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Is CBD Oil Legal In Palau?
The Republic of Palau is an island country located in the western Pacific Ocean. Comprising over 330 islands, Palau forms much of the Micronesian region. After achieving full independence from colonial powers in the nineties, Palau residents have sought to reform the islands’ drug policy despite contentious backlash from governmental powers.
As a country under free association with the United States, many of Palau’s laws and regulations are inspired by western law. In fact, much of Palau’s defense, funding, and access to social services is provided through the United States. As North American countries have started the process of fully legalizing hemp, experts are hopeful that Palau will soften traditionally harsh stances towards the substance.
Is CBD Oil Allowed In Palau?
Although cannabis and hemp are illegal for recreational and medical use in Palau, reports indicate that their use and production is widespread. Some reports even went so far as to state that Palau has the highest cannabis usage rates in the world at a staggering 24.2 percent. According to many islanders, police almost completely ignore public consumption of hashish, hemp, and cannabis.
Ever since the eighties, cannabis and hemp have become the most valuable crop export of Palau. The growing conditions on many islands are very favorable for creating robust, quick growing crops that don’t readily deplete soil conditions. Additionally, it’s very difficult for Palau’s overburdened police force to effectively patrol the region’s many islands.
Twenty years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for United States officials to step in and destroy cannabis and hemp plants from the islands, removing over 3,347 native subspecies over a period of ten years. As the war on drugs has dialed back, attitudes and the social reality of hemp has completely shifted.
Still, tourists should be cautious about bringing CBD into Palau despite the regions’ lax enforcement of drug laws. Until more specific statements are released by the government, hemp and CBD still occupy a legal gray area.
What Are The Benefits Of Regular CBD Oil Use?
CBD, also known as cannabidiol, is one of the main active compounds found in strains of hemp. Slowly, CBD treatments, such as highly concentrated oils, tinctures, and baked treats, have filtered into mainstream awareness as news reports of medical benefits have been released. One of the first major news stories about CBD featured on a CNN documentary released in 2013, dubbed “Weed”, which spun CBD in a very positive light. According to many users, CBD could be helpful for a wide variety of persistent conditions that include:
- Cluster migraines
- High blood pressure and vasoconstriction, which constitute some of the primary precursors to heart disease acquired later on in life
- Chronic pain worsened by inflammation, such as arthritis, sciatica, nerve pain, and localized joint pain
- Epilepsy and other seizure disorders, especially in the treatment of children (according to the FDA)
- Poor appetite
- Severe nausea and cachexia
- Depression, anxiety, social issues, and PTSD


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A bookstore rooted in friendship
Bondhu Library, an online and offline bookstore, was established in Cumilla by a group of childhood friends in 2019. Founders Shahedur Rahman Rony, Md Ashik, Ahmed Faysal, Tauhid Hridoy, Fahim Imtiaz Kamal, and Shariful Islam have been friends since their school days. Towards the end of their undergraduate studies, they decided to open a bookstore in their city.
Their books have reached every district of the country, despite the ongoing pandemic.
Rony noted that most places in Cumilla sell academic books only. So, they identified that gap in the market.
"In Dhaka, there are several places where you can go to read books and purchase non-academic books, but people in Cumilla hardly have such facilities," says Hridoy. "Our aim is to let people in our community enjoy reading, at reasonable prices."
The group of friends went to Cumilla Cantonment High School and Ispahani Public School & College together, before becoming business partners. "We decided to convert our collective love for books into a business, starting with our hard-earned financial resources," shares Rony. "Starting a business from scratch with my childhood friends is quite special," expresses Islam. "We grew up together, and we started our careers together as well."
Although the pandemic led to a major setback for Bondhu Library, they carried out their home delivery services successfully. "We worked tirelessly, and ensured every delivery by ourselves, despite the health risks," adds Rony.
Rony and his friends dared to build something on their own and not go for conventional career paths, even when people around them said it was a bad idea. The entrepreneurs wanted to work on something that they all love. Subsequently, they faced different criticisms and unwanted questions.
"People criticised us for getting into the book business at first," shares Tauhid. "Thankfully, our customer response and acceptance has been great. So, the criticism and respect come hand in hand." Many others in the city were inspired to get into this business after the success of Bondhu Library.
"There is a huge reader base in our city, but due to the lack of platforms for non-academic books, people were deprived for a long time," Islam shares.
Currently, Bondhu Library has one store in Cumilla, and also operates online via social media. They plan to launch their website and expand their physical presence as well.
The author is a night owl who likes binge-watching, reading, and writing. Write to her at [email protected].

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The American Beverage Association (ABA) has posted a blog post about its decision to stop supporting online sales of alcohol and to instead support a new online alcohol buying policy, which would allow consumers to sue online retailers over products that contain the alcohol.
The ABA has previously supported online sales by requiring retailers to have a physical store and to put up a sign in their windows stating the alcohol is not available online.
The new policy will be available on the ABA’s website in two parts.
The first part will allow consumers the ability to file a claim online.
This will allow the consumer to directly contact the retailer to demand a refund.
The second part will be a system for the consumer, or a legal adviser, to report the product to the AAB.
Consumers can also report the problem to local authorities, which can then file a civil action.
The two-part ABA blog post explains how the new policy would work: Consumers can file a complaint about a product online.
They will be able to choose a complaint type, which will be chosen by the retailer.
The complaint will be filed in the state where the consumer lives.
Consumers who are located in the same state, or in the county in which the consumer resides, can file the complaint together.
If the retailer fails to comply with the complaint, then the consumer can file suit in the courts of that state or county.
The consumer must provide information about the product and the alleged violation to the complaint.
Consumers will also be able file a class action lawsuit against the retailer, and can be represented by attorneys.
If consumers win a case against the seller, they can recover damages, including attorneys’ fees and costs, as well as any monetary damages incurred.
If a retailer files a civil case against a consumer, they will also have to post a notice to their local newspapers, the ABS said.
“The consumer can make a claim for any product that contains alcohol and that the retailer does not have a legal right to sell,” the ABIA said.
The agency has long supported online alcohol sales, and its members are now able to sue consumers who have purchased alcohol from them.
But it says this new policy is different.
“This policy will provide consumers with a greater opportunity to bring a lawsuit against a retailer for a product that they did not purchase, and consumers will have greater certainty that their claims will be heard in court,” the blog post said.
Consumers are already able to use the AGBs Consumer Protection Online Service to file consumer complaints.
But this new service will be the first time consumers can use the service to file civil suits against retailers, which the ABAs said will be particularly important for online retailers.
“A new consumer protection online complaint system will allow more consumers to make complaints and hold retailers accountable for the harms that they cause to consumers and the environment,” the agency said in a statement.
The American Bottled Beer Association (ABCA) says that while the ABMAs new policy makes it easier for consumers to file lawsuits against retailers online, it is not yet available to consumers who buy alcohol through a retail store.
“ABCA’s goal is to provide consumers and businesses with an information and education platform that can help consumers make informed purchasing decisions,” the group said in an email.
ABCA, which represents more than 15 million retailers and distributors, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ABCB and ABA did not respond to requests for comment about the new rules.
Consumers buying online often have a variety of options for purchasing alcohol, including the convenience of a physical location where they can store it.
However, the ability for consumers who shop at a convenience store to buy alcohol is also more common than buying at a grocery store.
This is partly because consumers often have to leave a shopping cart and leave the store, according to a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Labor.


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Austria Eases Lockdown As Infection Rates Drop Daily Sabah
Austria is currently in lockdown. hotels are closed, making tourism and leisure travel virtually impossible. current government plans include opening hotels and changing entry rules for eu travellers from 19 may. at the moment, all travellers need to obtain pre travel clearance before travelling to austria. 11. mai 2021 coronavirus aktuelle maßnahmen . informationen über aktuelle maßnahmen . bundesregierung präsentiert neue Öffnungsverordnung. vorsichtige Öffnungsschritte mit strengen sicherheitsvorkehrungen ebnen weg zurück zur normalität. Ab 19. mai dürfen in Österreich gastronomie, beherbergung, freizeitbetriebe usw. wieder öffnen. wir setzen alles daran, die infektionszahlen weiter zu senken und hoffen, euch bald bei einem urlaub in Österreich begrüßen zu dürfen!. Austria extends lockdown to feb. 7, toughens some measures. jan 17, 2021. austria could start loosening virus lockdown from april 14. apr 06, 2020. austria defends virus tests despite low numbers. Austria's government on monday effectively extended its third coronavirus lockdown, scrapping a proposal that would have allowed citizens to access some services if they took part in a mass.
Austria Intră în Al Treilea Lockdown și Oferă Teste
Austria has scrapped plans to allow anyone with a negative coronavirus test to exit lockdown a week early, effectively extending strict measures and keeping restaurants and non essential stores shut until jan. 24, news agency apa reported on monday. the decision came after austria's opposition parties blocked a draft law that would have allowed an early exit from lockdown for anyone producing. Austria’s current lockdown, its third, started on dec. 26 and was to end on jan. 24. kurz said austria is keen to avoid a situation such as that in britain and ireland, where infections have risen sharply and rapidly as new variants take hold. so far, austria has over 150 suspected infections with the british variant, anschober said. When a full lockdown had been announced, thousands of tourists had attempted to leave in a matter of hours. it was hoped that austria and other countries might "learn from the mistakes of the past". on 17 november, a second hard lockdown went into effect until (and including) 6 december.
Corona: Oster Lockdown In Ost Österreich


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Marijuana delivery services in Denver will exclusively be the realm of business owners from marginalized backgrounds after the city council voted on Monday to tweak the city’s rules for the fledging wing of the cannabis ecosystem.
The city set up its framework for marijuana transporter businesses and home delivery as part of a regulatory overhaul approved by the council in April 2021. Part of the arrangement was reserving licenses for delivery businesses for social equity applicants — entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds or with immediate family members harmed by the criminalization of marijuana. That exclusivity period was supposed to last through July 1, 2024.
With the delivery wing of the industry struggling to make headway in Denver, the council on Monday night made the exclusivity permanent. Social equity applicants will be the only people eligible for delivery licenses going forward. The council also significantly reduced licensing fees for those businesses and marijuana stores that want to work with them.
The changes passed unanimously as part of the council consent agenda Monday night without discussion, signaling broad support.
The impetus for the changes, in part, was the rumblings within the industry that cannabis retailers were waiting out the exclusivity period. In the more than a year since the delivery business type became available, 14 social equity transporter businesses were approved to operate but just 18 of the city’s more than 208 stores signed up to work with them. Of those 18 stores, only nine were actively conducting deliveries as of the end of last month, according to Abbey Borchers, a policy analyst with the city’s Department of Excise and Licenses.
“We heard a lot of feedback from our social equity transporters about challenges they were seeing,” Molly Duplechian, the director of the licensing department, said at a council committee hearing on Aug. 31. “We think there is a lot of great opportunity ahead for these businesses, for these new operators, but we have identified a few areas for opportunity and changes.”
Right now, delivery sales account for less than half a percent of all cannabis purchases in Denver, Borchers told the committee. Marijuana sales across Colorado are down this year from historic highs they hit during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to making the license exclusivity permanent, Monday’s vote also significantly decreased fees for new licenses and license renewals both for the social equity transporters and the stores that may partner with them.
Delivery application fees for stores, previously $500, are now $25. Annual renewals for both stores and delivery businesses are now being reduced from $2,000 a year to $25. Additional fees for transporter licenses, which go hand-in-hand with home delivery licenses, are also being lowered significantly.
Collins Buckner is the founder of Puff Pass Delivery and also sits on the board of the Colorado Cannabis Social Equity Group, an organization committed to growing the number of minority- and women-owned businesses in the industry. He spoke in favor of the code changes at last month’s committee meeting. He knew of two transporter businesses that were licensed but folded before ever getting a store to sign on to partner with them, evidence the program was not working and needed to be updated, he said.
“The program was designed to help people that have been marginalized and crushed by the war on drugs,” Buckner said. “If Denver’s city council really believes in improving social equity, I believe this is honestly the least you can do.”
Councilwoman Kendra Black supported the measure at committee and voted with the rest of the council to approve it Monday. But she expressed skepticism last month that delivery is a viable option in a city with so many retail pot shops.
“I think the problem with the teleporter license is the business model,” she said. “We’ve got 14 licenses and the size of the market, the demand, is pretty low.”


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Akihabara Information (Tokyo) — XELS, a startup based mostly in Tokyo and Hong Kong, is as we speak launching a blockchain platform for purchasing and buying and selling carbon credit on Bittrex International, a number one cryptocurrency alternate.
This initiative combines the brand new applied sciences that lay behind modern cryptocurrencies with the combat towards world local weather change.
In accordance with the agency, the XELS token will present each companies and people entry to a blockchain-based carbon offset platform, initially targeted on tokenized voluntary carbon offset credit.
“We imagine that decentralization is the one method that carbon markets can work successfully,” explains XELS founder and CEO Takeshi Nojima. “XELS will allow the trade to take care of open, clear information–from technology, to sale, to retirement. Making it simple for companies to transparently offset their carbon with out concern of fraud will make them much more keen to fight world warming, and it’ll pay dividends so far as shopper belief that they’re really intent on making a distinction for the atmosphere.”
Mitch Hammer, undertaking supervisor at XELS, elaborates in an unique interview with Akihabara Information, “By recording these credit, storing them on the blockchain, we will actually work and confirm the place the carbon comes from, when it was minted, when it was retired, and actually hint all of it the way in which alongside.”
One of many distinctive options of this initiative is that it permits, for the primary time, people to take part within the cap and commerce carbon emissions system that was first established beneath the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Hammer provides, “Like every sort of financial mannequin with provide and demand, the extra individuals which might be into it, the extra individuals who have entry to it, it has an even bigger impression. What we intention to do is to make a quite simple platform utilizing blockchain that enables individuals to mitigate their offsets. If you wish to purchase one ton, you possibly can press a button and buy a ton, and you may 100% assure that goes in direction of eradicating one ton of CO2 from the environment.”
As for Japan, an organization launch notes that it “lags behind European nations, the place companies are compelled to purchase compliance credit to keep away from heavy taxes. XELS is already in talks with quite a few listed corporations in Japan which might be eager to get on board with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s goal of reaching web zero home emissions by 2050.”


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The model-entrepreneur-actress on making the best of these pandemic days.
With internet scams on the rise during the pandemic, here are solid ways you can protect yourself and your information while buying online.
It's frustrating when a brand new PC loads web pages at a snail's pace or randomly freezes and crashes — but it's also probably a quick and easy fix.
Many parents are still hesitant to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19.
This Vida mask has five layers of protection, and it's even recyclable.
Who gets to keep the million-dollar engagement ring, now that J-Rod has broken up?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found about 5,800 cases of COVID-19 infections among people who have been fully vaccinated in the U.S.
The 48-year-old also revealed her mother Blythe Danner's reaction to Goop's latest products.
Four UCLA gymnasts look like pure Black girl magic.
The founder of Tempest, a digital recovery platform, shares why her book resonates in Hollywood.
Terry Crews and Rebecca King Crews get frank about growing "stronger together' after infidelity and addiction.
Pro organizers share their secrets for tidying up this key spot.
The 'Red Table Talk' host looked peachy in her stunning hijab.
See who's knocking from the comfort of your couch.
The plus-sized model and daughter of ex-"Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff graces the latest cover of "Playboy."
Stay charged up and connected anytime, anywhere with this trusted brand.
Did you know that Amazon has a hush-hush section with incredible deals? We found some coveted stuff for up to 70 percent off!
The Czech supermodel turned 56 on April 9.
Stop renting your modem! Get better, faster and cheaper internet for a one-time fee of $59.
Ciara Miller opened up about her entire Summer House experience, including where she stands with Luke Gulbranson and Hannah Berner.


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On June 12, Vivo announced its new flagship phone, Vivo NEX in Shanghai. The most striking feature is its pop up camera, or “elevating front camera” as Vivo calls it. The phone will also use an in-display fingerprint sensor and “Screen SoundCasting” technology which allows it to transmit audio waves through the display itself.
On the evening of May 13, Xiaomi co-founder and CEO Lei Jun released an internal letter announcing the establishment of an independent camera department to strengthen R&D for smartphone cameras. Lei emphasized that camera functions have become a decisive factor for smartphone purchases among many consumers.
How many Mi fans and Huawei fans are there in India? These are anyone’s guess. We can see through reports, however, that the competitiveness of Chinese brands in the Indian smartphone market is escalating, regardless of the price range. Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Huawei, Honor are changing the consumption mindset of Indians.
On Feb. 18, huanqiu.com and the Global Public Opinion Survey Center launched an online survey on domestic brand preferences to understand the Chinese consumer’s perception of domestic brands.
At the Mobile World Congress, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo presented a brand-new full-screen mobile phone named APEX. On March 5, Vivo formally introduced APEX at an exclusive media conference at the Hangzhou New Technology Institute.
The latest market research data show that among the top 10 best-selling smartphone brands in India in Q4 2017, all except Samsung are Chinese manufacturers, whose total market share exceeds 50 percent.
The Indian market is where China’s smartphone manufacturers perform best with regards to internationalization. The Indian smartphone market grew by 14 percent last year, more than any other country. Chinese brands made up 53 percent of smartphone sales, according to the latest foreign media news.
Qualcomm hosted the 2018 Qualcomm China Technology and Cooperation Summit in Beijing, during which Qualcomm and leading Chinese manufacturers jointly announced a 5G pilot program.
Data from Canalys showed that China’s smartphone market has stagnated and smartphone shipments fell for the first time in 2017.
Chinese smartphone brands Oppo and Vivo (OV) may have stellar performance at home, but they are slowing down in the India market.
After 16 months in development, OPPO’s first super flagship store opened on Huaihaizhong Road in Shanghai beside brand stores such as Zara and Urban Revivo. The flagship covers nearly 500 square meters, more than half of which is a recreational area.
OPPO announced on the afternoon of Christmas Eve that it has upgraded its offline stores to open its first super flagship store in Shanghai.
Huawei reached a deal with AT&T to sell Huawei phones through the US operator’s channels in the first half of 2018, Chinese media reported in August. Recently, Yu Chengdong has confirmed Huawei will formally enter the US market in 2018.
Chinese mobile phone maker OPPO, which entered India four years ago, recently received a qualification for environmental assessment for its local mobile phone factory from the Indian government.
Is the frequent selling of buildings due to a lack of corporate competence or intense market competition?


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Coinstar nears one-billionth transaction
Coinstar has been counting coins found behind sofa cushions for 23 years and the company is getting close to its one billionth transaction.
To celebrate, Coinstar, a unit of Bellevue-based Outerwall Inc., is having a contest having people guess where the one billionth transaction will be made. The winner will win $1,000.
In addition, Coinstar said it will make a $10,000 donation to Seattle-based Childhaven as part of the contest.
According to Coinstar,"to date, Coinstar has processed 649,963,558,659 coins, weighing approximately 4,633,773,919 pounds."
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Mercedes will be showing off the latest version of its electric and autonomous concept car, the EQ, at the Frankfurt motor show, IAA 2017.
Mercedes says the smart vision EQ fortwo provides a new vision of urban mobility and individualised, highly flexible, totally efficient local public transport.
The company claims the autonomous concept vehicle picks up its passengers directly from their chosen location.
The auto giant is offering “new individualisation options” to help users to recognise that it is “their” own EQ.
These options include the Black Panel Grille at the front as well as large projection surfaces at the sides, the smart vision EQ fortwo, which all allow “unprecedented individualisation” of the vehicle, ideal for car sharing, says Daimler, parent company of Mercedes.
Freed from the task of driving, the passengers are able to relax in the large interior, adds Daimler.
The show car is the first vehicle from the Daimler Group to take the logical step of dispensing with a steering wheel and pedals.
The smart vision EQ fortwo is also a car in which all of the individual fields of expertise that make up the CASE corporate strategy are combined, allowing users in the city intuitive access to individual mobility.
CASE stands for the strategic pillars of connectivity (Connected), autonomous driving (Autonomous), flexible use (Shared & Services) and electric drive systems (Electric).
With the electrically powered smart vision EQ fortwo, smart is presenting a concept vehicle from the relatively recent product and technology brand EQ at the 2017 Frankfurt International Motor Show.
More than ten new electric cars are set to go into series production at Mercedes-Benz Cars by 2022, from the smart to the large SUV.
Smart took the first step back in 2007 with the smart electric drive and today optionally offers all its models with an electric powertrain.
The company likes to write “smart” in lower case letters, but we’ve written it as “Smart” with a capital S.
Smart CEO Annette Winkler, says: “The Smart vision EQ fortwo is our vision of future urban mobility; it is the most radical car sharing concept car of all: fully autonomous, with maximum communication capabilities, friendly, comprehensively personalisable and, of course, electric.
“With the Smart vision EQ fortwo, we are giving a face to the themes with which Mercedes-Benz Cars describes the vision of future mobility within the CASE strategy.”
Daimler believes transforming “urban traffic” into “city flow” in the future will not only benefit the users but the public at large too, cities and municipal authorities are also a target group for future car sharing concepts from Smart.
Currently, a car2go vehicle is hired somewhere in the world every 1.4 seconds. At present car2go has over 2.6 million customers worldwide – and the number is growing all the time.
The latest studies predict that the number of users of car sharing schemes worldwide will have quintupled by 2025 to 36.7 million.
One of the factors that make car2go so popular is that free-floating car sharing is spontaneous and flexible.
The car does not have to be picked up from or taken back to a specific location. It can be hired and left anywhere in the designated “home” area.
The Smart vision EQ fortwo concept vehicle demonstrates how autonomous driving could make future car sharing even more convenient, simple and economically efficient.
Swarm intelligence and autonomous driving enables the Smart vision EQ fortwo to usher in a new era in car sharing: users do not have to look for the next available car – it will find them and collect the passengers directly from their chosen location.
Swarm intelligence and the resulting predictability of demand will also probably already be nearby, making the journey to pick up a “hire car” a thing of the past.
The interconnected vehicles are always on the road. Utilisation increases and at the same time the amount of traffic and the number of parking spaces required in urban areas are reduced.


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Fareed Zakaria, after noting that America’s 500 biggest nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion of cash, wonders why they aren’t spending it on new plants or expansion into new product lines:
I put this question to a series of business leaders, all of whom were expansive on the topic yet did not want to be quoted by name, for fear of offending people in Washington.
Economic uncertainty was the primary cause of their caution. “We’ve just been through a tsunami and that produces caution,” one told me. But in addition to economics, they kept talking about politics, about the uncertainty surrounding regulations and taxes. Some have even begun to speak out publicly. Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, complained Friday that government was not in sync with entrepreneurs. The Business Roundtable, which had supported the Obama administration, has begun to complain about the myriad laws and regulations being cooked up in Washington.
I really have to call BS on this. Fortune 500 CEOs probably do have some genuine uncertainty about the tax and regulatory environment going forward, but big companies work with that kind of uncertainty all the time. It doesn’t stop them in their tracks. What’s more, most of the current uncertainty revolves around financial regs — which aren’t a big deal to nonfinancial companies — and healthcare regs, which aren’t a big deal to most non-healthcare companies. In other words, this stuff just doesn’t have an enormous effect on the vast majority of the companies we’re talking about here.
So what is keeping them from spending their cash? Why aren’t they expanding? Could this question possibly be any simpler? They aren’t expanding because the economy is weak and they don’t see consumer demand picking up any time soon. They’ll start spending as soon as they believe that’s going to change. It’s too bad that CEOs, even Democratic-leaning ones, tend to be so ideologically invested in regulatory issues, because they ought to be the biggest boosters out there of action to stimulate the economy. Enlightened self-interest, if nothing else, should have them marching on Congress demanding action.


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Travel and Style takes flight
Aimed at aesthetically inclined females, the new quarterly aims to fill a void the co-founders saw for digital travel magazines in the market.
There’s a new Canadian digital magazine in market aimed at aesthetically inclined jet-setting women called Travel and Style.
Launched by friends and magazine industry staffers Stephanie Gray and Jennifer Weatherhead Harrington, the quarterly digital title started as travel blog Pretty Chic Travel, evolving into Travel and Style in late 2013 with the magazine’s first issue going live this month.
“It started as a blog initially and then launched the website,” she says. “We thought the travel market was missing a really solid digital magazine focused on women who love to travel and also appreciate the aesthetic side of travel as well so it seemed like a natural thing for us to do.”
Harrington tells MiC the magazine will be distributed to its 400 current subscribers, with a target audience of women between 25- and 45-years-old with a household income of $100,000 or higher. Gray adds the team hopes to grow its sub numbers to 2,000 in six months and 5,000 by next year. The magazine’s website currently gets between five and six thousand unique visitors a month, with that number steadily going up thanks to social media sharing and word-of-mouth through 2014, adds Harrington.
Advertising opportunities on the site and in the magazine include banner ads as well as more in-depth sponsorship and content packages, says Harrington, adding that the duo are open to other opportunities for brands to be involved on the site as well.


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Remember that "Voice Access" talk that was supposed to happen at I/O but was removed from the schedule? It turns out that, while it wasn't the full-on in-app voice craziness we had hoped for, Google did have some news about voice interactions to share.
Specifically, with Android M, Google has introduced the Voice Interaction API, which will allow apps to get a better handle on a user's voice-initiated requests. Read More
Sony hasn't officially announced a second iteration of its SmartBand activity tracker, but it doesn't have to. It's already done the next best thing. Today it has launched a new companion app into the Play Store that's simply titled SmartBand 2.
The images from the listing give us an idea of what to expect. Read More
The Doom series is perhaps one of the most iconic in gaming, so much so that it's been ported and hacked onto just about every platform and gadget imaginable. There are plenty of unofficial ways to play Doom on Android, but today owners of NVIDIA's SHIELD Android TV and SHIELD Tablet (and sadly, no one else) get a chance to own the entire series in a single package. Read More
Sony doesn't have a huge presence in the US despite making a boatload of phones. Still, if you've got one, odds are good that you'll be seeing an Android 5.1 update in the coming months. The update will hit all Z series devices and a few of the mid-range models too. Read More
Sad as it may be, if you've been hearing that the G4 has wireless charging right out of its shiny new box, unfortunately that just isn't true. LG went on the record with us to state that no version of the G4 will be shipping with wireless charging as a standard feature, and that you'll need to buy one of the company's Quick Circle covers if you want to get your battery those sweet, sweet electrons via induction. Read More
Do you want the new LG G4? Well, go call dibs. That's not what this post is about. We're gathered here to talk about the G3. It's still a good phone. Only now, due to planned obsolescence, it's becoming a cheaper one. On eBay, you can get an unlocked GSM model for a pretty reasonable $340. Read More
Most over-the-air updates include a few bug fixes, maybe a new bloatware app or two, and are thus not really worth getting excited over. Not so for the latest addition to T-Mobile's customized version of the Sony Xperia Z3. In addition to the long-awaited upgrade to Android 5.0, today's update flips a software switch that enables access to band 12, the 700MHz spectrum that T-Mobile began using for LTE earlier this year. Read More
No doubt about it, the mid-range market is heating up, even in places where unlocked and contract-free phones have typically undersold. Read More


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Uber East Africa is set to launch a roll out a special package to maximize its service provision towards tourists needs for transport at the coast in a bid to fight growing competition in the region.
Speaking to the Financial Standard, Uber East Africa head Brian Njao, revealed that the package is aimed at boosting the confidence of both drivers and clients by including safety measures, partner injury protection insurance, access, and quality and affordable healthcare cover for drivers and their families.
The company just like any any other transport service providers has been dealing with challenges that come with insecurity, competition, and cases of poor pay.
Njao further revealed that the plan intends will create an additional 12,000 job across the country with focus on residents the tourist towns like Kilifi, Watamu, Malindi and Diani where tourism is projected to peak as the Covid infections drop. The company which launched in Kenya in 2015 intends on partnering with players in the tourism industry to make their plan a reality.


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Entries in B20 (4)
When a company suspects a competitor is going to pay bribes, the temptation is to do the same thing. Bribe takers encourage a bribery bidding war. They want the biggest bribe to win the business, not the best price, product or service.
At this year’s B20 Summit, held last week in Sydney, 400 business leaders laid out a blueprint to promote global economic growth and employment outcomes and make the global economy more resilient to deal with future shocks.
The former director of the UK Serious Fraud Office, Richard Alderman, shared with the FCPA Blog a Preliminary Study (pdf here) conducted by the B20 Task Force on Improving Transparency and Anti-Corruption that focuses on regulatory developments that could enhance the private sector's role in fighting global corruption.


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Bird & Bird has launched its Digital Marketing Law Guide, the first app designed by a law firm to help in-house marketing teams and agencies with the legal issues surrounding international digital marketing campaigns.
Covering the local laws of nine European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), and six areas of online advertising and marketing law issues, the app provides essential information for in-house teams at international brands and agencies.
The app covers topics including email marketing, promotions, use of social media, comparative advertising, information requirements and commercial communication. It is available to download on both mobile phones and tablets via the iTunes app store and Google Play and requires iOS 7.1 or Android 4.1 or later.
Phil Sherrell, Head of our International Media Group said, "Bird & Bird's clients increasingly want to take a common approach to marketing campaigns across multiple jurisdictions. Unfortunately, even in the EU the laws and regulations which affect advertising are rarely fully harmonised. We hope that the app will offer a user-friendly way of easing the process."


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Today is Friday, December 16, 2022.
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Adobe's Massive Opportunities
Strong financial earnings results sent shares of Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) up 4.65% in after-hours trading on Thursday.
Financials: Adobe reported earnings of $3.60 per share, which was better than expected. Revenue hit $4.53 billion, which was in line.
Growing: Revenue for digital media grew 10% to $3.3 billion, which was slightly below estimates. Digital experience revenue grew 14%. Cash flow reached a record $2.33 billion in the quarter.
Outlook: Adobe expects revenue in the current quarter to be between $4.6 billion to $4.64 billion, which was in line.
Quote: “Strong demand for our offerings, industry-leading innovation and track record of top- and bottom-line growth set us up to capture the massive opportunities in 2023 and beyond.” - Adobe CFO Dan Durn.
Stock Price: Adobe’s stock is down 41% this year, including a nearly 3% drop in the last 30 days.
Final Thoughts: Adobe is at a crossroads. The company announced in the quarter that it was acquiring Figma for $20 billion, but then it also announced layoffs. Amid a bad environment for technology companies, Adobe is trying to turn things around.
Notable Earnings Today: Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI), Accenture (NYSE: ACN), Winnebago (NYSE: WGO).
Notable IPOs Today: NAVA HEALTH MD, LLC (Nasdaq: NAVA), ParaZero Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: PRZO), ClearBridge Sustainable Infrastructure ETF (Nasdaq: INFR), Zymeworks Inc. Common Stock (Nasdaq: ZYME).
Notable Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns Ending Today: This App Saves Lives (SeedInvest), Delee (Republic), BidaFi (Netcapital).
Notable Economic Events Today: Manufacturing PM (9:45 a.m. ET), S&P Global Composite PMI (9:45 a.m. ET), Services PMI (9:45 a.m. ET).
U.S. Steel Eyes Strong Results
Photo by Karan Bhatia / Unsplash
Shares of United States Steel (NYSE: X) jumped 2.24% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the manufacturing company reaffirmed its fourth-quarter guidance of $375 million.
Quote: “We remain on track to deliver our second-best financial year with continued execution of our strategy and $150 million of direct returns to stockholders expected in the quarter,” - U. S. Steel President and CEO David B. Burritt.
Good News: The company also says that December commercial demand in the U.S. is better and scrap prices are up.
Stock Price: U.S. Steel shares are down about 1% this year.
Final Thoughts: Despite lower demand in Europe, the business for U.S. Steel seems to be on track for good times.
Equity Crowdfunding Spotlight: Mediloq
Briefly describe your business. Mediloq pioneered durable, child-safe containers for the B2C outdoor market. We are now developing a B2B sustainable child-safe packaging business, offering pharma, supplement and cannabis brands a sustainable alternative to plastic packaging.
What are the terms of the investment for your campaign? See StartEngine for more details.
What makes your startup special? 200 countries recently agreed to ban plastic packaging. We are one of the few companies positioned to meet the growing demand for sustainable alternatives in the child-safe niche, and we are already in discussions with several pharma partners.
Trends to Watch
Goodbye: Credit Suisse Loses Two More Private-Markets Executives (The Wall Street Journal)
Donut Worry About a Thing: Krispy Kreme Guides for Revenue Growth in FY23, Strategic Plan for FY26 (MarketWatch)
Full Stop: Microsoft bans cryptocurrency mining on cloud services (Cointelegraph)
Scary Times: Stock Market Traders Discover That Bad News Is Bad After All (Bloomberg)
Defiance: Amid crypto turmoil, Hong Kong debuts first crypto futures ETFs (Reuters)
Thank you for reading!
Forward to a friend and tell them to sign up here.
Want more investing tips? Listen to the podcast.
Questions or comments? Hit reply to reach out.


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State regulators Monday filed a lawsuit against one of California’s largest funeral trusts, claiming that millions of dollars worth of customers’ money has been “misused, misspent, and mismanaged,” according to the Department of Consumer Affairs.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, names the California Master Trust as the defendant. It seeks to take over control of the trust, oust the current directors, and force those currently in control to repay $14 million in missing trust funds.
The trust is one of the nation’s largest administrators of pre-need funeral plans — funeral services paid for while the buyer is still alive. Those plans are sold by individual funeral homes, with the payments held by the trust.
Administrators illegally used those payments to pay more than $4 million in kickbacks to funeral homes in order to make sure their plans were sold to customers, according to the lawsuit.


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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to press Chinese officials to improve the climate for U.S. companies trying to do business in China during a high-level dialogue in Beijing next week.
Mr. Geithner is expected to urge Chinese officials to reverse policies that limit the ability of foreign companies, including U.S. firms, to compete, and to argue that Beijing's efforts to relax discriminatory rules don't go far enough, according to U.S. government officials.
"We need to continue to work to make sure that American companies are competing on a level playing field," Mr. Geithner said during remarks in Seattle Tuesday. "The Chinese government has taken some steps to address these concerns, but we have some more work to do in this area."
The Chinese have their own concerns about U.S. trade policies, specifically efforts by U.S. industries to block what they view as unfair competition from Chinese imports. According to China's commerce ministry, in 2009 the U.S. took 23 trade-remedy measures against Chinese goods, 53% more than in the previous year.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Wednesday that trade frictions between China and the U.S. have been exaggerated, and argued that the punitive measures imposed by both governments affect only a small portion of the trade between the two countries. "Ninety-seven percent of the [Chinese] exports to the U.S. aren't affected by these duties," Mr. Locke told reporters in Shanghai.
Another key U.S. goal—persuading China to allow its currency to appreciate—may not dominate discussions as originally expected, due to concerns over Europe's ability to contain its sovereign-debt crisis. That could anger some U.S. lawmakers who allege that China undervalues the yuan against the U.S. dollar to give its exports a competitive advantage.
Mr. Geithner will be joined by several officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr. Locke, for the annual U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue, to be held May 24 and 25 in Beijing. The meeting is the latest opportunity to address trade and strategic issues that exacerbated bilateral tensions earlier this year.
Last month, Mr. Geithner said he planned to use the dialogue, as well as multilateral discussions in June, to push China toward a more market-oriented exchange rate. He delayed a report to Congress on the currency policies of major trading partners, including China, saying the coming meetings "are the best avenue for advancing U.S. interests at this time." Now, many observers think the turmoil in Europe could further delay any move by China away from the yuan's de facto peg to the U.S. dollar.
"If you already were on the margin about revaluing the yuan or taking a chance on shifting the exchange-rate regime, the ongoing events in Europe are hardly going to push you over the line into moving," said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University. "The last thing the Chinese seek is to make their financial markets more volatile."
For its part, China continues to argue that the U.S. focus on the exchange rate is a distraction from more serious issues. "The U.S. government and elites know that the exchange rate can't solve America's imbalances and structural problems," said Xia Bin, a scholar at the Development Research Center in Beijing who is also an adviser to the Chinese central bank.
Although China's exports have performed strongly in recent months, Chinese officials worry about the prospect of a slowdown in the European Union, China's largest export market.
With the euro dropping sharply, the yuan is now up by more than 15% against the European currency this year. That has "created great cost pressures for China's exporters," Yao Jian, a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman, said Monday.
Exports by the U.S. and the euro zone to China are far smaller than their imports from China. But as the yuan gains against the weaking euro, Chinese goods are becoming more expensive in Europe. View chart
Mr. Geithner, however, is expected to cite the turmoil in Europe as a reason why China should rebalance its economy—including by appreciating its currency—and begin moving away from its dependence on exports, according to a U.S. government official.
The economic plank of the discussions is likely to be dominated by concerns over trade policies in both countries. In the U.S., many businesses have complained in recent months that protectionist policies in China are threatening their long-term growth in a key market.
Last month, China took steps that appeared to soften rules limiting the access of foreign businesses to a government-procurement market valued at billions of dollars a year. But U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who will also participate in the dialogue, suggested on Tuesday that Beijing hasn't done enough.
"We appreciate efforts China's government has made to address our concern, but we have urged them to refrain from further steps down this path," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
Mr. Geithner said the U.S. shares the concerns of businesses that China's approach "has the potential to discriminate against foreign-made products and could disadvantage American exporters and investors."
He said the "challenge is to help make sure that China does more to protect intellectual-property rights and reduces subsidies and other preferences to domestic companies. We want China to give American firms the same opportunities to compete in China that Chinese firms face in the United States."
—Ian Talley, J.R. Wu,
Liu Li and Tom Barkley
contributed to this article.


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Five-time Grammy Award winner Christina Aguilera is now the co-founder and chief brand advisor of Playground, a vegan sexual wellness brand launched in 2022.
Founded and run by an all-female identifying team, the brand develops plant-based lubricants specifically for women.
Aguilera seeks to help CEO Catherine Magee and co-founder Sandy Vukovic make sexual wellness less of a taboo subject. The brand itself aims to “create an open dialogue” around the topic. As such, it hopes that a high-profile name will drive the mission forward.
“I’m thrilled to be part of a woman-owned business, and building a brand where women can recognize Playground as a product that is speaking to them with an informed perspective,” Aguilera said in a statement.
“I continue to encourage women to feel empowered while owning every aspect of themselves, and to treat sexual wellness as part of a regular self-care routine.”
The singer-songwriter went on to address the fact that the sexual wellness category has been dominated by male priorities. This, she said, has resulted in a deficit of products being created specifically with women, their pleasure, and health needs in mind.
Women come first at Playground
Playground claims that its products have been developed to spark all five senses and maintain sexual health. It does so with its range of water-based, pH-balanced, and vegan lubricants that are suitable for personal or multiplayer use.
As a brand, Playground has focused on direct language, addressing women’s needs and encouraging its consumers to take control. Aguilera, known for her feminist ideologies and self-love messaging, is considered the ideal celebrity spokesperson for such a company.
“What’s been missing in the overall health and wellness conversation is the role of sexual health. Christina is the perfect voice to champion female sexuality,” Playground CEO Magee said in a statement.
‘Premium skincare for the vagina’
All four of the Playground lubricants – called After Hours, Date Night, Love Sesh, and Mini Escape – were developed to cater to more than just sexual pleasure.
Considering the needs of women’s skin, each item is described as more than just a lubricant. According to the brand, they are designed to “hydrate, soothe, and spark the libido with plant-based ingredients that are clean, vegan, and free of harmful ingredients – it’s like premium skincare for the vagina.”
What’s more, despite using high-end ingredients and having Aguilera onboard, Playground seeks to make sexual wellbeing accessible to all. As such, a $25 price tag stands across the range.
Christina Aguilera-backed Playground products are available directly or through selected retailers including Ohne.


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While Aussies can’t start travelling to Italy again just yet, they can still enjoy a decent taste of it thanks to the country’s tourism organisation.
Having recently celebrated its centenary, the Italian National Tourist Board has unveiled a new experience showing off its advertising materials from pre- and post-war via a virtual museum.
Established in 1919, ENIT – Italian National Tourist Board has been promoting Italy and its beauty abroad for over a hundred years.
The organisation also recently released a new video reminding Aussie travellers what awaits them when they are finally able to visit Italy again, which you can check out below:
The Italian National Tourist Board has come on board this year as presenting partner for Travel DAZE 2020, the industry’s most thought-provoking conference.
Travel Weekly is committed to bringing you the usual high-quality content in a COVID-safe way, so Travel DAZE is going virtual this year.
Travel DAZE 2020 will explore what tangible steps business owners, travel agents, tour operators, marketers, and communication specialists can take toward rebuilding a sustainable and profitable future.
The conference will kick off on Monday 2 November and finish up on Friday 6 November, and the best part is that it’s absolutely FREE!
And if that isn’t enough to convince you to attend Travel DAZE this year, we’ve already lined up some fab speakers for the event, including UN Messenger of Peace, ethologist and conservationist Dr Jane Goodall; G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip; Flight Centre founder and CEO Graham “Skroo” Turner; Accor chairman and CEO Sébastien Bazin; Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison, Virgin Australia Group CEO and managing director Paul Scurrah; Intercontinental Hotels Group’s head of corporate responsibility, Karina O’ Gorman; Tourism Fiji CEO Matt Stoeckel; and AFTA chief executive Darren Rudd.
Those keen on sponsoring Travel DAZE 2020 can get in touch with Harriet Morris (email@example.com).


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How Lester's has survived box stores for nearly 70 years
For Cabot Hearn, the arrival of another big-box hardware store in Kinston is nothing new for his family’s business or anything to really worry about.
It’s just more competition.
News traveled this week of the Harbor Freight Tools chain arriving in Kinston mid-spring across from Walmart, and Hearn, manager of Lester’s Hardware Company, feels the nearly 70-year-old mom-and-pop store on North Herritage Street will continue to provide great customer service and maintain good inventory levels for hopefully another 70 years.
“You start thinking about its impact on your business,” Hearn said. “I’m sure there’s going to be a little bit more competition in the tools department, but overall, I’m not especially worried.
“It’s good they’re on the other end of town.”
According to Harbor Freight communications director Craig Hoffman, the hardware store looks to arrive in Kinston as the state’s 45th store around May at 4150 W. Vernon Ave. inside the old Staples building.
Harbor Freight is not the first big-box store for Lester’s to compete with, and it will most likely not be the last.
Hearn’s grandfather, Herschel Hearn, started a hardware business in 1953, according to Hearn, with two business partners – one being Gerald Lester. Lester ran the store on Queen Street, naming it Lester’s Hardware, before the partners moved it to its current location at 602 N. Herritage St.
Nearly 25 years after Lester’s opened, another hardware store, Lowe’s, moved to Kinston on Vernon Avenue. Founded in 1946, Lowe’s has transformed from a small hardware store to the second largest home improvement retailer worldwide.
Lowe’s entered into a 5-year lease agreement with Hoyt and Rosamond Minges in 1977 on West Vernon Avenue across from Vernon Park Mall near a new Pepsi Cola Bottling Plant, according to the Lenoir County Register of Deeds.
“Lowe’s came to Kinston in their smaller building years back, and then they left Kinston for four or five years,” Hearn said. “They were in the building at Highland TV & Appliance. That’s the old Lowe’s building, originally. They weren’t a big box store then, but they were a box store.”
Lester’s has continued to focus on customer service and maintain inventory levels with 8,000 square feet of sale space and 3,000 square feet of warehouse space. But before the arrival of the “Lowe’s and Walmarts of the world” as Hearn puts it, Lester’s offered houseware items and toys and even sold fish. Lester’s adapted to more of a commercial supplier with plumbing, heating, nuts, and bolts as box stores popped up in Kinston. Within the past three years, Lester’s has added rentals to its inventory.
Lester’s actually eyed the Vernon Avenue location after Lowe’s left town, but a clause in a Lowe's agreement, according to Hearn, prevented a competing hardware business from operating in that building.
“We could’ve gone over to that building,” Hearn said. “But it just never happened.”
Ten years after Lowe’s first arrived in Kinston, the home improvement store entered a lease agreement with Roy and Mary Poole, according to the register of deeds, moving to a larger property on Hwy. 70 at its current location. A standard Lowe’s store can measure 116,000 square feet in retail space.
“If you need a part, you can come in and be out in five or 10 minutes. Somebody’s going to meet you at the door or take you to get your product,” Hearn said. “When your time is valuable, we can help you out that way as compared to the big-box stores. It takes longer to do a transaction at Lowe’s. You can be in and out of here in five minutes.”
Lowe’s now sits in a prime area near Walmart, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and eventually Harbor Freight Tools.
According to Hoffman, it took anywhere from several months to a year for Harbor Freight to decide on a city and a location. Hoffman said the shopping center across from Walmart offers plenty of retail space and parking.
“We don’t open just to open a location,” Hoffman said. “We want to make sure we have the best location. So, we’re willing to wait if necessary to make sure our customers have the best experience.”
The 19,000 square-foot hardware store will be 21 miles from another Harbor Freight in Winterville, 22 miles from a Goldsboro store, and 29 miles from one in New Bern. Harbor Freight, which opened over 43 years ago in California as a mail-order company, now has over 1,100 hardware locations nationwide.
“We’re a national company, but we’re very much a local business, too,” Hoffman said. “Comparing it to the big-box stores, those are huge and you have to go to many departments to find what you need if you’re looking for a specific tool. Here, it’s easy to browse. You don’t have to go to multiple departments to get what you need.”
Hoffman said Harbor Freight buys its tools directly from the manufacturer, which cuts out the middleman and allows customers to purchase quality tools. Though Lester’s receives a majority of its tools through its primary distributor, Do It Best, it does purchase some tools directly from a manufacturer.
Harbor Freight hopes to employ 25 to 30 people when it opens, and people are asked to apply at https://jobs.harborfreight.com/. Hearn said Lester’s has eight employees with a few who have worked 40 years at the store.
“We have a lot of long-term employees,” Hearn said. “I just hope we provide a good environment to work.”
As Hearn walks around the store, assisting customers and checking inventory, he realizes Lester’s is not the only hardware store in town with Lowe’s, the Big Blue Store just around the corner, Tractor Supply, and now Harbor Freight.
He just hopes Lester’s will last another 70 years with the arrival of big-box stores.
“I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t,” Hearn said. “I guess it’s a good sign for Kinston that they think there’s enough business to come to Kinston.”


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Kid Cudi showed up to the 2021 FDA Fashion Awards in New York on Wednesday night (Nov. 10) dressed in a white wedding dress. A daring move that isn’t out of character for the ‘Man On The Moon.’
According to Vogue, the bridal dress was designed by Eli Russell Linnetz. While Cuddar has a history of subverting gender norms, this wasn’t entirely his idea.
“This is Eli’s vision. He sent me a text and said he wanted to do this and I said, ‘Let’s go,’” Cudi told a reporter when asked how the look came together.
Cudi turned heads earlier in the year when he wore a floral dress to Saturday Night Live, and now his latest Kurt Cobain inspired outfit has people questioning his sexuality with the use of Boosie memes.
Although social media users speculate he’s gay, Kid Cudi has yet to comment about his sexuality.


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When Microsoft purchased Skype on May 10, 2011 for $8.5 billion, it became the company’s largest acquisition ever since its inception in 1975. The ubiquitous VoIP giant was now one with the ubiquitous computing giant, incorporated into a new sector called the Microsoft Skype Division.
So how, exactly, is Microsoft putting its expensive new asset to use? A new report from CVG claims that every communications technology belonging to the company will soon be encircled around Skype — and that includes the online gaming service of Xbox Live voice chat.
Quoting “a person familiar with the matter,” CVG reports that Microsoft is “consolidating all their communications technology” around the Skype platform. With the Xbox 720 expected to be announced (and quite possibly released) within the year, the plan will establish Skype as the console’s default communications service, in lieu of the generic Xbox Live voice chat. The source continued to suggest — and this seems inherent to the features of Skype — that the next generation of Xbox Live will allow for “asynchronous voice and video messages.”
Valid or not, the report comes as little surprise: Microsoft’s Skype/Xbox 720 ambitions were revealed in a May 2012 job-listing, where the company expressed goals to enable real-time online video chat in next-gen multiplayer gameplay. The real intrigue stems from a potential total Skype takeover of Xbox Live’s chat service.
For one it wouldn’t necessarily be a pure chat service anymore. The move would indicate that Microsoft is aiming to revitalize what’s become a rather disregarded feature of Xbox Live (forget asynchronous; Live’s public-chat airwaves have gone aphonic in many games), and with the help of technology from Skype the next generation could see more social/communication innovations reflected in the games themselves. Just look back to the language from Microsoft when the aforementioned Skype programmer opening was posted on its careers page:
“Skype is working on powering real-time voice and video communications on the Xbox. Xbox is a fundamental lynchpin of Skype’s living-room strategy, and we are focused on enabling amazing new in-game and in-console voice and video experiences for the next generation of Xbox. This is a crucial initiative for Xbox, and it is time-critical given the hardware lead times involved.”
Whatever the future may hold for Skype and the Xbox 720, it’s clear that the Living Room is indeed Microsoft’s ultimate console endgame. Skype integration lends further credence to the rumor that Kinect 2.0 — the likely image capturing apparatus Skype would work through — will ship standard with the Xbox 720. And added with speculative technologies like the image projecting IllumiRoom and virtual reality eyewear, a myriad of opportunities exist for future gaming experiences that, just as much as graphics or processing power, put the “next” in next generation.
How would you like to see Skype integrated with the Xbox 720? What about other Microsoft devices such as Surface and Windows-based computers?
Follow Brian on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.


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Startup news and updates: Daily roundup (November 11, 2021)
YourStory presents this daily roundup of the latest startup news and updates from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond. Here's the roundup for Thursday, November 11, 2021.
Thursday November 11, 2021,
2 min Read
After promise, Musk sells $1.1B in Tesla shares to pay taxes
After making a promise on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold about 9,00,000 shares of the electric car maker's stock, netting over $ 1.1 billion that will go toward paying tax obligations for stock options.
The sales, disclosed in two regulatory filings late Wednesday, will cover tax obligations for stock options granted to Musk in September. He exercised options to buy just over 2.1 million shares for $ 6.24 each. The company's stock closed Wednesday at $ 1,067.95 per share.
Saint-Gobain picks up minority stake in Livspace
French glass and construction material maker Saint-Gobain on Wednesday said it has acquired a minority stake in home interiors and renovation platform. Details about the investment were not disclosed. Livspace is a digital-first intermediation platform offering end-to-end solutions for home interiors from design to installation, serving around 20,000 homes annually in India.
NFT startup Lysto raises $3M in seed round from BEENEXT and others
First-of-its-kind NFT startup Lysto on Thursday announced that it raised $3 million in seed round from BEENEXT, Better Capital, Cloud Capital and other investors, to democratise the global adoption of NFTs. According to an official statement, the fresh fund will be utilised in product development and will allow Lysto to invest in the expansion of its team that will help achieve its mission of furthering and simplifying the adoption of NFTs.
Edited by Anju Narayanan


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Building a Game Platform, for Everyone
Google is finally making huge moves in the gaming industry. In 2018, the tech giant unveiled what they called “Project Stream”, a game streaming platform that gave players the ability to stream AAA games at high quality with nothing else but a Chrome browser and fast internet connection. Last year, The Information reported that the company was developing some sort of hardware component to accompany their streaming software. While they were unsure of what the hardware would look like, they seemed to think that Google could have been developing their very own gaming console.
Earlier today, Google hit the stage at GDC 2019 to talk about what it called their “vision for the future of gaming.” Here’s what they unveiled.
Sundar Pichai wants gaming to be more accessible. He wants gaming to be as easy as sharing a link over the chrome browser. That’s where Stadia comes in. Pichai called Stadia the “one place for all the ways we play. It’s focused on gamers, inspired by developers, and amplified by YouTube creators.”
The initiative is meant to intertwine game creation, game sharing and of course gaming itself, by utilizing YouTube as a sort of gaming hub. If you see a game you like on the site, simply click the video’s “Play Now” button, and within as little as 5 seconds, you’ll be able to play the game. No install, no download, and no patches.
“Our platform vision for Stadia is to reduce the friction between getting excited about a game and playing a game. On Stadia, you just need to click on a YouTube video or link, and you can be playing your game instantly,” said Google’s Phil Harrison.
At launch, Stadia will be playable on desktops, laptops, TV, tablets, and phones. During the presentation, Google once again used Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey to show off Stadia. Presenters seamlessly launched the game on a Google Pixelbook and proceeded to exit and relaunch the game on a Pixel phone, PC, Pixel Slate, and even a Chromecast.
Of course, that wasn’t all that Google unveiled. Google also gave fans their first look at the Stadia Controller, which was described as the “gateway to the best of Stadia.” Phil Harrison continued by explaining that the controller gave players access to the full Stadia experience, regardless of which platform they choose to play on.
Google engineer Madj Pakar then took the stage to show how the Stadia platform could expand in the coming years. According to Pakar, Google data centers will be able to deliver 8K resolution at 120 FPS, depending on your internet speed, off course. He also let the audience know that the Stadia ecosystem would allow gamers to save and share gameplay footage at 4K 60FPS, directly to YouTube.
Pakar also boasted about the pure speed of Stadia, stating that the software was capable of producing better performance than the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X combined. The project an impressive collection of partners as well, which included AMD, Unity, Havok, Vulkan, the Cryengine, the Unreal Engine, and more.


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Japanese games market shrunk in 2009
It seems the video games industry may not be quite as recession proof as some executives might have predicted, the Japanese market shrinking over the course of 2009.
According to Famitsu (thanks VG247), the Japanese games market fell from 582 billion Yen in 2008 to 542 billion Yen in 2009.
Of this total figure, software fell from 332 billion to 326 billion (saved to some extent by the late release of new Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games), while hardware dropped from 250 billion to 216 billion.
Sales are also likely to have declined in Europe and the US in 2009. More soon.
- Stealth Inc 2 is coming to PC, PlayStation and Xbox
- Frozenbyte announces Trine 3: Artifacts Of Power
- Epic has dropped the subscription fee for the Unreal Engine 4
- Rumour: DirectX 12 could allow mixing and matching of AMD and Nvidia GPUs
- No more online modes for Ridge Racer Unbounded in Europe
- Mortal Kombat X coming to mobiles as a free-to-play card battler
- EA announces details of Battlefield: Hardline Premium
- Payday 2: Crimewave Edition to hit PS4 and Xbox One in the summer
- Valve and HTC partner up for the new SteamVR device the Vive


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Wireless Android Auto is a convenient feature, and judging by the popularity of the Motorola MA1 and AAWireless, it’s also something a whole lot of people want to get their hands on. Unfortunately, the Motorola MA1 has been left completely out of stock across all storefronts for over a month now, and scalpers are taking advantage of the unmet demand.
Motorola MA1 is the first Google-license dongle for adding wireless Android Auto to cars that already feature the wired version of the platform. It was announced back in January, and went on sale later that month. Pre-orders sold out nearly immediately, and stock on Amazon has been scarce in the time since. Even when the product launched at Target, it sold out nearly instantly.
We last observed the restock of the Motorola MA1 on February 4, over a month ago. Stock lasted less than an hour, and it hasn’t been restocked in the time since.
In previous statements from Motorola Sound/MGW Global, we were told that restocking at Amazon has the primary holdup and that manufacturing, i.e., available inventory, was not holding back sales. We reached out to SGW Global again last week to see if that was still the case, but the company never got back to us.
The real problem here is not just that the product is hard to come by, but that scalpers have swooped in on the opportunity. As of March 9, the Amazon listing for Motorola MA1 is out of stock from official sellers, but third-party sellers have inflated the price to 2x the original $90 price tag, with most hovering around $200. eBay sellers have also been selling the device for well over its normal price tag, with most “Buy it Now” listings sitting around $170-200, and one “presale” listing at $140. Point being, you’re not going to be able to get the MA1 for its retail cost right now.
We’ll update this article if SGW Global offers any further insight into the situation regarding Motorola MA1 stock.
More on Android Auto:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
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West Hall, one of Harvey Mudd’s original dorms, is a U-shaped two-story building that wraps around a courtyard that I’ve usually seen ornamented with oversized speakers and a junk store’s worth of old sofas. When I walked by last week there was also an inflatable pool by the barbecue grill, and heavy-duty electrical cords snaked in and out of doors. An impromptu movie screen hung from the roof, and a skull-and-crossbones flag hung from a pole affixed to the tallest limb of a tree out front. A pair of shoes dangled from another limb.
You might imagine that West would be the source of nightmares for administrators, and you’d be right. Ms. Klawe remembers a West resident’s giving an extended presentation about a quest for the perfect mixture of a combustible substance with a bubble-making substance. That night, she says, she heard a loud boom and woke with a start, certain that the student and his peers had blown something up. It turned out to be nothing more than a bad dream, at least as far as she knows.
Ms. Klawe, a computer scientist, also has a favorite West Hall story, which concerns an online contest that Victoria’s Secret sponsored a couple of years ago. The retailer said it would offer a line of apparel with the mascot of whichever college attracted the most votes in the contest.
The contest Web site was set up to prevent individuals from voting more than once a day, but the site’s safeguards apparently were no obstacle to West residents. Not only did 750-student Harvey Mudd come out on top—it beat the No. 2 institution by more than 400,000 votes—but the first letters of the names of the next six colleges in the standings just happened to the the first letters of a longtime West slogan, “West is best, screw the rest.” (You can read the details here, with an update here.)
It’s a story Ms. Klawe tells with a big grin.


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India’s gold import jumps 470% in March 2021. Gold import in India quadrupled in March to hit the highest monthly figure in nearly two years on a cumulative impact of a sharp decline in its prices in the physical markets, customs duty cut and relaxation in lockdown norms across various export markets which boosted seasonal jewellery demand there.
Data compiled by the apex industry body the World Gold Council (WGC) showed India’s gold import at 160 tonnes in March 2021, an increase of 470 per cent from a mere 28 tonnes reported in the corresponding month last year. India’s gold import in March 2019 was recorded at 93 tonnes. India’s gold import touched its three-digit figures for the first time since June 2020.
Since coronavirus (Covid-19) cases started mounting in India in February 2020, India’s gold import hit badly with its arrival plunged to almost ‘0’ in April. With pipeline inventory got empty despite Covid-19 related lockdown and thereby closure of factories and jewellery retail outlets, intermittent and impulsive surge in consumer demand helped rebound in gold import.
“We should observe the overall market trend in a holistic manner in the forthcoming months to arrive at a rightful conclusion. Factors such as low base effect, reduction in the gold price, reduction in import duty may be attributed to the increased imports in the country in this period. An important observation is that from an average import of approx. 80 tonnes a year in 2018-19 is down to 50 tonnes last year,” said Colin Shah, Chairman, Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), under the Union Ministry of Commerce.
In March 2021, multiple factors contributed to the rise in gold imports including increasing domestic demand, the surge in jewellery demand from overseas like the US and UK following relaxation in lockdown there, the wedding season in India, improved business and consumer sentiments and as well as the recent sharp drop in gold prices, etc.
“Growth in imports of gold indicates the positive sentiment in the domestic and international market. I am also expecting growth in exports of jewellery in the current fiscal,” said Shah.
Apart from that, resumption of mining and exporting activities; re-commencement of production activities in the domestic and global market; development of vaccine and start of vaccination and relaxation over the travel also contributed to the upsurge in India’s gold import.
Apart from that, there were various virtual gem and jewellery trade shows and buyer-seller meets (VBSMs) organised by GJEPC which resulted in large orders for Indian manufacturers for varied gem and jewellery products.
Meanwhile, gold prices have seen a phenomenal drop and customers and investors see an opportunity as the current prices may not sustain in future. Gold prices reported a decline on an average of Rs. 40,179 in March 2021 which indicates the lowest in 11 months between April 2020 and February 2021.
In a major relief for the government, more import of gold is taking place through official channels after the cut in gold import duty.


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Dylan Love/Business Insider
1. MeeGo, the mobile platform Intel was
developing jointly with Nokia until
Nokia signed its deal with Microsoft
and kicked MeeGo to the curb . (So
they told CNET this morning.)
2. WebOS, the former
Palm operating system that HP is shopping
personal computer business.
In case you didn't know, Samsung
already has its own mobile platform, Bada. It's
selling better than Windows Phone right now.
Do not want.
Here's what cities could look like in 10 years
More "The Next 10" »
Brothers share what it was like quitting their corporate jobs to sell ties on the beach and cofound Vineyard Vines, a company worth nearly $1 billion
More "Transformations" »
Available on iOS or Android


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Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple, three corporations that vehemently supported the Black Lives Matter movement after the death of George Floyd, are lobbying against a US ban on imports of products produced by Chinese slave labor.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which is awaiting a green light from the Senate, bans the import of goods produced in Xinjiang where companies cannot prove they were not made by slave labor.
Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang face massive persecution at the hands of Chinese authorities, with many being held in de facto re-education camps in which they are forced to work and undergo draconian brainwashing programs.
Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple have never missed an opportunity to assert their woke corporate values, with Apple CEO Tim Cook previously proclaiming, “To the Black community – we see you. You matter and your lives matter.”
In honor of BLM, Nike also released an amended version of their slogan that said, “For once, Don’t Do It,” while Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said, “Companies like ours must speak up as allies to the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Apparently, Uyghur lives don’t matter because all three corporations are lobbying against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
“And yet, for all their performative moralising, these companies are now trying to water down action against the extreme oppression of Uyghur Muslims in China,” reports Spiked.
Nike, Coca-Cola and other major companies and business groups are lobbying Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. https://t.co/63B7LyKIAp
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 30, 2020
“The New York Times reports that lobbyists seek changes such as the ‘easing disclosure requirements’ that would be put in place by the act. Apple, it says, has proposed extended compliance deadlines, and is not keen on the idea of giving supply-chain information to the public, preferring to release this information to Congress instead.”- READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --


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COMPANY NEWS; HEWLETT-PACKARD TO PAY $491 MILLION TO GET REST OF UNIT
Published: July 8, 1999
The Hewlett-Packard Company said yesterday that it had agreed to pay $491 million for full ownership of a Japanese joint venture with the Yokogawa Electric Corporation that makes measurement devices. Hewlett-Packard will buy Yokogawa's 25 percent stake in Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. and make the joint venture a wholly owned subsidiary. The company makes and sells electronic measurement instruments and markets Hewlett-Packard's computers and printers in Japan. Hewlett-Packard shares fell $1.0625, to $99.3125. Hewlett-Packard formed the joint venture in 1963, when Japanese law restricted foreign ownership of businesses to 50 percent or less. The law changed in 1973.


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Just as we did at the end of 2008, we have gone back through our entire archive for the year 2009 and picked out the articles that received the most conversation from our readers. As we approach the new year, we thought it would be fun to go back and reflect on some of the things that got people talking in the one that’s wrapping up.
Note: Please keep in mind that some of the articles are a bit outdated now as new developments have occurred throughout the year.
This article received the most commentary by far from WebProNews readers out of every article we produced this year.
Another article on a related subject was also discussed frequently.
Indicating that DMOZ is still definitely a topic worthy of discussion, DMOZ’s value was debated thoroughly in the comments on this article.
DMOZ was also a hot topic after the company had its 11th birthday. It was quite interesting to find out what people thought after 11 years of the directory’s existence.
5. eBay Competitor Bonanzle Continues Big-Time Growth
As was made clear in a number of eBay articles we ran, a lot of users of that site were not very happy. Competitors took advantage. This was a look at the success of one competitor in particular.
The bloggers vs. journalists debate is always a hot one. Of course when the government gets involved with that debate, some heavy commentary will ensue.
7. Apple Fans Respond To The "Droid Does" Advertising Campaign
Apple fans love to talk. So do Apple haters. That point was very clear in the comments we received on this article.
Mike ruffled some feathers with his criticism of the Netbook phenomenon. Although he certainly had plenty who agreed with his views.
eBay sparked some interest yet again when it announced its focus on the "secondary market".
Any time eBay makes changes that affect sellers, you can pretty much guarantee that people are going to talk.
MySpace’s future is discussed as Facebook takes over as the dominant social network.
Google’s Matt Cutts dropped a hint that page speed may be considered as a ranking factor by the search engine soon. Some think this is a great idea, others think it’s horrible.
A discussion about the Associated Press and fair use of content.
News Corp. CEO Murdoch said some interesting things about how it plans to distribute its content in the future. This is still a hot topic.
I’m sure you recall the big Facebook redesign. A lot of people are still bitter about it.
Looking back at some of these articles, it’s hard to believe they’ve all come from just this year. It’s amazing how much has happened in search, e-commerce, and social media. The rate at which everything changes and evolves is really quite astounding. I guess that can be attributed to the real-time nature in which we consume information now, and the sheer amount of content that is poured onto the web every minute of every day.
To get an idea of what I mean, just go to any of our tag pages and look back through our coverage of any given topic. Go to the Google tag, for example, and look at the enormous amount of things Google has been a part of this year alone.
Share your thoughts about 2009 here…


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Food Business News - July 10, 2018 - 101
FrieslandCampina taps into clean
label trends with new native protein
FrieslandCampina DMV is expanding
its portfolio of performance nutrition
solutions with Nutri Whey Native, a premium native protein derived from milk.
The offering is a response to the recent
clean label shift in the sports and lifestyle
nutrition market, the company said.
"Consumers around the world are
seeking more natural and less processed
food and supplements with proven
health benefits," said Benjamin Maclean,
product group manager at FrieslandCampina. "This trend is observed in the
sports nutrition space, and at the same
time, there is a fast-growing lifestyle
'active consumers' segment interested
in nutrition and healthy living. Convergence of these segments has created
market potential for protein enriched
nutrition products with a natural positioning, targeting both serious athletes
and new mainstream consumers looking
to fuel a more active lifestyle."
To develop Nutri Whey Native,
FrieslandCampina conducted consumer
research in the United States and the
United Kingdom focused on understanding the needs of active millennials.
"We discovered that naturalness
of ingredients is an important value that
is increasingly seen as a necessity,"
Kerry completes $28.8 million expansion
at fermented ingredients facility
Kerry has completed the $28.6 million
expansion of its facility in Rochester,
Minn. The project will increase manufacturing capacity and includes the
addition of a new spray dryer and two
10,000-gallon dryer feed tanks.
Kerry's Rochester facility produces
July 10, 2018
Mr. Maclean said. "Offering more natural
concepts based on a few pure ingredients
can create exciting opportunities for our
customers to engage new audiences and
grow their businesses."
Nutri Whey Native is derived directly from fresh raw milk with minimal
processing. It is purified using ceramic
micro-filtration, which preserves the
native proteins found in milk, FrieslandCampina said, and results in a protein
content of 80%. The protein provides a
consistent taste profile as well as good
"It is easy to incorporate into a
number of on-trend, tasty, high protein
applications with strong consumer appeal," the company said.
FrieslandCampina will offer samples of its Nutri Whey Native at IFT18 in
Cold Jet showcasing dry
ice cleaning at IFT18
naturally-derived fermented ingredients
for manufacturers seeking to deliver
fresh taste over the shelf life of bakery
products, deli meats, prepared meals,
dairy and other food and beverage
"We have already seen the uplift
in production from this expansion,"
said Bryce Nesberg, human resources
manager at Kerry's Rochester facility.
"Each week, our products leave the
plant with delivery labels across North
America and around the world. The
increased production capacity means
we will add more skilled and scientific
roles to our existing employee base of
125 people in the Rochester area."
Kerry broke ground on the expansion in April and held a ribbon-cutting
ceremony at the facility on June 27.
Cold Jet, a Loveland, Ohio-based
developer of dry ice cleaning solutions,
will be providing dry ice cleaning
demonstrations at IFT18. The demos
will include Cold Jet's i³ MicroClean,
which showcases the dry ice blasting
technology, a non-abrasive cleaning
method that helps facilities clean without water.
The i³ MicroClean, designed around
Cold Jet's patented shaved dry ice technology, allows the cleaning of small spaces that other methods cannot typically
reach, Cold Jet said. The dry ice is food
grade quality and may decontaminate
surfaces of bacteria such as Salmonella, E.
coli and Listeria.
"The MicroClean system extends the
life of equipment by eliminating the need
for chemicals, wire brushes and abrasive
pads," Cold Jet said.
Food Business News


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Starbucks' Shanghai Roastery, a 30,000 square feet coffee heaven located in the heart of the city on China's central coast also features a Teavana bar made from entirely 3-D printed material and a two-story copper coffee roasting cask covered with 1,000 hand carved traditional Chinese stamps.
In an interactive coffee and retail destination like no other, customers can visit many attractions of the store, including one of three coffee bars offering multiple brewing methods and explore specially-crafted teas.
The company has even enlisted the help of e-commerce giant Alibaba to create an augmented reality experience within the Roastery. Three years after the company opened its first Roastery on its home turf, Starbucks is testing the larger, upmarket store concept overseas for the first time in China, where it now has 3,000 sites.
'Rocco and his team's passion for handcrafted food and artisanal baked goods at Princi mirrors how I feel about our coffee, ' Mr Schultz said.
"Chinese consumers, especially the younger generation, are looking for things more quality-driven, more unique, that speaks to who they are", said Mr Jack Chuang, a Shanghai-based partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants who has studied the Chinese coffee market.
"Our commitment, together with our Roastery opening, epitomizes how Starbucks is doubling-down on the unprecedented opportunities we see in the future for Starbucks and China", Wong said.
Texas Democrat Al Green plans to force impeachment vote in House
The resolution offered by Green states that Trump has sown discord among the people of the US based on national origin and race. And Green said three Democrats are asking to meet with him in an apparent effort to dissuade him from bringing up the vote .
Trump tries to block Mitt Romney from becoming Utah senator
During the 2016 presidential primary race, he labeled Trump a fraud and a phony in a University of Utah speech. When Trump was asked if he wants Hatch to run for an eighth term in 2018, he replied, "Yes".
Conversable Brings Partners to GM to Unlock Car for Commerce
Initial partners include a diverse group of large companies such as Starbucks ( sbux ), ExxonMobil ( xom ), and Wingstop. GM says no customer data will be shared with vendors with the customer's consent.
The new roastery in Shanghai is expected to enhance Starbuck's reputation as a go-to place for dates and business meetings at a time when some locals argue that the company is losing its premium branding.
The company is riding that wave and expanding aggressively in China, opening a new Starbucks store every 15 hours on average. Starbucks said that the shape was inspired by an espresso machine.
The bars allow customers to be up close and watch as their coffee is brewed. The Roastery's digital experience is designed by Starbucks and powered by Alibaba Group's scene-recognition technology.
Diners need only point their phones at items within the Roastery to get more information about them and Starbucks' history.


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Another day, another story about Burberry innovating in the technology area. After news of its virtual digital store in Japan, on Monday we heard that it's diving deeper into gaming in a China-focused development.
A busy weekend of action at the virtual Paris Fashion Week, where most of the online videos were shot thousands of miles away from the French capital. We look at five of the most notable houses over this past 48 hours.
The BFC unveiled its newly-digital Fashion Awards on Thursday evening and instead of just replacing the usual live event with an online version, it changed the format to reflect the huge change happening in 2020.
Hot on the heels of its announcement of a link-up with Marcus Rashford, Burberry has released a new campaign designed to foster creativity and featuring the footballer and campaigner in his first fashion campaign.
Designed to provide more equal access at some of the world’s top creative institutions, the project involves partnerships with Central Saint Martins, the Parsons School of Design and Institut Français de la Mode.


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The state of cyber threats: Sophisticated attacks spreading across more industriesMarch 31, 2021
For consumers suddenly stuck at home and businesses facing a potentially devastating loss in foot traffic, digital technology became a lifeline in the early months of the pandemic – and created new opportunities for cyber criminals, particularly in the financial industry.
A look at cybersecurity trends for the second half of the year shows progressively sophisticated attacks across even more industries, notably retail, with cybercriminals better able to hide telltale signs of bot behavior, according to “2020 H2: Fraud Risk at a Glance,” a new report from NuData, a Mastercard company that specializes in behavioral analytics and passive biometrics.
The report also found that cybercriminals were increasingly using human farms of paid workers to bypass security protections at scale. As security tools get better at identifying suspect IP addresses, they also reused them less often. The report shows that attacks are using higher-quality credentials, likely stolen during COVID-related phishing scams, with the average percentage of successful credentials per attack nearly doubling from 1.4% in the first half of 2020 to 2.6% in the second half.
Using NuData intelligence on monitored activity across its global network, the report details how the changing shopping habits affected attack patterns, what kinds of attacks proliferated, which verticals were targeted, and how these increasingly sophisticated attacks work.


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Samsung Galaxy M52 5G, Galaxy F42 5G India Launch Pegged For September
Samsung is one of the smartphone brands that seem not to cease launching new offerings. Of late, the company is speculated to be working on a slew of A and M series smartphones. Adding to this, recently, an upcoming smartphone with the model number SM-M526B/DS was spotted on the BIS database, hinting at its imminent launch in India.
Already, speculations were rife that the Galaxy M52 5G is coming soon to India and the device spotted on the BIS listing seems to be the same device. In the meantime, tipster Debayan Roy has hinted that the company is gearing up to launch this smartphone in India next month. In addition to this, it is also suggested that a new F series smartphone is also on cards for an Indian launch in September.
Samsung Galaxy M52 5G September Launch
Recently, a variant of the Samsung Galaxy M52 5G was spotted at the Geekbench benchmarking site with the model number SM-M526GBR. It was revealed that the upcoming smartphone in question could make use of a Snapdragon 778G chipset along with 6GB of RAM. Also, it is said to run Android 11 OS out-of-the-box.
Besides Geekbench, the same variant was spotted at the Chinese 3C certification database revealing the presence of a 4860mAh battery, which hints that the battery could have a typical capacity of 5000mAh.
In terms of specifications, the Samsung Galaxy M52 5G is believed to flaunt a quad-camera arrangement at the rear with a 64MP primary ISOCELL GW3 primary sensor, a 12MP secondary ultra-wide-angle lens, a 5MP tertiary macro lens, and a 5MP fourth depth sensor. Besides Indian and China, this upcoming Samsung smartphone is also expected to be launched in select markets in Europe. The device is said to be launched in three color options - blue, black, and white.
Recently, the Galaxy A52s 5G was spotted in the UK, which hints that the Galaxy M52 5G could be a rebranded version of the device with minor changes.
Samsung Galaxy F42 5G Launch Nearing
As per the tipster mentioned above, the Samsung Galaxy F42 5G was spotted at the Geekbench benchmarking database recently with the model number SM-E426B. The listing revealed that the smartphone in question could arrive with a MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC clubbed with 6GB RAM and Android 11 OS. As of now, none of the other details are known by the Geekbench listing.
Notably, the Samsung Galaxy F42 5G has also received Wi-Fi Alliance and Bluetooth SIG certifications. These listings suggest that it could be a rebadged variant of the Galaxy A22 5G.
What To Expect?
While the tipster claims that these two upcoming smartphones from Samsung could be seen the light of the day in September in the Indian market, we cannot come to a conclusion as there is no official confirmation from Samsung about this. Until then, we need to take these speculations with a grain of salt. As we are already in mid-August, we can expect further details to be revealed in the coming days revealing more about the Samsung Galaxy M52 5G and Galaxy F42 5G.


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After years of difficulty entering the American crossover market, Volkswagen has finally realized that size matters in the crossover world anyway. This year, he gave the American buyer what he wanted: a compact crossover with space for people and cargo thanks to the additional 10 inches. He has also received a new, more muscular appearance. With this new design, we expect no changes when the 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan comes out.
Volkswagen has developed enormously over the years, so that new cars are much more expensive than before. This is also the case with the new 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan, and we are pretty sure that the next update will not change. It can be assumed that the 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan has roughly the same shape as the current model. The change is likely to take the form of a sportier version. The current R-Line is nothing more than a subtle body kit. This is likely to change with the new car, which could have a full version of R. These include wider wheel arches, wider wheels, possibly a different exhaust, and new front and rear bumpers.
In view of the past, it can be assumed that the new 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan will not change at all. Here the car will continue to use the same instrument cluster as before and probably a similar information and entertainment system. The high-end versions offer space for new modular front seats and possibly another main unit. The latter should allow the driver to customize the car to his taste without having to go through a series of very complex menus.
Under the hood, we also hope that nothing will change, as the 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan will continue to use a 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine with 184 hp and 221 pounds of torque. The power is passed through an eight-speed automatic transmission. The Tiguan is standard equipped with front-wheel drive, but buyers can also opt for all-wheel drive.
So far, they have not commented on when the car will reach the market. Nevertheless, we expect the 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan to reach the showroom by the end of 2018. The car is expected to go on sale in 2019, which is generally the case with this car type. Version.