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By Suzy Strutner, managing editor of Grow Wire
On the heels of the post-Thanksgiving retail holidays, Giving Tuesday is a day when online shoppers can become online givers. Last year, the holiday drove more than $300 million in donations to nonprofits.
Since Giving Tuesday launched in 2012, nonprofits have come to rely on it for a significant portion of their end-of-year fundraising.
Nonprofits leverage the holiday’s popularity using a suite of classic marketing tactics to drive donations.
Ah, the trifecta of unofficial November holidays. First came Black Friday, the modern rendition of which rose to prominence in the late 1980s as a way for retailers to institutionalize what was already a popular shopping day. Then, the National Retail Federation debuted Cyber Monday in 2005 to give online retailers a day of their own. Finally, Giving Tuesday launched in 2012 with a twist: Give, don’t receive.
Giving Tuesday acts less like an unofficial holiday and more like a movement that encourages locals to do good in their communities every Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The movement’s website encourages supporters to give their “time, donations, goods or your voice” to those in need.
Giving Tuesday likely wouldn’t exist without e-commerce.
Giving Tuesday is also a ready-made viral holiday that gives nonprofits access to millions of online potential donors in one concentrated, global effort. Last year, more than 2.5 million donors in 150 countries gave more than $300 million as a result of Giving Tuesday campaigns. It may be just a fraction of the $717 billion spent on retail on Black Friday, but it’s a hefty accomplishment for a holiday that started less than six years ago.
Giving Tuesday’s goal is to provide an antidote to post-Thanksgiving shopping and kick off the Christmas and end-of-year giving season. And consumers clearly have an appetite for it: The amount raised on Giving Tuesday grew 20 percent year over year from 2015 to 2016 and nearly 70 percent year over year between 2016 and 2017.
Here’s how nonprofits prepare for the influx.
It’s been an added bonus for nonprofits, most of whom already see a spike in giving at the end of the year: November and December are the busiest donation months for LifeLab Kids, founder Jai Reddy told Grow Wire. Giving Tuesday donations will comprise 25 percent of their holiday-season fundraising, he said.
Warren Egersheim, a fundraising and development manager at Compassion in World Farming USA, cited a similar situation.“Giving Tuesday is consistently one of the two heaviest donation days of the year for us, with the other one being December 31,” he said.
Other nonprofits told Grow Wire that 30 to 50 percent of their annual donations come in during the holiday season, of which Giving Tuesday is a part.
Operationally, organizations seem to prepare for the influx as any other business would. Most cited reliance on careful planning and an “all hands on deck” approach when heavy donation time nears. Few hire additional staff or increase working hours to ensure everything gets properly accounted for and processed. Dollar-amount goals for Giving Tuesday ranged from $5,000 to $150,000 at the companies Grow Wire surveyed.
To bring such proceeds in, nonprofits rely on a number of classic, smart marketing strategies:
Buy two, get one free
Kiva is a peer lending platform that lets individuals fund others’ small businesses. This Giving Tuesday, Kiva is offering donors a $25 lending credit to give to someone else when they lend $50 of their own.
Nonprofit Kiva includes two calls to action on its homepage, referencing a "buy one get one free" offer for donors on Giving Tuesday.
Brand partnerships on social media
In 2015, Kiva partnered with beverage brand Honest Tea, joining a “Twitter party” that encouraged Honest Tea fans to donate to the organization.
The Greater Boston Food Bank, meanwhile, asks local corporations to promote its Giving Tuesday campaign on social media, communications director Catherine Brennan said.
And Water for People will “take over” the social feed of its corporate partner Absolut Elyx to drive donations, according to Marketing Director Jody Carman.
Like most brands, Compassion in World Farming said they historically ask for Giving Tuesday donations on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This year, they’ll add a Facebook Live or two.
“Most of our donor engagement now comes through social media,” Egersheim said. “It’s a great way for us to keep our supporters in the loop and the dialogue open.”
On Giving Tuesday, many organizations set up corporate matching programs that double their donation dollars. This year, for example, Water for People is partnering with engineering firm Brown and Caldwell, which will match up to $25,000 of donations received. Combined with the organization’s $30,000 Giving Tuesday fundraising goal, the total raised could easily equal more than $50,000, Carman said.
Email blasts with personal thank-yous
Many corporations also send email blasts to donors, asking for Giving Tuesday donations. The goal is just as financial as it is for brand awareness, said Mizgon Darby, executive director of Art in Action.
“Our Giving Tuesday campaign always has a focus of connecting our donors with our communities ... Giving Tuesday is a form of civic engagement,” she said. “... Our goal is to get more individuals to understand the problem and engage by telling others, contributing financially, or volunteering in some way.”
Art in Action sends handwritten thank-you notes to donors, informing them where their money was spent.
It’s likely this personal connection that keeps donors coming back, Darby said.
Compassion in World Farming also makes a point to thank its donors, Egersheim said. It’s the opportunity for personal connections like these that keep Giving Tuesday growing, he added.
“Giving Tuesday feels like its own holiday,” he said. “It’s a day where people realize the strength they have to impact the world and communities of like-minded people come together.”
To donate or volunteer on Giving Tuesday, visit the movement’s website.
Like what you see? Follow Grow Wire on Twitter for more.


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The new joint venture that Honda recently formed with Sony will use the latter’s music, movies, and, potentially, even the PlayStation 5 to gain an advantage over the competition. More than just a car, the vehicle that the companies create will be a tech showcase on wheels.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Izumi Kawanishi, the president of Sony Honda Mobility, argued that the new company is perfectly positioned to tap into consumers’ shifting preferences and the invasion of high-tech gadgetry into the automotive industry.
“Sony has content, services and entertainment technologies that move people. We are adapting these assets to mobility, and this is our strength against Tesla,” said Kawanashi.
Read: Sony And Honda Partner To Bring EVs Into The Market By 2025
The former head of Sony’s AI robotics business added that it was technologically possible to integrate Sony’s much-loved video game console, the PlayStation 5, into the car. That may mean that owners can someday play Gran Turismo 7 from the comfort of their car.
This isn’t just some pie-in-the-sky idea that is possible, though. Yasuhide Mizuno, the chair of the joint venture who was formerly in charge of Honda’s car division, said that Sony Honda Mobility will be adapting its production process in order to put content first.
Rather than inserting software into an already complete car, it “will develop a car as hardware that will cater to the entertainment and network we would like to offer.” Making the use of these features safer and easier will be the company’s focus on developing self-driving vehicles.
“To enjoy the space in your car, you have to make it a space where you don’t need to drive. The solution for this is autonomous driving,” said Kawanishi. “Autonomous driving will have to evolve considerably from the current level to get to that point, and it will take time for that to happen.”
That’s a lofty goal, though, as the pursuit of self-driving technology has proven tricky. With major players in the field of autonomy such as Argo AI falling by the wayside as profitability remains “a long way out,” early owners of Sony Honda Mobility vehicles, which plans to launch its first U.S. vehicle in 2025, may have to wait awhile before they can game while they commute.

domain: news


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After a 10 year hiatus since the rotary engine-powered Mazda RX-8 went out of production, the Hiroshima-based carmaker is finally reviving its legendary rotary engine. But not in the way we all expected, or hoped. Come early 2022, albeit in hybrid form in the upcoming 2022 model year MX-30 range-extender version (in which the rotary engine acts as a generator only), Mazda will add this new rotary-range-extender model to their current MX-30 gasoline-hybrid and fully electric lineup that will land in U.S. showrooms later this year.
This combination of electrification, hybridization and rotary reintegration appears to be just the tip of the iceberg to what Mazda is really planning. They say, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Well, the smoke we are seeing from Mazda is certainly getting thicker as the months tick by towards 2022 and beyond.
The smoke I speak of are trademark applications Mazda has made recently, trademarks that hint at some significant developments in the brand’s lineup. According to Japan’s biggest selling car magazine Best Car and the popular Hatena Blog, Mazda in August filed for four trademark applications for four electrified power systems. The powertrain applications will be expressed by a logo, pictured above, with the letter ‘e’ located inside the shape of a rotary engine. Drivetrain variants include ‘e-SKYACTIV R-HEV,’ ‘e-SKYACTIV R-EV,’ ‘e-SKYACTIV R-Energy and ‘e-SKYACTIV R.’
The ‘e-SKYACTIV R~something’ prefix obviously refers to some form of Mazda’s electrified Skyactiv rotary engine with the ‘R-HEV’ hinting at a hybrid or even a hydrogen based powertrain while the ‘R-EV’ appears to point towards a battery-electric variant. Meanwhile the ‘R’ suffix could refer to a next generation RX-7 like sports car featuring a turbocharged rotary hybrid system. The rotary engine, which functions as a mere generator (and not driving the wheels) in the upcoming MX-30, proves that Mazda plans to utilize its most famous brandname to help power fuel-efficient hybrids into the future. However, at the same time, the ‘smoke’ emanating from the company in the form of these trademarks strongly hints at a rethink of Mazda’s signature rotary sports car as well.
In addition to these titles, Best Car and others discovered in early August that Mazda had also lodged patent applications for the aluminum frame of a new wide-bodied coupe that resembles the RX-Vision rotary concept car first shown at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2015. From the diagrams spied, this model appears to boast a 48V system and a rear transaxle rear-drive layout with electric in-wheel motors at the front. Over the years, we’ve also heard strong rumors that the company was developing a rotary engine sports car powered by hydrogen, but we could not confirm that fact from the drawings.
One other important development that supports the Mazda rotary sports car rebirth theory is the fact that Japan, with its Toyota Supra, GR86 and GR-Yaris, Subaru BRZ and WRX, Lexus LC500, Honda Civic Type R and NSX, Mazda MX-5 and Nissan GT-R sports models, just happens to be the biggest producer of sports cars on the planet today. And it just might be this coupe proliferation that helps push Mazda over the rather high threshold—given that sportscar sales are not high and economic of scale are hard to justify—to launch a next generation rotary sports car. Only time will tell.


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More than 60 months after Time Warner, Inc. chief Jeff Bewkes and Comcast grand puba Brian Roberts first introduced the broad, sweeping industry-wide initiative known as TV Everywhere, this vital link to pay-TV's future remains a broken web of incomplete rights negotiations.
Signaling its renewed focus on targeted TV advertising, AT&T's advanced advertising unit, AdWorks, announced an upgrade to its TV Blueprint ad network that will allow brands to target audiences based on key mobile device information.
Confirming the soft TV advertising market just exposed by broadcasters, cable networks are wrapping up a 2014 upfront market that's pacing to be around $500 million, or 5 percent, lighter than last year's $9.9 billion haul.
Bright House Networks has signed an agreement with BlackArrow, Inc. to manage the execution dynamic ad insertion into the video-on-demand products of the sixth biggest cable operator in the United States.
Comcast has cancelled a promotional event that was scheduled to take place at the home of Kansas State Senator Julia Lynn, chair of the Kansas Senate Standing Committee on Commerce.
Comcast has issued a public apology in the wake of an embarrassing, virally distributed incident involving one of its customer retention representatives.
After a highly profitable three-year run, pay-TV programmers, particularly "pure-play" cable networks, are facing some tough times.
Purporting to have helped 1.2 million low-income American families and 30,000 U.S. schools connect to the Internet, Comcast wants to advertise that its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable will further aid those causes.
A new report by the Cable Advertising Bureau suggests that the notion of cord cutting among millennials, particularly women 18-24, is greatly exaggerated.
Highlighting what is fast becoming a vital growth sector for content providers, Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes paid special homage to video-on-demand at a New York speaking engagement.


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A new store tries to crowdsource working capital; a Minnesota indie preps for its grand opening; Germany gives $1 million to booksellers; and more.
Tennessee Store Crowdsources Cash: The recently opened Words of Wisdom bookstore in Nashville has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $3,000 after a poor first month of sales.
Grand Opening for Minnesota Indie: The new Zenith Bookstore in Duluth will feature an all-start line-up of local authors for its grand opening.
College B&N Criticized: The student newspaper at California State University, Stanislaus criticizes the campus Barnes & Noble College Bookstore for a lack of inventory.
Germany Supports Bookstores with Prizes: The German Ministry of Culture awarded 117 small bookstores a total of 850,000 euros ($1 million) in prize money to support reading.
Boats Turned Into a Bookstore: Three boats have been transformed into Bookstore on the Sea in south China.


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US Concrete Inc (NASDAQ:USCR) has been given a consensus recommendation of “Hold” by the nine brokerages that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $78.60.
A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. SunTrust Banks set a $70.00 price target on US Concrete and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 6th. BidaskClub lowered US Concrete from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, September 28th. Citigroup decreased their price target on US Concrete from $77.00 to $74.00 and set a “$53.95” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 23rd. DA Davidson restated a “buy” rating and set a $87.00 price target (down from $95.00) on shares of US Concrete in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Zacks Investment Research lowered US Concrete from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday.
In other news, CFO John E. Kunz acquired 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 9th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $51.76 per share, for a total transaction of $51,760.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 13,356 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $691,306.56. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Chairman William J. Sandbrook sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $51.45, for a total value of $463,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now owns 390,670 shares in the company, valued at $20,099,971.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders acquired 8,650 shares of company stock worth $424,178 and sold 9,260 shares worth $476,128. 5.30% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
NASDAQ USCR traded up $0.40 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $35.94. 505,761 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 383,019. The firm has a market cap of $771.10 million, a PE ratio of 13.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 1.06. US Concrete has a one year low of $35.46 and a one year high of $86.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.27, a current ratio of 1.41 and a quick ratio of 1.21.
US Concrete (NASDAQ:USCR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 7th. The construction company reported $1.08 EPS for the quarter, missing the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.29 by ($0.21). The business had revenue of $404.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $390.55 million. US Concrete had a return on equity of 12.82% and a net margin of 2.34%. The firm’s revenue was up 18.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.95 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that US Concrete will post 3.63 earnings per share for the current year.
US Concrete Company Profile
U.S. Concrete, Inc, through its subsidiaries, produces and sells ready-mixed concrete, aggregates, and concrete-related products and services to the construction industry in the United States and Canada. It operates through two segments, Ready-Mixed Concrete and Aggregate Products. The Ready-Mixed Concrete segment engages in the formulation, preparation, and delivery of ready-mixed concrete to customers' job sites; and the provision of various services that include the formulation of mixtures for specific design uses, on-site and lab-based product quality control, and customized delivery programs.
Further Reading: Technical Analysis
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To say the current timeline and family-tree for Assassin's Creed is convoluted would be an understatement. The series' 2007 release left many unanswered questions for gamers, almost non of which were broached in its sequel, or said sequels own offshoots. Instead, even more questions have been raised, and Ubisoft are left with something of a complex narrative mess to clean up.
They're up to the task though, and revealed recently to Eurogamer
that they plan on tying up most of the series' loose ends before the end of 2012, which, incidentally, is a key year in the game's deeply rich story, specifically for Desmond Miles.
"In Assassin's Creed we set up a timeline with this whole end of the world plot of December 2012," said creative lead, Alexandre Amacio, when talking to the site.
"That's fast approaching, and the story we have to tell, we obviously need to do it before we arrive at that point."
"It would be stupid of us to be centring a game on a semi-reality and then have that conclusion happen after that date in real life," he added.
The chat with Amacio also revealed the team would be moving on to an all-new lead and storyline with future additions to the series, and that the one year turn-around for development of AC games would also change thanks to a restructuring of development cycles at Ubisoft Montreal.
"Assassin's Creed is all about cycles - we have the Ezio cycle and the Altair cycle, and both of those are set to conclude in Revelations and we have the Desmond cycle, which is set to end on December 2012," he continued. "But there's many cycles within the brand - that's the whole point. History is our playground."
Assassin's Creed: Revelations is due to release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this November.


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If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek at the technology that could power many Android phones in 2020, you’ll want to tune into Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Tech Summit.
Taking place in Maui, Hawaii, the company will unveil new technologies through keynote announcements on December 3rd, 4th and 5th. Keynotes kick off at 9am HST/2pm ET.
Qualcomm is expected to unveil new mobile platforms, such as a rumoured successor to 2019’s Snapdragon 855.
You can tune into the live-streamed keynotes through the company’s Event Hub webpage. You can access the Event Hub here.
Further, you can keep an eye on MobileSyrup, as well as our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages for all the biggest announcements out of Hawaii.
You can check out this full breakdown of everything we expect from Qualcomm at the Snapdragon Tech Summit to prepare for the event.
Travel to the Snapdragon Tech Summit was provided by Qualcomm.


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In a recent interview at Nikon's headquarters, the company's president Makoto Kimura raised concerns about falling sales of compact cameras due to the growing market share of smart phones:
“The number of people taking snapshots is exploding by use of smartphones that sold 750 million or so last year and are still growing. We’ve centralized our ideas around cameras but can change our approach to offer products to that bigger market.”
Apparently Nikon is looking for alternative ways to generate growth - they have assembled a new Nikon Imaging team that is working on secret products that will be available in less than 5 years:
“We want to create a product that will change the concept of cameras. It could be a non-camera consumer product.”
The president Makoto Kimura did not comment on whether Nikon is working on a smart phone.
Last year Nikon announced their first Android based Coolpix 800c compact camera.
Few months ago Nikon and Microsoft signed Android patent agreement.
The upcoming Nexus 5 smart phone is rumored to have a Nikon camera module inside.


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STUCK at home, unable to travel or socialise with friends, lockdown was always going to lead to more time in front of the box.
But Covid has truly turned us into a nation of couch potatoes, with the average Briton whiling away a third of their waking hours watching TV during the pandemic.
Families typically spent nearly six hours per day bingeing on broadcast channels, streaming services and online content such as YouTube last year, research reveals.
The rise - up by 47 minutes on 2019 - came as tens of millions were confined to their homes and also caused subscriptions to platforms such as Netflix to rise by 50 per cent to 31million.
Ofcom’s Media Nations UK report found that on average an adult spent five hours and 40 minutes enjoying content across TV, streaming services, DVDs, YouTube and games consoles.
By September last year three in five homes were using paid-for sites.
Time spent watching such services doubled and more than half of households - 52 per cent - now subscribe to Netflix alone. Worryingly for the likes of BBC and ITV, the report said 42 per cent of subscription streaming users ‘envisage’ not watching broadcast TV at all in five years’ time.
The average time spent watching traditional broadcast TV was three hours and 12 minutes, nine minutes more than 2019. But broadcast TV’s overall viewing share dropped from 67 per cent to 61 per cent.
The big increase in viewing and sign-ups for paid-for streaming services is largely being driven by older adults signing up to these services. It is understood that while 16 to 24-year-old subscriptions to Netflix went up by 15 per cent last year, the increase was much higher for 45 to 74-year-olds, with a 36 per cent rise.
Growth in the popularity of online platforms was driven by older viewers taking out subscriptions and younger viewers - already using the services - watching more, as well as Disney+ launching.
Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom’s group director of strategy and research, said: ‘TV and online video have proved an important antidote to lockdown life, with people spending a third of their waking hours last year glued to screens for news and entertainment. The pandemic undoubtedly turbo-charged viewing to streaming services, with three in five UK homes now signed up. But with subscribed growth slowing into 2021 and lockdown restrictions easing, the challenge for the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney will be to ensure a healthy pipeline of content [to] keep customers signed up.’
For 16 to 24-year-olds the average time spent watching traditional broadcast TV was just one hour and 17 minutes.
Adults typically spent an hour and five minutes per day watching streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ - the figure almost doubling last year.
Ofcom said the pandemic had ‘accelerated existing trends in video viewing’.
Figures revealed the dominance of Netflix in streaming, with the US giant boasting 29 of the 30 most watched programmes that were shown on these subscription services.
The report singled-out hit period drama Bridgerton which was watched in 8.2million homes by the end of March this year. The Euro 2020 final is the most watched programme so far this year, with a combined audience of 22million watching the broadcast on BBC1 and ITV.


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The Monsoon hasn’t got off to a great start, with June recording one of the lowest levels of rainfall in recent times. While MeT department hopes rainfall will pick up in July and August, a look at how other dry years played out.
Impact of poor rains
Directly affects the agricultural economy, which in turn has a cascading impact on the rest of the economy. About 60% of cultivable land is rain-fed. Land under irrigation too needs rainfall for standing water for crops. Official data points out that water levels in 85 key reservoirs in the country is lower than that of last year, but better than the 10-year average storage.
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Lower demand for consumer products like two-wheelers, tractors, consumer goods and durables. Poor rains affect agri-produce and disposable income in small towns that are big markets for home appliances. Companies, especially those with a rural focus, see a slump in demand. Investment sentiment also takes a beating and could further hit the manufacturing sector.
Precipitates a round of inflation, which is more pronounced in the years following the drought year.
With lower disposable income, especially in the rural areas, a drought impacts purchase of gold but studies show that its demand tends to rise again in the next year.
Impact of drought on inflation
Generally in a drought year, inflation (both wholesale and at the consumer level) is expected to spike while industrial output and sales of consumer goods see a dip. But drought year 2004-05 was an exception and saw a 21.5 per cent rise in sales of consumer durables because it was an election year. The sale of consumer goods and automobiles generally witness a surge in an election year.
2009-10 was again an election year. The year saw an increase in industrial output with the Centre rolling out the second and third tranches of its stimulus package after the financial meltdown.


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The 2014 Toyota Tundra is launching a new quirky "build anything" campaign that is a departure from typical truck commericals.
Read This Article
Toyota is slashing the price of its 2014 Prius plug-in hybrid by $2,010 in an attempt to woo customers.
Japanese automakers are very likely counting down the days of 2011.
Toyota has dominated the compact car and mid-sized car segments in the U.S.


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Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, isn’t worried about Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Despite analyst predictions that the newest entry in the franchise will underperform compared to last year’s lackluster Ghosts, Hirshberg remains confident.
“We see purchase intent well above last year and we see engagement with the brand in social media channels being markedly up, so I’m still optimistic,” Hirshberg said in an interview with GamesIndustry International. He says that analysts primarily base their predictions off pre-orders still, often from a single retailer, and that this doesn’t account for recent shifts in the consumer base toward digital purchases.
“Pre-orders are a good barometer for day one, but I don’t think they reflect the overall demand for the product,” he said, and that they “don’t represent what they used to.”
Contributing to this, too, is that this is, perhaps even more than last year, a transitional year for consoles. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are starting to collect big enough libraries to make them compelling purchases. Like last year, Activision is offering those who purchase Advanced Warfare for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 the opportunity to upgrade for free, giving fans of the series as few reasons as possible to delay a purchase.
Whether Hirshberg’s optimism for the series is warranted or is just the kind of corporate puffery we’re used to from big publishers will become apparent in the next few weeks as the game’s release period and the inevitable Black Friday sales continue to pour money into Activision’s coffers.


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Towards circular fertilizer solutions and a more sustainable farming sector – new EU consortium just launched
FERTICYCLE PRESS RELEASE
Together with partners from the European fertilizer industry, University of Copenhagen and a range of leading European universities, the FertiCycle consortium will develop a whole new paradigm for fertiliser production, based on circularity and recycling of organic waste. The result will be green, bio-based fertilisers to help agriculture become more sustainable.
World food production needs to increase by up to 70% to feed the global population of 9 billion expected by 2050. This creates huge pressures on agricultural land and requires sustainable intensification of food production to minimise negative impacts on climate, environment and biodiversity. Current agricultural use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers is not effective enough, leading to substantial environmental losses. Furthermore, EU is depending on imports of non-renewable phosphorus and mineral nitrogen fertilisers at large economic cost (around €15 billion annually) and with negative climatic and environmental footprints.
Therefore, a consortium of 16 leading European research institutions, fertiliser companies and industry organisations have teamed up to develop circular fertiliser solutions for a more sustainable agriculture. This FertiCycle Network – led and coordinated by prof. Lars Stoumann Jensen at Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen – aims to develop new technologies for new fertilizing products based on recycled organic waste derived nutrients, formulated into high-quality, bio-based fertilisers.
The FertiCycle Network, funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie program, has recently recruited 15 young, talented PhD students from all over the world, who will now be trained to become innovative and entrepreneurial scientists capable of meeting these future needs. The PhD students will be working both individually at their respective institutes and jointly during internships and mutual research visits.
Paradigm shift towards circular, bio-based fertilisers
This past week, 45 members of the FertiCycle Network, incl. PhD students, supervisors, mentors and partners, participated in the kick-off event, held online due to the COVID-19 restrictions on international travel and meetings. In spite of the circumstances, the event successfully sparked the start of the joint FertiCycle research and training program, says Prof. Lars Stoumann Jensen: “European livestock produces more than a billion tons of manure annually; containing nutrients with a potential value of around €11 billion. At the same time, global and European urbanisation is accelerating, with urban biowaste generation amounting to more than 100 million tons annually in the EU. These wastes are in many cases poorly managed, leading to large environmental impacts and economic losses. A conceptual paradigm shift is needed by reducing waste to a minimum and valorising their nutrients and organic matter into bio-based fertilisers, leading to savings of mineral resources and eliminating fossil energy consumption. Therefore, we need a new generation of scientists, experts on circularity, recycled fertilisers and sustainability – and I am really happy and excited about the talented team we have recruited!”
New EU Fertilisers Regulation will change the scene
The new generation of FertiCycle experts will be in high demand, because the new EU Fertilizing Products Regulation will start applying as of July 2022. This will cover not just mineral fertilisers like today, but also organic fertilisers and other fertilising products such as compost, digestate, soil amendments, growing media, biostimulants and liming materials, whether from. This new regulation is part of the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and will considerably facilitate the development and commercialisation of recycled nutrient products, opening the European market for new technologies.
Fertilizers Europe, the industry organisation for European mineral fertiliser producers, is one of the partners of the FertiCycle Network. “Our sector contributes significantly to value creation in the agri-food chain, through the provision of efficient and safe nutrients in the form of mineral fertilizers. Our industry has already embarked on realising the circular economy and we therefore welcome the FertiCycle Network as an important enabler of this transition. Our industry can tomorrow contribute to a greener economy, by closing nutrient cycles and thus producing more food, biomass and bioenergy, while reducing losses to the environment,” says Jacob B. Hansen, Director General of Fertilizers Europe.
Apart from Prof. Lars Stoumann Jensen, also Assoc. Professors Sander Bruun, Dorette Möller-Stüver and Jakob Magid are involved in the project and in the supervision of several of the PhD students involved.
More info can be found at www.ferticycle.ku.dk


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Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser must pay £231m for fixing product prices in France
Persil owner Unilever and Dettol maker Reckitt Benckiser have both been fined a combined £231million for fixing the prices of products in France.
The French competition regulator issued its biggest-ever fines, totalling £748million, to more than ten firms following an investigation into the rigging of two product areas between 2003 and 2006.
These are the household cleaning market, which involves disinfectant, and the personal care market, which involves soaps and products that eradicate unwanted hair.
Penalty: Persil owner Unilever has been fined by the French competition regulator
The regulator believes firms including L’Oreal, Colgate-Palmolive, Gillette, and Procter & Gamble, all conspired to agree ‘price evolutions’.
Cosmetic firm L’Oreal received the biggest individual fine worth £149million, and it, along with Unilever, said it would appeal against the decision.
L’Oreal said it was ‘surprised by this decision and the amount of the fine which are totally out of proportion’.
Unilever said it, ‘will appeal against the decision and considers the sanction imposed to be totally unjustified given Unilever’s comparatively limited level of involvement in any exchanges and the absence of effects for the consumer.’
Both Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser have a track record in anti-competitive behaviour.
In 2011, Unilever was fined £81million for colluding over washing powder prices in eight countries, according to the European Commission.
In March, Reckitt agreed to pay the NHS £90million after it was accused of profiting from its indigestion treatment Gaviscon after the product’s patent had expired.
Last month, it admitted that its office in America had been raided by the US Attorney in connection with more alleged anti-competitive practices.
On its latest financial penalty it said: ‘A provision for the expected fine in relation to this matter was made in 2013 and we do not expect any further provision will be needed.’
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Outraged Mom Buys Out All Of PacSun's 'Offensive' T-Shirts
A Utah mom spent nearly $600 last week cleaning out her local PacSun of all its t-shirts featuring nearly naked women.
Judy Cox had gone to the mall with her 18-year-old son on Saturday and "stopped dead in [her] tracks" when she saw some of the shirts on display in PacSun's store window, she told ABC 4 Utah.
"The bottom of one woman is completely exposed, uncovered and it's a very provocative pose that she's in," Cox said. "Clearly it was offensive and I was most concerned about the youth and the children that would be viewing this."
She asked the store manager to take down the window display and was told her request must be approved by corporate.
"As I was leaving the mall I had this thought coming to me that I can't leave it, I can't let it stay in the window for three or four days while someone makes a decision," she said. "I told her it didn't matter what the cost was that I just wanted every single one, including the displays out of the store."
The t-shirt's are part of the company's "Visual Line," and cost about $28 on the company's website. Many of them feature women wearing lingerie and posing provocatively.


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| Jun 5, 2013
| 9:00 AM
Fort McHenry has a two-fold function. One, it's an historical landmark that is preserved by the National Park Service. Two, its a public park that offers open space with a great waterfront location. Those of us in the downtown, Federal Hill and Locust...
| Mar 5, 2013
| 8:44 AM
The Winter Wine Celebration ended on Sunday, but wine-lovers can still get their filll.
The Wine Market in Locust Point has declared this Eclectic Wine Month. From Mondays through Thursdays in March, the restaurant is offering half-off select glasses of...
| Feb 23, 2013
Errol Webber has an unfair advantage when it comes to Oscar parties.
He actually has an Oscar, handed out on stage during an Academy Awards ceremony. And it'll be there for all his guests to admire, pose with any maybe even hold for a few seconds when...
| Feb 20, 2013
| 1:56 PM
William Deal Waxter III, a retired securities analyst and World War II veteran, died of a stroke Feb. 11 at Broadmead Retirement Community. The former Roland Park resident was 88.
Born in Baltimore and raised on Lombardy Place, he spent his summers at...
| Feb 6, 2013
| 2:56 PM
Under Armour will open its first store in Baltimore – the Under Armour Brand House – on Saturday, Feb. 16 in Harbor East, the sports apparel company announced.
The Locust Point-based company said in November that it would open an 8,000-...
| Feb 5, 2013
| 4:34 AM
The Target opening this fall in Canton at one of the city's largest new retail developments will be joined by a Harris Teeter grocery store and a lineup of stores and restaurants that includes Old Navy, Michaels, Loft, ULTA Beauty and Red Robin Gourmet...
| Jan 18, 2013
| 8:44 AM
UPDATE (Jan. 18): Not so fast. Although the Baltimore Business Journal reported soon-to-be new owner (paperwork still needs to be completed to make it official, he said) Steve O'Donnell would "likely 'keep everything the same'" at J. Patrick's, O'...
| Jan 25, 2013
| 6:22 PM
John Merzbacher, a former South Baltimore parochial school teacher convicted of raping a student, will remain in prison after the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision Friday that could have set him free.
In an emotional victory for the...
| Jan 8, 2013
| 3:56 PM
A wall with one long window separates the Timonium office of Michele's Granola from its bakery space, but neither glass nor drywall can keep out the intoxicating smell: a mix of vanilla, coconut and sunflower seeds, among other ingredients.
| Jan 18, 2013
| 3:00 PM
As a University of Maryland law student in the late 1990s, Terry F. Hickey looked for ways to reach troubled teens before they ended up in the juvenile justice system. In 1997, he took a course that had been created to determine whether lawyers and law...
| Dec 31, 2012
| 9:10 AM
J. Patrick's Pub, the Locust Point Irish bar loved for its authentic feel and live music, will close after New Year's Eve, according to this Baltimore Business Journal report.
The building, located at 1371 Andre St., will be placed on an auction block...


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16th > September > 2008 Archive
Register Hardware Netbooks specs chart updated
After publishing our Netbooks & Mini-laptops Buyer's Guide, we received a number of suggestions and requests about our Specs Table. We took them on board, and have now posted an updated version.
SQL injection taints BusinessWeek.com
Add BusinessWeek.com to the list of big-name sites felled by the mighty SQL injection attack.
Black hats target Windows Media Encoder bug
Miscreants have wasted no time exploiting a critical hole in Microsoft's Windows Media Encoder. Just four days after Redmond released fixes for that flaw and seven others, security experts found attack code in the wild that preys on users who have yet to install the patch.
Gemalto glues DVD onto a SIM
Gemalto has started embedding a tiny DVD into the plastic card holding a new SIM chip, enabling Italy's Wind service to bundle 50MB of connection software and manuals in the same envelope as the SIM.
Chinese manned spaceshot set for 25 September
China's third manned spaceshot is slated to lift off at 13:10 GMT on 25 September, New Scientist reports. The three-man jaunt will blast off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern Gansu Province atop a Long-March II-F rocket, following a six-month delay to the planned launch.
Tandberg's RDX blockbuster
Tandberg Data looks to have a major success in waiting on its hands with the ProStor RDX QuikStor product - 90,000 drive docks have been sold in less than two years.
Investigators probe txt link to LA train crash
Investigators probing last week's Los Angeles train crash, which saw a Metrolink commuter train crash headlong into a Union Pacific freight locomotive, killing 25 and injuring 135, are probing the possibility that the commuter train driver may have been "distracted by text messaging moments before the crash".
NASA to sniff Martian atmosphere
NASA has announced it will in 2013 send a robotic mission to Mars to sniff the Red Planet's atmosphere and gain insights into how most of it was lost.
HMV keeps Warhammer-ers from goblins
The much-anticipated Warhammer online launches Thursday, with those who pre-ordered the game getting access from Monday. But the true obsessives who bought the Collectors Edition had access from Sunday - as long as they didn't buy it from HMV.
NPIA extends Holmes 2 agreement
The National Policing Improvement Agency has added three years to its agreement with Unisys for the support of its major crimes enquiry system.
IBM shrinks virtual desktop storage
IBM is adding a space-efficient virtual desktop image storage capability to its thin client Virtual Infrastructure Access (VIA) services today, as part of its addition of VMware virtual desktops to existing support for Windows, Unix, and Linux, and mainframe application access.
Orange bundles free HP laptops with HSDPA deals
Orange has bundled a trio of HP Compaq laptops and USB HSDPA 3G modems with new business-oriented mobile broadband airtime packages.
DfT rounds up Road-Pricing 2.0 contractors
The UK government's rebranded road-pricing scheme took another lurch forward this week, as the Department for Transport announced the companies which will build pilot technology.
Apple releases bumper patch batch
Apple has published a major security patch. Mac OS X 10.5.5 is the sixth substantial security update from the company this year. The patch cycle also includes fixes for version 10.4 of Apple's software.
Riverbed claims it will de-dupe primary storage
"Hey you storage vendors, listen up. We're gonna tell you how to deduplicate primary data." That's the message given out at Riverbed's Vision Day for financial analysts on Monday.
MS confirms European Xbox 360 price cuts
Credit-crunch stricken gamers rejoice, because Microsoft has finally announced a long overdue European price cut for its Xbox 360 range.
HP ups its IQ
HP has broadened its IQ, with the unveiling of its latest addition to a range of touch-sensitive all-in-one PC-TVs.
VMware sets off another storage bomb
VMware asserted its prime place at the front of the storage management line yesterday when it announced vStorage API set along with its virtual data centre operating system (VDC-OS).
Scientists study near-death sensations
Researchers on the AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) near-death experiences study want to include more UK centres in the project, in addition to boosting the number of European and US bases.
Mitsubishi eyes Middle Earth for 'early' electric car roll-out
'Leccy TechMitsubishi's auto division is to demo its "zero-emission" electric car in New Zealand in a bid to see if the country's ready for 'leccy motoring.
HTC unveils 3G touch-phone, 2.5G alternative
HTC has launched a handset offensive and unveiled two handsets at either end of the mobile phone technology spectrum.
Safari Gears up for Mac fanboys
After months of development Gears is finally available for Apple’s Safari web browser.
RIM Blackberry Bold 9000
ReviewResearch in Motion's BlackBerry series has been trying to edge its way into the pockets of consumers for some time, and despite its hefty price tag, the new Bold could be its best attempt yet.
London Olympics gets IT chief
The organisers of the 2012 Olympics in London have finally named the man who'll be in charge of overspending on implementing its IT strategy.
Apple ARMs up iPhone
An Apple engineer updating his LinkedIn profile has let slip his work on an ARM CPU architecture for the iPhone, confirming the rumour that Apple is working on its own variant of the processor developed for the successor to the BBC Micro.
HP targets multimedia laptops at movie moguls
HP has expanded its HDX range of notebooks with the addition of two “Premium” models aimed at multimedia junkies with an eye for style.
Lehman Bros chaps snog amid world economic meltdown
As a stunned world struggles today to come to grips with the global economic catastrophe that is the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it seems that some of the investment bank's employees aren't quite as bothered as they should be:
DARPA seeks sticky-goldenballs Casimir forcefields
Rogue Pentagon boffinry overlords have decided to weigh into a hot new crazy-science field: That of the mysterious Casimir Force, the tendency of nanoscopic, barely perceptible spacetime ripples - lapping at the edges of the "quantum vacuum" in which all matter exists - to push things together.
Confirmed: HTC's big-screen Touch HD smartphone
HTC has finally broken its silence over rumours it’s developing a smartphone called the Touch HD. It has also confirmed what the phone’s specs are and even roughly when it’ll land in the UK.
Lehmans techies start job hunt
Lehman Bros techies chucked onto the pavement yesterday face a decent chance of sliding into new jobs quickly, which may go some way towards sweetening the bitter pill of not receiving a final pay cheque.
Lenovo slips into jam-packed SMB server market
Chinese computer maker Lenovo is bigging up its newfound love for all things server-shaped with today’s announcement about its new ThinkServer product line.
BT's secret Phorm trials: UK.gov responds
UpdatedThe European Commission is analysing the government's explanation of why UK authorites have taken no action over BT and Phorm's allegedly illegal broadband wiretapping and ad-targeting experiments in 2006 and 2007.
McDonald's serves up free Zune Wi-Fi
Microsoft has served up a tasty treat for Zune users: free Wi-Fi access in thousands of McDonald’s eateries.
Dell falls hard on 'soft' sales
Dell shares fell 8.3 per cent in early Wall Street trading today after the firm warned investors that it would see a “further softening” in computer sales this quarter.
Street View operatives object to being snapped
Edinburgh's Evening News has discovered that, when it comes to personal privacy, Google's Street View is a strictly one-way thoroughfare.
PS3 and Xbox to get Wii-style Nunchuck
A recently acquired gaming firm has unveiled plans to launch a motion-sensing controller that’s compatible with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Ingram slashes profit outlook on soft market
Ingram Micro cast its own little shadow of financial doom today when it slashed its profit forecast after the market softness it had seen in July and August had persisted into September.
Unisys to craft its own X64 server virtualization
Unisys says it will create its own brand of server virtualization on the Xeon Monster server it launched this week with partner NEC as well as supporting hypervisors from Microsoft and VMware.
GM shows off production electric car
'Leccy TechGeneral Motors has formally unveiled the production version of the Chevrolet Volt, the auto giant's attempt to prove that electric cars needn't look butt ugly.
Top adviser claims John McCain invented the BlackBerry
Nine years after Al Gore said he invented the internet, the John McCain campaign has claimed that the email-challenged Republican presidential nominee "helped create" the BlackBerry.
Cray, Intel, and Microsoft birth baby supercomputer
Supercomputer maker Cray today announced a new desk-side, low-end, bladed office supercomputer in conjunction with chip partner Intel and software partner Microsoft. The new CX1 supercomputer is the first product to come to market after Cray tapped Intel as its future strategic chip supplier, dissing long-time chip partner Advanced Micro Devices.
Adobe yanks speech exposing critical 'clickjacking' vulns
In another event for the "internet is broken" files, two prominent security researchers have pulled a scheduled talk that was to demonstrate critical holes affecting anyone who uses a browser to surf the web.
Cisco gives virtual servers virtual networking
Cisco has announced a virtual Ethernet switch running as a virtual machine (VM) under ESX that enables VMs to move from server to server and take their Ethernet connections with them. It is just one in a raft of Cisco announcements focusing on virtual and consolidated data centres under its Data Centre 3.0 umbrella.
Apple gets first Air-look MacBooks from factories - analyst
Apple's contract manufacturing partners have begun sending the Mac maker new-style metal-clad MacBooks, it has been claimed.
NEC, Appro ink supercomputing pact
Sometimes, when you want to take down a big kill, it takes more than one wolf to do the job. And so it is with specialists in the supercomputing market who are trying to make a stand against the incumbent and much richer general purpose server makers who have the lion's share of sales in the HPC space.
IMDb adds full-length streaming movies
Internet Movie Database, the popular film and TV reference website owned by Amazon.com, has begun showing free streaming movies and television episodes for users in the United States.


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Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
The open-air greenmarket long rumored for the Fulton Market building in Fidi is one step closer to becoming a reality. According to Downtown Express, developer General Growth Properties has stated that "a permanent 16-stall, fresh food market will open this summer on South St." The report: "Vendors for the market will sell locally grown produce and prepared food from the same stalls where fishmongers once hawked their wares, on South St. between Beekman and Fulton Sts., in the base of the building that now contains the Bodies exhibit. The market, which General Growth is building now, will be open seven days a week, year-round, starting sometime in August."
Though the market could just be a way to curry favor with locals who might not be so keen on the massive 495-foot hotel/condo/retail tower GGP plans to build down there, we'd prefer to think they're just gastronomes who appreciate their arugula locally-sourced. Unfortunately, this entire plan would include the teardown of the historic New Market Building that currently houses greenmarket New Amsterdam, something they're none too pleased about.
· Seaport promises fresh food now, hopes for hotel tower later [Downtown Express]
· The Seaport [thenewseaport.com]
· Proposed New South Street Seaport Fully Revealed [Curbed]
· Fulton Fish Market May Live Again as Foodie Destination [Racked]
· 2008: The Year of the Greenmarket? [Racked]


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The transport ministry is providing financial support under the Nirbhaya Fund managed by the ministry of women & child development.
These cars have 5G/LTE-V capabilities, support C-ITS assisted driving functions, feature intelligent voice interactions and even have live video calling functions built in.
This technology could help reduce the health risks caused by sitting down too long.
India and 6 more countries could save $21.5 billion by making Electronic Stability Control mandatory in 2020
Making ESC mandatory could save 150,000 serious injuries and lives related to road accidents, reveals a study.
With this partnership, Volvo aims to make more data available in its cars in a faster way, informs the company.
As a key business and technology partner of GEFCO, Infosys said in a statement on Monday that the IT company would help transform the groups next-generation business application management services.
As it pilots driverless rides, the company also acknowledges a need for human operators.
Numocity's middleware platform handles complex interworking between electric grid, charging infrastructure and battery to deliver a seamless and simple experience for EV users.
What is the role of AV standards in AV? How would you describe the current global standards landscape? Why is the standards landscape so diverse? Learn more in this week's audio interview with Andrew Smart, who is an independent mobility consultant focused upon connected and automated vehicles. He most recently was the CTO for the American Center for Mobility, and before that he was CTO for SAE International.
The South Korean tech firm said it plans to combine the company's in-vehicle infotainment platform, webOS Auto, with the Cloud-based Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform (MCVP) to offer upgraded internet radio and video streaming services.
CES 2020 saw several automakers showcasing new technologies and automotive concepts.
Israeli cybersecurity firm GuardKnox demonstrated the threat in a Formula 1 driving simulation at the Consumer Electronics show this week in Las Vegas.
Results of the development partnership are expected to go into series production in 2023, the company informed.
Smartphones done, cars next: Tech giants want to beat slowdown and transform vehicles into revenue-generating gadgets
The two industries have converged on the idea of cars providing services and features delivered 'over the air'.
With the widespread rollout of autonomous vehicles still years away, the two industries have converged on the idea of cars providing services and features delivered "over the air" - that is, over the same wireless data networks used by smart phones.
According to the company, the RS-LiDAR-M1 helps in providing essential information that facilitates faster decision making by autonomous vehicles.
This platform will come with an Autosar Adaptive-based software architecture clubbed with Baidu's Apollo autonomous driving open architecture.
Modern cars roll out of factories packed with cellular connections, powerful processors and a growing suite of sensors, including cameras, radar and microphones. That’s turning them into the next information goldmine, rivaling the data-creating capabilities of smartphones.
The sound system is based on Sennheiser's existing Ambero 3D audio technology and it blends with Continental’s Ac2ated system. Combined, they create a 3D immersive audio system.
Amazon, Google and others battling for supremacy in the auto market for voice-connected technology with an array of smart devices.


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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has filed a lawsuit against Dell and its board, in his latest attempt to block Michael Dell's bid to privatise the company.
Icahn has asked the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware to stop the firm from postponing a meeting set to take place today, at which shareholders will vote on founder and CEO Michael Dell's takeover proposal in conjunction with investment firm Silver Lake.
Icahn also wants to stop Dell from changing the date by which shareholders needed to have bought their shares to be able to vote. He has also included an order preventing Michael Dell from counting any shares purchased since 5 February – the date that Dell first announced his buyout proposal - as part of the vote.
Today's vote has already been rescheduled twice, with rumours indicating that Michael Dell was concerned he hadn't secured enough support at the time.
Dell and Silver Lake have offered to buy the company for $13.75 (£9) per share, but Dell's Special Committee of the Board of Directors this week shot the bid down.
"Very often the founder of the company should not be running it later when it matures and I don't think [Michael Dell] has done a good job," said Icahn, who has fiercely opposed Michael Dell's buyout attempts, earlier this month. "They should have held him accountable years ago."
Icahn says Dell's bid is far too low, and has suggested $14 (£9.20) per share as a more reasonable price.
Icahn currently owns an 8.7 per cent stake in the company.


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India’s government has just revealed their plans to have the country sell only electric cars by the year 2030. This is delightful news for environmentalists, and devastating for the oil industry.
The government hopes that this plan of eliminating petrol, diesel, and fossil-fuel consuming vehicles in general would eventually lead to the reduction of harmful levels of air pollution in the country. Reports have shown that harmful gasses kill around 1.2 million people in India alone.
With India being one of the world’s leading economies, it’s no surprise that it’s the world’s 3rd largest oil importer, spending around $150 billion every year for it. So the country’s full-on conversion to electric vehicles will put a very significant dent in the oil demand. But hey, if they do, not only will India get cleaner air, they’ll also save up to $60 billion in energy costs for the overall economy, as well as reducing the costs of owning a car for everyday car owners in the country.
Piyush Goyal, Energy Minister of India, says that the government shall fully support the e-car movement for the first 2-3 years, but after that, the production of the vehicles will be “driven by demand and not subsidy.”
While it’s a bit disappointing that they’ll only support the movement for a few years, it’s still a great step from their initial plans to reduce air pollution. Back then, the only policy for such was a law that stated that men could only drive their cars on alternating days, depending on whether their license plate ended with an odd or even number.
That’s would be good, but as these plans begin to move forward, oil exporters would panic, redoing their calculations for oil demand.
And India’s not the only one trying to move forward in the electric car movement. So is China.
Just recently, the Chinese government had confirmed their plans to push ahead and support the movement to have electric vehicles to account for least one-fifth of the 35 million annual vehicle sales projected, by 2025.
With 2 large economies who import a lot of oil trying to switch to electric vehicles, the Oil industry is uncertain of their future. Oil bosses say it’s too easy to tell what the movement away from petrol and diesel cars would mean for them. However, with Asia being the main driving force of oil consumption and demand, the developments of India and China will have to be watched very, very closely.


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Folding bike manufacturer Bromtpon Bicycle has announced that the first run of Brompton Electric bikes are available to reserve in the UK.
“Cities are about to change, commented Brompton CEO Will Butler-Adams. “We’ve spent five years taking Williams Racing technology and integrating it into the Brompton. It has been harder than any of us imagined, but we believe that we have created a product that will inspire more people to get out from under the ground, out of their cars and back onto a bike to rediscover their cities.
With the Brompton Electric you feel you have the wind behind you all day, it is so much fun and a bit cheeky as whizz up hills, nip off at the lights and arrive anywhere raring to go.”
Read more at:


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Connect with top gaming leaders in Los Angeles at GamesBeat Summit 2023 this May 22-23. Register here.
T-Mobile’s certainly creative, not to mention bold.
The wireless company is now offering an incentive to its existing customers: Recruit an existing Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T customer to make the switch to T-Mobile, and both the old and new customer get a year of unlimited LTE for free. If the existing customer already has unlimited LTE, they’ll get a $10 credit for 12 months.
T-Mobile is asking its customers to “throw a lifeline” to those at other carriers, likely to push the company up to the third-most popular mobile carrier by the end of the year. It might also have something to do with the fact that Sprint recently changed its approach, eliminating its Framily plans and launching a shared data plan in its place.
T-Mobile launched its “Uncarrier” strategy in March 2013, which offered contract-free plans that started at $50/month. One year later, it increased the amount of data included for that price — doubling it, in fact — to 1GB.
What makes this all so interesting is that back in June, VentureBeat was pondering whether or not Sprint was in the market to buy T-Mobile. But by July, T-Mobile announced it had added 1.5 million new customers in the second quarter of 2014, marking the fifth quarter in a row the company had added a million plus customers. Talk about a role reversal!
It remains to be seen if T-Mobile’s latest move will push it past Sprint by year’s end but so far, odds are looking good.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings.


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Indian shares edged higher on Tuesday, with financials accounting for over half the gains, as easing retail inflation allayed concerns of a rate hike in the near term.
India's retail inflation eased to 4.44 percent in February from 5.1 percent in January, but remained above the 4 percent medium-term target of the Reserve Bank of India.
Analysts, however, said retail inflation could accelerate to 6 percent by June and may remain at 5 percent to 6 percent in the financial year that begins on April 1, leading to pre-emptive monetary tightening.
The broader NSE Nifty was up 0.36 percent at 10,458.85 as of 0541 GMT, while the benchmark BSE Sensex rose 0.34 percent to 34,034.01.
Financial stocks led the gains on the gains, with the Nifty PSU bank index rising as much as 3.8 percent. Punjab National Bank rose 4.2 percent and Andhra Bank gained 5.9 percent.
"PSU (public sector) banks have been oversold, having been battered down so badly, so some sort of bounce was due and the CPI (data) coming in at a soft level became a trigger for the rise as it could lead to some pressure on RBI to re-look the interest rates," said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities.
Meanwhile, IT stocks declined led by Tata Consultancy Services, which posted its biggest intraday pct fall since Nov. 2016 after a term sheet showed that parent Tata Sons is set to sell a stake in the company.


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Are hidden chemicals in your home jeopardizing your husband’s fertility?
Pop quiz: which items in your home contain chemicals that are potentially harmful to fertility?
Now, most folks will think of cleaning agents such as sprays, detergents, and disinfectants – and they’re right, these items do contain harmful chemicals.
But what most people don’t realize is that those aren’t the only culprits. Other household items that are seemingly innocuous (think sofas, gloves, and raincoats) may also leach hidden chemicals, and impact your husband or partner’s fertility.
Study shows that environmental contaminants at home are wreaking havoc on men
According to a 2019 study by the University of Nottingham, environmental contaminants found in the home are producing adverse effects on male fertility.
In this study, researchers from the University of Nottingham tested the effects of two human-made chemicals (DEHP and chemical polychlorinated biphenyl 153) on men. DEHP is a commonly used plasticizer which is found in abundance in homes, and chemical polychlorinated biphenyl 153 is an industrial chemical that’s banned globally, but is nevertheless widely detectable in the environment.
After experimenting using samples of sperm from donor men, the researchers found that these two chemicals have a damaging effect on said sperm. According to the team, exposure to these chemicals reduced sperm motility and increased the fragmentation of DNA in sperm.
What is DEHP, and what does it do?
DEHP is a phthalate, which is a “gender-bending” chemical. This chemical disrupts the endocrine systems of not humans and other species, and is known to:
Contribute to a decline in male fertility
Contribute to congenital malformations of the male reproductive system
Interfere with important physiological processes including masculinization, development of secondary sexual traits and bone metabolism
DEHP is currently on the EU’s Candidate List of SVHCs, which means that there are restrictions are in place for the making of these phthalates. The chemical (along with other phthalates) are also banned in the production of children’s toys in the US.
How to avoid DEHP at home
DEHP is a plasticizer that’s added to materials to make them softer and more flexible, and they’re largely used to reduce brittleness in PVC items. Bearing this in mind, you may avoid purchasing and using PVC items (including PVC gloves, sofas, bottles, food trays) to reduce the chances of you and your partner coming into contact with DEHP.
Other everyday household goods that this hidden chemical is commonly found in include bottled water, packaging materials and plastic wrap, plastic shower curtains, and plastic clothing including raincoats and rainboots.
Wherever possible, try and avoid using these items. For instance, if you’re keeping leftovers in the fridge, utilize a glass container instead of a plastic one (even one that’s labelled as non-toxic). Steer clear of using shrink wrap or plastic wrap as well.


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If you want to make a third withdrawal, you must close your account. Skipton’s new Double Access Saver pays 1.56 per cent. But you can take money out only twice a year.
COPENHAGEN, April 22 (Reuters) – Several of Denmark’s largest retailers and online shops as well as Sweden’s Boozt have halted sales of ECCO products following the Danish shoemaker’s decision to keep its stores in Russia open.
It is unclear whether his immediate family was offended by his broad strokes declaration that success and ‘becom(ing) free’ are more worthy, and in fact entirely separate, goals than focusing on family.
The best easy-access account with no catches is Zopa’s Smart Saver at 1.81 per cent, which must be managed via the app.
“What we have on our shelves has nothing to do with Russia’s war. They’ve been bought by a Danish supplier eight months ago,” Skoringen’s managing director, Frank Sorensen, told Reuters.
($1 = 0.9243 euros) (Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Family-owned ECCO has kept its more than 250 shops in Russia open, even as many other global fashion brands such as Nike and Adidas have suspended operations in the country since its invasion of Ukraine two months ago.
WeMoney’s annual purchase intent survey found three quarters of Australians did not feel confident about the economy but about half were planning to spend more than $6000 on travel this year.
‘As a (young person) who grew up in a generation of people who seem to put their entire lives on social media, [Pte Davies] didn’t think there was anything wrong [with what he did].
BBC to release potentially explosive Martin Bashir emails… RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: With industrial action growing across…
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The changes will allow the BBC to plough more money into boosting its local online services.
Yesterday, the BBC’s director of nations Rhodri Talfan Davies and director of England Jason Horton were met with criticism when they appeared in front of the digital, culture, media and sport committee.
‘I can’t sleep if I have jewelry in my safe, or money, or anything at my house. I just don’t live my life like that,’ she said in a Keeping Up With The Kardashians special.
“A core value of our culture is that we take good care of our employees. That is key for us, and the reason why we are staying in Russia,” chief executive Panos Mytaros told Berlingske newspaper last month.
Each council has its own way of processing claims, but some have an easy online form.’
‘You’re less likely $500 ways to make money online pdf have overpaid if you use direct debit, but it’s not impossible, so if you’ve moved home, it’s worth checking if you might be due – especially if you changed local authority area and paid by cash, cheque or standing order instead.
He is major proponent of cryptocurrency and had significant exposure to FTX prior to its sudden downfall late last year. He was reportedly signed for a $15million deal with the company to become an ambassador for the Sam Bankman-Fried founded firm.


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링크드인 공동 창립자, “블록체인 분야, 성차별 위험 있어”
Multiple surveys and research studies have confirmed that the percentage of women invested and involved in cryptocurrency is much lower than for men, and it is perceived that the crypto industry is much more of a men’s sphere. However, every year, the number of women taking part in the crypto community grows. There are many cryptocurrency and blockchain-based projects conducted by women that are already popular all around the world. Not only in Bitcoin, but with blockchain, women are connected with startups and projects. It has been confirmed that over half of worldwide money transfers are made by women, so it only means that the percentage of women using Bitcoin in their daily lives is going to increase. In the middle of 2018, it was reported that, of the users of Bitcoin, women’s involvement had doubled from the start of the year.


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Trends in Nursing Informatics: Mobile Devices Essay
For years healthcare delivery has been limited to health provider areas such as hospitals, doctors offices, clinics and other facilities offering care. The introduction of mobile technologies in the healthcare field has changed the way health care is practiced and plays a key role in its future. Concerns remain at the forefront of discussions regarding patient privacy and transmission of proprietary data. The introduction of the personal digital assistant and smart phone will revolutionize care in the coming years.
When you hear the term wireless you might think of a laptop. Wireless is the technology of sending information over the air. Many devices now have this technology, from laptops to …show more content…
When discussing mobile platforms we are in fact discussing the “operating system” of the device utilized to run the application. Right now there are currently four major players in the mobile operating system environment. Palm, Windows mobile, blackberry, and iPhone. Each platform has specific traits and functionality. “As mobile devices and applications have become more user-friendly, affordable and powerful, the appeal to businesses of all types, including healthcare providers, has grown exponentially,” said Tim Herbert, vice president, research, compTIA
Mobile Device Applications
There are many companies working on developing handheld application solutions for new healthcare environments. For example, Novarus healthcare is creating a patient centered conductivity application to fuel the high demands for mobile technology. On the Novarus website products page, they discuss hospital and health system applications as well as tablet tools and patient centered information. They both


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Austin’s appetite growing for plug-in cars
Nearly four years ago, industry experts predicted that Austin would be one of the first U.S. cities to embrace the emerging electric and hybrid vehicle market.
So far, those predictions are checking out.
Austin’s electric vehicle market has grown nearly 700 percent in four years, climbing from 144 vehicles in 2010 to 988 this year, according to Austin Energy. Meanwhile, the city has gone from just a single public charging station in 2010 to 186 stations today through Austin Energy’s “Plug-In Everywhere” program.
Few U.S. cities have embraced plug-in vehicles more enthusiastically than Austin, experts say. In a ChargePoint survey, Austin was listed as the nation’s No. 4 city for electric cars, behind San Francisco, Seattle and San Diego.
“We’re happy with the progress in Austin. It’s exciting,” said Richard Lowenthal, founder and chief technical officer for Campbell, Calif.-based ChargePoint, manufacturer of the world’s largest network of electric vehicle charging stations. “We expect Austin, being a pretty progressive city with people who care about the environment, to be a leader and continue to be a leader … we could also see a doubling of everything in Austin for everything having to do with electric. That’s what I would expect.”
Karl Popham, manager of electric vehicles and emerging technology for Austin Energy, said part of what’s driving the area’s electric car boom is an increase in options, ranging from the Nissan Leaf, with a monthly lease of about $200, to the Chevrolet Spark EV for about $26,000 to the high-end $130,000 Tesla and “everything in between.”
‘Butts in seats’
And this year, Cadillac launched its ELR electric hybrid model, starting at $75,000, while BMW this year plans to begin offering its i3 model in a handful of U.S. markets, including Austin.
“There are a lot more options available today,” Popham said. “A few years ago it was primarily the Chevy Volt, the Tesla and the Nissan Leaf. We now have around a dozen choices.”
Lowenthal said his experience is that drivers who test-drive an electric car often become converts.
“They are sort of viral the way they sell,” he said. “The best selling technique is what we call ‘butts in seats.’ If you get your butt in one of these seats, you’ll want to own one.”
The price issue
While sales of plug-in vehicles in the U.S. nearly doubled from 53,000 in 2012 to 97,000 sold last year, the vehicles remain a tiny portion of the total U.S. new car market, as a total of 15.6 million passenger cars and light trucks were sold last year. One obstacle to sales of electric vehicles remains the purchase price. However, manufacturers are working to produce cheaper options, Popham said.
“What we are seeing now, very quickly, is that electric vehicle manufacturers are quickly addressing the affordability issue and for a lot of customers they are blowing it out of the water,” he said.
Lowenthal said he expects significant sales growth ahead as electric car manufactures focus on lowering costs.
One recent goal for automakers: Getting electric vehicles on the market that lease for less than $200 a month, Lowenthal said.
“The cars are getting very competitive but that’s only recently, the last three or four months,” Lowenthal said. “Everybody knows that pricing is an issue, and we are seeing the automakers get more aggressive.”
One of the key selling points for plug-in vehicle use has been that they lessen use of fossil fuels and can help lower pollution. That holds true with the Austin-operated plug-in stations, Popham said.
Austin Energy’s public stations are 100 percent powered by the utility’s GreenChoice program, which is fueled by wind energy, Popham said.
“We continue to push the environmental benefits,” he said. “We have people driving thousands of miles on these vehicles that are powered by wind and solar energy programs.”
Austin Energy also offers a rebate for those who install their own personal charging station. The utility covers about 50 percent of the costs of the stations and so far, the average rebate is $1,087, Popham said.
Having an easily accessible and well-developed network of plug-in stations is a key prerequisite to see local growth for electric cars, industry experts say, and Austin scores well in that area.
Including 186 plug-in stations through Austin’s public program, the total number locally jumps to more than 250 stations when you include private charging stations in local homes and businesses, Lowenthal said. Of those, about 44 are in private residences and more than 20 are private stations at local businesses.
The city’s public stations are dispersed throughout Austin, but many locations are concentrated downtown.
Half of Austin’s plug-in stations are at city facilities, libraries and parks, Popham said. The other half are at private facilities such as apartment complexes.
Ready to plug in
One example is Austin-based National Instruments, which joined the program after one of the company’s employees started charging his vehicle through a regular power outlet in the company’s parking garage in North Austin. Today, the company has one of the largest plug-in stations in Austin, which can charge 12 vehicles at once.
“Our employees are at the forefront of innovation when designing and creating our products, so they tend to be on the cutting edge of adopting new technologies in their personal lives as well,” said Mark Finger, vice president for global human resources. Today, he said, about 20 National Instruments employees drive electric vehicles “including our CEO and co-founder, Dr. (James) Truchard.”
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport now has 20 charging stations as they replace diesel-fueled vehicles such as those used for baggage loaders with electric vehicles.
“The truly public stations that are not fleet or residential stations are getting one use per day. And that’s healthy where you don’t have people arguing in the street on who will get the charge,” ChargePoint’s Lowenthal said of the Austin stations. “It’s not overwhelming, but it’s a great start. As more cars come online, these stations will come up to two uses per day.”
With the local charging stations readily available and not yet facing long wait times for uses, that encourages consumers to step into the plug-in market, Lowenthal said.
“They feel the confidence needed to buy the vehicle they want,” Lowenthal said. “It really is a matter of confidence.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of Mark Finger of National Instruments.


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Tele Columbus Tees Up 400-Meg Broadband
DOCSIS 3.1 is poised to usher in cable’s multi-gigabit broadband era later this year, but operators around the world continue to push the envelope with current-gen DOCSIS 3.0 technologies.
Tele Columbus, the third-largest cable operator in Germany, said it will use DOCSIS 3.0 (via its hybrid fiber/coax plant and fiber-to-the-business network) to launch a 400 Mbps (downstream) service on April 1, initially targeting customers in Potsdam, where it connects to about 40,000 homes.
Tele Columbus, which also just set an IPO price range of €8 to €12 per share that could raise €495 million (US$583.6 million) to be used toward growth purposes, said it will announce pricing closer to the launch, and is setting plans to extend access to the 400-meg product to other markets.
Broadband TV News notes that Tele Columbus’s current top-end tier offers 150 Mbps. In Europe, Com Hem set the bar using DOCSIS 3.1 last year with the debut of a 500 Mbps tier that’s paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps.
Further out, expect cable operators to target speeds of 1 Gbps or more over HFC as technology for DOCSIS 3.1 becomes available. Notably, Broadcom introduced a D3.1 reference design last week, and STMicroelectronics showed off D3.1 demos at last week’s International CES in Las Vegas.
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By Kent Gibbons


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3 stocks to buy if they dip
The S&P500 has had a tough 2022 so far, down 23% at the time of this writing. While many high-growth high-tech stocks have been particularly hard hit by the market rout and could sell for bargain prices, there are still some companies that look expensive.
Here are three stocks that, although they’ve all been down year-to-date, investors will want to seriously consider buying if their prices fall further. Let’s take a closer look.
Chipotle Mexican Grill
While many restaurants just struggled to survive as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the economy, Chipotle Mexican Grill (GCM 2.56%) flourished. The famous Tex-Mex chain increased its number of stores by 14.3% from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2022. And even if the company faces difficult comparisons compared to the period of the previous year, the income and earnings per share increased by 16% and 25.6% respectively in the first quarter of this year.
Chipotle has performed so well throughout the pandemic thanks to its strong digital foundation. The company’s popular drive-thru option, known as Chipotlane, increases accessibility and convenience for hungry customers. And the burgeoning rewards program, which now has 28 million members, is helping Chipotle retain customers.
And the business doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. The management team, led by CEO Brian Niccol, believes that North America can one day have more than 7,000 locations. Not only is this more than double the current footprint, but this goal exceeds the 6,000 slots previously planned.
With shares of Chipotle up 174% over the past five years, the stock is currently trading at a price/earnings ratio (P/E) ratio of 51. This is much more expensive than other restaurant stocks like McDonald’s, Dominos Pizzaand Starbucks. Its shares appear to be priced perfectly, so investors should expect a pullback from current levels.
The superb quality of Costcoit is (COST -1.12%) The business model has been on display over the past two years as consumers flocked to one of the company’s 832 warehouse clubs to complete their entire purchases in one stop. Revenue of $196 billion for fiscal 2021 was 17.5% higher than the prior year. And the momentum is still strong, with same-store sales in May jumping 15.5% year-over-year.
Costco’s overarching goal is to keep the prices of goods – ranging from groceries to electronics – as low as possible. Due to its huge size, the company is able to loosen its bargaining power with suppliers to negotiate favorable terms. Items are marked up only 11%, on average, lower than other major retailers. And thanks to Costco’s lucrative membership model, he is able to retain an incredible clientele. At the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2022, the renewal rate in the United States and Canada was 92.3%.
Unsurprisingly, Costco’s main growth strategy is to open more warehouses. the company plans to open 10 new warehouses in the fourth quarter, most of them in the United States. And in China, where Costco has just two locations today, management sees a huge opportunity.
As of this writing, the stock is trading at a P/E multiple of 35, significantly more expensive than its rivals. walmart and Big BJ Club. Given the stock’s 168% rise over the past five years, the premium valuation is not shocking. Costco is a wonderful company, and it trades as such. Put this one on your watch list for now.
Rounding out this list, a burgeoning sportswear manufacturer Lululemon Athletica (LULU 2.50%). With stores closed during pandemic restrictions, the business has been able to rely on its direct-to-consumer business. In the three months ended May 1, online sales accounted for 45% of its overall business. This helped strengthen the brand, as demonstrated by Lululemon’s exceptional gross margin of 53.9%.
The maker of popular women’s yoga pants now has a growing men’s business. This segment has grown in revenue at a compound annual growth rate of 30% over the past three years, outpacing the female segment’s 24% rate. On the new product front, footwear – which management says is attracting incredible interest from consumers – should also help boost sales.
During the first quarter of 2022, North America generated 83% of the company’s total revenue. Therefore, looking ahead, Lululemon has a huge opportunity internationally. Unsurprisingly, China is likely to be a major growth engine in the years to come. In its last fiscal quarter, markets outside of North America accounted for 62% of Nikeoverall sales. If this indicates where Lululemon can go, then there’s still a long streak of growth ahead.
Lululemon has been a great title to own, growing 426% over the past five years. But despite falling 29% this year, its shares are still selling at a P/E of 35, which is more expensive than competitors’ shares. This company is certainly very successful in the sportswear industry, but investors should be patient before buying the stock.


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Microsoft's Explanation of Free Windows 10 Upgrades Leaves Questions
- By Kurt Mackie
- May 20, 2015
Microsoft on Monday attempted to clarify some recently announced Windows 10 details in a blog post aimed at partners.
The post, which is attributed to Windows product marketing manager Alex Snelson, filled in some details that were missing from last week's Microsoft announcement of the names of the Windows 10 editions, such as which of those editions qualify for the free upgrade offer to Windows 10. According to Snelson, it's possible for consumers to use the free upgrade offer to move to the Windows 10 Home edition. Small and midsize business customers will be eligible for the free upgrade offer to move to Windows 10 Pro.
Free for 1 Year?
The next part of the post is a bit tricky. It implies that the upgrade is free for just one year. If so, that's new information that appears to contradict earlier Microsoft statements.
Here's how Snelson states it:
There's been a lot of talk about Windows 10 being a free upgrade. For many customers, that will be true for the first year. So let's confirm the details:
- Microsoft will offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices in the first year. After the first year, upgrades will be paid via boxed product and VL Upgrades.
- Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 7 Home Basic and Home Premium devices upgrade to Windows 10 Home
- Windows 8/8.1 Pro and Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate devices upgrade to Windows 10 Pro
- If upgraded within the first 12 months following launch, the device will receive ongoing Windows 10 updates for free for the life of that device
- Excludes Windows Enterprise and RT devices
- The free Windows 10 upgrade is delivered through Windows Update; domain-joined machines can manually get the update via Windows Update. The upgrade cannot be deployed through WSUS.
The idea that Windows upgraders within the first year of Windows 10's launch will get updates "free for the life of that device" seems to contradict the notion that "after the first year, upgrades will be paid via boxed product and VL Upgrades." If the free upgrade is just available for one year, then it seems Microsoft is contemplating a future where users would pay each year to continue to get Windows 10 upgrades.
When asked about the apparent contradiction, a Microsoft spokesperson offered this statement:
We are excited to offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified new or existing Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year. Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current via Windows Update for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost. Windows 10 will be available this summer, and we look forward to sharing more details about how the upgrade will be offered at a later date.
This "supported lifetime of the device" phrase has not been defined by Microsoft yet. Most people would interpret it to mean "however long the device functions," but maybe it's just refers to the device's warrantee lifespan, which might be a year at best.
As for which devices qualify for the free upgrade, that's not clear either. Microsoft offers an explanation in eight-point type, which is located at the very bottom of this page. The explanation reads as follows:
It is our intent that most of these devices will qualify, but some hardware/software requirements apply and feature availability may vary by device. Devices must be connected to the internet and have Windows Update enabled. ISP fees may apply. Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update required. Some editions are excluded: Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise, and Windows RT/RT 8.1. Active Software Assurance customers in volume licensing have the benefit to upgrade to Windows 10 enterprise offerings outside of this offer. We will be sharing more information and additional offer and support terms in coming months.
Requires Windows Update?
The free upgrade deal seems to require the use of Windows Update service. Windows Update works by automatically patching the operating system and is routinely used by consumers who typically do not test the updates before letting them take effect. Businesses, however, may prefer greater control over their Windows client updates, but if so, then they likely will have to decline this free upgrade offer from Microsoft.
Snelson's post also specifies that WSUS, or the Windows Server Update Services tool, can't be used to deploy the free Windows 10 upgrade. WSUS is typically used by large organizations to manage updates. While it's not really clear why WSUS can't be used, those organizations that do use it perhaps aren't eligible for the free upgrade offer. And they may not have been in the position to take advantage of the offer if they used the Windows Enterprise edition, which doesn't qualify under the deal.
The new information coming out about the free upgrade seems to indicate that we don't really know what the free upgrade offer will be at this point, and that past descriptions by Microsoft officials have been missing the basic details needed to properly understand it. Some journalists that closely follow Microsoft, such as Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley, are described as not being confused by Microsoft's past statements, though.
For most of us, it would be best to temper our enthusiasm about a free Windows 10 upgrade until more information gets disclosed. Microsoft has indicated that Windows 10 is coming sometime this summer.
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.


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In a stunning David-versus-Goliath takedown, Moonraker Brewing of Auburn topped Russian River’s legendary Pliny the Younger to win the prestigious triple IPA competition at the Bistro in Hayward on Saturday.
Just days after being named by RateBeer as best new brewery in California and ninth best new brewery in the world, the victory promises to catapult fledgling Moonraker into the national spotlight and bring more crowds to the already bustling tasting room in Auburn. The brewery won’t celebrate its first anniversary until April.
“For it to take a gold — and not only take a gold but beat out Pliny the Younger in a blind tasting — is absolutely surreal,” Moonraker brewmaster Zack Frasher said Monday.
The win came at the 17th annual Bistro Double IPA Festival, which attracts the finest India pale ale craft brewers on the West Coast. The triple IPA category — more hops and higher alcohol content — is tasted blind and assessed by certified beer judges.
Moonraker’s winning beer is called Extremis and will be on tap at the Auburn tasting room when it opens again Wednesday. The brewery will also make a new batch that will be sold in 16-ounce cans in the next three months.
Frasher descibed Extremis as “lush with Mosaic and Simcoe hops through and through” that give it plenty of aroma and the flavor of pine, grapefruit and tropical fruit. Unlike Yojo, its coveted Northeast-style IPA with a distinctive hazy appearance, Extremis is copper-hued and clear and made in the West Coast style.
Indeed, when Knee Deep Brewing beat Pliny the Elder five years ago in Bistro’s double IPA category, it created a surge in demand for the extraordinarily hoppy beer. In less than three years, Knee Deep went from brewing in a 900-square-foot building in Lincoln to 28,000 square feet in Auburn.
Moonraker’s newfound attention is forcing owners Karen and Dan Powell to re-evaulate their business model. Yojo, for instance, sold out in five hours when the brewery released a new batch of 16-ounce cans a week ago — even with limits placed on how much each customer could purchase.
“It has been a ton of hard work, and it looks like it’s starting to pay off,” Frasher said.
When Frasher called in the news from Hayward on Saturday, “We were in shock and my husband didn’t believe him,” said Karen Powell. “Russian River is one of the greatest breweries around. It was so noisy in the background and my husband kept saying, ‘Am I understanding you correctly?’”
Pliny the Younger is a bona fide legend in craft beer. It is sold at the Santa Rosa brewpub for only two weeks every February and routinely attracts lines of up to eight hours just to get a taste.
Powell said she and her husband plan to meet with Frasher to assess all that’s happened “and see where we go from here.”
“At this point, we have to stay grounded, let the dust settle and make sure we all agree on the direction the company should go,” she said.
Referring to the past few days at the brewery, she added, “The weekend that we had was just insane in the taproom.”


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You know you can’t be more careful about your upcoming product launches these days. You’re just one leak away from giving it all away. That’s possibly what Samsung might be talking about internally right now. The South Korean major is celebrating 10 years of the Galaxy brand and is gearing to launch a slew of products on February 20 to mark the occasion. What could go wrong, you ask?
Samsung just leaked its entire new wearable lineup. Presumably, by accident. An update to Samsung’s Galaxy wearable app (formerly, Samsung Gear) has seemingly revealed every other (smart wearable) product that the company might be gearing to launch on February 20 alongside the Galaxy S10. While two of these products, the Galaxy Watch Active and Galaxy Buds, have been subject of rumour mills in the past, the Samsung leak sprung in another surprise.
Samsung is also looking to update its Gear Fit fitness band both in terms of branding and hopefully in terms of feature set as well. Samsung is calling it the Galaxy Fit. While the feature set of the Galaxy Fit is unknown, the Galaxy Fit might be available in two variants, a standard and an e-version. The e-version could be similar to the running edition fitness bands that we’ve seen from competing brands.
While not as curvaceous, the Galaxy Fit has a watch-like buckle that would remind you of the Gear Fit 2 Pro. There is a colour display on-board, ideally AMOLED. The Galaxy Fit will be able to count steps, at least, basis of the product image. More details are awaited.
We do have a fair idea of what to expect from the Galaxy Watch Active and Galaxy Buds though. The Galaxy Watch Active is rumoured to ditch its predecessor’s rotating bezel in favor of something more mainstream. Although it would still run Tizen OS, Samsung is said to be re-working on the software side to bring it in line with its One UI. As for the Galaxy Buds, Samsung’s truly wireless earbuds will reportedly feature fast wireless charging (so you would be able to charge them wirelessly using the Galaxy S10 which will support 9W reverse charging) and improved Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. Samsung will likely bundle a pair of free Galaxy Buds with the Galaxy S10 for early-bird pre-orders.