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TikTok faced a huge blow to its ecommerce efforts last week as the company announced it would cease its online retail operations in Indonesia following the country’s ban on ecommerce transactions via social media.
Now neighboring country Malaysia is looking to follow suit by banning TikTok as it goes through TikTok’s policies to operate as a social commerce platform.
Why Is Malaysia Considering Banning TikTok?
After getting multiple complaints regarding the competition between online retail and brick and mortar stores, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil has requested the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to look into why TikTok Shop was banned in Indonesia. In a meeting with TikTok’s representatives on October 12, Fadzil claims TikTok has not done enough to comply with unspecified local laws.
He also stated that Malaysia will be cautious with their approach compared to its neighbors since many locals use TikTok to sell their products.
Why Did Indonesia Ban TikTok Shop?
In a statement from Indonesia’s Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan, the ban was aimed at preventing the domination of the algorithm from using personal data in business interests.
One report also cited predatory pricing as another reason. By pricing goods at a very low price, local entrepreneurs in Jakarta reportedly experienced a 50% drop in profits since sellers at the market capital in Jakarta could no longer compete with inexpensive products sold online.
This marks the second time TikTok has stopped operations in Indonesia. Back in 2018, the platform was also banned for allegedly showing inappropriate content which was rectified by TikTok eight days later by sending moderators to the country.
What Other Countries Have Banned TikTok?
The following countries have banned the app from all government-issued devices to ensure government and sensitive information won’t be leaked:
- United Kingdom
- United States
- New Zealand
- EU institutions
Will We See More Countries Ban TikTok?
TikTok has a growing reputation for its security concerns and ties to China. The US has threatened to ban the app on several occasions, but it never materialized.
The main reason for the threat was to have the Chinese owners of TikTok sell their stake in the business since there are laws in China that the government can secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering operations.
This led India to also ban TikTok and all other Chinese-owned apps over the belief that China was secretly transmitting users data to servers outside the country.
To this day, only Montana has completely banned the use of the app. Experts claim it will be difficult to permanently ban the app, especially if a fine is the only punishment.
For now, TikTok’s options are limited. For the app to continue to expand its operations globally, it must either create a separate ecommerce platform or sell the business to investors outside China. Two options that the company will be hesitant to do.
How Will the Ban Affect Tiktok’s Ecommerce Plans?
As per Bloomberg, Indonesia was the biggest market for TikTok Shop, leading the platform to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia in the next few years to drive growth in one of its biggest markets.
Statista reported that in 2022, 54% of consumers in Indonesia intend to use TikTok Shop over other social media apps to make future purchases. The ban not only hurts TikTok’s plans but also local sellers in the country.
In Indonesia, over 125 million users, including 2 million small businesses and 7 million affiliate creators use TikTok to make money. In a report from The Straits Times, one clothing store reportedly saw a 30% to 40% turnaround in profits through its TikTok Shop.
TikTok does have the option to create a separate ecommerce app. However, they’ve been hesitant to do so since most of the purchases made were impulse buys.
The Future of Social Commerce in Other Social Media Apps
One of the biggest concerns of using social media to shop over ecommerce platforms is how they protect buyers and sellers from potential scams.
However, it hasn’t limited users from buying and selling on different platforms. In fact, the main purpose of 28% of users is to use social media to find a product to purchase. Social commerce in the US alone was responsible for nearly 6% of all online sales.
Facebook and Instagram have implemented purchase protection in several countries that give customers and sellers a chance to get their product or money back if they fall into a scam. It will have to meet the following criteria:
- The listing came with a shield icon
- Customer uses Facebook Checkout
- Shipping fee was included in the purchase of the item.
Customers can seek a refund when they receive a damaged item, the item was never shipped, and if the seller fails to adhere to his return policy.
Pinterest has provided zero consumer protection as they will not be held liable for any disputes or issues with retailers.


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- Improving technology and customer willingness to pay premium for quality products will help in augmenting market revenue of electronic security devices.
- Government keen interest to secure its citizens and ensure security of its tourism industry will lead to investment in electronic security market. This will create growth opportunities for all type of electronic devices in Turkey.
- Refugee maintenance and to curb the growing threat from extremist to further boost the market for electronic security in Turkey.
Market for electronic security devices in Turkey is expected to register positive growth. It will be mainly driven by demand for new and modern electronic security devices for replacement. Improved technologies such as 4K technology bring industry leading clarity and sensitivity to critical video monitoring and surveillance systems. Explosion-proof cameras are an important solution in areas which are on high risk. Turkey is expected to implement (electronic traffic inspection system) TEDES in many of its cities. This will lead to additional demand for electronic security devices as well as R&D in the sector. It is expected that CCTV will continue its dominance in the electronic security market in Turkey.
Based on analyst recommendation easing restrictions on foreign lenders, private sector involvement in the financing and construction of education infrastructure, security for small and medium businesses are some other key factors that will have positive impact on the market creating additional and replacement demand in the future as per the analyst, Ken Research.
Ken Research in its report, “Turkey Electronic Security Market Outlook to 2021 – Rising Tourist Safety Concern from Looming Threat of Neighboring Countries Will Drive Market Growth” suggested that Turkey is expected to implement (electronic traffic inspection system) TEDES in many of its cities. This will lead to additional demand for electronic security devices as well as R&D in the sector in 2019-2021. Key business opportunity exists for upgradation of existing electronic security system to reduce the cost implication for consumers.
The report provided information on CCTV (Analog, Digital), Fire Alarm, Access Control Devices (Biometric Based, Card Based, Pin Based), Intrusion Alarms (Motion Alarms, Seismic Alarms, Infrared Beam Alarms) segments.
Ankur Gupta, Head Marketing & Communications

domain: news


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RapidMiner eyes West Coast expansion following surge in demand for predictive analytics
(Page 2 of 2)
"The growth rate here is so much faster, and the market here is a little more open to predictive analytics than in Europe," Mierswa said.
Though Mierswa declined to disclose revenue specifics, he said the company is profitable and it saw a significant product sales increase in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2013.
RapidMiner plans to grow its employee headcount to 100 by the end of the year.
Last November, the company had raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Open Ocean Capital. Mierswa said investors have shown increased interest in the company but so far, the company has been choosy about which investors to partner with.
Around the same time the company announced its Series A funding, it announced it had moved its headquarters from Germany to Cambridge.
The Boston area was "the perfect fit" because of the access to high-quality talent and to customers, Mierswa said.
"It was a brilliant decision," he said.
About a dozen employees are currently working out of the company's 5,000-square-foot headquarters in Cambridge.
RapidMiner announced Tuesday its new product, RapidMiner Cloud, which aims to make analytics more convenient and less complex with more compute power and data sources. The product, in beta mode until the official public release in October, allows users to store, manage and deploy analytics in the cloud and is being used by about 50 developer and business customers currently, with many of the users being consultants.
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CCI Canada announced it is cancelling the 2024 edition of Salon Industriel du Bois Ouvré (SIBO). The Quebec woodworking tradeshow was scheduled to take place Oct. 24-26 at the Centrexpo Cogeco in Drummondville.
“Despite our best efforts to organize a comprehensive and engaging event, it has become evident that the current circumstances surrounding exhibitor participation do not meet the standards expected for SIBO,” said Tim Fixmer, CEO of CCI Canada. “We understand the importance of delivering a high-quality experience for both exhibitors and attendees, and regrettably, we cannot achieve this without greater exhibitor commitment. Too many past and prospective exhibitors are taking a wait-and-see approach making it impossible to adequately market the show to ensure its success.”
CCI Media was encouraged by the level and enthusiasm of industry participation in the relaunch of SIBO in 2022, especially considering that the historically important show for the Quebec woodworking market had not been held since 2008. Immediate feedback from SIBO 2022 exhibitors and attendees alike was overwhelmingly positive leading CCI Canada to initiate plans for SIBO 2024.
“We extend our sincere apologies to all exhibitors, sponsors, partners, and attendees who were eagerly anticipating SIBO 2024,” Fixmer said. “We understand the disappointment and inconvenience this cancellation may cause, and we assure you that this decision was made after careful consideration of all available options.
“Serving the Quebec wood products market with timely industry news and trend updates remains of utmost importance to CCI Canada and our flagship media brands Woodworking Network and FDMC magazine,” Fixmer added. “We will continue to assess opportunities to provide valuable education and networking opportunities among Quebec woodworking companies and industry suppliers.”
The cancellation of SIBO does not impact CCI Canada’s plans for the 2025 edition of the Woodworking Machinery & Supply Conference & Expo. Canada’s national woodworking event is scheduled to take place Nov. 12-14, at the Toronto Congress Centre, near Pearson International Airport.
“We’re excited to be moving to the Toronto Congress Centre and to offer more floor space for exhibitor booths and educational events,” Fixmer said. “While we’re still nearly two years away, WMS 2025 is already shaping up to be a great event. More than half of WMS 2023 exhibitors have reserved space for WMS 2025.”


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Prices will be slashed on 1000 brands of 60 popular prescription medicines by up to $14 a script.
Thousands of families will pay less for prescription drugs but taxpayers who subsidise the cost of the life-saving medicines through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme will also save $1.9 billion over five years.
Drug companies hope those savings will also help the Government list new drugs on the taxpayer-funded PBS, with a swag of new treatments for cancer, arthritis and kidney failure set to join the taxpayer-subsidised medicines scheme.
A comprehensive analysis of the savings for families prepared by the Health Department for The Sunday Mail readers reveals drugs to lower cholesterol, treat high blood pressure, osteoporosis, depression, heart failure and reflux will be reduced in price from today.
To read the full article, click here.


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THE biggest electricity supplier in Northern Ireland is to increase its prices by 6.1 per cent. Power NI, which supplies electricity to more than half of the north’s homes, plans to introduce t[…] You have reached your limit of free articles Registered users get 5 regular articles and 1 free Premium article per week.
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Thieves smashed through a wall to break into Sainsbury’s store on Boxing Day and steal thousands of pounds.
The intruders forced their way into an office at the store between 5.45pm and 9.25pm by making a hole through the outer and inner wall at the side of the store and escaped with £2,500 of till float money.
Police are examining CCTV footage and forensic evidence after discovering discarded money bags in an office at the store, which is located on the outskirts of Garstang on Park Hill Road.
Sgt Danielle Freaney said: “It’s fortunate that they didn’t get away with the Christmas takings. Enquiries are continuing and if anyone saw anything suspicious or has any information they should call us on 101 and quote log number 1240/December 26.”
It’s thought the thieves cut a hole in fencing surrounding St Thomas’s churchyard to gain access to the supermarket site.
The store’s alarm system was disabled and a three foot hole was made by removing bricks from the inner and outer walls of the store to gain entry into an office,
A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: “We can confirm there was an incident at our Garstang store on Boxing Day.
“No colleagues or customers were harmed and we are helping the police with their enquiries.” The store had been closed for its Christmas break and re-opened on Thursday when the manager declined to comment.
In a posting on the Garstang and Over Wyre neighbourhood policing team page on social networking website, Facebook, PCSO Dave Edwards confirmed a hole had been made in the “outer and inner wall” to get into the store.
He said officers are seeking people seen “acting suspiciously” around the store or nearby St Thomas Church between 8pm and 9pm.
In a subsequent posting, he added: “It has been ascertained that the offenders stole £2,500 in cash and CCTV enquiries are ongoing in an effort to trace the offender or offenders.”


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Time to ban drug advertising on TV in America?
Direct-To-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs is back in the headlines after Robert F. Kennedy Jr made an election promise to ban it.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr recently said that if he becomes president, he will ban pharmaceutical advertising on US television.
“It’s not good to have pharmaceutical advertising on TV,” said Kennedy. “It’s good for the television stations, it’s good for the pharmaceutical companies, but it’s not good for public health.”
The US and New Zealand are the only two nations globally that allow drug companies to promote their products directly to the consumer – known as direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA).
Kennedy said that because of pharmaceutical advertising in the US, Americans use more prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world, and yet, they have the worst outcomes.
Americans have the lowest life expectancy compared to other wealthy nations and the highest rate of avoidable deaths, despite spending nearly 18% of GDP on healthcare in 2021.
Kennedy told me he blames “the influence of the pharmaceutical lobby in Washington, and indirectly, the influence of media companies that earn some $18 billion in revenue annually from direct-to-consumer drug advertising.”
Drug advertising in the US
In the 80s, there were few prescription drug ads broadcast on US TV because the regulatory standard made it difficult to provide adequate information about drug labelling to consumers. David Kessler, FDA Commissioner between 1990 and 1997, also vigorously opposed DTCA.
But when Kessler left the agency, the new administration eased regulatory restrictions and the floodgates opened. Within a decade, DTCA went from US$2.1 billion in 1997 to US$9.6 billion in 2016.
“They do it because it works,” said Barbara Mintzes, professor of evidence-based pharmaceutical policy at the University of Sydney. “Drug companies would not be spending the money if it did not lead to expanded sales.”
Proponents argue that DTCA empowers the consumer with information about diseases and drug treatments by encouraging informed discussions between patients and their medical providers. But Mintzes is not convinced.
“I totally agree that people need information on medicines but getting that information from advertising is not the same as getting it from an unbiased source,” said Mintzes.
Mintzes has long argued against DTCA saying, “There is no public health rationale and no reliable evidence that it leads to better care, public or patient empowerment, or to the type of information needed for shared informed treatment choices.”
Many Americans are unaware of the persuasiveness of DTCA. A national FDA survey found that 29% of consumers believed that only completely safe medicines could be advertised on TV. In California, it was 42% of consumers.
Advertised drugs offer little benefit
The decision about which drugs are advertised is not made on public health grounds, but on what will maximise profits.
“It's a marketing decision,” says Mintzes. “Often, it’s a small, select group of drugs that are very expensive, on patent, and are not necessarily the best available treatments in terms of effectiveness or safety.”
According to a recent study published in JAMA, most of Big Pharma’s spending (68%) on the top-selling prescription drugs in 2020, were of ‘low added benefit’ for patients.
The study’s lead author Michael DiStefano, a researcher at Johns Hopkins said it’s probably a strategy of the pharmaceutical industry to “drive patient demand for drugs that clinicians would be less likely to prescribe.”
“When a consumer sees these advertisements on TV or social media, they should really question if it’s the best drug for them and have a conversation with their provider,” said DiStefano.
Poor FDA oversight of DCTA
The FDA regulates the promotion of medicines and the content of DTCA, under the authority of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). It requires that advertising is accurate, and only promotes the drug for approved conditions, clearly stating harms and ways to get more information.
However, the agency lacks the resources to police it properly.
A 2002 Government Accountability Office report found the FDA’s oversight of DTCA was lacking. The agency had allowed some drug companies to repeatedly disseminate new misleading advertisements for the same drug.
Further, a change in the FDA’s procedures for reviewing draft regulatory letters led to a significant lag in issuing letters to demand the removal of misleading advertising - some regulatory letters were not even issued until after the advertising campaign had run its course.
Vioxx ads led to unnecessary deaths
From 1999 to 2004, Vioxx was among the most aggressively advertised medicines in the US. Merck spent more than US$100 million per year in advertising to consumers and generated annual sales of more than US$1 billion.
But Merck ran a deceptive advertising campaign, which misrepresented the safety of Vioxx and improperly concealed the drug’s increased risk of stroke. Vioxx was estimated to have caused 88,000–140,000 heart attacks in the USA alone - 44% of which were fatal.
A significant proportion of those people who died, took Vioxx after seeing it advertised on TV.
FDA promoted covid products
During the pandemic, the FDA began promoting covid-19 products - antivirals and vaccines – something that is not in the agency’s remit.
FDA commissioner Robert Califf, for example, repeatedly advertised the benefits of Pfizer’s antiviral drug paxlovid and covid-19 vaccines for reducing the risk of long covid.
“The FDA commissioner can't tweet like this,” wrote Vinay Prasad, a practicing haematologist-oncologist at the University of California San Francisco. “How does the FDA preserve the authority to regulate truthful marketing, when the FDA commissioner is a billboard for Pfizer? These claims are not validated by the highest methods. This is unbelievable.”
In addition, director of the FDA’s vaccine division Peter Marks, featured in multiple videos on the FDA’s website, encouraging people to take the newly authorised bivalent boosters.
“It always feels odd to see the FDA promote products,” said Jessica Adams, a regulatory affairs expert. “The agency used to go out of its way to respect patient-provider decision-making and not interfere with the practice of medicine.”
In fact, the FDA’s own homepage was promoting the covid-19 vaccines.
“The FDA acts like a cheerleading or marketing arm of pharma companies, not a regulatory agency” said Aaron Siri, attorney at Siri & Glimstad law firm. “By promoting these shots, the FDA has hopelessly conflicted itself from later admitting these products have serious issues.”
“It is not the role of the FDA to promote vaccines or advise people to get them. Its role is to objectively assess whether they are safe and effective to its standard,” added Siri.
FDA’s revolving door
Kennedy has renewed calls to put an end to the FDA→Big Pharma “revolving door” which leads to undue influence over the agency.
Ten of the last 11 commissioners have gone on to secure roles with the pharmaceutical or biotech industries they once regulated - most within a year or two of leaving the FDA (see table).
Califf was announced as FDA commissioner on 17 Feb 2022 (his second time). SEC filings indicate that he resigned from the board of directors of Centessa Pharmaceuticals, the day before the announcement.
“That is an indication of just how completely industry has captured this agency,” said Kennedy vowing to shake up the system if he becomes president.
“We will institute new rules extending the waiting period before former officials can enter industry, consulting, and lobbying. We want real public servants in positions of public trust,” he added.
Kennedy believes the key to reforming the FDA will be to put qualified people in positions from outside the pharmaceutical industry, and to call on whistle-blowers, dissidents, and other people of integrity from within the FDA.
The FDA did not comment on the agency’s ‘revolving door’, nor did it answer whether the agency had considered instituting an extended waiting period between the time officials leave the FDA and enter industry.
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Financial Services news
Demonetisation and the government's initiative to promote use of debit and credit cards at point of sale (PoS) terminals accelerated the growth of digital payment with the transaction volume reaching Rs 70,000 crore level in seven months, says a report.
The report stated similar trends are observed in the case of usage of pre-paid instruments (PPI) (like m-Wallet, PPI cards and paper vouchers) and mobile banking too.
This is an important step forward by the CBDT for several reasons, out of which the principle reason being technology.
SBI, which joined UPI towards the end of 2016, said that around 35% of UPI transactions happen through its handle, though it might originate from a different payment app.
Uber will launch UPI in a few weeks wherein it will offer payment option through BHIM. Amazon & Google are also set to launch UPI facility in next few months.
Debit card usage more than doubled to 400 mn-plus transactions at the height of the cash crunch in December from 140 mn in October. The number fell to 250 mn in February.
This is for the first time the State Bank of India has expanded the paperless banking system outside India.
Redcarpetup will allow the bank to lend to students, something banks haven't done before.
A UN study revealed that in 2016, online payments platform Alipay and WeChat together enabled $2.9 trillion digital payment transactions in China
Transactions in the past month totalled 831 million, compared with 858 million in May.
As India shifts to a cashless economy, cyber-threats are at a new high with the number of such incidents occurring in banking systems increasing in the last five years, a study here said on Tuesday.
Indian mobile operating system Indus OS is launching the first OS-integrated United Payments Interface (UPI) platform in partnership with YES Bank.
was temporary as cash was not readily available.Once cash was.
National Payments Corporation of India Managing Director & CEO A P Hota said it is necessary that banks issue debit cards to those customers who still do not own any card.
DMRC has launched a cashless token sale/smart card recharge services which will use the Bharat Quick Response (QR) code displayed at the token counters
Once the Biometric is locked, the stored biometrics cannot be used for authentications thus preventing potential misuse.


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Mainardo de Nardis, former executive vice chairman of Omnicom Media Group, has joined LoopMe’s advisory board.
“When I left Omnicom in January, I wanted to do something the opposite of what I’d been doing for the past 30 years,” he said.
He loved his former job, but having the freedom to pick and choose, de Nardis wanted first to look at a brand’s challenges and then find a solution, rather than develop the solution and then search for the brand that needed it.
The ability to measure both performance and brand campaigns in a variety of ways has become critical. LoopMe provides this option with the combination of data and artificial intelligence. He says the company’s offerings are not an “enemy or competitor to agencies and brands,” but rather a technology and strategy that acts in a “supportive role, rather than conflicting.”
“Personally I never thought the two — performance and brand campaigns — should be separate,” he said. “What would it mean if you can’t measure brand campaigns?”
When asked why he joined the LoopMe board, de Nardis said, think of any business metric that can make a difference -- not just online or offline sales.
If marketers can measure success based on KPIs such as consideration, purchase intent and store traffic, they have something very concrete. This is not happening today.
Industry challenges remain, which de Nardis would like to resolve. Data transparency is one challenge that he would like to resolve -- not just on the surface, but in a way that really helps brands understand what works and doesn’t, as well as how to optimize the campaign.
“Transparency doesn’t exist today,” he said. “It only works in a generic way, not in a specific way. The majority of first-party data isn’t used in an optimal way.”
The second major challenge he highlights is measurement. More than 80% of brands still measure performance on digital metrics such as clicks and views, which are not the best way to measure success, he said. Too much money is left on the table, he said, because the industry doesn’t measure performance correctly.
Demand for LoopMe’s services rose 93% in the United States since March, when the company reached $100 million in revenue globally. U.S. sales are up 59% year-over-year through September.
To support the growth, the company had a hiring spree. Eric Shoicket took on the role of VP of sales for the Eastern region, while Amy Hudec was appointed VP of sales for the central region and Jose Bandes joined to take on the position of sales director.
Elle Donner has joined LoopMe as senior director of corporate and business development. Donner was account executive for programmatic and advanced TV sales at Adobe and TubeMogul. Shobha Nikam has been appointed in the new position of VP of client services and analytics. She joined from Criteo.
Mark Cowan has joined LoopMe as VP of sales, APAC, from advertising sales for APAC Tier One Agencies at Facebook. Bernard Fung has been appointed as sales director APAC. He worked at the Financial Times and Spotify. Pete O'Mara-Kane was promoted to GM of APAC. He was formerly GM of International at LoopMe.
Jonnie Byrne has been appointed as GM Enterprise, EMEA. Sarah Rew has been hired as the new International marketing director.


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Organic search visits from Google are reportedly down in contrast to last yr, although organic visits from DuckDuckGo are up considerably.
Merkle’s digital marketing report for Q2 2019 shows that Google’s organic search visits are down 8% from the very same time time period in 2018. Organic visits from Bing and Yahoo are down as nicely, with declines of 26% and 11% respectively. The only significant search engine to provide organic search pay a visit to growth last quarter is DuckDuckGo, with 49% much more visits all round. Hunting at mobile visits specifically, DuckDuckGo is up 64% yr-above-yr. DuckDuckGo’s growth in mobile search was so strong that its organic search share on mobile has doubled from .3% to .6%.
Regardless of Google’s lack of growth in organic search visits, it nonetheless managed to obtain 1% organic search pay a visit to share last quarter. However, that appears to be at the expense of Bing shedding 1% of its organic search pay a visit to share. Now that we’ve looked at particular search engines, here’s a appear at the all round organic search market in Q2 2019
Organic Search in Q2 2019
Organic search developed 23% of all web site visits in Q2 2019. Complete visits developed by organic search fell 6% yr-above-yr in Q2 2019, which is down even additional from a 2% decline in Q1 2019. Organic search visits had been down across all devices but specifically so on mobile phones, in which pay a visit to growth dropped from 13% in Q1 2019 to five% in Q2 2019.
Data shows that paid search visits on phones could be cutting into organic visits. Phones and tablets developed 59% of organic search visits in Q2 2019, in contrast to 65% of paid search visits. In accordance to Merkle, this was the weakest price of growth for cellphone organic search given that mid-2016. The two largest share gainers in Q2 2019 had been paid search and direct web site visits.


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June 1, 2022 thelaterals
Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall-Winter 2022 Spin-off Show
Nine new looks will be unveiled during the Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall-Winter 2022 Spin-Off Show, presented in Bangkok, Thailand.
Tune in to the show above which will also be livestreamed on www.louisvuitton.com on 1st June 2022, Wednesday at 8:30 PM (local Malaysia time).
Post a comment


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Wilderness Center to host Woodcarving Show on Sept. 19
The annual Woodcarving Show will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 19 at the Wilderness Center, 9877 Alabama Ave. SW, Wilmot.
Award-winning local carvers will have more than 1,000 carvings on display. Activities will include carving exhibits, chainsaw carving, a people’s choice award vote and carving tutorials. Food and drinks, including homemade pies, will be available for purchase.
For more information, visit wildernesscenter.org.
Source: the Wilderness Center


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In July, we already delved on the delay of the launching of HTC's lengthy-awaited wearable aimed toward health freaks — the wrist-mounted HTC Grip. For the second time, the corporate has as soon as once more introduced that it's pushing the launching date early subsequent yr.
Three months in the past, HTC decided to launch the wearable device alongside a bevy of its health merchandise later this yr, after in depth put on testing in addition to consumer suggestions.
"This can be a state-of-the artwork complete portfolio of merchandise for this class powered by UA Document," it stated in a press assertion. "We're excited to launch this new complete product suite and can share additional particulars as we get nearer to launch."
This wristband, which can boast a GPS radio in addition to a touchscreen display, is predicted to have a $ 199 price tag.
Moreover, the HTC Grip may even include a curved 1.8-inch PMOLED display that's 32 by one hundred sixty pixels. The device will likewise work in tandem with iPhones operating iOS 7 or larger in addition to Android handsets operating 4.3 and up.
This wearable will make use of the apps in addition to equipment of Underneath Armour to have the ability to monitor the heart beat and heartbeat of its customers. The wearer also can maintain monitor of their health routine and train.
The Second Holdback
The second holdback appears to use to the corporate's entire "Related Fitness" platform.
In a press release, HTC, together with its associate Beneath Armour, determined to delay its "absolutely built-in digital ecosystem of merchandise" till early subsequent yr.
HTC claimed the worldwide launch will supply athletes with a slew of instruments to help them in holding an eye fixed on their well being and health, including that it's excited in sharing the merchandise to the general public within the close to future.
Vive VR Headset
In a bid to extend the number of merchandise the corporate is providing at this time, HTC has additionally created the Vive VR headset, in partnership with Valve, a recreation developer and writer.
It has been reported that the smartphone income and gross sales of HTC dropped over the earlier years.
© 2015 Tech Occasions, All rights reserved. Don't reproduce with out permission.
Source : Techtimes


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Smartphones and tablets are reshaping the shopping experiences of customers, creating a new breed of consumers called the Super Shoppers, Deloitte names it in a new study commissioned by eBay.
Super Shoppers are consumers who browse for products using various mobile devices and embrace new services such as click & collect, in addition to shopping online and in-store. They represent only 18% of frequent shoppers, but contributed to 70% of UK retail sales last year. Super Shoppers are generally more likely to research a product before making a purchase, but the value of their order could be up to 50% higher than those made through a single channel. The main assistant for Super Shoppers is their mobile device, as they are almost twice as likely to use them to enhance their shopping experience by comparing prices and browsing online whilst in a physical store.
Store location and opening hours are not an obstacle for the Super Shopper, as they can make a purchase anytime, anywhere. They can begin, pause and restart shopping trips across multiple channels as they accommodate shopping into their busy lifestyles. Super Shoppers are typically aged 25-44, are usually employed and are likely to be in the AB social grade.
eBay states that all shoppers show some Super Shopper characteristics, since connected consumers as a whole greatly benefit from the opportunities provided by omni-channel retailing. The study claims that 74% of shoppers visit online marketplaces, review and price comparison sites to inform their purchasing decisions. Nearly a third of online users follow brands on social media and 22% feel impacted by a companies’ presence on networking platforms.


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The latest trend in the upscale world of culinary travel is aimed at people who watch cartoons and have bedtimes.
Call it baking for bambinos. Cooking for kiddos. Gastronomy for the pint-sized. It all means kids are invading the kitchen and in turn, learning more about what they're putting in their bodies and where that food comes from.
In recent months, several upscale resorts have added culinary classes for kids. The Peninsula Beverly Hills has launched the Young Pastry Chefs program where kids take hands-on baking classes with the executive pastry chef. The kids take home a monogrammed chef's coat, apron and chef's hat, and recipes from the day.
Kids as young as 4 can participate in the new "Chef for a Day" classes at the Wequassett Resort and Golf Club on Cape Cod. Children collect fresh vegetables from the resort's garden and then head off to the kitchen to prepare their own personal pizzas. Aspiring chefs are also taught about using basic kitchen tools during the lesson.
And this spring, New Jersey's Crystal Springs Resort is launching Culinary Kids at Crystal Springs, which will include a pasta class, a pizza making class and a gelato class. There will also be fishing trips where kids will fish for lunch and weekend farm visits to the resort's new 56 acre organic farm where kids pick and clean vegetables.
"To have the ability to help children learn where their food comes from, how to cook and that cooking is fun, as well as to learn how to eat right at a young age is key to our mission and important to me since I'm a father too," said Crystal Springs Resort Vice President of Hospitality Robby Younes.
The growth of kids cooking programs on vacations is an offshoot of a larger, nationwide trend of healthier eating. Catherine Connors, editor in chief of popular parenting web site Babble, said one of the major driving forces behind kids in the kitchen is "every parent's interest in orienting their kids to healthy eating and good food choices, and involving kids in food preparation is one of the best ways to do that."
Kyle McCarthy, editor of Family Travel Forum, said public figures have also shifted the way we think about kids' food. "Michelle Obama has made a huge difference in the way we think about healthy food and what's in the food we eat," she said. "The impact on the conversations in schools on this topic is huge and vacations are a natural offshoot of that."
More than a third of the children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese, according to 2010 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number has tripled since 1980, a jump attributed, at least in part, to poor food choices and insufficient physical activity.
McCarthy credits Hyatt as being a pioneer in the development of kids cooking classes on vacation. "They were looking for activities adults and kids could do together," she said. "Hyatt developed a program where kids would cook for their parents under chef supervision and serve the food. It was really successful."
Cabo San Lucas' Esperanza, an Auberge resort, debuted it's kids cooking classes last year and since then the program has "grown tremendously." What started with simple cookie decorating classes now includes healthy ways to cook with classes like "Build Your Own Pizza" and "Konfu Panda Rolls."
"In my day it was Play-Doh," said McCarthy. "Now it's sushi."


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Shipping-container deficiency hampering seafood exports from AsiaAn extreme deficiency of delivery containers is prompting rising transportation expenses and trouble moving merchandise, playing destruction with fish exporters in Asia.The lack has been felt by all significant exporters in Vietnam, Thailand, China, and India. Information from Vietnamese fish exporters show that the delivery cost to the European Union rose between 145 percent and 276 percent in January, contrasted with December last year.Shipping rates from Vietnam to significant ports this month expanded to USD 7,000 (EUR 5,798) per container, from USD 2,850 (EUR 2,360) per container a month ago. A few transporters charged as much as USD 10,550 (EUR 8,738) for a container this month, up from USD 2,800 (EUR 2,319) per container in December.The rates for transportation to ports in the U.S. West Coast additionally flooded to USD 4,000 (EUR 3,313) per container in January, from USD 3,500 (EUR 2,899) per container in December, while the expenses for U.S. East Coast ports rose to USD 5,850 (EUR 4,845) per container from USD 4,900 (EUR 4,058) per container, as indicated by data shared by the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) on 18 January.The cost for a 40-foot container to the U.K. has likewise risen, expanding from USD 1,000 (EUR 828.2) per container to USD 8,000 (EUR 6,626) per container, or even as high as USD 10,000 (EUR 8,282) per container, over the most recent three months.
On 12 January, the Vietnam Maritime Services (VMA), under the Ministry of Transport; and the Department of Import and Export, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade; held a gathering with exporters and unfamiliar transporters to search for approaches to address the issue. Exporters said at the gathering that their fare limit was genuinely influenced due to the rising delivery rates.Representatives from the transporters told participants of the gathering the COVID-19 pandemic has deferred dumping at many significant ports on the planet. Thus, void containers are stuck at ports and have not had the option to re-visitation of Asia to satisfy rising need from exporters during year-end seasons.
The delivery organizations have said the quantity of ships going through Vietnamese ports hasn’t changed, however the container lack has made it inconceivable for them to work as arranged. They recommended that neighborhood specialists permit them to utilization of thousands of deserted containers accessible in numerous ports in Vietnam as an impermanent solution.VMA Deputy Director Hoang Hong Giang asked the transportation organizations to freely pronounce their cargo rates and overcharges as requested by the office in a December letter. He said specialists will contemplate the proposals made by the transporters.
On 15 January, the Vietnamese government said in an explanation that Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has coordinated the services of transport, industry, and exchange to work intimately with exchange affiliations and exporters to address the circumstance. He additionally cautioned against any transition to bring transporting costs up in an unlawful manner and guided the specialists to rebuff such cases if found.Like different organizations, Minh Phu Seafood – Vietnam’s driving shrimp exporter – is confronting a deficiency of accessible containers for stacking its merchandise. Delivery costs have taken off by 300 to 500 percent, which has influenced its fare exercises, Minh Phu CEO Le Van Quang affirmed to SeafoodSource on 19 January.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade said in a report to the focal government that the deficiency of ships and containers is probably going to go on until February or March, or significantly more if the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t managed internationally, VASEP said in independent proclamation on 28 December.
Numerous requests have been dropped in November and December, bringing about organizations’ posting a lower-than-anticipated fare execution. VASEP assessed Vietnam will procure USD 8.6 billion (EUR 7.1 billion) from fish sends out for 2020 because of expanded fare exercises in the final quarter. In any case, the affiliation likewise recognized the objective probably won’t be accomplished because of the lack of containers and rising delivery costs. Truth be told, customs information demonstrated that the genuine figure is USD 8.41 billion (EUR 6.96 billion), down 1.5 percent from 2019. VASEP said it is doing an overview to perceive how exporters are being influenced by the container deficiency, and will prescribe appropriate measures to the public authority to adapt to the situation.Thailand, another significant fish trading country in Southeast Asia, is confronting a similar container lack issues. The pandemic has helped interest for canned food and fish, however the deficiency of containers is making it hard for Thai exporters to transport their cargoes, The Nation revealed 16 January, refering to industry specialists.
Thailand’s fish send out worth was assessed at THB 80 billion (USD 2.6 billion, EUR 2.2 billion) in 2020, up 3.9 percent from THB 77 billion (USD 2.5 billion, EUR 2.1 billion) in 2019, Thai Tuna Industry Association President Chanin Chalisaraphong said.”This year we gauge that fish fares will grow by in any event 5 percent, as requests are currently pouring in for conveyance inside the principal quarter of 2021,” Chalisaraphong said.Those numbers are required to hold, as long as the issue with transportation containers is resolved.”The most serious issue exporters are confronting right presently is lacking stockpile of containers, as over 1,000 containers are as yet stuck in the United States and Europe because of COVID-19 limitations. Containers that returned on time are being shipped off China,” Chalisaraphong stated, adding that the affiliation is requesting authorities in the services from trade and transport to work with unfamiliar authorities to restore void containers to Thailand as right on time as could be expected under the circumstances.
In December a year ago, Thailand’s Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said his service will step in to help exporters by giving a specific endowment to import charges for vacant and utilized containers over January-June 2021, the Bangkok Post detailed 15 December.Thailand’s interest for containers declined to some 3.5 million of every 2020, from 5 million out of 2019, because of the pandemic.Shipping costs from China toward the west and east banks of the U.S., before the finish of 2020, likewise flooded 208 percent and 110 percent for each 40-foot container, separately, contrasted with 2019, South China Morning Post revealed 11 January, refering to figures given by oceanic industry and cargo market data supplier Baltic Exchange.The rates from China to Northern Europe additionally rose in excess of 60% in December.Vietnam’s VASEP said the deficiency of containers in China started happening sooner than in different nations. Also, as China has attempted to lease however many void containers as could reasonably be expected for its tremendous fare needs, the lack of containers has gotten more genuine in Vietnam and other Asian countries.In India, the nation’s shrimp send out worth may fall by around 15 percent in this monetary year due primarily to the deficiency of containers. Cargoes at ports, for example, Chennai and Kochi were gravely hit by the circumstance, Money Control detailed in December.


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Viral Video: Will Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs Bring Adorkable “Born Mobile” Toddler to CES?
As was announced earlier this week, Qualcomm CEO and Chairman Paul Jacobs has nabbed the keynote spot at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
He’ll kick off the massive tech event, taking over the pre-show speech slot that has been the property of Microsoft since the beginning of geek time.
Until this coming year, that is. The selection of the head of the wireless chip giant says a lot about just how much mobile has taken over the scene at CES, and the title of Jacob’s speech expresses just that: “Born Mobile.”
Said Qualcomm about the keynote: “Thanks to anywhere, anytime communication, mobile technology brings people together and is enabling a powerfully connected future, a future that is now. Mobile has become an integral part of consumers daily lives, and it will continue to transform the way individuals and communities interact with one another and the world around them.”
In any case, in releasing the news, the company also added a painfully cute video, titled “Baby’s First Text,” of a little girl using a wide range of mobile devices, (and, no, as home video as it looks, I doubt she is really doing those things).


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Yesterday, Goldman Sachs sent out its ‘Emerging Theme Radar’ note to clients which explained the premise of blockchain technology and the possibilities it presented for the banking industry. That the company is looking into how blockchain technology can revolutionize the banking business was obvious from the text, with assertions that blockchain could change everything.
It is specifically the blockchain technology that Goldman Sachs has focused on, rather than the bitcoin that made it famous. Aspects of the technology that the banking industry could benefit from have been discussed in talks and conferences, including immutability, decentralization and transparency, countering fraud and tracking ownership of assets with ease in addition to reducing costs by improving efficiency and cutting out middle-men. In November Goldman Sachs filed a patent application on using cryptocurrencies for securities settlements. SETLcoin might be used to log various currencies on an online blockchain which could be run by Goldman Sachs without relying on any other cryptocurrency.
Whilst problems and obstacles were noted as being in the way of progress, with development costs and regulations concerns being noted among others, the overwhelming message behind the notification was that the company are viewing blockchain technology favorably and are looking become more heavily involved with it.
Goldman Sachs seemingly began its foray into the digital currency world in April of this year when they, along with China’s IDG Capital Partners, co-led a $50 million investment round in bitcoin startup Circle Internet. It is also one of the banks involved with blockchain technology startup R3.


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Hurricane Harvey Victims Offered Free Data Recovery For Water-Damaged
A data recovery company is offering free data recovery services for people whose devices have been damaged from Hurricane Harvey or its ensuing floods.
Hurricane Harvey devastated much of Texas, with the damage being compounded by extensive flooding in the aftermath of the natural disaster. The flooding, which began on August 25, caused untold damage to homes and property, but many people are finding that some of their most impactful losses have occurred because of water damage to cell phones, hard drives, and other electronic devices.
A Generous Offer Of Free Data Recovery Eases The Burden For Many People
With many companies and other organizations looking to contribute in any way they can, a data recovery firm has offered to recover the data from any devices that suffered water damage because of the flooding following Hurricane Harvey.
To date, more than $600,000 of data recovery services have been provided to Hurricane Harvey victims, allowing people to locate their damaged devices and send them to the company for data recovery.
Now, with Hurricane Irma unleashing similar damage to Florida as Hurricane Harvey did to Texas, the offer has been extended to victims of both natural disasters.
The offer has come as an unexpected piece of good news for those affected by the recent natural disasters, many of whom were devastated to realize that devices that contained valuable documents, photos, and other personal or business-related data had been damaged by the storms.
Lessons Learned: Can A Hard Drive Be Destroyed by Water?
As a corollary, the relative ease at which the generous company has been able to restore seemingly lost data from cell phones, hard drives, laptops, and other electronic devices has brought home to people that hard drives are not as susceptible to damage as previously thought.
Previously, some people – and even companies and other organizations – were convinced that they could satisfy their legislative requirements to responsible destroy data on hard drives and other devices by using blunt force, such as a blow from a hammer, or water damage.
The fact that so many people have had their data completely recovered from devices that have suffered extensive water damage proves once again that certified data destruction practices like hard drive shredding are the only effective means of permanently and irretrievably destroying data.


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NBA star Michael Jordan put his Highland Park home up for sale on Wednesday. The listing price: $29 million.
The 56,000 square-foot contemporary home, which is located in a suburb of Chicago, has three levels, including 9 bedrooms and 5 fireplaces on more than 7 acres of property.
The greatest basketball player ever has only gotten busier since his playing days. Here's how he keeps his cool on the road.
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text: Tencent Holdings , Didi Chuxing and eight other major internet companies have each been slapped with a fine by China’s antitrust regulator for failing to report the acquisition of smaller competitors and starting new joint ventures, in a move that intensifies Beijing’s crackdown on Big Tech. The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) imposed a fine of 500,000 yuan (US$77,243) on each of the 10 firms for breaching China’s anti-monopoly law, according to a statement from the regulator on Friday. Tencent, which runs the world’s largest video games business by revenue and China’s biggest social media platform WeChat , was fined for not telling the government of three mergers and acquisitions deals, according to SAMR. It said those deals, however, were not found to have the effect of excluding or restricting competition. In the case of Didi, China’s largest ride-hailing services provider, a subsidiary failed to seek approval for establishing new joint ventures, according to SAMR. Representatives from Tencent and Didi did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. The regulator’s action marks a stepped-up effort to keep in check misconduct by the country’s major internet companies, following the record 18.2 billion yuan fine imposed on e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding early last month for monopolistic behaviour. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post . The redlined behaviour that authorities are focused on include forcing merchants to pick one platform, abusing dominant market position, making hostile bids to acquire top players in specific market segments, misusing big data to charge unfair pricing to certain clients, turning a blind eye to inferior-quality products, leaking customer data and evading tax payments. Tightening antitrust regulations leads the 2021 agenda for SAMR , the head of the agency said in January. The State Council Antitrust Committee issued the final version of anti-monopoly guidelines earlier this year , creating an important tool for Beijing to crack down on monopolistic practices. China warns 34 tech firms against excess in antitrust crackdown Based on antitrust guidelines updated in 2018, companies must seek approval for mergers and acquisitions involving firms with annual revenue of more than 10 billion yuan globally, or 2 billion yuan in China. Shenzhen-based Tencent’s unreported deals cited by SAMR included its acquisition of a 68 per cent stake in Chinese online car-listing platform operator Bitauto Holdings in June last year. That followed Tencent’s 2018 purchase of a 13 per cent interest in Tuhu, a Chinese car maintenance service start-up. Also in 2018, a Tencent subsidiary teamed up with Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group in a joint venture for online retail services. Both Tencent and Wanda were fined for failing to seek government approval for this venture. Antitrust guidelines put the onus on regulators to prove Big Tech monopolies Both Tencent and Didi were previously fined in March for failing to seek approvals from the government for non-disclosure of M&A deals or new joint ventures. On Monday, China’s antitrust regulator announced the start of an investigation into Meituan , the country’s largest on-demand delivery service provider.


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Supervalu Donates €100,000 to Focus Ireland
SuperValu continues to invest more in communities across the country than any other grocery retailer. SuperValu retailers, who own and operate stores in their local communities, contributed over €2.8 million to over 4,000 charitable organisations across Ireland last year.
Mark Byrne, Acting CEO, Focus Ireland said "We are delighted to accept this significant donation from SuperValu and its customers which will help fund our vital work providing over 70 services to combat and prevent homelessness across Ireland. Every single euro of this donation will support this work to help children and families who are homeless and trapped in an awful situation. It will also support our work to prevent many families and people from losing their home in the first place."
Martin Kelleher, Managing Director, SuperValu said "At SuperValu our retailers play an active part in their local communities so Focus Ireland, through its nationwide support of individuals and communities, was a natural fit. The decision to make a donation from the sale of fruit and vegetables ensured we would support a worthy cause while also following through on our on-going commitment to Irish suppliers."
"Furthermore, our decision to not follow the market in reducing prices, and instead offer a significant percentage of every sale to charity, enabled our customers to make a contribution to a worthy cause while also supporting Irish suppliers. Offering our customers choice as well as quality and value is at the core of the SuperValu offering and we work hard to bring these values to our customers everyday across all our stores."
SuperValu has 199 stores across Ireland and is committed to local employment and supporting local suppliers. 75% of everything on SuperValu’s shelves is sourced or produced in Ireland, contributing over €1.6 billion to the Irish economy and helping to sustain almost 30,000 Irish jobs in the farm, food and retail sector.


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Anger directed at big banks was heard loud and clear.
Bank of America said on Tuesday that it has changed its mind when it comes to debit card fees, and will abandon its plan of charging the $5 fee before it even started.
“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” David Darnell, co-chief operating officer, said in a statement. “Our customers’ voices are most important to us. As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so.”
After announcing the fee in September, big banks like Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase were walloped with a wave of public anger, prompting customers to move their money from big banks to local credit unions.
Over 70,000 people have RSVP’d on Facebook for Bank Transfer Day, which is still slated to take place on Nov. 5.
The backlash prompted J.P. Morgan Chase to abandon the plan last week. The bank was planning on charging customers a $3 fee for using their debit cards but decided against it. The bank was testing the fees in a pilot program in Wisconsin and Georgia.
Wells Fargo, SunTrust and Regions Financial have also canceled their plans.
Banks said at the time that fees were essential to compensate for revenue lost because of new regulations that limit how much banks can collect from retailers who allow debit card transactions.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has also pushed the issue into the forefront, with many protesters holding up signs, ridiculing big banks for thinking about charging fees.
Three Long Island credit unions are also going in on the Bank Transfer Day movement, creating a website called Better Banking for Long Island, where they are promoting local credit unions with slogans like “Take a stand.”
“Take part in ‘Bank Transfer Day’ on Saturday, November 5 when thousands of Americans will transfer their bank accounts to credit unions,” a message on the site reads.


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The world star Matt Damon: Why is he suddenly presenting himself as a crypto pioneer?Image: cornerstone
The Hollywood star has embarked on a multi-million dollar PR campaign by the company Crypto.com under the slogan “Fortune helps the brave”. What’s behind it?
Nele Behrens / t-online
A triangular logo, white on a dark blue background, combined with a text that literally seems cryptic: «Crypto.com». The combination of these days seems to happen almost everywhere. On the internet, on Facebook, on advertising banners at football matches and in Formula 1.
Crypto.com, which quickly becomes clear when googling, is an online exchange for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin. And she spends a lot of money on her current marketing campaign:
For a total of nearly $1 billion, the Singaporean company has named a well-known stadium in Los Angeles after itself and forged partnerships with top teams such as Paris Saint Germain.
Recently, global star Matt Damon also embodied the dream of becoming a crypto pioneer in a Hollywood-ready trailer. With the words “Fortune Favors The Brave” he advertises for the company, in English: “Fortune favors the brave”.
The promotional video with Matt Damon:
But where do these almost infinite financial resources come from, why is Matt Damon promoting this exchange? And above all: can users trust the exchange? watson media partner T-Online explains the most important questions.
What is crypto.com?
Behind the advertisement is a company that describes its products as a “super app”. The company is originally from Singapore and started under the name Monaco Technologies.
On the Crypto.com crypto exchange, users can trade over 250 cryptocurrencies and hold them in the provider’s wallet. The company also gives – similar to the crypto exchange Binance – own cryptocurrency away from here, her name: KRO. Crypto.com tries to distribute this coin with different reward systems, for example through its own crypto credit cards.
Crypto.com advertises its own currency a lot
This sets the exchange apart from some of its competitors and attracts customers with many bonus programs. These include up to 8 percent cash back on credit card charges, full refunds for Amazon Prime or Netflix, or free access to airport lounges.
But if you actually want to use these rewards, you must first pay a good advance – and above all support your own currency. Customers must purchase the cards and, depending on the category of the card, keep a certain number of Cro-Coins in their wallet.
350,000 euros for a credit card?
The entry card is still free, but has no bonuses other than a one percent cashback feature. For the advertised extras, customers must pay a minimum of 350 euros for the Ruby card – for this a Spotify subscription is refunded in CRO coins.
If, on the other hand, you want access to the lounge, 8 percent cashback and other additional services such as discounts from major tour operators, you have to save up to 350,000 euros in the in-house Cro – that’s what the so-called “Obsedian” credit card costs are.
“Of course, Crypto.com is trying to monetize its services. You can also see similar developments at other exchanges,” says Mienert. For the credit cards, the company works with Visa, but that is not a guarantee. “Other companies have already worked with Visa and later lost their license,” says the expert.
In addition to the crypto credit card and exchange, the company also offers an NFT marketplace. Here, customers can also purchase NFTs from famous footballers such as Lionel Messi in partnership with clubs such as Paris Saint Germain.
So the company doesn’t just aim for the stars when it comes to marketing. “Crypto.com wants to create its own ecosystem in the long term,” says expert Mienert.
Why is Matt Damon promoting cryptocurrencies?
Matt Damon was initially mocked for putting his face to Crypto.com. “For God’s sake, doesn’t he already have enough money?” one Twitter user asked. Many other users met the commercial with similar ridicule.
Neither the company nor Damon himself are commenting on the compensation for the commercial. Only so much did Damon say in a recent interview: “I’ve never supported anything like this.”
Millions of donations for Damon’s water NGO
This form of “support” should not come cheap: according to the American news agency Bloomberg, the entire campaign would have cost 100 million dollars. How much Matt Damon got from it and how much the Oscar winner and director of the commercial, Walter “Wally” Pfister (“Inception”) received, remains unknown.
Matt Damon with wife Luciana Barroso at a movie premiere.archive image: cornerstone
One thing is certain: the actor did not give his face away for free. Then just prior to the campaign’s release, the grant donated $1 million to water.org – a non-profit organization that provides drinking water and sanitation for people in need. In addition, the fair announced a partnership with the NGO to motivate its ten million customers to donate.
How does Crypto.com fund the ads?
The cost of the campaigns, according to consistent reports, runs to nearly a billion dollars – and that’s just the budget commitments leaking out. According to reports, the purchase of the naming rights for the Staple Center in Los Angeles alone cost $700 million.
In addition, there is an additional $100 million for the “Fortune favors the brave” campaign and other collaborations and advertising contracts with other celebrities.
Part of the money may have been financed by the grandiose stock market last year, says Biyan Mienert, lawyer specialized in cryptocurrencies and blockchain expert. “The strong surges in the crypto market over the past year have greatly increased the financial resources for many crypto exchanges.”
The crypto market experienced a heyday last year
Last year, the largest cryptocurrency experienced a month-long boom with staggering all-time records. The price of a bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency in the world, has now risen to almost 69,000 euros – other cryptocurrencies also benefited from the rally, many of which also reached new all-time highs.
Due to the low interest rate policy and rising inflation, the crypto market has increasingly become an alternative for institutional investors as well. Major financial institutions such as Blackrock invested large amounts of money in products based on the new asset class, making Bitcoin and Co. become mainstream.
Crypto.com should also benefit from this, and the company wants to start with that, says Mienert. “The fair tries to position itself prominently for newcomers in the industry with large PR campaigns, for example around the former Staple Center.”
Apparently with success: according to the company, it now has more than ten million users who buy cryptocurrencies via Crypto.com or use other app products. Since the beginning of 2020, the number of users has increased almost tenfold.
Is Crypto.com Trustworthy?
Yes, the exchange is on par with other big names like Coinbase, Kraken, Binance or Bitpanda in the industry. In addition, the company has acquired a license in Malta and can therefore also accept European customers from other European countries as customers.
However, with this license it is not allowed to actively solicit customers outside Malta, but only passively accept customers, says Mienert. Binance has also obtained a license to trade cryptocurrencies in Malta, but advertises much less aggressively to customers. “Crypto.com indeed walks a fine line,” says the lawyer.
However, the final decision rests with the respective supervisory authorities. According to media reports, the company has already had to withdraw two advertisements in the UK because they are misleading and obscure the risk of the asset class.
The CEO’s last station ended abruptly
Some media reports refer to an obscure chapter in the past of the CEO, Kris Marszalek, in terms of seriousness. As the Chinese medium “South China Morning Post” reported in June 2016, the e-commerce company “Beecrazy” closed overnight, leaving millions of customers and partners in uncertainty. According to media reports, many bills went unpaid.
According to his own LinkedIn biography, Marszalek was a co-founder of the platform “Beecrazy” from 2010-2014 and CEO of parent company Ensogo until June 2016, which allegedly shut down the e-commerce company. Immediately afterwards, he and other entrepreneurs founded the exchange crypto.com, then under the name Monaco Technologies.
Alternatives with Bafin license
However, unlike in the wilder times of cryptocurrencies, there are now significantly stricter regulations for crypto exchanges. “Before the license is granted, the authorities carefully check the directors of a company, for example on existing criminal records,” says expert Mienert.
Newbies who want to feel particularly safe can also switch to crypto exchanges licensed in Germany or Austria. For example, the US exchange has also had a Bafin license since 2021, the crypto exchange Bison of the Stuttgart stock exchange also offers crypto trading with some currencies and the Bitpanda exchange has its registered office and license in Vienna.
And in Switzerland?
The first crypto companies appeared in Switzerland around 2013, but the industry really took off four years later with the explosion of bitcoin prices. “There are already nonprofits in this country holding hundreds of millions of dollars, crowdfunded by blockchain projects,” the report says.
More and more pathogens are becoming resistant to the currently known antibiotics. As antibiotics lose their effectiveness, easily treatable infections become deadly diseases. This applies to both human and veterinary medicine, where improvements can be made by keeping animals differently.
It has been called the “silent pandemic”. Antibiotic resistance is on the rise worldwide. More and more medicines no longer work against serious diseases because too many resistant germs make animals and people sick. Research into new antibiotics is in full swing. However, new antibiotics are not a profitable business for the pharmaceutical industry. So new ways have to be found. In veterinary medicine, fattening calves is an important cause of antibiotic resistance. On the other hand, there is a method, the calf in the free air, says Hanspeter Naegeli, professor at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Zurich.


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In an interview with Time’s The Leadership Brief published on Sunday, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky called office work an “anachronistic form” that is “pre-digital.”
His remarks are backed by his own corporation. Airbnb announced earlier this week that its employees can work remotely forever without any pay penalties, something imposed by other companies.
Chesky said Airbnb had its most productive two-year period ever while its staff worked remotely, and said the talent pool available for hiring has been expanded with less restrictive teleworking rules.
“I think the office as we know it is over,” he told Time. “We can’t try to keep 2019 more than 1950. We have to move forward.”
“If the office didn’t exist, I wonder, would they have invented it?” And if we had invented it, what would it have been invented for? Obviously people will continue to go to hospitals and work, people will continue to go to cafes and work – these spaces make complete sense. But I think for someone whose job is on a laptop, the question is, well, what should the office do? ”
Chesky said his company’s “Careers” site received a huge boost when it announced a new remote business policy.
The CEO himself said he spends time between various Airbnb locations in the US.
Chesky said there would be a need for an office situation under different scenarios.
“People will continue to go to offices, but it will be for different purposes, to collaboration spaces,” he said.
He also claimed that the hybrid model of three days in the office and two remotes was wrong, which is being tried by technology companies Apple and Google.
Airbnb organizes one-week personal meetings with its employees during the quarter.
“My prediction is that three days a week become two days a week, and two days a week become one day a week, and pretty quickly are you really in a hybrid world or are you mostly a distant world?” He said. “People don’t realize that these two or three days a week are not very sustainable. People will understand, ‘Okay, let’s be more intentional when people get together. And let’s get together for a week or two at a time. “


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In October, Yahoo launched a major revamp of its online email service with a new layout and features. What we didn't know back then was that Yahoo had also ordered all of its employees to switch from their current email client, Microsoft Outlook, to the new Yahoo Mail.
As it turns out, just a few of Yahoo's workers have made that switch. AllThingsD.com reports that in an internal memo sent to its employees this week, just 25 percent of its workers have moved to Yahoo Mail. That isn't highly surprising, since many long time Yahoo Mail users have complained about the new version, including a decision to dump its tabs UI and putting in an awkward multi-tasking feature.
What is surprising is the the content inside the memo itself, which is highly eccentric and sometimes nearly incomprehensible. Even the title of the note is odd: "Windows 95 called and they want their mail app back."
Yahoo thinks this program is like a dinosaur.
The memo proceeds to attack Outlook as a program that may be familiar to most PC users but Yahoo believes is not well suited to the current technology world. Brace yourself for this:
Certainly, we can admire the application for its survival, an anachronism of the now defunct 90s PC era, a pre-web program written at a time when NT Server terrorized the data center landscape with the confidence of a T-Rex born to yuppie dinosaur parents who fully bought into the illusion of their son’s utter uniqueness because the big-mouthed, tiny-armed monster infant could mimic the gestures of The Itsy-Bitsy Pterodactyl.
One of our favorite quotes in the memo tries to convince the 75 percent of Yahoo workers to switch to its own mail client with this flat out weird statement:
For others, you might now be running in your head to a well worn path of justified resistance, phoning up the ol’ gang, circling the hippocampian wagons of amygdalian resistance. Hold on a sec, pilgrim.
The memo, when it is not impersonating John Wayne on an acid trip, then tries to hype up the features in Yahoo Mail, such as its built-in Messenger client, keyboard shortcuts, previewing attachments and more. It adds that Yahoo employees also get to try out new features before they are released to the public client, such as auto-suggest which will be added to Yahoo's corporate email soon.
This is just the latest shot by Yahoo against Microsoft in the past few months. The company went to court to stop the use of the Bing search engine in Yahoo's Taiwan and Hong Kong websites, as per a previous agreement between the two companies. However, a judge in October denied Yahoo's request. Yahoo's current CEO Marissa Mayer has said in the past that the 2009 Bing search engine contract between her company and Microsoft has not resulted in much of a benefit for Yahoo. It's highly rumored she is trying her best to get out of the deal before the end of its 10 year agreement.
Source: AllThingsD.com | Images via Yahoo and Microsoft


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The memories conjured by recent death of Russ Solomon, the founder of Tower Records, were those of disappointment and despair. Not for Solomon, RIP, but for the failure of his stores. This includes the first one on the corner of Broadway and Land Park Drive in Sacramento, where I shopped obsessively for CDs as an adult. Also, the Watt Avenue store, the last to close when his corporation filed for bankruptcy, where as a youngster I spent hours in listening booths, and bought the occasional vinyl album or cassette tape, when I could afford to.
I don’t know that anything could have saved Tower Records from the competition of digital downloads and Amazon. I am bitter, though, that this pied piper didn’t make more of an effort to innovate, to strengthen brand loyalty, to make brick-and-mortar shopping more of a distinct experience, to embrace the digital age, to leverage the music revolution, rather than surrender to the company’s debt (estimated at more than $300 million at one point.)
The Sacramento Bee story (3-6-18) on the music pioneer’s death quoted his 2000 observation that the internet “is certainly never going to take the place of stores.” He also admitted in retrospect that the digital downloading phenomenon spread faster than he imagined. Such a lack of vision seems extraordinary for the entrepreneur who made Tower Records into a $1-billion-a-year worldwide endeavor and himself into one of the richest Americans in the 1990s (when Forbes pegged his personal worth at $310 million.).
While music lovers across the globe, and especially in his hometown of Sacramento, mourn the loss of Solomon, I remain as grateful for the memories of Tower as I am bitter that its swan song was so off-key.


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Today is the last day at Vertigo for Executive Editor Shelly Bond after a 23-year run as an editor, mentor and friend to many creators. It’s truly been one of the most extraordinary editing careers in recent comics history, and I’ve reached out to some of her friends and others in the comics industry to give her the send off she deserves.
Ever wanted to work in the medium of comics? From now to May 13, you could make your dreams a reality by sending in a submission to Darby Pop’s Breaking Into Comics: Women of Darby Pop competition. The publisher is looking for both scripts and artwork containing one women from the following titles: Indestructible, City: The Mind in […]
Announced by Charleston Immersive & Interactive Media today, the production company has optioned Top Shelf’s March for adaptation into an animated series, along with developing related interactive educational products. No release date was announced at this time. The March series, which currently set as a trilogy, is penned by Civil Rights Icon, Congressman John Lewis, […]
Have you ever wanted to work in comics? Here’s a new job opening for Director of Marketing & Sales Job at BOOM! Studios, a brand new position with a lot of responsibility: This position will directly manage a team of 3-5 people and oversee all marketing, publicity, social media, and sales efforts for the company. […]
If you are anything like me, chances are good that you missed out on the bulk of the last crossover event, Marvel Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill. The latest crossover has a sort of looney premise that involves S.H.I.E.L.D. finding a mutant in control of a cosmic cube to trap super villains into a society […]
Looks like DC’s Vertigo line is still alive and kicking and even announcing some new titles from exclusive creators. Joshua Williamson, sometimes known as “The man in the hoodie” has just gone exclusive with DC. In addition to writing the rebirthed adve ntures of The Flash he’s writing Frostbite, a six issue mini series from […]
Five years ago, I was told that far from retiring with his $1 billion in profits from selling Marvel to Disney, Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter was actually taking a more active involvement in running Marvel and hoping to bring his particularly effective brand of cost cutting to Disney itself. His influence was most felt in […]


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On 3 October 2023, an audience of 1,300 gathered at the Harrogate Convention Centre, London, to hear Morrisons’ leadership team reflect on the past year and set out its vision for the next 12 months.
Attendees heard firsthand from key members of the Morrisons leadership team, including James Badger, Morrisons Group Commercial and Manufacturing Director; Rachel Eyre, Morrisons Chief Customer and Marketing Officer; and Joseph Sutton, Morrisons Group Convenience, Online and Wholesale Director.
Summing up Morrisons’ ambition for the future, James Badger told attendees that the goal was to make the retailer “broader, stronger, and more accessible for all stakeholders.”
Morrisons identified the following areas as the route to achieving this goal.
Customer Loyalty And Satisfaction
With the retailer’s sales now sitting behind Aldi and shoppers increasingly turning to other retailers, increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction will be a key part of Morrisons’ plans.
Product Range And Quality
Morrisons will be embarking on streamlining the products that it offers to shoppers, with the retailer admitting that, in some categories, it is significantly overstocked, compared to its competitors.
While the focus for 2023 has been on value and pricing, the focus for 2024 will shift towards quality and innovation.
More Card And Morrisons Media
Morrisons hailed the success of the relaunched More Card, which now has five million active users. It is providing the retailer with a wealth of first-party data, which is being used to direct strategy.
This data will be used to power targeted advertising campaigns through the Morrisons Media Group. It will be a key driver of growth, which Morrisons will be leveraging to elevate event activation in 2024 and enhance brand engagement.
Convenience, Online, Wholesale
While Morrisons will invest in modernising its large store estate, the primary focus will be on convenience, online and wholesale operations.
Badger stated, “I’d like my teams and your teams to be spending more time face to face, whether that be in your factories or in our stores, so we understand your business and you understand ours, so together we can be stronger.”
Morrisons will return to the Harrogate Convention Centre on 11 June for its 2024 Trade Briefing.
To register your interest to attend the 2024 Trade Briefing, click here.
This article was written in partnership with IGD.


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“It’s just a response to consumer demand,” Harrell said. “One of the companies that delivers in other states had over 400,000 requests for delivery (in Georgia) in calendar year 2019 ... and they had to say ‘no’ to every one of them.
“Clearly, there is demand, and more and more people are ordering groceries online. It’s just a convenience for the consumer.”
More and more Georgians have their purchases delivered to their homes, and the coronavirus pandemic expanded the market as many have sought to avoid grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses in hopes of steering clear of COVID-19.
Some restaurants in metro Atlanta have already been delivering alcoholic beverages with food orders during the pandemic.
Harrell’s legislation, House Bill 879, passed his chamber before the General Assembly suspended the 2020 session in March because of the pandemic. When lawmakers returned in June, he made passing the measure a priority.
Under the delivery law, beer or wine can’t just be left on the front porch like Amazon deliveries. The delivery person would have to check IDs to make sure the buyer is old enough to purchase alcohol.
The law allows local municipalities to opt out of allowing alcoholic beverage delivery.
Whether restaurants could deliver would depend on local laws that govern their business.
The association for small liquor stores in Georgia — long a powerful lobby at the Capitol — opposed the legislation, saying its 500 outlets would be at a disadvantage because they are not set up with websites and a delivery system. The Baptist lobby — which traditionally opposes expansion of alcohol availability — also spoke out against it.
But the law proved another major shift in the way the General Assembly has viewed the sale of alcoholic beverages.
“Twenty-five years ago just any bill was called a liquor bill and you’d have trouble passing it,” Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Stone Mountain, said in June. “We’ve changed a lot over the years.”
For decades, Georgia had restrictive alcohol sales laws, and it took about five sessions for the grocery and convenience store lobbies to persuade the General Assembly to allow Sunday retail sales of beer, wine and liquor. The measure only passed in 2011 after Gov. Sonny Perdue, a religious conservative who opposed it, left office.
At the time, Georgia was one of only three states with a complete ban on Sunday alcohol sales at stores.
Grocery store chains such as Kroger and Publix, brewpubs and other businesses have lobbied hard to expand the availability of products they sell or produce over the past decade.
Martin Smith, a lobbyist for the Georgia Beer Wholesalers Association, said the latest bill sets “a high standard for the safe delivery of alcohol in our state.”
“Soon, local restaurants, grocery and package stores will be able to vastly expand their operations by delivering products provided by our state’s wholesalers to homes across Georgia,” he said.


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Apple will provide independent repair firms with the same resources it provides to Apple Authorized Service Providers.
Recent Articles By Charlotte Henry [RSS]
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he wished “split up a long time ago,” but it was stil “the best” of the big tech companies.
Football Manager 2020 will be released in early November, with a pre-release Beta avaialble and fully playable now.
Facebook announced additional requirements for political advertisers Wednesday, The Verge reported. Those who want to run political ads will have to provide more information such as government-issued identification numbers.
Today’s changes mark an evolution in the political ad disclosure requirements that Facebook introduced last year. Beginning last spring, the company began to require anyone buying political advertising to verify their identity and location. Now they will have to go a step further, offering proof they’re part of the organization they say they represent. For commercial businesses, nonprofits, and nongovernmental organizations, that will mean providing a tax-registered organization identification number. Government and military advertisers will have to provide a web domain and email address that ends in .gov or .mil. Political action committees and parties will need to provide their Federal Election Commission identification numbers.
Forthcoming Apple TV+ show Dickinson will headline the Tribeca TV Festival in September, Deadline reported. A trailer for the show landed Tuesday.
The premiere of Apple TV+’s fall comedy series Dickinson starring Hailee Steinfeld will headline the New York fest, which takes place September 12-15. The half-hour series will screen ahead of its September 14 TV premiere and will be followed by a discussion with Oscar-nominated actress Steinfeld, who plays the titular writer; Jane Krakowski; and series creator, showrunner and executive producer Alena Smith (The Affair, The Newsroom). Toby Huss, Anna Baryshnikov, Ella Hunt and Adrian Blake Enscoe also star. Dickinson isn’t a normal historical series with bonnets, corsets and proper ladies. The comedy subverts all of that as it audaciously explores the constraints of society, gender and family from the perspective of the rebellious young poet, Emily Dickinson. Set in the 19th century, Dickinson is a coming-of-age story that finds the author to be an unexpected hero for our millennial era.
Apple CEO Tim Cook received 560,000 of Apple shares on August, 24 2019, in a windfall worth about $114 million.
With reports of increased spending and siginficant hires, it looks like Apple is ready to compete seriously against the likes of Netflix.
Strava is a hugely popular activity monitoring app. Under the leadership of CEO James Quarles, it has grown significantly. He told Wired, he now wants to expand the app’s social network-like functionality.
The third, and possibly most important change, is deeply rooted in Quarles’ background with Facebook and Instagram. He has invested heavily in the social media elements of Strava. “We really made Strava about the photos and the social feed and the routes that people discover,” he says. “I think that’s had a huge role in increasing not just people coming to the app when they upload, but also when they want to download, meaning to look at what their friends are doing, to find great places and be inspired.” Quarles emphasises his drive to cultivate Strava’s athletic community. “I think that people have a more intense connection with their Strava usage on the community than they do with the brand that’s on their T-shirt or trainers,” he says. Strava users are always encouraging each other, providing, he adds, “that extra boost to come back and keep doing it.”
Virgin Australia has banned all MacBooks from checked-in baggage following Apple’s recent recall of devices due to overheating batteries.
Nintendo announced that Mario Kart Tour is arriving on iOs (and Android) on September 25 and that pre-registration is now available.
Instagram is testing a new messaging app as it looks to challenge Snapchat. The Verge got hold of some screenshots. It reported that the new product from the Facebook-owned picture-sharing service is called Threads.
Screenshots reviewed by The Verge show an app that’s designed to promote constant, automatic sharing between users and the people on their “close friends” list on Instagram. Opt in to automatic sharing, and Threads will regularly update your status, giving your friends a real-time view of information about your location, speed, and more. At the moment, Threads does not display your real-time location — instead, it might say something like a friend is “on the move,” according to sources familiar with the matter. You can also update your status manually, with statuses appearing in the main feed along with messages. It’s the latest effort to automate status sharing using mobile phone sensors and one-tap status sharing.
Over on MacWorld, Jason Cross gave his wish-list for a mid-range iPhone. I am not totally convinced Apple is going to give him what he wants, but he makes some interesting arguments.
Simply put, the potential value to Apple’s bottom line of bringing new users to iPhone is much higher than it has ever been, and it is probably worth making significantly less money on each iPhone sold (at least on the cheapest model) in order to expand the reach of the ecosystem. What’s more, the competition is heating up. Android phones that cost $400 or less are getting quite good, and in many parts of the world, consumers simply don’t see the value in paying 50 percemt more to get last-year’s iPhone. Apple needs a new product that, while not necessarily as inexpensive as some Android competitors, at least feels within reach, and delivers on the core experience of the iPhone.
Tim Cook is giving nearly $5 million of shares to charity, while Apple is making a seperate donation in response to the Amazon forest fires.
The first teaser trailer for forthcoming Apple TV+ series Dickinson appeared Sunday. The series details the life, and rebellious teenage years, of poet Emily Dickinson. As with other Apple TV+ content we’ve had a preview of, the show seems to have extremely high production values. The comedy series stars Hailee Steinfeld as the young poet. Apple said the show ” audaciously explores the constraints of society, gender, and family.” It will be released this fall.
Contractors in Cork, Ireland were expected to listen to 1,000 Siri recordings per shift, a former employee has claimed.
A very cool “Today in Apple History” from our friends over at Cult of Mac. Sunday marked the three year anniversary of the extremely rare “Celebration” Apple-1 being sold at auction for $815, 000. Made by Steve Wozniak, it featured blank “green” PCB board that never appeared in public production models.
The Apple-1 was Apple’s first computer. It launched in July 1976, a year before the better-known, vastly superior Apple II. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak started working on the Apple-1 as a hobby, with no goal beyond showing it off to the people at the local Homebrew Computer Club, which he attended. “I did this computer … to show the people at Homebrew that it was possible to build a very affordable computer — a real computer you could program for the price of the Altair — with just a few chips,” Wozniak recalled in his autobiography, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon. Steve Jobs convinced Woz they should build and sell the Apple-1 rather than giving away the designs.
The Atlantic is set to introduce a paywall, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move follows a delayed instigated by majority owner Laurene Powell Jobs. She invested in the 162-year-old magazine through her Emmerson Collective in July 2017. The widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, she reportedly wanted to focus on improving its platform and business events first.
Atlantic President Bob Cohn said that when Ms. Powell Jobs explained the details of her investment plan to the magazine’s managers, they felt delaying the paywall launch made sense. “We were about to make dozens of hires that would ultimately lead to the creation of an even better paywall,” said Mr. Cohn, who is leaving in early September for a fellowship at Harvard. People at the Atlantic said Ms. Powell Jobs has taken a mostly hands-off approach to day-to-day matters, but weighs in on key decisions.
A host of Disney+ trailers are starting to land. One that is already getting a lot of attention is for the Star Wars spin-off The Madalorian. It appeared Friday. While the clip did not reveal much, it looks like the series will be rather epic. It is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order, following a single gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy. The Mandalorian comes after the story of Jango and Boba Fet. It will stream when Disney+ launches on November 12, 2019.
For $7-a-month Disney+ will allow users to have four simultaneous streams, 4K, UHD and High Dynamic Range picture quality.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is in line for a payout worth $114 million, with various share options due to vest later this month.


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- Denver-based Callahan Associates International and Compaq Computer Corp. launched a new company Wednesday that will build Internet data centers around the globe.
Formed through the combination of three existing companies, Boulder-based Nupremis Inc. has data centers in the United States and Europe and plans to build six more this year in Europe and Asia.
Callahan, which owns several European cable systems, and Compaq created Nupremis by raising $25 million with a group of investors, including the Edward P. Bass Group; Angelo, Gordon & Co.; and Investcorp.
They used the money to buy Boulder-based Centera Information Systems; Asheville, N.C.-based NewEraCom; and Budapest, Hungary-based InterWare.
Centera provides e-business strategy consulting and systems-integration services. In July, Deloitte and Touche named it one of the fastestgrowing technology companies in Colorado.
Centera's chief executive officer, Richard Dakin, will be Nupremis' president and chief operating officer, working with CEO Chuck Cadle.
NewEraCom is a high-speed Internet access provider for businesses, and InterWare is an Internet service provider that will host one of the new data centers, the company said.
Callahan Associates came up with the idea to create the new company, said Anita Colombo, Callahan's vice president for strategic planning and business analysis. Nupremis will allow cable operators, wireless service providers and satellite system providers to provide business applications and broadband content to their customers, the company said.


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Following growing international concerns over the security of its networking hardware, Huawei’s chairman Liang Hua said that the Chinese firm is willing to sign “no-spy agreements” with governments.
Speaking at a recent business conference in London, Liang explained that the company is more than willing to work together with governments including the UK to ensure its devices are secure, saying:
“We are willing to sign no-spy agreements with governments, including the UK government, to commit ourselves to making our equipment meet the no-spy, no-backdoors standard.”
This could help improve relations between the company and some governments but for others, it may already be too late to trust the Chinese company.
Australia and New Zealand have already blocked the firm’s equipment from being used in their 5G networks while the US has restricted federal agencies from using its products and has even encouraged its allies to shun the company.
Huawei has repeatedly denied that its equipment poses any risks of espionage or sabotage and the firm also said that it is independent from the Chinese government.
According to Reuters, the US will likely soon tighten restrictions against Huawei as President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order barring US companies from using telecoms equipment from Huawei or any other company that poses a threat to national security.
US and Chinese tensions are already high and this could exacerbate them further.
Via The BBC
Oscar Health is headed for another metro area. The startup health insurer, which currently sells insurance on the individual exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act and to small businesses, has filed to be an insurer in another new states for 2020. Documents reveal the company plans to operate in Philadelphia and nearby Delaware...
A ban on Chinese tech giant Huawei by the Trump Administration could spark a tit-for-tat with Beijing that would turn the heat up on US tech companies, with Apple vulnerable as high-profile target for retaliation, analysts said Wednesday. One analyst thinks Beijing’s reaction could be ‘disastrous’ for American companies. The ban on doing business with...