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IGN reports that BioWare unveiled the final character design for the female version of Commander Shepard -- as voted by fans on Facebook -- at PAX Prime over the weekend. Here's what Shepard will look like on the cover of the Mass Effect 3 Collector's Edition:
Mass Effect 3 is in development for Windows PCs, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. The game is set for launch March 6, 2012.
Spy Guy says: That's not the face type or the hair color I voted for, but I have to admit I really dig the final result. FemShep looks like an ass-kicker. What do you think of the official female version of Commander Shepard?


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Charges against cybercrime’s “bank of choice” for laundering $6 billion
U.S. prosecutors allege that virtual currency company Liberty Reserve processed 55 million transactions since 2006, becoming “the bank of choice” for cyber criminals.
The founder of Liberty Reserve, a digital currency company, has been charged with running a $6bn money-laundering scheme, along with six other current and former employees. U.S. prosecutors allege that the Costa Rica-based business processed 55 million transactions since 2006, becoming “the bank of choice” for cybercriminals.
“Liberty Reserve has emerged as one of the principal means by which cybercriminals around the world distribute, store and launder the proceeds of their illegal activity,” said the indictment, at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Five employees, including Liberty Reserve’s founder Arthur Budovsky, were arrested over the weekend. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara described the case as “the largest international money laundering case ever brought by the United States”. The authorities allege that Liberty Reserve was “a financial hub of the cybercrime world, facilitating a broad range of online criminal activity, including credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking”.
Setting up an account with Liberty Reserve required little more than a valid email address. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that an undercover agent had been able to set up an account with Liberty Reserve in the name, “Joe Bogus,” with an address of “123 Fake Main Street” in “Completely Made Up City, New York,” according to Bloomberg.
Court papers state that an international gang of cyber thieves who stole $45 million using bank ATMs in a heist spread across 27 countries used Liberty Reserve to distribute the profits.
Liberty Reserve charged 1% for each transfer, plus a 75c “privacy fee” to make transactions untraceable, according to the Financial Times. Court papers show accounts in false names such as “Russia Hackers” and “Hacker Account”, according to prosecutors.

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Cruising Resumes From Charleston
After nearly two years, Carnival Sunshine has officially resumed cruises from Charleston.
The ship set sail on a four-night Bahamas cruise on Thursday, marking the return of cruising from the South Carolina homeport.
Sunshine is kicking off a schedule of four to 10-night cruises to the Bahamas and Caribbean.
Destinations will include Bimini, Half Moon Cay, Grand Turk, St. Kitts, and other island ports.
Currently, Carnival Cruise Line has 19 ships in service.
STORY: Carnival Sunshine Resumes Cruises From Charleston
Norwegian Updates Latitudes Loyalty Program
Norwegian Cruise Line has updated its Latitudes rewards program, effective immediately.
The previous version of the program included a massive 500-point jump between the two highest tiers. In response to complaints from cruisers, Norwegian has added two additional levels — Sapphire and Diamond — between the Platinum and Ambassador tiers.
Points are earned for each night sailed, with additional points earned by booking a suite.
STORY: Norwegian Cruise Line’s Revamped Latitudes Program: What You Need to Know
Cruise Health Consultant Says Pandemic Likely Coming to an End
Cruise industry health consultant Dr. Scott Gottlieb says he believes the pandemic is finally coming to an end.
In a webinar with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO Frank Del Rio, Gottlieb said he believes the Omicron variant is already peaking, and cases should rapidly decline in the next few weeks.
He also said that the pandemic phase of COVID-19 is nearing an end, and it will soon become a seasonal nuisance.
Gottlieb, who is chairman of Norwegian and Royal Caribbean’s SailSAFE Council, is so confident in the decline of the virus and in the cruise industry’s protocols that he is planning a cruise for this summer with his family.
He said “I feel very strongly that [a cruise ship] is an environment where you can carefully measure and mitigate risk… When we get past this wave I think confidence will return very quickly and we will feel much more safe this summer.”
STORY: Physician & Cruise Industry Consultant Says Pandemic Nearing An End


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Small and mid-size business customers who want greater bandwidth and lower latency will soon have yet another reason to choose Verizon. In the Verizon Innovation Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, Verizon and Calix, a global provider of cloud and software platforms, systems and services used in next generation access networks, achieved 34 Gbps speeds over fiber optic cable through use of a bonded NG-PON2 (Next-Generation Passive Optical Network 2) ONT (Optical Network Terminal) prototype on Verizon’s simplified, increasingly automated fiber network.
It's early days in the 5G wireless networks build-out. What 5G stocks will get a boost? The top 5G stocks in which to invest include chipmakers, network gear and fiber-optics makers.
Today, Yahoo unveiled a new version of its Mail app that redefines the way people use their inboxes. Yahoo Mail’s new app offers the perfect solution by organizing the clutter for users, empowering them to personalize and control their inboxes and focus on what matters most to them. Yahoo Mail introduces an innovative experience that groups people’s messages into “Views” such as Deals, Travel and Attachments, controls email overload by introducing an easy, one-tap unsubscribe tool, and elevates important content like package tracking and travel updates to the top of inboxes.
Verizon and the NFL today announced Colorfiction and Juncture Media as the two Verizon 5G NFL Mobile Gaming Challenge winners. The challenge called on U.S.-based game developers to create a football-themed mobile game that harnesses the power of Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband on consumer devices. The two game developers will each receive $400,000, access to Verizon 5G Labs and 5G technology.
NEW YORK, Sept. 18, 2019 -- Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO for Verizon, is scheduled to speak at Goldman Sachs 28th Annual Communacopia Conference on Thursday, September 19,.
The media business has always been about frenemies and evolving alliances which makes for tricky navigation even in quiescent times.
Verizon ranks highest for customer satisfaction with small/medium business and very small business among wireline service providers according to J.D. Power. It’s the third year.
NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 2019 -- Ronan Dunne, executive vice president for Verizon, (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), and group CEO for Verizon Consumer, is scheduled to speak at the Bank of.
BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Sept. 10, 2019 -- Businesses now have the opportunity to enhance their employee collaboration and productivity as well as reduce costs, with new.
Verizon is working with Mcity at the University of Michigan to advance transportation safety and shape the future of autonomous vehicles and smart cities using 5G. The Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network is now live at the Mcity Test Facility where we are testing various 5G solutions designed to boost pedestrian safety and avoid car accidents.
The Verizon Foundation today announced a $100,000 grant to the United Way of Miami-Dade, to support their immediate relief efforts for those impacted by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. Verizon customers can help the American Red Cross or World Central Kitchen in their disaster relief efforts by texting the word DORIAN to 90999 for American Red Cross, or FOOD to 80100 for World Central Kitchen, and $10 will be added to their Verizon Wireless bill upon confirmation of the billing zip code.
Moody's rating action reflects a base expected loss of 71.9% of the current pooled balance, compared to 82.3% at Moody's last review. The second largest specially serviced loan is the 126-130 Main Street ($9.8 million -- 26.9% of the pool), which is secured by two mixed-use buildings in downtown New Canaan, Connecticut, located eight miles north of downtown Stamford.
NEW YORK, Sept. 05, 2019 -- The Board of Directors of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) today declared a quarterly dividend of 61.50 cents per outstanding share,.
PC Connection, Camping World, Apple, Goldman Sachs and Verizon highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
For our consumer and small business customers in the path of Hurricane Dorian, beginning Monday, September 2 through September 9, Verizon is providing unlimited calling, texting and data to all postpaid and prepaid customers who reside in the path of Hurricane Dorian. First responder customers with wireless priority service should utilize *272 when placing calls.
NEW YORK, Aug. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Master & Dynamic announced that they will be working with Verizon Wireless to bring their newest wireless sound tools range to Verizon customers throughout the United States. Beginning August 25, Master & Dynamic's beautifully crafted audio products can be purchased on VerizonWireless.com and in select stores across the US, including: San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte. "Our relationship with Verizon Wireless is a natural fit--we are both dedicated to keeping our customers connected in the best and most thoughtful ways possible.
The wireless industry is set for growth with the coming of 5G, and that's good news for Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ). Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan upgraded Verizon from Perform to Outperform with a $70 price target.
The cloud is moving much closer to you, and the trend could deliver major profits for the companies that power and capitalize on that shift.
It means we’ll begin to automatically protect eligible Android users through free spam-detection and blocking high-risk calls, and iOS customers can download the Call Filter app to enroll for free. The free version of the Call Filter service is also available for Verizon's business customers, who can enroll at any time by downloading the Call Filter app.


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When Tomb Raider launched in 1996, many immediately drew parallels between it and the classic movie franchise Indiana Jones due to the similar concept of exploring abandoned ruins, adventuring through jungle habitats and more. Despite this, Tomb Raider would go on to become a pop culture icon spawning a plethora of sequels, movies and merchandise, to the point that most no longer cared about the similarities and appreciated the new ideas the franchise brought to the table. That said, the parallel has remained in people’s minds to the point that, in the mid noughties, we almost got a Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones crossover game.
This was revealed a few days ago by longtime Traveller’s Tales director Jon Burton on his YouTube channel GameHut. In a recent upload (which will be linked at the bottom of the article), he details how the idea came to be as well as how it fell through. In 2005, Traveller’s Tales launched LEGO Star Wars, a video game interpretation of the popular LEGO Star Wars toy brand. The game was an immediate hit, to the point that it spawned a direct sequel as well as tens of games based on other movie franchises that are still being released today. Among them was LEGO Indiana Jones which was released in 2008, something that was immediately planned to happen earlier.
After the success of the first LEGO Star Wars, Traveller’s Tales expressed interest in a LEGO Indiana Jones game, but the publishers weren’t interested as there were no plans involving the Indiana Jones franchise at the time. This changed when Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth Indiana Jones film (and everyone’s favourite, a sketchy source tells me), was announced, and the LEGO Indy game we now have came to be. Prior to it though, Traveller’s Tales had interest in doing a LEGO Tomb Raider game due to the studio’s close relationship with the team members behind the Tomb Raider series. The publishers weren’t interested as they didn’t believe the Tomb Raider franchise was big enough. Adapting to this belief, they surmised a LEGO Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones crossover title.
Unfortunately, this was shot down too. The publishers were already aware of the similarities between Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, so a product that would directly acknowledge that parallel was something they were very against. This is a real shame because, while I understand their uncertainty, it would have been a groundbreaking game due to it essentially acting as a “passing of the torch” moment, the acknowledgement of Tomb Raider as a spiritual successor being a brilliant way to elevate the Tomb Raider brand even more while also making kids aware of the classic Indy series that they might have missed due to their age. Neither franchise really needed it, but it still would have been impactful.
Interestingly, a LEGO James Bond game was also pitched but, in the most shocking thing you’ll hear today, that was also shot down. The publishers didn’t like the idea because Casino Royale had just released at the time, a film that took 007 into a much darker and violent direction that wouldn’t have been fitting for children.
So what are your thoughts on this situation? Are you bummed the Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones and James Bond games never came to be, or do you agree with the publishers’ responses to the ideas? Let me know in the comments or via my Twitter profile @JoshsJots. Below is the GameHut video going into detail, including displaying a prototype LEGO Indiana Jones trailer showing Indy before they finalised his design:


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January 09, 2020 13:59
Samsung Electronics posted a historic drop in operating profit last year due to a slump in the price of memory chips, its flagship business.
But there are hopes that the slump has bottomed out and the situation will improve as it fared better than expected in the fourth quarter last year.
In a preliminary performance report on Wednesday, Samsung said operating profit amounted to W27.71 trillion in 2019, a 53 percent decrease from 2018 and the lowest since 2015 (US$1=W1,178). The main cause was the price crash in DRAM and NAND flash chips.
Sales fell 34 percent to W229.52 trillion.
In the last quarter, sales only slid 0.5 percent on-year to W59 trillion, while operating profit shrank 34.3 percent to W7.1 trillion, about W600 billion more than market expectation.
"This is because we earned a bigger profit in semiconductors and high-end smartphones than expected," a Samsung executive said.
The outlook for this year is rosy since memory chip prices have started to rise and inventory has decreased. An industry insider said, "What seems to be positive is that NAND flash demand is growing as a result of 5G commercialization and an increase in data center servers."
Another positive sign is brisk sales of new high-end smartphones like the Galaxy Fold. Samsung set a goal to sell 5 to 6 million Galaxy Folds this year, more than 10 times that of last year.
Lee Seung-woo at Eugene Investment and Securities speculated, "Samsung's sales and operating profit will increase 12 percent and 41 percent to W260.6 trillion and W38.3 trillion this year."
- Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com


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When the value of an investment suddenly soars or collapses, it tends to get a lot of media coverage. In 2017, that investment was Bitcoin.
This highly publicized cryptocurrency started 2017 priced at $978 and, as of early December, reached a value of more than $17,000. That’s a return of more than 1,600 percent in less than a year. No wonder everybody is talking about it. But should you invest in it?
The first question to ask: What should Bitcoin be worth? It is not a productive asset, therefore its price, just as with gold, is based solely on supply and demand. If you don’t understand the drivers of those factors, and their impact on Bitcoin’s price, then you wouldn’t be investing, you’d be gambling.
Following are the four biggest myths I believe people continue to hold regarding this relatively new investment opportunity. I offer them so that you can consider a Bitcoin investment rationally rather than emotionally.
• Myth No. 1: Bitcoin is a currency. A currency is a medium of exchange created to make the buying and selling of products and services easier than having to barter for them. That obviously requires that the value of the currency be relatively stable. In the case of Bitcoin, notwithstanding 2017’s stellar gains, its price has fallen by more than 85 percent not once but three times over the past seven years. And it has experienced a drop of 20 percent or more every quarter since 2013. Never in history has any country’s currency fluctuated by so much in such a period of time.
If you were to purchase consumer goods using bitcoins, you’d go nuts. A TV selling for $1,000 in bitcoins on one day could cost you $1,500 the following week. As a medium of exchange, Bitcoin is totally impractical. That’s why more than 90 percent of all transactions using bitcoins are taking place on the dark web. Presumably the lack of traceability is more important than price stability for illegal trading.
• Myth No. 2: There are no tax consequences with buying and selling Bitcoin. The IRS considers cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to be intangible property subject to capital-gains rules. If you buy bitcoins with U.S. dollars and later sell them for U.S. dollars, you have to report and pay taxes on any capital gain or loss on that transaction. Even if you trade bitcoins or leveraged Bitcoin contracts on Bitcoin exchanges without converting the underlying bitcoins back into U.S. dollars, you will still be taxed on realized capital gains and losses on each trade.
• Myth No 3: An investment in Bitcoin is an investment in digital technology. There is an underlying technology supporting Bitcoin, called Blockchain. It eliminates the need for an intermediary (like a bank) to ensure transactions are properly recorded and bitcoins are not stolen. As a new technology, it has tantalizing possibilities in many different fields. But what does investing in Bitcoin have to do with investing in Blockchain? If you want to invest in the technology, why not invest more directly in the companies that perform so-called Bitcoin mining or those that are developing other cloud-based Blockchain applications?
• Myth No. 4: Investing in Bitcoin is safe. Many of the promoters of cryptocurrency investments are not following federal and state securities laws. As a result, you may not be able to recoup any lost investments made through unscrupulous exchanges or custodians. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warned just this month that “the SEC and state securities regulators are pursuing violations, but we again caution you that, if you lose money, there is a substantial risk that our efforts will not result in a recovery of your investment.”
Still ready to buy? The emotional fear of missing out can be a powerful motivator. But did you know that there are more than 500 alternative cryptocurrencies available for investment, each with a market cap greater than $1 million? Not to mention gold itself?
If you are going to invest in a cryptocurrency, why choose Bitcoin? Will it ultimately win out or fall by the wayside? Caveat emptor!
Los Altos resident Artie Green is a principal at Cognizant Wealth Advisors, cognizantwealth.com.


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Brunswick Corporation has sold Zebco European operations to Zebco Sports Europe Ltd.
Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC) announced today that it has completed the sale of the European operations of its former Zebco fishing equipment business to Zebco Sports Europe Ltd., a company newly formed by the operation’s management. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
In 2001, Brunswick had completed the sale of the Zebco division’s North American operations to privately-held W.C. Bradley Co. of Columbus, Ga.
Headquartered in Lake Forest, Ill., Brunswick Corporation is a manufacturer and marketer of leading consumer brands, including Mercury and Mariner outboard engines; Mercury MerCruiser sterndrives and inboard engines; Sea Ray, Bayliner, Maxum, Hatteras and Sealine pleasure boats; Baja high- performance boats; Boston Whaler and Trophy offshore fishing boats; Princecraft fishing, deck and pontoon boats; Life Fitness, Hammer Strength and ParaBody fitness equipment; Brunswick bowling centers, equipment and consumer products; and Brunswick billiards tables.
Lincoln Partners initiated this transaction, assisted in the negotiations and acted as financial advisor to Brunswick Corporation.
Meet our Senior Team
My goal is to inspire and motivate our people to make a true impact with their clients, their colleagues and their communities.
Managing Director | CEO North AmericaChicago
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Lincoln International has advised Airsweb on its sale to EcoOnline, a Norway-based company backed by Goldman Sachs, Summa Equity and Viking Venture
Lincoln International is pleased to announce that UAS Laboratories LLC, a portfolio company of Lakeview Equity Partners, LLC, has been sold to Chr. Hansen Holding A/S (CPSE:CHR), a leading, global bioscience company that develops natural ingredient solutions for the food, nutritional, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries
Lincoln International is pleased to announce that Sparton Corporation, a portfolio company of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. (together with its affiliates, “Cerberus”), has sold its manufacturing and design services division (“MDS”) to One Equity Partners
Lincoln International is pleased to announce that it has advised Doppel Farmaceutici, a portfolio company of Trilantic Europe, on the financing of its acquisition of Dietopack


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Dell's acquisition of Wyse Technology may have been a boneheaded move.
Dell bought Wyse to get a jump in the desktop-as-a-service market. This is where companies use their PC software over the cloud including the operating system.
In a research note, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu pointed out a lot of reasons why buying Wyse wasn't a good idea.
- Dell could have chosen to partner with Citrix and VMware more on software.
- Dell just bought a boatload of cheap hardware. Wyse sells services but also makes a whole bunch of dumb Linux machines without hard drives.
- Dell may not even get all that much out of the deal. Wyse's revenue, at $375 million, represents only 0.6% of Dell's "consensus FY13 revenue," Wu points out.
Dell did not disclose terms of the deal but Wu says he believes Dell paid $400-$600 million. He continues to rate Dell shares as underperform.


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Wherever you live on this planet, if you are considering picking up a new smartphone, chances are that you're looking more kindly towards Chinese manufacturers, especially Huawei, than you were a year ago.
While the headline numbers from the latest Kantar Worldpanel ComTech survey show Android gaining at the expense of Windows Phone and iOS, within those numbers lay some interesting trends.
If you thought Samsung would be the main beneficiary of all that movement towards Android, think again.
Of the half-dozen areas ZDNet examined -- the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, Australia, and China -- Samsung only saw large gains in the US and the UK. In Germany and Australia, Samsung was steady in overall purchasing intention, but made up a lesser amount of Android purchasing decisions. In China and Italy, it was bad by all measurements for the Korean giant.
Across the board, though, Huawei has seen its numbers over the past year only head in an upward direction. The Chinese networking company now finds itself besting Xiaomi for first place in its homeland; selling more units than Apple in Italy, and trailing only Samsung; replacing Sony as number three in Germany; and doing a similar trick to HTC to land third place in Australia.
Huawei has yet to crack the US or the UK, but nevertheless still experienced percentage point growth in a tough market.
On the other hand, HTC is representative of how harsh the smartphone market can be.
Despite once again releasing another solid flagship in form of the HTC 10, it's more a question now of when HTC is gobbled up than if it will happen.
HTC posted yet another quarterly loss, NT$4.8 billion, and saw its sales drop by 64 percent compared to last year.
The plight of HTC is reflected in Kantar's numbers: HTC dropped from 5.8 percent in March 2015 to 2.2 percent this March in the UK; China handed HTC a 0.3 percentage point drop to 1 percent; Germany reduced HTC's share from 2.7 percent to 1.6 percent; HTC was still healthy in Australia last March, with 5.5 percent, but is now reduced to 4.1 percent; and the company couldn't even hit 1 percent in Italy, and in 15th place overall did not reach the reporting threshold.
The sole non-negative result for HTC was the US, where it was stable with 3.7 percent of the smartphone market, but saw its share of Android phone shrink from 4.8 percent down to 3.8 percent.
While times are tough for the Taiwanese manufacturer, compatriot Asus surprised in Italy to almost quadruple its market share over the past 12 months. The company is now the third most popular Android phone seller as it lays claim to 8.2 percent of the market.
Fourth in Italy is Chinese-French smartphone maker Wiko, with 4.5 percent. In Germany, it is also the fourth most popular Android handset, up 0.9 percentage points to 2.8 percent, but behind Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Sony, and Microsoft in overall terms.
Italy threw in another curveball, with Xiaomi popping up at 0.9 percent, its only entry beyond China, where it is now third with 18.4 percent.
Outside of China, ZTE experienced growth in Germany, Australia, and the US, while seeing its market share drop from 2.1 percent to 1.2 percent in its native country.
As the smartphone market matures and growth is halted, buyers are turning to the cheaper, Chinese fast-follower devices.
According to figures from Strategy Analytics, while Samsung and Apple saw lower handset shipments, Huawei and Oppo experienced significant growth, while Xiaomi had a slight decline in shipments to maintain fifth place.
Unless Apple or Samsung can come up with a compelling reason to upgrade a smartphone, buyers are increasingly going to go with the more economical, "good enough" option out of China.
ZDNet's Monday Morning Opener is our opening salvo for the week in tech. As a global site, this editorial publishes on Monday at 8am AEST in Sydney, Australia, which is 6pm Eastern Time on Sunday in the US. It is written by a member of ZDNet's global editorial board, which is comprised of our lead editors across Asia, Australia, Europe, and the US.
Previously on the Monday Morning Opener:


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Dave Hirth and Doug Horning opened their fifth M Den in the former Steve & Barry’s space at the end of March. It’s by far their biggest Michigan memorabilia store, with 11,000 square feet spread over two floors. “We always had a dream of being able to provide everything for the Michigan fan,” says Hirth. Now, there’s room “to do everything we always wanted to do.” That includes an expanded line of women’s, juniors’ and kids’ clothing on the second floor, along with a huge gallery of framed U-M photos, and a Michigan-themed home furnishings department with linens and draperies, tailgating paraphernalia, and patio and game room furniture. Most of the first floor’s taken up with U-M gifts and licensed Adidas shoes, gear, and clothing.
Hirth and Horning are Ann Arborites in their mid-sixties and lifelong friends who met in sixth grade. Both went to U-M and graduated with degrees in education. What they really wanted to do, though, was open a sporting goods store. But neither had any business experience, and they couldn’t get financing. “We were politely told by some banks in Ann Arbor that maybe we should teach for a while,” Hirth recalls wryly. So they went into teaching and coached high school sports on the side.
The coaching led to a long relationship with Stein & Goetz sporting goods on Main Street. Then, in 1976, Bud Stein and Ward Goetz announced they wanted to sell the store. Hirth and Horning, ten years into their teaching careers, saw their chance, went to a local bank, and this time managed to get a loan. They didn’t even consider keeping their day jobs. “It was dive in with both feet or don’t dive in,” says Hirth. “You can’t make things work if you don’t do that . . . so we took the plunge.”
Unfortunately, just a few years later, big-box sporting goods stores started popping up, selling cheaper versions of their top-end products. Their business took a big hit, and Hirth and Horning started looking for ways to reposition themselves. They’d always carried Michigan clothing, and when they saw an empty storefront in Briarwood mall’s center court in the early ’80s, they took another plunge. “We put in a store that just carried Michigan clothing and gifts, and we called it the M Den.”
They, changed the name of the Main Street store to M Den, too, got rid of the sporting goods, and did so well they were eventually able to open a third location in Livonia and a fourth in Novi. M Den is also the sole concessionaire for the Michigan athletic department (the contract comes up for renewal at the end of June), and it has the Michigan clothing concessions at Michigan Stadium and Crisler and Yost arenas.
Now that they’ve hit the big time, Hirth and Horning have no plans to expand further. “The State Street location is a major, major, major step,” says Hirth. “We’re expanded.”
M Den, 303 S. State. 686–3002. Mon.–Sat. 9 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. www.mden.com


text: NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Inflation is not a problem for the U.S. economy right now, said Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. "We have enormous excess capacity," especially in the labor force, Fisher said Tuesday. "We have the lowest inflationary pressures we've seen in 30 years." Fisher said the recent request by the Dallas Fed to raise the discount rate to 0.75% did not imply that his bank thinks it's time to tighten monetary policy. Rather, he said, raising the discount rate would merely be a move to normalize the usual spread between the federal funds rate and the discount rate charged to banks.


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Artificial Solutions Delivers the Power of Conversation to Widiba’s Virtual Reality Bank
Artificial Solutions the natural language interaction (NLI) specialist that enables users to have a meaningful, humanlike interaction with technology announced today that Italy’s premier online bank, Widiba is using Teneo to deliver Widiba Home, a new conversational, virtual reality, banking experience for its customers.
Simply by downloading the Widiba app and wearing a pair of virtual reality glasses, customers can now enter into a virtual branch to carry out transactions or talk to an advisor. To navigate around the branch, customers can ask for what they want, just as if they were talking to a live agent or look at the relevant virtual monitors within the bank.
Account holders can consult balances and transactions on their account and cards, check securities and portfolio information and carry out other banking operations.
Widiba’s innovative use of technology is made possible by the Teneo platform which enables customers to talk to the app using their own words and phrases to achieve their desired result.
Teneo takes this information, interprets the customer’s intention, delivers the expected result and then continues the conversation, just like a human bank teller. Teneo’s powerful conversational ability enables it to understand complex sentences, remember pertinent facts, and bring the user back on track to the goal of the interaction when the customer veers off to ask another question.
“Widiba Home is about taking the banking relationship back to the customer while meeting the needs of busy lifestyles by delivering the personal touch of a physical branch in a modern setting,” says Daniela Pivato, CTO of Widiba.
“Teneo allows our customers to have a sophisticated conversational experience within the virtual bank that increases not only customer engagement, but enables us to continue a direct conversation with our customers online to understand their needs better and serve them more proactively.”
Teneo enables enterprises to rapidly build a range of artificially intelligent natural language applications from digital employees and mobile personal assistants, to wearables, bots and IoT interfaces, in 35 languages – all from a single platform.
Deep analytics provide the backbone to deliver true machine learning and implicit personalization that enables greater understanding about an individual, their likes and preferences, through interaction only.
“Widiba has been breaking the banking mould ever since its inception and we’re proud that Teneo has been delivering the intelligent conversational aspect of customer interaction from the beginning,” says Andy Peart, Chief Strategy Officer of Artificial Solutions.
“This latest extension of its service takes differentiating itself in a crowded market to a new level and demonstrates how Teneo allows developers to take an existing build and port it to new emerging platforms.”
Since the bank’s inaugural launch in 2014, “Widdy” has been the cornerstone in assisting customers by enabling them to ask questions on a wide range of banking issues using their own words.
This highly intelligent digital employee proactively helps customers by enabling them to complete banking operations faster, with less hassle and fewer clicks.
Widiba uses Teneo to deliver the founding values of its customer service: listening, understanding, care and quality of customer service, and continues to do so with Widiba Home.


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Kraft shareholders woke up $12 billion richer this morning and for that they should thank their lucky stars—–or at least send a case of Cristal to Janet and her merry band of money printers. Having passed-out free money to carry traders for 75 months running and after inserting a liquidity and verbal “put” under every market dip since March 2009, the money printers had generated downright giddiness (as of Monday night!) in the Wall Street casino.
And when it came to the shares of Kraft, the casino was indeed giddy even before the deal was announced. A few months ago when it was trading about $55/share, the company was already valued at 31X its $1.75 per share of net income for the year then ending.
So now those fast money traders who somehow “got wind” of the deal early are just plain tickled pink. At $83 per share they are up 50% on their cash position and several hundred percent on their call options. That’s quite the pay day, amounting to about 47X last year’s earnings on Jell-O, Kool-Aid, Lunchables, Maxwell House, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia cream cheese, Planters peanuts and Velveeta spreads.
Setting aside the Kool-Aid, you might wonder how hot dogs, peanuts and sliced cheese are really worth such a snappy valuation multiple. Actually, however, that’s not the complete wonder of it. In the year just ended, Kraft posted an hardly impressive $2.9 billion of adjusted EBITDA less CapEx. Yet the casino is now pegging its total enterprise value (TEV) at $58 billion—-including about $9 billion of net debt.
Can you say 20X free cash flow? Well, Warren Buffet can. Gushing away in a statement accompanying the deal, the Oracle of Omaha said:
“I am delighted to play a part in bringing these two winning companies and their iconic brands together. This is my kind of transaction, uniting two world-class organizations and delivering shareholder value. I’m excited by the opportunities for what this new combined organization will achieve.”
Read the rest here...


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'We love cookies but they're not sufficient, we need to eat veggies to make our bodies efficient': Michelle performs cringeworthy rap as she announces new rules to ban junk food marketing in schools
- First Lady performed a rap song written by school kids designed to promote healthy eating
- Under the proposed rules, companies would be limited in what products they could advertise on signs, vending machines, cups and menu boards on school grounds
- Food industry spent nearly $150 million in 2009 on marketing in schools, 93 percent was promoting drinks
- Schools would require drink companies to promote their diet sodas or water on signs and scoreboards, rather than full-calorie options like Coca-Cola and Pepsi
- Michelle Obama's Let's Move program is now in its fourth year
First Lady Michelle Obama attempted to connect with schoolchildren across the country by rapping about healthy eating habits as she announced new rules that would limit the marketing of unhealthy foods in schools.
The rules would phase out the advertising of sugary drinks and junk foods around campuses during the school day and ensure that other promotions in schools were in line with health standards that already apply to school foods.
That means a scoreboard at a high school football or basketball game eventually wouldn't be allowed to advertise Coca-Cola, for example, but it could advertise Diet Coke or Dasani water, which is also owned by Coca-Cola Co.
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Promoting healthy eating: US First Lady Michelle Obama speaks during an announcement of proposed school wellness standards in the East Room of the White House in Washington
Mrs. Obama has spent a great deal of time on her school lunch agenda. Will it be derailed by outraged adolescents?
Same with the front of a vending machine. Cups, posters and menu boards which promote foods that don't meet the standards would also be phased out.
Ninety percent of such marketing in schools is related to beverages, and many soda companies already have started to transition their sales and advertising in schools from sugary sodas and sports drinks to their own healthier products.
Mrs Obama performed some lyrics to a rap song that were written by kids at a school in Virginia.
The jam shows all the benefits of healthy eating, including a healthy brain.
Reason to celebrate: Tuesday¿s announcement marks the fourth anniversary of the first lady¿s Let¿s Move initiative, which seeks to combat childhood obesity by promoting healthy food choices and exercise
Chosen partner: Subway is one of the few fast food brands that will work with the Partnership for a Healthier America to help advance the goals of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign
MICHELLE OBAMA'S 'WRAP'
'If I'm going to help my brain come to fruition,
I'm going to feed it quality nutrition.
We love the cookies but they're not sufficient,
We need to eat veggies to make our bodies efficient.
Roll my chicken in a wrap, don't jam it in a nugget.
Get hyped for healthy snacks, fresh food, we love it!'
Source: Students of Marshall High School, Virginia
The proposed rules are part of first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative to combat child obesity, which is celebrating its fourth anniversary this week.
Mrs. Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the new rules at a White House event.
'The idea here is simple — our classrooms should be healthy places where kids aren't bombarded with ads for junk food,' the first lady said in a statement released before the announcement.
"Because when parents are working hard to teach their kids healthy habits at home, their work shouldn't be undone by unhealthy messages at school.'
The rules also would allow more children access to free lunches and ensure that schools have wellness policies in place.
The proposed rules come on the heels of USDA regulations that are now requiring foods in the school lunch line to be healthier.
Rules set to go into effect next school year will make other foods around school healthier as well, including in vending machines and separate 'a la carte' lines in the lunch room. Calorie, fat, sugar and sodium limits will have to be met on almost every food and beverage sold during the school day at 100,000 schools. Concessions sold at afterschool sports games would be exempt.
The healthier food rules have come under fire from conservatives who think the government shouldn't dictate what kids eat — and from some students who don't like the healthier foods.
Banned: Under the new rules, companies are now limited in what products they can advertise on signs, vending machines, cups and menu boards on school grounds
Down the kids: First lady Michelle Obama recites a 'wrap' song written by students about healthy eating as she announced proposed guidelines for local school wellness policies
Aware of the backlash, the USDA is allowing schools to make some of their own decisions on what constitutes marketing and asking for comments on some options. For example, the proposal asks for comments on initiatives like Pizza Hut's 'Book It' program, which coordinates with schools to reward kids with pizza for reading.
Rules for other school fundraisers, like bake sales and marketing for those events, would be left up to schools or states.
Off-campus fundraisers, like an event at a local fast-food outlet that benefits a school, still would be permitted.
But posters advertising the fast food may not be allowed in school hallways. An email to parents — with or without the advertising — would have to suffice. The idea is to market to the parents, not the kids.
The rule also makes allowances for major infrastructure costs — that scoreboard advertising Coca-Cola, for example, wouldn't have to be immediately torn down. But the school would have to get one with a healthier message the next time it was replaced.
Positive marketing only: Snapple is the exclusive beverage in city public schools as well as at parks and other public areas. For $166 million Snapple will promote New York - all over a five year period, with most money going to the schools). Only water and juices will be sold in the schools
The beverage industry — led by Coca-Cola Co., Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and PepsiCo — is on board with the move. American Beverage Association President and CEO Susan Neely said in a statement that aligning signage with the healthier drinks that will be offered in schools is the "logical next step."
"Mrs. Obama's efforts to continue to strengthen school wellness make sense for the well-being of our schoolchildren," Neely said.
Although Mrs. Obama lobbied Congress to pass the school nutrition bill in 2010, most of her efforts in recent years have been focused on the private sector, building partnerships with food companies and retailers to sell healthier foods.
Meeting of minds: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, left, introduces JoAnne Hammermaster, from Vienna, Virginia., who is co-founder and president of Real Food For Kids, and her son Sam Hammermaster, before first lady Michelle Obama announced proposed guidelines for local school wellness policies
The child nutrition law also expanded feeding programs for hungry students. The rules being proposed Tuesday would increase that even further by allowing the highest-poverty schools to serve lunch and breakfast to all students for free.
According to the USDA and the White House, that initiative would allow 9 million children in 22,000 schools to receive free lunches.
The USDA has already tested the program, which is designed to increase participation for students and reduce paperwork and applications for schools, in 11 states.
In addition, the Obama administration will announce new guidelines for school wellness policies. Schools have been required to have general wellness policies that set their own general standards for foods, physical activity and other wellness activities since 2004.
But the new rules would require parents and others in the school community to be involved in those decisions.
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Heads up Eurovision Fans, we're about to get a brand new competition! Dubbed the American Song Contest, the EBU has decided to take its unique brand of singing competition to the United States.
All 50 US States will partake in up to 10 qualifying rounds, followed by a semi-final and prime-time grand final. The competition is set to debut during the holiday season of 2021.
Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest Martin Österdahl said in a statement:
“The Eurovision Song Contest’s unique legacy dates back 65 years and its worldwide popularity is still rising. It’s time for America to experience this spectacle, through its sister competition, the American Song Contest. Love of music is universal and celebration of music in different genres and styles can transcend boundaries and unite people. We are excited to have found the right partners to offer another series that our fans across the globe can fall in love with and to share this unique competition with the American people.”
There's some creative talent behind the competition, and the organisers are encouraging artists of all stripes to participate - whether they're signed acts or amateur singers.
Expect a slightly less crazy competition however... we're not sure what the American people would make of Verka...
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As Staten Island businesses continue to press on through COVID restrictions, they are faced with a new, more daunting challenge: surviving burglary. During October, a wave of commercial burglaries spread through the borough; SIlive.com reports that there were at least nine burglaries at Staten Island businesses from October 1 through October 31. The businesses targeted ranged from restaurants, to delis, to flower shops.
Every year since 1925, the week that surrounds October 9 is observed as National Fire Prevention Week in the United States. The goal is to use this week to educate the public on some aspect of fire safety and prevention. This year, the theme of the National Fire Prevention Week campaign is, “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety.”
Home automation is a broad term that encompasses everything from wireless security systems to smart lighting, and many other services in between. It can be daunting to understand when you first start out. For that reason, many homeowners prefer to start out small before expanding to the full range of home automation services.
It’s finally safe to travel again, and many of us are excited to get on the road before summer is over. If you’re nervous about leaving home after sheltering in place over the past year, there are ways your smart home technology can help allay your concerns. Here are some examples of what you can do.


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Tung Nguyen-Khac will become CEO of Spil Games and take over the day-to-day running of the company from 1 April 2015.
He brings substantial experience as a leader of gaming and media organisations. He has a strong record in expanding businesses through organic growth, mergers and acquisitions.
“We’re delighted to welcome Tung,” said Hein Pretorius, Chairman of Spil Games, “and count ourselves fortunate to have attracted someone with his blend of talents. He is an excellent fit with Spil Games and his knowledge and insights will drive our strategy going forward.”
Prior to joining Spil Games, Tung Nguyen-Khac was CEO of the gaming subsidiary of German TV company ProSiebenSat.1, where he was responsible for a significant expansion of the gaming segment. His acquisition of Aeria Games in 2014 made ProSiebenSat.1Games one of Europe’s top three games publishers.
He also oversaw the development of Mobile Football Manager GoalOne, a top grossing game in the app stores. It is this type of experience in mobile gaming that makes him crucial to Spil Games’ business strategy.
“I am impressed with the strength and reach of Spil Games’ highly profitable web business,” said Tung. “I want to use this strength — and in particular Spil Games’ 130 million user-base — to build a bridge into mobile gaming. I’m thrilled to be taking the lead in expanding Spil Games’ core business and building up a world-beating mobile games division.”
Notes for editors
Spil Games was founded in 2004 and is a leading publisher of casual games with a worldwide audience of more than 130 million monthly active users.
Last year, Spil Games announced a restructuring of its business to focus on publishing and distribution and to expand its mobile games portfolio.
Tung Nguyen-Khac holds a Master in Political Science with a Major in International Relations from the University of Munich. He has been a frequent speaker and author of academic papers on the media, gaming and finance.
Until his appointment at Spil Games, he was CEO of the games subsidiary of German media giant ProSiebenSat.1
From 2004 to 2010 he was a managing partner and CEO advisor at web games company Bigpoint. He also has been a business angel and advisor to private equity companies.


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DESPITE hundreds of complaints from residents, Post Office Limited says the number of people using ‘the bunker’ has not dropped.
Yet despite claiming the company has not seen a drop in customers, the Post Office refused a request from the Woking News and Mail to provide the figures to back up its claims.
We requested information from the Post Office about the number of transactions that took place at Post Office counters when the branch first opened in WHSmith, Woking, and the number of transactions being carried out now.
The News and Mail filed the application under the Freedom of Information Act two weeks ago asking for the number of transactions that had taken place at post office counters in WHSmith, Woking, between May 15 and June 15, and September 15 and October 15.
The Post Office sent an e-mail response stating that although it holds the information requested by the News and Mail, the figures would not be released.
The Post Office’s Freedom of Information advisor Peter Johnson said: “Post Office Ltd believes the release of customer session numbers for all branches would cause commercial prejudice.
“An example of how Post Office Ltd’s interests would likely be prejudiced by the disclosure of this information is how competitors could react to the availability of the information. Competitors could build a profile, locally and nationally, which could be then used to target competitive activity, threatening the viability of branches.
“This would lead to a depressed market for Post Office businesses, would damage Post Office Ltd’s ability to properly resource the network and may lead to a series of forced closures.”
But Mr Johnson reassured us customer numbers had not changed — despite hundreds of residents complaining about the new branch and writing to the News and Mail to say they no longer use the store.
He said: “I would advise you that the level of customer sessions at Post Office Woking branch remain broadly in line with those experienced at the old crown site and customer service continues to improve and is comparable to the crown performance.”
The News and Mail is not satisfied with the response and plans to request an internal review where a panel will reconsider the decision.


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In decorum-obsessed Japan, the auto industry is cooperating to keep Nissan's recent factory inspection scandal from dimming the glitz at this month's Tokyo Motor Show.
Hiroto Saikawa, who happens to be chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association as well as Nissan's CEO, is temporarily handing off his JAMA duties during the expo.
Standing in as acting director of the industry group will be Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda.
JAMA announced the shuffle last week, in light of Nissan's "inappropriate handling" of final inspections of completed vehicles at some assembly plants in Japan.
Nissan fell afoul Japanese regulators this month when it emerged that a small number of uncertified workers had been signing off on finished vehicles. Nissan said it would recall more than 1.2 million vehicles in Japan — virtually every passenger car the company built for sale in the country over the last three years — to reinspect them and make sure they pass muster.
Echoing the public backlash, Japan's transport minister, Keiichi Ishii, told reporters that the lapse was "shaking the foundation" of the industry's certification system.
Japan's No. 2 carmaker is keeping a low profile in an all-important sign of contrition. It even delayed the announcement of its new midterm business plan as it deals with the matter.


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Children’s faces beamed with joy as they walked past containers of newly wrapped toys.
As promised, the nonprofit organization offered a toy for every child in the hospital. Each toy is donated and brand new, wrapped in cellophane to keep the toys clean for children with weakened immune systems.
“Something as simple as a new toy will make the ordeal these brave children face every day just a little easier and can give them the will and strength to fight back,” said Mickey Guisewite, founder and executive director of The Bottomless Toy Chest.
Addison Post, a 9-year-old being treated for oculoectodermal syndrome, picked out a ‘Fijit Friend’ toy.
“I’m so glad I found this,” said Addison as she hugged the box tightly. “I just love it so much!”
Children also had the opportunity to get their nails painted, make crafts, color or play bingo.
Mykena Nykamp, 8, decided to get her nails painted hot pink.
“I’m just so excited,” Mykena said, as a big smile spread across her face.


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EASY SOFTWARE AG celebrates its 25th birthday this year. And EASY isn’t the only one “born” a quarter-century ago: the webpage was too! On November 13th, 1990, the first webpage from Switzerland went online. British physicist Tim Berners-Lee launched the first webpage under “info.cern.ch” at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Genf.
Today, it’s almost impossible for most companies to establish themselves on the market without their own websites. According to Bitkom, around 86 percent of companies with more than ten employees have their own web presence. In comparison: only one seventh of companies this size doesn’t have a webpage. For companies, a public launch on the world wide web offers many different opportunities. After all, as Bitkom continued, over three billion people worldwide use the internet. In the era of “digital natives,” many companies are trying to set themselves apart from the masses with an unmistakable look. The most important distinguishing feature of this digital presence is the address.
EASY is also commemorating its 25th birthday by launching a new, unmistakable look on easy.de. Our new market launch, online since EASY WORLD 2015, matches EASY’s twenty-something age – purposefully fresh, bold, and daring. With its new concept, EASY is differentiating itself in a clever visual way from its competition, purposefully drawing attention to its message and style. See for yourself and take a look – at easy.de.


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This is according to a Samsung blog written by its chief medical officer Dr Hon Pak.
“As a new addition to our wearables portfolio, Galaxy Ring will offer users an all-new way to simplify everyday wellness, empowering them with greater insights and more ways to understand themselves day and night,” Dr Pak wrote.
The Samsung Galaxy Ring, unsurprisingly, looks quite similar to the best-known smart ring from Oura. It’s a sleek and simple band of silver, inside which sits a ring of plastic that holds the wearable’s sensors. It will also be available in gold and black.
However, unlike a standard Samsung product reveal, there’s still a certain sense of mystery around the Galaxy Ring as we don’t yet know all the tech inside.
This is not too alarming because, as Dr Pak explained, the Galaxy Ring won’t be available until “later this year”.
It’s expected to have heart rate, motion and temperature sensors. These will track sleep and exercise, stress and monitor a person’s menstrual cycle.
You’ll also get a My Vitality score to indicate how run down you might be and how ready for exercise you are.
What we’ve heard so far can be achieved by the Oura Ring’s hardware, the first iteration of which was released in 2015. As Oura’s website explains, the Oura Ring uses three main sensors. These are an optical heart rate reader, temperature sensor, and “3D” motion sensor.
There are not that many additional sensors Samsung could apply to the Galaxy Ring, either. GPS is too power-consuming, for example, and a GPS chip with antenna is likely too large to fit in such a svelte ring design.
Dr Pak’s blog appears to suggest Samsung will rely on the power of its existing fitness platform, Samsung Health, and the company’s favourite current subject, AI, to get an edge.
“With the intelligence of AI, the most transformative technology of the century, users will receive more personalised insights and tailored health experiences through Samsung Health’s extensive global dataset from 64M monthly active users,” Dr Pak said.
This will come in the form of Booster Cards, which will pop up in the companion app on your phone. These will offer advice and insights on your health, and hopefully go beyond simply suggesting you get more sleep.
Samsung said the cards “will be made available on Samsung Health within 2024”.
There’s no word on how much a Galaxy Ring will cost, but an Oura Ring offers a reasonable guide. Its rings start at $299 (£236). While UK buyers have to order from the US presently, such a cost would typically equate to UK pricing between £279 and £329.
Oura also charges $5.99 (£4.73) a month for access, without which a ring owner only gets to see the most basic of stats.
We’ll no doubt hear more about the Galaxy Watch’s full details later this year before its release.


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Eastman said its carbon renewal technology breaks down waste plastics into molecular building blocks like carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
"Carbon renewal technology is a game-changer for recycling because it provides an end-of-life solution for many plastics from a variety of sources, such as single-use plastics, textiles, and carpet, that traditional mechanical recycling methods cannot process. As a result, many of these plastics are landfilled or incinerated," the company said in a release.
Eastman expects to use up to 50 million pounds of waste plastic in carbon renewal technology operations in 2020, and projects are currently underway to expand that amount significantly.
“Eastman is a company of problem solvers, and our people have the capabilities to tackle the world’s biggest problems,” said Mark Costa, Eastman board chair and CEO. “Closing the loop of waste plastics is a complex problem that has to be solved with innovative solutions. With the right people, world-class technologies and our unique vertical integration, Eastman is uniquely positioned to scale up this solution quickly. With carbon renewal technology, we will revolutionize recycling at the molecular level.”
Carbon renewal technology is operated in Kingsport, home to the company’s largest manufacturing site and world headquarters for the global specialty materials company. Eastman modified the front end of its acetyls and cellulosics production processes to accept waste plastic, reducing the amount of fossil feedstocks required. Carbon renewal technology has a significantly improved carbon footprint compared to the use of fossil feedstocks, according to preliminary lifecycle analysis studies by Eastman scientists.
In the carbon renewal technology process, waste plastic feedstocks are broken down to the molecular level and then used as building blocks, which are indistinguishable from virgin, to produce products used in Eastman markets, including textiles, cosmetics and personal care, and ophthalmics markets. With carbon renewal technology, waste plastics can be recycled an infinite number of times without degradation of quality. This means recycled materials will have more possible end uses.
Eastman’s recycled materials will be certified by International Sustainability & Carbon Certification, an independent agency for tracking sustainable content in a variety of industries.
Costa said Eastman will work across the value chain — with Eastman customers, potential feedstock suppliers, product manufacturers, brands, and non-governmental organizations such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and others — to implement this large-scale circular solution for recycling waste plastics. Eastman became a member of the foundation's Circular Economy 100 Network earlier this year.
“The problem of waste plastics is not one that can be solved by a single company, but Eastman is taking definitive action to do our part,” Costa said. “Beginning commercial production of carbon renewal technology is a proof point of our determination to act quickly and decisively to accelerate the circular economy. Bringing this project to fruition so quickly — just eight months after we announced our intention to be a leader in chemical recycling — required innovation by some of the world’s brightest minds and effort by thousands of members of the Eastman team.”
A magazine-style TV series that airs on Fox Business will broadcast a segment on Eastman’s leadership in the circular economy on Sunday, Oct. 27, at 5 p.m.
To learn more about Eastman’s leadership in the circular economy, read the latest edition of Enhance Magazine: A Chronicle of Eastman Innovation.


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Montefibre Carbon is investing €16.2 million in its plant in Miranda de Ebro, Spain, €11.5 million of which will come from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, to produce polyacrylonitrile(PAN) precursor for conversion to carbon fiber with semi-aerospace quality and to build a flexible carbonization line.
The new PAN precursor fiber will have a tensile strength of 700 ksi and will be marketed as M700. The new carbonization line will be one of the most advanced lines in the industry to serve as a development and demonstration of Montefibre’s carbon fiber, and will be able to work with fiber from 80K to 480K, up to a capacity of 100 tons per year.
The carbonization line will be operational by the end of 2021 and will serve as a key hub prior to commercial production scale and will generate market-development volumes of carbon fiber, as part of a project to transform part of Miranda facilities into a collaborative research center.
Montefibre’s carbonization line will be the first owned by a Spanish company and the second to be installed in Spain (the first being the line built by Hexel in Illescas in 2008). Furthermore, Montefibre will become, even at a demonstration level, the third leading European producer of carbon fiber (after SGL from Germany and Solvay from Belgium).
Alfonso Cirera Santasusana, CEO and President of Montefibre Carbon expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Industry of the Spanish Government, the Regional Government, and the City Council: "The support of the Spanish Public Administration is essential to achieve the success of a project of the magnitude of Montefibre Carbon, which will be key to the industrial competitiveness of Spain, Castilla y León and Miranda de Ebro".
Montefibre Carbon is currently adapting 4 of its 7 spinning lines to bring to market some 17,000 metric tons per year of its large-tow polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor for conversion to carbon fiber. The first precursor to reach the market is an innovative 80K tow in two industrial qualities, M500 (with a tensile strength of 500 ksi) and M600 (with a tensile strength of 600 ksi), which will be available this year. The M700 aerospace-grade 80K precursor thereafter.
The experience of more than 40 years as world-leader in the development of textile acrylic fiber and specialty acrylic fiber has allowed Montefibre Carbon to develop a proprietary technology for the production of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) carbon fiber precursors.
Montefibre also has the support of the Spanish technology centre Leitat, and has cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States. Additionally, the company is a member of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI-The Composites Institute), a U.S. based national advanced composites consortium with over 150 members.
The Miranda de Ebro plant employs currently 112 people who, over the last 12 months, have been producing samples and industrial tests of precursor fibers that have been tested in carbon fiber development centers around the world, which have validated the M500 and M600 qualities. The development and testing of the M700 quality carbon fiber will be carried out at the Montefibre plant.
A weekly report covering market and price information on the entire chain of polyester along with online access to daily polyester chain prices.
One-time reports that are issued annually cover the demand and supply trends in individual products including polyester, nylon, acrylic, viscose, and cotton.
One-time reports that are issued annually cover the demand and supply trends in the individual country's natural and manmade fiber/filament industries.
Countries Served Worldwide


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The combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technology (AIoT) may be the biggest disruption to the industrial refrigeration industry since the invention of the first commercial ice-making machine two centuries ago.
In this second year of a modern pandemic, startup Youtiligent has developed an AIoT-based technology to help companies keep vaccines cold across complex distribution supply chains. Moving far beyond sensor-based temperature monitoring, Youtiligent’s promise is to securely capture real-time electric power anomalies in onsite commercial refrigerators, allowing distributors to take action before vaccine spoilage.
“Sensors that capture when a product’s temperature has decreased below the acceptable degree range are not effective when it comes to distributing something like the coronavirus vaccine,” said Avichai Belitsky, co-founder of Youtiligent. “We combined AI with IoT technology to deliver real-time alerts for cost-effective predictive and preventive maintenance. Organizations can act faster in making data-driven business decisions based on what’s happening in real time, such as sending in a repair technician before it’s too late.”
EKG for cooling appliances
Based in Israel, Youtiligent is piloting its offering with healthcare organizations in that country. Belitsky also expected high interest from refrigeration manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, as well as medical and other institutions with clinics, pharmacies, and research labs, such as hospitals and universities. The startup continues to serve customers in its original target markets that include the food and beverage and retail industries.
“This is what we call the ‘EKG for appliances,’ tracking electric current across compressors, engines, and pumps that power any cooling machine, whether it’s making ice cream to be sold the next week or cooling expensive chemicals that researchers can safely store and use over many years,” said Belitsky. “Every machine action has a unique fingerprint, and being able to track each one with algorithms yields valuable, actionable insights.”
Real-time data prevents problems, opens opportunities
When the customer connects a machine’s power cord into the Youtiligent “smart” plug at the wall socket, the solution’s AI and IoT technology translates the electric consumption signals, by machine part, into usage data that’s saved in the cloud. As the technology detects potential problems, it sends real-time alerts to designated contacts on any device. People can also view detailed historical activity dashboards for recordkeeping and proof of cold-chain compliance.
“Our plug-and-play solution delivers significant ROI with low total cost of ownership,” said Belitsky. “Manufacturers in some industries also like this solution because they can offer products-as-a-service, whether they embed Youtiligent into new refrigerators or as an aftermarket add-on to customers with existing machines.”


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Food Logistics magazine recently published their annual list of the top 100 software and technology providers that help food and beverage manufacturers, food service distributors, and grocery retailers achieve their business goals. These goals include end-to-end visibility and collaboration, traceability, regulatory compliance, risk management, sustainability and cost containment. Food Logistics magazine is a publication focused solely on the food and beverage supply chain, and 2012 marks the 9th edition of the annual FL100 list.
This year we are proud to note that Blue Link's Accounting and Inventory Software is included on the list. Blue Link software provides a variety of functionality geared towards small and medium-sized wholesalers and distributors across a wide range of industries and Blue Link’s lot tracking module, used most often in the food industry, is one of our key differentiators.
One of the most important aspects of a software system for food wholesalers and distributors is lot traceability. The food distribution industry is closely monitored by a variety of regulatory groups, like the FDA and CFIA, in order to mitigate the risks associated with food manufacturing and distribution. Regulatory bodies are becoming increasingly involved in the supply chain, putting pressure on businesses to take a proactive approach to product recalls by implementing proper traceability software. With recent recalls such as the Alberta XL Foods beef recall and Cantaloupe recall, distributors have seen clear examples of how much damage a product recall can do to a business, and to the community at large. By having software in place to deal with a recall, you will not only save money when dealing with a recall, but will also be able to regain consumer confidence by showing them that you are properly prepared to deal with a worst case scenario. In order to get the best value from a traceability software system, you should ensure that it includes the following components: internal and external lot number tracking, pre-assignment of lots to facilitate FIFO methodology, and the ability to manage best before and expiry dates. This functionality helps a business reduce the costs associated with a product recall, allowing them to recall only those products affected in a cost efficient and timely manner.
The FL100 list brings much-needed recognition to software and technology companies that provide positive benefits to food and beverage manufacturers, food service distributors, and grocery retailers. It stimulates awareness of the importance of traceability, regulatory compliance, and risk management, while helping companies achieve their business goals. Blue Link is honoured to be included on the list, and we'd like to congratulate all the other businesses that made the list as well.


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Hitman Absolution has been given a new trailer by Square Enix.
Titled 'A Personal Contract', the latest cinematic trailer made its debut at the 2011 Spike TV Video Game Awards.
Despite containing no gameplay footage, the trailer hints at the plot and Agent 47's motivations for hunting down his targets.
Hitman: Absolution will include new gameplay features, improved enemy intelligence and a new 'Instinct' mode that will help players blend into certain roles.
IO Interactive told Digital Spy that Hitman: Absolution will be a "more personal story" than previous games.
Hitman: Absolution will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC next year.
More announcements from the Spike TV VGAs:
> Skyrim wins top prize at Spike TV video game awards
> The Last of Us unveiled by Naughty Dog
> Batman: Arkham World teased by Joker actor Mark Hamill
> Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD announced for 2012 release
> Command & Conquer: Generals 2 announced by BioWare
> Metal Gear Solid Rising trailer released - watch
> Diablo III opening cinematic debuts - watch
> The Amazing Spider-Man video game gets debut trailer
> Alan Wake's American Nightmare unveiled by Remedy
> Fortnite revealed by Epic Games


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New Zealand's economy boomed in the first quarter, thanks to increases in food manufacturing and milk production, Reuters said.
New Zealand's gross domestic product was up 1.1 percent to nearly $35 billion during the quarter. That's the highest it's been in five years and twice as high as economists had been expecting.
"Good growing conditions have been a major factor in the growth this quarter, and are reflected in both the milk production in agriculture and in meat and dairy manufacturing," Sky News Australia quoted New Zealand accounts manager Rachael Milicich as saying.
The strong report sent the Kiwi dollar toward a seven-week high and cut the chances of a central bank interest rate cut, Brisbane TImes said. The paper warned that New Zealand's good times may be short lived should commodity prices continue sliding and the European debt crisis continue unabated.
New Zealand's key interest rate already is at a record-low 2.5 percent.
New Zealand also is apparently the world's largest dairy exporter, according to AFP.
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All these awesome packing tips, including STM Goods and Vivobarefoot, make us want to head out on an adventure.
Posts Tagged ‘Vivobarefoot’
Footwear News, July 13, “This Barefoot Shoe Company’s Partnering With Fabric Mill on Sleek New Collab”
Check out the latest collab from VIVOBAREFOOT, and their newest partner, London Cloth.
See why Askmen called the VIVOBAREFOOT Ultra III shoes “as sustainable as shoes can ever be!”
Sustainably is in style! See why Vivobarefoot’s Ultras are leaders in eco-friendly fashion.
See why Popsugar called VIVOBAREFOOT’s new Ultra III the next big thing in eco-friendly footwear!


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Rivian’s electric delivery vans numbers are slowly but surely growing in Amazon’s huge delivery vehicle fleet. The 1,000 EDVs that Amazon owns have already made over 5 million deliveries in the U.S., according to The Verge.
The plan is for Rivian to sell 100,000 vans to Amazon, but for now the EDVs serve a very small portion of the company’s delivery fleet. It reportedly has 30,000 branded delivery vehicles and 20,000 branded trailers. So, 1,000 EDVs is a small number in comparison.
According to the Verge, those EDVs are spread out over a handful of markets. They started in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and Seattle. However, they are now also in Austin, Boston, Indianapolis, New York (a number of Jalops have even spotted them in the wild), and several others. So, Rivian and Amazon are hitting pretty much all the major markets.
When Amazon founder and then-CEO Jeff Bezos first announced the deal with Rivian in 2019 to buy 100,000 vans, he said they would all be on the road by 2024. However, given the whole state of the entire world over the past couple of years, The Verges says that date has been pushed back to 2030.
During the third quarter of 2022 (a three-month period that ended on September 30), Rivian reportedly built 7,363 EVDs, R1Ts and R1Ss. During the same timeframe, 6,584 of those vehicles were delivered to customers. It’s a slow ramp up for the Irvine, California-based EV startup, and only time will tell if it can hit the revised 100,000 Amazon EDV delivery target of 2030.
In the meantime, we can gawk at the fact that the EDV and the Honda E have the exact same face.


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Now, developer and publisher Ubisoft have officially announced that a Splinter Cell-themed mission will be making its way to the popular shooter, which will kick off the game's second year of content. We're a little bit disappointed that Sam Fisher hasn't returned in a fully-fledged Splinter Cell . On the PvP side of things, Ghost War will see the Echelon Assault Class added to the game.
Still, some users are complaining about Port-a-Fort, worrying that it is a gimmick created to support weak players. It looks like the Port-a-Fort is just for you. Ever adding new items and weapons into their popular batle royale title, Epic Games consistenly provides players with new content for them to enjoy.
Google Home and Google Home Mini are already available in India for the price of 9,999 INR and 4,499 INR, respectively. Reliance Digital, Croma, Bajaj Electronics, Vijay Sales, Sangeetha, and Poorvika are among the major offline retail chains that will carry the device across the country .
Stearns Financial Services Group who had been investing in Microsoft Corp for a number of months, seems to be less bullish one the $707.65B market cap company. The stock's price to sales ratio for trailing twelve months is 7.20 and price to book ratio for the most recent quarter is 9.09, whereas price to cash per share for the most recent quarter are 4.99.
Yeah, me neither, that never happened to me, ever. A Facebook spokesperson has issued a statement to TechCrunch , apologizing for not publicly disclosing the unsend feature sooner. Facebook explains that it already offers a timer function that users can use to set messages to delete themselves after a specified amount of time.
Beginning tomorrow, Apple fans will be able to separate themselves from the crowd a bit thanks to the new (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition version of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus . The company announced Monday it will offer a red iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus . With this deal, customers who buy iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus (or iPhone X) can get a $700 rebate when they buy a second iPhone and port in a new line of service.
Wozniak pointed out that users provide all the intimate details of their life to Facebook , and the social network yields a lot of advertising revenue off this information. As of Monday morning, Wozniak's verified Facebook page was still active. Cook has pointed out the distinction between Apple's business model of selling products to customers for a profit, and that of internet platforms that are " gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it ".
According to The Indian Express , the leaked image shows a DxOMark logo, which is known for testing smartphone cameras and ranking them, at the top indicating that the phone's camera is probably already under review by the site. However it looks like the upcoming OnePlus 6 could be more expensive thanks to leaked information that has revealed possible pricing of the upcoming handset.
The Aurora Black will be the default color choice, which means it will be available as a standard irrespective of the region it is sold in. The company has also confirmed that the smartphone will come with AI capabilities. The rear of the phone will see a vertical dual rear camera setup with a fingerprint sensor just below. Its focus, instead, is to integrate AI into different features, like the usual photography intelligence, smartphone and smart home controls, and more.
Samsung has announced its Q1 2018 earnings guidance and its profit is set to be significantly higher than analysts were expecting. The record earnings have not been driven by smartphone sales as one would ordinarily assume but were mostly due to a high demand for memory chips.
At the time, Zuckerberg said that Facebook can detect when people attempt to send inappropriate messages through Messenger. Facebook Messenger is now among the most popular messaging platforms worldwide and users exchange billions of messages on a daily basis.
The mighty iPhone X , Apple's tenth anniversary iPhone , marked the first prominent re-design in iPhones since ever. Those familiar with Samsung's Galaxy line will likely remember that the South Korean manufacturer has played with simple hand gesture controls in the past, most notably with the Galaxy S4 and S6 .
In Spotify's recent SEC filing , the firm reveals around 2 million free-tier users bypassing ads. While not huge, that's still a pretty noticeable section of users, especially from the perspective of an investor. The company does, though, employ rather a generous definition of paid subscribers. That includes 71 million paying premium subscribers . Spotify is headed towards a pivotal moment with an initial public offering (IPO) looming next month.
Police have detained a man for questioning after two explosive devices were detonated inside a Sam's Club store in Southern California. The initial call came in shortly after 2 p.m. and Airport Dr. on Thursday, April 5, 2018. "Responded to a possible fire structure at [Sam's Club]", the Ontario Police Department tweeted . A second device was found inside the vehicle that had not exploded.
The court said Thursday that Puigdemont can't be extradited on the main charge Spain is leveling against him, that of rebellion, because the comparable German charge of treason specifies "violence". Former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont has written an open letter from a German prison, urging Catalonia's parliament to make another attempt to elect jailed separatist activist Jordi Sanchez as the region's president.
Since Apple's launch of iPhone X a year ago, we have seen many rumours as to what the next device from the Cupertino giant might look like. It's unclear if Apple sees any additional benefit in ergonomics by going a different direction with its curves, or this is simply a measure meant to preemptively stop people from saying it copied Samsung.
ICICI bank will offer a 5% cashback till May 31, 2018. The device will be available from April 30. Latest Update: Expanding portfolio, driving innovation and deepening the channel presence will be the plan for 2018, says India VP Ajey Mehta.
The story in the Retribution Event will be focused on Blackwatch , where a four-player team will take on Talon . Blackwatch is supposed to be the secret covert ops division of Overwatch , but the trailer suggests that the mission ended in disaster and spelled the beginning of the end for Overwatch itself.
In the latest incident, Maizuru Mayor Ryozo Tatami, 66, was giving a speech in the ring when he collapsed due to subarachnoid haemorrhage - or bleeding in the area between the brain and the tissues that cover it. Eventually male firefighters arrived with a defibrillator and entered the ring. "The referee was upset and made the announcement, but it was an inappropriate response because the situation could have been life-threatening", Hakkaku said in the statement.
The title, bundling Spryo the Dragon, Spryo 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon will head to both PS4 and Xbox One on 21 September, as yesterday's leaked Amazon Mexico listing alluded to. As expected, the trilogy will spruce up the first three instalments in the much-loved platforming franchise, namely 1998's Spyro the Dragon , 1999's Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage , and 2000's Spyro: Year of the Dragon .
The stock increased 0.17% or $0.09 during the last trading session, reaching $52.81. The company exchanged hands with 48401367 shares contrast to its average daily volume of 33.62M shares while its relative volume stands at 1.44. Hall Laurie J Trustee invested in 3,560 shares or 0.11% of the stock. Point72 Asia (Hong Kong) holds 482 shares. Japan-based Mu Invests Ltd has invested 0.11% in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ).
In addition, the e-commerce listing also revealed the complete specs details of both the Moto G6 series phones. Moving further under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 Octa-Core CPU with 6 GB RAM. All the three devices will be running on the Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. The smartphone may likewise highlight a 4,000mAh battery and a 12-megapixel sensor at the back.
Rumors that Intel's first Coffee Lake Core i9 processor would be made for laptops have been around since November a year ago. According to the chipmaker, the processor is also 59% quicker at 4k video editing than the Core i7-7820HK chip as well .
Most of Fortnite's current celebratory dance moves are based on real-life moves that have either been seen in movies, television, or are trending in the culture. Battle Royale saw a sudden boom in popularity with PUBG entering early access in 2017 and then other games started to feature Battle Royale mode and Fortnite was one of them and now Fortnite Battle Royale has surpassed GTA V in terms of monthly active users.
Defeat for the hosts all but ends Chelsea's hopes of Champions League football next season as Spurs opened up an eight-point lead over their closest challengers for fourth place. "The goal at the end of the first half it wasn't good for us and our confidence". 'As a team, we're in a great position for Champions League football, and we've just got to continue that.
BESTAppleTV.com has also learned through reliable sources that the service will offer a free seven-day trial. It's the most robust offering we've seen in a sports streaming package, well, ever. However, it still doesn't get you ESPN , ESPN2, ESPNU, etc. The service is also promising more than 100 days of coverage from 31 PGA Tour events, hundreds of tennis matches from tournaments like Wimbledon and the U.S.
In the video, Smith attempts to make conversation with the robot, but Sophia can't seem to get past Smith's treatment of robots during in the film I, Robot . Despite getting the cold shoulder from the robot, Smith still went in for a kiss - and got totally denied. The video ends showing a disappointed Smith at being rejected by the femmebot but considering he's been married to Jada Pinkett Smith for going on 20 years, it's probably not such a bad thing.
Both developers and users have 12 months to use the service, but if you have yet to use the shortening extension before April 13, you can figure using it after that. Sadly, this service will go down in one year from now, but it will stop accepting new users on April 13, 2018. As upsetting as this closure could be, the fact that there are many URL shortener alternatives make this a minor deal for most.
The post office also reached a deal with Amazon in 2014 to deliver packages on Sundays. Have Amazon shipments financially hurt the U.S. Postal Service? In fact, package delivery is one of the few lines of business that's growing. Generally, no taxes are collected on those, an issue that might be straightened out in the Supreme Court this year. There has been talk in Washington of taxing online commerce more .
For the first week of April 2018, Google Maps is partnering with the childhood favorite for a fun mini-game, replicating illustrator Martin Handford's intricate, colorful drawings in real-life locations, including an Australian beach and a ski slope in Chile.
Don't call it the mobile-first index , but rather call it mobile-first indexing. Google isn't going to maintain separate search indexes for mobile and desktop. Google will be investing in their technology and the content and the API partners. So not all sites but only sites that are ready for switching over to the mobile-first indexing process.
A large number of users noted that the newly released version of the game system's firmware might be the source of the problem. There are devices from other manufacturers that seem to have better reviews, but the scores of faulty ones outnumber those.
Back in May 2016, Takam fought Joseph Parker in New Zealand and lost by unanimous decision. Two undefeated heavyweight stars meet at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, on Saturday night, when WBA and IBF champion Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KO) faces WBO champion Joseph Parker's (24-0, 18 KO).
The Moto G6 is expected to come in two variants with 3 GB RAM/ 32 GB storage and with 4 GB RAM/64 GB storage. The "immersive borderless" display is unlikely to use an iPhone X-inspired notch to minimize bezels, and previous rumors pegged the resolution at the Full HD+ mark, i.e.
The success of Hogg's campaign not only showed the reach of this new generation and its awesome management of social media, but it put Ingraham up against the ropes, so she resorted again to the social network to apologize to the student.
It is further speculated to pack a large 6.1-inch display . According to a listing on FCC, spotted by NashvilleChatterClass, the Moto Z3 Play (model number: XT-1929) will run Android Oreo out-of-the-box. The Moto Z3 Play case renders, on the other hand, show a circular dual-camera setup at the back, a connector for the Moto Mods, and cutouts for other buttons on the device.
The updated phone appears to me a move toward a more premium look and feel while still fitting into Motorola's budget-friendly niche for the G series of smartphones. We had expected the G6 to arrive at MWC 2018, but Moto pulled a no show. And, according to rumours, the Moto G6 series could be unveiled next month considering how online reports are now buzzing around the handsets.
Myerson took control of the Windows team in 2013, shortly before Steve Ballmer announced his retirement. Other parts of the team will be moved over to a Cloud and AI team, which will be led by current Azure chief Scott Guthrie. One team is focused on experiences and devices , and will seek to "instill a unifying product ethos" across the company's myriad software and hardware products, he said.
Also, Huawei P20 Pro is likely to be accompanied by the P20 in India. " Huawei is delivering meaningful camera features rather than the gimmicks that we have seen from some competitors", he said. The phone has a starting price of 1,695 euros ($2,089). Both Huawei handsets use artificial intelligence (AI) built in to the phone's Kirin 970 chipset that detects an array of scenes and new AI stabilisation technology.
Microsoft has updated its Code of Conduct across a variety of platforms and deemed the use of "offensive language" as grounds for suspensions and bans. This would certainly be an interesting possibility, but we do not know if Microsoft wants to offer various types of "mini-subscriptions" as an alternative to the quarterly, perhaps monthly or even daily or weekly, allowing you to pay small amounts to play with the full versions of the games.


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Embattled Next Digital, owner of Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, to sell Taiwan property to relieve financial burdens
- Next Digital has recorded a net loss for three consecutive years
- Fierce competition from online advertising blamed for poor performance
Hong Kong media giant Next Digital said it will reveal details of the sale of a property it owns in Taiwan after it suspended trading of its shares on Friday, in a probable sign of the financial distress faced by the struggling company.
Next Digital halted the trading of its shares at 3.27pm on Friday pending an announcement related to “a possible very substantial disposal of the company”, it said in a statement released by the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The company owns the Apple Daily, a newspaper published in Hong Kong and Taiwan known for its pro-democracy stance and lively reporting style. It also owns news and lifestyle magazine brands Next Megazine and Eat & Travel Weekly.
Chief executive Cheung Kim-hung told the Post the proceeds of the sale will be used as “general capital”, without providing further detail.
The sale may reflect the weight of the financial burdens on the loss-making company, as digital and social media continues to disrupt the traditional media industry in Asia.
“It’s very obvious that the property sale is driven by the company’s debt burdens,” said Kenny Tang Sing-hing, chief executive of China Hong Kong Capital Asset Management.
Attempts by Next Digital to expand its online platform have only added to its capital expenditure and generated little return, he added.
“It has not found a business model that can turn things around,” said Tang.
The company recorded a net loss in the 2017-2018 financial year of HK$476 million (US$61 million), a third consecutive annual loss and wider by 21 per cent than the HK$394 million dropped a year earlier.
This was a result of “poor market sentiment and cautious advertisement spending” as well as “keen global competition of online programmatic advertising”, the company said in an annual report released in June.
A shift in readers’ interests towards digital platforms “has caused significant downturn in the traditional print media industry” in Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years, the company said.
Total advertising expenditure in Taiwan declined 5 per cent for newspapers and 19 per cent for magazines during 2017, according to the report.
Next Digital’s gearing ratio, which measures how financially leveraged the company is, more than doubled to 18.7 per cent last year from 9.1 per cent two years ago.
It took out bank loans worth HK$485 million in 2018 that must be repaid over the next five years, up from the HK$461 million in 2017.
To cope with the mounting financial pressure, Next Digital has been mulling the idea of introducing a paywall and charging readers for its online content.
Shares of the company closed 0.9 per cent higher at HK$0.23 before the trading halt on Friday.
With additional reporting by Naomi Ng


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Did you miss out on the big Atari scavenger hunt dig at the Alamogordo, NM landfill, back in April of this year? We followed the expedition and, spoiler!, they did indeed find gaming treasure! Then, of course, the question arises, what to do with all that video have loot. After all, if you go to the trouble of digging something up out of a landfill, you can’t exactly just put it back because no one wants it. So the city of Alamogordo has decided they will sell some games, and donate many others to museums around the world that have expressed interest. The city owns the games now by way of what is surely some sort of Byzantine bylaw involving the fact that they were throw in the trash and buried in the city’s landfill since 1983.
According to Reuters:
Members of the Alamogordo City Council voted 7-0 late on Tuesday to offer some 800 of the Atari games found earlier this year for sale on eBay and the council’s own website.
The unearthed games are under the custodianship of the Tularosa Basin Historical Society and stored at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Albuquerque.
So far, there is nothing on the city of Alamogordo’s website about the sales, but we’ll try to keep an eye out for auction news! The film centering somewhat around the dig story, and certainly the impetus behind making it happen, is also due out soon. “The documentary will be released sometime this fall, and it will only be available on Xbox One and Xbox 360. It’s only the first in an original series called Signal to Noise, which will examine aspects of video game culture from new perspectives.” (arstechnica.) See the trailer after the jump!
Continue reading A Chance to Buy the E.T. Game!
Last week, you may recall, we mentioned there was a quest afoot this very weekend, and you might have found yourself wondering this morning just how that quest went yesterday. Well, color me pleasantly surprised, but turns out there may have been some truth to an urban legend for once!
Lo and behold, they hit paydirt. The findings started out very promising, with an old, dusty Atari 2600 joystick buried in the landfill. Then an “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” cartridge. A box. An instruction manual. And the confirmation of “a lot more down there.” How many more, we don’t know just yet — but at this point, we can safely report that those long-buried cartridges are actually, 100 percent there. Crazy, isn’t it!? And it sounds like some other games are down there, too: Centipede, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and possibly more. “Lots of boxes” is what we’re hearing. (XBox Wire.)
Continue reading Big Dig Update!
I have a bit of an odd interest in the E.T. Atari game, especially that whole urban legend thousands of cartridges buried in the desert thing. We have previously discussed it in a post of the 1981 Atari catalog, as well as when the Internet Archive came out with a vintage video game database. As it turns out, I am not the only one, and someone is doing something about it!
“Become a part of gamer history. Unearth the truth behind the ultimate urban legend. We’re excited to announce that the excavation of the long-rumored “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” video game burial site will occur on April 26, 2014 and will be open to the public. Spectators are invited to watch the team uncover the infamous Atari game cartridge grave.” (XboxWire.)
Fuel Entertainment and Xbox Entertainment Studios have managed to wrangle the rights to do a pseudo-archeological expedition and try to find the lost games, and it is happening next Saturday! And you can play a part! They are inviting any interested parties to come out and play, and who knows, yours could be the shovel that unearths the truth!
Continue reading Doing Anything Next Weekend?


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The only real solution, according to this naturopathic doctor, is a concerted effort of diet, lifestyle and proper dietary supplementation.
Many of today's natural and organic food brands likely have historical ties to the innovators who benefited from the early Farm Aid concerts.
While food startups make headlines, our democracy also needs significant venture capital funding.
With more misinformation about nutrition available now than ever, dietitians' job has gotten harder. Here, two RDNs explain why they gravitate toward positive messaging on foods and what their deal-breakers are for recommending products to patients.
Adaptogens' benefits related to stress have been well studied, but new research on weight loss may create new opportunities for ashwagandha.