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Apple (AAPL - Get Report) shares fell nearly 6% Wednesday after a legal news Web site reported that the computer company may have falsified stock options documents. Law.com ran a report from The Recorder that stated federal prosecutors are looking at stock options documents at Apple "that were apparently falsified by company officials to maximize the profitability of option grants to executives."
The report also stated that Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently hired his own legal counsel to deal with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Shares of Apple were down $3.25, or 4%, at $78.26 in recent trading Wednesday.
Savvis (SVVS) was trading 5.5% lower Wednesday, giving back its previous day's gains when it announced it would sell its content delivery services unit to Level 3 Communications (LVLT) for roughly $135 million. Savvis was lower in recent trading Wednesday by $1.91, or 5.2%, at $35.11. Level 3, meanwhile, was trading up 16 cents, or 2.9%, at $5.75.


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Five months after its initial launch, and just as the diet version
hits the shelves in the US, Vanilla Coke is to be launched in
Europe. Sweden will be the first country on this side of the
Atlantic to get the drink, followed by the...
Flavour sales continued to decline in Europe for number one
flavours and fragrances company, International Flavors &
Fragrances, but despite this the overall picture for the third
quarter of 2002 is clearly optimistic and the...
As the Internet slowly carves a place in the day to day running of
food businesses, B2B marketplace Transora, one of the ongoing
survivors in a difficult environment, has formed an alliance with
GlobalNetXchange (GNX), a B2B marketplace...
The UK Government's Department of Health is to reform its social
welfare food scheme, which targets mothers and children in
low-income families, by adding a broader range of foods such as
fruit and vegetables and cereal-based...
A group of European scientists meeting recently to review and
discuss current knowledge on vitamin E and promising lines of
future research concluded that the vitamin has been underestimated
in the past. They urged further research...
There is just one remaining bottle of The Macallan Scotch whisky
distilled in 1841, but after almost a year of work, the company has
released a replica of the whisky offering drinkers the chance to
taste the 160-year-old Scotch.
With the four major international bottled water groups and a
handful of strong local players all keen to grow sales, the bottled
water market in East Europe has grown strongly in spite of economic
troubles in many markets - and is...
The Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) this week
announced potential changes to the Food Standards Code involving
the approval of oil and linters from a genetically modified,
insect-protected cotton variety as a food and...
A federal government bail-out of the Australian sugar industry was
under threat on Tuesday after business and opposition groups, in
particular food manufacturers, objected to a three cent a kilogram
levy to fund the $120 million plan...
When David Byrne, European Commissioner responsible for Health and
Consumer Protection, issued a message of support this week to the
Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) ahead of its 5th annual
meeting, it is unlikely that he anticipated...

domain: news


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Half the World is Enough
Local antivirus firm AVAST Software has became a global success
Which Czech products are most popular around the world? Not cars, not shoes, not turbines, not even locomotives. Computer users know that one of the hottest products is the antivirus program Avast!, created by the Prague company AVAST Software. At the moment, the program protects over 130 million users around the world. Despite the global economic crisis, the company, owned by Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera, keeps thriving. The company's sales have increased to 690 million CZK in the past three quarters and 40 new employees have recently joined the firm.
Baudiš and Kučera met in the 1980s, at Prague's Výzkumný ústav matematických strojů (Research Institute for Mathematical Machines). Computers were still in their infancy at that time and the first virus didn't appear until 1988. One of their colleagues brought it back from a business trip as a souvenir, saved on a floppy disk - a data storage medium that's now obsolete.
A year later they began dedicating their time to viruses, establishing a company they initially called ALWIL Software. A computer expert was such a rare commodity back then that they were soon inundated with work, mostly from local banks and other businesses. With the turn of the century, the situation changed significantly, however, as larger local firms were bought up by multinationals uninterested in doing business with an obscure Czech firm. „At that time it looked like we would have to close down our business,“ says Baudiš, and they probably would if ALWIL's programmers hadn't made one last push for survival.
They had no funds for marketing and were literally unknown abroad. So they decided to provide the Avast! antivirus program free of charge to non-commercial computer users across the globe. It wasn't an original strategy but their program had secured a network of loyal users who translated the program's instruction manual into several different languages.
As soon as Avast! made it into households, its success was assured. This was the way to approach wealthy business clients who were willing to pay for their computer protection. Those who tested the program at home had begun to recommend it to their friends and today Avast! (a nautical term meaning „Stop!“) is protecting every fifth computer in the world.
And the world has come to Avast!'s aid too. There are around 30 foreigners working for the company at its base near Prague’s Budějovická metro station – mainly from Europe and North America but also from China and Japan. A year ago, Avast!'s management decided the firm needed an executive director, and selected American Vince Steckler, who moved to Prague from Singapore. It was Steckler who came up with the idea of renaming the company AVAST Software, making it easier for the program's users to remember the company name.
The first virus Pavel Baudiš encountered, 20 years ago, had one goal – it wanted to multiply. But, unlike the destructive and aggressive viruses that appeared in the mid-1990s, it wasn't malicious. Among the newer viruses, one called Michelangelo gained notoriety. „It formatted the disc and whoever switched on their computer lost all their content,“ says Baudiš.
It was largely young enthusiasts who were responsible for computer viruses. As well as earning themselves 15 minutes of fame within their own community, they were fascinated by the idea of being able to cause a worldwide epidemic. „Today, it is professionals who create malware and they are trying to be less conspicuous,“ says Baudiš. Their goal is to steal data (and money from bank accounts) and/or hijack a computer to send spam.
The aim of an antivirus program is to incorporate protection against new viruses as quickly as possible. „We get samples [of viruses] from our users,“ Baudiš explains. „As soon as they find a suspicious file, they send it to us.“ Antivirus companies cooperate with each other by exchanging these samples. Only in this way it is possible to analyze the virus, prepare adequate protection and distribute it to users as quickly as possible.
What future plans do Avast!'s successful programmers have? „Our goal isn't to protect every computer in the world,“ says Kučera. „That would bring us troubles with anti-monopoly authorities. But one third of the world would be enough.“
„Or possibly half the world,“ he adds with a laugh.
Translated by Naďa Straková, Respekt webeditor.
Pokud jste v článku našli chybu, napište nám prosím na [email protected].


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Spokane, Washington-based startup Parrots Inc. is gaining recognition for its innovative AI-powered product that helps individuals using wheelchairs communicate and navigate their surroundings more efficiently. The company won second place at a Novartis-sponsored competition for assistive tech in 2021 and has been recently recognized by both the Association of Washington Business and Washington’s Department of Commerce.
Parrot Inc. is working to make technology like what famous physicist Stephen Hawking used more accessible and affordable for all. The company currently has 200 early users.
“There are millions of people like Stephen Hawking out there, just missing accessible technologies to be the next scientist, engineer, designer, whatever they want to be. And I want to empower all of them to be able to achieve their dreams,” said David Hojah, CEO of Parrots Inc.


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TownNews and event marketing platform Evvnt have announced a tech partnership aimed at enhancing the events calendar experience for local communities and bring revenue opportunities to publishers.
“This partnership gives our local media clients — newspapers, television broadcasters, radio stations, web pure-plays — an exciting new package to offer local event promoters,” said Rick Rogers, chief revenue officer at TownNews.
Evvnt is a dynamic event marketing automation platform that syndicates event content to multiple event listing sites and calendars as a service. The company looks to replace traditional event calendars with a platform dedicated to generating new advertising revenue for publishers from ticketing, syndication, print, voice, social and email marketing services, while helping consumers find local events.
Customers using TownNews’ content management platforms for their websites and apps will be able to offer an event promotion experience that has five premium products including online calendar placement, distribution of their listing to more than 4,500 sites and easy social media reposting tracked back to ticketing, says a release on the partnership.


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Apple’s new iPhone 13 Pro will allow developers to use varying refresh rates with the 120Hz ProMotion display feature according to its updated developer documentation.
The ProMotion display feature has been around on the iPad Pro since 2017. For the first time, the feature debuted on the iPhone with the iPhone 13 Pro released yesterday (after a lot of trolling). This spec increase increases the maximum refresh rate to 120Hz, an improvement over the 60Hz available on most phones. A higher refresh rate means less motion blur and significantly clearer picture quality. This makes viewing and scanning content smoother and smoother.
At first, there were reports that Apple could block developers from taking advantage of this feature, capping some third-party apps on the iPhone 13 Pro at 60Hz. But now the company has told developers they will be able to take advantage of it. iPhone 13 ProMotion display, disclosing how to do it.
In an update to the “Core Animation framework developer” documentation on the Apple website, a new entry has been created to detail how the feature can be used. The new page was titled “Optimizing ProMotion Refresh Rates for iPhone 13 Pro and iPad Pro” and explained that developers can take advantage of CADisplayLink to specify the timing of an animation. According to the documentation, the iPhone 13 Pro ProMotion is more flexible than its iPad Pro counterpart. The iPad Pro currently runs at 120Hz, 60Hz, 40Hz, 30Hz, and 24Hz. The iPhone 13 Pro ProMotion, on the other hand, can also use 80Hz, 48Hz, 20Hz, 16Hz, 15Hz. , 12 Hz and 10 Hz.
This could mean that developers can take advantage of lower frame rates for battery saving features. The implementation of a high frame rate is not user-friendly, but it can be implemented in cases where a refresh rate of 80 to 120 Hz will be most appreciated. An example would be in games, for example. It makes sense to have a game using a higher refresh rate, thanks to ProMotion technology. Meanwhile, smaller, lighter apps that aren’t particularly visually appealing may benefit from lower refresh rates. Apple will also automatically manage refresh rates, as they already do with the iPad Pro.
Apple has confirmed that using variable refresh rates with iPhone 13 ProMotion technology is not yet possible because there are issues with some animations. However, the company has announced that a fix is on the way. Due to this catch, however, animations are still limited to 60Hz at this time.


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Economists and the money market see no early hike in the Reserve Bank’s repo rate, despite recent rand weakness and the increasing chance that inflation will top the ceiling of the bank’s 3 percent to 6 percent target range.
The currency hit a worst level yesterday of R9.2559, as risk aversion rose globally on events in Cyprus.
Bloomberg reported that a levy on the island’s bank savings threatened to throw Europe back into crisis.
Domestic factors are also at work. Nomura analyst Peter Attard Montalto said his earlier forecast of R9.25 for the rand by mid-year had already been met.
“Our original view was that resurgent labour strikes and protest action, likely spilling into violence, would occur in quarter two as a result of the wage round at that time, and also especially the mining sector reorganisation and retrenchments, which would begin and in turn prompt more labour unrest. This is all still to come and hence our view of weakness is still intact.”
Since the last meeting of the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC), on January 24, when it forecast inflation would peak at 6.1 percent in the third quarter, the rand has weakened from R9 to the dollar to more than R9.20.
Although this implies a higher peak for inflation, there are few expectations the rate will rise after the MPC wraps up its latest meeting tomorrow.
In fact, the market was still pricing in a 7 percent to 11 percent chance of a cut in the next three to six months, Nedbank Capital head of strategic research Mohammed Nalla said.
And it saw a rate hike only much further down the line, with forward rate agreements betting on a 63 percent probability of an upward adjustment in 18 months time, Nalla added.
Economists were making a similar call yesterday.
The repo rate was cut unexpectedly to 5 percent last July because the chances of growth had receded, and the outlook has since worsened.
At the January MPC meeting, the bank’s growth forecast for this year was revised down to 2.6 percent from 2.9 percent previously. The poor outlook was confirmed by recent figures for January retail sales growth: 1.9 percent year on year in real terms, well below expectations of 3.6 percent.
Against this backdrop, inflation above 6 percent may seem the lesser evil.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the Reserve Bank would “likely tolerate a near-term headline inflation overshoot in the context of a weak and hesitant economic recovery”. It predicted the bank would neither cut nor hike over the coming year.
Montalto said the first hike would come “as core inflation creeps to the top of the band around quarter two next year”.
The consumer price index excluding food and non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy is the measure of core inflation usually referred to by the Reserve Bank. In January this stood at 4.7 percent.
Stanlib chief economist Kevin Lings said yesterday that rates would be on hold until the end of next year with the first hikes in 2015.
He said the current account deficit – the gap between revenue from goods and services exports and the import bill – at more than 6 percent, would make it difficult to cut rates, but would not force a hike.
And Lings argued: “As consumer spending slows, we should see less imports and an improved trade deficit. The upside risk to inflation appears modest at this stage, unless the rand weakened a lot more.”
Inflation data is due shortly before the MPC statement.
Annabel Bishop, the group chief economist at Investec, forecast an increase to 5.7 percent last month from 5.4 percent in January, and she predicted it would reach the upper limits of the target range in July and August.


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A growing number of credit card issuers in the United States decided that they don’t want to finance investments in a bubble which a lot of people believe that it will burst soon.
According to a report from Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase & Co., alongside Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. halted purchases of Bitcoin and other alternative cryptocurrencies using their credit cards. Specifically, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced that they’re instituting the ban this Saturday, as the bank doesn’t want to associate the credit risk with transactions, said company spokeswoman Mary Jane Rogers.
Could more institutions follow?
Bank of America, on the other side, began declining credit card transactions with some of the most used cryptocurrency exchanges this Friday. The bank’s policy applies to both personal and business credit cards, while debit cards are not affected, said Betty Riess, the company’s spokeswoman.
Finally, Citigroup also announced this Friday that they will stop purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using its credit cards as well, but they somehow left a door open. “We will continue to review our policy as this market evolves,” company spokeswoman Jennifer Bombardier said.
Why such decisions from credit card issuers?
Apparently, allowing cryptocurrency purchases can lead to serious problems for lenders. Specifically, they can be the ones left on the hook if the borrower makes a wrong bet and can’t repay. Of course, it’s not the case with Bitcoin, but you never know.
Besides this, thieves can also abuse a card, using a stolen identity and turn them into crypto hoards. And this is also a very serious reason for issuers to take this decision.
Finally, major banks and not only are required by regulators to constantly monitor customer transactions and observe potential money laundering attempts. And this is far from being easy, as dollars are converted into digital coins.
Back to Bitcoin, it lost more than half of its value from late December 2017, currently trading at $9,133.72. The massive drop started after regulatory threats kept coming from all over the world. Combine this with the fear of price manipulation, as well as Facebook’s ban on ads for anything crypto-related and you this new price starts to make sense.


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Supplier Eddingtons, which recently bought out fellow light equipment provider, Gilberts Food Equipment, has issued advice following a fatal accident
CESA event also honoured John Gilbert and Brakes salesman
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Clam cakes, chowder and oysters are the mainstays at Cap’n Jack’s Restaurant, but for decades, it’s been a soft-serve ice cream machine that helps draw in summertime crowds heading to a nearby beach.
And for as long as anyone can remember, the family that runs the seafood spot overlooking a salt marsh in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, has been paying the state government a special fee just to be able to make and sell its frozen treats.
“My family’s been doing this for 45 years and my dad says he’s always paid it,” said Jack Piemonte Jr. “It’s one of those things that’s always been there.”
It may not be there for much longer, as state legislators set out to get rid of a fee that’s been on the books for so long — since 1962 — that nobody can quite explain why. The fee’s proposed elimination is part of a broader effort by Rhode Island officials to cull through thousands of pages of regulations and cut out some that businesses find most bothersome.
The $160-a-year “frozen dessert” processor license isn’t breaking the bank for most restaurateurs, but “it’s a nuisance because they’re already paying a license fee to be a restaurant,” said state Rep. Deborah Ruggiero, a Jamestown Democrat and chairwoman of a small business committee in the state House of Representatives.
“You can start killing businesses with a thousand paper cuts of a fee here and a fee there,” she said. Ruggiero introduced the bill earlier this month. It would eliminate the fee for food service establishments that already must get a food service license from the state health department.
“It’s one less thing that you have to pay, which would be nice,” said Piemonte, who said he pays about $240 for the regular food service license.
Piemonte said it makes sense for health officials to inspect soft-serve ice cream machines, since they are hard to keep clean, but “one license should be able to take care of both.”
State officials haven’t been able to say how much revenue would be lost if the fee is eliminated. Establishments that have to pay it range from fast-food and convenience store chains to small Italian restaurants in Providence’s Federal Hill.
According to state law, frozen desserts can include ice cream, frozen custard, ice milk, water ice, sherbet, frozen yogurt and freezer-made milkshakes. Rhode Island isn’t the only Northeast state to charge such a fee, according to a review by state officials. Pennsylvania charges a $35 annual fee to all frozen dessert makers, be they large distributors or small retailers. Connecticut’s fee is $50, and New York’s is based on how many gallons of treats are produced.
Some businesses complained about the frozen desserts fee to the state Commerce Corporation, which supports Ruggiero’s legislation. The Rhode Island Hospital Association is also supporting the bill.


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How is it (basically) September already?! It feels like I was just wearing winter coats and boots yesterday, and the summer is nearly over! This year is truly just flying by. But, in better news, today is Friday, which means it’s time to round up everything that’s happened over the last week!
1. The Henna Artist has its lead!
In case you missed the exciting news, The Henna Artist – a book I think we can all agree is among the best books of the year – is making the jump to a TV screen near you, and earlier this week is was announced that Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame is set to star in and produce the adaptation! We could NOT be more excited. Read more about the announcement here.
2. The book trailer for one of our most anticipated thrillers of 2020 just dropped!
When No One is Watching is sure to be one of the biggest thrillers of 2020, so we were so excited to see the enthralling trailer drop a few weeks ahead of its Canadian release! Want to see what it’s all about? Watch it here!
3. Jael Richardson has a new book coming out in January and the stunning cover was JUST revealed!
In case you hadn’t heard, FOLD founder Jael Richardson has written her debut novel and it is coming our way in January! Gutter Child tells the story of a young woman who must find the courage to determine her own future and secure her freedom, and the jaw-droppingly stunning cover was just revealed on Wednesday! Click here or here to see the reveal and pre-order links!
That’s all we have for you today, Savvy Readers! Did we miss anything? Feel free to let us know in the comments or on Twitter @SavvyReader!


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Grammy winner Sheryl Crow on Tuesday found her upcoming CD booted out of the nation's largest retailer, but the ban may only generate more sales.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer with more than 2,000 stores nationwide, said it will not carry the new album because one of the songs, "Love is a Good Thing," indicates that the retailer sells guns to children.
"Wal-Mart believes this is an unfair, untrue and totally irresponsible comment and is particularly offensive to our associates who work hard each year helping their communities with the needs of our youth," said Dale Ingram, a spokesman for Wal-Mart.
But the chairman of her label, A&M Records, wasted no time in blasting Wal-Mart's decision.
"In their decision not to carry Sheryl Crow's latest release, Wal-Mart is choosing guns over music," said Al Cafaro, who said the record company won't "bow to this censorship."
The album, "Sheryl Crow," is scheduled for a Sept. 24 release by A&M, a unit of Dutch-owned PolyGram N.V. Wal-Mart is a large seller of mainstream albums and records, particularly in smaller markets. A ban could reduce Crow's sales significantly, observers said.
But others suggested that the publicity only will stir more interest, which could boost sales through other outlets.
Wal-Mart learned of the lyrics when the chain's distributor, which checks albums for objectionable lyrics before their release, alerted the company.
The lyrics in question read:
"Watch out sister, watch out brother,
"Watch our children as they kill each other
"With a gun they bought at the Wal-Mart discount stores."
Ingram said that although the album and single "Love is a Good Thing" have been banned, no decision has been made about other possible singles on the album.
Wal-Mart, which for years sold guns in its sporting goods department, stopped selling them in 1994, according to the company. It changed its policy after the company was sued by the family of a Texas man accused of killing his parents with a gun he bought at a Wal-Mart, even though he indicated on a federal form that he had been treated for mental problems. Now guns are sold only by catalog.
Crow's initial album, "Tuesday Night Music Club," sold more than 8 million records worldwide. She received three Grammy awards last year, for record of the year and best female pop vocalist for the hit single "All I Wanna Do," and best new artist.
"Every day in America, children are dying by guns bought legally. This is a fact," Cafaro said.
"What is an appropriate response to this fact? . . . Wal-Mart has no apparent interest in discussing such things. They choose to pre-empt the dialogue by banning music which may provoke a discussion," he said.


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Women can often be scrutinized about their appearance. There are a lot of opinions when it comes to clothes. Too revealing, not revealing enough, too plain, or too patterned.
Repeating the same outfit can also be a problem for some. We wanted to see what kind of a response we would get if two of our WTWO-TV anchors wore the same outfit every day for one week.
“I plan to not change my dress. Maybe wash it a few times for sure,” says Meteorologist Robyn King.
King wore the same dress on air every day for an entire week.
“I think that there’s a double-edged sword,” says King. “I think a lot of people do focus on what I wear. Not that I mind that, but I do want them to actually pay attention to what I’m trying to say.”
Viewers noticed, and took action with Facebook messages.
“Hey what’s up with you wearing the same dress? Did someone steal your wardrobe,” reads one message sent to King.
But it wasn’t as obvious when her male counterpart, Chief Meteorologist Jesse Walker, did the same thing.
“No viewers made any comment that I wore the same thing,” says Walker.
Including people who were actually in on the experiment.
“Even my coworkers after a couple days I said, ‘have you noticed anything different?’ And they’re like what,” says Walker.
I’m reporting on the story, and I even forgot about his outfit all week, but everyone remembered Robyn. Susan Kray, an associate professor of gender studies at Indiana State University, explains why that may be.
“Audiences apparently have that expectation. They’re used to it. I don’t think they scrutinize the men’s clothing, because it does what it’s supposed to do. It covers them up,” says Kray.
As for the women?
“Women are expected to be different, creative, colorful, entertaining in the way they dress,” says Kray.
Even our expert feels the need to change up her wardrobe to limit recycled looks.
“I learned right away that the expectation is you wear something different every day. Doesn’t have to be glamorous. Just has to be workplace appropriate, but different,” says Kray.
Women in other professions experience similar expectations with their clothing.
“Being in the banking atmosphere, mainly giving customers loans. They’re coming to you, and wanting your help,” says Hannah McConchie, a commercial lender at Terre Haute Savings Bank. “To me, I want to represent myself as best as I can, so that they feel comfortable coming to me as often as they want.”
What would happen if she didn’t come to work dressed up?
“They would just look at you like what is going on with you? You need to go home and change. This isn’t–this isn’t normal,” says McConchie.
Despite the expectations, the women interviewed said dressing up has its benefits.
“It makes me feel good whenever my hair is done, my makeup’s done. I look good. To me, you can just conquer the day better,” says McConchie.
But comments on clothes aren’t always uplifting.
“Women and people in general, if you spend more time supporting each other, that that will go a long way,” says King.
After all, it’s just clothes.
“The fact that there’s so much unfairness in what you wear. It’s just, it sounds kind of silly when you step back, and think about it,” says King.


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Ain Dubai, the ultimate celebration destination that the world has waited for will be open on October 21, 2021, announced Dubai Holding.
Ain Dubai is the newest addition to Dubai Holding’s large entertainment portfolio, and it plays a significant role in promoting Dubai’s long-term ambition as a key tourism hub, enhancing the emirate’s position as a global leader in leisure and entertainment.
Ain Dubai offers 19 unique and customizable experiences, ranging from sundowners, dining in the sky, and special celebration packages to customized corporate and event services, all set against the backdrop of Dubai’s magnificent skyline and beautiful land and seascapes. Open both day and night, Ain Dubai visitors will experience two very different sides of Dubai from stunning Bluewaters views to a host of night-time entertainment.
Offering unique views of Dubai’s iconic landmarks from indoor, air-conditioned cabins and a huge range of entertainment to keep visitors coming back for more, the ferry-wheel experiences are divided into three main categories such as Observation Cabins, Social Cabins, and Private Cabins, with experiences ranging from one rotation of approximately 38 minutes to two rotations of approximately 76 minutes.
“Ain Dubai offers first-of-its-kind experiences catering to all audiences including luxurious customizable special event cabins. We are the ultimate celebration destination, so it was only fitting that we celebrate the opening in style. Stay tuned for more exciting details of what to expect from our grand opening, and we can’t wait to welcome you to Ain Dubai.”
The Observation Cabins offer never-seen-before 360-degree views of Dubai, the Ain Dubai Sky Bar social cabins offer beverages to toast in the sunset over Dubai, and the Private Cabin offers exclusivity with celebration packages from intimate celebrations to cultural festivities to treat VIP guests. Ticket sales for the 21st of October onwards are now open to the public on the Official Ain Dubai website.
Mr. Mohamed Sharaf, Chief Operating Officer of Dubai Holding Entertainment, said, “Ain Dubai is a testament to one of the many innovative initiatives developed by Dubai to further enhance its competitiveness as a key international tourism destination. We can’t think of a better time to open this unique and celebratory asset than during the UAE’s Year of the 50th.”
Related: World’s largest observation wheel ‘Ain Dubai’ to welcome guests from later this year


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Television - as we thought we knew it - was set for change anyway, but in Australia media law reform and the first major consolidation to flow from it, have just upped the pace.
Perhaps only allowing them to keep up with the rest of the world.
And it's all about data: The app that enables viewers to vote and respond, and the line at the end of broadcast programmes inviting them to 'visit our website for more information' are all about starting a digital relationship.
Sturdier internet infrastructure - including in Australia the maligned and still inadequate National Broadband Network - create a framework for exploiting it.
And increasingly, newsmedia companies will be in the picture. September sees the start of two News Corp Australia forays into free-to-air TV - complementing its activities in pay-TV, where it is now majority owner of Foxtel - and the planned merger of Fairfax Media into FTA broadcaster Nine Entertainment gives one of the country's one of the two highest-rating television networks access to the data expertise of possibly the country's most data-savvy publisher.
It seems to have been a while coming. Rules dating from 1992 which limited companies to 'two out of three' platforms - of radio, TV and newspapers - and limited TV companies to a "reach" of three-quarters of the Australian population were repealed last September after a good deal of horse-trading including agreement to a $60 million 'jobs and innovation' package for regional and small publishers.
Not soon enough to allow the Murdoch camp - elder son and News Corp and 21st Century Fox executive co-chairman Lachlan, in this case - to acquire and privatise the Ten TV network, snapped up out of administration instead by creditor CBS.
But News Corp Australia had been catching up: A deal that puts live and time-shifted Sky News content onto the regional WIN network of Lachlan Murdoch's former Ten partner Bruce Gordon was announced in May, News having bought out partners Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment in Sky's owners, Australian News Channel at the end of 2016.
A month later in June, News and ANC announced a 50-50 joint venture to create a dedicated 24-hour "business, personal finance and luxury lifestyle" channel called Your Money to be broadcast on Nine digital channel 95 - as well as Foxtel's subscription TV and app-based streaming service - and a dedicated digital platform, details of which "to be announced soon".
A statement said the new channel - which would replace the existing Sky News Business channel on Foxtel - would also contribute content across the joint venture partner platforms and their related parties. Curiously, having talked of "setting the stage for a bold new era in business and finance news and commentary", ANC chief executive and managing editor Angelos Frangopoulos was soon to announce that he would be leaving for a new role with Sky News Arabia.
And then news of the Nine-Fairfax link-up hit: If News had come to terms with working with Nine while it was in partnership with arch-rival Fairfax on subscription video-on-demand provider Stan and other projects, the prospect of Nine actually owning the 177-year-old news media company has clearly been harder to digest.
Immediately after the official position following the Nine/Fairfax announcement of July 26, News said it "will continue (its) talks with Nine on the progress of the joint venture". A fortnight later, ANC and Nine followed up with presenter and senior executive announcements and promised further announcements regarding launch date and programme line-up.
At stake is much more than the carefully-developed market positions - and talent pools - of three (soon to be two) of the country's media giants and fiercest rivals. Critical is the accumulated and acquired consumer data which is key to pitching digital advertising to readers and viewers... and effective competition with technology giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. Survival in the advertising market, in fact.
Beyond what each gains from interaction with its own audiences, partnerships with companies which gather large amounts of consumer data as part of their normal business have been highly sought after.
Fairfax, for example, has partnered Ticketek data unit TEG Analytics for more than two years, signing with mobile creative ad-tech company Playground XYZ at the same time. The TEGA 'first' created "one of the largest addressable datasets available to advertisers in Australia", according to Fairfax.
In another alliance, the Fairfax/Nine-owned Apex ad exchange has had access to the passenger data of Qantas' 11.5 million Frequent Flyers via its Red Planet loyalty business for almost as long.
Incidentally, Apex chief executive at the time, Pippa Leary is now Nine's commercial director for digital sales, having returned last year to the company for which she worked prior to a ten-year career with Fairfax.
We'll pass on the question of whether News should have seen the Nine/Fairfax "merger" coming... or CBS on Ten, for that matter. Wishful thinkers, GXpress included, thought a deal between Seven West - which owns print publisher West Australian Newspapers as well as string of consumer magazines - and Fairfax might have been a match more made in heaven, but despite talk about talks for much of this year, those are not always the sort that succeed. As we go to press, Seven West boss Ryan Stokes continues to protest lack of interest, but we'd guess this position could change if regulators intercede... or before. Stokes' comment (on the Nine/Fairfax merger) that media deals "were not a priority" for his shareholders lacked the clarity we like.
And so to the nub of this: data - and the matching of advertisers to potential and often qualified purchasers - and "television".
The quotation marks recognise the change since John Logie Baird found a way of transmitting live vision through thin air in 1926 - the basis of FTA broadcasting - to the way in which much live vision is broadcast today, via the internet.
The prospect of a day when free-to-air is no more seems unthinkable, but it's the future broadcasters are looking ahead to. Even Australian national broadcaster the ABC recently put its hand up for a one-off government funding boost to prepare for the eventual termination of traditional broadcasting services and a shift to a pure-play online media company from which its audience might access its entire archive of audiovisual content. Savings incidentally, according to ABC chairman Justin Milne, might include the $200m a year on broadcast infrastructure and spectrum.
But while the state-owned national broadcaster has such thoughts, they are even more relevant to commercial channels and major news publishers which until recently, have been effectively kept out of TV by ownership laws, and see internet-delivered TV as a new frontier which they enter on equal terms.
Enter addressable TV, the technology which allows broadcasters to compete with tech giants such as Google and Facebook by giving advertisers the opportunity to focus their messages, targeting individuals and households by using sophisticated first and third party data, instead of making do with ad slots based on broad demographics.
With two thirds of Australians annoyed by "nearly all TV advertising", Michele Levine, chief executive of pollster Roy Morgan, says addressable TV will offer traditional TV broadcasters tools to retain and grow their share of an Australian advertising market worth more than the $15 billion.
"The power of addressable TV to show relevant advertising to consumers will give commercial TV channels the chance to level the playing field that has thus far been tilted in favour of purely online competitors and the opportunity to 'flip' the perceptions of advertising many Australians currently hold."
Levine - who has a product to sell in the integration of Roy Morgan's Roy Morgan Single Source survey with its Helix Personas psychographic segmentation - says the technology will bridge the gap between the traditional TV advertising model and the personalisation of advertising enabled by Big Data analytics and internet delivery.
The programmatic buys could also help change attitudes to TV advertising.
Which is another reason why "getting in on the act" is important to traditional news media companies such as Fairfax and News Corp. Targeting - which has so far typically been on a demographic basis - is about to step up with census-based individual 'identifiers' and OzTAM data set to measure crossmedia reach, moving to what the industry believes will be a world-leading position.
Seven has already gained experience from work on last year's Rugby League World Cup, where viewers watching streamed coverage on smartphones and increasingly-popular connected TVs saw different ads based on demographics instead of those in the ad breaks of the live broadcast. The broadcaster recently claimed it since delivered 135 million ad impressions via the process.
Rival Nine Entertainment claims 5.8 million unique users for its 9Now platform after encouraging viewers to sign in. At AdNews' Media and Marketing Summit in May, Nine chief sales officer Michael Stephenson claimed that when the channel's Love Island reality show launched, he would have "every 16-24-year-old in the country sitting in their bedrooms and watching our content".
And that's without data partners; its merger-acquisition of Fairfax Media could change all of that.
Meanwhile, News Corp's move into free-to-air broadcasting with the WIN content deal and - if it proceeds as originally announced - Nine on the Your Money channel, raises its broadcasting profile beyond subscription TV and delivers a total crossmedia offer.
Either way, News has invested heavily in broadcast, vision and production - Your Money will be centred on studios at its headquarters in Holt Street, Sydney - and is likely to be an addressable TV player one way or another.
Much has yet to be resolved, but these and other developments promise an interesting period in coming months.
Currently the focus is on building video capability and audience, but News DNA head of video Robert McKnight told GXpress the key was making compelling content and being able to monetise it.
"We've seen a major increase in video streams over the past few months due to changes we have made in regards to video product commissions," he says. "Our focus has changed somewhat in the types of video we deliver and how we react to breaking news. We want to make sure we are delivering video on stories that people want to see now."
McKnight reports a "significant lift" in numbers across all News' platforms. "Our videos rely on the websites generating traffic, but our job is to give consumers great video content while they're on our platforms. If we can increase engagement and time spent, then we've done our job.
"And hopefully they'll watch another video while they're here too."
He says live video is changing the business: "We've seen significant increases in traffic during live news events like the Thai cave rescue and the royal wedding where we supplied livestreams.
"The next phase will be looking for opportunities to go live without waiting for a major news event to unfold. Going forward, will websites start creating live video content? Will those very same websites end up with a live video player on their homepage? There are a lot ways this can play out, the key is making compelling content and being able to monetise that content."
Exciting times; watch this space!
News and Nine line up talent for TV joint venture
Kylie Merritt and David Ash (pictured) were the first to be named when Sky News proprietor Australian News Channel and Nine announced a joint venture company to run a new digital business channel in June.
ANC, which is wholly owned by News Corp Australia, are equal partners in Your Money, a dedicated 24-hour Australian business, personal finance and luxury lifestyle channel.
It will be broadcast on free-to-air on Channel 95 - part of Nine's digital spectrum - and on its streaming service 9Now, as well as being available on Foxtel Channel 601 and its Foxtel Now streaming service and app. A dedicated digital platform is also planned.
Merritt was previously currently commercial director of ANC, while Ash moves from Nine digital to be head of digital for the joint venture. The channel will have its studio and operations at News Corp Australia's National Business Hub at Holt Street, in Sydney's Surry Hills.
In a statement in June, the partners said Your Money would also contribute content across the joint venture partner platforms "and their related parties". ANC is putting into the venture its Sky News Business channel, which will close. Journalists Brooke Corte and Ticky Fullerton will move from Sky News Business to the new channel, while Chris Kohler has joined from (Nine) Fairfax subsidiary Domain.
Also named were Simon Hopkins - formerly of ContentShed, Brand New Media and Fairfax Regional Media - as commercial director, Glen Caro as programme director and Nadine Blayney as news director.
News Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said News was "doubling down" with its channels, adding that the joint venture presented "exciting opportunities" for News, ANC and Nine.
News-owned Foxtel is also set to launch a new 4K television channel, which chief executive Patrick Delaney says will be delivered to its iQ4 box via a "big, fat" satellite.
Photo: Britta Campion/The Australian
First published in GXpress Magazine August/September 2018
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Feb 11, 2023:
Guwahati Police arrested a fraudster on Saturday for looting money by posing as police in Fancy Bazar.
According to sources, the fraudster, identified as Tarun Dutta, is a resident of Kamakhya Gate who posed as a police and Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) officer to loot money from small businessmen in the city’s shopping hub.
It is established that several cases were registered against Tarun for looting money from many people.
He used to loot money from small businessmen by alleging that they re-established their shops which were removed by police in the area.
Allegations were made against him for collecting tax from events jointly organised by news agencies and social organizations.


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Following the critical praise of Resident Evil 7 for revitalizing the on again/off again franchise, many people were left wondering what will become of the new virus, the new Umbrella, and of course the new Resident Evil. When it was announced that we were not going to get answers to those questions any time soon, but were returning to the past, a lot of people were left confused. With Resident Evil 2 back again in the public eye, we once again have a horror franchise being dragged into the modern era…with some baggage along for the ride.
Toejam and Earl Back in the Groove was a return to the classic franchise by series’ creator Greg Johnson after a successful kickstarter. With the game out, it is a blast from the past, but I feel it may not go far enough to bring in da funk.
Failbetter Games is famously known for their amazing storytelling and narratives with their big hit Fallen London. Back in 2013, the developers wanted to expand their storytelling and game design with the kickstarter for Sunless Sea. With it, they combined their knack for storytelling with real-time design, and ended up with a polarizing game. Lessons learned, they’re trying it again with Sunless Skies, and they’re getting ever closer to that magic combination of storytelling and gameplay.
Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the most unique games I’ve played in some time. This should come as to no surprise considering the designer Lucas Pope also created Papers Please. One part snapshot in time, one part mystery, this is one of those titles that you could spend months pouring over every detail. Despite that praise though, I feel this is going to end up on a lot of people’s best, or worst, lists.


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Portugal on Monday entered a state of emergency that will last until 23 November, meaning 121 municipalities deemed to be most at risk of new COVID-19 infections will now have to respect a curfew.
In other words, 70% of the Portuguese population, including those living in the Lisbon and Porto Metropolitan Areas will have to respect the curfew from 11pm to 5am on weekdays and from 1pm to 5am on weekends.
While half of the trade and catering companies in Portugal reported sales drops of more than 50% since the pandemic began, 72% have gone into debt to cover losses, and 60% are considering a creditor protection plan in 2021, a survey carried out by the Association of Retail and Restaurant Brands (AMRR) and published Monday reveals.
Regarding the new restrictions decreed under the state of emergency, AMRR president Miguel Pina Martins noted that the government “acknowledges that the measures are very bad for restaurants and commerce, especially in a period close to Christmas, which is the salvation of the year for many”.
“2020 is catastrophic. If measures are not approved to distribute the sacrifice fairly among owners, tenants and the state, tens of thousands of companies will go bankrupt and hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost”, warned Martins. (Zélia Oliveira and Patrícia Dinis, Lusa.pt)


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As Australia’s recorded cases of coronavirus reach 140, including three deaths, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has unveiled a $17.6 billion stimulus package, including one-off $750 payments to certain households, including pensioners.
The prime minister said the coronavirus will have serious impacts on Australia’s economy. “It is a health crisis with very significant economic impacts,” he told a press conference in Canberra this morning.
The multi-billion-dollar package is the equivalent of 1.2 per cent of GDP. “This is a significant investment,” the prime minister said.
The government’s one-off $750 payments will be available to those on Newstart, the disability or carers pension, the youth allowance, veterans, those who receive family tax benefits, holders of Commonwealth health cards, and age pensioners.
The payment will go to 2.4 million age pensioners.
“The one-off payment will flow automatically from 31 March and will provide additional income to many Australians that will be spent across Australia,” said Treasurer John Frydenberg.
“Households will receive a stimulus payment of $750 across the full gambit of those who receive all sorts of benefit payments,” Mr Morrison said.
“The biggest beneficiaries of that will be pensioners. They comprise around half of those who will receive those payments.”
Mr Morrison was asked if recipients of the payment could pocket rather than spend the payment.
Mr Morrison said the payments should improve consumer confidence.
“I believe their common sense has demonstrated in the wake, and in response, to previous situations like this that it speaks for itself,” he said.
Casual employees and independent contractors do not receive paid sick leave in Australia but they can claim a means-tested sickness allowance.
The payment is currently in the process of being changed, but Mr Morrison announced the waiting time to receive the payment will be waived. Asset test rules will still apply to the payment.
“It is a Newstart-level payment and people who are casual employees that wouldn’t be able to go to work or because they have to self-isolate or, indeed, have the virus, they would be able to access that payment,” Mr Morrison said.
Earlier this week, Mr Morrison warned large businesses their brands would suffer if they did not support workers who self-isolated due to the coronavirus.
The government will also lower deeming rates, which determine access to the pension and part-pension, as interest rates fall to record lows.
Mr Morrison confirmed deeming rates will fall by 50 basis points.
Businesses with employees and with turnover of less than $50 million will receive tax-free payments of between $2,000 and $25,000.
The government will also deliver businesses with fewer than 20 employees a 50 per cent wage subsidy for trainees and apprentices. It’s likely to support around 117,000 apprentices and will support wages over a nine-month period.


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Blank stares, shoulder-shrugging and misinformation.
These were what greeted The New Paper team on Tuesday when we tested how much sales staff in Orchard Road stores and heartland malls knew about what is known as the "lemon law".
One thought it referred to a jewellery box, others had never heard of it, and one even accused us of lying.
The "lemon law" was passed by Parliament in March and took effect on Saturday.
Under it, sellers are obliged to repair, replace or refund the cost of defective goods reported within six months of delivery.
However, observers have commented that small enterprises may have a more difficult time coping with the law due to a lack of resources.
At four of the six stores in Orchard Road, staff had no clue about the new law.
When TNP asked a salesgirl from local retail store 77th Street at Ion Orchard if the law would protect our consumer rights if we bought a charm bracelet, she presented a small box to us, thinking the "lemon law" was a type of packaging.
Founder of 77th Street, Ms Elim Chew, 46, was among the few from management who responded when TNP told them about what happened at their stores.
She said: "Our store managers briefed them about the 'lemon law' on Thursday.
"This slight delay was due to the setting up of certain procedures in response to the law. The procedures are in place now."
Another salesgirl from a stationery store, also at Ion, said: "Lemon what? Lemon law? What's that?"
She then directed the reporter to her store manager, who also had no clue what the new law was about.
Of the 14 stores approached in heartland malls, only five had employees who knew of the law, but they were unclear about its specifics.
What was worrying was the manner in which some employees reacted to a potential customer when the law was explained to them.
Before a TNP reporter identified himself, an employee from a clothing store in Ang Mo Kio shopping mall, AMK Hub, accused him of lying after he had explained to her that the law allowed customers to exchange defective products over a six-month period.
She said: "Don't lie."


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In an era when consumers are increasingly conscious of their data privacy rights – a cultural shift that is changing the relationship between them and the organisations with which they interact – trust has become the new currency.
As a result, brands are putting privacy high on their agenda in terms of the relationships they have with consumers and ecosystem partners, and the term “privacy by design” has been coined.
Emile Gazeau writes about the issue in detail in Computer Weekly;
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Truecaller Launches Anti-fraud Enterprise Solution for Businesses
According to Truecaller, the solution would address the pressing need to increase trust in communication, as the rise in fraud and scams using spoofed identities, continues across the African continent, especially now that more Africans are switching to smartphones. As of today, there are over 43 million active users of Truecaller in Africa.
The enterprise solution dubbed Truecaller Business Identity, allows businesses to verify their identities using a green verified business badge, accurately presenting the name, photo and the logo of the organisation. The new solution brings greater trust and efficiency in communication between businesses and clients as it gives confidence to consumers, knowing that the caller is a verified business by Truecaller.
Apart from adding trust and reducing the possibility of fraud, a Verified Business badge can be a big boon for startups and businesses who are brand conscious and want to accurately present the name of their entity, logo and give their customers the satisfaction of knowing exactly who they are conducting business with.
The new feature also allows businesses to drive efficiency in their communications while improving call-pickup rates for genuine and important calls.
Speaking during the launch of the solution in Lagos recently, the Director of Business Development in Africa at Truecaller, Zakaria Hersi, said: “Fraud continues to be a major issue across Africa and as a company, Truecaller wanted to provide solutions on a business level as well as a personal level. Trust is at the heart of everything we do and with so much of our lives lived through our phone, we need to ensure that our communication happens in a safe environment.
Truecaller Enterprise has been set up with the strong intent of building solutions for businesses that will not just improve the efficiency of their communication but also provide significant value and safety to consumers in their day-to-day lives.”
Vice President and Head of Truecaller Enterprise, Sony Joy, said:
“Truecaller is ready to scale the offering to a significant number of businesses globally ensuring that the ever-growing community of users can trust more calls coming from these businesses making communication safer for everyone. Our robust verification process helps consumers identify calls that can be 100 per cent trusted to be initiated by a particular business. Over a period, this can result in drastic reduction of frauds and scams that happen over phone calls.”


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Earlier this week we brought you news on how the launch control feature on the Nissan GT-R is back for the 2012 model year. Known as the R Mode Start Function, the option launches the Nissan GT-R from 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds. A video by the folks at ToTheFloor has showed up on YouTube showing the GT-R being launched in R Mode Start a total of four times.
Hit the jump to see the video.
Refresher: The 2012 Nissan GT-R is powered by a VR38DETT 3.8L twin turbo V6 that produces 530-hp and 488 lb-ft of torque. Off-the line performance is also improved with an upgraded ‘R mode’ for the transmission and to control tight corner braking. That allows 0-60 mph to come in at 2.9 seconds. Prices for the 2012 Nissan GT-R start at $89,950 for the base model and $95,100 for the Premium and Black Edition.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: To The Floor (via WCF)


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Two shipping giants are giving their relationship a second chance. Just months after FedEx and Amazon ended their delivery contract and one month after Amazon limited third-party sellers’ delivery options, Amazon lifted its ban on FedEx Ground for third-party Prime shipments.
This week in customer experience was dominated by Amazon. The company’s big announcement made waves through all industries and showed how customer demands are changing for quick service and convenience. Here are the top stories from this week in customer experience.


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As the city booms, tourists are flocking to Nashville. Hotels.com ranked Nashville as the 14th most expensive city for hotels in 2015, but a lot has changed in a year.
"It's a great town," said visitor Mike Achim.
"We really enjoyed the (Country) Music Hall of Fame," said Linda Robinson.
But the Visitors Corporation wonders if the metaphorical music will stop if people and businesses are priced out of visiting.
"Last month three clients tried to stay in the Sheraton downtown and they quoted 500 dollars a night and it was not a week that was anything going on. The client was appalled," said Terri Clements with the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation, while speaking to the Planning Commission in May.
Those clients were potential conventions for the Music City Center. With only 200 hotels in a city that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors, the problem is a simple one of supply and demand, especially with regards to higher-end hotels.
"It is beyond the pale that a limited service hotel is charging more than the Waldorf Astoria," Clements told the Commission while advocating for a proposed 5-star hotel on the riverfront.
A quick check of Priceline.com reveals prices for next weekend in Nashville range from around $250 up to $400 for a decent room. Meantime in Buckhead, a hotspot in Atlanta, you can pay well under $200 for similarly reviewed hotels.
"I was looking at other places (to stay) and it was about 300 dollars," Achim said about his Nashville trip, "250, 300, 280 anywhere in that range." He booked six months in advance to pay under $200.
Robinson said she hunted around until she found a package travel deal that included a hotel stay.
"I wouldn't come if we had to pay that (price), I wouldn't come here, we would've gone to new York instead," she said.
Luckily, the problem may eventually fix itself. But not any time soon.
A reported 2,000 rooms are currently under construction and many more are proposed. The Pinnacle Advisory Group says that if all the proposed projects go through Nashville could eventually increase its upscale hotel room count by 45 percent.
They're hotels that can't come fast enough, for those who want to continue to bring more people and conventions to the city.


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Kruisstraat in Oud-Woensel will be tackled to improve traffic safety. Seventy parking spaces will be sacrificed for this purpose. Entrepreneurs in the neighbourhood are not happy with it.
Last Monday the work began. The angled parking spaces ensure that cyclists are often almost run over when cars drive off. By placing the parking spaces parallel to the road the traffic situation should become safer. But to make room for this, a lot of parking spaces will disappear.
Loss of customers
Entrepreneur Nicole Raymakers of Nicky’s Lingerie fears that the accessibility of many businesses will suffer as a result of the adjustments. “If you have to drive further to park here and therefore have to walk longer to get to our shops, this will also lead to a loss of customers. Not nice for our customers, who often come from far away”. A colleague adds, “If people need two boxes of wine, it is not practical if they have to walk a long way”, Patricia van der Heijden, who owns an off-licence on Kruisstraat, says. “It is a pity that the entrepreneurs are the victims of the traffic situation”, she thinks.
Apart from a loss of parking spaces, parking on Kruisstraat itself will also become more expensive and there will be a ban on standing still. It will therefore no longer be possible to quickly park the car and get something.
The extra space provided by the straight parking spaces will be used for more greenery and terraces. The cyclists in the neighbourhood are pleased that the street is finally becoming safer. “I hardly dare cycle here, often I take a diversion”, an elderly woman says. “You just get driven onto the pavement with your bike here”. Another passer-by is also pleased with the changes. “I think it makes the street a much friendlier place for cyclists and pedestrians”, he says. “And it’s a really nice street, so that extra greenery just adds to it”.
The adjustments are expected to be completed by 4 May. The municipality promises to evaluate the expected effects of the adjustments over time.
Translated by: Bob


text: Transportation operator Adi Sarana Armada (ASSA) is to seek Rp1 trillion loan from banks used for its capital expenditure (capex) this year. In 2016, ASSA’s capex reached Rp800 billion. It targets to purchase 4,000-4,500 units of new vehicles this year. Last year, ASSA purchased 3,500 units of vehicles but sold 2,200 units. The Company plans to sell 3,000 units of vehicles this year. Its total fleet now reaches 19,000 units. ASSA reported sales revenues of Rp293.4 billion from vehicle lease, autopool, and driver services in Q1 this year, grew by 10.2% from the same period of 2016.


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Apple Inc. offers a subscription streaming service called Apple TV+ in the United States. Moreover, apple Originals is a new streaming service that debuted on November 1, 2019, and features Apple-created films and television shows.
However, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, and Steven Spielberg were among those in attendance at Apple’s March 2019 Special Event to announce the service.
However, since 2015, the company has been in talks with several TV studios and programmers about combining their content for a live television streaming bundle. As well as. fueling speculation that Apple is planning to launch a streaming television service.
However, television is “of considerable interest to me and other people here,” according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was quoted in October 2016.
Moreover, he went on to say that Apple has “begun focusing on some original material,” which is “a wonderful opportunity for us both from a creation and ownership standpoint.” As a result, it is a current priority.
How much will it cost in 2023, and is it still worthwhile?
The original Apple TV debuted in 2007, while the most recent version, Apple TV 4K, debuted in shopping mode just last year.
However, many Apple users are concerned that the device is no longer worthwhile, given the expected prominence of Apple TV+ after 2019. However, we learn about the current price and decide whether you should buy one.
As well as, an Apple TV box simplifies the process of streaming video to your TV by allowing you to easily switch between different streaming services. Moreover, apple TV+ is Cupertino’s attempt to provide an alternative to services like Netflix and Prime Video.
Could you please explain Apple TV to me?
Furthermore, this small network device emulates other streaming sticks and connects to your TV via HDMI to make your regular TV smart.
Moreover, shopping mode is not the same as browsing mode. Apple TV+ is an official streaming service that debuted this year.
However, Apple TV HD (fourth generation) debuted in 2015, followed by Apple TV 4K in 2017. Although, the most recent version . Furthermore, Apple TV 4K Second Generation, was released in September of the same year. Moreover, it has the most features available of any existing model.
Television’s Various Applications and Features
However, Apple TV makes it easier to access your favourite streaming services on any TV model. If your TV isn’t smart or up to date with the rest of the market, you need one.
Moreover, it’s ideal for the average user thanks to its simple design and compatibility with other Apple products. Furthermore, the shopping mode Apple TV’s increased speed and convenience would improve the overall user experience.
Furthermore, if you don’t already have a smart TV, get this, and you can upgrade your regular TV to a smart one for a low price. As well as, you can now stream content directly to your TV from services such as YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and others.
When 2022 comes around, how much will it cost?
You can currently choose between an HD and a 4K. The former is appropriate for 720p or 1080p displays, while the latter is best for 4K UHD displays. Moreover, both types are available in 32GB and 64GB capacities.
You can also get a TV 4K 64GB for the same price of $190. To enjoy the 4K version, you’ll need a stable and fast internet connection.


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“I don't see bitcoin transactions as financial deals," Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chairman Choi Jong-ku said in a luncheon meeting with reporters in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, on December 11. "When they are considered financial deals, they can create various problems. So, they cannot be counted as institutionalized transactions. Naturally, the authorities never allow futures trading of such currencies." This is in stark contrast to the fact that the bitcoin futures have begun trading on a major exchange in the U.S., entering the institutional market in eight years after the launch.
He also said “(The government regulations) focus on minimizing side effects of bitcoin transactions and reducing indiscriminate speculative investment.”
Choi stressed that the FSC will never approve exchanges nor introduce futures trading. In regard to some views that the government has conservative stance on bitcoin compared to the U.S. or Japan, he said, “In the U.S., the history of futures trading began from private companies. However, we have a different start as derivative product trading is specified in the law. Does it any good to our economy when we approve bitcoin transactions? There will have no good effects on our economy, but side effects, at this time, except for exchanges that earn a commission and investors that make a marginal profit.”
Choi added, “The government is discussing measures to restrict the transactions to some extent, including an all-out ban. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) wants a total ban on bitcoin transactions but there should be a legal basis in order to do that. There are also questions if it is ok to unilaterally put regulations leaving other things out of consideration.” In a way, he seemed to have a different view from the MOJ which takes a strong stand against digital currency regulations. Choi also said, “We are very cautious about the issue because we can’t predict the future but we still believe that we’d better put regulations on it.”
FSC Vice Chairman Kim Yong-beom said, “The FSC thinks that institutional financial companies cannot join in any transactions related to virtual currencies. Many financial institutions have asked to approve cryptocurrency exchanges as additional banking business so far but we haven’t allowed it.”
He emphasized, “The price of virtual currencies rises because of the expectation that the next person will buy it at the desired price and this is quite like a Ponzi scheme.”


text: Legislators from the House of Representatives will begin work today on figuring out how to protect American companies from cybersecurity breaches. The panel will host comments from the retail, tech, and marketing industry sectors, each of which has their own agenda and ideas. Industry will be pushing for a federal standard on the steps a company must take if its private data is hacked, steps that would supplant a patchwork of cybersecurity laws cobbled together by the various states. Compliance, the companies say, would be more streamlined and efficient and allow for both more certainty and extra security for customers. On the flip side, consumer privacy advocates argue that federal legislation will erode the more protective laws that are already in place to protect individual users and consumers.


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Lidl suffers £25m losses after expansion
- Credit: Archant
The German-owned chain Lidl, with stores across Norfolk, revealed it suffered a pre-Covid £25.2m slump.
The slide was for the year to February 29 2020 and compared to making £19m in profit the previous year.
This was because of its investment in new stores and recruitment of extra staff, a strategy launched before coronavirus struck.
The firm is currently building a new store in Postwick, near Norwich and Downham Market.
It said its UK workforce increased by 8pc to 23,249 nationwide as it hired nearly another 1,800 employees. It also said it spent £654m adding another 51 stores and a new warehouse.
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It now has more than 800 stores and 13 distribution centres.
Work is under way to build a new 1,256msq store at Broadland Gate, which will create around 40 new jobs. Lidl also hopes to build on land south west of the A10 and Bexwell Road roundabout at Downham Market.
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- 5 Schools to hold lessons outdoors to give pupils a break from masks
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- 10 First patients receive Covid jab at new mass vaccination centre


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March 26(Xinhuanet) -- Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) gaming console was launched
across Europe at midnight Friday as the company took on competition from
Nintendo and Microsoft.
In Germany, the PlayStation 3 made its debut at
Berlin's Sony Centre, a downtown commercial building complex where the principal
tenant is Sony Europe's corporate headquarters.
Sony took over the glass-roofed plaza next to
Potsdamer Platz for a pre-launch party for the waiting fans.
"It was packed. We couldn't get anyone else in," said
a Sony spokesperson, Guido Alt, adding that 700 invitees and 2,500 fans showed
up to hear a concert by boyband US5, German rapper Sido and US band Good
Bastian Schwewiola, the first Berlin buyer, told TV
crews, "My dream has come true," as he emerged grinning from a ground-floor Sony
shop and headed home to play non-stop till breakfast time.
Around Germany, many electronics marts used
exemptions from trading-hours laws to stay open past midnight to satisfy the
fans' urgent demands.
Buyers of the PlayStation 3 were unfazed by the fact
that, at 600 dollars, the product is far more expensive than the rival game
consoles, the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Xbox 360.
Because of a shortage of blue lasers needed for the
Blu-Ray optical disk drive, European buyers had to wait longer than North
American and Asian customers, who received their consoles last year.
Some customers were annoyed that Sony removed a
special computer chip from the European version which would have allowed it to
operate games from the preceding model, the PlayStation 2. Sony said this was to
save costs, but it was "working on" backwards compatibility.
In London everyone who bought a PS3 also
received a 46-inch high definition television and a taxi home.
In Paris the midnight launch attracted only
about 100 aficionados to stores on the Champs Elysees.
According to Pierre Cuilleret, head of the retail
chain Micromedia, the success of the PS3 "will be decided in the coming months."


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Brookfield invests Rs 2000 cr in BC Jindal’s packaging business
As part of the transaction, Jindal Poly will carve out the packaging films business into a step-down subsidiary, in which Brookfield Asset Management, through its special investments programme (BSI), will infuse the funds, both the companies said ...
As part of the transaction, Jindal Poly will carve out the packaging films business into a step-down subsidiary, in which Brookfield Asset Management, through its special investments programme (BSI), will infuse the funds, both the companies said in a statement.
The structured equity investment in JPFL consists of compulsory convertible preference shares and equity shares of the new subsidiary, giving Brookfield a 25% stake and downside protection, through a ratcheted equity structure tied to financial performance, the company said.
The subsidiary generates around 85 per cent of the firm’s total revenues. Jindal Poly will continue to own its non-woven business unit and other corporate assets.
However, shares of Jindal Poly lost 6.7 percent, significantly underperforming the benchmark Sensex that gained 1.84 percent on this week's last trading day.
Rothschild was the sole advisor to the deal.
ET first reported about the potential transaction in March 2021.
BC Jindal’s son Shyam Sunder Jindal, grandson Bhavesh Jindal, and their family own JPFL through holding companies and trusts. The company is managed by a professional team and none of the promoters have a presence in the director board. BC Jindal is the brother of OP Jindal, whose sons Sajjan and Naveen have dominated the steel and power sectors in India.
"Brookfield's presence on the board of this new subsidiary will facilitate benchmarking to international governance standards and best practices," said Vinod Kumar Gupta, Chief Executive Officer of JPFL.
JPFL is one of the world's leading companies in manufacturing flexible plastic films and non-woven fabrics products.
"BSI is sector agnostic and invests in large-scale, non-control (minority) investments where we can provide capital and be a strategic partner to leading companies. We intend to continue to scale our BSI investments in India and be a partner of choice," said Dev Santani, Managing Director of BSI.
JPFL is the 8th largest global manufacturer of BOPET (Biaxially Oriented Polyethylene Terephthalate) films. BOPET is used in the packaging of products in various end-use industries such as food & beverages, cosmetic & personal care products, electrical & electronics and pharmaceuticals. It also has a strong position in the high-value-added metallised films market.
From being only a polyester yarn producer in 1985, JPFL diversified in 1996 into BOPET film production. In 2003, JPFL commenced production of BOPP film and metallised film. JPFL expanded business by acquisition in November 2003 of Rexor S.A.S, in France, which produces metallised and coated films as well as tear tape, stamping foil, security thread and other high-value products.
Blackstone had done the largest buyouts in the Indian packaging industry where Piramal Glass, the glass packaging business of the diversified Piramal Group, for an enterprise value of $1 billion in December 2020 and bought Essel Propack for $470 million in 2019. Similarly, Advent International had acquired a controlling stake in Manjushree Technopack, valuing India's largest PET manufacturer at Rs.2300 crore ($330 million), in 2018. Last year, Warburg Pincus acquired India’s largest independent folding carton manufacturer, Parksons Packaging in April last year.


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Aeroflo Inc., the Ontario, Canada based air-movement equipment manufacturer, announced that current shareholder Peter Grant will become the sole owner of the company, as shareholder Victor Afanasiev is retiring. Mr. Grant will also become the sole owner of Continental Fan Manufacturing Inc. (Buffalo, NY, U.S.).
Since 1986, Mr. Grant and Mr. Afanasiev have co-owned Aeroflo and Continental Fan, helping the companies grow into an industry provider of ventilation and air-movement products and industrial fans.
According to written statements, the companies said they are pleased with their new leadership. "Mr. Grant is committed to maintaining the leadership position and to pursue new opportunities to grow the business, offer new challenges and rewards for the company, its employees, suppliers, and customers," said one statement put out by Aeroflo.
Back to Breaking News


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- New offering developed in partnership with the biggest companies in the world provides highest catch-rate results in the industry
- Combination of real-time risk assessments, machine learning analytics, and custom-tuning leads to 40% uptick in detection of malicious digital traffic
SAN MATEO, Calif. (April 19, 2022) – Arkose Labs, the global leader in fraud deterrence and account security, today announced the launch of Arkose Detect™. This product solves the pressing twin challenges security professionals face daily – to stop fraud attacks on consumers’ accounts and help grow revenue by reducing the friction that good users experience when doing business online.
The company developed Arkose Detect in response to market demand for a product solely focused on understanding and preventing automated and human-driven attacks. It works completely behind the scenes, to provide a smooth, frictionless experience for real users. Previously embedded in the company’s existing dynamic attack response solution, Arkose Protect™, it comes to market with the advantage of having been tested extensively on major global businesses – defending against billions of real-world attacks.
“Every company today is operating in the ‘decision economy,’ which is stimulated and fueled by data,” said Arkose Labs Chief Product Officer Ashish Jain. “We designed Arkose Detect to leverage the collective data from the world’s biggest companies so that those hard to suss out fraud attacks can be easily detected. As fraud is constantly evolving, we have an ambitious product roadmap and will continue to innovate to stay ahead of threats.”
Arkose Detect offers defense-in-depth detection, which drives up fraudsters’ cost to evade detection. The product is specifically outfitted with a layered, AI-based foundation that compels fraudsters to up the sophistication of their attacks, which in turn increases their costs. Results show that with the economics out of balance, fraudsters abandon their attacks on companies that use Arkose Detect.
Arkose Detect provides customers with a risk score that enables them to tune their internal fraud models to accurately detect malicious bots and human-driven attacks more than ever before. In a rare cybersecurity industry move, the company shares the Arkose Detect data it obtains and analyzes with customers to help them strengthen their models. Arkose Detect offers the most transparent detection solution on the market, with more than 70 raw risk signals and over 150 pre-built insights derived from our global network, as a standard part of the new product.
Equally exciting is the fact that Arkose Detect customers benefit from instant time-to-value, with an immediate uplift in visibility into traffic risk, unlike legacy solutions that can be slow to implement effectively. Fraudsters are fast, nimble, and opportunistic; companies have to perform at an even higher level to outsmart bad actors, and Arkose Detect empowers them to do so with real-time traffic-risk data.
Industry analysts agree that Arkose Detect is entering the market at the right time. Jim Mortensen, Aite-Novarica fraud and AML strategic advisor, said: “Fraud attacks are increasingly unpredictable and create a complex operating landscape for businesses where it is difficult to differentiate between a fraudster and a good user. This has driven up demand for a new solution that can provide more data insights back to security and fraud teams, enabling them to tune their models and detect more malicious bots and human-perpetrated fraud attacks than ever before. Arkose Detect is an innovative defense-in-depth approach to tackle this big problem.”
The company has invested heavily in its detection technology over the last six months and it recently received the highest score possible in The Forrester Wave™: Bot Management, Q2
2022 report in the innovation roadmap criterion. It is actively working with customers to add more traffic onto Arkose Detect, which includes real-time risk assessments, spoofing detection, behavior analytics, machine learning and transparent risk insights. All of these features are backed by the company’s industry-leading security operations center (SOC) that will continue to tune the detection signals to ensure the ongoing maximum catch rate.
It additionally improves customer experience with invisible assessments that allow risk-based decisions or a targeted response of the customer’s choice. Consumers’ online accounts have become one of the most strategically important theaters of today’s cyber war being waged by financially-motivated fraudsters. If fraudsters can credential stuff their way into a consumer’s account, they stand to make a lot of money. Security professionals are under significant pressure to not only prevent attacks but also ensure legitimate consumers face zero abrasion while accessing their account so that they can easily do business online.
“In just six years, Arkose Labs has grown to boast a portfolio of category-leading customers across financial services, gaming, travel, ecommerce/retail, social media and technology industries,” said Arkose Labs founder and CEO Kevin Gosschalk. “And this is just an early chapter in our growth story. Our forecasted trajectory is exciting and attracting attention due to the efficacy of our core technology, on which Arkose Detect is built.”
Arkose Labs’ premier product, Arkose Protect, has a successful track record. It combines attack detection with dynamic attack response through proprietary enforcement challenges. Customers include many of the most recognizable brands in the world such as Microsoft, PayPal, Roblox, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Dropbox. In parallel to developing Arkose Detect, the company has also been innovating new features for Arkose Protect.
Product enhancements this quarter included:
- New Enforcement Challenge Design, Featuring:
- Simpler and more intuitive puzzles for users, enabling faster solving times
- Increased resilience to brute-force attacks that solve puzzles by random guessing
- Greater defense against automated solvers and inventory attacks with a new design that renders image recognition and classification more complex and time-consuming
- Highly flexible game format, opening up additional possibilities for puzzle variants to tailor to use-cases and attack scenarios
- Accessibility improvements for users with visual or cognitive impairments
- Device Spoofing Detection Enhancements: Arkose Labs is actively testing the use of WebGL data to further improve accuracy of recognition of spoofed signatures
- Arkose Insights: More data fields delivered to customers through Verify API and RTL API
- Command Center: New Session Explorer and Data Exporter and a new truth data upload/reporting capability
- Infrastructure: Expansion to Japan, improved latency, and ISO certifications
To request a demo of Arkose Detect click here.
About Arkose Labs
Arkose Labs’ mission is to create an online environment where all consumers are protected from malicious activity. Recognized by Gartner as a “Cool Vendor in Fraud and Authentication,” the company offers the world’s first $1 million credential stuffing warranty. Its AI-powered platform combines powerful risk assessments with dynamic attack response that undermines the ROI behind attacks while improving good user throughput. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in Brisbane and Sydney, Australia, Tokyo, Japan,San Jose, Costa Rica, and London, UK, the company debuted as the 83rd fastest-growing company in North America on the 2021 Deloitte Fast500 ranking.
Jean Creech Avent
Global Head of Brand and Communications


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Increase in number of car poolers in Belgium
Car pool organisers in Belgium report a general increase in new members.
6 August 2008
BELGIUM – The number of car poolers has increased fourfold in 2008 as compared to the same period last year, said car pool organiser Taxistop.
According to the organisation, May and June saw a considerable increase in the number of queries and new members. Instead of the traditional summer low, business is booming, the organisation says.
“On average, we’ve noticed an increase of 300 to 400 percent per month, that’s about four times more than in 2007,” David Van Kesteren of Taxistop says.
According to Van Kesteren, the increase is not entirely related to the high petrol prices.
“Taxistop has recently launched a new website which makes car pooling a lot easier and that has had an important effect too,” Van Kesteren believes.
Cambio, which organises car-sharing in major cities, has also noticed an increase in business in recent months.
At the end of July, the organisation counted 5,889 customers, a 40 percent increase from last year. Cambio is especially successful in Brussels, where most of its customers live.
[flandersnews.be / Expatica]


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Holidaymakers are always on the look out for cheap deals. Whether it is an outrageously cheap flight to Menorca or an all-inclusive hotel found on a discount, in the current cost of living crisis finding fantastic deals in every walk of life is important.
A hotel in Thailand has really upped the ante when it comes to deals, with rooms currently on offer for just 2p a night The Harmonize Hotel in Chiang Mai has slashed prices as part of a special discount, working with Thai tour operators and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, reports The Mirror
To make use of the deal you'll need to book your room by August 7 using the Robinhood Travel app. The aim is to help boost tourism during the usually slower seasons.
Don't be disheartened if you don't snap up one of the discounted rooms. Even without the deals, the hotel offers stays starting from £12 a night which you can book on Booking.com so there's still ample opportunity to get a bargain.
Heading on Thailand holidays recently got easier for Brits, as the country scrapped its Thailand Pass registration scheme as well as requirements for the mandatory US$10,000 (£8,200) health insurance.
However, UK holidaymakers will still need to show proof of either full Covid vaccination, or a negative Covid PCR test result taken within 72 hours before departure. This will be checked both before you board your flight, and also once you arrive in Thailand.
Restrictions were removed from July 1. Speaking of the move at the time, Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand London Sadudee Sangnil said: "This is the news we have been waiting to share
"The removal of the online Thailand Pass application simplifies travel to Thailand once again and removes what was a barrier to travel for some.
"Although bookings to Thailand have considerably picked up in the last few months, the removal of pre-departure requirements makes Thailand accessible to everyone once more.
"I am confident travel demand will resume in Q4 this year through to Q1 in 2023 and I am excited by the immediate potential for summer travel with the removal of the Thailand Pass."
- Derbyshire reservoirs run low as hosepipe bans enforced elsewhere in UK
- Double decker bus smashes into stop on Derby road
- Residents want better safety measures on busy Derby road being used as a 'racetrack'
- Derbyshire father distraught as son catches meningitis and it leaves him deaf
- Liam Rosenior admits Nathan Byrne 'regret' as Derby County transfer completed


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The segment, which stood at around 100 units a year in 2011-12, declined consistently with growth returning only in 2015-16.
Italian sports car maker Lamborghini is likely to more than double its volumes in India by the end of 2019
The Ferrari Portofino is based on the manufacturer's latest platform and uses advanced materials and lighter components.
Scrapping diesel engines is a global decision, announced by Porsche on Sunday and includes models in India too, making the company the first automaker to abandon diesel engines.
The firm is expecting 25 percent of its stock to be floated, nearly 57 million shares.
The company, famed for making the sports car driven by fictional secret agent James Bond, said last month that it was pursuing an initial public offering, the first British carmaker to do so for decades.
Aesthetically, it’s 60 per cent Star Wars, 40 per cent soapbox derby - a vision of the future as seen by someone from the past.
The Aventador SVJ with official Lamborghini driver Marco Mapelli at the helm, took on the lap-time test at the 20.6 km track.The challenge was managed by Lamborghini’s Research and Development team, with extensive tire support from Pirelli technicians and driver.
With a price of 13.5 million pounds sterling, which is approximately Rs 122 crore, the 800PS hypercar claims to be the most expensive car of recent times.
F-TYPE spans from the entry-level four-cylinder model to F-TYPE SVR. According to company, the all-aluminium sports car with 221 kW 2.0 l turbocharged petrol motor delivers improved efficiency and affordability.
Luxury carmaker Maserati has unveiled the new V8-powered version of its popular SUV - Levante GTS at the 25th Goodwood Festival of Speed. The higher-performance version of the SUV is expected to be launched in India by the end of the fourth quarter (Q4) of the financial year 2018-19.
The GT2 RS, which boasts a top speed of 340 kilometers per hour and can hit 0-100 kmph in 2.8 seconds is already sold out for the year.
Porsche, the sports car division of Germany's Volkswagen, said it was taking a 10 percent stake in Rimac Automobili, a Croatian company that has developed a super high-performance, battery-powered car.
The RaceMo is among the projects in both passenger vehicles (PV) and commercial vehicles (CV) segments which the company has decided to pull the plug after a review of its capitalisation policy on product development.
In the speed test conducted by FMSCI, the car driven by AMG Driver Christian Hohenadel set a lap time of 2 minutes and 09:853 seconds.
The M xDrive system enables a fleet-footed rear-biased set-up by only bringing the front wheels into play when the rear wheels aren’t able to transmit any more power to the road and additional tractive force is required. Even when it is being driven in a particularly sporty manner and unleashing high levels of power, the new BMW M5 with M xDrive behaves predictably and can be controlled with ease by the driver, paving the way for an even richer experience of the business sedan’s performance capabilities.
Both Chhabria, founder of DC Designs Private Limited, and Haq, CEO and design chief at Motormind Automotive Designs, have launched their own sports cars.


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TMT Investments, which listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market in early 2011, said yesterday it had cashed out as Yahoo acquired Astrid, an organisation app for smartphones.
The deal is the latest mobile acquisition for Yahoo following its $30m (£19m) purchase of Summly, the news aggregation app founded by British teenager Nick D’Aloisio.
TMT Investments, which invested $400,000 in Astrid a year ago, said the exit represented a return on its original outlay. The funding had been in the form of a promissory note but was converted into equity shortly before the deal.
The total value of Yahoo’s purchase was undisclosed, but Astrid is unlikely to have come cheaply, since it was one of the most popular apps of its kind.
Yahoo’s chief Marissa Mayer, who joined from Google last year, has been on an acquisition spree as she attempts to boost the web company’s mobile offerings.


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US Congress holds hearing on 'Second Life' terrorism23 April, 2008
|By Allison Orr|
The US Congress recently launched a hearing into virtual worlds, investigating the possibility that virtual worlds, such as Second Life, may be used to facilitate terrorism. Democratic Representative Jane Harman, of California, cited a British newspaper report last year saying that Islamic extremists were suspected of using Second Life to recruit and mimic real-life terrorism.
Second Life has also created its own currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted into US dollars. One of the concerns raised is that Second Life could be used to launder funds by terrorists.
The chief executive of Linden Lab, Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, was called to testify, to reassure lawmakers that the online community is able to police itself, saying they have never seen any evidence that there is any illegal activity going on. He also argued that it is unlikely that Second Life would be an attractive place for terrorists to plan since all user activity and transactions can be tracked by Linden Labs.
According to Rosedale, the average withdrawal from Linden dollars in US dollars is one dollar, so it would be easy to spot a larger transaction. He also points out that the fraud rate on Second Life is a fraction of a percentage point, where as the industry standard is closer to 1 per cent.
The hearing was also attended by about 65 online avatars in Second Life, with a laptop in the hearing room running Second Life and projecting the virtual hearing room into a screen. Included among the virtual community watching the hearing via Second Life were a goth character with wings (who occasionally flew around the room), a pink cat, a winged grasshopper and a naked man floating through the air.


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It appears that the Bitcoin price drop below $50,000 and increased volatility over the past two weeks has had an impact on the supply of Bitcoin on the trading platforms.
According to data published by Santiment, the supply of bitcoin in cryptocurrency exchanges has reached its lowest level in 31 months, at 11.96% (as of December 13).
Big Sale Diminished:
Santiment confirms in its latest report that the decrease in supply limits the chances of a major selloff.
The same platform also indicated that prices have been volatile lately, but the fact that Bitcoin has not moved to the exchanges at the moment is a positive sign that the significant selling risk will be limited.
What does low bitcoin supply mean in trading platforms? What are its possible causes?
The likely reason behind the drop in supply in exchanges is that more bitcoin has been moved from exchanges to cold wallets, as investors are starting to become more optimistic about the long-term price of the leading cryptocurrency.
Of course, this also means that there is less selling pressure in the market.
According to a different report by NewsBTC, the Fisher Transform (technical indicator) is also indicating that Bitcoin is approaching the bottom.
And it works by converting the price into a normal distribution.
The indicator has shown such extreme deviation in its entire history as now twice:
Once in October 2011 when bitcoin was trading around $2 and again at the bottom of a bear market in December 2018.
According to the indicator, a possible reversal is likely to happen soon (at deviation 2.0).
Yesterday, we talked at Bitcoin Arab about whales transferring 34,000 Bitcoins worth about $1.7 billion.
Most of the bitcoin was transferred between wallets in two big deals, while whales transferred the rest (about $500 million) from wallets to different exchanges and from Coinbase to wallets.
In addition, it was also revealed yesterday that the value of on-chain Bitcoin transactions fell to a 3-month low, after more than $40 billion flowed into BTC within 24 hours and the coin’s price returned to over $48,000.
The last time the value of a transaction was this low, bitcoin traded over $61,000, that was just a week before it hit a new all-time high of $69,000.
Will Bitcoin repeat its massive rally and break the $53,000 resistance level?
Proposal to merge SushiSwap with Bancor… Will the community vote in favor of the proposal?
Donald Trump confirms crypto market move and praises his wife’s project on NFT


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The 2018 Fintech100 was announced , highlighting dynamic fintechs from around the world that are transforming the financial services industry, from digital payments and lending, to insurtech, to neo-banking, as they attract investments at a record pace.
Key trends in the fintech industry for 2018:
- Internet giants such as Amazon, Facebook and Alibaba are no longer sitting on the bench and are entering the fintech industry with payments solutions and 'neo banks' services, thus changing the power balance.
- Significant capital raising in the digital (neo) banking industry and multiple digital banks launched by traditional banks.
- Wealth & Brokerage industries are gaining strength on the global fintech map, providing solutions and platforms that are not only intended for accredited investors, but also for the Average Joe.