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It’s been close to a decade since EA Sports dropped NCAA Football 14, which was the latest iteration in a beloved video game franchise that could trace its roots back to 1993—and also its last.
College football fans may have taken the series for granted at the time, but their appreciation only increased after the company behind it announced it was abandoning the title thanks to the landmark Supreme Court ruling that forced it to move from the world of amateur athletics.
When the NIL Era arrived after the NCAA was forced to shift its stance when America’s highest court ruled against them yet again, it didn’t take long for people to wonder if EA Sports would be getting back in the NCAA Football saddle.
The publisher had already expressed interest in doing exactly that prior to the aforementioned decision, and in 2021, it officially announced it was bringing the franchise back from the dead.
While the initial goal was to reboot the series in 2023, EA Sports announced it had decided to push the release back one more year, which means NCAA Football fans will likely have to wait until the summer of 2024 to get their long-awaited fix.
While details concerning the game’s development have been fairly promising, it’s also been surrounded by a fair amount of skepticism thanks to EA’s approach to some of its other sports franchises, which (to put things kindly) has left a lot to be desired in recent years.
Thankfully, Ari Wasserman of The Athletic may have assuaged some of those fears.
During a recent appearance on The Andy Staples Show, Wasserman said EA Sports tapped him to consult on the title (especially when it comes to the recruiting mechanics), and he addressed one of the major fears while discussing how it will differ from another football game EA Sports is known for.
Here’s what he had to say:
“They’re doing it in a way where you’re not just going to get a Madden engine with the college uniforms.
Like, they are really trying, and I think the reason why they delayed it a year was that they wanted to make sure that when the game finally made its return that it wasn’t just some knockoff of Madden and that it was its own thing.
The Dynasty Mode and recruiting and rankings and all the things that we talk about on this show are going to be represented to some extent in the video game.”
Given the hype surrounding the upcoming release, EA Sports will be committing an unforced error for the ages if NCAA Football fails to live up to expectations, so here’s to hoping things go smoothly.


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Chez Pannise chefs Alice Waters and Jerome Waag yesterday launched a chefs’ petition urging their colleagues to take a stand against fracking in California. Working in collaboration with Food & Water Watch, founding member of Californians Against Fracking, the chefs are concerned about the threat fracking poses to the world-renown food and wine grown, served and sold in California. The petition includes a letter calling on Governor Brown to place a moratorium on fracking now. Read more
“We’ve had so many people come up to us and say, ‘I heard you’re closing,’” says Terry Sawyer, co-owner of Hog Island Oyster Co. “There’s just a lot of misunderstanding about what’s going on.”
Despite the rumors, Hog Island is alive and kicking, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. With more than 100 employees, a thriving Tomales Bay oyster farm, two restaurants and a café, and additional projects in the works, Terry and his partner John Finger have turned what was once a modest dream into a Bay Area institution.
But despite the farm’s success, Terry is worried about the oyster’s future, as are many farmers, marine biologists, ecologists, and bivalve lovers. Read more
At a number of farmers markets in California, California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) signs are a familiar sight, assuring shoppers that the farm’s practices meet national organic standards. This year, CCOF celebrates its 40th anniversary, having grown from a small grassroots coalition of farmers to the largest organic certifier in the United States.
“A small group of people who are committed to making things better can do an amazing amount,” says Grant Brians of Heirloom Organic Gardens, who currently sits on CCOF’s board and is the only original CCOF member remaining. Other founding members include Jerry Thomas, who started Thomas Farm in 1971, and Warren Weber (pictured above on a horse-drawn plow) of Star Route Farms, the oldest continuously certified organic grower in California.
Organic standards have come a long way since the 1970s, thanks to the efforts of such pioneering farmers. Read more
Terry Sawyer is on a mission to rescue oysters from newly hostile seas. Sawyer has been farming these briny bivalves for almost 30 years in Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco, at Hog Island Oyster Company. The business he co-owns sells $9 million worth of Sweetwaters, Kumamotos, and Atlantic oysters a year at the company’s two local oyster bars, at nearby farmers markets, and direct from the farm to hungry consumers who can’t seem to get enough of this sustainable shellfish. But Sawyer’s seafood business is threatened by ocean acidification (aka climate change’s evil twin) and he and other oyster growers are working overtime to find creative ways to save these sea creatures—and their own livelihoods. Read more
(Updates story with state and federal study on hatcheries)
In a new report, produced by the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) in partnership with California Watch, reporter Maria Finn looks into the sudden resurgence in the salmon population on the California coast and explores whether the current boom will last. This year 820,000 Chinook are expected to swim the Sacramento River, up from 114,741 in 2011, and following a collapse in the population the two previous years.
“A certain amount of fluctuation in the annual salmon yield is natural, but some scientists think that the collapse in ‘08 and ‘09 was part of a more dramatic, and unpredictable, boom-and-bust cycle—and that the fishery could be in for more of the same,” Finn reports. “The problem, they say, stems from the fact so much of the catch—a full 90 percent—originates in state hatcheries.
Finn explains that a typical hatchery allows a wild population to remain just below the river’s dams to spawn. Meanwhile, other fish swim up cement fish ladders—graded man-made streams—that run around the dams and allow the fish to return to the hatchery. Read more
In case you had any doubt that California’s Prop 37—which would require labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs)—is a significant threat to industry, a top food lobby has now made it perfectly clear.
In a recent speech to the American Soybean Association (most soy grown in the U.S. is genetically modified), Grocery Manufacturers Association President Pamela Bailey said that defeating the initiative “is the single-highest priority for GMA this year.” Read more
The California farming community is facing a demographic crisis. The average age of a California farmer is 58, and nearly 20 percent of them are 70 or older. As these farmers approach retirement, California needs to train new ones if we are to continue to feed our country and keep a healthy rural economy in the decades ahead. And with farm internships in California subject to strict labor laws, opportunities to get a hands-on farming education have become even fewer.
Wendell Berry has said that eating is an agricultural act, but what about drinking beer? A thirst for fermented beverages may have inspired the world’s first farmers to plant crops some 13,000 years ago, yet today beer is rarely part of the larger conversation about where our food comes from. Read more
Three of Berkeley Unified School District‘s elementary schools–Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Washington—are in jeopardy of losing their entire cooking and gardening program funds beginning in October this year.
Under existing guidelines, the schools will no longer qualify for federal funding because they have fewer than 50 percent of their students enrolled in the free and reduced-lunch program, according to Leah Sokolofski, who supervises the program for the district.
Berkeley has an international reputation for its edible schoolyards, where public school children of all economic means learn what it takes to grow a radish and sauté some chard. Such funding cuts to the program, whose total budget is $1.94 million a year, would represent a significant setback in the city’s pioneering efforts to date. Read more
We hear a lot about recalls these days. But last night it wasn’t ground turkey, cantaloupes, or peanut butter that was taken off the market. It was one of the most hotly contested pesticides in recent memory: methyl iodide. As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, Arysta Lifescience, the makers of the fumigant, announced on Tuesday evening that they’d be suspending sales of the product (also known as Midas) in all U.S. markets. Read more

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Mazda says the Mazda3, at the Los Angeles Auto Show, right, represents an evolution of its Kodo design philosophy, expressing elegance through clean designs. Mazda uses terms such as “Japanese mastery” to describe premium touches to the interior, below.
LOS ANGELES — Mazda doesn’t see the slowing sedan market as an excuse to become complacent about its cars. In fact, it sees this as the perfect time to raise the bar with an artistic approach to design that enhances some of their emotional allure.
Mazda says the recently unwrapped Mazda3, shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show, represents an evolution of its Kodo design philosophy. The new Kodo language seeks to express elegance through clean designs that take into account how light and reflections move over a vehicle. Both the sedan and hatchback have smoother surfaces and fewer creases than earlier generations. Mazda also uses terms such as “Japanese mastery” to describe the premium touches to the interior.
“We believe a customer who loves driving, they love sedans as well,” said Masahiro Moro, CEO of Mazda North American Operations. “A sedan can bring significant emotional value and driving pleasure. Mazda is a not a big company, but we’re happy to serve those particular consumers who love driving sedans or hatchbacks.”
The Mazda3 also will lead the next phase of Mazda’s “Feel Alive” marketing campaign, which began in April. Mazda has seen an uptick of around 3 percent in its Google searches since the campaign launched, while price quote requests on its site are up 50 percent, said Dino Bernacchi, chief marketing officer of Mazda’s North American unit.
Bernacchi believes Mazda is getting on more consumers’ radar with a message that is resonating.
The messaging will be applied to a sector that Mazda hasn’t competed in before: electrified vehicles. Mazda’s timeline calls for a battery-electric vehicle in 2020 and a plug-in hybrid that might appear in 2021.
But Bernacchi doesn’t see these additions affecting Mazda’s marketing philosophy, which traditionally has touted the brand’s spirited internal combustion engines as fun to drive.
“I think having a diverse portfolio of capabilities in our lineup only adds to what we can do,” Bernacchi told Automotive News during the Los Angeles show. “One of the things our engineers do better and more than anyone else is, we don’t engineer to a specification. We engineer to a feeling. They will want to maximize what the feeling is out of those future EVs and hybrids.”
Mazda also is getting ready to launch a new crossover in a few years. It will be tailored for the U.S., which Moro says is notable because Mazda usually develops vehicles based on global demand.
It will be built at a plant in Huntsville, Ala., shared with Toyota that will have the capacity for 150,000 crossovers a year, plus Corolla cars for Toyota.
While Moro couldn’t comment on where the crossover will be positioned in the lineup, he said he’s looking for “mainstream territory so we can capitalize [on] that capacity as much as we can. “


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News about Headphones
Fancy hi-res audio earbuds for just $100 and a DAC for even less? Earfun may have just the products for you.
A potential free update for Google's Pixel Buds Pro adds several key improvements that bring them up to spec with Apple's best AirPods.
Austrian Audio is a relative newcomer in the premium headphone space, but it's taken the market by storm since 2017.
To mark the release of the new burgundy Bowers & Wilkins PX8 headphones, I got try them at a James Blake gig.
Fancy the Momentum 4's premium sound without the hefty price tag? The new Sennheiser Accentum could be the headphones you've been waiting for.
Ever seen a tiny earbuds case that looks like it could start your car? You have now.
A new leak has seemingly revealed everything about the budget-friendly Samsung Galaxy Buds FE wireless earbuds.
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Trina Solar Vertex modules awarded Carbon Footprint Certificate; Suzhou Good-Ark silver paste shipments increase rapidly; Daqo New Energy to sell 137,000 tons of polysilicon; DMEGC to expand European market share.
Carbon Footprint Certificate for Trina Vertex modules: Chinese solar module manufacturer Trina Solar said that TÜV Rheinland had awarded its Vertex modules with a ‘Carbon Footprint’ Certificate. The range of products included 210mm P-type solar modules from Vertex S 410W to Vertex 670W. For this certificate, TÜV Rheinland conducted a number of carbon-emission surveys on the entire PV module supply chain and verified the carbon footprint of Trina Solar’s modules. The investigation was based on actual production data. Trina Solar will be taking part in the 3-Day TaiyangNews Virtual Conference on High Efficiency Solar Technologies – TOPCon, HJT and Beyond, Today & Tomorrow. Do join. For free registration, please click here.
Suzhou Good-Ark HJT silver paste shipments up strongly: Semiconductor manufacturer Suzhou Good-Ark said that in the first 9 months of 2022 its HJT silver paste shipments have increased rapidly, by nearly 20 tons. This figure is several times higher than that of the same period last year. The company said that PERC technology is still the mainstream of photovoltaic cell market, and sales account for the vast majority.
Daqo New Energy inks RMB 41.5 bn deal: Chinese polysilicon producer Daqo New Energy announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Inner Mongolia DaQo New Energy have inked a large polysilicon purchase and supply deal with an unidentified customer. As per the deal, the customer will buy from the company 137,000 tons of polysilicon first-class disposable materials from November 2022 to December 2027. The transaction amount is expected to be about RMB 41.5 billion ($5.73 billion). Having said that, the actual price will be negotiated on a monthly basis.
DMEGC to expand European market share: Vertically integrated solar module manufacturer from China DMEGC stated that its module products are mainly shipped to the European distributed market, and will account for about 10% of its total distributed market in 2022. In the future, the company will continue to increase the development of the European market, and strive to gradually increase the share of the distributed market to about 15%. There are also plans to add TOPCon capacity next year, and single projects’ expansion may be 6 to 8 GW, the company said.


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Four series of Live streaming have become active in the Jianghu of China with the major giants joined in
In an era where everything can be broadcast live, the live streaming in the Jianghu by giants in China have become lively. As the “江湖”in Chinese language,its pinyin in Chinese is "Jianghu",which literally translates as”rivers and lakes”,but it metaphorically refers to an alluvial underworld of hucksters and heroes beyond the reach of the imperial government.
Five years ago, no one thought that live streaminging in China would be as hot as it is today.
Games, e-commerce, entertainment... Almost all business forms in China are migrating to live streaminging. Even those big businessmen have put down their deep shelves and came to the camera to interact with the audience. Some bigwigs even made bold claims that the future will be the era of live streaming Internet. Behind the hustle and bustle, the Chinese giant is accelerating its layout. If we take a look at the top ten internet companies in China by market value, we will find that all the giants have been involved in the live streaming business except Didi.
As giant players entered the game, the rules of the game were rewritten, the balance of interests was broken, and different factions began to appear in the live streaming.
Probably we can be divided into four categories:
one is the e-commerce department,which is led by Taobao.
The second is the short video system,which is represented by Douyin and Kuaishou.
The third is the e-sports department, which is dominated by Tencent.
According to the different genes and tones of the enterprise, they are self-contained in terms of play style and ruled by the river. At the same time, fighting and co-operation among different factions have become frequent. The latest news is that Kuaishou and JD.com have joined forces to reach a strategic cooperation. Kuaishou users will be able to directly purchase JD.com’s self-operated products in Kuaishou stores, and the two parties will jointly create a short video live e-commerce ecosystem. This is a big step for cross-border cooperation between the short video department and the e-commerce department. What is certain is that Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo of the e-commerce department and the fast hands and vibrato of the short video department will compete and cooperate on a larger scale in the future.
In an era where everything can be broadcast, the rivers and lakes broadcast by giants have become lively. Today, Domatters will take stock of the four major factions that the current giant is broadcasting.
Department of E-commerce: Taobao is the leading brother, Jingdong and Pinduoduo follow up
Taobao is the leader of e-commerce live streaming. As early as March 2016, Taobao Live began trial operation. At that time, Pinduoduo had only been online for less than half a year, and Kuaishou had just launched the live streaming function. Douyin had not yet appeared.
Taobao Live is cut into the live track from the content side, it is incubated in Taobao's content ecology. Alibaba has been working on ”contentization” since 2016, trying to help Taobao extend user stay time and improve the conversion efficiency of traffic. After trying both graphic and short video products, Taobao Live hit Ali's pain point. On June 20, 2016, Zhang Dayi sold 19 million of the goods at the Jiubao base for 4 hours. On Alibaba Investor Day three months later, Taobao Live was introduced to global investors by Jiang Fan.
In the following three years, Taobao's live streamings progressed by leaps and bounds. In 2018, it exceeded 100 billion transactions for the first time, and ushered in the first year of e-commerce live streaming in 2019. These two have since established its status in the live streaming track. The importance of Taobao live streaming to Ali is evident from Jiang Fan's promotion. Jiang Fan was appointed president of Taobao at the end of 2017 and became president of Tmall in March 2019. Jiang Fan's biggest contribution to Ali, the first is to let Taobao complete the transfer of PC to mobile, and the second is to internally incubate Taobao live streaming.
For ordinary users, the biggest highlight of Taobao live streaming is the possession of two super anchors, Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi. "The first sister with goods" and "the first brother with lipstick", the two head anchors divided up the most traffic of the entire Taobao live streaming plate, and also attracted most of the attention in the industry. This laid the ecology of Taobao live streaming-resources and traffic were concentrated to the head anchor, and the living space of the waist and tail anchor was squeezed. Experts who sell less than 10% of their full-time sales and live streamings take away far more than 10% of the turnover, as well as eye-popping million-level commissions. As the leader of the e-commerce department live streaming, Taobao live streaming has a complete ecology and has formed clear game rules.
JD.com and Pinduoduo are latecomers, but they are fierce. JD's live streaming function was launched in September 2016, only half a year later than Taobao live streaming, but its momentum is much smaller than Taobao. Until the first half of this year, JD.com's live action suddenly increased. First, Dong Mingzhu brought live goods on JD.com, with a turnover of 700 million yuan, setting a record for the whole home appliance industry. Then, Xu Lei, CEO of JD Retail, personally staged a live streaming of the first show selling a house to promote JD's self-operated real estate that went live in May.
On May 27 this year, Jingdong Retail and Kuaishou reached a strategic cooperation, Kuaishou users will be able to directly purchase Jingdong's self-operated goods in Kuaishou stores, and Jingdong provides distribution and after-sales. JD.com attaches great importance to the live streaming business. Zhang Guowei, the head of JD's live streaming business, said in April that this year JD will make live streaming a standard for merchants, and promote JD's self-operated merchants to achieve a 100% broadcast rate.
The live streaming of Pinduoduo was the latest, but it caused great shock in the industry. In January of this year, Pinduoduo live streaming was launched; in March, the first batch of MCN institutions were opened for application; in April, former NBA and CBA player Marbury made a live streaming e-commerce debut in Pinduoduo. Different from Taobao live streaming, currently Pinduoduo is mainly based on store live streaming, not live streaming. Therefore, in the live streaming room of Pinduoduo, you can't see the halo-carrying stars, most of them are self-selling.
Pinduoduo did not replicate the path Taobao Live went through. In contrast, Pinduoduo Live started with commodities as the core, encouraging merchants to operate their own private domain traffic and serve the store, rather than gathering a few top celebrities. No difference in category.
At this point, the three giants of e-commerce all came to an end and launched a hot war in the field of live streamings. This year's 618 will be the first showdown of the e-commerce live streaming.
Short Video Department: Kuaishou and Douyin Fight for Hegemony
Before the rise of Kuaishou and Douyin, the protagonist of the live broadcast was the live show. The live broadcast at that time either relied on face value or talent. It was popular that the anchor sang, yelled, and talked in the live broadcast room. The live broadcast of the show did not attract super giants, and it has always been a situation of multi-faceted melee. It was not until the short video became the universal application and the real-time live broadcast function began to be strengthened that the giants entered the game one after another.
From the perspective of the product, it is difficult to define whether the giant has achieved short video live streaming or short video live streaming has achieved the giant. The biggest difference with e-commerce live streaming is that the giant was already a giant at the beginning of its birth, but live streaming is just strengthening the wall of the giant. Short videos are not made by giants but by startups company, and startups company have become giants.
Kuaishou initially made GIF animations, but later transformed into a short video community. When the C round of financing was completed in 2016, the valuation was only US$2 billion. Then the short video industry broke out, and Kuaishou got Tencent's investment in 2017. In 2017, registered users exceeded 500 million. Today, Kuaishou's latest valuation has exceeded 26 billion US dollars.
Douyin is a new product that ByteDance only hatched in 2016, when Zhang Yiming had made a phenomenal headline today. Today's headlines let ByteDance into the giant's candidate, and Douyin made it officially a giant. The short video live broadcast of this track has also become a pattern of fast-hand shaking and vigor.
Quick hands and vibrato are not short of traffic. From a commercial point of view, the platform should consider how to realize this huge traffic. Advertising, games, and e-commerce are all mature monetization paths. Among them, e-commerce brought the highest level of attention caused by goods. At present, Kuaishou and Douyin have developed their own representative internet celebrities, Kuaishou has Sanda brother and Simba, and Douyin has Luo Yonghao.
Short video and e-commerce, the two camps that did not directly intersect, now have more cross-integration because of the small thing of live streaming. Short video access to e-commerce, the two major factions join hands to bring goods, the situation becomes complicated.
Judging from the current situation,Kuaishou approached JD.com and Douyin approached Taobao. As early as November 2018, JD.com had hosted the event of "Selling King on Quick-Hand short video". The head anchor "Sanshou Brother" sold 50 million yuan in three hours and 160 million yuan on the same day. This time, Jingdong and Kuaishou reached a strategic cooperation, which was interpreted by the industry as Kuaishou team Jingdong, which will face off with Douyin Taobao.
Douyin officially launched e-commerce in May 2018. At present, Douyin's short-video e-commerce system has gradually been improved. Among them, the supplier is the user's own Douyin store or Taobao, Jingdong, Koala, Vip.商平台。 Business platform. Among them, Taobao is the main traffic undertaker. One side has traffic, lacks commodities and supply chain, and one side has commodities and supply chain. New sources of traffic are needed. Short video and e-commerce fit together. Live broadcast with goods seems to be a win-win cooperation model, but who you choose to cooperate with may affect the pattern of the e-commerce industry. In fact, all parties are playing with their little abacus.
Short video to do e-commerce is essentially to grab business with e-commerce giants. But the short video platform has traffic, which is exactly the resource that the e-commerce giant currently needs most.
E-commerce giants in China are reluctant to let short-video e-commerce giants sit alone and end up sharing their own cakes. They are also unwilling to shake their hands free of charge to guide e-commerce giants for free, and they are washed away by fans. For example, Kuaishou, in terms of platform tonality, the industry generally believes that Kuaishou and Pinduoduo are the best match. Both are emerging from the sinking market, one is a loyal old iron, and the other is a small town youth. The reason is that it can seamlessly connect fast hand traffic.
In fact, during the 618 promotion in 2019, Kuaishou had a short-term cooperation with Pinduoduo. Kuaishou anchors combined with Pinduoduo merchant resources to do live product promotion in Pinduoduo APP. But in the end, Kuaishou chose to reach a strategic cooperation with JD.com. To stand on the top of the hill, do not want to be constrained by others, but have to cooperate. The admission giants compete, game, and cooperate while taking what they need, so that the Jianghu of live broadcasts are full of gunpowder.
E-sports department: Tencent unifies the Jianghu, small and medium-sized player companies will be eliminated
In addition to live streaming, another track of the giant's in-depth layout is game live streaming. In China, the live game here belongs to Tencent. In the eyes of most ordinary users, the competitive landscape of live game streaming is due to competitions between tigers and fishes. From the listing of Huya Fish, the live broadcast of games has entered the era of double heroes. Currently, Huya and Douyu account for nearly 80% of the market.
But in fact, the real big guy in the field of game live streaming is actually Tencent. Unlike the situation of multi-player games on other live tracks, in the past few years, Tencent has been step by step and has unified the Jianghu of live game. The largest shareholder behind Huya and Douyu is Tencent. Tencent holds 36.9% and 38% of the equity of the two respectively. In addition to Huya and Douyu, Tencent's Penguin eSports is also a heavyweight player in the field of live game streaming. Calculated by the size of active users, the market share of Huya and Douyu is 45.9% and 36.5%, respectively. Penguin E-sports ranked fourth with 3.3%.
In addition, Tencent also invested in Dragon Ball Live and Station B, which are also important game live broadcast platforms. Among them, Dragon Ball Live has the fifth largest market share after corporate e-sports. In summary, there are four domestic top ten game live streaming platforms related to Tencent, which together account for 86% of the market share. Among the top ten e-sports games in the first half of 2019, there are seven games developed or operated by Tencent.
On the one hand, Tencent is self-employed, and on the other hand, it is investing so that it continues to increase its voice in the game live broadcast industry. From January to June 2019, the game live broadcast platform with Tencent's capital relationship accounted for 88.7% of the live broadcast, compared with 59.3% a year ago.
In addition to Tencent, other giants are also eyeing this piece of live game broadcasting. Netease, as a company with games as its main business, has CC Live. In fact, Kuaishou has already started to lay out live games and completed the initial platform accumulation. In the first half of 2019, the proportion of live broadcasts of fast-handed games reached 18.5%, which is already one of the important live broadcast platforms for large-scale domestic games.
The watermelon video of ByteDance started the game live broadcast layout in early 2018. Under the strategy of ByteDance vigorously promoting the game business, it will also become a new variable in the game live broadcast industry in the future.
However, neither the traditional giants nor the emerging giants can shake Tencent's strong position in live game streaming in the short term. Behind Tencent's unification, small and medium-sized players have been eliminated. In the past few years, there have been at least eight former heavyweight live game players who were forced to withdraw from the market due to product, operation, and capital issues. On the list of live game deaths, there are Bump TV, American Broadcast, 233 mobile game live broadcast, Wukong TV, water drop live broadcast, national live broadcast, Panda live broadcast, Nice TV. The principle of "transition of giants, no survival" is fully reflected in the field of live game streaming. Judging from Tencent's series of actions, the future control of live game streaming will only become stronger.
Small fights: the less powerful giants cross the river by feeling the stones
Tencent, Ali, JD.com, Pinduoduo, ByteDance, and Kuaishou have all been vigorously deployed on the live broadcast. What are the remaining giants doing?
E-commerce, short videos, and games are all forms of business that are closely integrated with live streaming. In contrast, the giants whose businesses are less related to live streaming are more struggling to cross the river, while watching and exploring.
For example, Baidu's approach is to do a live knowledge broadcast. On April 15th, Baidu released the "Baidu Live Concentration Plan", which will add high-quality pan-knowledge anchors to its support plan. At the Vientiane Conference in May, Baidu proposed to provide 500 million subsidies to create 1,000 star anchors. Although Baidu had already launched the live broadcast function more than a year ago, the mode at that time was mainly based on the show, and the entrance was embedded in the Baidu App, good-looking videos, small national videos and Baidu Post Bar. Unlike other live broadcast platforms, this time Baidu will focus its efforts on information and knowledge. Two days after the Baidu Vientiane Conference, Li Yanhong started his live broadcast debut, personally broadcasting the platform for Baidu. The theme of Li Yanhong's live broadcast is "Home·Book", which is a dialogue with Fan Deng, the founder of Fan Deng Reading. The live broadcast started for 10 minutes, and the number of participants exceeded 1 million. Baidu, who has caught a late episode, has just taken an important step in the live broadcast, but compared with e-commerce, short video, and e-sports live broadcast, Baidu's knowledge live broadcast still has a long way to go.
Ctrip pushed out the founder Liang Jianzhang and launched the "BOSS live broadcast", which turned an entrepreneur into an online celebrity. According to Liang Jianzhang, from the outbreak to mid-March, Ctrip has processed tens of millions of cancelled orders, involving transactions worth more than 31 billion yuan. So Liang Jianzhang, as the boss, personally battled for his own products. Unlike other giants' long-term strategic layout and seizing the tuyere track, Ctrip's live broadcast is completely sales-oriented. The big anchor, Liang Jianzhang, promotes Ctrip's products by performing live shows on city tours. From Sanya, Hainan, to Miao Village in Guizhou, to Huzhou, Zhejiang, and then to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, Liang Jianzhang plays different roles according to different live broadcast cities and themes. From the "Miao King" in Guizhou, to the ancient white clothes in the bamboo sea of Anji, to Tang Bohu in Suzhou, Liang Jianzhang live broadcasted unambiguously and seemed to be happy, and the audience also bought it.
Meituan released a poster about “travel live”in late April of this year. You can search for “travel live” through the Meituan app to enter the live broadcast collection interface. Tickets for the Meituan Group have been launched on the "Scenic Spot Live", claiming that the country's travel experts will broadcast the way for you. In addition, Meituan is also recruiting travel anchors to build a live broadcast ecosystem.
Xiaomi also pushed out Lu Weibing, president of Xiaomi China in early April of this year, and carried out the first live broadcast of the president. The supporting word is "General President Lu will fly bravely, and Reed will follow forever!". In addition, on the eve of the "Rice Noodle Festival" this year, Xiaomi Youpin quietly launched the new channel "Youpin Live".
Netease Yanxuan released the "Xing Chi Plan" on May 26 this year. It plans to recruit 1,000 high-quality celebrity anchors and 100 MCN institutions for the entire network such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Taobao, etc., and set up generous financial rewards and flow support.
The business of these giants is not very closely integrated with live broadcast, so the pace is relatively small, more or less with some sense of trial and error.
So far, except for Didi, there are no big moves, the Chinese Internet giants have already arranged in the live track. Although the enthusiasm and depth of the giants' participation in live streaming are different because of the difference in business nature and corporate genes, at least one thing is clear, they will not give up this big cake.
In the future, the competition and game of giants in the live broadcast ecosystem will become more and more exciting.
Which live streaming platform do you like in China?
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Business transformation consultants who spend too much time on LinkedIn, agency sales folk who need to pad a presentation, or Marketing Week writers who have to hit their word count – all are fond of bandying around a bit of Heraclitus: “Change is the only constant”. Hmm, yes, lots of nodding.
The most refreshing thing, though, that has happened this year is that all the usual talk of disruptive tech has been noticeably less feverish.
And with the publication of the latest Gartner Hype Cycle, it’s as if the accreted technological bullshit of the last couple of years has just gently sloughed off at some point in the past few months. It probably happened while we were all enjoying ourselves outside in the alarmingly warm weather – perhaps we’ve all realised talk of the future may be somewhat presumptive.
Over on the Econsultancy blog, Rebecca Sentance has already done a better job than I can of dissecting the Hype Cycle and its press coverage. But in summary, the most hyped technologies of 2017 have failed to make an impact this year. None have inched close enough to Gartner’s so-called ‘plateau of productivity’ to make the average marketer prick up their ears. Blockchain is not a quick fix to enable transparency in advertising, smart homes and smart workplaces are definitely not a thing yet, and VR headset sales are sluggish to put it mildly.
Among marketers, I’ve heard plenty of scepticism about all these technologies. Just search Google for “blockchain – solution looking for a problem” and you won’t be surprised there are pages of results. Take voice search and smart assistants, too – most marketers I know are frustrated by the parroting of spurious stats, or at least stats taken out of context. Apparently 50% of searches will be carried out using voice technology by 2020. That stat was a reasonable prediction by Andrew Ng about the Chinese market – where voice is a lot quicker than typing – and referred to image and voice search combined, but it has been shared thousands of times and unsurprisingly with none of its nuance intact.
If you’re a marketer with a big budget and you don’t focus on absolutely top-notch mobile experiences for your customers, what have you been doing with your (professional) life?
I could bash new tech all day long, or at least marketing’s obsession with it, but I want to focus on one tech that has hit maturity. Mobile. There’s a bit of irony (I think) in the fact that for a number of years marketers talked incessantly about “the year of mobile” and a bunch of other marketers mocked the former just as incessantly. But now we have all forgotten about that debate because mobile has fairly suddenly been taken for granted – it is, therefore, no longer strictly “technology”.
Look at what happened this year in mobile. Google rolled out its mobile-first index in March. The search engine now uses the mobile version of a page for indexing and ranking, to better help its – primarily mobile – users find what they’re looking for. “Historically,” a Google Webmaster blog post said, “the desktop version was indexed, but increasingly, we will be using the mobile versions of content”.
It’s over three years since Google said that mobile searches had overtaken desktop searches, and depending on what sources you read, mobile is now responsible for between 50% and 55% of all web traffic. It has been two years since mobile surpassed 50% of ecommerce traffic. You have to go back to 2013 for the first time the majority of Amazon’s shoppers used mobile. In February, eMarketer reported that more than 75% of worldwide video viewing is now mobile.
Do I have a point? Well, yes. If you’re a marketer with a big budget and you don’t focus on absolutely top-notch mobile experiences for your customers, what have you been doing with your (professional) life?
Forget blockchain, VR and voice, and make sure you are at least level with your competitors on mobile. If I had to back a horse when it comes to the next big thing in martech, of course I’d go for AI. But unless marketers focus properly on customer expectations of incumbent tech, the robots will just be a convenient excuse to get rid of those humans who have been unable to see the wood for the trees.
Ben Davis is the editor of Econsultancy.


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1640 book might fetch tens of millionsBreaking News
David N. Redden recited the opening of the 23rd Psalm the way he had memorized it as a child: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”
Then he opened a weathered little book and read the version it contained: “The Lord to mee a shepheard is, want therefore shall not I. Hee in the folds of tender-grasse, doth cause mee downe to lie.”
Those lines were in a volume published in Massachusetts in 1640 that amounted to the Puritans’ religious and cultural manifesto. It was the first book printed in the colonies, and the first book printed in English in the New World. The locksmith who ran the hand-operated press turned out roughly 1,700 copies. The one in Mr. Redden’s hands is one of only 11 known to exist.
Mr. Redden, who is the chairman of Sotheby’s books department and has auctioned copies of Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, among other historic and valuable documents, will sell that copy on Nov. 26. Sotheby’s expects it to go for $15 million to $30 million, which would make it the most expensive book ever sold at auction — more expensive than a copy of John James Audubon’s “The Birds of America” that sold in December 2010 for $11.54 million (equivalent to $12.39 million in 2013 dollars), the current record.
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Those found guilty are liable for fines and imprisonment. In addition, the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, section 2(1), empowers the court to disqualify an individual convicted of an offence in connection with the management of a company. This includes health and safety offences. This power is https://www.adidasyeezyboostaustralia.nu exercised at the discretion of the court; it requires no additional investigation or evidence.
THE LOWDOWN: Bringing the Korean trend of ‘anju’ (drinking food) to Shoreditch, Jubo specialises in Korean fried chicken the ultimate hot, sweet, crunchy bar snack. The restaurant officially launches at Bedroom https://www.adidasyeezyboostaustralia.nu Bar on Rivington Street in September but they’re currently soft open so you can sneak in to try them out. The stripped back, neon lit eating area is open Tuesday to Thursday, 6pm to midnight, and 7pm to 1am on Friday and Saturday, so it’s perfect for a late night chicken feast that you won’t regret the next day.
HTC One XL is similar to the One X we already reviewed, save for the chipset. The One XL uses a Adidas Yeezy All Models
Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 SoC with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas 1.5GHz dual core Krait CPU and Adreno 225 GPU. The NVIDIA’s quad core Tegra 3 does not offer native LTE support, which caused the chipset swap.
Nike started producing the Livestrong bracelets in May 2004 an instant symbol of cancer patient support, as Armstrong went for his sixth Tour de France win, and doping allegations began to heat up and went on to sell 80 million of them. The global athletic powerhouse soon expanded the Livestrong brand to yellow exercise gear and much, much more. But today that all came to a crashing halt as the two brands announced their separation. Nike Adidas Yeezy Shoes For Girls
will no longer sell any Livestrong stuff after the 2013 holiday season. Shortly thereafter, Armstrong resigned as the head of Livestrong to save the Foundation from any potential fallout from the doping scandal. But now it appears, after a confession, his damaged image has hurt the foundation even more than he could in person its product is damage goods.
Some nuclear nonproliferation advocates maintain that the issue of Iran, and how Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 Outfit
successful the US and other world powers are at stopping it from developing a nuclear weapon, will determine future steps at arms control. Indeed, one of the administration’s arguments in favor of New START was that it would further the good relations with Russia that have been crucial to Moscow’s cooperation in pressuring Tehran.
If your yard stick of $2 = 1 then the same system should cost 1079. But using the latest conversion rate, it equates to 1,111. So infact we are paying over 600 more for the same specification computer from a well known system builder. Or put it this way, you should be paying $3,377!


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The E3 Floodgates are opening and everyone is showing a bit of what they got before the big show. Sony Bend has officially announced a release date for Days Gone and it will be out February 22nd, 2019 exclusively on Playstation 4. Which should give us more then enough time
WB Games and I/O Interactive are bringing back Hitman once more, this time Hitman will be a full retail title. Hitman 2 is throwing away its episodic nature and returning as a full retail title. This means no episodes to buy and will launch at the price of $59.99 and
After the rumbling across the web about eShop information being leaked. Hi-Rez Studios has officially revealed their hero shooter Paladins will be making it’s way on the Nintendo Switch. Players will be able to get their hands on the Nintendo Switch version on June 12th by purchasing a founders pack.
Bandai Namco has officially confirmed the release date of Code Vein. Code Vein will be releasing on September 28th on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC. A new trailer has also been released for Code Vein check out the action packed trailer above.
Welcome to another edition of Dual Pixels Radio! As usual we go over games we’ve played, with newcomers being Detorit: Become Human and Dark Souls Remastered (yeah, it counts.) We then get shooter happy as we discuss ours thoughts on the reveals for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and
Bethesda has just announced their latest entry into the Fallout series Fallout 76. Fallout 76 focuses on vault 76 and will be shown at E3 next week. Rumor has it that this title may be a online game of some sort, no word yet on exactly what that implies. Check
The Blue Bomber return is official and now with a release date. Mega Man 11 is looking to bring classic Mega Man back into action. Capcom has officially announced today the release of Mega Man 11 which is launching on October 2nd on the PS4, Xbox, One, PC, and the
Sony has now shattered records in April’s NPD Sales. With God of War dominating the sales charts for April being the highest selling exclusive on any Sony console and PS4 selling the most software ever in April topping out the Xbox 360 record in April 2008. Far Cry 5 comes in
Our streak of podcasts is alive and well! Sadly, Boss Key’s fate has gone in the opposite direction. We discuss the closure of Boss Key Studios and where Cliffy B goes from here. We also touch on the Rage 2 announcement that hardly was, Monster Hunter coming to the Switch
Square Enix have opened up the flood gates and finally we are getting some Kingdom Hearts III footage! Check out Sora, Goofy, and Donald in this new footage spanning a bit over 15 mins. We will have some more info on Kingdom Hearts later in the day, so check out
Say it ain’t so! Lab Zero Games is delaying Indivisible until early 2019 this delay is caused by the scope of Indivisible being to big then its original inception in 2015. Here is a statement Lab Zero provided on the news: Indivisible has been delayed until the first half of
It’s official RAGE is getting a sequel after rumbling from various gaming communities about Walmart leaking the title in their inventory. Well Bethesda has decided to just let it out, RAGE 2 is being developed by both Bethesda and Avalache Studios (the creators of the recent Mad Max) which makes a perfect pair as


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According to the sector's estimates the value of furniture exports reached over PLN 36.6 billion in 2015. This means exports have grown by over 40 percent in the past ten years.
Poland with a 6.3-percent share in global furniture exports places fourth, behind China, Italy and Germany.
"Our most important trade partners come from Europe," head of the Polish Chamber of Commerce of Furniture Producers Jan Szynaka has told the daily. According to him, Polish makers have a good chance to win competition in the Arab countries, offering high-quality products at a reasonable price.
Data published in the "Polish Furniture Outlook 2016" shows Poland’s exports to Romania, Slovakia and the US going up by over 20 percent in 2015. (PAP)


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Amazon workers in Germany strike
03 June 2013, 18:14
Frankfurt - Workers at internet retailer Amazon.com's German operations are set to hold a third one-day strike on Monday in a dispute over pay and benefits.
Trade union Verdi has called on workers at Amazon's logistics centres in Leipzig and Bad Hersfeld not to work on Monday.
About 600 workers at Amazon's facilities in Bad Hersfeld and around 300 in Leipzig went on strike on 14 May and followed up with one-day stoppages on May 27 in Leipzig and 29 May in Bad Hersfeld.
Amazon employs around 9 000 people in Germany and has come under fire from the union for refusing to implement a collective agreement on employment conditions similar to deals at other mail order and retail firms.
The union is also pressing for higher basic pay and bigger supplements for night shifts.
The union in Leipzig is calling for starting pay of €10.66 (approximately KES 1 170) per hour, compared with €9.3 (approximately KES 1 000) at present.
In Bad Hersfeld, it wants pay to be increased to €12.18 (approximately KES 1 330) from €9.83 (approximately KES 1 070).
Join in the conversation on our Facebook page. Also get the latest news by following us on Twitter.


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Digital politics and the Chinese yuan
American experts in the field of financial technology analyzed the current situation with Chinese payment applications and made a forecast of the development of events in the competition between the United States and China in the field of global finance.
One of the most recent orders from Donald Trump as the United States president was the ban on a number of Chinese applications designed to make mobile payments. The ban, promulgated on January 5, was Trump’s reaction to the possibility that through these applications the Beijing authorities could gain access to the personal data of Americans.
Popular services as Alipay and WeChat Pay were banned. These apps are very popular in China and several other countries whose residents are already accustomed to buying food and clothing, paying utility bills, and spending money on entertainment through these payment services.
The tendency for China to seize more and more significant positions in financial technology globally is a big threat to the United States of America. Washington strongly dislikes that China’s influence is growing in global financial markets. The US authorities have serious concerns that the Chinese Communist Party will be able, not only to achieve a dominant position in world trade but also, to gain a foothold in it. This means that the US dollar will no longer be able to play the role of a global reserve currency everywhere.
Having started as something comic and entertaining for the convenience of giving gifts on traditional holidays, mobile payment apps in China are tools of a giant industry today. Experts estimate that more than $42 trillion of transactions are made through mobile payment systems annually. A comparison of Chinese payment systems with PayPal and Venmo in the US revealed that about 150 times less money passes through PayPal and Venmo per year.
A huge number of transfers through payment applications allow collecting data about the life and actions of people. This information can be used to control and track the movement of any persons of interest to the authorities. For example, in Hong Kong, the authorities are already using such data to identify protesters and disaffected.
Such prospects cause discontent not only in the United States but also in a number of other countries. For example, in 2018, an Indian parliamentarian spoke out expressing concern about current and future political risks. It is officially believed that these concerns prompted Trump to issue the ban.
Chinese fintech companies are actively expanding in countries where they have established a foothold. Providing popular services to the population, they gradually become a crucial part of the economy. A prime example is Singapore, where China has an obvious advantage.
In recent years, the digital yuan has been rapidly expanding its scope. In a number of Asian countries and not only, it noticeably pressed the dollar, creating the preconditions for the emergence of a new digital reserve currency. For example, Russia has significantly increased the share of the yuan in trade and reserves since 2016, while the share of the dollar has significantly decreased over the same period.
Experts believe that the United States must act immediately, otherwise, it will find itself in the position of catching up. The weakening of the dollar’s position in fintech and the decline in its role as a reserve currency will lead to the loss of leverage in many regions of the planet.


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Long Island baby formula drive
NEW YORK - In light of reported baby formula shortages, communities on Long Island are coming together and holding distributions.
"It’s horrifying," said Angels of Long Island Founder Debbie Loesch. "I have 5 grandkids myself."
A table is set up outside of Angels of Long Island in Patchogue where parents like Gina and Louis Cheeseman can pick up formulas that some parents are saying are hard to get ahold of.
"They’re angels," Gina said. "That’s truly what they are."
The Cheeseman’s 10-month-old son Matteo requires a specialty formula that Is covered by insurance.
"The pharmacy normally gets it but they can’t even get it at this point," Louis said.
And the situation is only getting worse.
The formula crisis stems from the recall of three formulas produced at Abbott Labs in Sturgis, Michigan.
Health experts say while it’s difficult for all parents - low-income families are having the toughest time.
"The WIC program," said Dr. Marc Lashley with Allied Physicians Group. "There are people who don’t qualify and have to go traveling and looking at different stores it’s very hard for them."
Dr. Marc Lashley says the majority of babies can switch to store brands. He cautions parents to stop short of watering down the formula or making their own as it can lead to poor nutritional balance.
"Don’t use cows milk or goats milk they’re not approved for those under 12 months of age," he said. "Infant formula contains very important things that infants need."
Since the shutdown of Abbott’s facility - other manufacturers including Bobbie have prioritized serving its current subscribers and ramped up production to max capacity.
"Within the first week of the recall Bobbie saw its customer counts double, weeks following we saw an increase and growth was not slowing down," said Bobbie CEO Laura Modi.
Places like Angels of Long Island are also accepting formula donations while the shortage lasts. As long as they have a supply they’ll be sharing as much as they can.
"It’s a half a month I don’t have to stress how I’m going to feed my baby," said one mom.
Any little bit helps.


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Virgin is planning to launch giant cinema, music, restaurant, and leisure complexes around the world.
As part of the plan it has consolidated its cinema and music retailing interests into one group, called the Virgin Entertainment Group.
Virgin has also secured a 150m credit facility which will be spread across its territories in the US, Europe, Japan, and the Far East to fund this expansion. It claims Virgin Entertainment is worth 350m.
Virgin founder Richard Branson says: “This will allow us to extend the scope of operation dramatically over the next couple of years.”
Simon Burke, Virgin Entertainment Group’s chief executive officer, was hired last November to merge the various operations.
He says: “To be purely a shopkeeper in the music or entertainment field is not enough. We want to offer people a quality night out under one roof.”
The first Virgin Entertainment centres will open in the US and Far East late next year but will not come to the UK until 1999.
Virgin will open six more cinemas in the UK, all with retail outlets inside.
However, retail consultant Clive Vaughan of Verdict Research, says: “These centres are hard to make work. The Trocadero in central London has struggled. What happens if you put one in Barnsley?”
Virgin Entertainment Group comprises Virgin Cinemas, Virgin Retail Europe, Virgin Stores and Virgin Entertainment Asia.
The Virgin European office in Uxbridge will close by the end of this year as part of the restructure, making about half of its 70 staff redundant. Its duties will be split between the group’s other offices in central London and Paris.


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After months of demonstrations by animal-rights protesters, the owners of a Berkeley, California, butcher shop agreed to a deal to end the protests — and it's hanging in the shop window. (Image source: YouTube screenshot)
© 2024 Blaze Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Animal-rights activists 1, butcher shop 0.
The activists sealed their victory after months of protests in front of a butcher shop in — where else? — Berkeley, California, by simply wearing down the shop owners.
Every Sunday since April they gathered outside The Local Butcher Shop and pulled out all the stops. Signs, loud chanting — and even nearly naked folk covered in fake blood and lying, meat-like, under plastic wrap for hungry customers to gaze upon, Berkeleyside reported.
Finally, the shop owners agreed "under duress," Berkeleyside said, with Direct Action Everywhere — a radical animal-rights outfit — to a deal if they promised to stop protesting.
The terms: There will be only two more protests at The Local Butcher Shop if the owners agree to hang a sign in the window for the next year. It reads: “Attention: Animals’ lives are their right. Killing them is violent and unjust, no matter how it’s done."
And that's exactly what the butcher shop did.
Monica Rocchino, who owns The Local Butcher Shop with her husband Aaron, told Berkeleyside the deal amounts to extortion.
“The most palatable option to us was to put that sign up,” she told the outlet. “The protests impacted the neighbors and local businesses more than it impacted us … so it felt like the most respectful thing to do.”
Rocchino told Berkeleyside that the demonstrations were anxiety-inducing and embarrassing for the butcher shop staff.
And it's not as if the shop is some hole-in-the-wall without a heart, as the outlet said it emphasizes locally sourced and sustainably raised meat, and champions the use and consumption of the whole animal.
“What we do here is very nuanced and the Berkeley community understands that,” Rocchino told the outlet.
But their humane practices are a big reason why protesters targeted The Local Butcher Shop, Direct Action organizer Matt Johnson told Berkeleyside.
“People have this notion that there is a right way to hurt animals," Johnson told the outlet. "We wouldn’t look for the right type of violence to kill a puppy."
More from Berkeleyside:
The couple first met with the activists in May to try to come up with a situation that would work for both parties. At first, said Rocchino, Direct Action Everywhere members said they would not stop protesting until Berkeley was meat-free and The Local Butcher Shop was out of business, but they all agreed to consider a compromise. The activists came back a couple weeks ago with other options, including putting the sign up in the window. The owners were able to negotiate the size and placement and the 15″ by 15″ sign now hangs in a corner, fairly easy to miss.
A professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Law School said the protesters were acting within the law.
“Is it extortion? Morally, of course, if you think this is pressure that shouldn’t be brought to bear,” Christopher Kutz told the outlet, adding that the deal struck is "not enforceable as criminal extortion," which also involves a demand of money or property.
(H/T: Truth Revolt)
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Panasonic Offers 4K (not OLED) As Plasma Replacement
According to Julie Bauer, president of the Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company, the new high end 4K HDTVs will fill the hole in image quality that many enthusiasts believe will be left by the disappearance of the firm’s plasmas.
“Let me repeat that—we will deliver plasma-level picture quality with LED technology. Our engineers have spent the last 12 months working on this,” said Bauer. The new AX800 series 4K models will be available in screen sizes ranging from 58-65 inches, with an 85-inch model to come later. Additional technical details were not offered, but should be available at the Panasonic booth once the show officially opens.
Along with image quality advances, Panasonic will introduce a new smart TV platform with this year’s models dubbed the “Life+Screen,” pronounced “life plus.” The new interface integrates voice-guided navigation; occupancy sensing that recognizes when a viewer is positioned in front of the TV to activate an info bar that might supply time or weather; easy sharing of video, photos, and other content from phones and tablets, and video messaging capabilties.
OLED, the impressive display technology that made its debut last year with models from Samsung and LG, was notably absent from Pansonic’s consumer presentation. Panasonic and Sony recently parted ways on their joint venture to develop OLED technology, leading to speculation about whether OLED would continue to build a presence across multiple manufacturers this year. Nonetheless, Panasonic’s CES booth features a 21-foot long curving multi-monitor video display that features a string of convex and concave OLED panels. “This will be a business solution—unless you are the manager of a hedge fund,” quipped Panasonic CEO Joe Taylor.
Other 4K or 4K-related solutions will be introduced for the business market as well, including new professional camcorders, pixel-quadrupling projectors for large venues, and a revised version of the 20-inch 4K tablet the company bowed in 2013 for the medical, architecural, and professional video markets. A new wearable 4K camera will be bowed for consumer action-sports enthusiasts.
Other Panasonic news came from the auto electronics division, which announced that Panasonic’s Aupeo streaming service is working with DTS to introduce a true surround-sound streaming service later this year.
From the appliance division came the critically vital announcement of a new handheld hair dryer that actually moisturizes your hair while it drys it, a feat that seems to defy nature itself. Panasonic will be demonstrating it on the show floor for walk-by attendees who need a little extra pampering. “I think this is the first time anyone has offered salon services on the floor at CES. So, for all you guys out there wanting a blow-out, stop by the booth,” Bauer said.


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How low-and-no brands could reshape the alcohol sector
Despite fears drinkers would hit the hard stuff at the start of lockdown, many switched to low- and no-alcohol serves for health and wellness purposes. The Spirits Business looks at how this burgeoning sector has welcomed them.
Health has become big business. According to latest estimates, the value of the global wellness industry sits at an almost unfathomable US$4.5 trillion. The nascent low‐ and no‐alcohol category may be small, but it makes up a growing portion of this booming economy. IWSR Drinks Market Analysis forecasts that between 2020 and 2024, low/no ‘spirits’ will experience a faster ascent than beer or wine, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.6% in the category’s top 10 markets.
Rampant diversification flows through the low/no ‘spirits’ space as swathes of new craft brands enter the fray and established players launch their own healthful iterations. While there has been an explosion of new products in the space of just a couple of years, the low/no category has strong foundations, says Marine Rozenfeld, innovation development lead for Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand at Bacardi.
“The trend for mindful drinking and the rise of low/no drinks isn’t something that’s happened overnight,” she says. “Being aware of why, how much and what alcohol we drink is a cultural movement that has been growing over the past decade.” Using insight from IWSR, Bacardi predicts the retail value of low/no ‘spirits’ will reach US$500 million in Western Europe by 2024 – a 400% increase from 2020 to 2024.
For Nikulás Hannigan, global brand educator at alcohol‐free ‘spirit’ brand Fluère, the craft cocktail scene has indirectly aided the low/no sector by spurring consumer interest in the ingredients inside their glass. “When the craft cocktail came along we started asking ourselves, why are we limiting flavours in the glass? Why can’t we put whatever we like in a cocktail? I think this naturally led to more appreciation of what’s in the glass. Then at some point someone asked, ‘why does it have to be alcoholic?’”
Despite the rapid expansion of the low/no category, consumers remain under‐served, believes Eric Sampers, co‐founder and managing director at Illogical Drinks, which launched 6% ABV botanical blend Mary towards the end of 2020. “From a business perspective, there is a huge gap between the offer and the demand of consumers,” he says. “The more we provide them with options, the more confident they will be in making their own choices.” As such, Sampers claims the category is very far from being crowded, and that “low/no is just scratching the surface of what the adult beverage space is going to become”.
Despite the mass devastation lockdown measures have done to the hospitality sector, demand for low/no products has continued to increase. This is largely due to the acceleration of the underlying health and wellness macro‐trend.
“We’ve all been considering our health and wellness a little more in lockdown, whether it’s through our diet, or getting out into nature for exercise wherever possible,” says Paul Mathew, founder of Everleaf Drinks, which produces alcohol‐free apéritifs.
“Health has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds with a global pandemic ongoing, and being more aware of our alcohol intake is part of that. We’ve also wanted to treat ourselves though, to take those moments at the end of a day when you mix a drink and relax. Low/no allows you to do both – be mindful, but still savour a complex, satisfying drink.”
Furthermore, says IWSR senior insights manager, Sophia Shaw‐Brown, low/no naturally suits home drinking, which has become the main – and in some cases, the only – consumption occasion during lockdown. “The low/no alcohol category has been particularly resilient during the pandemic because at‐home consumption has increased so sharply,” she says. “IWSR research has shown that ‘relaxing at home’ represents the category’s key drinking occasion and, of course, time at home has been in abundant supply during quarantine.”
Since many low/no brands are relatively small scale, they have also been able to easily pivot to e‐commerce and digital marketing – which was the main route to market for many of them in the first place. Sampers estimates that the majority of low/no consumers buy online due to a lack of options in shops and bars.
“Our strategy was always to have an online presence and that’s due to the fact that consumer aspirations are bigger than the will of the trade to deliver on that particular category,” he explains. “I would not be surprised if low/no consumers were looking for products more online than in real life; that’s my assumption.”
Brands have ramped up their direct communication with consumers during the pandemic, launching a number of new products and campaigns. Bacardi, for instance, sought to drive interest in low/no this Dry January by rolling out its new ‘Less is More’ mindful‐drinking campaign in Western Europe. The firm has also created the ‘Mindful Drinking Gift Stores’ via Amazon in the UK, Spain, France and Germany.
Most low/no brands have increased their marketing during Dry January, including non‐alcoholic distilled beverage MeMento, which is working with its US and Canadian importers on an extended communication campaign. “Regardless of the situation, what didn’t diminish was the consumers’ interest in the low/no drinking alternative to alcohol: people are now even more health‐conscious, and the sober‐curious movement increases every day,” says founder and CEO Eugenio Muraro.
Consumer awareness and understanding of low/no is certainly building, particularly as large players increase their involvement in the category. Diageo acquired first mover Seedlip in 2019, while Pernod Ricard became the majority shareholder of category number two, Ceder’s, only last month.
According to Laura Stephen, brand director for Ceder’s at Pernod Ricard UK, as Ceder’s is integrated into the Pernod Ricard network, it will benefit from the group’s “infrastructure and the ability to access more markets around the globe”, as well as its “cross‐ functional expertise, insights, planning, processes, digital capabilities and commercial networks”.
The low/no category has been further enhanced by established names launching lower‐ABV line extensions – such as Pernod Ricard’s 20% Beefeater Light and Ballantine’s Light, which are being trialled in Spain.
Martini, meanwhile, entered the 0% ABV space with the launch of the Vibrante and Floreal aperitivo expressions last March. The segment has also been bolstered by a number of categories and brands that have always been low‐alcohol – such as vermouths, liqueurs and apéritifs – but are now actively aligning with the low/no movement.
Further innovation will play a key role in category development, stakeholders believe. “There’s now an exciting chain reaction taking place – as people seek out more low/no options, amazing innovations are being launched to meet that demand, and that generates even more buzz,” enthuses Rozenfeld. “So the momentum is massive right now. Low/no spirits are the frontier of alcohol innovation – we’re only at the tip of the innovation iceberg for what’s to come.”
New product development is particularly important in markets such as the UK, which is a “heavily innovation‐driven market”, says Stephen, citing the success of categories such as flavoured gin and flavoured rum. “People here are curious, they embrace new things, so it’s natural that in low/no we will also see that,” she adds. To cater to this demand for flavour innovation, Ceder’s launched its Pink Rose expression last summer.
Other brands, such as MeMento, are creating new formats to extend low/no’s consumption occasions. In November, the Italian brand partnered with Nio Cocktails to create a series of MeMento‐based zero‐ABV serves. Packaged in 100ml pouches, the RTD cocktails are available in the UK and Italy. Muraro hopes initiatives such as this will help low/no more closely align with mixology and “show people that great tasting cocktails don’t necessarily have alcohol inside”.
Looking to the future, some brands believe low/no needs to further establish itself as a standalone category, and shrug off its image as a group of alcohol‐free versions of other spirits. “I personally am not a massive fan of ‘direct‐replacement thinking’ when it comes to non‐alcoholic ‘spirits’,” says Fluère’s Hannigan. “First of all it pigeonholes the category, and second, a product is always going to lose a comparison with a product that it is not.” However, Hannigan notes that it is “useful to benchmark” low/no products with full‐strength spirits that have a similar taste profile and mixing uses.
Likewise, Martijn Keesmaat, marketing director at Hooghoudt Distillers, which produces the Zero Zero 24 alcohol‐free ‘spirit’, believes that as long as the sector remains “niche”, consumers will expect low/no products to “deliver the exact same taste experience as an alcoholic spirit”.
However, he says: “This is not, and will never be, the case, simply because alcohol plays a key role in offering a certain taste profile. Does this make a non‐alcoholic ‘spirit’ worse? Actually, the opposite can be true when using the right people and techniques.”
For Sampers, while a level of mimicry is inevitable in the low/no category’s early stages, segmentation will accelerate as consumers become more comfortable trying completely new products. “The most important thing is that consumers step into this new low/no category, and once they feel comfortable, you can take them on a journey to explore new flavours and entirely new categories.”
He adds that in future there will be “products that are harder to define by traditional standards” and, as such, more category management will be needed in the low/no space at a grocery and on‐trade level.
After all, Sampers adds, the emergence of low/no is nothing less than a “revolution” that is “probably going to entirely reshape the beverage industry in the years to come”.


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Asda and food redistribution charities FareShare and The Trussell Trust will be working together on a new partnership designed to help one million people out of food poverty over the next three years.
The programme, which is funded by Asda, will enable the following developments into FareShare’s regional network:
Asda’s investment will allow the two charities to develop their infrastructure and offer better services to those in need. Currently, both charities struggle to transport and store fresh food, which needs to be chilled, and means those using food banks are reliant on mainly tinned and packet foods. The investment will also fund support services in food banks, such as debt counselling and job advice, allowing people to begin to get themselves out of food poverty, and by 2021, we’ll support over 6,500 sites across the UK.
Asda has also committed to making sure all of its shops are able to donate surplus food to food banks by 2020.
The partnership will enable FareShare and The Trussell Trust to provide an additional 24 million meals every year, to give 500,000 more people access to fresh food in the UK and to help one million people get themselves out of food poverty over the next three years.
Andy Murray, Asda’s Chief Customer Officer, said: “Right now, in the UK 8.4 million people are struggling to afford to eat. One in 10 people in the UK are missing meals to pay their bills - and one in four of those are children. And yet, four million tonnes of perfectly decent food is wasted each year in the UK. We simply cannot – and will not – accept food being wasted whilst people in our communities go hungry. We’ve listened to our customers and want to take on their challenge to fight hunger and create change.”
If you can support, we need additional supplies of the below where there is surplus stock from your supply chain:
This can include overproduction, customer demand changes, seasonal delists, factory trials, labelling and packaging errors and product rejected due to specification variances providing this is still safe for consumption.
Unfortunately, we cannot take product with less than 48 hrs life to “Use By” expiry date but we can review product life extension beyond “Best Before End” date where safe to do so.
If you are a business with surplus food please contact 020 7064 8911 or firstname.lastname@example.org


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John Mackey’s New Business Enters Telehealth
The Whole Foods co-founder has been busy after departing the grocery chain last year. Holistic health. While details remain sparse, Mackey has already raised $31M for a new business venture described as an “evidence-based lifestyle company.” Incorporated as Health America LLC but operating under the Love.Life banner, early reports teased physical locations that combined food, healthcare, and wellness services.
Read More from the Global Wellness News ™


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Bearing the brunt of a slew of events, television sales growth has been flat this fiscal.
Frequent technology upgrades, changes in content consumption patterns, with a greater focus on flexibility and personalisation, changes in customers’ need hierarchy for appliances, as well as policy issues have affected demand, according to experts.
“The television segment lagged (this year) owing to policy issues, frequent technology changes, competition from new players and the fight for eyeballs with mobile screens,” Kamal Nandi, President – Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA), and Business Head and EVP, Godrej Appliances, told BusinessLine.
TVs account for 40 percent of the consumer durables market, he added. According to Manish Sharma, President and CEO, Panasonic India, while the number of units sold may have grown, in terms of value, the fiscal will end with flat growth or even some contraction.
After witnessing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 20 percent between 2012 and 2016, the TV category has since seen subdued growth, he added.
The GST rates — 28 percent on TVs above 32 inches and 18 percent on those below 32 inches — have been among the sales dampeners, said Nandi. A GST rate cut will help, he added.
Hetal Gandhi, Director, CRISIL Research, attributed the flat growth in the year-to-date (April to October) to the economic slowdown. “In this scenario, we have seen consumers defer TV purchases, as they are discretionary in nature,” she said. However, new entrants Xiaomi and Thomson TV, which started selling TVs in 2018, have posted significant growth. Raghu Reddy, Head-Categories and Online Sales, Xiaomi India, citing IDC’s smart home tracker, said its TVs have recorded 46 percent growth quarter-on-quarter and 69 percent growth year-on-year.
Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO of Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd, the official brand licensee for Thomson TVs in India, said the brand has grown 100 percent in volume terms and 75 percent in revenue terms.
TV sales started tapering in 2016, and what is happening currently is a rub-off of the changes that have emerged over the last couple of years, said Panasonic’s Sharma.
For one, TVs have slipped down the customer’s need hierarchy for appliances. Around eight years ago, refrigerators used to top the hierarchy, followed by TVs, ACs and washing machines. Today, smartphones occupy the top position, followed by refrigerators, ACs and TVs, he added.
Content consumption is increasingly taking place on smartphones or other personal devices, observed Sharma. Mobile phones have become the substitute for TV thanks to the availability of low-cost data, reasonable subscription rates of over-the-top (OTT) platforms and the rising affordability of smartphones,” CEAMA’s Nandi agreed. The rapid growth of OTT platforms such as Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon Prime has resulted in changing consumer behaviours — especially among buyers of entry-level TVs, who now prefer smartphones to small-size televisions, Nandi added.
The increased availability of consumer finance options, which constitute 60-65 percent of sales now, against 30-35 percent five or six years ago, is another factor, said Sharma. These allow consumers to make purchases as and when they need it, and not necessarily when discounts and offers are available, he explained. This also explains the dampened sales during the Cricket World Cup in July and during Diwali, he added.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of innovation happening in TVs, which could soon become more than just entertainment providers, said Sharma. While today’s smartphones facilitate multi-tasking better, the user interface of TVs is catching up.
TVs could potentially take on the role of a smart hub in homes, with multiple devices being connected to them. Smart TVs already constitute around 70 percent of the overall TV industry, and this is set to increase going forward, said Sharma.
The increasing prevalence of 4K content on TV, coupled with falling prices of large-screen TVs, could help the category bounce back, he further said.
From calendar year 2020, TVs could register 20 percent growth over the previous year, Sharma added.
The duty reduction on open cell LED panels used in televisions, from 5 percent to 0 percent, was also a positive for sales, said Nandi. “This has given a push to consumer sentiment; however, the price cut will probably reflect when fresh inventories hit the market,” he said. The Hindu Business Line


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OZ Tablet Sales Slow Along With 2 in 1 Notebooks
As Samsung and Huawei get set to enter the mini tablet market with a smartphone attached new Australian reseach from Telsyte shows that tablet sales fell in the past six months due to a continued decline in the overall Android market.
Also contributing to the downturn is a slow down in growth of the maturing 2-in-1 segment which is not good news for Samsung who today launched a new Galaxy Book 2 in 1 notebook tablet that comes with a 12-inch Super AMOLED display and twin speakers tuned by AKG and built-in Dolby Atmos.
Telsyte estimates around 1.6 million tablets were sold in the second half of 2018, down 2.1 per cent from the same period a year earlier.
Apple remained the leader in tablet sales share (iOS: 49.6%, Windows: 29.9%, Android: 19.3%, and Chrome: 1.2%) with the new iPad 9.7 inch (2018) once again the most popular model due to its price point, which appealed to upgraders.Both Apple (up 5.1%) and Windows-based (up 2.1%) devices experience growth during the half, but the big mover was Android-based devices, with sales down 21 per cent.
The top three vendors were Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft, with combined shares accounting for more than 75 per cent of total sales during the half.
Apple remained the leader in repeat purchase intention in the tablet category, followed by Samsung (more than 80% and 50% respectively).
Telsyte research found the 2-in-1 device category has passed its early growth phase with around 3.5 million Australians now using one, of which more than 70 per cent are Windows-based.*
Tablet sales are expected to continue to face challenges due to longer overall replacement cycles as consumers hold onto their chosen device longer. The average replacement cycle of tablets has increased to around 3.1 years (up 0.6 years from 2017), a faster rate compared to smartphones, according to Telsyte research.
Telsyte estimates around 15.7 million Australians had access to a tablet at the end of 2018 making it a highly mature segment.
While Australians are replacing their tablets less frequently, tablet users are still spending around two hours per day on their slate devices, which is similar to previous years.
With technologies such as 5G, eSIMs and larger shared mobile data plans, there is still huge potential for more connected tablets and 2-in-1s to be realised.
Telsyte estimates around two million tablets were connected to mobile networks at the end of 2018.
“The arrival of 5G will likely spur further interest for connected tablets, potentially amongst gamers due to lower latency,” Telsyte Senior Analyst, Alvin Lee, says.
Gaming one of the key cornerstones driving tablet usage
Interactive gaming is a critical application for tablets according to Telsyte research, and interactive gaming on tablets will continue to fuel tablet replacements and upgrades, as well as more spending on the Android and Apple app stores in 2019.
Telsyte research has consistently shown more than half of app revenue comes from games.
Furthermore, the mobile market is ripe for a gaming subscription service (i.e. “the Netflix for games”) due to strong growth in free-to-play (with in-game purchases) and casual players.
Some two million Australians spent money on tablet games in 2018, of which around half made in-game purchases for free-to-play games such as Fortnite, Pokémon Go and Clash of Clans.
In addition to interactive gaming, education is expected to be another key segment driving tablet usage in Australia.
Telsyte research found more than 60 per cent of children (under 18) had access to a tablet at the end of 2018. Among children with access to a tablet, the majority (81%) are using it at least a few times a week, averaging two hours a day.
“More cost effective 2-in-1 devices designed for the education market are likely to be popular in coming years,” Lee says.
Converging tablet and smart speakers a new opportunity
Telsyte research indicates the fast-growing smart speaker market presents opportunities for tablet vendors tapping into the growing [email protected] (smart home) market.
Telsyte estimate that 16 per cent (1.6 million) of households were using at least one smart speaker at the end of 2018. Among these households a growing share (currently below 5%) are using smart speakers with displays (also known as smart displays), such as Google Home Hub, Amazon Echo Spot and Lenovo Smart Display.
While Australians are increasingly comfortable with voice commands, additional touch interfaces will help with navigation for more advanced smart home applications and for visual information display.
Australians have been using their tablets as rudimentary ‘smart displays’, such as for reading recipes and playing videos in the kitchen.
Telsyte estimates up to 40 per cent of smart speakers sold could have a display within the next two years as the categories converge.


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UNF Plans to Host Logistics Career Workshop
With our area's high unemployment rate, jobs in the growing logistics field are in serious demand. That's why the Division of Continuing Education at the University of North Florida will be hosting a "Careers in Logistics Workshop" from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, June 24, at the University Center on campus.
The free one-day program is funded by WorkSource and is designed
to help those who want to find work in the field of logistics.
Participants will be introduced to various jobs and educational requirements for careers in logistics including: distribution; engineering; international logistics; inventory-materials management; IT; supply chain; third-party logistics; transportation; and warehousing.
Representatives from various logistics companies, including
ICS Logistics, JAXPORT, Penser, Blue Streak, CEVA and CSX will be giving presentations during the workshop.
Due to limited seating, pre-registration is required for the event.
For more information or to register, go to www.ce.unf.edu or call their hotline at (904) 620-4200.


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Sony remodels PlayStation Home
Sony is remodeling PlayStation Home to put games at center stage in a virtual world that merges console-quality play with styles of social gaming that are hits at venues such as Facebook.
Sony Computer Entertainment America on Tuesday announced that it is remodeling Home, which is used by more than 23 million people worldwide, as part of an evolution from a social network into a social gaming platform.
"We discovered that if you put a lot of gamers in a room together and tell them to get to know each other, they don't necessarily do that," PlayStation Home director Jack Buser told AFP.
"We find if you put them together and give them a game, they play and get to know each other," he added while discussing the inspiration for the redesign to be unveiled in coming months.
Home launched in late 2008 as an online world in which PlayStation 3 videogame console users represented by animated figures referred to as "avatars" could socialize and play.
"PlayStation Home's new core experience is a giant leap in the evolution of the platform and its new model quickly deploys our users to many compelling free-to-play games that fit their interests," Buser said.
The Home redesign includes the creation of a "hub" that integrates games, quests, community events, user-generated content, shopping and more.
PlayStation users with be able to "transport" their animated characters to game districts with themes such as action, sports, and adventure.
"Under the hood of all this we will be deploying a quest system that will turn Home itself into a game," Buser said.
Home is at the heart of Sony's PlayStation Network that lets owners of PS3 consoles access games, films, and other entertainment.
Home has more than 230 titles available and has been incorporating successful social game models such as free play supported by advertising or sales of premium content.
(c) 2011 AFP


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Wisconsin’s 71st Alice in Dairyland, Kaitlyn Riley, visited Marshfield this week to talk about the cranberry and how to use the Wisconsin product in the kitchen.
“Cranberries are a great way for us to enjoy something sweet while getting a healthy impact not only to ourselves but to our state,” she said.
Wisconsin is first in the nation for cranberries, providing 64% of the nation’s supply last year. While there are only 250 cranberry growers in the state, collectively they harvested 5.4 million, 100-pound barrels in 2017.
Besides the typical juices and sauces, cranberries can be found in about 1,000 different products on the market, from seasonings to bath products.
“It really is amazing how versatile this fruit is,” noted Riley.
Now more than halfway through her time as Alice, she reflected on the most memorable parts of the experience.
“One thing that’s really impacted me is not only to talk about the industries that are number on but seeing those industries…We’re not just number one for cheese, but we’re also number one for cranberries, ginseng, and mink pelts.”
At the Ginseng Festival in Wausau last fall, she was able to dig her own ginseng root and learn more about the high risk that goes into raising the product, which is harvested 3-5 years after planting.
Riley was inspired by the people she met at World Dairy Expo in Madison who didn’t come from agricultural backgrounds, but held an interest in agriculture. As Alice, Riley educates youth on the diverse opportunities in agriculture at a time when 1 in 9 jobs in Wisconsin are related to the industry.
“The biggest advice I give to them is to do what they’re passionate about,” she said.
About 23,000 miles into traveling the state, Riley travels in a signature corn-wrapped car dubbed “Maisie” that runs on E85. The ethanol is made from corn different from the type that ends up in cans on the grocery store shelf.
“I think it’s a great way to showcase a pride for Wisconsin agriculture and help our corn growers who have a large influx of their product on the market and in storage,” she said. “We want to help them so they receive a fair price for their hard work.”
Already the process has begun for the next Alice in Dairyland with interviews starting this month. Six applicants will be selected as the top candidates for the position and receive training, before attending final rounds in May for industry tours while being shadowed by a panel of industry members. The candidates will also give presentations and develop marketing campaigns.
Riley will meet with the women to discuss her time as Alice, which concludes in June. But until then, she’ll stay busy promoting agriculture, speaking with those in industry about their plans for next year, and interacting with youth of all ages.
Visit www.aliceindairyland.com/ for more information on Alice.
We love covering our community. Reach out to OnFocus by emailing [email protected]
½ cup yogurt (any flavor)
½ cup milk
½ cup frozen Wisconsin cranberries
1 tbsp. Wisconsin Honey
Combine ingredients in blender and pulse until smooth.
No-Bake Cranberry Breakfast Bites
¾ cup peanut butter
3 tbsp. Wisconsin honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup old fashioned oats
¼ cup dried Wisconsin cranberries
In a bowl, combine peanut butter, honey, and vanilla. Mix in oats and dried cranberries, then shape into bite-sized balls. Flatten slightly into cookie shapes on wax paper, then refrigerate overnight. Customize recipe by adding ingredients like flaxseed or white chocolate chips.


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The Supply Chain Matters extends a salute to the employees of the Braskem petrochemical plant in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, who were profiled in a published report by The Washington Post for working 28 straight days around the clock, during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, to produce critically important polypropylene raw material used in the manufacture of medical PPE products including N95 grade masks
Consumer product industry and business media has been absorbing the news that Tyson Foods has agreed to acquire Keystone Foods, a key supplier to global restaurant chain McDonald’s Corporation. This development and indeed the unfolding strategy has both strategic and supply chain leadership storylines and implications.
Supply Chain Matters extends our Tip-of-the Hat recognition to all those that contribute to supply chain management. Have a Happy Supply Chain Professionals Appreciation Day and Month.
CSCMP (The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals) is launching for the first time ever, Supply Chain Professionals Appreciation Day on May 21, which calls for a month-long celebration.
An area that the Supply Chain Matters blog has focused […]
In a number of ongoing editorial commentaries Supply Chain Matters […]
Last week, this supply chain industry analyst attended the Institute […]
We at Supply Chain Matters are always on the lookout […]
SCM World announced winners of its second annual Power of […]
In a number of prior commentaries Supply Chain Matters has […]
The H.H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management at Syracuse […]
A little over a week ago, Supply Chain Matters extended […]


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Meath-based company Hexafly, won the gold award in the Agritech Startup category at the National Startup Awards sponsored by Bank of Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.
Hexafly develops new material for the aqua feed, chitin and plant nutrition industries through the sustainable farming of insects.
Other successful companies in the Agritech category included ApisProtect who scooped silver – they create in-hive sensors to unobtrusively monitor honey bee colonies.
Equine MediRecord, who have created the first centralised database system that is accessible to private yards, vets and regulators globally in any agricultural sector, won the bronze award.
The competition recognises innovative, successful and aspirational Irish start-up companies who have launched their businesses in the last five years. This year, awards were presented to deserving winners across 13 categories including tech, retail, product and tourism with gold, silver and bronze winners being awarded in each category.
Commenting on the Awards, Stephen Dillon, founder of Startups.ie, said: “Once again we were amazed and inspired by the quality and passion of the start-ups involved in this year’s awards. With the National Startup Awards we are proud to recognise and reward the very best of Irish start-up businesses. A vibrant start-up eco system is essential to every economy and judging by the quality of this year’s competition the future for Irish start-ups is very bright indeed. We hope that all of the participants enjoyed the experience and we look forward to watching their progress over the coming years. Well done to all our finalists and congratulations to this year’s winners. ”


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The news that Nintendo would be adding NES games to the Switch as part of its paid online service had a mixed reception, but the company has completely made up for this controversial decision by releasing wireless NES controllers with which to play those games. At $60 they’re a bit steep, but come on. You […]
Japanese gamers and manga aficionados and every combination thereof will get a treat this summer with the release of this NES Classic Edition loaded with games from the pages of Weekly Jump. The manga mag is celebrating its 50th anniversary and this solid gold Famicom is part of the festivities.


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Exciting developments are afoot in the heart of Monaco, host destination to inVOYAGE 2019, with news that Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer (SBM) is to launch a new business tourism hub right on Casino Square.
At the centre of the hub will be the new One Monte-Carlo conference centre, set to open in spring. Together with Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, the conference centre will virtually double the space dedicated to business tourism around Casino Square. All three venues will be showcased at this year’s inVOYAGE on 6-9 October.
Offering a total of 1,445sqm, the conference centre will include an Art Deco-style plenary room accommodating up to 300 people. There will also be a large foyer, three modular meeting rooms, a large multi-purpose room and an auditorium for up to 80 people.
One Monte-Carlo’s new meeting spaces will complement the event facilities available at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, which include stunning listed rooms such as the Salle Empire at Hôtel de Paris and Salle Belle Époque at Hôtel Hermitage. In addition, the Boulingrins Gardens, re-landscaped right around Casino Square, will be available for receptions and events.
Monte-Carlo SBM’s new business tourism hub will offer planners an entire destination at hand, combining accommodation, conference and banqueting rooms, bars and restaurants, sport and cultural activities.