-based game Spore. In 2002, he invited 13 friends to join him in Oakland, Calif., to make games over a four-day period. They called it Indie Game Jam, a reference to musical jam sessions.
Since Mr. Hecker’s event, the format has been adopted around the world, with jams unfolding in unusual places, often to a theme. February’s Splash Jam, for example, was held during a 745-mile cruise along the coast of Norway. Its 100 participants were tasked with making games related to “Beginnings.” Isolation Jam, which takes place in June, is set on a remote, Internet-less farm in northern Iceland. Castle Jam changes its location each year. For Asylum Jam, participants make horror games without the genre clichés related to mental health.
Ms. Gold’s inaugural Global Game Jam was in 2009. She started the event with the aim of coordinating a game jam on every continent. “I was thinking that maybe we would get 10 or 20 locations to sign up,” she said. But more than 1,500 people took part in 23 countries. By this January, the number had risen to close to 40,000 participants in 93 countries. They created more than 6,800 games, many of which are available free to download and sample.
The rise of game jams also shows a mounting appetite for alternatives to sports and shooter games. Lyst Jam is a Scandinavian game jam, held in June, in which attendees make video games about romance, love and sex. (Lyst is the Swedish word for lust.) “We feel the medium misrepresents the world we live in, and needs to be less narrow in gender, stories, themes and game mechanics,” said Andrea Hasselager, the jam’s organizer.
“There’s an intense feeling of belonging to a group,” she said. “Combine that with a space where you shut out the concerns of everyday life, and the adrenaline rush of working all night and day to see something come to life, and it becomes irresistible.”
For Adam Saltsman, an independent game maker from Austin, Tex., whose hit game Canabalt was conceived during a game jam, the appeal is more straightforward. “I think nerds like to party and make stuff,” he said. “It’s also a nice way to kind of get a bunch of resources into one geographical location, and it’s a great excuse to try something new.”


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Facebook’s debut of Timeline today means it is aiming to become even more central to people’s lives. That will mean more opportunities to show them ads, but it could also lead to bigger opportunities in commerce and other areas.
A new Facebook ad revenue forecast, published by eMarketer, provides a glimpse of those areas in which the company excels and where the company can create new revenue streams. Based on the forecast, a few predictions seem to make too much sense to ignore. Advertising as a percentage of total revenue for the company has declined for each of the past two years, as revenue from Facebook credits has increased. Although the company still makes the lion’s share of its money from advertising, the shift is significant, according to eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
“When I look at Facebook credits as a revenue stream, they have been proven successful as a means of purchasing virtual goods,” said Williamson. “They have already tested credits for other things like access to movies. It makes sense that Facebook will want to support credits as a revenue stream.”
Williamson says that the shift makes it appear likely that Facebook will develop various forms of commerce on the site. Although she believes it’s unlikely that Facebook will become a content producer – Williamson says that the company has always held that it wants to be a platform on which other companies can build their businesses — Williamson said that it is very likely that the company will announce just those kinds of deals with content providers such as Spotify and Netflix.
Another widely circulated rumor that seems to indicate that the company is moving to beef up its roles in commerce and content is that Facebook will add several new buttons to users’ homepages, most notably a “want” button. “When a Facebook friend posts a picture of an iPhone 5, clicking ‘like’ means one thing. Clicking ‘want’ means something completely different,” said Williamson. Being able to offer advertisers that kind of information about Facebook members could be very valuable.
The company’s approach to mobile is another area in which Williamson expects new initiatives. She says that at a recent conference she attended, a Facebook executive said the company is moving toward a world where mobile applications are developed first. “Facebook is recognizing that more and more people are using their mobile devices as their primary access to Facebook.”
Updated smartphone apps and a long-overdue dedicated iPad app, are expected to be a part of the announcement. Even more interesting is one news site’s discovery of plans for a mobile photo-sharing app, important because photo sharing is among the most popular activities on Facebook. Instagram and other apps have already made significant headway in this area, and if and when Facebook does make such an announcement, it will find itself in the unfamiliar position of having to play catch up.
Williamson said that a slight downward adjustment in the forecast for Facebook’s 2011 ad revenue has its roots in three areas. First, Facebook ads have extremely low click rates. “Facebook needs to get this solved,” said Williamson. “If it’s not going to be click-through as a measure of success, then they have to come up with something else.”
Second, said Williamson, Facebook has been a victim of its own success. Some advertisers don’t feel that they need to buy ads on Facebook because their brand pages have been effective at reaching fans. And finally Facebook has been re-jiggering its ad placement and inventory, which has meant missing some short-term revenue opportunities.
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It’s a week full of annual shareholder meetings, investor days and earnings reports.
holds its annual meeting on Monday, followed by events for investors from
release quarterly results on Thursday, when
will organize an investor day. Ultimately,
will hold their annual meeting of shareholders on Friday.
Federal Reserve watchers will pay attention on Wednesday, when the Federal Open Market Committee releases the minutes of its mid-March meeting. The committee raised its benchmark interest rate target at this meeting.
Economic data released this week includes the Census Bureau’s new factory orders for February on Monday, the Institute for Supply Management’s Services Purchasing Managers’ Index for March on Tuesday and consumer credit data from the Federal Reserve on Thursday.
The Census Bureau factory new orders reports for February. Consensus estimates that new orders for durable and non-durable manufactured goods will rise 0.5% month-over-month to $548 billion seasonally adjusted. In January, factory orders increased by 1.4%; new durable goods orders jumped 1.6% to $278 billion; and non-durable goods gained 1.2% to $267 billion.
Broadcom holds its annual shareholders meeting.
The Institute of Supply Management publishes its Services Purchasing Managers Index for the month of March. Economists forecast a reading of 58, 1.5 points higher than the February figure.
FactSet Research Systems
and Quanta Services organize their annual investor days.
Merck is hosting an investor event in conjunction with the American College of Cardiology’s 71st Annual Scientific Session and Expo, which runs April 2-4 in Washington, DC. The company will discuss its pipeline and cardiovascular drug pipeline.
The Reserve Bank of Australia announces its monetary policy decision. The central bank is expected to keep its target cash rate unchanged at 0.1%, the same level it has been since November 2020.
The Office of the Economy The analysis reports sales of light vehicles. Automakers are expected to have sold 13.9 million vehicles at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in March. That would be a 21% drop from March 2021, but a significant improvement from the second half of last year as supply chain issues ease.
reports sales data for March.
The Federal Free Market The Committee publishes the minutes of its monetary policy meeting in mid-March. The FOMC raised the federal funds rate by a quarter point at the meeting to 0.25% to 0.5%, the first interest rate hike since December 2018.
Conagra Brands, Constellation Brands and Lamb Weston Holdings release their quarterly results.
Accenture is hosting its 2022 Investor and Analyst Day virtually.
The Ministry of Labor reports the first jobless claims for the week ending April 2. Unemployment claims averaged 208,500 in March and recently hit a five-decade low as job vacancies continued to outpace job seekers.
The Federal Reserve consumer credit data reports. The consensus estimate is that total consumer debt will grow at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.7% to a record $4.46 trillion.
Carnival and Discovery hold their annual general meetings.
Write to Nicholas Jasinski at firstname.lastname@example.org


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Greengage, which is currently seeking licence permissions to become a digital merchant bank focusing on UK small business lending and cryptocurrency businesses, has partnered with fintech provider mnAI for access to millions of real-time data points.
Greengage is building the first digital merchant bank in Gibraltar focusing on UK small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and crypto businesses post-regulatory approval. It will offer loans to SMEs from its anticipated crypto-asset client depositors and open up the real-time data on SMEs to its clients.
mnAI’s platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to track every UK company in real-time. Clients such as Greengage benefit from over 9.5 billion data points covering more than seven million UK companies.
Greengage said that it recognises the funding gap for SMEs and being able to map out the extent of the existing crypto-asset company ecosystem allows it to better understand funding gaps in order to support crypto-asset companies with access to mainstream banking.
“Greengage [is] facilitating access to the mnAI SME data and analysis to help provide additional insights into the important SME sector, and to start discussions with potential interested partners to address the £22bn plus SME funding gap as highlighted by the Bank of England,” said Sean Kiernan, chief executive of Greengage.
“We’re delighted to work with Greengage,” said John Cushing, chief executive of mmAI.
“The collaboration is an excellent opportunity to showcase not only the power of mnAI, but also the services that Greengage offers to their clients, and we’re excited to be part of their journey as they continue to grow.”


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As recently reported by Global Cosmetic Industry, U.S. Gen Z shoppers are increasing their beauty spend in 2023, according to survey results by Piper Sandler.
The survey of 5,690 U.S. teens found that average spending on color cosmetics, skin care and fragrance jumped 19% year-over-year to $313 annually.
SURVEY RESULTS: In our recent audience survey, which asked "is your brand increasing its marketing to the Gen Z audience?" 70% of our readers said yes, and 30% of readers said no.
Check back every Tuesday for a new one-click survey.
We'll reveal the answers in next week's Global Cosmetic Industry newsletter.


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Why the end of auto manufacturing won’t be as apocalyptic as previous mass layoffs
Darryn Snell, RMIT University and Victor Gekara, RMIT University
With the last Holden car plant set to close on Friday, there seems to be agreement that the future for auto workers is, at best, dim. After all, a study of a Mitsubishi plant that closed in 2004-05 found only 34% of workers had a full-time job a year later.
While it’s true that many auto workers could have trouble finding full-time jobs in the short term, they also have skill sets that set them up well for the current and future job market. Thanks to assistance from auto firms, unions, government and non-government support agencies, there is hope that the experience of retrenched auto workers will be more positive than mass unemployment events of the past.
Much of the current concern for auto workers is based upon what happened when textile and airline manufacturing shut down in the 1990s. In these cases, workers struggled for a range of reasons – age discrimination, lack of formal qualifications, limited labour market experience beyond their industry, and declining demand for their technical skills.
It is these kinds of challenges that auto workers are likely to face as they begin to look for alternative work.
The auto companies and auto supply chain firms were conscious of these issues and early on started working with unions, government agencies and other labour market intermediaries to better prepare their workforces.
Many of the manufacturers established transition programs and held “job fairs”, encouraging other employers to visit plants, to observe the diversity of skills possessed by employees.
Workers received one-on-one skills assessment and career counselling, retraining support and advice, guidance on job search and resume writing and job interviewing training.
Among other things, these programs taught workers to think beyond their “auto” skills. Many have transferable skills and experiences, such as with occupational health and safety, quality assurance, problem solving, process improvement, waste reduction, and “just-in-time” supply chains.
These can be applied across a range of occupations outside the manufacturing industry. Our study revealed a number of specific industries where workers have common qualifications as auto workers – including food manufacturing, health-care, laundry, warehousing, storage and logistics.
Non-production auto workers (including engineers and managerial staff) have an even wider range of occupations to which their skills are transferable.
In addition to this, there has been significant retraining in the sector, partially or fully paid for by their firms or government support schemes. These included training for jobs in health-care, social services, transport and logistics, and correctional services. Some workers have even retrained to become pilots.
The assistance provided by government and non-government agencies has also been extensive. Skills that weren’t formally recognised, for instance, became accredited through Recognition of Prior Learning initiatives aligned with emerging job opportunities.
The result of all this is that many auto workers are walking out with improved confidence and understanding of their transferable skills.
It’s not all about hard skills
But we shouldn’t forget that finding a job is not all about specific operational skills these days. Research suggests that employers are becoming less interested in the skills and competencies of new recruits and more interested in certain key personal attributes and attitudes.
Also known as soft skills, these include reliability, a strong work ethic and the ability to get along with colleagues. These are all attributes that are hard to quantify or judge in an interview, and not easily acquired or instilled through training.
But many auto workers have worked for the same firm for decades, clearly demonstrating some of these characteristics. What’s more, research shows that auto workers have many of these attributes.
Manufacturing is not dead
But probably the best news for auto workers is that manufacturing is making a comeback in Australia. A recent report by the Australia Institute noted that manufacturing jobs had increased by 40,000 over the past year.
This is the second-largest increase created in any industry, leading to concern of a future manufacturing skills shortage. The skills shortage could be exacerbated by upcoming projects, such as naval shipbuilding. In some cases, the new advanced manufacturing jobs will require different types of skills than those possessed by auto workers. But there is still demand for production workers in food, beverage and product assembly – industries requiring similar skills.
Auto workers are in transition and for many that transition will be to very different industries with very different conditions. The assistance they have received over the past 3-4 years provides reason for optimism. In the end, while it is likely that many auto workers will struggle to find full-time jobs that provide the security and pay that they used to enjoy, sadly, this is also the situation for a large proportion of workers in today’s labour market.
The message for prospective employers across all sectors is that the closure of the auto manufacturing industry has released a wealth of skills, competencies and attributes which could be of great value to their organisation and it remains for them to take up the opportunity.
Darryn Snell, Associate professor, RMIT University and Victor Gekara, Associate Professor, RMIT University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.


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Jim Goodman, an organic dairy farmer in Wonewoc, Wisconsin, sold his cows in June.
"Dairy farming is little more than hard work and possible economic suicide," Goodman wrote in a Washington Post piece about his wrenching decision to stop milking on the dairy farm his family has run for more than a century.
The last few years have been full of grim news in the rolling green hills of Americas Dairyland, where low milk prices and competition from bigger and bigger dairies are putting an average of two family farms out of business each day.
"For my wife and me, having to sell our herd is a sign of the economic death not just of rural America, but also of a way of life," Goodman added.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis recently released a report on the eighty-four farms in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota that filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy in 2018. (That's a small portion of the farms that have gone out of business, since Chapter 12 is a relatively obscure process.) The number of such bankruptcies had more than doubled from four years earlier. About 60 percent of those ill-fated farms were in Wisconsin, still called "Americas Dairyland" on state license plates, despite the fact that California surpassed Wisconsin as the nation's top milk producer in 1993.
The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram notes a key difference between Wisconsin and California: "The average dairy herd in Wisconsin is 153 cows, compared with 1,300 in California."
Across the country, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are taking over as family farms bite the dust.
"It's a lot noisier," Jim Goodman told me when we spoke on the phone. "It's just big machines roaring--not what you think of in the countryside." Goodman knew all forty-five of his cows by name. On CAFOs, with many hundreds of cows, "You don't really know them. You just see their rear ends."
There's more at stake here than the idyllic milk-carton picture of red barns and happy, grazing cows. The consolidation of our food supply should worry everyone. As Goodman points out, "The whole model is so dependent on a few things: cheap labor, intensive chemical use, and manure being heavily spread."
In fact, as a handful of massive corporate farms manage more and more of our food supply, everyone is vulnerable to the ill effects.
"If something goes wrong, the whole food system could crash, and there wouldn't be much left," says Rebecca Goodman, who is married to Jim. "It's a food...


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Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies may have a future in India
Latest Bitcoin Price: Bitcoin Hovers Around $13500 In SoftIndian cryptocurrency traders and exchanges have been rattled since the Reserve Bank of India in. the price of bitcoin and. 2018 vccircle.com.
Local Crypto Exchanges are Circumventing India's New
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Do the recent frigid temperatures have you missing baseball games, golf outings and other warm weather activities?
At the Lehigh Valley’s newest entertainment facility, popular outdoor pastimes can be enjoyed year-round, rain-or-shine.
The Sweet Spot, combining a full-service restaurant and bar with virtual entertainment, held a soft opening Nov. 10 at 2805 Lehigh St., Allentown. The building previously housed Brazilian steakhouse Rodizio Grill and before that, it was home to a Bob Evans restaurant.
The 90-seat Sweet Spot, owned by husband and wife Terry and Susan Ellis of Wind Gap, features five Topgolf Swing Suite simulator bays offering golf as well as other virtual activities such as hockey, soccer, baseball pitching and zombie dodgeball.
You can even test your carnival game skills via balloon popping, breaking plates and knocking down bottles.
“The beautiful thing about this place is it’s always 72 degrees and sunny,” Terry said. “Also, you never lose a ball.”
Terry, who previously worked in business consulting for 25 years, decided to forego retirement for “something new and exciting.” After talking with his brother, Tim, an avid golfer who is vice president of operations at The Sweet Spot, Terry decided to jump head-first into opening the Lehigh Valley’s first Topgolf Swing Suite venue.
The suites, each accommodating up to eight people, feature projection screens that showcase lifelike images of fairways, football fields and other scenes — as well as sensors that measure your swing speed, club face angle, the ball’s trajectory, the distance of the shot and more. You also can change settings to include challenges such as stronger winds.
Guests can play one of 84 top international golf courses, including Bay Hill, Pacific Dunes and Pebble Beach, or test their skills in other activities such as Top Pressure, a golf-meets-darts game.
Generally, it takes an hour per person to play 18 holes, Tim said. If you’re short on time, you also can play nine holes.
Bay rentals are $45 per hour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and $60 per hour from 5 p.m. to closing weekdays and on weekends and holidays. Customers are encouraged to bring their own clubs, but communal clubs are available.
The Sweet Spot, which also offers golf lessons and leagues, features a food menu highlighted by appetizers such as flatbreads, “hawg” wings, beer-battered shrimp and mac-and-cheese spring rolls, burgers and sandwiches such as a reuben, “Birdie” grilled chicken sandwich, “Caddyshack” crab cake sandwich and “Steel Hog” hot dog, with cheese, bacon, pulled pork, onions and barbecue sauce.
Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays. Info: thesweetspot.golf.
More in Allentown
Another addition to Allentown’s social scene is Hop Daddy’s Brewing Co., a craft brewery and restaurant touting “good beer, real food and cool vibes,” which opened Friday at 732 Hamilton St.
The brewpub, next to the newly constructed Five City Center office building, is run by father and son Rich and Kevin Ryan, who also operate Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt shops in Hanover and South Whitehall townships in Lehigh County.
The Ryans overhauled the former Prohibition-themed establishment with new furniture, lighting, kitchen equipment and sliding glass doors leading to a beer garden — featuring overhead heaters, retractable awnings, potted plants and authentic beer garden tables from Germany.
Space at the back of the building that was previously home to Roar’s speakeasy, Hush, now houses a five-barrel brewing system.
Head brewer Jamison Burke began brewing operations this week, and Kevin expects Hop Daddy’s will offer its “clean and traditional beers with unique twists" by the end of the month. Until then, most of the 12 taps are pouring craft beers from other local breweries, including Bethlehem’s Bonn Place Brewing Co. and Emmaus’ Funk Brewing Co.
Hop Daddy’s, with indoor and outdoor seating for more than 300 customers, also features a food menu highlighted by more than a dozen made-from-scratch pizzas, baked in an Italian-imported, wood-fired oven. Other menu highlights include salads, burgers, sandwiches, calzones, dry-rub smoked wings and flights of fries.
Hop Daddy’s, also serving local wines and spirits, features a mezzanine with lounge furniture and foosball and shuffleboard tables. Info: facebook.com/HopDaddysBrewingCo.
Also in downtown Allentown, fashion designer Taquil Mason, who last year transitioned his men’s clothing and accessories business, Good Guy, from a pop-up shop to a permanent boutique on the ground of the Strata East apartment complex, is hoping to replicate that success with an adjacent second store.
Good Girl, a pop-up shop offering women’s dresses, shirts, sweatpants and more, is expected to open within the next few weeks at 26 N. Sixth St., Suite 130, Mason said.
For his new venture, which also will offer shoes, handbags and jewelry, Mason partnered with Megan Colon, owner of Allentown’s Straight A Uniforms.
“I was expressing my thoughts about opening a women’s store with a vibe no one’s experienced before, and [Megan] helped bring all my ideas to life," Mason said.
The shop is expected to be in operation for a couple of months, but it could become permanent if business prospers.
South Whitehall news
If you’re in the market for holiday gifts and home furnishings, off-price retailer Tuesday Morning, selling housewares, seasonal decor, toys and more, is set to close within the next few months at 4719 Tilghman St., in South Whitehall Township, according to a store employee.
Merchandise at the Allentown Town Center store has been discounted at least 10% off its original pricing, and all sales are final.
Tuesday Morning, which opened its first store in 1974, sells furniture, lamps, pillows and more at prices generally below those found in the boutique, specialty and department stores.
The Texas company operates more than 700 stores in 39 states, including another area location at 244 N. West End Blvd. in Quakertown. Info: tuesdaymorning.com.
Also in the Allentown Town Center, the Western Lehigh Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday hosted a grand opening for State Farm insurance agent Brad Maier’s new office at 4755 W. Tilghman St.
Maier, of Upper Macungie Township, can assist clients with various types of insurance, including auto, life, small business and home and property, as well as financial services. Info: 484-954-3850.
One last bit of South Whitehall news: Across the street from the Allentown Town Center, brothers Jeffrey and Jonathan Valera on Saturday celebrated the grand opening of their third area Your CBD Store at 4680 Broadway, in Tilghman Square.
The chain, which expanded to more than 300 locations nationwide since founder Rachael Quinn opened the first store in Florida last year, sells CBD-infused SunMed products such as gummies, tinctures, topical creams, soft gel capsules and pet products.
Items aim to relieve health issues such as pain, anxiety and depression.
The Valeras also operate stores in Emmaus and Whitehall Township. Info: cbdrx4u.com.
Northampton County news
For style-savvy shoppers looking to refresh their wardrobe, a new option has arrived in downtown Easton.
K.O. Club, offering new, gently used and vintage clothing for men and women, held a grand opening Thursday at 137 Northampton St. (former Christina’s Bridal space).
Customers can buy, sell and trade items, including coats, sweatshirts, jeans and accessories such as handbags, sunglasses and jewelry, said Gerald VanDeCruz, who’s operating the store with his brother, Gerid.
“We have a little bit of everything — from business attire such as women’s blazers and sweaters to casual clothes such as men’s T-shirts and button-downs,” Gerald said. “We also have some hard-to-find items like Ralph Lauren shirts and Hermes polos, as well as some rare sneakers and footwear like Tom Ford-designed Gucci shoes.” Info: 484-705-3869.
As my colleague Jen Sheehan recently reported, VegOut LV — the popular vegan pop-up restaurant that’s run inside south Bethlehem’s Roasted on weekend nights for about a year, will move to a new, full-time location in Bethlehem next month.
Owner/operator and chef Mary Lopresti said on the restaurant’s Instagram account that she plans to hold a soft opening Dec. 1 and a grand opening Dec. 7 at 1 E. Church St. (former Church Street Market).
Lastly, a CVS store closed on Oct. 31 at 3605 Airport Road in Hanover Township, Northampton County, according to a sign in the window.
Prescription records have been transferred to a new CVS store at 1225 Third St. in Whitehall Township. Info: 610-266-1131.
Retail Watch, appearing every weekend, keeps track of retail and restaurant news in the Lehigh Valley. Contact Ryan Kneller at 610-820-6597 or email@example.com.


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The UAE Government has unveiled a global campaign to attract foreign investment and talents and promote the features that distinguish the UAE as one of the world’s most dynamic, competitive and innovative business hubs.
The “United Global Emirates” campaign will champion the world-class capabilities, services, infrastructure, legal frameworks and resources available to international investors, entrepreneurs and professional talents. The campaign will also highlight the benefits to entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors of all sizes and stages of choosing the UAE as a launch platform for their enterprises.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, tweeted, “We are launching “United Global Emirates”, an international campaign to highlight the benefits and incentives that the UAE offers to help entrepreneurs go global. We invite talents from all over the world to make their ideas a reality in the #United_Global_Emirates.”
His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of UAE Armed Forces, tweeted, “The launch of our new economic campaign aims to secure the UAE’s position as one of the strongest global economics over the next 50 years. Our nation will build on its entrepreneurial achievements to reinforce its status as a prime destination for talent, expertise & investments.”
The “United Global Emirates” comes as the UAE enters a new phase of its growth, with aims to establish the country as one of the best in the world over the next 50 years in the run up to the UAE Centennial. It will emphasise the most promising sectors for investment and the outstanding lifestyle in the UAE, positioning the country as an ideal destination to live in, work and invest.
The “United Global Emirates” will build on the UAE’s “Impossible is possible” brand to reassert the nation’s status as a magnet for investment, creativity, innovation and achievement – a place where big ideas can be transformed into reality. It will highlight the features that make the UAE a global nation, attractive to more than 190 nationalities.


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Kolbus sells perfect binding business to Muller Martini
Monday, January 29, 2018
Kolbus has sold its perfect binding and book line business to Muller Martini.
The deal, announced on Friday (26 January), involves Kolbus perfect binders and hard case lines, as well as their peripheral equipment, and also encompasses the service and spare parts business for all Kolbus bookbinding systems installed worldwide.
Muller Martini chief executive Bruno Müller said: “Structural change has changed the graphic arts industry in recent years and our market has become much smaller and versatile at once.
“Customers need innovations on a regular basis, which have to be financed with lower sales quantities. Above all, our customers benefit from the efficiency gains bringing together the bookbinding activities.”
He added: “The market changes are directly affecting our customers, which are faced with new business models like digitisation. By combining the potentials for success like personnel, know-how, technology and infrastructure of the two companies, Muller Martini can provide the market with innovative solutions in the long term.
“This secures the future of the softcover and hardcover business of both the customers and the two machine manufacturers – and thus also jobs in the graphic arts industry.”
The Kolbus perfect binding and book line business, based at Rahden in Germany, and intellectual property will be transferred to Muller Martini Buchbinde-Systeme, a new business unit formed at the site that will be integrated into the Muller Martini group.
The 250 Kolbus employees working at the site will be transferred to Muller Martini under their existing employment conditions. The transfer will be completed on 30 April, until which point Kolbus said it will be “business as usual”.
Dirk Deceuninck, managing director of Muller Martini’s Northern Europe business, including the UK, told PrintWeek: “[This deal is] proof that our company believes in the industry and that our shareholders believe in our company.
“We will continue to serve both customers from Muller Martini and Kolbus in the correct and professional way, with our service, and that’s what we are now in the phase of organising. It’s all quite fresh but conversations with customers are starting now, to give them confidence in what is happening.”
Kolbus will continue to be headed up by chief executive Kai Büntemeyer. Retaining around 900 staff, Büntemeyer said the company will now “vigorously expand” its current activities in the packaging market and continue to focus on case making, parts manufacturing and its foundry business.
The manufacturer had signalled its increasing focus on the packaging market at Drupa 2016, with the world premiere of its BoxLine system.
Kolbus UK managing director Robert Flather told PrintWeek that none of the 10 Kolbus employees working in the UK will be affected by the deal.
“We are left with a very strong business, only 20% or so of our [global] employees have transferred. One of our new customers, from when the changeover happens, will be Muller Martini Buchbinde-Systeme, so we now move into a customer-supplier relationship with Muller Martini.
“Where that leaves us in the UK, is that we have burgeoning packaging interests that we’re focusing on going forward.”
He added: “One of the product lines that we’ve made for over 100 years is case makers, which Muller Martini have never made, and we’ve retained all that intellectual property and part of our business.
“Anybody that’s in books has got Kolbus equipment and will continue to be a Kolbus customer, albeit in a smaller way. The areas that we will lose contact with are the magazine type customers.
“We’re in for a bumpy couple of months but after that we will be in the sunlit uplands of packaging.”
One commercial printing customer commented: “In the long-term it means we will effectively only have one supplier when buying new bindery equipment, which is obviously a concern. But at least we know that Muller Martini is very committed to the graphic arts industry. From a servicing point-of-view it's good news."
The move follows Muller Martini’s 2014 acquisition of the service and parts business relating to Heidelberg’s saddlestitching and adhesive binding products.
Kolbus, meanwhile, stepped in to take over the Timsons T-Fold folder the following year, a month after Timsons was placed into voluntary liquidation. It will retain this product under the new company structure.
Later the same year, Kolbus formed a partnership with Timsons Engineering to reinstate the manufacturing of Timsons’ litho presses for book printing.


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‘Heart Healthy’? Maybe Not: Study Says ‘Healthy’ Food Labels Mislead Consumers
Americans are increasingly eating healthier food. Or at least trying to.
According to a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working-age adults consumed an average of 118 fewer calories a day in the 2009-10 period than four years earlier. Americans ate more home-cooked meals with their families instead of eating out. And more Americans are reading nutritional labels on food at grocery stores more often, reports The Wall Street Journal.
So imagine the frustration of shoppers when they go to buy food products that claim to be healthy but turn out not to be at all. According to new research, food labels that suggest a product has nutritional value with healthy sounding buzzwords like “antioxidant,” “gluten-free” and “whole grain” could be misleading shoppers into thinking they are eating well.
The study’s principal investigator, Dr. Temple Northup, an assistant professor at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston, said: ‘Saying Cherry 7-Up contains antioxidants is misleading.” The product was taken off the market last year to stop a lawsuit that claimed fizzy drinks are not healthy so how could there be “health”?
Consumers pay attention to and believe marketing terms on food packaging. The study found shoppers viewed food products labelled with health-related terms as healthier than those without them, reports The Daily Mail.
For example, Dr. Northup said, “Words such as organic, antioxidant, natural and gluten-free imply some sort of healthy benefit.”
Among the products the researchers said had confusing labels were: Cherry 7-UP (antioxidant); Chocolate Cheerios (heart healthy); Apple Sauce (organic); Lasagna (whole grain); and Peanut Butter (all natural).
“When people stop to think about it, there’s nothing healthy about Antioxidant Cherry 7-Up – it’s mostly filled with high fructose syrup or sugar,” said Dr. Northup. “But its name is giving you this clue that there is some sort of health benefit to something that is not healthy at all.”
Dr. Northup even crafted an experiment using priming theory to collect data on how food marketers influence shoppers. “He developed an online survey that randomly showed images of food products that either included actual marketing words, such as organic, or a Photoshop image removing any traces of those words, thereby creating two different images of the same product,” reports the newspaper.
The study participants, 318 in all, rated how “healthy” each product was. When the participants were shown the front of food packaging that had one of those trigger words, they rated the products as healthier.
“Findings from this research study indicate people aren’t very good at reading nutritional labels even in situations where they are choosing between salmon and Spam,” said Dr. Northup. “Approximately 20 per cent picked Spam as the healthier option over salmon.”
Some companies are actually trying to help consumers eat healthier. Panera Bread decided to dump all the artificial additives from the food it sells by 2016.


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It’s been a little over a year since Blizzard released the Shadowlands add-on for the MMORPG World of Warcraft, which means it’s time to get ready for the game’s next expansion. For those who are fans, you are in luck.
According to a recent announcement from Blizzard, the next expansion for World of Warcraft will be announced on April 19th. Right now we don’t know much and all we have is a date we can go to.
“April 19, the World of Warcraft development team will unveil the next expansion. We’re excited to show you what we’ve been working on and what your next adventure in Azeroth will be like. In the meantime, we hope you’re enjoying Eternity’s End, the latest content update and the final chapter of the Shadowlands saga. The heroes of Azeroth have been called to this intriguing new land of Zereth Mortis to thwart the Jailer’s efforts and stop him from rewriting reality as we know it. “
We don’t know how Blizzard plans to move the story forward based on the current storyline, as the Jailer is considered to be one of the game’s biggest villains to date, having been the inspiration for most major events in the Warcraft universe. so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.
Source and image Credit to Ubergizmo
Categories: Gaming news
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CHANGES in the ocean’s carbon cycle as a result of the greenhouse effect are
already under way, says a climatologist.
Because carbon dioxide dissolves in water, the oceans could dampen global
warming by absorbing some of the excess CO2 that human activity
produces. But a climate model developed by Jorge Sarmiento of Princeton
University, New Jersey, recently suggested that rising water temperatures might
reduce ocean circulation and cut the sea’s ability to store the gas
(This Week, 30 November 1996, p 16).
Now Sarmiento has plugged figures into his model for atmospheric CO2
measured over the past 200 years and found that the effects should already have
begun (Nature, vol 393, p 245). He says they may be large enough to
measure in the next 10 to 20 years.


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There remains much potential for comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and the US, and both are working hard to promote balanced bilateral trade, heard a forum held in Ho Chi Minh City on September 6.
At the function, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai said bilateral trade has grown strongly for many years and continually set new records.
It was recorded at only 220 million USD in 1994 when the US officially lifted economic sanctions on Vietnam, and reached 1.4 billion USD in 2001 – the year before the bilateral trade agreement took effect. The figure hit 58.8 billion USD in 2018 and 35.4 billion USD in the first half of 2019.
The recent strong shift of global supply chains to Vietnam has helped it jump from the 12th place to the 9th position among the top exporters to the US. It has also become the 27th biggest importer and the 16 largest trade partner of the US, he noted.
Complementarity is an important character in the two countries’ economic and trade ties, Hai said, elaborating that the US has big demand for typical agricultural products and strong commodities of Vietnam like apparel, footwear and electronic devices. In return, Vietnam has demand for hi-tech devices, aviation equipment, telecom products and raw farm produce which the US boasts abundant supplies.
Additionally, as the Southeast Asian nation posts an average GDP growth rate of nearly 7 percent each year, a population of almost 100 million and rising per capita income, it is forecast to be a potential market for US firms in numerous fields such as health care, education, telecom, retail, finance-banking and energy.
These are favourable conditions for the two business circles to continue bolstering trade, the deputy minister said.
However, the growth of Vietnamese exports to the US has also posed many Vietnamese goods to risks of being put under stricter control by the North American nation, according to Director of the ministry’s Trade Remedies Authority Le Trieu Dung.
In the first eight months of 2019, there were seven trade investigations relating to the origin of Vietnamese goods, including aluminum, steel, household appliances, electronic products, aquatic products, which were charged with being made from materials hailed from the countries the US is taking trade remedies against like China, the Republic of Korea and India.
This has negatively affected Vietnam’s economic integration efforts, export activities, as well as the prestige of Vietnamese goods, Dung said.
At the forum, Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AmCham Vietnam) in HCM City Mary Tarnowka said her country’s policy is to diversify supply sources for its market and improve market access conditions for American goods in a way that is to avoid too big trade deficit with some economies. Therefore, there remains much room for Vietnamese businesses to expand their market.
However, to sustainably consolidate bilateral trade links, Vietnamese firms should improve their supply, manufacturing and processing capacity. The Vietnamese Government also needs to create conditions for US companies to boost export, investment and business activities in the country so as to ensure trade balance, she said.
According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, using technology and materials from the US to manufacture products and then exporting them to this country is a swift, firm and effective move in building closed-loop supply chains and generating revenue for both economies.
Source: Vietnam Plus
- Vietnam exporters can only take advantage of CPTPP with preparation
- China’s Huawei moves to overturn ‘unlawful’ subsidy ban in the US
- New FTAs put pressure on VN to reform business practices
- Japan, S. Korea to discuss export controls on Dec. 16 in Tokyo
- Trump opens new fronts in trade war, targeting Brazil, Argentina and France


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Twitter Is Flying High After Hiring Google Maps Exec
Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) stock on Tuesday rose the most since the social media company’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange in November after it was confirmed that the company had hired former Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Maps director Daniel Graf. The stock closed trading on Tuesday up more than 11 percent, at $45.52.
Graf fittingly confirmed his hire in a tweet, saying, “Followed Maps to find that the flock was just around the corner – excited to take wing with the @twitter product team.” Graf is now the new vice president of consumer product for the microblogging site.
Given the success of Google Maps, industry watchers and investors have high hopes for Graf’s involvement. According to a profile on Graf from Re/code, he led the Google Maps team from 2012 onward and was responsible for bringing Google Maps to Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone despite the fact that Apple has a competing maps app, essentially saving all iPhone users from getting hopelessly lost while trying to use Apple Maps.
Twitter’s former vice president of consumer product, Michael Sippey, left the company at the beginning of the year. People familiar with the matter who spoke to Re/code said that Twitter has been struggling with consumer product strategy and has had a difficult time making changes to its Web and mobile offerings.
In addition to hiring Graf, Twitter also announced Tuesday that it acquired Gnip as its first data partner. Gnip will help analyze the staggering amount of data that Twitter has, dating back to the site’s inception in 2006. Twitter averages about 500 million tweets per day coming from all over the world. That’s a lot of data to try and get a grip on for better monetization.
Of course, all that data can be used for more than just creating better-targeted ads. The data stream that Twitter and other social media sites provide is becoming an increasingly important resource for analysts and researchers in both business and academia, as well as reporters looking to to identify key information about a breaking news story.
In a statement announcing the acquisition, Twitter’s vice president of Global Business Development and Platform, Jana Messerschmidt, said, “Public Tweets can reveal a wide variety of insights — so much so that academic institutions, journalists, marketers, brands, politicians, and developers regularly use aggregated Twitter data to spot trends, analyze sentiment, find breaking news, connect with customers and more.”
Just last week, Twitter also unveiled a big redesign of the site that’s meant to make it more appealing to first-time users, who are often confused by the service’s system of hashtags and @-replies. Twitter devotees, however, may not appreciate the changes, as the more photo-centric setup looks very similar to that other social media site, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). Changes include the addition of a cover photo and the ability to “pin” favorite tweets to the top of your profile; the top favorited or retweeted tweets will be more prominently featured, overall upsetting the former reverse chronological order of the site.
Twitter is hoping that these changes make it easier for users to transition to using Twitter from other social media sites (mostly Facebook) without alienating devoted Twitter fans.Tthe involvement of someone of Graf’s caliber will likely aid in making better changes to Twitter’s consumer product in the future.
More From Wall St. Cheat Sheet:
- Twitter Brings in ‘Gnip’ to Help Monetize Its Data
- Twitter Gets a Facelift: 7 Changes and 1 Similarity to Note
- Pinterest Beats Facebook, Twitter in Online Shopping
Follow Jacqueline on Twitter @Jacqui_WSCS


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Apple and Google disagree over licensing of essential patents
Apple wants to change the way essential patents are licensed and litigated, while Google wants to use current model
IDG News Service - Google is at odds with Apple, Microsoft and Cisco over the licensing and litigation of patents. While Google wants to make the most of patents it will receive if its acquisition of Motorola Mobility is approved, the others want to change the way so-called essential patents are licensed.
Essential patents are part of a standard and are licensed under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms or reasonable, and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms. When patent-infringement negotiations over what that means fail, Google wants to continue to be able to use injunctions to block the sale of infringing products, while the others want to remove that option.
"Everybody is really taking positions which suit their own particular interest, right now," said Andrew Watson, CEO and founder of ipVA, a European intellectual property consultancy.
Back in November, Apple sent a letter to ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), which was made public this week, detailing the need for more consistency with the licensing of essential patents.
Apple's suggested terms include the promise to not try to block the sale of products when negotiations have failed. Cisco and Microsoft have both backed that position. Consumers and the entire industry will suffer if firms seek to block others from shipping products on the basis of standard essential patents, Microsoft said in a statement on Wednesday.
That is a sensible idea, according to John Collins, European patent attorney at Marks & Clerk. A court case related to FRAND licensing should only be about money, and not involve the threat of an injunction, he said.
Removing the threat of injunctions would help balance the relationship between licensor and licensee, according to Carlo Piana, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
The threat of injunction is a very powerful weapon, said Piana. When a company is developing a new product, it can choose not to use a technology depending on licensing costs, but when the product is already finished, that becomes very expensive, and the patent owners can force the vendor "to pay through the nose," he said.
"All Google is saying is that it's going to take the same position as Motorola would have taken. Google is new to the patent game and is just hedging its bets," said Watson
It was Motorola's patent portfolio that made Google open its wallet. The acquisition of Motorola would increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, and enable Google to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies, CEO Larry Page said when the deal was announced in August.
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It's been a week of updates, with Google Maps getting a double update in 24 hours, 4.2.2 Jelly Bean releases and announcements for a number of major devices, and Android owners everywhere awaiting manufacturer releases of the Master Key exploit patch from Google.
It's also been an exciting week for hardware, where we saw the release of the long-awaited Nokia Lumia 1020 monster camera-phone, got clear pictures and video of the LG G2, heard more news of spontaneously combusting Galaxy S4's and found out that the iPhone 5 is the most hated smartphone.
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Samsung Galaxy S3 Update Arriving This Month
Not surprisingly, Samsung fans couldn't get enough of the news that Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean will roll out to their devices this month. Galaxy S3 owners will get some of the features from the S4 after the update, and so the story goes, the official update will not match the unofficial pre-release update. Have you already made the unofficial update? Or are you waiting for the official roll-out?
More tips and tricks for your Galaxy Note 2
Knowing that Note II owners still want to get to know their device even better, we dropped even more tips and tricks for the Samsung Galaxy Note II. We gave you details on Mood Music, S-Beam and battery management, and shared a few tips on how to avoid syncing. We also offered some handy uses for the S-Pen like more accurate cropping.
Three fixes for some annoying “features” in WhatsApp
Oh, WhatsApp, we love you, even with all of your flaws. This week we shared some information about how to fix a couple of irritating features in WhatsApp: we showed you how to hide your ''last seen'' timestamp, disable auto-image download and gave instructions on how to share and send any file. With these fixes, you might be able to get even more out of the popular messaging app.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Burst Into Flames While Charging
Are your eyes deceiving you? Well, it seems that they aren't, since yet another Samsung Galaxy S4 has burst into flames while charging. Coming hot on the heels of news of a device that exploded in an owners pocket, we heard all about how a proud S4 owner woke up to to the smell of her brand-new flagship phone attempting to set her house on fire. Now that will make you sleep easy while charging your S4 overnight, no?
HTC One gets Android 4.2.2: new functions & improvements on board
The HTC One also got the 4.2.2 makeover treatment, with the roll-out taking place throughout Europe this week. AndroidPIT went through the new features with a video and shared details on new launchers, lock screen widgets, an improved home button, battery life notifications and new camera settings. Changes were also made to Zoe, filters added for video and a new daydream screen saver mode debuted.


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I recently write this post as a guest author on the Huffington Post blog, also shared below
As final year students are in the last stages of their degree, they could be forgiven for wondering why they are even bothering. The latest UK statistics make grim reading with half of last year’s graduates either jobless or underemployed. In the current economic climate that seems like a raw deal for anyone, let alone someone carrying the burden of student loans. But is employment that desirable? Technology is transforming the workplace and our notion of the 9-to-5 job, to the extent that by the time these guys graduate the last thing they may want is gainful employment.
Thanks to the internet and crowdsourcing it’s easier than ever to become an entrepreneur. Gone is the traditional business ecology, which catered only for large organizations. In its place is emerging an infrastructure streamlined for the micro-business. And just as Twitter sporned the citizen journalist, this new digital business ecosystem is giving rise to citizen entrepreneur where anyone can set up their own business.
At the moment small firms make up 99 per cent of all businesses in the UK, with 300,000 new ones starting each year. And with nearly 4.2 million people in the UK, now regularly taking on freelance work, it’s clear that freelancing is no longer the niche industry it once was.
One of the reasons for this is that as demand for micro-business services has ballooned and broadened. The budding entrepreneur can now get everything they need to set up in a matter of not months, weeks or even days, but hours. From crowdsourced funding and bookkeeping services to IT support and e-tail payment systems. Going it alone has never been easier.
Until recently micro-businesses were relatively small-scale and local affairs. But today thanks to a thriving market place of talent it is possible to build up a skilled virtual-workforce, scaling or shrinking your business in real-time as your needs change, turning a cottage industry into a global phenomenon.
This is a far cry from cheap online labour being farmed out to the East. The tide has turned back closer to home shores but with a demand for skilled tasks at competitive rates. So rather than paying peanuts for menial tasks, technology is now being used to empower people, and liberate them from yoke of employment.
This really marks a fundamental shift in the way we work. Everyone has a skill to sell or something that they are particularly good at. But while some businesses try to encourage and harness such individualism, the vast majority instead tend to stifle it, forcing workers to conform to templated roles.
Now people – from graduates to seasoned workers – are realizing that there is another way, and it is a trend that is happening across a broad range of sectors. Just six years ago, when PeoplePerHour first started, the landscape was very different to what it is today, with freelancing still very much a niche ‘occupation’. Back then it was mainly restricted to early adopters from a handful of sectors, such as IT professionals, journalists, writers and designers. Today you can get quite literally anything, from marketing, PR and business support to translation, photographic and artistic services. You name it; there is someone out there selling that skill.
And let’s face it the labor market is ripe for disruption. At the first sign of losing altitude employers are all too willing to start to jettisoning jobs. But a dynamic marketplace of outsourced skilled labor has resilience built into it, making it capable of riding the storm of uncertainty and responding to economic changes quickly.
Today people are waking up to the fact that the drivers of the economy are not the fat cats at the top but the small folk at the bottom. What’s more, corporate UK is now being held to account, with people blaming these behemoths of business for getting us into this situation in the first place.
So as graduates spurn the corporate ladder, gravitating instead towards setting up on their own, we can expect to see a gradual flattening of the power pyramid. The traditional job will start to look as antiquated as the notion of working for the same company for forty years. And as people start to strike a balance between work and play the 9-to-5 job as we know it will steadily fizzle out.
The beauty of this transition is that everyone wins. Flattening the pyramid will help to allow more innovative thinking to rise to the top. Besides giving people the opportunity to pursue their dreams, it will provide an economic boost too. The productivity of the economy will be far superior to what it is now with a workforce that’s motivated to the max. And motivated they most certainly are. We all stand to benefit.


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Brand Opus has created new branding for brewer Hall & Woodhouse’s Badger Ales portfolio.
The new branding will be used on the Hopping Hare bottled beer, which will hit shelves next month, and will then roll out across the rest of the Badger range.
The consultancy was appointed to work with Hall & Woodhouse last autumn following a pitch, according to marketing manager Charlotte Ellis.
Brand Opus says the new brand aims to improve standout and create more consistency across the range.
The consultancy says the Hopping Hare packaging uses ’the lively personality of the hare character who forms a much more dynamic role in the label design’.
Using a typeface which incorporates leaves and tufts of grass, the label ’evokes the countryside connotations of the Badger brand’, according to Brand Opus.
Paul Taylor, creative director of Brand Opus, says, ’The brand framework we created for Badger unifies the range of characterful countryside-inspired ales. On an individual level, the new design expresses the quirky traits of each of the unique personalities of the ales.’
He adds, ’The overall redesign gives Badger a stronger presence on-shelf, enabling consumers to understand and engage with the brand more meaningfully and recognise the Badger portfolio over other brands in the ale category.’


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The sudden rise of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi in India should worry companies beyond the smartphone industry. The company is slowly expanding its wings in India — from smartphones to TVs and now to lending.
Xiaomi now plans to foray into consumer finance and business-to-business lending by floating a non-banking financial company (NBFC), according to its latest regulatory disclosure. The new company, Xiaomi Financial Services India, will soon seek the Reserve Bank of India’s approval to operate as an NBFC.
Earlier, in May this year, in partnership with lending platform KrazyBee, Xiaomi launched its first lending product in India on the lines of the microlending product Mi Credit that it offers in China.
Xiaomi started out in India as a seller of cheap smartphones online but overtook the leader Samsung in a few years. Now it is trying to expand in the smart TV segment. It has announced local manufacturing of Mi LED televisions in India.
It has partnered with Dixon Technologies to set up a manufacturing plant in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh that spans across 32 acres and will employ more than 850 people.
Xiaomi's ambitious expansion plans might include many other products in future. Its regulatory filing in India exhibits its ambition and the threat it poses to Indian manufacturers. From electric and other vehicles small and big, it also plans to sell laptops, gaming consoles, computer accessories, lifestyle products, network equipment, clothes, toys, backpacks and suitcases, and bath and kitchen products. It already sells several of these products in China.
He said 30 per cent of the $4.5 billion raised in the IPO would be used for core R&D, 30 per cent on building the IoT platform, 30 per cent for global expansion and the remaining 10 per cent for miscellaneous expenses. Xiaomi's India business does not need significant external investment since it is already profitable.
Xiaomi has been building a host of internet services in India, which include apps such as MiMusic and file-sharing app Mi Drop as well as its MiBrowser and MiStore shopping apps. Its lending operations will be part of this plan.
Xiaomi has made investments in 10 startups in India, several of which align with its strategy of building internet services, such as social networking app Sharechat, digital content platform Hungama, and lending startup Krazybee, and it has already launched products in partnership with these companies.


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Rogers and Shaw to launch Netflix competitor at $8.99 a month
Customers can expect to try out Shomi the first week of November and the suggested price is $8.99 per month.
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Rogers and Shaw launch video on demand service called Shomi, a new subscription video-on-demand service that boasts 11,000 hours of popular TV shows is set to be unveiled today in Toronto.
Called Shomi, it will initially be available to Rogers and Shaw Internet or TV customers.
Users will be able to access the service on tablet, mobile, online and through Xbox 360.
Customers can expect to try out Shomi the first week of November and the suggested retail price is $8.99 per month.
The service will offer 240 TV series and 1,200 movies, with 30 per cent Canadian content.
Shomi has past-season streaming rights to a host of popular TV shows including Modern Family, Sons of Anarchy, Sleepy Hollow, Shameless and 2 Broke Girls.
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The GTA Food and Beverage Cluster, set to launch Monday, will support one of the biggest economic drivers in the region.


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Honor is set to launch the Honor V10 and Honor 7X today as it’s December 5. The livestream of the launch event is now live and the Keynote is set to happen after some minutes later. Te devices are already available but today is its American and European launch. You can watch the Honor v10 livestream over here:
The event is set for today and the live stream links already live. You can stay connected with the video link as the event is set to take place just few minutes after this.
The main highlight of the phone is the latest and most powerful Kirin 970 Soc in it. Huawei Honor V10 features a 5.99-inch screen in an 18:9 aspect ratio. It powers with Kirin 970 chipset which pairs with 6GB of RAM and 64GB/ 128 GB internal storage.
Honor V10 will be packed with 16+20 MP Dual camera setup. The phone is backed up by the 4000 mAh battery with 22.5W fast charge.


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WORLD TRADE CENTER MACAU AND MACAU TOASTMASTERS HELD A WORKSHOP ON "SPEAK LIKE A WORLD CHAMPION"
The World Trade Center Macau and the District 80 Macau Toastmasters Club held a workshop on "Speak Like a World Champion" with Mr Lance Miller, the 2005 World Champion of Public Speaking on April 17. More than 100 people attended the workshop, including WTC Macau members, representatives of local corporations and industries, and students.
Mr Lance Miller is a professional public speaker and conducts workshops and training sessions to audiences around the world. In 2005 Mr Lance Miller emerged from a field of over 25,000 contestants from 90 countries and became the Toastmasters World Champion of Public Speaking.
During this workshop, Mr Lance Miller not only showed his techniques and tips on public speaking but also shared his experience of how he became the world champion of public speaking. He emphasised his "only one" rule of public speaking is to get the message across, and communication sustains the spirit. He stressed that hours and hours of practice and drill were the foundation for delivering an effective public speech.
|Mou Signed Between Wprld trade Center Macau and The all India Association of Industries|
The World Trade Center Macau (WTCM) officially signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the All India Association of Industries (AIAI) on August 1, 2005 to enhance cooperation and information sharing, thus creating more collaboration and business opportunities for small and media enterprises (SMEs) of the two regions.
Mr Alberto Marçal, President of the Executive Committee of the WTCM, said that the signing of the MOU could facilitate bilateral trade, investment, technology transfer, joint venture and trade information sharing between the SMEs of Macau and India, which is experiencing significant economic development in recent years. He expected that the MOU could provide a fair and a mutual beneficial platform, offering the SMEs more information on bilateral trade, foreign trade and investment. Trade consultancy service and business advices will also be provided to joint ventures, creating opportunities for cooperation and building good relationship between Macau and India.
Established in 1956, the AIAI is a non-profit making organisation representing the industrial and commercial sectors of India, focusing on the development and promotion of trading, joint venture and technology transfer for industries and businesses in India. Currently, the association has more than 1,400 members, including corporations, shops, professionals and manufacturers, from privately owned companies and public bodies, of which 70% are SMEs.
|World Trade Center Macau Organises Healthcare Seminars in Cooperation with Faculty of Chinese Medicine|
President of World Trade Center Macau, Mr Alberto Marçal, and Director of University Hospital, Mr Xiang Ping, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on December 1, 2005, for organisation of healthcare seminars, introducing traditional Chinese medicine to WTC members for their well being. Under the terms of Agreement, WTC Macau and University Hospital will carry out a series of seminars, workshops and weekly health consultation for WTC Members. In this regard, and in order to draw public attention onto the harmful effects of influenza, World Trade Center Macau and University Hospital held a Flu Laboratory Diagnosis and Chinese Medicine Prevention and Control Seminar on December 9, 2005.
Dr Chui Shiu Hon shared his knowledge and experiences with the participants coming from all walks of life, including WTC members, doctors from Hospital Centre S. Januário and the general public.
World Trade Center Macau,S.A.R.L.
Av. da Amizade, No.918
World Trade Center Building, 16th Floor, MACAU
Tel : (853) 727666 Fax : (853) 727633
E-mail : email@example.com


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People are paying millions for digital collectibles ‘NFTs’ – What to know about this digital asset
People are paying millions for digital collectibles known as “NFTs.” Here’s what you need to know about this new digital asset. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi
From art to sports trading cards, people are spending millions of dollars on digital collector’s items.
These crypto collectibles, known as NFTs, have exploded in popularity lately. A video clip created by digital artist Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was flipped for a record $6.6 million last week. It had originally been bought for around $67,000.
Meanwhile, one of thousands of computer-generated avatars called CryptoPunks recently sold for $2 million. And a crypto art rendition of the Nyan Cat meme from 2011 sold for about $590,000 in an online auction.
Proponents of NFTs say they fix a big problem with the internet: artists not getting paid for the distribution of their content online. At the same time, critics see the NFT craze as another potential speculative frenzy in crypto that’s sure to fizzle out eventually.
So what exactly are NFTs? And why are they suddenly being sold for millions? CNBC runs through everything you need to know.
What are NFTs?
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a new type of digital asset. Ownership of these assets are recorded on a blockchain — a digital ledger similar to the networks that underpin bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
But unlike most virtual currencies, you couldn’t exchange one NFT for another in the same way that you would with dollars or gold bars. Each NFT is unique and acts as a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated, making them rare by design.
You can think of them like the crypto alternative to rare Pokémon or baseball cards.
The rise of the internet meant that anyone could view images, videos and songs online for free. People are buying NFTs out of the belief that they’ll be able to prove ownership of a virtual item thanks to blockchain.
NBA Top Shot, an NFT platform based on the U.S. basketball league, lets users buy and sell short clips showing match highlights from star players. The NBA licenses the reels to Dapper Labs, a start-up which digitizes the footage, making a limited amount to create scarcity. NBA Top Shot has facilitated over $280 million in sales to date, according to the website CryptoSlam. Dapper Labs earns a cut on each transaction while the NBA gets royalty payments.
Basketball isn’t the only sport getting into crypto. French start-up Sorare lets users collect and play officially licensed soccer cards in fantasy games. According to NFT data tracker NonFungible, Sorare’s marketplace has generated over $22 million worth of sales to date. Sorare last week announced it had raised $50 million from investors including Benchmark, Accel and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
“It is an obvious industry use case for NFTs,” said Lars Rensing, CEO of blockchain firm Protokol. “Trading cards and collectibles have always been a profitable revenue stream for clubs.”
Meanwhile, art dealers are also getting in on the action, with auction house Christie’s running an auction for a virtual art piece from Beeple. The auction is yet to close but the work has already been bid up to $3 million.
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The OnePlus One has had a bit of a rocky life. After leaking out several times before its official debut, OnePlus has been responsible for some questionable promotions, and many folks that want to buy a unit haven’t been able to because of the invitation-based buying system. Unfortunately for OnePlus, that rockiness continues today.
OnePlus has revealed that it’s stopping production of the StyleSwap covers that it announced in July. The company explains that it’s had some “technical difficulties” during production of the covers that’s resulted in a low yield of acceptable parts. Additionally, a poor cover removal process makes swapping covers difficult and could damage either the phone or battery.
Not all hope is lost for StyleSwap covers, as OnePlus says that it’s “looking into the possibility” of offering limited edition denim and Kevlar-backed OnePlus One units. For now, OnePlus does have a limited number of acceptable bamboo StyleSwap covers that it plans to sell. The company has previously said that the bamboo StyleSwap cover would be priced at $49.
OnePlus says that it’s learned from this process and that it knows how to avoid this problem with the “OnePlus 2.” For now, though, it looks like you’ll be stuck with a white or black-backed OnePlus One unless you’re lucky enough to snag a one of the “small number” of bamboo backs that’ll be sold.


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Dow Closes a TDI Production Train in Freeport
"To return production levels to pre-idling levels would require significant investment, which is not economically viable long-term," said Steven English, business director for Dow's isocyanates business. "Despite some improvements and recovery in raw material and energy costs since the third quarter of 2005, feedstock prices remain volatile. Moreover, we don't anticipate these costs to ease up in 2006. Pricing is still not where it needs to be, and margins have not yet reached the levels necessary to justify reinvestment."


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Walmart to pay New Jersey $775,000 over expired infant formula, drugs
The settlement ends a 2008 lawsuit the state brought against Walmart, Target and Drug Fair for violating New Jersey's consumer fraud law. Target settled with the state in November 2009, paying $375,000. Drug Fair went out of business before it could settle with the state.
Walmart admitted no wrongdoing or liability as part of the settlement .
The state also alleged that the stores listed items for sale at one price, but the items scanned at a higher price at checkout. As part of the settlement, Walmart must put policies in place for regular inspections and monitor the accuracy of its prices. It also agreed to advertising rules, including clearly marking limited-quantity items in its advertising.
"This settlement puts the onus on Wal-Mart to check expiration dates when stocking its shelves, to periodically recheck stocked items, and then remove from sale any infant formula or non-prescription drugs that are past expiration," Attorney General Dow said. "A responsible retailer should do no less and we expect full compliance at Wal-Mart's 54 New Jersey stores."
Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter said customers depend on the retailer to have prices and products they can trust and Walmart will conduct random checks at its stores to ensure accuracy.
"We're committed to make sure the correct prices are posted and that merchandise is removed well before its expiration date," Rossiter told Consumer Ally.
Walmart and Target aren't the only national retailers to get slapped for selling expired goods and nonprescription drugs. CVS has been chastised by a number of states for selling out-of-date items.


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By Saima Kanwal, Showbiz Bites Staff Writer
Bollywood’s milky-skinned and most curvaceously gorgeous actress Katrina Kaif sizzles on Vogue India cover. Yes, the beautiful actress lands on the cover of world’s most popular magazine Vogue. Katrina is today ranked among the top notch film actresses of Bollywood industry and every big brand wants to fetch her on board to make her the brand ambassador. And she is also the central choice of every filmmaker for their movies. Her beauty, talents and hotness appeal to all and viewers are super crazy after this most gorgeous actress. Post Aishwarya Rai, Katrina is termed a ‘real beauty’. Well, now this Barbie doll shot for the cover of Vogue’s December 2013 issue. Katrina Kaif on Vogue cover is what has made her fans in India and across the globe real crazy. All and sundry are equipped with the web to grab the pictures of the actress on the magazine cover.
Katrina’s popularity graph is always high. Her love affair with Salman Khan put her into big limelight and then her scandals too have been putting her onto the news leads. Katrina’s latest link up with Ranbir Kapoor too hogs big limelight for the actress. In addition to all scandals, the beauty with brain shows her talents as well whenever she appears on screen. This is because Katrina Kaif sizzles on Vogue India cover for its December 2013 issue.
Katrina Kaif on Vogue cover, well, in undoubtedly the hot chunk nowadays and the magazine’s worth is soaring high due to having Kaif on the cover. And obviously the magazine’s sale too will shoot to heights because of Katrina. If you guys like the story ‘Katrina Kaif Sizzles on Vogue India’, you might also like reading other stories on the website such as Naveena Saraswathi Sabatham 5th day box office collections, Arrambam 34th day box office collections and Bullet Raja 5th day box office collections. Also read Kareena Kapoor reveals Katrina Kaif is her sister-in-law. Image Courtesy: Vogue, India


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Heard about FIPEL? Well, it looks like LED may have new possibilities as well. LEDs are known for their energy efficiency and durability, but the bluish, cold light of current white LEDs has precluded their widespread use for indoor lighting.
Now, University of Georgia scientists have fabricated what is thought to be the world's first LED that emits a warm white light using a single light emitting material, or phosphor, with a single emitting center for illumination. The material is described in detail in the current edition of the Nature Publishing Group journal "Light: Science and Applications."
"Right now, white LEDs are mainly used in flashlights and in automotive lamps, but they give off a bluish, cool light that people tend to dislike, especially in indoor lighting," says senior author Zhengwei Pan, an associate professor in the department of physics in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and in the College of Engineering. "Our material achieves a warm color temperature while at the same time giving highly accurate color rendition, which is something no single-phosphor-converted LED has ever been shown to do."
Two main variables are used to assess the quality of artificial light, Pan explained. Correlated color temperature measures the coolness or warmth of a light, and temperatures of less than 4,000 kelvins are ideal for indoor lighting.
Correlated color temperatures above 5,000 kelvins, on the other hand, give off the bluish color that white LEDs are known for. The other important measure, color rendition, is the ability of a light source to replicate natural light. A value of more than 80 is ideal for indoor lighting, with lower values resulting in colors that don't seem true to life.
The material that Pan and his colleagues fabricated meets both thresholds, with a correlated color temperature of less than 4,000 kelvins and a color rendering index of 85.
Warm white light can commonly be achieved with a blue LED chip coated with light emitting materials, or phosphors, of different emitting colors to create what are called phosphor-based white LEDs, Pan said. Combining the source materials in an exact ratio can be difficult and costly, however, and the resulting color often varies because each of the source materials responds differently to temperature variations.
"The use of a single phosphor solves the problem of color stability because the color quality doesn't change with increasing temperatures," says lead author Xufan Li, a doctoral student in the College of Engineering.
To create the new phosphor, Pan and his team combine minute quantities of europium oxide with aluminum oxide, barium oxide and graphite powders. They then heat the powdered materials at 1,450 degrees Celsius (2,642 degrees Fahrenheit) in a tube furnace. The vacuum of the furnace pulls the vaporized materials onto a substrate, where they are deposited as a yellow luminescent compound. When the yellow luminescent compound is encapsulated in a bulb and illuminated by a blue LED chip, the result is a warm white light.
Although his team's results are promising, Pan emphasized that there are still hurdles to be overcome before the material is used to light homes, businesses and schools. The efficiency of the new material is much lower than that of today's bluish white LEDs. Scaling the production to an industrial scale will be challenging as well, since even slight variations in temperature and pressure in the phosphor synthesis process result in materials with different luminescent colors.
The new yellow phosphor also has a new lattice structure that has not been reported before. The researchers currently are working to discern how the ions in the compound are arranged in hopes that a better understanding of the compound at an atomic level will allow them to improve its efficiency.
"We still have more work to do," Pan says, "but the color temperature and rendition that we have achieved gives us a very good starting point."


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The Environmental Protection Agency has spent $92.4 million in taxpayer dollars to buy, rent, install, and store office furniture over the last 10 years.
The Washington Times reported:
The furniture shopping sprees equaled about $6,000 for every one of the agency’s 15,492 employees, according to federal spending data made public by the government watchdog OpenTheBooks.com. And the EPA doesn’t buy just any old office furniture. Most of the agency’s contracts are with Michigan-based retailer Herman Miller Inc. According to the contracts, the EPA spent $48.4 million on furnishings from the retailer known for its high-end, modern furniture designs.
The EPA has also given business to Knoll, Inc., another high-end shop, spending almost $5 million on furniture from the retailer. Items that the government agency has purchased over the past decade include hickory chairs costing $6,391 apiece, a wooden hexagonal table priced at $5,539, and a drawer for pencil storage that cost $813.57.
The agency also spent $73,265 to temporarily remove furniture from an office in Michigan that was undergoing carpeting replacement.
The EPA, however, has defended its furniture expenses.
"EPA takes its fiscal responsibility seriously," the agency said. "As a result of GSA leases expiring, numerous EPA offices were required to move or consolidate space between 2000 and 2014. New furniture purchases provided the agency the opportunity to obtain space efficiencies."
The EPA has been warned in the past to curtail its spending on pricy furniture.