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The stars stood up for Kanye West.
Ye surprised fans with a last minute Yeezy season 9 show during Paris Fashion Week and it was unsurprisingly star-studded.
Before the show, he offered a sneak peek on Instagram to the famous faces who might hit the runway, teasing photos of Kim Kardashian, as well as ex Irina Shayk and his current current love interest, Victoria’s Secret Angel alum Candice Swanepoel.
Beyoncé, Rihanna, Angelina Jolie, Lauryn Hill, Naomi Campbell, Emily Ratajkowski, Gisele Bündchen, Bella Hadid and Amelia Gray Hamlin were all on the list, although only Hamlin and Campbell appeared to be on the show.
However, models, including Hamlin, wore bald caps and large face coverings which made it difficult to see if any famous faces were hidden under the layers.
Shayk was also in attendance, though she watched from the sidelines alongside former Burberry designer Riccardo Tisci. It seems the exes are on good terms as the “Runaway” rapper reconnected with the model during London Fashion Week last week, where they shared a flirty moment.
Reality star and model of the moment Amelia Hamlin walked in a nude cropped dress and bald cap while French designer Michèle Lamy modeled in a black puffer and matching cap.
Naomi closed the show in an oversized black puffer jacket with a black baseball cap, perhaps refusing the alien-esque bald look.
Daughter North West sang in the children’s choir that provided the show’s soundtrack, but it appears no members of the Kar-Jenner family were in attendance on Monday. However, Khloé Kardashian and Kylie Jenner sat front row at the Balenciaga fashion show on Sunday, where Ye made his modeling debut on the runway.
While Beyoncé’s stylist was Marni Senofonte seen in the audience at Yeezy, Queen B seems to be in Brooklyn, where she got pizza at the famous Lucali’s on Sunday night.
The eldest West child joined a choir of children to…
West introduced the show in a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt and intoxicated thongs and talked about everything from starting shows late to his ex’s infamous Paris robbery.
“We have changed the look of fashion over the past 10 years. We are the streets. We are the culture,” Ye told audiences, including Anna Wintour, Balenciaga designer Demna and more.


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Strip malls and other outdoor shopping centers throughout the Twin Cities suburbs are busier than ever.
Demand from retailers has driven nationwide shopping center occupancy to its highest level since 2007, when commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield first started collecting the retail data.
Local real estate brokers and property managers say it has been hard for tenants to find space at outdoor shopping areas, especially in first- and second-ring suburbs but also in outstate Minnesota as brick-and-mortar retail has experienced a resurgence.
With a possible slowdown or recession on the horizon this year, Twin Cities real estate professionals still say they believe outdoor shopping centers — from small strip malls to power centers with large anchor stores — will remain strong especially as space continues to be limited.
"After the last three years of devastation, things took a while to creep back up, but I think that [rents] are coming back to normal. … I think the suburbs are healthy," said Kris Schisel, vice president of retail services for real estate company Transwestern.
Schisel along with several other retailer and landlord representatives spoke at a well-attended panel held by the Minnesota Shopping Center Association (MSCA) at the Oak Ridge Country Club in Hopkins this week.
Open-air shopping centers were a popular alternative to inside shopping malls for many consumers concerned about COVID-19. Contactless purchasing options like store pickup, drive-up and drive-thru also helped make shopping at strip centers more convenient.
Many of these trends have continued even as COVID precautions have receded and more people have returned to in-store shopping, said Emilee DeCoteau, general manager of Woodbury Lakes and Centennial Shops and president of the MSCA.
DeCoteau has welcomed several new tenants over the last year to Woodbury Lakes, including activewear store Offline by Aerie, modular furniture provider Lovesac, Hazelwood Food and Drink and the By the Yard outdoor furniture store. The shopping center appears to be mostly occupied.
The national vacancy rate for outdoor shopping centers was a little less than 6% at the end of last year with the Minneapolis area having a tighter market with an under 5% vacancy, according to a report released in January by Cushman & Wakefield. Last year store openings across the country outpaced closures by nearly 2,500. National asking rents have also gradually increased over the last year.
Though leasing has been brisk, the type of tenants that are looking for space has changed, with an increasingly smaller pool of possible retailers that need large big-box stores, said Chris Simmons, managing director of retail services for Transwestern.
Instead its smaller, fast casual restaurants — many of which added drive-thrus or pickup options during the pandemic — that have become popular.
"That's what's keeping a lot of the developments alive around Minnesota — the standalone," Simmons said.
The Cushman report found that only 10,800 square feet of new shopping center space was under construction as of the end of the year.
"There's certainly new development that's going on out there," said David Daly, a senior vice president specializing in retail properties with CBRE. "I would say it looks far different than it did 10 years ago."
Instead of the traditional 10,000 square feet of speculative "inline" retail space attached to an anchor like a grocery store, many retailers now look for freestanding "pad sites," Daly said. Shopping centers can have several of these independent buildings that can serve as coffee shops, banks, veterinarian offices and more.
Daly helped seal the deal for West Des Moines-based Smash Park to build its pickleball and entertainment space at the new Twin Lakes Station shopping center near Rosedale Center. The space is expected to open this fall.
In outstate areas like Marshall, indoor mall tenants are trying to get into strip centers, said Stefanie Meyer, senior vice president and principal at Mid-America real estate.
"They are wanting to get out of these small market malls because they are dying inside of [them]," she said.
As for what lies ahead, some brokers said they think 2023 will bring a slowdown in retail leasing as consumers face high inflation and high interest rates. Brokers and property owners will need to get creative, said Tricia Pitchford, senior vice president of leasing at Mid-America.
"We're constantly having to rethink how we need to fill space," she said. "There's still a lot of deals that are happening, too, but I think the nationals [tenants] are going to slow down. I think some of the mom-and-pops are slowing down because they can't borrow money at a reasonable rate right now."
Several of the real estate experts on the panel said some closings of traditional retailers could allow for more opportunities for up-and-coming concepts.
"Sometimes it's sad to see these retailers close, but if they're not staying relevant, as a landlord, you want somebody who is relevant that's bringing more traffic to your shopping centers," Meyer said.

domain: news


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Apple has unveiled its latest, most powerful iPad, which boasts a display that is even sharper than high definition TV.
The new iPad, the third to be released in as many years, features an A5X chip that Apple says has double the graphics performance of the A5 chip used on the iPad 2 and iPhone 4s, a super-sharp Retina display, high-speed 4G wireless connectivity, the latest update to Apple's operating system – iOS 5.1 – and a 5 megapixel camera.
The new iPad is slightly thicker than its predecessor at 9.4mm, with the weight of the Wi-Fi only model also increasing slightly from 600g to 650g.
"The new iPad redefines the category Apple created less than two years ago, delivering the most amazing experience people have ever had with technology," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing.
The new iPad will ship in the UK on 16 March, with prices ranging from £399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only version to £659 for the 64GB 4G-enabled device.


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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Actress Lori Loughlin could be home in time for Christmas.
Laughlin is currently serving a two-month sentence two-month sentence for paying thousands of dollars in bribes to get her daughters admitted to USC as athletic recruits.
She is serving her time at a Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, east of San Francisco, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Laughlin is scheduled to be released Sunday, December 27, but a prison policy allows inmates to be released early if their release date falls on a weekend or holiday.
Because Christmas falls on a Friday this year, Loughlin could be released by Christmas Eve.
Her husband, fashion mogul Mossimo Giannulli, is expected to begin his five-month sentence later this month.
for more features.


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Dow Jones Media Group, part of the larger Dow Jones company owned by News Corp, announced yesterday it would begin to track eight new crytocurrencies through its news portal MarketWatch.
The publication has been tracking cryptocurrencies since 2014, and the new lot includes Ether, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ether Classic, Monero, Dash and zcash. Each quote is displayed using data from Kraken cryptocurrency exchange in real-time.
Last week, Dow Jones Media Group announced a partnership with ad-blocking browser Brave—founded by Brendan Eich, who also founded Mozilla—to experiment with the use of cryptocurrencies in media and advertising.
According to the agreement, users who have downloaded the Brave browser on a “first-come, first-serve” basis, will have access to premium content from the media group, including full access to Barrons.com or a premium version of the MarketWatch newsletter.
Dow Jones Media Group includes the luxury and financial brands Barron’s, MarketWatch, Mansion Global and Financial News. It forms approximately half of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.
Brave and Dow Jones Media Group will also test several “innovative solutions” in news that include using Brave’s blockchain-based digital advertising and service platform to deliver content.
Unrelated to the Dow Jones partnership, Brave, which operates the BAT (basic attention token) cryptocurrency, revealed earlier this month that it will soon begin to give BAT currency to all users of its browser, allowing them to fund the websites they visit.
BAT operates as an alternative to traditional advertising dollars. Users who fund a website with BAT currency could gain access to premium content that would normally be behind a paywall. Users could eventually receive a portion of advertising revenue.
According to CNET.com, the currency giveaway plan is an “important new phase in Brave's effort to salvage what's good about advertising on the internet — free access to useful or entertaining services like Facebook, Google search and YouTube — without downsides like privacy invasion and the sorts of political manipulations that Facebook partner Cambridge Analytica tried to enable.”
As of April, more than 12,000 publishers are approved for BAT payments, including The Washington Post, the Guardianand Dow Jones Media Group, including Barron’s and MarketWatch.
Brave plans to begin rollout of the currency giveaway by June.


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US stocks ended sharply higher Friday after a strong jobs report fuelled expectations that the Federal Reserve will begin to reduce its huge stimulus soon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained a hefty 198.69 points (1.26 per cent) at 16,020.20.
The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 20.06 (1.12 per cent) to 1,805.09, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 29.36 (0.73 per cent) to 4,062.52.
The Dow and the S&P 500 solidly snapped a five-session losing streak. Wall Street rallied from the opening bell after a better-than-expected November jobs report from the Labor Department.
The US jobless rate dropped to 7.0 per cent, a five-year low, from 7.3 per cent in October, and the economy added 203,000 jobs.
Analysts said the strength of the Labor Department report could encourage the Fed to begin cutting back its $85 billion a month in bond purchases, aimed at boosting economic growth
"Markets like this report because it indicates the risk of disinflation or deflation is diminishing," said David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors.
The Commerce Department reported consumers picked up their pace of spending in October, a key driver of economic growth. Meanwhile inflation fell for the third consecutive month, to a yearly rate of 0.7 per cent, well below the Fed's preferred 2.0 per cent target.
Adding to the overall bullishness, the University of Michigan's consumer confidence index jumped much more than expected in December.
All 30 stocks on the blue-chip Dow ended solidly in positive territory, led by Intel, up 2.3 per cent, DuPont (+2.2 per cent), and Boeing and General Electric, each up 1.9 per cent.
In corporate news, retailer Sears shed 3.8 per cent after announcing plans to spin off its Lands' End clothing business, subject to shareholder approval.
Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance plunged 20.5 per cent after a disappointing fiscal third-quarter earnings report showed a decline in same-store sales.
Tech giant Google rose 1.2 per cent to a record-high close at $1,069.87 on the Nasdaq.
Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury rose to 2.88 per cent from 2.86 per cent from Thursday, while the 30-year rose to 3.92 per cent from 3.91 per cent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.


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A Big Mac and fries isn't typical Christmas dinner fare, but it will be an optional menu this year.
A company spokeswoman for Oak Brook-based McDonald's confirmed to Ad Age that the restaurants will be open on Christmas Day.
According to the magazine, McDonald's CEO Jim Jim Johannesen issued an internal memo in early November asking franchises to open on Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to help boost sales. Sources say 6,000 stores decided to open on Thanksgiving.
The company posted a 2.5 percent sales growth for the month of November, a performance Johannesen credited to the holiday sales in another memo obtained last week.
According to McDonald's officials, workers at company-owned restaurants can voluntarily sign up to work on holidays and are not paid overtime.
No word on any plans to add a McTurkey to the menu.


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Bitcoin Pioneer Argues Experiment Has Failed
Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn argues that the currency has failed because the community has failed. "What was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked 'systemically important institutions' and 'too big to fail' has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people," writes Hearn. Hearn says the network is on the brink of collapse and there's "no longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be better than the existing financial system." Writing for CoinDesk, Pete Rizzo covers the firestorm unleashed by Hearn's departure. Hearn, whose contributions to the network included the library BitcoinJ and peer to peer crowdfunding app Lighthouse, wrote that Bitcoin is struggling to keep up with the transaction load being placed upon it. "Why has the capacity limit not been raised? Because the block chain is controlled by Chinese miners, just two of whom control more than 50% of the hash power," writes Hearn. "At a recent conference over 95% of hashing power was controlled by a handful of guys sitting on a single stage. The miners are not allowing the block chain to grow."
Citigroup Slides Behind Wells Fargo As Nation's Fourth-Largest Lender, Both Guard Against Energy Losses
Wells Fargo has eclipsed Citigroup, finishing 2015 with $1.79 trillion in assets vs Citigroup's $1.73 trillion. "The latest hand-off underscores the difference in their strategies. Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf has amassed deposits and snapped up assets from other lenders to spur growth. Citigroup CEO Mike Corbat, in contrast, has exited businesses and sold branch networks in some countries to hone the firm’s focus and improve profitability," reports Bloomberg. In the meantime, Reuters reports that both banks are guarding against rising loan losses as oil prices have slipped below $30 a barrel. Citigroup set aside $250 million to cover losses related to its energy portfolio but noted that if the price of oil were to drop to $25 for a sustained period it would need to more than double those provisions. Big banks have insisted that the pain has been limited to the energy sector and there is still robust demand and regular repayment across car loans, mortgages and commercial real estate.
Mobile Banking Visitors Eclipse Branch
In 2015 30 percent of adults used a mobile banking service weekly while only 24 percent visited a physical branch. This is the first time in the history of Javelin's survey that this has been the case. Since 2010, the number of smartphone bankers has doubled and the number of people using a tablet has increased by a factor of ten. However, Wall Street Journal reporter Telis Demos notes that branches will still remain relevant. "With banks facing increasing competition from online-first rivals, branches are one differentiating factor. They can be especially important to certain customers such as small businesses with cash management needs." Deloitte has argued that one of the hazards of increasing mobile banking is fewer direct interactions with customers, who may feel less loyalty.
To What Extent Are Fintech Services Being Adopted?
While the funding and hype has been massive, many are wondering whether fintech services are actually being adopted by the public. Ernst & Young recently launched a Fintech Adoption Index to survey digitally active consumers and monitor their behavior, reports Business Insider. Monitoring consumers across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Ernst & Young found that 15.5 percent use some type of fintech service, be it online payments or peer-to-peer lending. This is of course small compared to the penetration in games, social media or messaging. Ernst & Young's Head of Fintech Imran Gulamhuseinwala noted that urban dwellers are much more likely to be using fintech products and that "adoption is highest among younger digitally active consumers and higher income digitally active consumers." The top performing categories were money transfer and payment services, at 17.6 percent adoption, and savings and investment products (peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, online investment advice) at 16.7 percent.
Stripe Now Accepting ACH Payments
Online payments startup Stripe announced that it has launched support for ACH payments for all U.S. users. ACH payments on Stripe will cost 0.80%, capped at $5, with no monthly fees or verification fees. Thus, a $100 payment would incur an 80 cent fee and any payment above $625 would cost $5. "This can be especially useful if you routinely charge customers large amounts on a recurring basis," writes engineer Ray Morgan.


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$2 million cognac. Source: Most-expensive.net.
More prosperous American shoppers seem to be defying continuing high unemployment levels and economic uncertainty to renew their spending on luxuries such as jewellery, fashion and cosmetics. That is the picture emerging from the current round of US earnings and sales reports.
Tracey Travis, chief financial officer of Polo Ralph Lauren, said last week that the fashion brand and retail company had “slowly begun to see the gradual return of our core luxury customer”, including buyers of couture dresses that sell for more than $4,000.
Fabrizio Freda, chief executive of Estée Lauder, has said that sales of its beauty products at “prestige” stores – such as traditional department stores – had grown faster than at “mass” drugstores and discounters during November and December, reversing the trend seen earlier in the year.
“We view this as a return of the aspirational consumer,” he said.
The evidence of greater readiness to spend comes in spite of continuing high unemployment, with about 20 per cent of the US population unemployed or working casually or part time. Richard Hastings, retail strategist at Global Hunter Securities, said that roughly half of the 80 per cent of Americans fully employed were not affected by the depressed housing market and were now more ready to spend as they had become less concerned about their own jobs.
I’d like to know what industries and businesses those 40% of Americans work in.


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Density of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations in the United States
Obama Administration announces plan to improve electric vehicle charging infrastructure
Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced a plan to expand the number of electric vehicle charging stations in the United States significantly. The plan is to establish 48 charging corridors across the nation’s highways, covering nearly 25,000 miles in 35 states. Along these corridors, drivers can expect charging stations within every 50 miles, a significant step towards building a comprehensive network of charging opportunities.
Despite significant progress that has been made over the past few years in terms of charging stations, many regions in the United States still lack the infrastructure necessary to drive adoption of electric mobility. Our chart illustrates where drivers of electric vehicles can expect to find a charging station and which regions they should probably avoid. In absolute terms, California is an electric driver’s dream destination: According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are more than 11,000 outlets at 3,488 public charging stations across the Golden State.
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The co-founder of Peloton is stepping down as chief executive after an extended streak of tumult at the exercise and treadmill company. John Foley first pitched the idea of an interactive exercise bike in 2011, hoping to disrupt the industry. Now, he'll give up his CEO position and become executive chair at Peloton Interactive Inc. Barry McCarthy, who served as CFO at Spotify, as well as at Netflix, will take over the CEO position, per the AP. Peloton had been the subject in media reports this week of a potential takeover target by either Amazon or Nike. The developments Tuesday deflated hopes for such a deep-pocketed buyer, and shares of Peloton slumped 7% before the opening bell.
The company's shares have been on a roller-coaster ride since the pandemic began. They surged more than 400% in 2020 as COVID-19 forced lockdowns and shifted the workout trend from the gym to the home. In 2021, the shares gave back nearly all of those gains as businesses reopened and people started heading back to gyms. The stock fell further this year amid reports the company would cut back production of bikes and treadmills to try to offset a decline in sales. There was also a demand late last month from activist investor Blackwells Capital that Peloton remove Foley as CEO and that it consider selling the company amid waning consumer demand.
Peloton also announced 2,800 job cuts globally, including approximately 20% of corporate jobs at the New York City company. The instructors who lead interactive classes for Peloton won't be included in cuts, nor will the content that the company relies on to lure users. Peloton is looking to reduce its planned capital expenditures for this year by about $150 million. The restructuring program is expected to result in approximately $130 million in cash charges related to severance and other exit and restructuring activities, and $80 million in noncash charges. The majority of the charges will be recorded in fiscal 2022. The company anticipates at least $800 million in annual cost savings once its actions are fully implemented.
(Read more Peloton


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To shuck or not to shuck oysters before they're sold is the pearly question, particularly as the public queues to buy oysters for Christmas and New Year.
In France, oysters are also traditional on Christmas Day. Unlike Australia, it is illegal in France to pre-shuck oysters before they've been sold.
"An oyster is a live fish posing as a rock," said oyster farmer Steve Feletti quoting an old French saying. "Until you flip that lid, that fish is alive," said Mr Feletti, who owns Moonlight Flat Oysters, while opening some of his company's Sydney rock oysters at Canberra restaurant Monster Salon.
To many buyers, pre-shucked oysters are a little more expensive but worth the convenience. But to increasing numbers of oyster purists like Mr Feletti and restaurateurs like Saint Peter's Joshua Niland, pre-shucking is an abomination, drying out the oysters, and increasing the chances that buyers will get sick eating one past its prime.
It's legal to sell oysters pre-shucked or unshucked in Australia, yet most are pre-shucked, the salty goodness washed off with tap water, wrapped in plastic, piled on a styrofoam tray and then refrigerated.
While oysters are growing in popularity, the old art of shucking has gone the way of skills like how to debone a duck, pluck a chook or gut a fish, said Mr Feletti.
Watching Mr Feletti – regarded as an expert on Sydney rock oysters – shuck to order is a bit of theatre complete with grimaces and a hammy French accent.
He brings props: a $22 oyster knife with a nicely turned-up tip, a device to cradle the oyster (an old towel will do the trick, too) and a pastry brush to gently remove any shards of shell that may have shattered in the opening.
Mr Feletti starts by inserting his knife gently under the hinge at the oyster's narrow end. "Wiggle, wiggle, it is not a sword fight," he said. "Anyone bring Band Aids? I am kidding," he adds.
To Mr Feletti, oysters should be opened and eaten within minutes of shucking with the juices of the sea or estuary wherever they were grown.
After years of slow growth, production of Sydney rock oysters – which account for around 90 per cent of oysters grown in NSW – has increased, jumping 9 per cent in 2017-18 to nearly six million dozen, according to statistics released in December by the NSW Department of Primary Industry.
Whether they're shucked or unshucked, oysters have an inherent risk because they are filter feeders, says NSW Food Authority. But because of oyster safety programs, Australian oysters are now among the safest in the world, according to research published earlier this year.
Because they are so fresh, Mr Feletti said very few live oysters are off. People will often tell him that they don't eat oysters after a bad experience. "It is the most common story in Australia, and it has even entered the language, 'Oh John's crook, must've been a bad oyster'."
Josh Niland, the owner of Surry Hill's Saint Peter fish restaurant and fish butchery, has also converted customers who say they don't eat oysters.
"They will try one or two, then they'll order more. It is a different experience," said Mr Niland, who was the Australian Financial Review's chef of the year. "There is no aroma, the customer is just getting a taste of the ocean. I have never found myself wanting to eat oysters more than now."
Saint Peter aims to shuck and get oysters on a customer's table within four minutes. Freshly shucked oysters have a distinct flavour and aroma of where they are grown, he said.
Instead of terroir, the French word that is associated with wine and cheese where the food is influenced by the climate and the soil where it is grown, think meroir (taste of the sea), a word coined by the Seattle Times in 2003.
"If you wash away the water (with tap water), the oyster becomes a universal piece of protein in a shell," Mr Niland said.
Arguing for the convenience of pre-shucked oysters, though, was a buyer scoffing a dozen on Friday. "The best thing about Christmas is the oysters and prawns – you pick them up, take them home and eat them. No preparation, no work," said the man who preferred to not be named.
Pre-shucked oysters need to be refrigerated. But unopened oysters, particularly Sydney rock, will keep well at home.
NSW Fisheries said unshucked Sydney rock oysters have an ability to control bacterial populations. And if unshucked oysters are kept cool (not in the fridge), they can remain alive out of the water for weeks.
They will survive longer if they are covered with wet hessian (or old Sydney Morning Heralds, said Mr Feletti,) and stored on a cool concrete floor.


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Microsoft unveiled Windows 11 last week and has now shared the first few features and UI changes with testers in the Windows Insider program.
The feature update is due out in the fall, but despite the new look, could it be security rather than design that is going to drive businesses to upgrade?
Dave Weston, director of enterprise and operating system security at Microsoft, says he's confident the added security of Windows 11 will drive faster uptake.
Weston points out that, according to tech analyst Gartner, security was the number one driver for enterprises upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7. And since then, thanks to a range of high-profile hacking incidents and the rise of ransomware, security is even higher on the agenda.
SEE: Network security policy (TechRepublic Premium)
"I expect the adoption to go even faster than the Windows 7 to 10 period because of the security advantages," he says.
He says the two most important things enterprises can do to improve security is get rid of passwords and move to a zero-trust framework – a network security design that assumes breaches, and acknowledges that managed and unmanaged devices flow between homes and workplaces fluidly as a result of new work practices brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Microsoft has been talking up passwordless authentication for years now as an early backer of the FIDO2 standard. Key Microsoft technologies in this space include Windows Hello biometrics for accessing Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) networks, and apps that support the Microsoft Authenticator app and FIDO2-based security keys, such as Google's Titan keys.
"So with Windows 11, out of the box, you can actually create a Microsoft account that never has a password that uses your face or biometrics in lieu of a password," Weston says.
Beyond this, Windows 11 tightens up operating system security because more of these security features for the enterprise are turned on by default.
"We got deep in the engine, tweaked things, tuned things, got things fast enough and compatible enough that they're just there. It's not the features that are there – it's the features that are turned on by default," he says.
This means virtualization-based security (VBS), TPM, or Trusted Platform Module hardware-based security, and BitLocker are automatically on for all Windows 11 machines.
"This is really the most secure release – not in the sense of new features – but that users used to have to be educated on or needed more effort to enable and protect themselves. It's just there now," he says.
"As more websites on the internet start to support FIDO2 and the passwordless standards, we think we're well on our way to a world where you're just not going to enter passwords," says Weston.
He adds that Microsoft bolstered the security of biometrics in Windows 11, putting this biometric data in their own shielded virtual machine. This helps stop attackers stealing biometric data for future attacks on systems that rely on biometric authentication.
"That means if malware or a hacker got on your machine, it couldn't tamper with your biometric data, which is a much stronger security guarantee for biometrics," explains Weston. Security in hardware is also a key evolution.
The TPM is a chip that is either integrated into the PC's motherboard or added separately into the CPU with the aim of protect encryption keys, user credentials, and other sensitive data behind a hardware barrier. All certified Windows 11 systems must have a TPM 2.0 chip.
Another example is Pluton, a Microsoft-made and updated component of CPU hardware from Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. Pluton-equipped computers aren't available just yet, but Windows 11 is ready to use it.
SEE: Security Awareness and Training policy (TechRepublic Premium)
Pluton is embedded in the CPU, so it's not a separate processor. A major benefit is that end users can just get firmware updates from Microsoft's usual Patch Tuesday updates from Windows Update.
"We write the software for this chip, so the root of trust is a combination of mostly hardware and a small amount of software to make it run. The nice thing about Pluton is that Microsoft writes the code and keeps it up to date, so it comes through Windows Update and users don't have to do anything," he says.
"Today when you have a security issue, users have to go out of their normal flow and track it down on the web and run an executable, and they often don't do that, which leaves these systems vulnerable.
"Every Windows 11 device will have a hardware identity and a TPM, which means the cloud can uniquely identify it and organizations can determine if a device that can connect into their cloud meets acceptable security guarantees.
"In addition, we have conditional access agents built in to the operating system that leverages hardware. Which means that before a device can connect to sensitive data – which is what ransomware wants to encrypt – companies can easily define a security policy with all the protections you would need to stop ransomware: antivirus, control that patches up to date, and so we're making that much easier to enforce on Windows 11."
The catch is that you'll need new hardware with the latest CPUs from these chipmakers to take advantage of Windows 11's default security features: the question is whether CIOs and consumers alike will take security seriously enough to make the upgrade.


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Hip Hop brand FUBU is on the comeback trail in the U.S., aiming to leverage licensing agreements to lead the way.
April 18, 2019
The 1990s brand never really left the U.S. market, but changes in fashion led the company to refocus priorities outside the region since in 2003. Today, the apparel brand has begun examining licensing deals as a way to reestablish itself in the U.S.
Learning from the past, FUBU executives recently told LIMA that they want to ensure the brand finds the right licensing deals without oversaturating the market.
“Our goal is not to be distributed as much as before, and while we have to turn a profit, we don’t want to be oversaturated,” says Carlton Brown, co-founder and head of business development and licensing, FUBU. “We want to maintain some kind of exclusivity. We were oversaturated before, and we really had to reevaluate how we wanted to come out this time. That means doing short runs and keeping low inventory or no inventory at all.”
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Pinas, ‘Best Rice Producer’ pa rin sa buong mundoJanuary 22, 2020
Manila, Philippines – Nananatiling ‘best rice producers worldwide’ ang Pilipinas, ayon sa Malakanyang.
Ito ang ipinahayag ni Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo matapos makapasok ang bigas ng Chen Yi Agventures na ‘Dalisay’ sa top 30 rice varieties sa buong mundo.
Ang Dalisay Rice o mas kilalang Renucci rice na mula pa Alangalang, Leyte ay kinilala bilang pangatlo sa 30 rice varieties sa buong mundo sa ginawang World Rice Conference sa Makati Shangri-La noong November 2019.
Ang Chen Yi Agventures ang kauna-unahang Filipino company na nanalo ng World Best Rice Contest, sa hanay ng Thailand at Vietnam.
“The Office of the President acknowledges the efforts of Chenyi Agventures in placing the flag yet again on the pedestal of producing quality rice as it was recognized as one of the world’s best during the 11th Annual World Rice Conference 2019 held in the country last November,” saad ni Panelo.
“Out of the 30 participating countries, the Philippines ranked third with its Renucci Rice entry. Chen Yi Agventures, along with the Philippine Rice Research Institute, should be credited for their achievement during this conference despite only being a last-minute addition,” dagdag pa nito.
Samantala, pinapurihan naman ni Panelo ang Chen Yi Agventures.
“The rest, as they say, is history,” bati ni Panelo.
“As an agricultural country, this recognition should all the more inspire the government to work harder in improving the lot of our farmers and modernizing the agricultural sector.”
- To see full article:
- Louella Desiderio (The Philippine Star)
- Mar 06, 2020
Local rice producer eyes export of ultra premium brandMANILA, Philippines — Rice processing firm Chen Yi Agventures Inc. plans to start exporting its high quality rice brand to Asia or the Middle East this year. Chen Yi Agventures president Rachel Renucci-Tan said in a briefing the firm is currently in talks with different countries for the export of rice. “We’re looking at one to two but large export markets,” she said, noting these countries are in Asia and the Middle East.
- ANC Headstart with Karen Davila
- Mar 06, 2020
Headstart | Uplifting lives of Filipino farmersThe Philippines, being an agricultural nation, lags behind its ASEAN neighbors in terms of innovation in the farming industry. But a couple wants to revolutionize rice production in the country while uplifting the lives of farmers. Rachel Marjorie Renucci-Tan and Patrick Francois Renucci, founders of Chen Ti Agventures share how their story.
- Jasper Y. Arcalas (Business Mirror)
- Mar 05, 2020


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The Chinese government has drafted a new plan which, if put into effect, would force foreign companies to share key eco-friendly car technologies in order for them to be permitted to sell their vehicles in China. The news comes while China is already the object of a great deal of grumbling from foreign automakers that it is using its massive market to skew business in its favor. The new requirement would be the most extreme example yet of this type of strong-arming. Eco Auto Ninja said that if the report that came with the proposal is to be believed, enforcing such a technology requirement would catapult China to the forefront of the eco-auto industry, allowing it to produce more affordable and competitive hybrid and electric cars by 2020.
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Tribe 9 Foods of Wisconsin announced Thursday that it had bought Carla’s Pasta of South Windsor for $26.3 million and planned to maintain local production while expanding volume and distribution.
Tribe 9, a Madison-based maker of gluten-free pasta brand Taste Republic, said it bought Carla’s through a bankruptcy auction in Hartford County.
Carla’s, a well-known local maker of fresh pasta, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February citing tens of millions of dollars in debt and the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its sales. The company has been in business for 43 years and had 140 employees as of February.
“While it hurt us to file for bankruptcy, we’re grateful that a value-driven organization such as Tribe 9 will be at the helm going forward. This means people keep their jobs and Carla’s legacy lives on,” said Sandro Squatrito, vice president of business development for Carla’s Pasta.
The Carla’s acquisition will add to Tribe 9’s portfolio of gluten-free, grain-free and other non-traditional pastas, Chairman and CEO Brian Durst said. “We will be thrilled to provide a complete range of solutions for our customers, including foodservice, industrial, retail, private label and contract manufacturing,” Durst said.
The deal is scheduled to close April 30, subject to final approval by the bankruptcy court.
Robinson & Cole acted as legal advisor to Tribe 9 on the deal, and Alantra as financial advisor.


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HMD Global, the new vendor of Nokia phones, has unveiled a new generation of Nokia smartphones. The global portfolio features three new smartphones – the new Nokia 6, delivering performance and immersive entertainment in a premium and extremely robust design; Nokia 5, an elegant smartphone that fits perfectly in your hand; and Nokia 3, which delivers an unprecedented quality at an affordable price point. The new range of Nokia smartphones all run Android Nougat and offer a pure, secure and up to date experience and will all feature Google Assistant. Also unveiled, and back to the market, is Nokia 3310, reborn with a modern twist on design.
“The family of products announced demonstrate a belief that every consumer should have access to premium quality, not just those with high end flagship devices. Combined with a thoughtful design philosophy that focuses on improving the smartphone experience at every level, each technical component has been carefully considered and integrated into the phone design to have the biggest benefit on consumers’ daily lives. Drawing on the hallmarks of the Nokia phone heritage of quality, simplicity and reliability, the range is designed for a new generation of fans,” noted HMD in the press release.
(TOP: A screenshot of the Nokia 6. See the promo video below).
“With a commitment to deliver pure Android, users can expect a simple, clean and clutter free experience. Featuring the latest Google services, as well as monthly security updates, Nokia smartphones are safe, secure and up-to-date. The new Nokia smartphones feature Google’s most recent innovation, the Google Assistant, building further on a great Android experience. Our teams have worked together to ensure the Google Assistant is integrated, allowing for conversations with the Google Assistant to take place easily on Nokia smartphones.”
It was also announced that the world-renowned game Snake will be snaking its way back into people’s hearts with a new version available to play on Messenger, part of Facebook’s Instant Games cross platform experience. The new free Snake game is designed to be played with groups of friends making it even more playable than the first time around.
The new Nokia range of Android smartphones unveiled today ahead of Mobile World Congress come in a range of prices.
The Nokia 6 – available in four colours – Matte Black, Silver, Tempered Blue and Copper – will retail at an average global retail price of €229 (US $243 or Kshs 24,400). However, the Nokia 6 Arte Black Limited Edition with 64GB storage and 4GB RAM, will retail at an average global retail price of €299 (US $317 or Kshs 31,700) .
Nokia 5 – also available in four colours – Matte Black, Silver, Tempered Blue and Copper – will retail at an average global retail price of €189 (US $200 or Kshs 20,000).
The Nokia 3, available Silver White, Matte Black, Tempered Blue and Copper White – will come at an average global retail price of €139 (US $147 or Kshs 14,700).
The Nokia 3310 – which now comes in Warm Red and Yellow, both with a gloss finish, and Dark Blue and Grey both with a matte finish – will retail at an average global retail price of €49 (US $52 or Kshs 5,200).
The phones come with the full range of accessories including headsets, portable and Bluetooth speakers, in-car chargers, cases and screen protectors.
ull range of Nokia phones, visit HMD at the Nokia stand (Hall 3, stand 3A).
Arto Nummela, CEO of HMD Global, said: “Nokia has been one of the most iconic and recognisable phone brands globally for decades. In the short time since HMD was launched into the market, the positive reception we’ve had has been overwhelming; it seems everyone shares our excitement for this next chapter. Today’s consumers are more discerning and demanding than ever before and for us they will always come first. Our efforts in bringing together world class manufacturers, operating systems and technology partners sees us proudly unveiling our first global portfolio of smartphones with a Nokia soul, delivering the very best experience to everyone.”
Enrico Salvatori, SVP and President, Qualcomm EMEA said: “We are pleased to have collaborated with HMD on the Nokia 6 and Nokia 5 and look forward to working closely with them on future devices. The Nokia brand has a rich heritage in advancing mobile technology and to see new Nokia smartphones on sale is a welcome sight. Both devices are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 mobile platform which offers a rich feature set for smartphones: integrated X6 LTE, cutting-edge camera technology with dual-Image signal processors, next-generation Qualcomm Adreno 505 GPU all means Snapdragon 430 supports fast downloads and uploads, stunning graphics and photos with battery life to spare.”
Local availability will be announced in markets in Q2, 2017 in APAC, India, Middle East, Africa and Europe. All the phones launched will be available in single SIM and dual SIM variants.
Headquartered in Espoo, Finland, HMD Global Oy is the new manufacturer of the Nokia-branded phones.


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Bitcoin Looks Similar To How It Did In Late 2016
According to the SEC’s lawsuit, the duo ignored legal advice that the cryptocurrency could be considered an investment contract and therefore was a security. As the market valuation of the total stock of bitcoins approached US$1 billion, some commentators called bitcoin prices a bubble. In early April 2013, the price per bitcoin dropped from $266 to around $50 and then rose to around $100. Over two weeks starting late June 2013 the price dropped steadily to $70. The price began to recover, peaking once again on 1 October at $140.
Twitter also said that the hackers were able to download account data belonging to eight unverified users. The Bitcoin wallet where followers were asked to send money received more than $118,000 before Twitter locked down all verified accounts to shut down the scam. Crypto hackers took over the Twitter accounts of prominent users including Bill Gates, Kanye West, Elon Musk and Barack Obama and many more. Binance’s CEO Changpeng « CZ » Zhao has moved toblacklist the stolen fundsfrom his exchange, stating users should « beware of this Electrum official update. » Kucoin maintained that funds in its cold wallets are safe, even as the hot wallets were hit. The investment in Bitcoin will represent 0.04% of the general investment account of nearly $235 billion as of Sept. 30, MassMutual said. The value of Bitcoin didn’t stop falling throughout 2014 and didn’t bottom out until midway through January of 2015 when the price dropped below $200. The average Bitcoin price has not been at this level since Feb. 6, 2014, when the Bitcoin community began to discover that Mt. Gox was going to completely collapse.
- The year 2020 has not been kind to Bitcoin’s price, and it’s not even it’s fault.
- It began steadily creeping up again in mid-October and has gained momentum in recent weeks.
- UK banking group Lloyd’s and Virgin Money (LSE-VMUK) ban their customers from using credit cards to buy Bitcoin; while Twitter , Google , and Facebook all outlaw crypto advertising.
- A factor that is predicted by many to cause the price of Bitcoin to drives up in the future is Bitcoin’s market cap limit.
- In March, the bitcoin transaction log, called the blockchain, temporarily split into two independent chains with differing rules on how transactions were accepted.
- For this matter, we transform all of the original series accordingly, as most of them and particularly the Bitcoin price, are multimodal, and we thus interpret the results based on the quantile analysis.
In the same month BTC China, the country’s biggest crypto exchange, stopped accepting deposits in Yuan. Although the currency remained legal for individuals to trade, without third party payment providers such as BTC, activity practically ceased overnight. The Chinese central bank bans financial institutions and payment companies from using the currency, leading to a surprise collapse. The release of the new software spooked a lot of people though, because it raised the possibility that the Bitcoin community might not be able to reach an agreement on size. In a decentralized community, consensus is everything – and a permanent disagreement could mean a permanent divorce. It didn’t pan out that way this time – not many miners took up the Bitcoin XT option, and the alternative software eventually petered out sometime around mid-2016. But the possibility of a hard fork still panicked the market, and the price dipped from $261.46 on August 15 to $209.72 on August 24. The Japanese Government approves a bill recognizing virtual currencies as similar to real money, able to make payments and with the potential to be digitally transferred. This is a big step forward, with many other nations still struggling with the role that cryptocurrencies can, or should, be allowed to play. Some of the biggest changes included improved fee estimation and manual blockchain pruning, so users can get rid of older verified blocks and make space for new blockchain data.
Bitcoin Price History: A Timeline
The app came back online a few hours later, but the volatile crypto market had already stumbled at the first sign of trouble. If you look at the number of corporates mentioning crypto on their earnings calls, that’s gone from about 17 last year to about 147 in the most recent quarter. This isn’t just Bitcoin anymore, this is digital assets and it’s creating a whole ecosystem of new companies, new opportunities, and new applications. India is banning crypto as a payment method, but people will still be able to trade digital assets under new regulations. The live Bitcoin Gold price today is $41.06 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $28,034,724 USD. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #111, with a live market cap of $719,142,180 USD. “ captured the imagination of investors,” says Dave Abner, global head of business development at popular crypto exchange Gemini.
At one point, the network had over 50,000 pending transactions as computers on the network battled to keep up with volumes. Other updates included estimation changes, privacy updates, and block file pruning changes. But Wright stuck to his guns, and continued to maintain he was the real deal. Imagine their reaction if they’d known just how long the “deal or no deal” business would actually go on for. Though the price took a hit on June 21, it recovered on June 23 when the referendum took place, though not quite to the same highs it was riding earlier in the month. Exchange platform Bitfinex (BITFINEX/BTCUSD) suspends trading after a security hack leads to the heist of almost 120,000 Bitcoins, and prices plunge in response. Not much seems to have changed since then either – by 2020 more than $11 billion had been stolen from ‘secure’ crypto exchanges, wallets and mining platforms. For a month Bitcoin has been hovering between $615 and $595, but a New York Times article on central bank usage busts it out of the slump.
First mainstream article on Bitcoin appeared in PC World Online Magazine discussing the options cryptocurrencies can offer in relation to the Wikileaks scandal. The following day, some popular news outlets feature stories on the symbolic milestone, causing such a surge of interest in the growing currency that the official Bitcoin website is temporarily hobbled. After the initial announcement of this upcoming, Bitcoin-themed episode, investors bet big on the show to catapult prices to new highs. About 9.45 million viewers tune in to watch « Bitcoin for Dummies » on January 15, 2012; the story involves a government manhunt for the creator of Bitcoin, who is charged with creating a currency in competition with the U.S. Despite the massive exposure, prices remain stagnant following the show’s airing. Mt. Gox, Bitstamp, and BTC-e all experienced a stoppage of trading due to massive DDoS attacks that were apparently aimed at exploiting transaction maleability in the exchanges’ software.
Mt. Gox halted withdrawals first, on February 6, evidently contributing to a sharp drop in BTC price; the DDoS attack was detected on February 11, 2014. The theft represented « a small fraction of Bitstamp’s total bitcoin reserves » as the majority of the company’s Bitcoin funds remained untouched in offline « cold » storage. Read more about Ethereum exchange here. However, according to a leaked internal Bitstamp report on the incident, the damage to the company’s reputation and customer confidence far exceeded its monetary Bitcoin loss. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss released their own US based Bitcoin exchange dubbed « Gemini ». Upon launch, the exchange was licensed to operate in 26 states and was able to « service both individual and institutional customers » due to its LLTC corporate structure. Gemini was also able to offer FDIC insurance on customer deposits thanks to a partnership with a New York based bank. The European Court of Justice ruled that the exchange of Bitcoin and « virtual currencies » is not subject to value-added-tax in the European Union. The ruling acts to classify Bitcoin and related alt-coins as currency, instead of goods or property. The US government denied the application of Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss — the brothers who once claimed to be co-inventors of Facebook — to operate an exchange-traded fund to make it easier for investors to buy Bitcoin. Google said it is banning online advertisements promoting cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings from June.
Increasing supply has the effect of making fiat money less scarce, thus reducing its value—that’s why prices rise rapidly when inflation is high. Decreasing bitcoin supply increases scarcity, which historically has led to a higher value. Since launching in 2008, opponents of bitcoin have used the digital currency’s short history to defend their reluctance to support the new asset. Questions have arisen around how bitcoin would perform during a financial crisis or recession, as the coin is extremely susceptible to uncertainty. The high was not sustained, however, with the price dipping in the following days, going back down to $13,311 on December 24, a correction that essentially shaved billions of dollars off BTC’s market capitalization. Ironically, the decline is considered by many, including the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to have been a consequence of the launch of Bitcoin futures trading. Since then, the foundation has helped to positively steer the public, political, and media discourse about Bitcoin.
In 2014, several light-hearted songs celebrating bitcoin such as the « Ode to Satoshi » have been released. In December 2014 Microsoft began to accept bitcoin to buy Xbox games and Windows software. In a March 2014 article in Newsweek, journalist Leah McGrath Goodman doxed Dorian S. Nakamoto of Temple City, California, saying that Satoshi Nakamoto is the man’s birth name. Nakamoto’s involvement with bitcoin does not appear to extend past mid-2010. In April 2011, Nakamoto communicated with a bitcoin contributor, saying that he had « moved on to other things ».
It wasn’t just the government app that tripped up, with crypto exchanges like Coinbase buckling under the pressure too and experiencing trading freezes as the currency crashed. Bitcoin lost 18% at one point in the day to sink below $43k for the first time since the beginning of August, before closing down 11% at $46,866. Ethereum , which has been flirting with $4,000 for days now, sank back down to just above $3,000 before closing the day down just under 13% at $3,429. Ripple’s XRP closed down nearly 19% after sinking 30% in intra-day trading, and joke currency Dogecoin lost over 17% by the end of the day to close at its lowest price in about a month. The group rally shows how much the appetite for mainstream crypto adoption has increased with the debut of the first Bitcoin futures ETF. The jump led the value of the overall crypto market to an all-time high of $2.7 trillion – up around $200 billion from its May high. The People’s Bank of China’s frequently updated restrictions against Bitcoin finally pressure some Chinese banks to issue a deadline against several bitcoin exchanges, requiring them to close their accounts by April 15. Although some are spared the warnings, the uncertain regulatory environment holds some prominent loopholes that virtually all Chinese exchanges quickly adopt. Using offshore banks, novel cryptographic voucher systems and other solutions, these trading platforms continue to operate, but at greatly reduced volumes from their hayday in 2013.
Over the course of bitcoin’s history, it has undergone rapid growth to become a significant currency both on- and offline. From the mid-2010s, some businesses began accepting bitcoin in addition to traditional currencies. The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index is the world’s leading reference for the price of bitcoin, used by the largest institutions active in crypto assets. It is the crypto market standard, benchmarking billions of dollars in registered financial products and pricing hundreds of millions in daily over-the-counter transactions.
Bitcoin bottomed out at around $57k after losing 5%, Ethereum was down 6%, Solana sank nearly 12%, and Polkadot plummeted over 8%. Crypto goes down as Southeast Asia’s largest economy becomes the latest in a long list to come down hard on the industry. The SEC is still nervous though, and people are getting impatient. Fidelity is one of a long list of asset managers still waiting for approval from the regulator and its outspoken chairman. The Omicron variant has investors racing for a safer bet, and people are anxious to see how the Fed’s tapering process will pan out. The family claimed Kleiman actually helped Wright invent Bitcoin, and wanted half Satoshi’s stash (worth $50bn), but a jury disagreed. Prices could use some of that resilience, now down 30% in the one month since hitting a new ATH on November 10. Bitcoin miners are showing “remarkable resistance” against their China dumping, already getting back to regular scheduled programming. Bitcoin has lost 19.18% over the past month, causing sadness and heartache across the land.
The cryptocurrency performed relatively flatly until spiking to US$250 in April 2013. In a little more than a decade, bitcoin has paved the way for the growing cryptocurrency asset class, amassing a cult-like following and surging to an all-time high of US$48,200 on February 9, 2021. The co-founder of BitMEX, the largest cryptocurrency trading platform by volume, last year predicted that Bitcoin price would reach $50,000 by the end of 2018. It was no doubt a lofty prediction – what with the Bitcoin price falling below $4000 by the end of 2018 – but Hayes remains optimistic. However, that hasn’t stopped everyone from ordinary traders and pundits alike from offering their predictions. This is no more evident than with how the search term “Bitcoin future price prediction” brings up around 19,400,000 search results in Google. As the graph below from the keyword research tool SEMrush indicates, the search term has been increasing in interest from users and has a monthly search volume of 9,990 in the US alone. One of your best bets for easily and accurately tracking the price of your BTC is CoinTracking. At the time of this article’s first publication , 17,237,100 bitcoins have already been mined. The level of utility BTC has both online and in the real world is one factor that affects its price.
Hal Finney developed reusable proof of work using hashcash as its proof of work algorithm. Another development that grabbed the attention of digital currency market observers was the People’s Bank of China’s manipulation of the yuan. The central bank has maintained a currency peg to the dollar for years and reduced this fixed exchange rate more than once in 2016. During this time, bitcoin prices rose to as much as $704.42 on 3rd July, nearly 5% from the opening price of $672.48 on 1st July, CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index data reveals.
Which you would think would mean you could buy the pizza in Bitcoin. But no, turns out the brand will sell the pizza for $$$ and support developers in other ways. Crypto’s favorite market manipulator isn’t done with Bitcoin just yet – Elon Musk sends the currency racing back up by almost 12% with a tweet saying he’s spoken with North American Bitcoin miners about addressing his sustainability concerns. It seems that the games you have played with the crypto markets have destroyed lives. You may think you are the smartest person in the room, but now you have met your match. Analysts warn that more pain could be on the way, as Bitcoin charts show the price 50-day moving average falling below the 200-day moving average – a pattern known as the « death cross » that usually indicates further damage is on the way. However, the last time this pattern occurred was March 2020, after which Bitcoin surged to record highs – so to be fair, anything could happen. Bitcoin plummets to its lowest price since January as China intensifies its crypto mining crackdown and bans most mining operations. His stance could be part of the reason that the SEC has been dragging its feet when it comes to approving a Bitcoin ETF – which would be massive for crypto adoption.
Bitcoin loses around 17%, falling back down to a low of $30,261 on January 11 and closing at $35,455.58. It’s been a bumper year for Bitcoin, and today takes the cake as the price bounces through $50,000 for the first time ever. Morgan Stanley is the first big U.S. bank to offer its clients access to Bitcoin funds, putting it back on track to achieving its sixth consecutive month of positivity and lifting prices 3.54%. Given the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, the network can’t be changed unilaterally – instead, it takes the coordination of the entire user base to make big changes to the code. Actually deploying the changes takes teamwork between all of the stakeholders – so it’s deciding HOW to deploy the upgrade that has taken months, rather than the specifics of the upgrade itself, which has been on the cards for aaaaages. The taproot soft fork activation is the first phase for the full upgrade, which has been in the making for years and will make Bitcoin multi-signature transactions cheaper, easier to deploy, and more private.
Will ethereum beat Bitcoin?
Ethereum Will Continue To Beat Bitcoin In 2021, Says deVere Group CEO. … Green highlighted that Ethereum is up by more than 240%, outperforming all other benchmark assets, while Bitcoin is up less than 38% year to date. In his view, there are two key factors driving Ethereum’s impressive performance.
On 22 January 2018, South Korea brought in a regulation that requires all the bitcoin traders to reveal their identity, thus putting a ban on anonymous trading of bitcoins. On 18 June 2014, it was announced that bitcoin payment service provider BitPay would become the new sponsor of St. Petersburg Bowl under a two-year deal, renamed the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl. Bitcoin was to be accepted for ticket and concession sales at the game as part of the sponsorship, and the sponsorship itself was also paid for using bitcoin. On 23 June 2013, it was reported that the US Drug Enforcement Administration listed 11.02 bitcoins as a seized asset in a United States Department of Justice seizure notice pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881.
Bitcoin Breaches $750 But Struggles to Set New 2016 High – CoinDesk
Bitcoin Breaches $750 But Struggles to Set New 2016 High.
Posted: Sat, 19 Nov 2016 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Any data, text or other content on this page is provided as general market information and not as investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results. CoinDesk is an independently managed media company, wholly owned by the Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. DCG has no operational input into the selection or curation of CoinDesk content in all its forms. Every 210,000 blocks, or about once every four years, the number of bitcoin received from each block reward is halved to gradually reduce the number of bitcoin entering the space over time. As of 2021, miners receive 6.25 bitcoins each time they mine a new block. The next bitcoin halving is expected to occur in 2024 and will see bitcoin block rewards drop to 3.125 bitcoins per block. As the supply of new bitcoin entering the market gets smaller, it will make buying bitcoin more competitive – assuming demand for bitcoin remains high. With the price of bitcoin appreciating nearly 20% in May and breaking past $500 for the first time since 2014, it’s safe to say the digital currency is once again back in the mainstream spotlight as an investment opportunity.
PayPal now allows customers to buy, hold and sell bitcoin directly from their PayPal accounts. Rival digital payment firm Square reported in November that more of its Cash App users are buying the digital currency, and buying more on average than before. The number of vendors accepting bitcoin as a form of payment is growing rapidly. On March 27, 2011, Britcoin launches the first exchange to trade bitcoin and British Pound Sterling . Just days later, on March 31, Bitcoin Brazil opens a service for face-to-face exchange in Brazilian Reals and U.S. On April 5, BitMarket.eu begins facilitating trades in Euros and other currencies. Together, they simplify bitcoin ownership and trading for hundreds of millions of new users and the market is expanded enormously. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday denied for the second time in a month a request to bring to market a first-of-its-kind product tracking bitcoin, the digital currency. Regulators started to scrutinize China’s initial coin offerings as announced by a local outlet.
It’s a big u-turn from the pro-BTC stance Tesla has taken over the past year, and the reversal isn’t unlikely to go down well with Bitcoin traders. With a little more meddling from Musk Bitcoin reaches its lowest point since February, when a one-word tweet makes people think Tesla has sold off all its Bitcoin. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Not long after the tweet, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor reposted it and announced a council to promote sustainability. But the regulatory watchdogs are circling, and Binance is withdrawing all support for the stock tokens.
While the topic may seem technical, it’s really not that difficult to understand. Bitcoin’s abundant early supply was thus soaked up by those with foresight. This led to Bitcoin’s first price spike above $10, as sellers noticed the demand and began demanding a higher price for their coins. A crash followed but recovery was rapid, as the market realized that the halving in late 2012 would offer price support. The pattern of a rising price leading to a halving was established at the end of this era. But Lee, one of Wall Street’s biggest Bitcoin bulls, says it remains a long-term story that will be driven by a surge in users. He expects digital Bitcoin « wallets, » or the Bitcoin equivalent to a bank account, to rise by 50% by mid-2018. Its strongest bull was a 226% gain from mid-November to mid-December, a run-up sparked by the introduction of Bitcoin futures trading on two leading U.S. exchanges and a surge in visibility in the mainstream news media. In July 2010, bitcoin began trading at a value of US$0.0008, climbing to US$0.08 by month’s end.
On 19 December 2017, Yapian, a company that owns the Youbit cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, filed for bankruptcy following a hack, the second in eight months. They used the exchange’s software to sell them all nominally, creating a massive « ask » order at any price. Within minutes, the price reverted to its correct user-traded value. Accounts with the equivalent of more than US$8,750,000 were affected. There are also faucets that dispense alternative cryptocurrencies. The first bitcoin faucet was called « The Bitcoin Faucet » and was developed by Gavin Andresen in 2010. On 12 March 2013, a bitcoin miner running version 0.8.0 of the bitcoin software created a large block that was considered invalid in version 0.7 . This split resulted in two separate transaction logs being formed without clear consensus, which allowed for the same funds to be spent differently on each chain. In response, the Mt. Gox exchange temporarily halted bitcoin deposits. The exchange rate fell 23% to $37 on the Mt. Gox exchange but rose most of the way back to its prior level of $48.


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The latest news regarding the delayed OPPO Find X2 is that it’ll be featuring wireless fast charging up to 30W — if you’re using OPPO’s own charging base.
Wireless charging has been a cool feature, but it had one weakness — the speed of charging. Typical wireless chargers usually offer 5W and 10W charging, but wired chargers are already much faster; the OPPO Reno Ace supports 65W charging.
Of course, the next step will be for brands to improve their wireless charging technology, which is why the Find X2 is said to support 30W wireless charging, in addition to its 65W fast charging. What it means is the phone will be able to fully charge in just half an hour using its normal charger, while the wireless charger will be able to give it a full charge in just 80 minutes.
There are still many features that we’re hoping to find in the Find X2; for example, its in-display selfie camera and a display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The launch event is delayed until March, so it won’t be long until we get to see the Find X2 in all its glory.


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The Department for Transport has launched a new online service for people to apply for a Blue Badge. The new service enables people to apply for a Blue Badge online without needing to send any of their supporting documents in the post and is expected to decrease the amount of time it takes to make an application. An offline system will still be available for those who are not able to apply online.
A video has been launched highlighting the benefits of the new service and signposting people to the page. To view CLICK HERE
Posted on 14 Jan 2019 at 14:40:26


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KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Feb. 28) - Kissimmee Main Street presents the 2013 Kowtown Festival March 16 at Toho Square.
Kowtown Festival is the celebration of Kissimmee's birthday, with this year being the city's 130th birthday. The festivities begin at 11 a.m. and will include the 2nd Annual BBQ Competition, Florida Dessert Competition, hotdog eating contest, Yuengling Lager, live music featuring Hayfire and the Greg Warren Band, a Kid's Zone, craft vendors, food and Kissimmee's birthday cake.
The 2nd Annual Kowtown BBQ Competition will feature competitors from all over Central Florida who will compete in four meat categories (chicken, pork, ribs and brisket) as well as a BBQ sauce category and baked beans category. Entry fee for all four meat categories is $200, which will qualify participants for $5,000 in cash and prizes. The public is invited to vote for the Sedano's People's Choice Award category where participants can taste and vote for their favorite BBQ. Taster tickets will be available for purchase at the information table.
Kissimmee Main Street is introducing the first ever Florida Dessert Competition. This category that has been added on to the BBQ competition is open to the public and costs only $10 to enter. The only rule is that the dessert must be Florida themed. 1st place will receive $50. Judging will take place at 1:30 p.m. March 16.
Willy's Wieners is sponsoring the annual hotdog eating contest at the Kowtown Festival where contestants will race to see who can finish the most hotdogs in two minutes. Two-time champion Craig Holland will be back to compete. Sign-up for the contest at Willy's Wieners located in Downtown Kissimmee.
Yuengling Lager will be available for purchase throughout the event as well as VIP area tickets for $15, which features Yuengling specialty beer and a private seating section in the shade next to the stage, meet the bands, etc.
The public is invited to sing Happy Birthday to Kissimmee at 2 p.m. and receive a complimentary piece of birthday cake courtesy of the Yum Yum Cupcake Truck.
For more information, call 407-846-4643 or visit www.kissimmeemainstreet.com. Those looking to compete or vend can find applications and forms on the Kissimmee Main Street website.
Kissimmee Main Street is a nationally accredited Main Street program that focuses on historic preservation with economic development to restore prosperity and vitality to downtown and neighborhood business districts.


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Samsung has announced its mass producing the first OLED display with an integrated touchscreen and it's likely coming to the new Galaxy Book 3 range.
Two flaws have been discovered and patched in the Galaxy Store but older Samsung devices are still vulnerable to attacks exploiting them.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is expected to be revealed at Galaxy Unpacked — and could beat Apple's MacBook Pro in a key category.
Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S23 range of phones could feature a bunch of new camera settings and software that might make its way to more than just the S23 Ultra flagship.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup is tipped to get upgraded LPDDR5X RAM, giving it a potential edge over the iPhone 15, rumored to be sticking with slower LPDDR5 RAM.
Two promotional videos, purportedly for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, show a noted focus on the upcoming phone's camera, including improved resolution and upgraded low-light photography.
New rumors suggest the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 could be a larger and weightier model than the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Samsung Display just announced a UDR OLED with 2,000 nits brightness. But it's unclear if the display will be included with next month's expected Galaxy S23 launch.
The Wireless Power Consortium, led by Apple, announced the Qi2 wireless charging standard, which uses MagSafe technology to attempt to unify wireless charging across devices.
Samsung has announced a brand new prototype display to be shown at CES 2023. The Flex Hybrid display features both a folding and sliding display.
Tipster Evan Blass leaked potential Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup cases and S Pens, which would seemingly confirm the probable colors for Samsung's upcoming phones.
Leaked images of dummy units potentially revealed the design of the entire Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is expected in early 2023 and rumored certification from China's TENAA body has given us some clues about what to look out for.
Hackers at Pwn2Own in Toronto discovered two new zero-day exploits for the Galaxy S22 previously unknown to Samsung.
Samsung is reportedly developing an in-display fingerprint reader that reads three fingerprints at once.
The One UI 5 version of Android 13 is now rolling out to Samsung Galaxy S21 devices on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.
A series of rumors suggest that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra could get the brightest display of any phone on the market and an upgraded fingerprint reader.
Samsung's rumored Galaxy Tab S8 FE (Fan Edition) downgrades the processor but adds a Wacom digitizer for an upgraded stylus experience.
Twitter analyst Ice Universe says that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is "confirmed" for Europe based on leaked benchmarks of a rumored Samsung Galaxy S23 device bound for release in Europe.
Firmware update R8xxXXU1GVI3 is reportedly preventing certain users from powering their Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic watches from powering back on.
Apple announced an update that enables HDR10+ for Apple tvOS 16 and the Samsung Smart TV Apple TV app.
Samsung announced two new updates for the Galaxy S22 lineup: an Astrophoto mode for the Expert RAW app and a new Camera Assistant app that allows for greater camera customization.
Samsung has begun rolling out Maintenance Mode, a feature that allows users to protect their sensitive personal data while technicians work on repairing their Galaxy phone.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 durability testing by YouTuber JerryRigEverything indicates the new foldable about as durable as last year's Galaxy Z Fold 3.
Our Samsung Unpacked recap has all the biggest news in one place for the Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Flip 4, Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Buds Pro 2.
Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 4 comes in an array of colors, and if you splurge for the bespoke version you can get even more.
Samsung and LG’s planned partnership to provide Samsung with cheaper OLED displays for its TVs seems to have been put on pause over concerns about price.


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Two new restaurants are getting ready to open in Chattanooga.
Antonia Poland said her new restaurant is Dipped Fresh at 221 River St It will serve sandwiches, salads, soups, and smoothies among other things.
She told the city Beer Board that customers would have to eat to drink.
She plans on being open week days until 7 p.m. and will close before dark.
During the summer, the business will stay open from 1-7 p.m. on the weekends.
Another new restaurant is opening at Hamilton Place Mall in the old location of American Café.
According to co-owner Tony Desalvo, the new business will be considered an upscale, casual restaurant with a full menu and bar. The emphasis will be on food, and there are no plans for live entertainment except for the VIP party on opening night.


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We are just more than half way through 2017 and there has already been an unprecedented number of cyberattacks reported in the news. As businesses journey through this era of digital transformation, more...
Some say performance, others say money but it may be systems and processes that carry the day
Japanese vendor sells product development, manufacturing and logistics base in Bavaria to S&T subsidiary, Kontron
'MSPs are all scared to death. They don't want end users asking, what am I paying you for?' - Datto CEO
Tim Weller tells CPI that he sees MSPs struggling to update how they package and deliver security, and opens up on what he makes of MSPs trying to rebrand as MSSPs
In its Q4 results, Microsoft reveals its cloud unit is now its biggest business segment


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Birkenstock, a renowned shoemaker with a 250-year history, has taken a significant step towards becoming a publicly traded company. CEO Oliver Reichert proudly describes Birkenstock as the “oldest start-up on earth” and emphasizes the company’s commitment to selling the experience of walking as intended by nature. This strategic move, an initial public offering (IPO), has the potential to value Birkenstock at over $8 billion and could revitalize the quiet U.S. market for IPOs.
In their IPO prospectus, Birkenstock reveals some key financial details. Despite a 19% increase in revenues, the company experienced a 45% decrease in net profit during the six months ending in March when compared to the previous year. However, the prospectus also captures interesting foot trivia and highlights the brand’s fashion collaborations with renowned names such as Dior, Manolo Blahnik, Rick Owens, and Stüssy.
Birkenstock’s rich history and legacy take center stage in their prospectus. The document showcases the brand’s iconic anatomically shaped cork-and-latex insoles, developed to provide maximum comfort and support. Furthermore, Birkenstock’s popularity during the 1960s and 70s as a symbol of freedom is highlighted, along with its enduring appeal to this day.
Recently, Birkenstock accepted private equity funds, with L Catterton now holding a majority stake in the company. L Catterton is backed by luxury conglomerate LVMH, further adding to Birkenstock’s credibility and potential for growth. Despite its age, Birkenstock strives to maintain a youthful energy and creative versatility, positioning itself as a modern brand rather than a traditional one.
Birkenstock aims to trade under the ticker symbol “BIRK”, affirming its commitment to the footwear industry. The company also reminds potential investors about the importance of proper footwear in avoiding injuries and discomfort. With its IPO plans in motion, Birkenstock faces an exciting future as it ventures into the public trading arena while staying true to its environmental and ergonomic values.
“Travel aficionado. Incurable bacon specialist. Tv evangelist. Wannabe internet enthusiast. Typical creator.”


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Plus: Fitch: Long-term restructuring forces grocery chains to delist; China drives global baby food growth; and China’s youth obesity rate worsens.
El Niño’s effect on weather patterns and China’s economic slowdown may have a significant impact on grain prices, while Asia’s main “soft” commodities will rally over the coming year, a new report predicts.
Plus: Fears quashed for trans-Strait inspections, though talks stall over agriculture disparity; and Korea’s new-found love of imported cheese makes up for world’s highest milk prices.
Tetra Pak and its sister company DeLaval, part of Tetra Laval Group, have signed a five-year agreement with the Dairy Association of China to train 150 Chinese dairy farm managers over the next five years to run large-scale dairy farms.
Blood glucose levels vary widely across individuals even for the same food, say researchers who have developed an algorithm to calculate the ‘right’ diet – paving the way for mass personalised nutrition and casting doubt over the usefulness of universal dietary guidelines.
A British organic dairy cooperative has broken into the one of the world’s most lucrative markets after being awarded the UK’s first licence to export organic products to China.
Nestlé has launched a one-finger KitKat made with edible gold leaves at its Chocolatory boutiques in Japan.
For the second year in a row, Beijing is planning to cut Chinese maize prices in a bid to encourage local processors to buy domestic stocks, reported Reuters citing industry sources.


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Apparently Mobilicity's Mobile Network Code has began appearing when doing network scans in Downtown Vancouver, which can only mean a near-future launch in the area. Rumours are pointing to an early November launch, more specifically sometime within the first week of the month, which is great news for those who live in Vancouver and are looking for an inexpensive alternative for their mobile services. Remember, Mobilicity will be launching the Google Nexus One around the same time, so it's likely that these rumours are accurate.
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A ban on the use of flavoured tobacco vaping products in Europe has been proposed by the European Commission due to concerns about health effects as their popularity increases.
In a nutshell
The European Commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, stated that the ban was part of its aim to decrease tobacco consumption in the EU to under 5 per cent of the population by 2040, RTE reports.
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The proposal is currently only focused on flavoured vaping products. It will now undergo review by the EU's 27 governments as well as the European Parliament. If no objections are raised the proposal will then come into force.
A report recently published by the commission denounced the growth in sales of vapes in the EU, giving it the right to expand a law from 2014 that prohibits certain tobacco products.
The report added that the share of retail sales for vaping products represented 3.33 per cent of all tobacco products sold in the EU.
What has been said?
EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides in a statement: "With nine out of 10 lung cancers caused by tobacco, we want to make smoking as unattractive as possible to protect the health of our citizens and save lives."
Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it was preparing to order Juul Labs Inc to remove its e-cigarettes from the US market.
The FDA argued that Juul's products played a "disproportionate role in the rise in youth vaping."
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted Juul Labs an emergency administrative stay of enforcement, which temporarily blocks the FDA’s marketing denial order so that Juul can seek a formal stay while they appeal the FDA’s action.
Juul stated they are continuing to pursue all of our legal and regulatory options while continuing to operate in the market.
Joe Murillo, Juul Labs' Chief Regulatory Officer said, “Having received the emergency temporary stay, we are now seeking the ability to continuously offer our products to adult smokers throughout our appeal with the court and science- and evidence-based engagement with our regulator.
"We remain confident in our science and evidence and believe that we will be able to demonstrate that our products do in fact meet the statutory standard of being appropriate for the protection of the public health."
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READ NEXT - HSE considering banning the sale of tobacco products
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Vermilion founder Rohini Dey has found a new purpose with Let’s Talk Womxn, bringing together entrepreneurs from 13 different cities all over the country to discuss best practices for women and working mothers in the restaurant world. Later this month, the group will tackle restaurant surcharges and how to implement them properly so customers and employees can better understand their purpose.
While Dey is building out a network, she hasn’t neglected Vermilion, the Indian and Latin fusion restaurant that opened in 2003 on Hubbard Street in River North; it eventually begot a New York location. Dey’s mission was to “spread the gospel of Indian cuisine.” She is an avid traveler who’s visited 55 countries and grew up in New Delhi: “I still think our cuisine is second to none,” Dey says.
But as Vermilion approaches two decades in Chicago, the landscape for Indian cuisine has changed. Certainly, chefs like the late Floyd Cardoz impacted the scene, but now Indian restaurants are receiving critical acclaim like James Beard awards and Michelin stars. It’s a change as South Asian restaurants are used to watching critics fawn over other Asian cuisines, including Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. The sudden attention on South Asian food has been so great that Chicago magazine even did a mini investigation on chef Sujan Sarkar at Indienne, the fine dining restaurant (also in River North) that opened late last year. After years of ignoring these chefs, now critics are doing background checks on resumes.
With new Indian restaurants like Indienne and Bar Goa — yes, also on Hubbard Street (watch out or folks are going to mistake it for Devon) — opening, Dey feels Vermilion needs to evolve after 19 years in business. In December, she began tinkering with new ideas, and later this month, Vermilion’s Latin fusion menu, which featured Dey’s favorites like tandoori skirt steak, will be history. Dey says that Sunday, February 5 will be the menu’s final day.
Dey wants to introduce Chicagoans to “the best-kept secret for anyone who’s not Indian.” Vermilion is unveiling an Indo Chinese menu that, in a nutshell, features Indianized versions of Chinese dishes. The flavors rely on what Dey calls the holy trinity: soy sauce, vinegar, and chili. Instead of a numbing Sichuan mala, think about the intensity of mirchi.
Dey recalls growing up in Delhi where the restaurants typically offered three menus: The “normal” Indian menu, an Indo Chinese version, and a continental — the latter refers to Western cuisine. Indo Chinese cuisine is just part of life in India: “It’s comfort food for Indians,” Dey says.
Indo Chinese cuisine has popped up on some South Asian menus, mostly with dishes like Manchurian, which has nothing to do with the area in Northeast China. Indo Chinese is a genre that doesn’t really celebrate authenticity, but Indians also never claimed it did, Dey says. It’s an Indian fritter, deep-fried and battered cauliflower or chicken that’s amped up with soy sauce. Chicken 65, fried chicken fritters with a sweet and sticky glaze — perhaps akin to General Tso’s — is another appetizer that’s gaining popularity.
But for the Chicago area, the only place that focuses on Indo Chinese cuisine is in Northwest suburban Hoffman Estates where the India House chain opened Bombay Chopsticks: “It’s not really made it to the mainstream,” Dey says.
Vermilion’s menu is being finalized. Look for dishes like a rasam combined with hot and sour soup; black squid ink rice noodles with shrimp squid, black mushrooms, and oyster sauce; Hakka chow mein (spicy stir-fried rice noodles with veggies and a choice of egg, chicken, shrimp, or beef).
Dey tends to be direct with names for her dishes — she’s calling the squid ink noodles dish “Squid Games,” and a dessert — a fried ice cream ball spiced with star anise and cardamom with a saffron coconut crumble — will be simply called “Sex.” It’s a nod to China and India being the two countries with the largest populations.
The space will see a light decor refresh. Dey says she likes how the two nations use red and gold and wants to highlight the colors in the interior. The last time Vermilion had a remodel was in 2020.
Vermilion has seen a lot through its 18 years. Famous author Salman Rushdie was once an investor, and the New York location, which has been gone since 2018, helped grow the restaurant’s reputation — for better or worse. Dey wants Vermilion to be part of her culture’s culinary renaissance in America.
“Chicago is flourishing when it comes to Indian cuisines, and that’s lovely to see,” she says.
Vermilion, 10 W. Hubbard Street, Indo-Chinese menu to launch, Friday, February 10.


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From left: Naver Chief Financial Officer Choi In-hyuk, Naver CEO Han Seong-sook, E-mart CEO Kang Heui-seok and Shinsegae CEO Cha Jeong-ho pose during a strategic partnership agreement ceremony at JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul on Tuesday. (Shinsegae Group)
South Korean retail giant Shinsegae Group and information technology behemoth Naver are combining forces to gain an upper hand in the fast-changing e-commerce field, the two firms announced Tuesday.
Chiefs of the two sides signed a stock swap deal worth 250 billion won ($221 million) and a strategic partnership agreement at JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul earlier in the day, they said.
The ceremony was attended by E-mart CEO Kang Heui-seok and Shinsegae CEO Cha Jeong-ho, both from Shinsegae Group, as well as Naver CEO Han Seong-sook and Naver Financial CEO Choi In-hyuk.
Under the agreement, Naver will buy 150 billion won of stocks in Shinsegae‘s discount store chain operator E-mart to own 2.96 percent and purchase 100 billion won worth of fashion retailer Shinsegae International to own 6.85 percent, according to a company regulatory filing.
In return, E-mart and Shinsegae will purchase 250 billion won of Naver shares to hold a combined 0.4 percent.
“We plan to establish a strong cooperation network that encompasses the entire retail industry, from commerce, logistics and new businesses,” Shinsegae Group said in a press release.
The group said it would be combining its expertise in retail, both online and of physical stores, with Naver’s expertise in online platform operation and artificial intelligence technology to provide the best benefits to customers.
The retail giant also said it aims to create a new retail ecosystem where they can work and grow together with individual and small business sellers.
The move from the two companies comes as they seek to keep Coupang in check, as it recently made a stellar debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shinsegae Group said that, with Naver, it seeks to become the “strongest” in the retail scene. According to the retailer, it has 20 million users, and Naver has 54 million. Also from their partnership, they would bring together 450,000 sellers, their logistics networks and 7,300 offline stores across the country.
By Jo He-rim (firstname.lastname@example.org


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Microsoft is finally prepping for Xbox One’s launch in India. The company has partnered with country’s leading e-commerce company Amazon India to be the exclusive retailer for the gaming console.
While some might find the e-commerce route a bit hazy, as the company might do better with traditional brick and mortar stores way, this move by Microsoft is rather understandable. The company had a grand launch for the Xbox 360 in 2006, but it didn’t fare well.
Amazon India is already one of the dominating e-retailers in the nations. The shopping portal brings a huge chunk of traffic, and it might help Microsoft get a larger audience. However, down the line, the Amazon Indian exclusivity could end.
You can head over to Amazon India and pre-order a Xbox One with Kinect bundle for Rs 45,990 ($765) or pre-purchase the Kinect-less bundle for Rs 39,990 ($665). While we are yet to learn day one exclusive titles, Amazon India is offering Rs 10,000 ($160) worth of freebies. The freebies include backpacks, Blurays, speakers etc. The console will start shipping on September 23rd.Further reading: India, Xbox One


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Six Continents launches toll-free link from Bahrain
Travel agents and residents of Bahrain can now make instant bookings at more than 3,200 Six Continents hotels worldwide with a free phone call.Six Continents, which is the biggest hotel operator in the Middle East with 62 properties, launched its new toll-free link from Bahrain at a reception at the Regency Inter-Continental Hotel attended by the group's area director of marketing Magdi Samman. The launch of the toll-free number - 800880 - follows the inauguration of the group's central reservations office in Dubai last month. The link will allow residents and travel agents in Bahrain to make "real time" bookings at any Inter-Continental, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels and resorts worldwide. "The opening of the reservations office is great news for Bahrain," said Regency Inter-Continental general manager Mark McCarthy. The central reservations office will also inform callers about any special promotions available at hotels at their chosen destinations. "The new central reservations office is regarded by many of us as a milestone achievement," said Holiday Inn Bahrain general manager Oussamma Massoud. "Our commitment to this facility, and the growth of additional reservation facilities across the Middle East and Africa, reflects the value of this region's trade volumes regionally and internationally." Besides Bahrain, toll-free links are now available from UAE (8004642); Saudi Arabia (800 8 971465); Qatar (0800 971234) and Kuwait (4732100, ext 6233). Six Continents says it plans to expand this toll-free network in the region.


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The ever increasing wholesale prices of goods and services, among them fuel and food have put pressure on small business in Maun to continually also pass on the cost to the consumer in order for them to remain in business.
In an interview, one of the small business owners, Trevor Ponego said the rise in inflation has hit just after the severe effects of Covid-19 pandemic. He revealed that some commodity prices have doubled over the past few years.
He explained that they are currently experiencing a rise in commodity costs due to the ever rising fuel prices. He added that paying rental fees and employees is also a challenge due to spike inflation, resulting in retrenchments and business closures.
“Increased costs for the products we sell doesn’t mean we are making profit, we are making less because we have to pay higher costs on everything that we sell to our customers,” he cleared.
The Director of Sumhill Restaurant, Ditiro Kgosinkwe also concurred that in general, the cost of doing business has gone up high because everything they need to do their job costs them more.
Kgosinkwe added that they used to buy beef from butcheries for around P25/kg but prices have now increased to P32/kg. She stressed that prices for vegetables, cooking oil and flour which they use in the restaurant have increased.
For her part, Car Bazzar Sales Manager, Gake Setongwane indicated that the number of motorists purchasing spare parts has gone down. He attributes this to high fuel prices which has seen more cars being parked.
“We have reacted to spiking inflation by raising prices, but now because of the high petrol prices, car owners are not buying spare parts like before, we think this could be due to the fact that some can no longer afford high petrol prices and spare parts prices,” she noted.


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A new adversary mode has been added to Grand Theft Auto Online, allowing players to battle against Rhino tanks to secure victory.
Rockstar explained the new mode: “This is a battle of the nimble and numerous against the mighty but few as a team of Sticky Bomb-wielding Hunters in dune buggies and other vehicles seek to take down one or two of the biggest and most elusive game in Southern San Andreas. Rhino drivers must utilize the sheer strength and firepower of their tank to survive against the onslaught of Sticky Bombs thrown in their direction.”
The new mode will be available in three different locations across Los Santos.
Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto Online and Rhino Hunt are available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.