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BEAVER FALLS - A longtime Beaver Falls business is about to close.
Kay Bonacci, 78, owner of family-owned Bonacci Dry Cleaning, said Tuesday that the doors to locations at 614 12th St. and 3414 Fourth Ave. in the city probably will close in two weeks. She said the business has been in town for 100 years.
Unless assistance can be found soon, Bonacci said she no longer can afford the costs of running the business, especially for electric. She said she recently received a $4,000 bill for just two months of electricity.
After speaking with Duquesne Light Co. and local and state officials about finding financial assistance and getting no help, Bonacci said she has no choice but to close.
The situation frustrates Bonacci, who said she wants to continue to serve her regular customers, and she said she is saddened that another longtime business will be leaving Beaver Falls.
"If you can't keep the existing businesses in town, how are you going to get anyone else to come?" Bonacci said.
Beaver Falls Manager Steve Johnson said he hates to see the dry cleaner go, but he said it is hard for small businesses, especially those with high overhead costs, to stay in business now.
Patrick O'Shea can be reached online at email@example.com.


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Panasonic, Haier, Godrej Will Increase Price Of TV, Appliances; 7-8% Increase Expected Next Month
Brands are no longer able to absorb the rising input costs, and weakening of Rupee.
If you were planning to buy that TV or smart gadget next month to celebrate New Year, then you better hurry. Leading TV and home appliances brands have decided to increase prices of their products in India.
And this price hike will start next month.
But what is the reason? Keep reading to find out more!
Panasonic, Godrej, Haier Will Increase Price
As per incoming reports, three major consumer electronics brands in India: Panasonic, Haier and Godrej have confirmed that they will increase price of TVs, refrigerators, and other home appliances by 7-9%.
Panasonic India President and CEO Manish Sharma said, “Over the last few months, the rupee has continually risen which in turn is impacting our inputs costs. While we try to absorb maximum costs for our consumers, but given the market situation, we will be forced to hike the prices by 5-7% from next month,”
Haier India President Eric Braganza too confirmed the price rise of their products, as he said that, “cushioning of prices was no longer an option with tight margins coming into play.”
Godrej, one of the oldest and most prominent consumer electronics brand have also confirmed price hike.
Kamal Nandi, Godrej Appliances Business Head and Executive Vice President said that in some locations, they will start the price hike starting November only.
What Is The Reason For Price Hike, Suddenly?
Based on our investigation, we found mainly two reasons:
- The weakening of Rupee against Dollar (Pan-India effect)
- Kerala floods (Southern India effect)
As per Panasonic India President and CEO Manish Sharma, the rising dollars and weak rupee have significantly increased their input costs, and they are no longer able to sustain the shock.
As per Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association or CEMA, the price hike was planned to happen in the month of September, but as festive season kicked in, brands chose not to increase price.
The same was reciprocated by Haier India President Eric Braganza, who said, “We have ensured that the price rise comes into effect post the festive season since India tends to purchase consumer durables extensively during this time.”
Interestingly, Sony India has refused to increase the price of their products in India, especially TVs. A spokesperson from Sony confirmed this.
Which Sectors May Witness Price Hike?
Every category of consumer appliance and electronic gadget, expect washing machines and smartphones have witnessed flat growth since last few quarters.
In terms of TVs and ACs, the growth was negative, whereas refrigerators experienced flat growth.
In smartphone brands, Xiaomi had announced a 15% price hike in their existing line-up of products, which was soon followed by Realme as well.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.

domain: news


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Flappy Bird has found new life in LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, as demonstrated by a video posted by YouTube user simsim001.
The recreation uses the handheld's touch capabilities and LittleBigPlanet PS Vita's creative freedom to imitate the endless flier, formerly available on smartphones via the iTunes App Store and Google Play. By flipping the Vita vertically, players can tap the screen to control the game's titular bird while trying to dodge pipes. Watch the video above to see it in action.
Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen pulled the game from the iTunes App Store and Google Play earlier this month, citing that it wasn't "anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore." In the days that followed, Nguyen said he pulled the game after it became "an addictive product."


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Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
When photos of Rick Owens spring/summer 2014 collection hit the internet yesterday, many commenters were puzzled. The show featured a diverse—both racially and in terms of body shape and size—cast of scowling, angry looking women.
As style.com reports, the women were steppers that Owens had cast from four US sororities: the Washington Divas, the Soul Steppers, Momentum and the Zetas. The scowls were "grit face," an expression "intended to intimidate the competition." Of the performance, Owens told press, "We're rejecting conventional beauty, creating our own beauty." And it was beautiful, as well as formidable and quite intense. Blogger Susie Bubble described the show as, "one of the most provocative and pertinent statements I've seen" while fashion critic Robin Givhan seemed suitably impressed, writing, "It was impressive to see a sea of mostly African-American women at a time when the lack of diversity in fashion is in the news. But more important than the color of their skin, the women stood out for their individuality."
To really appreciate the show's energy, however, you have to watch it—photos do not do the steppers justice. The entire thing, captured on video by Vogue, is after the jump.


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To celebrate the diversity of their consumers, GOG.com has launched a trans time-zone deal. The Fall Insomnia Promo will see games on sale until they reach a certain number of sales.
Gamers from all over the world will be able to enjoy deep discounts of up to 80% on games such as Hotline Miami, Fez, Rayman Origins, System Shock 2, Baldur’s Gate and much more. And to top it all off, GOG.com will also be throwing in some free games as well!
Games will be on sale only one at a time with limited number of copies. A counter on the promo page will mark the availability of a game and once it runs out, another game will be put on sale. Starting on Wednesday, 13th November at 2pm GMT, this promo will run until GOG has run out of games!
Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to grab yourself some excellent games, check out GOG.com now!


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Apple has confirmed the launch date of its new line-up of iPhones, Apple watches on September 10. The Cupertino based technology major has already sent invitations to the media for the event at the Steve Jobs Theatre in California. Despite the event …Read more
WWDC 2018 Keynote — Apple
Apple — WWDC 2017 Keynote
Apple Special Event. October 22, 2013.
Marvel's Spider-Man Countdown to Launch Livestream


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France is urging its farmers to produce more cut-price meat in a major U-turn on factory farming, with inflation hammering demand for organic pork, beef and chicken.
Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau told a big agro-industry gathering Tuesday that "we have to admit that we must work on the entry level" end of the market.
"Animal welfare issues only work if we find someone to pay" for high quality meat, he insisted.
The comments seem to signal a major shift in government thinking after President Emmanuel Macron shook France's powerful intensive farming lobby, soon after coming to power in 2017, by saying it was time to "stop production, whether of poultry or pork, which no longer corresponds to our tastes or needs".
The huge industry has been under intense pressure over animal welfare and the environmental damage it causes, particularly in the western agricultural powerhouse of Brittany, where Fesneau made his speech.
Green algae from nitrates in fertilisers and waste from the region's intensive pig, poultry and dairy farming have been linked to a number of deaths on its tourist beaches.
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But Macron's wish to steer Europe's biggest beef producer upmarket appears to have foundered, with 11-percent food inflation pushing shoppers to snub organic for cheaper meat.
Can't afford quality
Only "30 percent of French people now have the means to pay more for quality", compared to half the population six years ago, said Pascale Hebel, a consumption analyst for data consultants C-Ways.
With Macron's office now stressing the need for "food sovereignty" and reducing imports, the country's biggest intensive farming groups feel the wind is turning their way.
Despite bids to cut meat consumption, the French remain stubbornly carnivorous, eating 113 kilogrammes (nearly 250 pounds) a year, almost twice the global average.
"Our goal is the reconquest of standard production," said Gilles Huttepain, a top executive at poultry giant LDC and one of the leaders of industry group Anvol.
With one in two chickens eaten in France now coming from abroad, "we must build 400 new standard (intensive) chicken houses a year to take back the market from imports", he added.
Under pressure from government, supermarkets and animal welfare groups, France had almost turned its back on intensively farmed eggs, with only one in four coming from chickens reared in cages.
'Turning back clock'
But poultry farmer Yves-Marie Beaudet, who heads the egg industry group CNPO, said many of his colleagues now regret the shift as sales of low-cost eggs soar.
"We cannot become like Switzerland, which went so upmarket that its agricultural sector is now just like a fairy tale," said Huttepain.
France remains, however, an agricultural superpower. As well as being the European Union's biggest beef supplier, France remains its second biggest milk and third biggest pork producer.
With only one percent of their production organic, French pig producers -- who had been under pressure to change their intensive ways -- now feel justified.
"Our problem is that for consumers it is about price, price, price," said Anne Richard, of their lobby group Inaporc.
"Maybe our resistance back then wasn't all that ridiculous. People who invested in organic now find themselves stuck," she said, as the agribusiness watchwords have gone back to volume, competitiveness and economies of scale.
"We are turning back the clock," warned dairy farmer Mathieu Courgeau, a head of the umbrella group Nourrir (To Feed), which is pushing for a rethink of the food and farming industries.
Ditching the push for quality and continuing to "do what we have done since the 1960s, to produce cheaper and cheaper no matter what the hidden social and environmental costs... is completely counter to issues we are facing", he said.
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Opinions expressed by entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I love sparkling wines and recently discovered the McBride Sisters wine company and this special bottle: Sparkling Brut Rosé. I have become obsessed. I brought my new favorite bottle to dinner parties, opened it when I had guests over, and gave it to a girlfriend. My friends love wine as much as I do.
“My curiosity about wine began as a child,” says Robin McBride, co-founder and president of McBride Sisters Wine Company. “I remember trying to ferment Welch’s grape juice in baby bottles under my bed! My sister and I always had a passion for wine that we wanted to share with the world, in an industry where very few people looked like us.”
The US wine market size is approximately $63.69 billion, with an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.8% (from 2022 to 2030). The sparkling wine segment, my favorite, is forecast to grow the fastest at 7.7%, driven by prosecco and champagne.
Enter the McBride Sisters Wine Company, which the sisters founded in 2005 in California, first as an importer and then as a winemaker. Its collection of sparkling and canned wine has taken the industry by storm in recent years.
Robin McBride and her sister Andréa McBride John co-founded their company in an industry that has notably lacked diversity of representation. “About one percent of one percent of all winemakers are black,” said Phil Long, president of the Association of African American Vintners (AAAV), in an interview with Wine-Searcher. “If you’re looking at winemakers and brand owners in general, there are over 50, but if you’re looking for African Americans who are both winemakers and brand owners, there are only a few dozen.”
Image credit: McBride Sisters Wine Company
The McBride sisters have sparked a movement to change that. “My sister and I are on a mission to transform the industry, lead by example and cultivate community,” says Robin McBride. “One delicious glass of wine at a time.”
Here are the three most important lessons McBride and her sister have learned as they built America’s largest black-owned and women-owned wine company:
Related: “I’m not a diversity quota,” says the founder who’s disrupting the dessert category
Don’t think that money will solve everything
McBride has always been a problem solver. As a child, she loved taking things apart and putting them back together. She also remembers asking a lot of questions. “I got on everyone’s nerves,” she says. “I’ve always been on a mission to find the why and look for the solution.”
Now as co-founders, the sisters are always in problem-solving mode. In their journey to build the company, they were under-resourced and under-staffed. The pandemic was another reminder that money won’t solve everything. “We can’t pay to play in our industry. The other players are just too big and will always outspend us,” says McBride. “During the pandemic, we needed to innovate around ways to engage our consumers. We created a free online summer school on Facebook and filmed modules from home and it didn’t cost us much more than our time. We not only engaged the community our but raised it [by providing] useful content.”
Related: This founder went to prison when he was 15. Here he came up with the idea for a company that is now backed by John Legend.
“Prejudice is a business killer”
The sisters’ path to building their business has not been easy. “There’s an immediate lack of credibility that you can feel from investors who are skeptical of your success as a black woman founder because you have to be an anomaly,” McBride says. “Hundreds of questions come at you. Who really owns the company? Who makes your wine? Do black women even drink wine? Prejudice is a business killer.”
Early on, one investor actually recommended that the sisters get a white man as a partner to help them raise money. But the sisters would not give up; they would not be ignored. “We are great business leaders and we know our customers,” says McBride. “Eighty percent of wine purchases are made by women. And yes, despite what some of those investors thought, black women drink wine.”
Today, the McBride Sisters wine company employs 51% people of color and 93% women, which includes an all-female team of winemakers.
Related: This Filipino American Founder Is Disrupting the Beverage Aisle by Introducing New Flavors to the Bubbly Water Market
Celebrate and give back
In 2019, the McBride sisters were invited to the Essence Festival and were asked to join the mayor of New Orleans on stage at the opening party. They decided to make a wine to commemorate this moment and called it Black Girl Magic Riesling. They made less than 100 cases for the event and demand was high. The sisters were not prepared for how well it would be received.
“People really loved the wine,” says McBride. “For my sister and I, it was an opportunity to celebrate our culture and community, to honor black women. Because for too long, the industry has not taken care of us as consumers, and it was important for us to create a line of wines. to us as a community that can be enjoyed by all.”
The McBride sisters continue to push beyond all barriers to offer customers a wine that represents their culture, their history, their likes and their celebrations. “This collection is inspired by and is meant to celebrate the incredible black women in our family, our community and all who celebrate them,” says McBride. “It’s our opportunity to give back to so many black women who continue to support us.”
Related: This Baker Was Told Not to Speak Spanish to Coworkers, So She Started Her Own Cake Company That Values Employees as Much as Customers


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By now you've probably seen dozens of critics' best-of-2011 lists (including ours!), and noticed some amount of overlap on films like Hugo
, and Tree of Life
. But there's more than one way to gauge a movie's success, and when it comes to what general audiences are actually watching, a whole different set of titles come out on top.
According to a report just released by Redbox, the Adam Sandler vehicle Just Go ...


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Now that Halloween is behind us, you will start to notice the Christmas decorations hit the store shelves. In Britain you will also notice the reindeer meat hit the store shelves. Seems people are a little upset about “eating Rudolph.”
A supermarket chain in Britain intends to sell reindeer meat for the holiday season, although some object that the idea of “eating Rudolph” violates the Christmas spirit.
The Lidl chain, which has 600 stores in Britain, said they tried out deluxe diced Siberian reindeer meat in 2010 and quickly sold out, with most stores selling all their reindeer within a week.
“The demand from our customers has been huge,” Clare Norman, a PR manager for Lidl, told ABC News. “We aim to offer our customers a wide variety of traditional Christmas products, as well as those they may not have had the opportunity to try before.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, howver, argue that eating reindeer at Christmas goes against the spirit of the holiday.
“No one likes the idea of eating Rudolph at Christmas,” said Ben Williamson, a spokesman for PETA.
Reindeer will be hitting Lidl’s shelves on Nov.7


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Engcon, a manufacturer of tiltrotators, quick couplers and accessories for excavators, has launched a new machine coupler for excavators in the size of 12–19 tons.
The EC-Oil blocks can be used for retrofits as the new machine hitch contains almost no hoses and minimizes the risk of leaks. The end customer will also notice that the new bolt-on EC-Oil block facilitates hydraulic flow.
“Thanks to our innovation-driven work with a focus on the end customer, our customers can rely on engcon to always deliver state-of-the-art technology. Our package should be the complete solution and the premium product that our customers want, now and in the future,” said Martin Engström, product manager at Engcon.
- EC-Oil block without hoses
- Reinforced construction both laterally and in the digging direction
- Stability around attachment points to the machine
- Flexible hose routing between excavator and machine coupler
- Bolted lifting hook and possibility with lifting eye


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Milan, Italy (CNS) – The fashion world is turning to “green friendly” products to keep sales going and Italian designer Ferragamo is no different.
The luxury accessories and handbag designer has launched a new line of environmentally friendly bags called Eco Ferragamo. The new bags will be available in stores in the spring of 2009 and boast a leather tanning technique that results in metal-free colored leathers without pollutants and toxins.
According to WWD, the company uses dyes that are found in tree barks. The purses are also biodegradable and water resistant.
Ferragamo produces luxury shoes, leather goods accessories, fragrances and apparel for men and women. Environmentally-conscious shoppers are hoping the designer will soon spread the “green friendly” idea to other products the company offers.


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Banking Ombudsman supports greater focus on consumer outcome
Banking Ombudsman supports greater focus on consumer outcomes
The Banking Ombudsman Scheme welcomes the report into bank conduct and culture released by the Financial Markets Authority and the Reserve Bank today.
“We support its proposals to strengthen the current framework to focus on good customer outcomes,” says Banking Ombudsman, Nicola Sladden.
“We were pleased the review found a high level of awareness of bank complaint processes amongst those surveyed.
“We agree with the recommendation that banks review their customer complaint processes, particularly to better define and record customer complaints and to ensure it is easy for customers to raise concerns.
“We have already begun a suite of initiatives to enhance our oversight of banks’ complaint processes. This is so we can be assured customers are having their concerns appropriately addressed at every level.
“Together, these initiatives will enable us to promote consistently high standards across the sector.
“We will continue to work closely with the regulators and the New Zealand Bankers’ Association to implement the recommendations to address the issues they have identified.
“A strong complaints framework is an essential element in a fair banking sector.”


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Mitsubishi aims for 50,000 a year
10 March 2019
Mitsubishi has introduced a five-year growth plan including a hike in retailer numbers to 140 and a 2% return-on-sale target.
Managing director Rob Lindley said he aimed to take Mitsubishi from 30,000 vehicles sold last year to 50,000 in the next five years: “Our five-year vision includes a 2% return-on-sales figure for the retailers, we also want to be top quartile in the NFDA Dealer Attitude Survey and more frequent new products and their faster delivery. We also want to be in the top 10 countries for Mitsubishi by volume because this gives us more influence when it comes to the type of products Mitsubishi develops. And we also want to be in the top three in the UK for customer satisfaction.”
Mitsubishi currently has a network average return-on-sale figure of 1.2%, which equated to a profit of £107,000 in 2018.
* Read the full interview in the March issue of Auto Retail Bulletin.


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Kudos to my colleague Ben McGrath for finally eliciting some dollar figures for the revenues of Gawker Media. Back in early 2006, when I spoke to Denton about the possibility of writing an article about Gawker’s rise, he was friendly enough, but he wouldn’t reveal anything concrete about his company’s finances. Since that was one of my primary interests, I dropped the story.
Before moving on to other topics, I came to suspect that Gawker Media’s revenues were rather punier than many people thought and than Denton had intimated. Somebody with direct knowledge of the firm’s business side said that in estimating its revenues, the best thing to do was think of a number and move the decimal point one place to the left.
Fast-forward four years and the page view figures for Gawker Media’s network of sites have risen impressively: they attract some 17 million unique users a month in the United States and about 450 million page views. Ben reports that Gawker Media’s revenues are now “on the order of fifteen to twenty million dollars a year.” Being (like Denton) something of a skeptic, I will take the lower figure as the more accurate one and work from there. Now, in the world of online publishing, $15 million per annum isn’t exactly puny, but it isn’t exactly gonzo, either. Reuters blogger Felix Salmon says it is “lower than I would have expected,” given Gawker’s rapid growth, and the FT’s John Gapper says it “indicates the difficulty for media businesses in garnering significant revenues purely from online advertising.”
Denton has moved beyond the stage of running a cottage business, but suggestions that he has joined, or is about to join, the ranks of moguldom, where revenues are measured in the hundreds of millions, or billions, are absurd. Denton is aware of this disjuncture—up to a point. A few weeks ago, I met him at a party, and he told me that New York magazine, which recently profiled him as one of the people who run the city, had pitched the story to him as “the new Rupert Murdoch.” In telling me this, Denton said he thought New York’s editors had been “a bit premature.” When I suggested that they might have been about forty years premature he didn’t smile.
Gawker Media’s page-view numbers are testament to Denton’s energy and acuity as an online publisher, and, as he frequently points out, they are higher than the figures for the Web sites of big mainstream publications such as the Washington Post and Time. (Though not bigger than NYTimes.com, which each month attracts 26 million unique users and 640 million page views.) What Denton doesn’t point out—and why should he?—is that some of the deadwood media dinosaurs he would consign to the knackers’ yard appear to be growing faster than Gawker Media and doing a better job than Gawker Media in converting page views to advertising dollars.
Take Time Inc. In April, 2008, its network of sites, which includes People.com and Time.com, was attracting some 20 million U.S. visitors a month, according to Quantcast, a supplier of online metrics. Today, the Time sites are getting about 50 million visitors a month, an increase of 150 per cent. During the same two-and-a-half-year period, Gawker Media’s visitors, again according to Quantcast, went from about 12 million to 20 million, an increase of two thirds. If these figures are even roughly accurate, they suggest that Gawker has shared in online media’s rapid growth rather than standing out.
Now for advertising. In the second quarter of this year, the digital operations of the New York Times Company, which include the NYTimes.com, About.com, and Boston.com, generated $94.3 million, implying that its annual revenues are roughly twenty-five times those of Gawker Media. The revenues of the Washington Post Company’s online news division—WaPo.com and Slate, principally—are smaller. They totaled $27 million in the second quarter, but that still makes them roughly seven times the size of Gawker Media’s revenues. On this basis, it appears hard to argue that Denton is about to sweep away Pinch Sulzberger or Don Graham, still less Murdoch himself.
That said, he runs an innovative little company that has some well-known online brands, and he has bigger ambitions. Understandably enough, he likes to group his sites together for publicity and marketing purposes. In fact, they are a diverse collection of businesses, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Gizmodo (gadgets), Kotaku (gaming), io9 (sci-fi), and Lifehacker (personal productivity) are basically geek sites. Together, they account for well over half of Gawker Media’s unique visitors, and, I would guess, an even higher proportion of its revenues. Jezebel is a sassy site for women; Deadspin is a sports blog; Gawker is a celebrity/media gossip column; Jalopnik is devoted to cars; Fleshbot is a porn site.
Naturally, these sites have very different audiences. Persuading corporations to purchase ads across all of them must be tough, which means each site has to stand on its own two feet. But when you break down the audience figures for the individual sites, they look somewhat less impressive. Gawker.com, for example, attracts roughly 400,000 visitors a day in the U.S., compared to 1.6 million for TMZ.com and 1.7 million for People.com, two of its rivals in celebrity coverage.
According to Quantcast, the average visitor to Gawker views about four pages, which means he or she scans the home page and clicks on three stories. When I just did this, it took me about three and a half minutes. (Admittedly, I didn’t read the comments.) Now, I’m no ad salesmen, but my guess is it isn’t easy persuading Citibank or Unilever to buy ads for any publication (online or offline) to which a good many readers devote less than five minutes a day, all the time hoping their boss isn’t watching.
Denton in his more reflective moments acknowledges some of the economic challenges he faces. In the New Yorker article, he says online publishers could end up like Craigslist, destroying a lot more value than they create, or they could end up like cable companies such as MTV and CNBC, which struggled financially to begin with but ended up minting advertising dollars. The article also reports that when he started out he assumed that each of his sites, to be economically viable, would need to attract a million page views a month, but today he thinks the figure is twenty million.


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CHANEL will open its first standalone British beauty store on July 24 - a pop-up boutique based in the heart of Covent Garden.
SEE INSIDE THE STORE HERE
A celebration of Britain's big year, the shop will be a home to a host of stylish activities until it closes in December. At its opening, expect to see mime artists accessorised in beautiful Chanel jewellery pointing shoppers in the direction of the store, as well as an unrivalled selection of the label's latest beauty treats to choose from.
SEE CHANEL'S BEAUTY BOUTIQUE PLANS
In addition to exclusive new products, which will launch at the boutique over the next seven months, planned highlights will include a Chanel treasure hunt; educational workshops; consultations with leading Chanel make-up experts; a luxurious space dedicated to facials and pampering; an outdoor area that will recreate the look and atmosphere of being backstage at one of the label's catwalk shows; and a very special festive surprise come Christmas.
SEE CHANEL'S BEAUTY STORE CALENDAR
But, that's not all. Chanel will announce more exciting events over the coming months, and we'll be working with the label to tell you about them first - so stay tuned to hear the latest news as soon as it happens.
SEE CHANEL'S MOST VALUABLE DRESSES
YOU SHOULD SEE: Karl Lagerfeld's most controversial quotes...
YOU SHOULD SEE: The most beautiful make-up from Chanel couture...


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From a spend point of view, cinemas declined by 66% compared to 2019. Cinema reported no ad-spend for a solid five months. Read more
Cinema seems to be experiencing outrageously good (advertising) fortune, with its share almost doubling to 1.5% of the market. Read more
The latest installment in Marvel’s Avengers universe, Avengers: Endgame, which opened in South Africa on 25 April, has proven a massive success. Read more
A local media return on investment benchmark from Nielsen Advanced Analytics has revealed that digital and cinema demonstrated the best ROI across all brands and categories. Read more
CYBERTORIAL: For the first time ever a client can buy combined cinema and television multiscreen packages that have recently been launched to the media industry. Cinevation have facilitated... Read more
Copyright © 2015 - 2019 The Media Online. All rights reserved. Part of Arena Holdings (Pty) Ltd.


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Today’s key global wellness news articles from around the world, impacting the industry and influencing the business of wellness.
Starbucks is wading into the fermented-tea waters. The Seattle-based coffee giant has announced its own line of kombucha, offering six flavors under the Evolution Fresh label. The bottled beverages, available at grocery stores and markets, will initially launch in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and New York City.
Founder and CEO of NYC-based marketing agency Renegade, Drew Neisser explains how brands can take inspiration from two speakers at PSFK’s CX Conference who marshal the potential to improve the world as part of their brand strategy Tracking marketing trends and innovations has been a staple of PSFK since its inception.
The UK launch of the much-hyped Beyond Burger has been delayed until further notice as short supplies left the brand doubting its ability to meet demand. Beyond Meat’s ‘next generation’ of meat alternative burgers had been scheduled to roll out in 350 Tesco stores at the beginning of August.
Xponential Fitness has acquired US-based boutique chain Yoga Six for an undisclosed sum – making it the sixth business in Xponential’s rapidly growing portfolio of fitness brands. Yoga Six currently operates 12 studios in five US cities – San Diego, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Columbus.
You know the type: the corner suite executive who manages to reply to every email within 15 minutes-whether it’s from their office, a SoulCycle studio, or through the hole of a massage table. This sort of wellness-obsessed workaholic is a relatively recent phenomenon-along with Juice Press, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Mndfl meditation studios, it’s a product of the past decade.
When you have the enviable task of keeping up with the latest and greatest fitness trends, there are a lot of “wait, what?” moments. Everyone’s looking for a way to stand out from the rest of the sweaty crowd: In New York you can take classes that combine high-intensity cycling with karaoke, as well as something called the “X-treme Firefighters Workout.”
Built in the mazelike remains of an old mafia hangout on 39 th Street, Mark Fisher Fitness makes a solid case for being the most delightfully bonkers gym in existence. A mannequin adorned with a hot pink tutu and a giant unicorn mask poses by the front desk.


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Brammo announces pricing and availability of Empulse range of electric motorcycles; ties up with Icon Motorsports
Brammo, the Oregon-based electric vehicle specialists, have announced the pricing and availability of their premium Empulse and Empulse R electric motorcycles. The two models, priced at $16,995 and $18,995 respectively (in the USA) will go on sale later this year and be capable of reaching a top speed of 160kmph and a peak range of over 150 kilometres. The company claims that the 9.3 kilowatt battery driving the bike can be recharged in 3.5 hours from any standard household while the riding experience will be pretty similar to conventional motorcycles because of the six-speed gearbox and regenerative braking (similar to engine braking) like a normal motorcycle.
In other news, the company also announced that Icon Motorsports, the American helmet and riding apparel manufacturer, will be their main sponsors for the 2012 race season. Team Icon Brammo is set to compete in the four regular season races, in addition to the TTXGP World Final at the legendary Daytona International Speedway.
For more details on the Empulse and Empulse R, hit up their company website at www.brammo.com


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HST petition starting in April
Last fall Paul McCavour toured the Boundary Similkameen riding to set up volunteers to fight the harmonized sales tax (HST) slated to be initiated in B.C. next July. Now that Elections BC has approved in principal the Citizen’s Initiative Petition to fight the HST, it is time to get busy, said Fight HST organizer McCavour.
“People are still upset at the deception and are galvanized to do something about it. The HST issue has not gone away and people are aware of our petition initiative,” McCavour said, adding, “If you’re not on the voters list, you can’t sign the petition. Call Elections BC toll-free at 1-800-661-8683 and get registered to have your say.”
When McCavour spoke to residents throughout the Boundary last year he outlined his plans for the petition drive. This month, he is re-visiting volunteers to finalize plans in the communities of Grand Forks, Greenwood, Keremeos, Okanagan Falls, Oliver and Osoyoos.
Beginning April 6, volunteers will be holding ‘Petition Days’ at central locations in different communities. People interested in signing the petition can stop in at these locations to sign. There will be no door-to-door canvassing. McCavour expects a big turnout.
“There will be ads in each community informing residents when and where to sign the petition,” McCavour added.
The petition could slow the implementation of the HST, and ultimately will give voters a say on the process. As a non-political person, McCavour’s goal is just that – to give the people of B.C. a choice.
“As soon as I was done (with my presentation) in Oliver they said we have volunteers, we’ll give you the hall without cost and we’ll put some money in for ads in the paper. That’s democracy in action,” said McCavour last fall. “People have a choice – they come and sign the petition,and say: I’m defeating the HST; if I choose not to sign the petition, the HST will come in. But at least you’ve got a choice.”
According to McCavour, estimates show that a family of four will pay an average of over $2,100 in new taxes under the HST, even after rebates and exemptions.
The provincial government information about the new tax system advises that there will be cost savings to consumers. The province’s HST website states: “Right now, provincial sales tax (PST) is paid by every business at every step in the creation of a consumer product. You may not realize it, but the PST is charged multiple times during the production of a product before it reaches the store. Every business involved in the creation of a product pays the PST on almost all of the things they buy to carry on their business… and the cost of that embedded PST is passed on to you, the consumer. Under the proposed harmonized sales tax most taxes paid on business inputs are refunded to the business, and those savings can be passed on to consumers.”
But McCavour is skeptical. “It’s supposed to be revenue neutral. But my position is that we want a voice. We don’t accept the lie. Give us a voice, give us a referendum. The government might win, but at least we’ve had our say.”
He encourages people who wish to help in any way to contact him in Osoyoos at 250-495-6765, Robert Riddle in Greenwood at 250-445-6697, or David Janzen in Grand Forks at 250-442-0196.


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Zacks Equity Research
The Philadelphia city council, on Thursday, finally approved a 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks by a vote of 13-4. Sugary drinks include regular and diet soda and energy drinks. The tax is set to take effect next year.
The Purpose of the Tax
Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposed tax is not exactly an attempt to limit sugar consumption in the city.
The estimated $90 million in new tax revenue next year is proposed to be used to fund expansion of prekindergarten and community schools and an overhaul of recreation centers.
Only Berkeley, CA, imposes a similar tax on sugary drinks. Soda tax proposals have failed in many cities and states in recent years. The success tasted in Philadelphia will be a boost for other cities considering such a tax.
Burden for Pepsi & Coca-Cola
The soda tax is expected to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks in the city, which will hurt soda sales of companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. DPS.
As it is, cross-category competition and growing health and wellness consciousness have been hurting demand for carbonated beverages. Consumers have become vigilant about the high sugar content of these drinks and related obesity concerns. Diet drinks are also under pressure due to increasing consumer concern regarding the use of artificial sweeteners.
This has kept soda companies on their toes. The imposition of the soda tax comes as an added blow. The beverage industry ran an advertising campaign against the Philadelphia soda tax, arguing that the tax would be costly for consumers. The American Beverage Association, which also tried very hard to convince the council to vote against the soda tax, called it “discriminatory and highly unpopular.”
Sector Price Index
Is it a Lose-It-All Situation?
Not exactly. A similar tax of 10% on a liter was imposed on sugary drinks in Mexico more than two years back. Though this hurt sales of soda companies in the country for some quarters, they’ve started picking up in Mexico lately.
Also, these companies are offering more package sizes to their customers, like smaller cans and bottles, so that they can limit their calories.
The extra tax in Philadelphia will undoubtedly hurt these companies’ profits in the near future. Nonetheless, in the long term, they should be able to come up with some plan – breakthrough innovations, aggressive cost cuts, re-structuring or strategic initiatives – to make up for the lost dough.
Disclaimer/ Disclosure: The Investors News Magazine is a third party publisher of news and research as well as creates original content as a news source. Original content created by Investors News Magazine is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investment involves risk and possible loss of investment. This site may be compensated by featured companies for news submissions and content marketing. Contact each company directly for press release questions. Disclosure is posted on each release if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and is published for the sole interest of our readers.


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Booking.com partners with Paytm for promotions
After joining hands with India's leading travel portal, MakeMyTrip, for overseas properties this year, Booking.com has now tied up with Alibaba-backed payments bank Paytm.
After joining hands with India's leading travel portal, MakeMyTrip, for overseas properties this year, Booking.com has now tied up with Alibaba-backed payments bank Paytm. Under this partnership, all domestic and international accommodations available on Booking .com will be available on Paytm, with new offers and promotions.
Booking.com is present across 227 countries, with over 1.1 million hotels and accommodation properties registered with the portal. Users typically reserve about 1.2 million room-nights on n the platform everyday. The portal aims at getting the best price for all types of properties -from bed and breakfast accommodation to five-star suites.
Gillian Tans, CEO of Booking.com, said the company expanded by over 70% in India last year and has 22,000 properties registered with it. It aims to continue the same pace of growth this year as well. After China, India is the largest market for the company in the Asia-Pacific region.
"We aim to grow at the same rate this year. India is a fast-growth market and is developing a lot. We continue to increase our partners here, and make investments. We have three offices here, and will open the fourth in Kolkata in the second quarter," Tans said.


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Idahoans who purchased electronic books – or e-Books – from five of the largest U.S. book publishers between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012, are receiving notifications that they are entitled to refunds as part of a national settlement.
According to the state Attorney General’s Office, Idaho consumers will receive up to $347,000.
In the September settlement, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster agreed to pay a total of more than $69 million to consumers nationwide to resolve antitrust claims of an alleged unlawful conspiracy to fix the prices of electronic books.
E-book retailers have contacted their eligible customers by e-mail. The messages are legitimate e-mails authorized by the Attorney General, but consumers should be wary of copycat scams.
Those who purchased e-Books from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo will receive a refund automatically, and are not required to file a claim. However, for purchases from all other retailers, consumers must submit a claim either online at www.EBookAGSettlements.com or request a form by phone – information is available at that website.
Consumers with additional questions may contact the Idaho Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division toll free at (800) 432-3545.
The lawsuit continues against Apple, Holtzbrinck Publishers d/b/a MacMillian, and Penguin Group. A trial is currently scheduled for next June. (Idaho AG)


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PHILADELPHIA -- Grid-enabled supply chains have the potential to deliver huge value, but there are many factors...
to consider when it comes to getting vendors and customers on board with the technology, according to a Boeing grid computing executive.
Speaking at the Gt'O4 grid computing conference, J.S. Hurley, director of grid evaluation and implementation for the Boeing Company, said there are many problems supply chains will face when looking at implementing grid technology. Those problems include budgetary, technological and security concerns, he said.
"To stand before you and to say that there aren't any challenges would be quite disingenuous," Hurley said. "The good news is that none of the challenges are overwhelming. The challenges are typically cultural and some are informational, but they're all challenges that we can overcome."
Whether it's a supply chain vendor or customer, everyone has budgetary concerns, Hurley said. There is constant pressure to cut costs while simultaneously delivering innovations. To make matters worse, he said, the research and development budget at companies is often the first thing to get slashed when financial troubles arise.
This is why it's important, Hurley said, for vendors and customers alike to be completely up front and honest with each other about what they can deliver in terms of grid technology.
"When vendors are not able to make good on promises it hurts us all," Hurley said. "We need to be very careful and very honest about what we say we really can do. We need to know what is real, what we can take to the bank."
Grid success: Good security, clear definitions
In terms of technology, any grid computing implementation that touches on the IT infrastructure of two or more companies needs to be user friendly, Hurley said. Companies making use of any new technology don't want to have to go through a lot of end-user training, because that will result in lost productivity.
Along those same lines, Hurley said it's important that any applications run on a grid be extremely well defined.
"As a customer, if you're talking about utilizing a technology, you better make sure that it meets your company's requirements," he suggested.
In the end, the most important piece of the puzzle is security, according to Hurley. Security representatives from each company need to work together from the start of any project.
A major way to stop everything cold is security," Hurley said. "If you don't have your security people on board from day one, you can absolutely forget it."
Conference attendee F. Brett Berlin, an adjunct professor with George Mason University's School of Computational Science in Fairfax, Va., explained that the key to getting vendors and customers on the same page has to do with focusing on the business value that grid computing delivers, rather than the technology itself.
Berlin, who also works as a consultant and has been involved in high performance computing for more than 25 years, said that focusing simply on the "potential" of the technology leaves too many questions open that can lead to distrust in the supply chain.
"When grids are defined by computers and technology and things like that, this is a useless concept," Berlin said. "When grids are defined as something that is able to bring various resources together and solve problems that is the value."


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Although gastroenterologists believe store brand products are as effective as their brand name counterparts, many still recommend the brand name products.
When recommending OTC laxatives and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), most gastroenterologists tend to suggest brand name products rather than cheaper store brand products.
According to 2 studies conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan Health System, the recommendations come despite physicians acknowledging the effectiveness and equivalence of OTC generic laxatives and PPIs. In addition, many participants were not aware of the cost savings that can be realized by using store brand products.
Researchers presented both studies during Digestive Diseases Week in Chicago on May 3, 2014.
“At a time when doctors are highly constrained in their use of prescription medicines for so-called lifestyle conditions like GERD and constipation, treatment of these conditions is going to shift more and more to the OTC space,” study author William D. Chey, MD, said in a University of Michigan Health System press release
. “As a result, it will become important for doctors to reflect on their OTC treatment recommendations.”
Generics manufacturer Perrigo Company plc provided funding for the study, the release stated.
For the study on OTC laxatives, researchers mailed a 14-question survey to 3600 randomly selected American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) member gastroenterologists. Approximately 23% returned the survey, researchers stated. Although most survey participants—95%—used OTC remedies as first-line treatment, most gastroenterologists directed their patients toward brand name therapies rather than store brand remedies. According to the results, only 40% of participants said they recommended store brands to patients all of the time or very often.
The recommendations of brand name fiber supplements, osmotics, and stool softeners were given despite the fact that 90% of participants felt that brand name and store brand laxatives were equally effective. The demographic data collected during the survey showed that participants who were in practice for more than 20 years were more likely to recommend store brand products than those who had not practiced as long. In addition, researchers found that many participants tended to underestimate the cost savings associated with store brand laxatives.
For the study on OTC GERD medications, researchers mailed a 22-question survey to 3600 randomly selected AGA member gastroenterologists, and received 830 responses. Half of participants recommended OTC PPIs to their patients, whereas 33% recommended prescription PPIs and 13% recommended an OTC H2
Of participants, 72% felt store brand PPIs and branded PPIs were bioequivalent, and 76% felt that store brand PPIs were as effective as their brand name counterparts. Half of participants recommended brand name products to patients more than 30% of the time, however. Less than one-third of participants knew the cost savings that could be realized by using the less expensive store brand products, researchers added.
In addition, more than half of participants said they had no knowledge of the generic approval process. More than 80% reported receiving no education about store brand treatments during residency or fellowship training.
Similar to the OTC laxative research, the study authors found that clinicians in practice for more than 20 years were more likely to recommend store brand products. Academic gastroenterologists were less likely to recommend store brand PPIs than their non-academic counterparts, researchers noted.


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It wasn't looking good at one point for Republique's chances of being funded by backers of its Kickstarter campaign. The game's development team at Camouflaj set an ambitious $500,000 goal to fund the iOS action game (the company later added PC and Mac platforms) but until a few days ago, that goal was well outside the pace of contributions.
However, thanks to a surge in attention and interest in the game in the past couple of days, Republique has now exceeded its $500,000 goal with less than seven hours to spare. The campaign will end at 6 pm ET so there is still time to check out the page and, if you wish, contribute to the game's development.
Republique is being designed as a "stealth survival" game and Camouflaj's team promises the game will deal with "heavy topics". The game's development is being lead by Ryan Payton, who previously worked as a producer at Konami on Metal Gear Solid 4. He later joined Microsoft and its 343 Industries team to work on Halo 4 but decided to leave Microsoft to form Camouflaj before Halo 4 was released. Republique is due to be released sometime in June 2013.
Update - The final amount for the game raised by Kickstarter backers was $555,562.
Image via Camouflaj


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China’s National Development and Reform Commission has stated that during the year’s second half, “recovery trend in the property market is likely to be sustained, which will create better situation for consumer prices and support factory-gate prices,” Reuters reported, citing an announcement on the commission’s website. A slump in the housing market has dragged on the national economy over the last year. While home sales and prices have improved in bigger Chinese cities in recent months thanks to new government support measures, conditions remain weak in smaller cities and a huge overhang of unsold houses is discouraging new investment and construction.
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The growth of the internet, social media and mobile technology has had a meteoric impact on almost every area of modern life. However, perhaps none have been as profound as the changes that have taken place in retail. As anyone working in the sector will be aware, the industry is now in the midst of an omnichannel frenzy. Indeed, retail expert and professor at Vlerick Business School, Gino Van Ossel recently stated that retailers who fail to adopt an omnichannel approach are “digging their own graves.” As a result, the talent strategies of these businesses have adapted and organisations in the sector are now looking for news skills. So what types of individuals must retailers now attract?
A new breed of retailer
Perhaps the biggest change brought about by the rise in omnichannel is that retailers now have to do more to entice and please consumers who have a huge range of communication options available to them. Customers want to be able to read product reviews on their phone or tablet, for example, while also shopping in person. And the most successful omnichannel retailers have even been able to secure sales through non-store platforms by simply tapping into the market and capturing sales from their less agile and more unresponsive competitors. This trend is only going to grow in the future and research by Accenture has suggested that 71% of consumers cite the ability to see information on in-store products on a mobile device as important or very important. This doesn‘t just affect a company‘s online sales either, a further 39% believe that they are unlikely or very unlikely to visit a retailer‘s store if they don‘t provide relevant online product information, further highlighting the importance of an effective omnichannel strategy.
As anyone in the industry will be aware, one of the major benefits of adopting an omnichannel approach is that it helps organisations to capture a truly enormous amount of data about their consumers. Having access to extensive customer information means organisations can begin to predict what shoppers will be looking for in the future. This obviously requires different skill sets to the ones previously working in the sector and retailers must now seek professionals who can understand and, crucially, communicate findings from massive data stacks. These are the individuals who will potentially shape the future direction of the organisation so it‘s essential that retailers get these hiring decisions correct.
Sourcing new talent
Previously, organisations in the sector would have looked almost exclusively for professionals with at least some retail experience, but this is clearly no longer sufficient. Firms have realised that the only way to innovate and truly drive for growth in the modern day is to have a diversity of ideas and backgrounds on board. As a result, many organisations are looking for professionals from outside the sector who are specialists in their chosen field. Anyone who can show expertise in an area such as social media management or website design, for example, will now be in high demand. These professionals are also expected to be well-rounded or ‘pi-shaped,‘ as commentators have labelled them. It‘s also important that they have a wider commercial understanding and recognition of how their actions can potentially affect retail strategies.
As the growth of omnichannel shows no signs of slowing, retailers must adapt talent strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Many companies have already found it challenging to recruit and retain the right professionals over recent years and this is only going to become more problematic unless robust talent strategies are put in place. Businesses are looking for vastly different skills from their employees than they were a decade ago and must ensure their recruitment plans are aligned with these new goals, otherwise they risk exac


text: "Increase craft beer market share, and do it in North America. Those are my only two criteria," says Newman during a recent visit to the downtown Art Deco brewery. "We have 16 million people in a 45-minute radius. The goal here is to become a strong local brewery, doing our best to educate people on great beer and becoming part of the local community. It's that simple."


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New research has shown that independent stores are outperforming major retailers on UK high streets, amid worry for the future of the traditional shopping experience.
Consumer group Which? says that funeral directors, tattoo parlours and hair salons are among those stores which are thriving – moving high streets away from being "carbon copies" of one another and towards a model of personal services and specialists.
The group measured 1.5 million Ordinance Survey records to compare the shape of British high streets between 2014 and 2019, with a focus on businesses that do not feature prominently online, such as those offering personal services.
Ten areas of business have seen an increase in the number of premises on high streets – with six of those being in "eating out and services" category.
The biggest increase since 2014 has been in banqueting and function rooms, which have seen a 114% rise in the amount of premises.
Markets were also big winners on the high street, with 52% more in towns and cities compared with 2014 – one of the few business areas classed as retail in the top 10 best performing sectors.
Tattoo parlours and piercing services have seen their presence increase by 44%, while the number of cafes, snack bars and tea rooms went up by 35%. Hair and beauty services have increased by 31% in the last five years.
More from UK
However, it is not all good news, with some businesses seeing huge decreases in their presence in towns and cities.
The hardest-hit sector has been book and map sellers, who are battling the internet shopping behemoth Amazon to survive, with a huge 70% drop in stores on high streets since 2014.
There are 56% fewer computer shops, a drop of 44% in second-hand shops, and a 41% decline in the number of art and antique stores.
The South East coastal towns of Eastbourne and Hastings lost the largest number of stores on its high streets, with drops of 18% and 15% respectively, but saw increases in "personal service" stores of 41%.
In terms of retail outlets, Torbay in Devon and Islington in north London saw a 20% decrease in the number of outlets over the five-year period, but both areas also saw increases of personal services on their high streets by about a quarter.


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Long before the world’s best-branded nuts danced to “Gangnam Style” in a Super Bowl ad, pistachios were a Persian delicacy popular among history’s most famous food snobs, from the Queen of Sheba to Roman emperors.
But while Persia — or modern day Iran — was the undisputed global capital of pistachio production for more than 1k years, the balance of pistachio power has finally shifted toward the US.
Now Middle Eastern pistachio growers are going nuts to compete.
Iran was once the undisputed Prince of Pistachios
The nuts, which are native to the Middle East, started making their way to the wider world during the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE.
Production slowly took root in Greece and Italy in the centuries thereafter, but Iran remained the globe’s green-nut giant.
Then, America cracked the market
Although nutty American botanists had been dabbling in pistachio cultivations since the 1920s, widespread pistachio plantings — mostly in California and the American southwest — didn’t start until the 1960s.
The first commercial crop of US pistachios hit markets in 1976. Since then, the pistachio harvest has increased 599%.
But America didn’t outshell Iranian nut growers right away
Between 2004 and 2009, Iran produced 40% of the world’s pistachios, while America produced just 33%.
But from 2014 to 2019, Iran’s share fell to 27%… while the US’s grew to 47%.
Iranian pistachio producers are also struggling to combat warming weather and dwindling water supplies, which have caused widespread pistachio shortages.
The shortages have inspired… new competition
Massive multinational nut distributors are considering cultivating “green gold” in countries like Georgia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Romania, and even China and Australia.
If they take root, these nut operations could blossom into big businesses: In America, nut businesses have become multibillion-dollar empires.
In Georgia, which has a population of just 3.7m, growers estimate the country’s nut exports could become a $4.5B business.


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Adelaide Holden Plant Slashes 170 Workers
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | November 2, 2012 6:11 PM EST
The latest job cuts comes after the company in February axed 200 jobs, and after it received a $275 million taxpayer-funded bailout six months ago, which according to State Opposition spokesman for Industry Steven Marshall, was a "failure."
"This latest adjustment is necessary in order to continue our plan to sustain auto manufacturing in Australia for the long-term and the implementation of GM's plan to build two new models in Australia through until 2022," the company said in a statement on Friday.
"Situations like this are always difficult and this decision has not been made lightly."
"We will work together with employees and representatives to ensure that people are able to make informed decisions about their future.
The job cuts would be channeled through voluntary redundancies, the company said.
"We fully anticipate all separations will be voluntary. They will be done in line with our EBA conditions," Holden spokesman Craig Cheetham told News Limited.
"Every effort has been taken to avoid this decision, including the use of market response days. However current new car demand necessitates a reduction to permanent employees," the company statement said.
The 170 job cuts will bring its Adelaide workforce to below 2,100.
Holden likewise pointed out the jobs cuts are not in anyway related to the closure of car-parts manufacturer Autodom. On Thursday, Autodom announced it is closing a plant in Adelaide and two in Victoria, leaving 400 without jobs.
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Daimler delivered 502,100 new cars and trucks during the first quarter, representing a 9 percent improvement over the year prior. The company's revenue reflected that growth with a 9 percent improvement to $35.7 billion. Daimler's Mercedes-Benz division was responsible for nearly $20 billion of that revenue.
Daimler's pre-tax profits were up slightly to $2.8 billion - compared to $2.7 billion in Q1 of 2011 - but the company's net profit saw a significant boost during the first three months of 2012. Daimler's net profit increased nearly 20 percent to $1.93 billion during the period.
"We have started the year with a strong first quarter,"ť Daimler head Dr. Dieter Zetsche said in a statement. "Despite higher investment in future growth and a challenging market environment, we succeeded in surpassing the very good prior-year results in terms of unit sales, revenue, EBIT and net profit."ť
Thanks to that fast start, Daimler expects to sell more than 2.1 million vehicles in 2012.


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The farm-to-table movement is still dominating the culinary scene, and tide-to-table plays a big part.
Restaurants throughout Alabama and the South are sourcing more local products than ever—and that gives chefs and restaurateurs the opportunity to be creative all while supporting their neighbors.
Oysters Ala’ Bama™ and Shrimp Ala’ Bama™, a pair of new dishes featured on these restaurant menus, both feature Gulf seafood served atop a nest of Miss Mary’s greens and Conecuh bacon, covered with a garlic citrus butter and pecorino cheese, roasted to perfection. The dishes alternate based on the availability of the oysters and the shrimp.
According to Baumhower, the idea arose from a desire to put an Alabama slant on the traditional Oysters Rockefeller recipe.
“We’ve been wanting to do some type of grilled, roasted, or broiled oyster,” said Baumhower. “They’re very popular in other parts of the Gulf. So we ramped it up about six months ago and tried a lot of different things, and there were a lot of different people involved. We’re all foodies, you know?”
The team—which also included executive chefs Zack Compton and James Davis, corporate chef Steve Zucker, and director of operations Nick DiMario—worked hard to come up with a few ways to differentiate their dishes from standard menu fare.
The Conecuh bacon, for instance, was Baumhower’s idea. Compton came up with the plan to substitute spinach (a traditional Oysters Rockefeller ingredient) with greens, so they borrowed a recipe from Miss Mary, a friend of the team from Sumterville.
“It was a trial-and-error process,” said Baumhower. “We had a vision, we just weren’t sure how we were going to get there.”
Joy McCord, director of marketing with Aloha Hospitality, got to witness the recipe creation process first-hand.
“It was my very first time to see the intensity that is involved in developing a new dish,” said McCord. “I saw oysters Ala’ Bama tasted and sent back for fine-tuning over and over. I was amazed at how much heart and soul goes in a new dish from the Aloha Chefs and Bob.”
Oysters Ala’ Bama and Shrimp Ala’ Bama, which are quickly becoming the top appetizers at The Compleat Angler and Bimini Bob’s, will be hitting the menu at Baumhower’s and Bob’s Victory Grille in the near future.
Additionally, Baumhower has committed to offering a wider range of Gulf seafood at his restaurants going forward, including a new soft-shell crab dish and a new king mackerel sandwich and dip that put a delicious spin on one of Alabama’s more underutilized species.
“You’re going to see a bigger emphasis on Alabama Seafood,” said Baumhower. “I want everybody to know that we can go toe to toe with anybody in the world with our seafood program. And if you live in the area, you might as well use the best if it’s in your backyard. It’s just smart business.”


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Since mid-June, agency leads and trade professionals from Dentsu Aegis Network, OMD/PHD, Group M, IPG and Zenith (Publicis) were engaged in candid panel discussions on the future of content marketing with publishers, led by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) editors and leadership team.
The company’s strategic move towards priming its operations for stronger innovation, led first, by bringing together its content marketing teams - SPH Content Lab and Brand New Media - along with CreativeLAB and Think, as one unified entity to offer top-of-class client solutions.
The launch of the Sweet brand marks a commitment by SPH to strengthen its alliance with agencies and clients. It meets an increasing demand among clients for integrated storytelling across a range of multimedia formats, which has been steadily growing over the past two years.
Sweet marks the spot for brands, with SPH’s creative powerhouses now a full-service business unit positioned to deliver solutions in content, creative, branding, events, advertising campaigns and inbound marketing.
Sweet is fully owned by SPH, and managed by a dynamic, growth-oriented leadership team, a highly credentialed group of marketers, strategists, creators, writers, designers and producers. Drawing on the company’s resources, deep consumer insights and access to audiences across omni-channel platforms, it offers a diverse suite of formats, seamlessly executed.
At its helm is Damien Bray, chief Sweet officer. The previous CEO of SPH subsidiary Brand New Media Asia brings with him 25 years of experience in operating marketing service agencies.
Bray said: “This is an exciting time as we bring together the combined talents and experience from Brand New Media, SPH Content Lab and CreativeLAB, as well as Think, to add value and support to clients, as well as complement and partner with the capabilities of their agencies. I'm super excited to be leading such an amazingly talented creative and content team. We will also be introducing additional resources to help drive client ROI as well as expand the creative possibilities in areas such as immersive media and brand films.”
SPH chief marketing officer Ignatius Low said: “With Sweet, we are able to maximise our considerable pool of resources in the creative and content marketing areas, ensuring that we give the best possible experience and outcomes to our clients.”
The Sweet leadership team comprises:
Damien Bray, chief Sweet officer (previously CEO of Brand New Media Asia)
Tommy Lim, head of creative (previously head of SPH CreativeLAB)
Serene Goh, head of editorial content (previously chief content strategist SPH Content Lab)
Ken Jalleh Junior, head of visual content (previously chief executive of Think)
Jonathan Ng, head of video content (previously chief multimedia strategist Content Lab)
Vim Shanmugam, head of TV and film production (previously executive producer, Brand New Media Asia)
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Welcome Back, Stay Safe27/06/20
DUNDEE is sending out a “welcome back, stay safe” message as retail and hospitality businesses start the process of rebuilding following the closures imposed to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
Most non-essential shops will be allowed to open from Monday, while restaurants, pubs and visitor attractions will follow later in the country’s route map out of lockdown.
Work is well under way to prepare public areas for increasing numbers of people, with signs and floor markings encouraging social distancing and good hygiene practices.
People in Dundee and the surrounding areas are being encouraged to support local businesses wherever possible as the long recovery process begins.
Lord Provost Ian Borthwick said: “As the city starts to open up again following the unprecedented challenges of recent months, it’s important that we safely support our local businesses as much as we can.
“Lots of our local traders have found ways to adapt during lockdown, such as switching to online sales, and I know they have been well supported by the public.
“Business owners have also put a lot of work into measures to ensure the health and wellbeing of customers, and are now looking forward to safely and responsibly opening their doors once again.
“Our city centre in particular has lots of wide pavements and pedestrian areas, as well as green spaces such as Slessor Gardens, so we are confident that our community will be able to enjoy the area safely and responsibly.
“Some premises may look different to how you remember them, and have reduced hours or staff numbers. Please be considerate towards them and your fellow shoppers, following the guidance on physical distancing and hygiene at all times.”
The Scottish Government advises that people should wear face coverings in shops. Those who have COVID-19 symptoms and are self-isolating, and those who are in the shielding group, should not be going into shops.
Council staff have been working closely with shops and other businesses to help them be COVID-secure.
City centre stakeholders have been meeting regularly with the council in order to connect with each other and share the latest information on the recovery plan.
Developments to assist businesses includes a new marketing campaign and the exploration of a virtual marketplace, as well as radio links to the ambassadors and increased cleaning regimes.
A programme of street animation is also being considered over the summer to help create a holiday atmosphere in the city centre.
Some of the busier city centre streets will have specially-created “sunny Dundee” floor markings to encourage distancing and safe pedestrian flows.
The Council is also working with bars, coffee shops and eateries to ensure appropriate additional outdoor seating is available when those businesses are able to reopen.
Funding from the Spaces for People programme will see the closure of Union Street to vehicles and its temporary transformation into a vibrant pedestrian hub.
Council leader John Alexander said: “This crisis has created challenges for every sector of the economy.
“We’re working with all of our partners to deliver a range of recovery plans, including supporting the city centre and shopping districts, tourism businesses, the culture sector and more.
“That has meant getting key areas ready for safe use by increasing numbers of people. Distinctive Sunny Dundee signage is being deployed, to encourage people to queue safely and follow one-way pedestrian flows.
“We’ll be ensuring that regular cleaning takes place in public areas and providing options for people to get around, including more cycle paths and pedestrian areas. In all of this, the safety of the public and workers is paramount.
“In line with the Scottish Government guidance, there will be a phased approach to the reopening of businesses, starting with most shops next week.
“Over time, we all look forward to seeing hospitality businesses follow suit, including a lively outdoor café and bar scene so people can once again safely enjoy all that Dundee has to offer.”
Under the One City, Many Discoveries banner, a Welcome Back campaign is being launched, including posters, radio and newspaper adverts and social media, which encourages people to safely start returning to the city centre.
Councillor Mark Flynn, depute convener of City Development, said: “We know how much people have missed the things we once took for granted – an afternoon at the shops, going out for a coffee or a meal and a few drinks.
“The work we and businesses are doing is about giving people the confidence that they can start to enjoy these activities safely as the easing of lockdown continues.
“In the longer term, visitors and tourists from further afield will start to return, but for now we’re welcoming people from Dundee and the surrounding areas back into the city centre.
“It’s part of a concerted effort to support all aspects of the city’s business community – one which has already seen us distribute over £23 million in business grants.
“There’s a long road ahead as we rebuild after the devastation of Coronavirus and lockdown. We need to be careful and stay safe, as we work to ultimately build back better.”
DSMT productions off until 2022The city council is announcing that its Dundee Schools Music Theatre will not be staging any...
Safety and social distancing boost at crossingsA PAIR of prominent pedestrian crossings on one of the city?s busiest roads is set for an upgrade...


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Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) are not the future – they’re here. The 2015 Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell has been available for lease since June. Toyota’s offering is scheduled to go on sale a year from now, followed by Honda’s in 2016 (all of these will initially be sold only in California).
Many EV experts are dismissive of fuel cells, notably Elon Musk and his colleagues at Tesla, who have written in detail about why they believe battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are superior. (Note that both are electric vehicles, because both use an electric motor. It’s the energy storage medium that’s different.)
The main spokesman for the other side is Toyota. It has discontinued its RAV4 EV, its executives have stated that hydrogen is a better solution (with the possible exception of short-distance city driving), and its Lexus subsidiary has run ads ridiculing battery EVs.
Some believe that the reawakened interest in fuel cells is mostly thanks to the California Air Resources Board, which recently modified its ZEV regulations in a way that incentivizes automakers to go the hydrogen route.
Others believe there could be room in the market for both technologies, and that setting up an artificial hydrogen-vs-lithium smackdown could hurt the larger cause of zero-emission transportation. A recent feature article in Charged discussed the pros and cons of each option.
Our colleague John Voelcker of Green Car Reports has neatly summed up the side of the FCV skeptics. He has compiled a list of questions that he thinks execs at Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda should be prepared to respond to. Among them:
- The main advantage of FCVs is that they can refuel faster than BEVs. But that may not be the case forever – faster charging times are a top goal for researchers, and solutions are already in the pipeline. If an affordable BEV in 2020 can recharge in 12 to 15 minutes, how much of an advantage will FCVs have then?
- How much of a disadvantage for early adopters is having to travel 10 to 30 miles to a hydrogen fueling station, compared to the home and/or workplace charging used for the majority of EV miles?
- A small but vocal lobby has advocated for electric cars for 20 years now. Where is the similar groundswell of fuel-cell advocates?
- What sector of private enterprise sees a profit-making business in selling hydrogen? Who will risk the capital to build thousands of hydrogen fueling stations at $1 million to $3 million apiece?
- A kilowatt-hour of energy will propel a BEV 3 to 4 miles. A kilowatt-hour of energy used to make hydrogen produces perhaps one-third that distance. Why is making hydrogen a good use of energy for transportation?
- Most of the available research indicates that the wells-to-wheels carbon footprint of a hydrogen-fueled vehicle is worse than that of a BEV. Comments?
- Have you studied the lifecycle carbon emissions, including manufacturing, of FCVs?
Trenchant questions indeed. Will any of the automakers deign to answer? Charged has come up with a couple more to add to the list:
- What’s the operational cost per mile? Is it as cheap as that of a BEV?
- Other things being equal, could an FCV ever touch the performance of an BEV such as the Model S? Could anyone build a fuel cell sedan that does 0-60 in 3.2 seconds – for any price?
Source: Green Car Reports


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Microsoft’s takeover of Activision-Blizzard-King is not progressing. Things could even get worse: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC, the US competition authority) is about to launch a lawsuit to block the takeover. Current FTC chief Lina Khan does not hold big tech boxes close to her heart, so much so that Amazon and Facebook had unsuccessfully requested that she not be part of the cases regarding those boxes because of its positions on the subject in the past .
At the center of the debate is, of course, Call Of Duty. It should be said that on November 7, Activision announced that Modern Warfare II had brought in $800 million in three days, a record for the license. In 10 days, the sequel to the Infinity Ward reboot hit the billion mark. On November 11, Microsoft made an attractive offer to Sony: to guarantee that CoD would remain on PlayStation for 10 years. Sony hasn’t commented on the offer in question, but we’re curious to know the terms. Does this include releasing CoDs on PlayStation on the same day as Xbox? What about Game Pass?
To allay the concerns of the CMA (UK FTC), Microsoft is trying a different approach. The producer explains that even if CoD became an exclusive, it would not change anything because “Sony has more exclusives than Microsoft and often of better quality. […] Games developed in-house at Sony and Nintendo are among the best-selling games in Europe and the world.” The quality aspect is debatable, and we let fanboys kill each other, but the quantity aspect is especially true this year. the fact that Xbox Game Studios has 23 in- house studios, they released only one new game in 2022: Pentiment Meanwhile Sony sold 5 million God Of War Ragnarok in 5 days and Nintendo sold 10 million Pokémon Purple/Scarlet in three days.


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Both medical and leisure cannabis sales in the U.S. increased 67 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, according to a Leafly analysis of state tax and earnings information. Overall cannabis sales have actually reached $17.9 billion this year, $7.2 billion more than the previous year’s sales.
The “primary motorist” of the boost, Leafly states, was a boost in the typical purchase size of developed consumers, who upped their month-to-month cannabis purchases in between 25% and 40% usually.
9 states– Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania– doubled their cannabis sales from 2019, the report states. Maine, significantly, lastly introduced adult-use sales after almost 4 years of hold-ups and medical cannabis sales consequently went beyond potato, hay, wild blueberry, and milk sales to end up being the state’s most profitable crop. Florida’s medical cannabis sales topped $1.2 billion this year, making it the fourth-largest cannabis market in the U.S. this year, routing just the adult-use states of California, Colorado, and Washington, according to the report.
Leafly approximated the last weeks of cannabis sales by “presuming approximately the previous 3 months of earnings figures,” however prepares to release a complete account of the year’s sales figures in their yearly Cannabis Jobs Report which the business prepares to launch in February.


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The epic fight over who controls the future of the car industry is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
Toyota has committed ¥8-trillion to electrify its cars by 2030, half of it to develop a battery electric vehicle line-up.
As UN climate conference delegates considered how to save the planet over the weekend in Glasgow, Toyota’s CEO was in Japan racing an experimental hydrogen car.
Toyota is anticipating that the government will provide a support package to reduce the price of new-energy vehicles to make them more accessible.
South Africa has identified three key priorities for climate action, including increased production of electric vehicles, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
An EV uses the same rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that are in your laptop or mobile phone, they’re just much bigger and much more expensive.
Toyota said on Tuesday it expects to spend more than US$13.5-billion (R193-billion) by 2030 to develop batteries and its battery supply system — a bid to lead in the key automotive technology over the next decade.
Promoted | Embracing the idea of business performance improvement can help organisations of all sizes gain ground on the market and better serve their customers.
Government and automotive original equipment manufacturers are working towards accelerating the development of manufacturing capabilities for new energy vehicles in South Africa.
Sasol and project partner Toyota will install hydrogen refuelling infrastructure along the N3 highway connecting Johannesburg and Durban, CEO Fleetwood Grobler said in a statement on Wednesday.


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Arena Media wins Nanoblur business
Arena Media has picked up the media business for beauty and skin graft specialists Nanoblur.
The Canadian company claims to transform skin and minimise the signs of ageing, as well as smooth the look of lines, wrinkles, enlarged pores and uneven texture.
Arena Media will handle the media for Nanoblur’s first foray into UK TV, for ads created in-house. They will be accompanied by press and outdoor activity targeting ABC women aged 35 and over.
The new campaign will launch on 23 March 2013 and Arena Media suggest spend will be in the region of £2m over the next year.
Developed by Indeed Laboratories, Nanoblur was originally created so that on-camera talent could smooth out HD visible imperfections that were previously not detectable with traditional cameras.
The cosmetic product retails for £19 exclusively in Boots and launched in the UK at the end of 2011.
Dia Foley, vice-president of sales and marketing at Indeed Laboratories, said: "We all just want to look like the best version of ourselves. To this end, we look forward to working with Arena to spread the Nanoblur message."
This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk
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Expanding GRC to improve business performance
Governance, risk and compliance programs that companies originally established to address urgent regulatory demands such as those under Sarbanes-Oxley are now being applied to help achieve companies’ business goals. Companies with more mature GRC programs are getting more value from them and are better able to articulate how their programs are helping improve business performance, reduce risk, and increase overall efficiency and effectiveness.
That was a key point made during an April 23 webinar, ‘Financial justification of your GRC journey,’ hosted by BWise, a NASDAQ OMX company, and Forrester Research, which focused on expanding the uses of GRC systems to support companies’ business performance. BWise was one of six vendors Forrester highlighted as having leading GRC platforms in a research report released in January. The rankings were based on an online survey of 66 individuals who are clients of vendors included in the Forrester Wave evaluation.
Forrester found that more departments across companies have begun to participate in GRC programs beyond the five that historically have been most active: internal audit, risk management, IT, corporate compliance and information risk security.
'Even more optimistic is you’ll see more people involved in setting the vision and strategy of GRC,’ which attests to a high level of management and oversight of GRC within companies, Christopher McClean, principal analyst and research director at Forrester, said during the webinar. He is one of the authors of Forrester’s GRC research report.
Not surprisingly, nearly two-thirds of companies polled said their internal audit and risk management departments help set GRC vision and strategy. But now 30 percent of companies said their boards of directors are involved in setting GRC vision and strategy of GRC - ‘good numbers,’ according to McClean.
Another encouraging sign is that the discrepancy between departments that use the GRC system at least once per quarter and other departments using it less frequently is getting smaller, he said. The sales department is a frequent user at 35 percent of the companies polled, while human resources is one at almost one-third of companies and legal at nearly 25 percent of companies.
Companies are also starting to expand their GRC investment into other aspects of their business such as supply chain management.
‘What we’re not seeing a lot of yet is applying GRC to the top line of your business like marketing, which have similar objectives like customer satisfaction,’ he said. For example, the business continuity functionality that enables IT to minimize downtime could also help marketing lose fewer customers during holiday season.
‘You should be thinking about how do I take the basics of GRC and think about how it can affect marketing, customer service and sales -- the things that are going to help your business grow,’ said McClean.
He cited a large contractor that applied its risk management program to its sales pipeline, concluded it could tolerate additional risk and decided to go after bigger deals. ‘They lost deals more frequently, but the deals they won were much much larger, so they increased their sales pipeline because they applied the GRC program to their top lines of business.’
He urges companies to set specific business goals that their GRC programs can support over the next one, three and five years, stressing the long term because of how long it may take to put applications in place. ‘[Clarify] what kind of benefits GRC is going to offer the business,’ he said.
Companies should also do an honest assessment of their GRC maturity and consider, as they develop that maturity, how they are supporting their business. He suggests thinking in terms of ‘business transformation beyond risk assessments and control documentation,’ which are areas where companies are more likely to derive immediate value from GRC implementation.
‘Don’t spend a lot of time and effort and investment just to get a good policy management system,’ he advised. ‘Think about solving the policy management program right away and then taking that policy management program and moving it into marketing, HR, sales, and so forth. There’s a lot of functionality that can help those groups as well.’


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ASRock, a brand that has been making motherboards since 2002, has recently announced the launch of their new Z390 DeskMini GTX series mini-PC.
The ASRock DeskMini PC crams up to an Intel 9th Gen Core i9-9900K and 32GB of DDR4 4,000MHz memory into a 2.7 liter case. The new DeskMini GTX series features USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and Type-A interface, achieving up to 10Gbps transfer rate. As with nearly everything else released this year, its built-in addressable RGB header allows connecting the LED strips to create unique lighting effects.
The motherboard is equipped with Intel’s latest Z390 chipset and a 5+1 phase power design. While this might sound anemic to [...]
Thanks to a mix of greater than expected demand coupled with unexpected delays in transition to their 10nm manufacturing process, Intel is experiencing some shortages in its chip supply prompting frustration from both Intel partners and end users. In order to alleviate some of this frustration and provide a bit of transparency, Intel CFO and Interim CEO, Bob Swan, recently posted an open letter to the Intel Newsroom addressing the processor shortage.
According to the letter, Intel is aware that it has a processor shortage. As a result, it will be prioritizing Xeon and Core processors above those in the entry level. These are the highest revenue and profit [...]
At a recent event in New York, Samsung recently updated their datacenter SSD lineup with four new models including the Samsung 860 DCT, Samsung 883 DCT, Samsung 983 DCT, and Samsung 983 ZET.
In their DCT based SSD lineup, Samsung will launch three SSDs, the 860 DCT, 883 DCT and 983 DCT.
At the entry level, the Samsung 860 DCT is Samsung’s offering for read-heavy applications. The drive features capacities up to 4TB, 0.2 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) endurance and utilizes Samsung’s 3-bit MLC V-NAND process. According to Samsung, the Samsung 860 DCT is well suited for applications such as streaming servers, content [...]
Gigabyte, one of the more familiar names in the PC Enthusiast hardware space has announced their newest GeForce RTX 2000 series cards powered by Nvidia’s brand new Turing architecture GPUs.
According to the announcement, Gigabyte will be launching five new graphics cards:Geforce RTX 2080 Ti GAMING OC 11G Geforce RTX 2080 Ti WINDFORCE OC 11G Geforce RTX 2080 GAMING OC 8G Geforce RTX 2080 WINDFORCE OC 8G Geforce RTX 2070 GAMING OC 8G
All five graphics cards feature Gigabyte’s Windforce 3X cooling system with alternate spinning fans, RGB fusion, sleek metal back plate, Gigabyte certified ultra-durable materials and one-click overclocking so [...]
With the holiday season quickly approaching, we have heard numerous rumblings that the 9th gen CPUs hinted at since last year will be arriving soon and thanks to a recent report by Wccftech, we now have a pretty reliable rumor that Intel will launch the new 9th gen CPUs with the Z390 series at the start of October.
According to the article, the Intel Core i9-9900k will be an 8-core and 16-thread CPU while the Intel Core i7-9700K will be an 8 core part without hyper-threading, marking the first time ever on the desktop that Intel is releasing an i7 without hyper-threading. Following this, Intel will [...]
Astro Gaming has officially announced that they will once again be sponsoring DreamHack Open for the 2018 year. Starting in 2012, DreamHack Open is one of the largest gaming tournaments every year. For 2018, DreamHack Open will feature eight live events in Europe and North America with a total prize pool of $800,000. DreamHack Open will feature the popular FPS, CS: GO where eight teams will compete live for a $100,000 prize pool. The first of the eight events has already taken place in Leipzig, Germany in January.
“One of your primary goals at ASTRO Gaming is continuing to expand our support of the global esports, and DreamHack’s efforts and vision [...]
Razer is adding a few more championship teams to their roster of sponsored elite esports teams as the company signed a two-year partnership deal with KSV eSports in which Razer will begin providing all current and future KSV eSports teams with pro-tournament grade mice, keyboards, headsets, and surfaces.
With this new partnership, Razer is now the official sponsor to KSV eSports’ Seoul Dynasty Overwatch team and will be providing them with esports grade gaming peripherals for their 2018 season and tournament activities.
According to Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, “Helping ambitious organizations and players reach the next level has been a matter of [...]
Razer has further elaborated its Seiren microphone series with the release of its Siren Elite microphone.
The Seiren Elite builds on Razer’s Seiren microphone by providing higher quality voice recording for streamers. Unlike the condenser capsule-based Seiren Pro and the Seiren X, nested inside the Seiren Elite’s barrel design is a single dynamic capturing capsule which provides higher quality voice recording. As expected, Razer has configured the Seiren Elite to operate in a cardioid capture pattern, meaning that it captures most of the sound from the front of the mic.
The Siren Elite is optimised for voice capture right out of the gate. It [...]
Earlier this week, AMD addressed some key questions regarding its upcoming Ryzen APUs.
To set most at ease, the APUS will be fully compatible with AM4 motherboards, with only a BIOS updated needed for newer CPU support. This lowers the cost of entry into the Ryzen platform, with tremendous upgrade options available later on.
Zen APUs are coming in Febuary which feature the Global Foundries 14nm process found in the current generation Ryzen CPUs. Both models will feature quad cores, but the Ryzen 5 2400G features SMT, a base clock of 3.6GHz/boost clock of 3.9GHz and 11 Vega CUs for $169. The Ryzen 3 2200G will lack SMT, be clocked at 3.5GHz/ boosts [...]
Razer is demoing its newest concept design, Project Linda, at CES 2018. Razer’s project Linda aims to leverage the power of the Razer Phone and instantly transforms it into an Android based laptop PC. The concept is similar to the Windows Dock or the Samsung DeX Station, but rather than dock to a desktop PC, Project Linda seamlessly docks the phone right into the laptop.
The way it works is that the Razer Phone docks in face-up position where the touchpad would normally be found. This allows the phone to be used as the touchpad and the phone’s forward facing onboard speakers serve as speakers for the system as well. Having the phone in a face-up [...]