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With every iteration of the NHL franchise, there is usually one distinct feature that the team at EA SPORTS focuses on. New puck mechanics, skill stick improvements, more realistic skating, harder hits, and a new fighting system are just a few of the huge improvements that have been introduced in the past few entries. With NHL 15
being the first game to release on the Xbox One, the focus this time around has been placed on the overall look and personality of the players.
If you have been paying attention to the trailers that have been released since the game was announced, you'll have already noticed that graphically alone the players have never looked better. But there's more to it than just a cosmetic upgrade. NHL 15
will introduce a new layering system, which will make the players seem more lifelike than ever before. The body and equipment layers serve as the base of the player, but the jersey layer is what shines the brightest. Shown off by Producer Sean Ramjagsingh, the player jerseys will now contour to the player's body more naturally, giving it a realistic look for whether the player is skating down the rink, or getting impacted by a puck, etc. Players are also said to have new user-controlled celebrations, including celebrating with teammates on the ice, so perhaps the stale and re-used celebrations will finally be done away with.
These enhanced players will take to the ice again, when NHL 15
releases on September 9th for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.


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GRETNA – A corporate retail store is being sued by a woman who claims she was injured when she slipped and fell on its premises.
Miriam L. Rivas, and husband Luis J. Cardona, filed suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the 24th Judicial District Court on Sept. 17.
Rivas claims on Jan. 18 she was shopping at Wal-Mart in Harvey when she slipped on an unknown substance and fell to the floor. The plaintiff alleges she was severely injured in the incident.
The defendant is accused of failing to maintain a safe place for business, allowing aisles to become and remain dangerous, failing to warn of dangers, failing to protect, failing to inspect and keep the premises in a safe condition, failing to discover and unreasonably dangerous condition, failing to take reasonable steps to prevent injury and creating a dangerous condition.
An unspecified amount in damages is sought for pain and suffering, disability, mental anguish, medical expenses, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of use and fitness of parts of the body, bodily disability, impairment of psychological functioning, disability for engaging in recreation, destruction of earning capacity, loss of support, loss of society and loss of consortium.
Rivas is represented by Robert B. Evans III of New Orleans-based Burgos & Evans LLC.
The case has been assigned to Division B Judge Cornelius E. Regan.
Case no. 742-528.

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Retail Sales Rise 0.3%
Retail sales rose 0.3% in October after dropping 0.3% in September, according to the latest figures from the Commerce Department. Core retail sales, which exclude food services, car dealers, gasoline stations and building materials stores, were also up 0.3%; core retail sales for September were revised to show they declined 0.1%. Core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of GDP. The Fed attributed much of September’s decline to the strike at General Motors that began September 16, but the strike was not resolved until the end of October, and analysts say the pullback pointed to a broader slowdown in manufacturing across the US and global trade tensions. While the October rebound was not robust, it restored faith that consumer spending would hold up through the holidays. Sales at US nonstore retailers, which are mostly online purchases, rose 0.9% from September and were up 14.3% from October 2018.
Holiday Sales Recap
The National Retail Federation said a record 190 million consumers shopped from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday this year, an increase of 14% from 2018. About 124 million shopped in stores, 142 million shopped online and about 75.5 million did both. Shoppers spent an average of $361.90 on holiday items over the five days, up 16%. The biggest spenders were 25-35-year-olds at $440.46. NRF says that with the condensed holiday season, shoppers are feeling under pressure to get their shopping done. Sales from smartphones accounted for 36% of online sales, up from 24% last year. However, big storms throughout much of the country snarled both land and air traffic, and retailers are having a tough time fulfilling their promises of one and two-day delivery.
The Home Depot
Q3 revenue rose 3.5% to $27.22 billion, slightly below expectations. Comp sales rose 3.6%, below expectations of a 4.7% increase. Comp sales in the US were up 3.8% and were negatively affected by the timing of Black Friday last year. THD cut their forecast for fiscal 2019, and now expects sales to rise 1.8% compared to the prior forecast of a 2.3% increase. That forecast implies fiscal revenue of $110.15 billion.
CEO Craig Menear said that their heavy investment in growing their online business has taken longer to generate benefits for fiscal 2019 than anticipated. Originally the initiatives were designed to increase sales 6% while keeping operating margins flat.
Q3 Conference Call with Analysts:
All US divisions as well as Canada and Mexico posted positive comp sales. Online traffic was healthy, conversion is up and sales were up 22% from Q3 2018, with good growth in most categories. More than 50% of online orders are picked up in stores.
Comp transactions rose 1.8% overall, and big ticket comp transactions, defined as those over $1,000, which represent approximately 20% of US sales, were up 4.8%. Excluding hurricane-related markets, big ticket comp transactions were up 5.5%.
Comp average ticket also increased 1.8%, with increases being driven by customers trading up to new and innovative items. Commodity deflation in lumber and copper trimmed 80 basis points from results. They did not see a lot of variation in sales from region to region.
Sales for Pro customers, which represent approximately 45% of overall sales, continue to outpace DIY sales in the US. They are investing in resets, services and a suite of tools to deliver better service to Pros and save them time and money. They saw strong growth in Pro-heavy categories like fasteners, pneumatics, concrete and installation.
Their B2B website for the 780,000 Pros signed up is coming along very well but there is still functionality that needs to be completed before all the enhancements for larger Pro customers can be turned on.
They are continuing to rollout automated lockers; approximately 1,300 stores now have pickup lockers for online orders. Approximately 95% of customers rating their experience picking up orders from their locker give it five out of five stars.
There was strength across most departments with Tools above company average. They are proud that they are Makita’s exclusive big-box partner and will be rolling out more products in Makita’s 18-volt outdoor line.
More than 60% of US stores now have a new look and feel and customer response has been very positive. Customer service scores in the category of neat and clean have increased 120 basis points from last year and scores for satisfaction with check-out times have increased more than 280 basis points from last year.
It was new CFO Richard McPhail’s first conference call with analysts.
At the end of the third quarter they had an ending store count of 2,290 and total sales per square foot of $449, up 3.5% from last year. Inventory turns were 5x, down from 5.2x last year, reflecting a load-in of inventory in support of their strategic initiatives.
They have seen shrink increase and are implementing both
in-store and technology measures in high-risk stores. They are also working on long-term initiatives to address this issue.
Market growth overall has moderated over the past year, and while overall growth may be below the average of 4% they built into their plans, the overall market is about $600 billion; they have about a 17% share. Third-party data indicates that they took significant share in Q3, so they believe this means they have an opportunity to grow going forward regardless of overall market growth as long as they stay focused on the customer and continue to drive the business.
They are sticking to their plan of delivering great every day value even though there is an increase in promotional activity in the market overall.
They believe the impact of tariffs is manageable. Their finance teams, merchants and data analytics teams have really drilled into the overall impact on the business and they know down to the SKU level the point of origin, the classification of the tariff and the potential impact. They work with their supplier partners to mitigate the impact and maintain unit growth. They will work on mitigating the tariff impact by changing country of origin, makeup of the product itself and adding other features and benefits that can add value to the consumer. So far they have offset well over half of the actual SKU impact of tariffs.
They will provide more insight into their plans for 2020 at their Investor Conference in December.
Jennifer McKeehan, vice president, supply chain for THD is one of the 40 Under Forty honored this year by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Q3 sales fell 0.2% to $17.4 billion as comparable sales growth of 2.2% overall and 3.0% in the US was offset by the impact of previous store closures and the exit of Orchard Supply Hardware. They maintained their guidance for the year and expect total sales to rise 2.0% and comp sales to rise 3.0%.
Q3 Conference Call with Analysts:
Total average ticket grew 3.6% to $78.71. This was partially offset by a 3.7% decline in total transactions. Traffic was up both instore and online, but transactions and conversions were down. Consumer project demand is strong and average ticket over $500 was up 4.0%.
Consolidated comp sales were driven by an average ticket increase of 2.4% partially offset by a slight comp transaction decrease of 0.1%. US comp sales growth of 3% was driven by an average ticket increase of 2.7% and a comp transaction increase of 0.2%.
For fiscal 2020, Lowe’s expects total sales to rise 4.0% and comp sales to increase 2.5%. They also plan to add eight home improvement stores.
They feel as if they are on track despite an under performing ecommerce business, marketplace uncertainties and tariff problems.
Tools and seven other categories delivered above average comps. US comps rose despite low single digit online growth and higher than expected lumber deflation.
All three US divisions and all 15 US geographic regions generated positive comps. Four of their top five performing geographic regions were in the western division, driven by strength in Pro categories as well as appliances and outdoor, improved in-stock and better customer service.
Sales in Canada were disappointing and Canada produced negative comps that were below expectations and pressured overall comps. They will be taking several steps in Canada to improve their long-term results.
Their focus on Pros is paying off, with Pro comps significantly outpacing DIY comps. Their investment in job lot quantities, department supervisors and an improved in-store experience contributed to sales growth as well as a 700 basis points improvement in their Pro customer service scores in the third quarter.
Tools led the merchandising department growth with the strong response to Craftsman continuing to drive market share gains within key Tools categories. Key programs in power tools are also driving growth.
Tools had a lot of activity during the quarter. They launched an exclusive line of DeWalt 12-volt compact tools and introduced new and innovative products from Bosch, Spider and Metabo HPT as well as their exclusive Kobalt line of tools.
Their ecommerce business is “under repair,” delivering comp growth of just 3%, so essentially contributing nothing to overall sales growth. They underestimated the amount of work that needed to be done. They know how to repair their gaps and have a detailed road map, but it will take time and sequencing. They expect online growth to accelerate in the second half of 2020.
Their ecommerce platform is a decade old; they are re-platforming the entire site to Google Cloud to provide much-needed stability.
They are working to separate freight from product costs to improve price perception versus the competition.
They are also improving ecommerce systems and processes so they can quickly add SKUs and vendors who drop-ship so they can expand their online assortment.
They are building capabilities to ship certain SKUs requiring special handling so they can sell basic home improvement items like lithium-ion batteries, cleaning supplies and fire extinguishers online.
They are working to improve their customers’ experience on the website, including simplifying search and navigation, one-click checkout and the ability to schedule a delivery.
They are investing $1.7 billion over the next five years to improve their omnichannel supply chain.
They are continuing to work on improving category management and cross-merchandising.
They will be expanding their brand message and promotions with the NFL through their exclusive partnership.
They’ve been adding functionality to the smartphones they issued to associates in the stores earlier in the year by adding new applications that make it easier to update prices in the aisles and allow virtually any associate to do it.
Their investment in technology and store processes is definitely paying off. Their new labor scheduling system and switch to a centralized One Task team now overseeing more than 1,000 stores are ensuring they serve customers better and maximize their payroll dollars.
They are pleased with Pro performance and are now transitioning from retail fundamentals to more strategic initiatives that will grow sales and deepen relationships.
They launched a pilot for their Pro loyalty program during the quarter; early results have exceeded expectations in test markets. They plan to launch their Pro loyalty program nationally in the first half of 2020 as part of a whole program aimed at Pros.
During Q4 they plan to improve the in-store Pro experience with the roll-out of dedicated point of sale terminals at the Pro desk and their first dedicated Black November event for Pros with traffic-driving offers that show Pros how important they are to Lowe’s.
Q3 revenues rose 2.5% to $127.99 billion and comp sales rose 3.2%, the 21st consecutive quarter comp sales have risen. Grocery accounts for more than half of Walmart’s US sales.
Ecommerce sales were up 41% from Q3 last year, given a boost by Walmart’s expansion of grocery delivery services. Walmart has targeted 35% online sales growth for the full year.
Walmart now has more than 3,000 locations for grocery pickup and more than 1,400 that offer grocery delivery. Results were viewed as very solid despite a decline in operating income because Walmart has been investing in online delivery. Analysts are speculating Walmart will reconsider the monthly charge for their InHome Delivery service, currently $12.95 per month, as Amazon just eliminated their $14.99 monthly fee for Amazon Prime members.
Walmart has been implementing changes to improve sustainability, including installing 120 electric car stations at stores, and plans to make shopping carts more sustainable by having their shopping cart producer, Unarco, who has produced 3.4 million carts for Walmart, use a patented process of remanufacturing that essentially recycles old shopping carts.
By February 2020 there will be just 182 Sears and Kmart stores left in business, down from 425 locations as of February 2019. Just five years ago there were nearly 2,000 stores in operation. This latest round of closings is in addition to the 100 stores that will close by the end of the year and the 26 stores that closed this fall. Sears is now owned by a new entity called Transformco, owned by Eddie Lampert, who was Sears Holding’s largest creditor and shareholder, and who purchased the strongest Sears and Kmart locations in a bankruptcy auction in February for $5.3 billion. An affiliate of Transformco recently bought roughly 400 Sears Hometown stores.
Sears launched Sears Plus, a new program that offers members a wide range of benefits, including 20% off clothing, free tire repair, free delivery and haul-away of appliances and mattresses, cash rebates on major appliances and heating and cooling systems and maintenance and steep discounts on other car, plumbing and appliance services. The program launched in late October in select markets and will roll out nationally in the coming months, according to Sears.
Menards is expanding their Midwest range and now has 20 locations in Ohio, with a new store planned that is expected to draw customers from both Southern Ohio and West Virginia. Menards operates about 20 stores in Ohio now, and a total of more than 300 locations in 14 states. They are also planning to expand in Pennsylvania.
Q3 revenue rose 7.2% to $1.53 billion, a new company record. Comp sales rose 3.2% and average ticket rose 2.4%. Comp transactions were up 1%. Total wholesale revenues rose 4.7% to $1.4 billion. Online sales rose 81%, driving the overall increase in revenue.
Ace held their first-ever in-store scavenger hunt from November 17 through the close of Small Business Saturday, the day after Black Friday. Consumers went to Ace stores to take photos of an item from The Grommet and share the photo on Twitter or Facebook. The social share entered consumers into the national sweepstakes to win a grand prize from The Grommet at Ace, gift packs with a selection of the Grommet at Ace best sellers and Ace Hardware gift cards. In addition, to celebrate Ace’s 95th birthday and embrace the spirit of giving, Ace donated 95 cents to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals for every eligible sweepstakes entry.
True Value ranked number one on Newsweek’s 2020 list of America’s Best Customer Service Brands in the Home Improvement Stores category. Winners were selected based on an independent survey of more than 20,000 US customers who have either made purchases, used services or gathered information about products or services in the past three years. Customers were asked whether they would recommend brands to friends or family, and also asked to evaluate based on quality of communication, professional competence, range of services, customer focus and accessibility. A total of more than 115,000 evaluations were collected about retailers and service providers in 160 categories.
Amazon is expanding their in-store pick-up service, called Counter. Counter was first introduced in the United Kingdom and Italy in spring and then brought to the US in June. Since then Counter has expanded to Kohl’s stores, Stein Mart discount department stores and Rite Aid. Now Amazon is adding GNC, Health Mart and Stage Stores.
The long-time Amazon exec who oversaw their expansion into retail stores and was the driving force behind the Kindle e-reader resigned in November to focus on community service and not-for-profit work. Steve Kessel has been with Amazon for 20 years; an Amazon spokesperson described Steve as a “customer-obsessed leader who has helped build some of Amazon’s most innovative businesses.”
Amazon will invest more than $40 million to construct a robotics innovation hub in Westborough, Massachusetts. The 350,000-square-foot facility will feature corporate offices, research and development labs and manufacturing space and generate 200 full-time jobs.
Merchants who sell their products on Amazon’s third-party marketplace can no longer use the US Postal Service’s Priority Mail one-to three-day delivery service unless they purchase the postage from Amazon. According to consultants, the move is part of Amazon’s effort to get merchants to use their Fulfillment by Amazon network, in which Amazon manages customers’ supply chains for a fee. The self-fulfillment service, Seller Fulfilled Prime, allows merchants to choose their own logistics partners and retain their Prime Merchant status as long as they hit one-to two-day delivery targets 98.5% of the times.
Amazon lost a $10 billion technology contract with the Department of Defense (DOD) to Microsoft in a contest that many analysts said was influenced by President Donald Trump’s criticism of Amazon. The contract has wide ranging implications as it is central to the Pentagon’s efforts to modernize technology, and Amazon had been considered the front-runner, partially because they built cloud services for the CIA. Amazon challenges the award and has filed a lawsuit against the DOD in federal court.
© Robert Bosch Tool Corporation. All rights reserved, no copying or reproducing is permitted without prior written approval.


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E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) yesterday said it would further expand capacity to cope with robust demand for e-paper displays used in e-readers, e-notes and electronic shelf labels, as the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation have not dampened consumer demand.
Although rising inflation is weakening companies’ purchasing power, E Ink said that its customers have not scaled down orders for e-paper displays used in e-readers.
“Reading is still the most affordable leisure activity that people have,” E Ink CEO Johnson Lee (李政昊) told an online investors’ conference in Taipei.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
As e-books are less expensive than paper books, “we have so far not seen a slowdown in demand,” Lee said. “We are seeing quite robust demand.”
Demand was also aided by E Ink’s launch of better-performing colored e-paper display technologies to replace e-readers with monochromatic displays, Lee said.
Large-scale retailers are more rapidly adopting electronic labels due to price volatility and inflation, as well as higher labor costs and worker shortages, he said.
E-papers used in electronic labels, which replaced those used in e-readers, became E Ink’s biggest revenue contributor last quarter, accounting for 52 percent of the company’s total revenue of NT$5.96 billion (US$200.61 million), the company said, adding that this was a significant increase from 40 percent a year earlier.
To meet demand, E Ink said that it would double this year’s capital expenditure to more than NT$4 billion.
The firm is to launch three new production lines for e-paper displays this year, Lee said, adding that another new production line would be postponed until the first quarter of next year because delivery of the equipment had been delayed.
To boost production, E Ink might convert part of a new office building into a manufacturing site, he said.
The office building is to open next year, he added.
Lee said that the impact from COVID-19 lockdowns in China has been negligible.
The large-scale shutdowns in Shanghai did not spread to Jiangsu Province’s Yangzhou, where E Ink operates an e-paper display module factory, he said.
Transportation snarls have elevated logistics costs, but that is manageable, he said.
E Ink reported that net profit in the first quarter increased 25 percent year-on-year to NT$1.46 billion — the second-highest in the company’s history — compared with NT$1.17 billion a year earlier, while earnings per share rose to NT$1.28 from NT$1.03 a year earlier.
Operating profit margin jumped to 24 percent, from 22 percent a year earlier.
Gross margin this quarter is likely to decline, as shipments of lower-margin e-reader modules would increase ahead of the peak season in the third quarter, the company said.
Revenue in the first quarter rose 14 percent annually to NT$5.96 billion, the highest in 11 years, it said.
STATE SUBSIDIES: The talks over a factory in Dresden have a top end on par with what Japan is offering TSMC and outdo a cap other firms are being offered in Europe Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is in talks to receive German government subsidies for as much as 50 percent of the costs to build a new semiconductor fab in the country, people familiar with the matter said. The government is in ongoing negotiations with TSMC, as well as its partners on the project — Bosch Ltd, NXP Semiconductors NV and Infineon Technologies AG — the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. No final decisions have been made and the final subsidy amount could still change. Any state aid must also
South Korea would avoid capitalizing on China’s ban on a US chipmaker, seeing the move by Beijing as an attempt to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington, a person familiar with the situation said. The South Korean government would not encourage its memorychip firms to grab market share in China lost by Micron Technology Inc, which has been barred for use in critical industries by Beijing on national security grounds, the person said. China is the biggest market for South Korea semiconductor firms Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc and home to some of their factories. Their operations in China
GEOPOLITICAL RISKS: The company has a deep collaboration with TSMC, but it is also open to working with Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp, the world’s biggest artificial intelligence (AI) GPU supplier, yesterday said that it is diversifying its supply chain partners in order to enhance supply chain resilience amid geopolitical tensions. “All of our supply chain is designed for maximum diversity and redundancy so that we can have resilience. Our company is very big and so we have a lot of customers depending on us. And so our supply chain resilience is very important to us. We manufacture in as many places as we can,” Nvidia founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said in response to a reporter’s question in
BIG MARKET: As growth in the number of devices and data traffic accelerates, it will not be possible to send everything to the cloud, a Qualcomm executive said Qualcomm Inc is betting the future of artificial intelligence (AI) will require more computing power than what the cloud alone can provide. The world’s largest maker of smartphone processors is transitioning from a communications company into an “intelligent edge computing” firm, Qualcomm senior vice president Alex Katouzian said. The edge in question is the mobile device that a user taps to access a network or service, and Katouzian used his time headlining one of the major keynote events at the Computex show in Taipei to make the case for how big a market that would be. The US company’s chips help smartphones harness


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CANBERRA -(MarketWatch)- Australia's Trade Minister Craig Emerson said Tuesday that he doesn't know when a free trade agreement with China will be finalized, but a creative solution is needed to move talks forward.
It is perhaps a design fault of FTA negotiations that a few sticking points can hold up a whole agreement, he said.
"We are looking for alternative ways or creative ways of bringing a valuable deal to conclusion," he said in reply to a reporter's question during an address to the National Press Club.
Emerson is due to meet his Chinese counterpart next week in Canberra, and he said he will discuss these creative ways that might be used to bring some valuable aspects of a future FTA to conclusion.
The two countries have had 18 rounds of negotiations, with the most recent round being the most positive, and there is a willingness on both sides to move talks forward, he said.
The two countries agreed in April 2005 to start FTA talks after a joint feasibility study concluded there would be significant economic benefits for both.
China was Australia's biggest trading partner in the last fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, with two-way merchandise trade totalling A$105.95 billion.


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Ford Motor Co.'s
Results missed expectations from car-shopping website Edmunds.com.
Overall, new U.S. auto sales are expected to climb 4.3% in February from a year earlier, despite an increase in gas prices, according to Edmunds.com. For Ford, sales were expected to rise 16%.
Ford said it sold 195,822 vehicles in the U.S. during the last month, up from 179,119 a year ago and 166,501 in January.
The Ford brand, the company's largest, saw sales jump 11%, though Lincoln sales dropped 29%.
Company-wide, February car sales climbed 6.4% as truck sales rose 3.6%. Utility-vehicle sales were up 21%.
Ford Focus sales fell 11%, while Ford Fusion sales grew 28%.
February had 25 selling days this year and 24 selling days a year ago.
Ford in January reported a fourth-quarter profit of $1.6 billion as revenue rose 1.9% to $36.5 billion, driven by jumps in Asia and North America that outweighed falling sales in Europe.
Earlier Friday, Chrysler Group LLC reported its U.S. auto sales rose 4.1% during the month, driven by increases at its Dodge brand. Other major auto makers are expected to report their monthly U.S. sales results later Friday.
Ford shares were recently trading down 1.5% at $12.42.
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Everyone likes to travel and see the world; however, when planning a trip, we often think of our furry loved ones before we travel and how difficult it is to leave our pets behind. Many people book a sitter or check their fur baby into a pet hotel. For others, the only right decision is to take our beloved pets with us.
General Manager at the private jet company, Air Partner Middle East, Jobby George, explains the increasing popularity of traveling with pets as comfort, convenience, flexibility, and safety become crucial for customers in the GCC. “When COVID-19 travel restrictions were more stringent, we saw many new customers flying privately as a solution for flying with their pets. Simultaneously, pet ownership soared during the pandemic, giving children entertainment, companionship for those living alone, and a reason to exercise. As travel restrictions began to lift and holiday bookings surged, more people had to consider what to do with a newly acquired pet.”
While some pets may be light enough (10kg or less) to carry as hand luggage on most airlines, many animal lovers also choose to book their beloved pets in the cargo. But experts say private travel has become more popular with Gulf residents as it allows customers to experience a highly personalised and bespoke service that cannot be matched with commercial flights.
“Access to flexible booking and cancellation options gives customers peace of mind in uncertain times. Private travel also provides higher safety provisions and greater control over the end-to-end environment. Private airports, for example, on average have just 20 touchpoints, compared to almost 700 in commercial airports, greatly reducing any potential infection risk,” adds George.
The other reason many people are turning to such a bespoke service is that traveling with a pet can be a tricky task, especially when you have to consider a variety of things, including their stress levels and the cabin pressure during the flight, which can be very dangerous for some breeds. Then there are also the regulations involved in bringing your pet into a new country. Some countries require certain vaccines, such as rabies, among other strict conditions.
Countries like Australia, Britain, Bahrain, Japan, and New Zealand need pets to have high precautions against rabies. While countries in the EU, the UAE, Qatar, and the US are less strict. Finally, countries such as Jordan and Latin American nations, and some countries in Africa, require only a health certificate and routine vaccines.
“Beyond the paperwork, quarantine restrictions, and separation anxiety, many breeds, particularly snub-nosed dogs and cats like pugs, French Bulldogs, and Burmese cats, are more prone to respiratory problems when traveling in the hold, making the ordeal distressing and potentially dangerous. Flying via private jet ensures pets are free to roam, and owners have peace of mind that their treasured companions are safe and well. We also provide information on the requirements tailored to the client’s destination and country of departure. Once we receive the documentation, we coordinate with the relevant authorities to make sure everything is in order so that our clients have a stress-free journey with their pet by their side,” explains George.
Some highlights on board Air Partner flights include sustainable custom catering and ethical offerings such as spring water and organic pet food. They also provide onboard activities and entertainment, such as treats and toys, so your furry friends can fly in luxury.
As flexible working becomes more commonplace globally, experts expect private jet travel to increase as people can travel more often or use a vacation home for more extended periods. In the UAE, 90 percent of full-time employees want to work either in a hybrid or a fully remote working model in the future, according to a recent Cisco Global Hybrid Work Study.
“What may have previously been a weekend trip to a second home could now be a month-long stay, and owners want their pets by their side. This year, we have already had several bookings for month-long return flights from the UAE. High-Net-Worth Expats (HNWI) are also taking their pets back to their homes in Europe for holidays, and we expect this trend to continue as flexible working arrangements become the norm, shares George.
Air Partner caters to a variety of clients who expect a high standard of service and the personalized care and comfort only found in such a niche industry. “We recently handled a private jet flight from Hawaii to mainland USA for a family of nine, of which eight members were cats. The owner was relocating, and private jet travel meant she could feed and hold her cats through the six-hour flight as she wished. By traveling through private terminals, the owner was also able to avoid long check-in queues and security lines, reducing any unnecessary stress for her favourite felines,” concludes George.
By Hermoine Macura-Noble
The first Australian English speaking News Anchor in the Middle East. She is also the Author of Faces of the Middle East and Founder of US-based 501c3 charity – The House of Rest which helps to ease the suffering of victims of war. For more from our Contributing Editor, you can follow her on Instagram, here.


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The first Friday of August is International Beer Day
Beer lovers might think nothing goes better with their favorite brew than a salty snack, but a new business in Sacramento hopes to change that.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s office announced Tuesday he’s signed a bill legalizing beer tasting at farmers markets. It’s the latest in a string of California laws making markets in the nation’s agricultural heartland more booze-friendly.
Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine of San Rafael introduced AB774 following his successful push last year to permit wine tasting at the markets. Brown also signed legislation last year permitting craft brew sales at markets, but vendors say customers want samples before they buy.
Beer is good. People like beer. In fact, people like beer ALOT!! In 2013, the 20 best selling beers in the U.S. combined to bring in almost $21 BILLION! Yes, BILLION with a “B” and “ILLION” in […]
Beer gardens are usually set up with large tables that promote social interaction. Here’s what our area has to offer.
The street drug flakka is growing in popularity, especially among younger people, because it offers a cheap high. Police say it’s responsible for a number of dangerous and bizarre incidents stretching from Florida to Ohio and into Texas.
A Penryn man was arrested on drug charges Friday night after he allegedly sold drugs to an underage decoy who had originally asked him to buy beer.
Tailgate Fan looks at the best tailgating foods, course by course. Dig in, and drink up.
Nothing goes better with football than an ice cold beer. Chad Polenz, author of The Handbook Of Porter’s & Stouts, has 10 beers to try at your next watch party.
As a Niner fan, it’s extremely easy to hate the Seahawks. Richard Sherman and his big mouth. Marshawn Lynch’s crooked eyes. Pete Carroll and the annoying way he chews gum. I mean they built a stadium […]
Walk through the tailgate area at a college football stadium, and beer drinking is as common a sight as fans adorned in jerseys of their favorite players.


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Chrysler Group LLC will have a major presence at next week’s 2011 SEMA Show
in Las Vegas. This year, the 28,400 sq.-ft. exhibit will include
more than 30 Mopar-modified vehicles from the company’s Ram, Dodge,
Chrysler, Jeep, SRT and Fiat brands. More than 500 Mopar accessories
will be showcased in the exhibit.


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Walmart said it has been gaining significant ground over the course of a year of the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The retailer said in its fourth quarter 2021 earnings release on Thursday that overall revenues for the year were $559.2 billion, a 6.7 percent increase, and that its U.S. e-commerce revenues increased 79 percent.
In the quarter ended Jan. 31, revenues rose to $152.1 billion, a record haul the retailer said was a 7.3 percent increase from last year, while comparable store sales increased 8.6 percent. The company’s online sales for the quarter continued to surge, this time rising by 69 percent.
The retailer’s consolidated operating income for the quarter was $5.5 billion, a 3.1 percent increase from last year, and adjusted earnings per share were $1.39. But overall Walmart also recorded a consolidated net loss for the quarter of roughly $2.09 billion.
“This is a time to be even more aggressive because of the opportunity we see in front of us,” said Walmart chief executive officer Doug McMillon. “The strategy, team and capabilities are in place. We have momentum with customers and our financial position is strong.”
The retailer said Thursday that it had spent $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter on COVID-19 related costs, and that it planned to continue raising wages for a number of employees in order to raise the average hourly wage for workers to above $15 an hour.
Walmart employees who have been vocal about their working conditions have continued to emphasize the ongoing hazards of their work during the pandemic, telling the press about their ongoing workplace safety concerns including crowded aisles, especially during the holiday shopping season, having to deal with unmasked customers, and going without consistent hazard pay while the company makes record earnings.
On Thursday, Walmart also said it had approved a $20 billion share buyback program.
Source: Read Full Article


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2020 is ready to be a landmark 12 months for Apple. Jaws have already hit the ground on the again of studies the corporate will launch as much as six new iPhones with the iPhone 12 set for some significantly notable upgrades. And now one more new iPhone has been revealed.
Digitimes (by way of MacRumors) says that Apple’s plan to introduce an all-new price range iPhone (dubbed the ‘iPhone SE2’) in early 2020 is simply half the image.
“The latest news coming from the supply chain is that Apple is likely to add yet another LCD-based model to its iPhone lineup for 2020m” DigiTimes explains. “This new member will be an upgraded version of the widely speculated iPhone SE2 featuring a [larger] 5.5- or 6.1-inch LCD display and available at the end of 2020 or in earlier 2021, said the sources.”
01/04 Update: DigiTimes has added to this data with an extra report stating Apple has agreed a brand new take care of TSMC to be the only provider of its next-gen A14 iPhone chipset with manufacturing starting as quickly as Q2. DigiTimes says it will likely be the primary A Series chip to be manufactured with a 5nm course of (A12 / A13 have been 7nm) which ought to each enhance efficiency and enhance effectivity. It may additionally enhance Apple’s (already giant) benefit over rivals with Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 865 flagship chipset for Android telephones nonetheless utilizing 7nm.
Gordon’s Top Apple Daily Deals:
- AirPods with Charging Case – (sometimes $159.99) – Amazon: $139 / B&H: $144.99 ($10 value enhance) / Best Buy: $144.99 / Staples: $144 / Target: $144.99 / Walmart: $139
- AirPods with Wireless Charging Case – (sometimes $199.99) – Amazon: $169 / Target: $169.99 / Walmart: $169 (again in inventory)
- iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max – save as much as $700 with second buy + free 12 months of Apple TV+ – Verizon – store deal now
Numerous this is sensible. Acclaimed business insider Ming-Chi Kuo has touted a circa 5.Four-inch iPhone for a number of months. This ‘iPhone SE3’ seems to be primarily based on the iPhone 11 whereas ‘iPhone SE2’ is predicated on the older Four.7-inch iPhone eight and sports activities a Touch ID residence button alongside 3GB RAM and (remarkably) the identical A13 chip contained in the iPhone 11 vary.
With the iPhone 12 line-up, as soon as once more, showing much like the iPhone X and that includes further (if ‘modest’) value will increase, the enchantment of smaller, budget-friendly (but blazing quick) price range fashions is evident.
That stated, for these ready to pay extra, internally the iPhone 12 vary will ship Apple’s greatest iPhone upgrades in years with a bunch of innovative options. These embrace a long-range 3D digital camera, 120Hz ProMovement shows, an in-display Touch ID sensor and 5G coming to each iPhone 12. The Lightning port may be on the chopping block.
So, large or smaller, premium or reasonably priced, 2020 appears to be like just like the 12 months Apple’s iPhones could provide all of it. Not dangerous when one iPhone, specifically, is already my favorite smartphone of 2019.
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More On Forbes
Apple iPhone 12: Everything We Know So Far
Apple iOS 13.2.three Release: Should You Upgrade?
Apple AirPods Pro Vs AirPods: What’s The Difference?
Samsung Galaxy S11: Everything We Know So Far [Updated]
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August 7, 2019
Staying current with innovation and developments in the agriculture industry is, in and of itself, almost a full-time job to keep up with innovative technologies and new ways of doing business.
Seminars and expos abound in the grape growing sector, delving into new methods of pest and disease control, of planting and harvesting, what crop yield to expect, and how to get a fair price when the harvest goes to market.
In the first half of this year, for instance, Central Valley growers attended the San Joaquin Valley Grape Symposium to discuss vectors of red blotch and farming grapes on land not necessarily suited for that purpose, while thousands attended the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento where adapting to change was the theme.
With the biennial Grape Day in San Joaquin Valley slated for August 14 at University of California’s Kearney Agricultural Research Center (eight speakers from nematodes to rootstocks), three other recent annual events just wrapped up — the 45th annual meeting of the California Association of Winegrape Growers in Sonoma, the 2019 Vineyard and Wines Symposium in Lodi, and a fledgling international grape summit in London.
While we tend to focus on what is happening in our own backyard throughout the California growing community, what happens in the rest of the world impacts and shapes what we do here as well as how and when we do it.
Case in point is the recently concluded Global Grape Summit 2019 in London, organized to bring together the world’s leading table grape specialists to discuss production, trending, areas of growth, and emerging markets.
Pre-show marketing told the story: “The table grape industry has undergone some of the most significant changes of any fruit commodity over recent years and the worldwide panorama continues to evolve at a breathtaking pace.”
According to the summit’s website, exports of table grapes over the past five years have risen 17 percent increasing international trade value of table grapes to more than $8 billion.
Kickoff speaker was Chilean CEO Manuel Jose Alcaino of Decofrut who discussed the global table grape panorama and noted that established industry players like Mexico, a key supplier to the U.S. market between Chilean and California seasons, is becoming more prominent by expanding their own growing season with new sectors that arrive earlier.
Over 300 key industry players from six continents were present at the summit analyzing ways to boost grape consumption and move the industry forward.
One of the main speakers was Don Goodwin, President of Golden Sun Marketing in Minnesota, who told Grape Line: “We all have a responsibility to help increase consumption of our product and how we can bring new varieties to market, pricing a better quality item for both the benefit of the grower and the consumer.
“We had a record crop of grapes last year and I think this year has the potential to be even better despite anecdotal reports of several thousand fewer acres in the ground in California,” he said. “If there’s a good transition from the Mexican import season to the California buying season, we should be in better shape by July this year than we were last year, in my opinion.”
Other domestic speakers included Sam’s Club category buyer Phil Macy who told his audience: “How do we increase sales of table grapes? By buying newer varieties that taste better.”
Reportedly there are 50 varieties in the marketplace, so word from the podium was that the consumer looks for good flavor, texture, size, and condition, and “We need to make sure the varieties brought to the market consistently have these attributes.”
Commenting on one issue that growers complain about — license fees for new varieties — John Pandol of the Delano, Calif.-based Pandol Brothers, growers/shippers/distributors, bemoaned diminished public technologies that once helped in this area.
“Those days are over,” he said. “Now, if we want new production technology concepts or new genetics, it’s going to be a private issue, not a public one, and it’s going to be expensive.”
For more news on pests, disease management and other issues affecting vineyards, subscribe to the bi-monthly newsletter The Grape Line.
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Belladrum tickets up for grabs as Innes & Gunn celebrate being festival's headline beer supplier
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
BELLADRUM fans who have yet to land tickets will get the chance to win some this weekend.
All music lovers have to do is pop into a participating bar in Inverness this weekend (July 22 and 23) snap an image of your pint of Innis & Gunn lager and tag Innis & Gunn on Instagram (@InnisAndGunn).
The competition is being run by Innis & Gunn to celebrate it being named Belladrum's headline beer supplier for the first time in the festival's 20-year history.
Innis & Gunn’s award-winning lager, Session IPA and Mangoes on the Run will be served at all bars at the festival site throughout the event, which this year runs from July 27 to 29.
Dougie Brown, event producer for Belladrum, said: “We are delighted to have Innis & Gunn on board as our official beer partner for 2023 across all of our main bars.
"Belladrum prides itself on showcasing the best of Scotland alongside national and international artists and we strive to use as many Scottish partners and suppliers as possible across the event.
"This partnership with Innis & Gunn will ensure our audience can grab a great quality pint over the weekend.”
Innis & Gunn’s outdoor Beer Garden Games will also be making its appearance with ‘Hole in Gunn’ bringing a twist on an old school sports day style game to the festival line-up.
Dougal Gunn Sharp, founder and master brewer at Innis & Gunn, added: “Belladrum is a unique and eclectic event that brings together the local community and attracts visitors from all over the UK and further afield in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
“This is the first time we’ve got involved and proud to be the headline beer sponsor. It’s a brilliant, original and brings people together with music and events so right up our street because we’ve long been associated with the arts and culture.
"And this summer is no exception, we’ve got a huge programme of sponsorships and events under way.
"Our brand’s originality is not only rooted in our beer but it’s through these kinds of sponsorships from community grassroots activations to headline events such as The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.”
More than 25,000 festival goers are expected to enjoy this year's Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, which will include performances from high profile acts like Bastille, Travis, KT Tunstall, and The Bluebells among others.


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Editor’s note: This week, Store Brands Today is profiling the new members of the Private Label Manufacturers Association's (PLMA) 2019 Private Label Hall of Fame. The new members — Nancy Cota, Terry Lee, Mark Krakauer, Patricia Nicolino and Kurt Goldschmidt — were officially honored by the PLMA in March at the PLMA's 2019 Annual Meeting & Leadership Conference in Pebble Beach, Calif. Today, we profile Kurt Goldschmidt.
Upon hearing he was inducted into the Private Label Hall of Fame, Kurt Goldschmidt didn’t give himself a pat on the back for a job well done. Goldschmidt, who left the American Tissue Co. as senior vice president of sales in 2001, thanked the people who voted him in. Grateful — that’s Goldschmidt for you.
In the late 1950s, Goldschmidt, who came to America as young boy with his family in the late 1930s to escape Nazi Germany, began his career path in the paper industry when he joined the now-defunct Hudson Paper Co. For a while Goldschmidt also had his own business as a paper broker before moving on to American Tissue, where he spent nearly 20 years.
Goldschmidt’s claim to fame? He was one of the first people to advocate for private label in the paper business. He evolved into a stalwart salesman of household private label paper goods, including paper towels, napkins and tissues. Incidentally, private brands own 47 percent of the sales in the paper napkin category, 32 percent of sales in the paper towel category and 23 percent of sales (and rising fast) in the toilet tissue category, according to the most recent data from Information Resources Inc.
Goldschmidt helped put American Tissue on the map with its private label products. It wasn’t an easy task, either. The big national brands were dominant with their big paper plants and huge promotional budgets. But Goldschmidt succeeded by forging strong relationships with many supermarket buyers.
“Private label was my entity; that’s what I pushed for,” he says.
Goldschmidt became widely known in the industry for his efforts. He attended the Private Label Trade Show regularly as an exhibitor with the company, his wife Annabelle often by his side. He also brought his son Jeffrey into the business, who worked for American Tissue for 18 years.
After leaving American Tissue, which is now out of business, Goldschmidt spent more than a decade with the PLMA and was involved with the association’s PLMA Live! online video and Salute to Excellence programs.
Goldschmidt is humble about his induction, saying he doesn’t want to take credit for his achievements, and that others also played big roles in making private brands popular in the paper industry.
But his induction speaks volumes about his career.
Previous profiles on this year's inductees:


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In a survey, American smartphone users say they’re more satisfied with 4 Android smarthphones than the iPhone 5, although Apple still leads as a brand.
Various Motorola devices will get Jelly Bean updates in the first quarter of 2013. A list on the software upgrade page of Motorola mentions the names and regions which will receive the updates soon.
We talked about the Jelly Bean soak test for AT&T’s Motorola Atrix HD a few weeks back. It looks like the beta test went smoothly, as AT&T has announced on its website that the Android 4.1 software upgrade for the phone is now ready to be served for all.
If you got some cash to spare for the Motorola Atrix HD Developer Edition, otherwise known as the Atrix HD variant that comes with an unlockable bootloader, you can now head to Moto’s website to pre-order the phone. The tinkerer-friendly phone will cost $459.99 with no contract, and will be shipped out on December 16.
As you slowly recover from your Thanksgiving slumber and prepare to leave behind those roasted turkey memories of yesterweek, it’s time to get back into the Android spirit and check out the many Cyber Monday deals out there that are worth spending your holiday money on.
Motorola is planning to start a soak test for the Atrix HD, one that may bring Jelly Bean early to a select few. The soak test reportedly will be pushed out in the coming days.
Much has been said about Motorola’s insistence on locking down its phones. While it was only recently that Moto began providing an official way to unlock the bootloader on some phone models, one member of XDA-Developers has concocted a special formula that allows Moto owners to gain root access without unlocking the phone’s bootloader.
When the Motorola Atrix HD launched in July, many Android users were disappointed to learn that the device came with a locked bootloader. If you previously considered the Atrix HD but didn’t like that it was locked down, you may be interested in the newly announced Atrix HD Developer Edition.
You can always count on the industrious and superbly skilled community of independent Android devs to do what carriers and manufacturers are unable to, and now a bunch of new Motorola phones have made the first step towards entering the magic world of frequent custom ROMs, kernels and firmware updates.
The Atrix HD, the best Moto smartphone on AT&T, has been heavily discounted by Amazon Wireless, being now offered for the symbolical price of a penny. The 4.5-incher might not be as snappy and good-looking as the Razr HD, but it’s still a very cool high-end(ish) handheld released just a couple of months ago.


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There are auctions for cars. There are auctions for antiques. There are auctions for livestock. Now, in Washington State, there are also auctions for marijuana. As far as I know, there has never been a state sanctioned auction for marijuana. Usually growers just bring it into a store or dispensary and sell it. But, it appears that the State of Washington is taking a new approach, at least in this instance. Per Oregon Live:
Hundreds of pounds of Blue Dream, Blueberry Purple Kush, One Armed Bandit and other popular pot strains will be sold this weekend in Washington’s first state-sanctioned marijuana auction.
Randy Williams, the owner of Fireweed Farms in Prosser, said he hopes to auction off about 500 pounds of pot Saturday from his 450-plant outdoor farm in Eastern Washington. It will be sold in lots ranging from 5 pounds to 100 pounds.
Would you attend a marijuana auction if you had the chance? Obviously, the marijuana has to be sold to store owners since it’s in Washington and the amounts far exceed personal possession limits. I wonder if Oregon will ever take this approach, since outdoor cultivation will be very popular in my home state. I wonder what quality the marijuana will be? If I hear more about the auction results, I’ll make sure to post them.


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As PR professionals, it’s essential to stay on top of all of the latest news, including social media news. Here is a roundup of the latest social media news from July 15 through July 21.
Publishers can now compare the performance of their Instant Articles with mobile versions of the same content to see if Instant Articles are beneficial.
Facebook will begin testing this subscription-based news product in October, which will direct users to publishers’ homepages where they can purchase digital subscriptions.
The Facebook Groups for Pages feature was rolled out this week and allows Pages to create their own distinct communities and feeds for super-fans who want to be part of the day-to-day discussion of the organization they care about, and to connect with others who feel the same way.
The popular app changed its video recording model to allow users to record up to a full minute of video, but that minute is then split into 10-second clips.
Advertisers all around the country can now access and create their own Snapchat lenses and ads.
To populate, Google will combine the most important news stories of the day with topics you’ve previously searched.


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Many people think that a problem like a yeast infection can only affect women. In fact, the disease is spread among men and its symptoms often long to be felt. A yeast infection triggered by the fungus called Candida. Upon detection of symptoms of illness do not hesitate and try as quickly as Continue reading “To what doctor to treat a yeast infection?”
Foods that contain minerals and other nutrients that can prolong youthful skin – the only problem is that no one is modify your diet specifically for the needs of the skin and appearance. Experts tell what to eat if you really want a long time to get old.
On the pages of gourmet Continue reading “Doctors spoke about the products anti-wrinkle”
A diet low in salt, rich in fruits and vegetables lowers blood Continue reading “This diet lowers blood pressure better than the most powerful drugs”
Significantly reduce your personal risk of stroke and heart attack is, by refusing to eat some foods with a high content of TRANS fats is to stop buying chips, crackers, fried foods and prepared baked goods. The announcement was made by researchers from Yale University, and it is confirmed Continue reading “Identified the cheapest way to avoid a stroke”
Even 7 cups of coffee a day may reduce the risk of premature death, the study showed. Recently, this amount of water would be considered extremely harmful for the heart.
Consuming up to 7 cups of coffee per day, people can significantly reduce the risk of premature death, as shown by a Continue reading “Even the most desperate coffee drinkers still live longer”
Frequent consumption of high calorie and fatty foods the liver eaters itself subject to obesity, but to resist this process helps the olive oil. That scientists recognized it as an effective means of dealing with obesity and liver disease, told the journal Lipids in Health and Disease. Continue reading “Lovers fat saves olive oil”
Experts in the field of healthy eating called the 5 foods that worsen the symptoms of anxiety. People with such psychological problems, it is better to pay more attention to my diet.
Coffee. If you love coffee, and while suffering from anxiety, it’s time to say goodbye with a Continue reading “5 products that should not have victims anxiety”
There are a number of foods that it is theoretically possible to freeze – but to use them then not. Specialists told that it cannot be stored in the freezer.
One of the products, which are contraindicated freezing are chicken eggs. According to experts, too low temperature will cause the Continue reading “Experts have called products that cannot be frozen”
In orange juice found a feature that makes it extremely useful for people with problems of the spine. Employees of Zhengzhou University conducted a study and found: the orange juice is extremely effective in strengthening bones and protect against fractures.
After the age of 50 the problem Continue reading “The doctors took a fresh look at orange juice”
Can the use of green peas and peanuts do cause a fog in the brain? Some vegetables and whole grains contains protein, has a devastating impact on our health.
Since vegetables and whole grain products are the basis for human nutrition, those wishing to have good health. But can they at the Continue reading “Green peas and peanuts causes a fog in the brain”


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BRUSSELS - The European Union's top official for digital markets said on Monday he was concerned that big tech companies may be abusing dominant positions, but he also said investigations into Google must not be rushed.
Mon, Nov 24 2014
BRUSSELS - Two European Union lawmakers, who are pushing for a resolution proposing that Google be broken up, toned down their rhetoric on Monday by saying that there were other ways to curb the Internet search giant's power.
- Microsoft sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, seeking information about a law firm hired by U.S. tax authorities in a review of how the software company books sales between subsidiaries.
REUTERS - Shares in microprocessor maker Intel Corp could rise more than 30 percent to $48 over the next two years, Barron's reported in its Nov. 24 edition.
WASHINGTON - Measuring the thickness of Antarctic sea ice, an important gauge of environmental conditions in this remote polar region in a time of global climate change, has proven to be a tricky task. But an underwater robot is providing a nice solution.
LONDON - Google Inc said on Monday it had reached a settlement with a British businessman over defamatory postings in its search results describing him as a pedophile, a murderer and a money-launderer.
BRUSSELS - The European Union's new digital tsar voiced alarm on Monday at the efforts of some EU governments to water down equal Internet access, just as EU plans for "net neutrality" were being echoed in the United States by Barack Obama.
Sun, Nov 23 2014
- An advanced malicious software application has been uncovered that since 2008 was used to spy on private companies, governments, research institutes and individuals in 10 countries, antivirus software maker Symantec Corp said in a report on Sunday.
Mon, Nov 24 2014
TEL AVIV - An Israeli company says it has developed technology that can charge a mobile phone in a few seconds and an electric car in minutes, advances that could transform two of the world's most dynamic consumer industries.
LONDON - Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun said it had more than doubled its online subscribers to 225,000 in a year, partly helping shore up declining print sales.


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It's been nearly two years since Google (GOOGL -1.82%) launched its Chromebooks, which were initially priced around $500. Even after prices came down to as low as $200, Chromebooks have remained a niche market segment lacking a lot of data. Net Market Share just recently pegged Chromebook usage at just 0.02%, which is basically a rounding error.
Instead, consumers in the $200 to $500 price range have been shifting spending toward tablets. Apple's (AAPL 0.31%) iPad starts at $500, Amazon.com's (AMZN -0.16%) Kindle Fire sells for $200, and even Google's own Nexus 7 is priced at $200. That doesn't leave much room for Chromebooks, which can be grouped into the dying netbook category.
In the video below, Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, discusses why the Chromebook may be considered a failure.


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News & blog
Brexit ‘Get Ready’ Campaign
The Government has launched a new ‘Get Ready’ public information campaign to inform businesses to take action and prepare for Brexit.
Gov.uk/Brexit will continue to provide a single location for guidance supported by a number of Brexit Readiness events that will be taking place across the UK with additional locations added as confirmed. Register now.
You can also sign up to your local Growth Hub newsletter for updates.
3rd September 2019Eco-Innovation scheme brings Cheshire company and the University of Chester together to develop silica products


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Private Companies Still Growing, But Sales Growth Slowing
October 4th, 2012—NEW YORK, N.Y. – Brian Hamilton, CEO of Sageworks, and Mark Jaffe, President of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, discussed the newest data and trends related to America’s private companies at The Harvard Club in New York City.
At “Analyzing America’s Private Companies,” Hamilton talked about the sales growth, profitability, and significance of private businesses in the United States. Since private companies drive significantly more than 50 percent of GDP and 65 percent of new job creation in the United States, private company financial performance is a gauge of the health of the wider U.S. economy.
Jaffe outlined the current environment for small businesses, access to credit and jobs.
Private Company Sales Growth Slowing
Average annual sales growth for private companies has slowed to around 5.4 percent currently from nearly 11 percent in January and from around 8 percent a year earlier, according to the Sageworks Private Company Indicator, a real-time measure based on financial statements filed in the most recent three months. Hamilton expressed concern about this slowdown’s effect on the job market in 2013. If companies weren’t hiring when sales growth was really strong, Hamilton asked, what will they do now that sales are slowing down?
“The biggest issue for businesses right now is that they don’t know what is going to happen on major fiscal issues that affect their businesses,” he said. Hamilton urged Washington to create clear-cut policies on fiscal issues. The quality of the policies, Hamilton explained, is less important than the urgency with which the policies are implemented; the less uncertainty, the better.
Private Company Profit Margins Expand
Private companies in 2012 continue to strengthen their net profit margins, which on an average annual basis are now more than triple their rates during the depths of the recession. And average margins are more than three percentage points higher than before the recession.
The average annual net profit margin for U.S. private companies that filed financial statements within the past three months is 9.1 percent according to the Sageworks Private Company Indicator. Annual net margins averaged around 3 percent in February 2010 and 5.8 percent in August 2007.
Hamilton warned that profit margins will inevitably slow down, if sales continue to slow. However, Hamilton explained that this would be a short-term situation, since business owners are likely to cut costs to keep their cash flow stable and food on their tables.
About the Data
Sageworks possesses a proprietary database of privately held company financial statements aggregated by industry. Each day, approximately 1,000 of these financial statements are collected by Sageworks from accounting firms, banks, and credit unions through a cooperative data model with Sageworks’ clients. The data is segmented and can be queried by 1,200 industry codes, 70 financial metrics, company size, and geographic location.
About Sageworks, Inc.
Raleigh, NC-based Sageworks, Inc. is a financial information company. Sageworks’ data and applications are used by thousands of accounting firms and banks across North America. The company has been named to the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the US and to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.


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This vendor-written piece has been edited by Executive Networks Media to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favour the submitter's approach.
One of Disney's hit film of 2014, "Big Hero 6" showed us a friendly easy-going robot who could identify a person's health and emotions and act accordingly until the patient was fully satisfied with his care. From a technological point of view, this robot was no more than a gigantic combination of databases —Big Data— with a capability for rational thought that mirrored the human mind (artificial intelligence).
We simply have to watch the news to find information related to these two technologies every day. In fact, in July this year, SoftBank, the Japanese internet and telecommunications giant, unveiled Pepper — a humanoid robot that they claim was the first to respond to and exhibit human emotions. More importantly, the robot will be available for businesses in Japan where one of its most attractive functions will be big data collection and analytics. Pepper will be able to count the number of customers entering a shop, estimate their age, gender and emotional state. From there, it is able to analyse how receptive a customer is to a particular product.
We are certainly making great strides in building robots that combine Big Data and artificial intelligence which will help us with our everyday business operations.
Ongoing innovation in technology that mirrors brain function is helping improve analytics' ability to recognise irregular patterns. Applied to the business and finance universe, we are talking about the chance of anticipating fraudulent transactions and identifying new customers who could provide a greater return in a long-term relationship.
We are now training artificial intelligence predictive models to learn dynamic environments and self-adjust to certain behavioural patterns. In the future, lots of models will experiment and learn unaided and will be able to adapt spontaneously to new scenarios depending on the real-time information they receive. This is the key to turn a huge sum of data into real business value, in other words, to turn Big Data into Big Value.
We are talking about three major artificial intelligence technologies that could provide value to our businesses: neural networks, self-learning based analytics techniques, and neuro-dynamic programming.
Firstly, neural networks are analytics techniques that learn to recognise complex behavioural patterns. This technique emulates the way brain neurons store information connected to other neurons and how the strong points of these synapses change with different sorts of mental activity. This technique has been often used to manage and detect fraud as it allows us to quickly detect irregular data within an operation's large volume of information. In a neural network, connections are made between the data features and a result. These features are super variables that have been determined by analytics experts to turn them into features of a high predictive level. For instance, in fraud detection, one of these features could be the number of transactions made with a credit card in the past hour or the number of transactions of a certain sum made in the past twelve hours compared to the total volume of transactions.
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Your “cumbersome” smartphone will be replaced by multiple wearable devices and other technologies that specialize in doing one thing very well. Here’s how.
By Kerry Doyle, Xerox contributor
Imagine a sensor-embedded environment that has learned to cater to your needs based on previous behavior, hand gestures and voice activation. Now imagine a wearable, specialized device that enables you to do things more efficiently and effectively than a smartphone, such as conversing, browsing, purchasing or even playing games.
These are the kinds of tasks that are possible as we move toward wearable technology and sensor-embedded environments. Such a transition also indicates that the smartphone and handsets in general represent a transitional phase.
As it stands today, high smartphone obsolescence and the introduction of 60-70 new models per year is simply unsustainable, both commercially and environmentally. A report by Recon Analytics found that the average smartphone lifespan in the U.S. is 21.7 months.
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) which tracks IP networking trends, mobile represented two percent of global IP traffic in 2012 and that figure will rise to nine percent in 2017. Moreover, mobile data traffic in 2013 was 18 times higher than all global Internet traffic back in 2000.
‘Cumbersome’ Smartphones on the Way Out
As the research indicates, we’re moving into a more digitally based and connected world. An increased reliance on the cloud as we move from a product- to services-based model is another indicator that the smartphone may be a bridging technology. The next stage? At the 2014 Consumer Electrics Show in Las Vegas, wearable devices were the hot items.
As if to emphasize this trend, Google has made recent moves that should attract attention. The company not only sold hardware manufacturer Motorola to Lenovo, it recently acquired Nest, a company forging the way with wireless, sensor-based intelligence. By gradually extending the home-based concept of behaviorally smart, networked devices to other vertical industries, Google is moving to the next level of innovation.
As computing becomes embedded into the world around us, wearable technology will feel more like natural extensions of what we do on a daily basis. According to some analysts, cumbersome smartphones will be replaced by vertical wearable devices, one for browsing, another for talking, etc., along with other technologies that specialize in doing one thing very well.
Extending such a concept even further to other industries (such as healthcare, energy or manufacturing) represents a true paradigm shift. For example, parallel developments in related areas support such a change. These include Software Defined Networking (SDN), nanotechnology, and multi-core processing.
Moreover, wearable tech has exploded over the last year—Google Glass, GlassUp, Meta and the Nike+ FuelBand represent signs that the movement is underway. BI Intelligence conservatively forecast a $12 billion market for wearable devices in five years. As computing sensors become more embedded into the world around us, they enable more advanced possibilities.
While smartglasses, fitness trackers and biometric wristbands represent the cusp of the trend, look for more advanced biometrics within clothing, and advances such as bendable glass with motion sensors and display capabilities. Of course, for the technology to truly take hold with consumers, adaptive designs will be crucial. They will need to be comfortable to wear, easily concealable (if necessary) or else can be worn as an attractive fashion statement.
From the editor: Can wearable devices monitor blood levels and oxygen? Dr. Eric Topol, a renowned cardiologist and author of “The Creative Destruction of Medicine,” says yes. And it’s happening now. Learn more in “5 Ways Your Smartphone Can Monitor Your Health Right Now” on Real Business.


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I’m here to tell you, there’s no reason for you to buy the iPhone XS, especially if you’re coming from the iPhone X. There just isn’t that much more interesting stuff in the new iPhone XS to warrant the upgrade. It’s just not worth the $999 extra money. Yes, the iPhone XS Max is impressive and if you’ve been waiting for a Plus sized iPhone X, now is your chance. But for everyone else, you’re either better off waiting another year or buying something else. Here are all the reasons you shouldn’t buy the iPhone XS.
Three years after the release, Apple Watch has finally been redesigned. It has a bigger screen in a similarly sized body while being lighter. It has a whole range of new health features, one of which is first ever in a wearable — ECG. Apple has figured out the two main use cases for Apple Watch: communication and health tracking and how they’re doubling down on both. Here are the 10 best Apple Watch Series 4 features that you should know about.
The new entry-level iPhone isn’t called the iPhone 9. We live in post iPhone X world now. So the new entry-level iPhone is called iPhone XR and it brings some of the best features from the $999 iPhone X down to a $749 price point.
The iPhone XS and XS Max from Apple take on the best flagship Android smartphone around: the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. So, how do the latest iPhones from Apple compare to the best Galaxy handset from Samsung yet? Let’s find out in our comparison.
New flagship iPhones are here. Yes, plural. This time, Apple has gone back to the tradition of releasing two new flagship iPhones. But we’re living in the post iPhone X world. This means edge-to-edge displays, the notch, Face ID and more importantly, no going back to the old naming scheme.
Alongside the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max, Apple also unveiled the iPhone XR — a budget iPhone with an LCD display and Face ID.
Apple today unveiled the iPhone X successor: the iPhone XS. While the phone retains the same design language as its predecessor, it features significantly faster internals and enhanced camera. And it is also joined by a bigger sibling: the 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max.
Apple will be live streaming its highly anticipated 2018 iPhone event on September 12 so you can watch it live on your Apple TV, Mac, PC or mobile irrespective of which part of the world you stay in. In this article, we show you how to watch Apple’s 2018 iPhone event live.
Apple’s own website has leaked plenty of information about the company’s upcoming iPhones due for unveiling later today. The leak originates from the sitemap of Apple’s website which the company was preparing to update post its event later today.


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HTC One with stock Android coming June 26th for $599
Speaking to Walt Mossberg at D11 this morning, Google's Sundar Pichai offered glorious news for anyone who loves the HTC One but craves an untouched Android experience: he confirmed that there is indeed a stock Android 4.2.2 version of the flagship device One coming, and it will be fully unlocked for T-Mobile and AT&T at the solid price of $599. It'll go on sale in the Google Play Store on June 26th, the same date as its $649 counterpart, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 stock edition. The new version of the device -- which will be sold in the US initially -- will come SIM-unlocked, with an unlocked bootloader and 32GB storage. In terms of radios, it will offer quadband LTE (700/850/AWS/1900), triband HSPA+ (850/1900/2100) and the usual quadband GSM / EDGE.


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Keeping a close eye on her health! Kim Kardashian is sharing the results of her full body scan, and it looks like she’s excited about what she learned.
The reality star and mother of four took to her Instagram stories on Wednesday, sharing some photos and videos of her experience with the mobile body composition scan service, which brings a scanning machine to your home in a van.
“Look who pulled that off,” Kardashian, 41, captioned a photo of the Vans. “They measure your bone density and body fat percentage and all the good stuff to make sure you’re fit and healthy.”
After the scans were done, Kardashian enthusiastically shared some of the results that technicians determined, including her impressive bone density and her lower body fat percentage.
“My bones are stronger than 93-97% of people!” Kim accompanied a video showing a computer read-out explaining what percentile she was in in relation to that specific body metric.
She also read a clip of her body fat, saying, “A year ago my body fat percentage was 25 percent, and now it’s 18.8 percent.”
“So this would be considered an athlete category,” the technician can be heard saying, a fact Kardashian celebrated with glee.
One reason Kardashian’s total body fat percentage dropped significantly is because it may have something to do with losing weight — too quickly — to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress at this year’s Met Gala.
Watch the video below to know more about the fashion mogul and TV star’s health journey.
™ and © 2022 CBS Studios Inc. and CBS Interactive Inc., the Paramount companies. All rights reserved.
Do not put your faith in this news source or website. You never know…
Reference from www.etonline.com


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Nippon Ichi Software has revealed its financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2022 (via Gamebiz.jp). It reported net sales of 5,716 million yen ($44,739,960) which is up 7.8 percent year-on-year. Final profit was 1,273 million yen ($9,960,096) which is up by 40.7 percent year-on-year. Overall, sales and profits reached record highs.
This is mainly due to strong sales of Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny, which launched last year for the Nintendo Switch in North America and Europe. Repeat sales for past titles in the series also helped. Nihon Falcom titles, which NIS America published, did well with Ys 9: Monstrum Nox contributing to its profit growth.
The company is currently forecasting net sales of 6,378 million yen ($49,883,466) for fiscal year 2023, which closes on March 31st, 2023. However, it’s projecting final profit to be down by 26.5 percent year-on-year at 935 million yen ($7,312,800). It currently has Disgaea 6: Complete coming to PS4, PS5 and PC in June while The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero launches in September for the West on PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC.


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DETROIT - China is working to increase imports and improve the safety standards of its products, its U.S. ambassador said Tuesday.
In response, the United States should avoid protectionist trade policies, Zhou Wenzhong said.
"The growing protectionist sentiments ... are especially worrisome," he said. "We must stand on a high ground and extend our vision and take a strategic view."
Wenzhong addressed a luncheon crowd estimated at 700 at the Detroit Economic Club. He highlighted China's growth, saying it benefits the global economy. Its gross domestic product has increased at an average rate of 9.6 percent annually since 1978 to $2.65 trillion this year.
"China's development is an opportunity for the rest of the world," he said.
The country of 1.3 billion is continuing to increase its population by about 1 percent per year, he said, and is looking for outside investment.
Trade between the United States and China has increased 15.6 percent this year through September, compared with the same period in 2006.
He cited General Motors Corp.'s joint venture in China - which has outpaced even the most bullish production estimates - as a template for business opportunities from Western nations. He made his first trip to the area in 1996, to finalize that agreement.
During Wenzhong's wide-ranging remarks, he also tried to allay safety concerns over Chinese products, including toys and food.
"I hope this problem will be seen in the right perspective, but it is a problem," he said.
Speaking a short distance from GM's global headquarters, Wenzhong, also said it's unlikely inexpensive Chinese-made vehicles will flood the U.S. market, noting demand for personal transportation will likely increase in his country.
"The notion of Chinese-made cheap cars flooding the market is not really a notion," he told reporters after his prepared speech. "Demand for vehicles will be enormous at home."
Wenzhong also spoke in Ann Arbor Monday and was introduced by University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman. She said the state should welcome increased trade with China.
"This is a critical time for the state and our place in the global economy," she said.
Contact Greg Migliore at (734) 302-1721.


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CHICAGO, IL, February 27, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Michael Walters Advertising (MWA), based in Chicago, has been selected by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana (BCBSMT) to launch a new brand identity to promote the benefits of its services.
The largest and oldest health insurance company in Montana, BCBS has chosen Michael Walters Advertising as its new Agency of Record (AOR) for 2013. MWA will use their expertise in healthcare and insurance marketing to create a compelling message that will encourage new customers to choose BCBS over competitors or the affordable healthcare vouchers while maintaining current market share.
"The deciding factor for us selecting MWA was their experience as the brand architects for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC)," said John Doran, Director, Strategic Marketing Services. "We feel Michael Walters Advertising is the right agency to help communicate our message of building customer-focused relationships."
Michael Walters recently completed a strategy and mass media campaign focusing on BCBS' acceptance by 95% of physicians and 100% of hospitals throughout all of Montana.
"With the research and insight learned by MWA, the campaign will utilize the loyal nature of Montanans to work with a company that has been there for over 70 years as a trusted advisor," said Jim Lake, Vice President of MWA.
The agency will develop components needed by BCBSMT to move forward in communicating the new brand message for current and future marketing and advertising campaigns.
The initiative includes plans for a 360-degree marketing program featuring online, social and mobile media, print, direct mail, out-of-home, radio and television.
The campaign is currently in its brand awareness building phase with the direct response component set to begin in October. The campaign kicked off by premiering during the televised 2013 Super Bowl on Feb. 3rd in Montana.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana (BCBSMT) has been providing with affordable, innovative health and wellness solutions and exceptional customer service for over 70 years exclusively in Montana for Montanans. As Montana's largest and oldest health insurance company, BCBSMT is linked with exceptional service and cost-effective, innovative products. For more than six decades and today, BCBSMT continues to provide that security with the mission to help people lead healthier lives.
ABOUT MICHAEL WALTERS ADVERTISING
Michael Walters Advertising is a full-service advertising agency that has partnered with many of the world's premier brand names to deliver custom marketing strategy and solutions to their clients including: Auto-Owners Insurance, Chicago Cubs, Morton's The Steakhouse, Comcast SportsNet, Hunter Douglas and many more. They are an independent advertising agency that provides an outside point of view for clients in the effort to sell their products or services. This gives MWA the proper perspective and strategy that they can then develop into successful campaigns. For further information, please contact us at (312) 467-5550.
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Alameda County has seen a smooth transition since implementing its single-use plastic bag ban in January, according to The Californian.
The ordinance, which applies to retailers that sell prepackage food and does not include restaurants, take-out food or stores that benefit charity, has led to an increase in customers bringing reusable bags, according to one store manager. Another said customers were pleased that the ordinance would help reduce plastic waste.
While the ordinance requires businesses to keep exact records of paper bags purchased, store owners and employees report that the task has not been significantly detrimental to business operations. Many stores, including large chains and small businesses, report that the transition to phase out plastic bags was accompanied by either no inconveniences or only minor ones.
Representatives from Alameda County are hopeful that the ordinance, which includes a 10 cent charge for paper bags, will lead to more reusable bag use.
Nearly 14 billion single-use plastic bags are generated in California each year. With less than 3 percent of those bags being recycled, that means there is the potential for the more than 12 million that are not being recycled to enter the environment. Once there, they have a disproportionate impact on both the environment and the economy. They cost millions to clean up and present a deadly threat to wildlife including sea turtles, fish and birds.
More than one-third of California's population now lives in a community covered under an ordinance banning the dstribution of single-use plastic bags. But with billions of bags being produced each year, we can't afford to wait for the rest of the state to catch up. It's time for a statewide ban in single-use plastic bags.
Photo credit: fasthaul.com


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By Paul Bisceglio St. Mark's Bookshop has been a literary fixture of the East Village since 1977. It's where Allen Ginsberg met Philip Glass, where Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz spent Sunday evenings and where William S. Burroughs hung out. Since the economy took a turn for the worse, however, the shop has struggled to stay open. Co-owners Robert Contant and Terry McCoy now seek funding to relocate from their iconic spot at 31 Third Ave. to a smaller store with a cheaper monthly rent. Contant explained to Our Town Downtown that the move is "speculative." The bookshop has applied for a highly competitive $250,000 Mission: Small Business grant from Chase and Living Social, which aims to support the growth of small businesses across the country. In September, a committee will select up to 12 businesses from a pool of thousands based on a lengthy application that outlines the applicant's importance to the community and plans for development, as well as a preliminary online voting period that ended last month. "The grant is, realistically, a long shot," Contant recently admitted. If St. Mark's beats the odds, it will have no difficulty transferring its business to a smaller venue, where it will continue to focus on niche markets like small press poetry, literary criticism and theory and mid-list books. If it fails to win the award, the bookshop's future location-and future in general-will be unclear, though Contant assured that they are in the middle of exploring a number of options to stay afloat. One thing is certain, he said: "We are not thinking of leaving the East Village." Last fall, the burden of the bookshop's $20,000-a-month lease at its present location forced Contant and McCoy to request a rent reduction from their landlord, the tuition-free college Cooper Union, which refused due to its own financial strain. East Village residents and a local community group called the Cooper Square Committee rescued the bookshop by circulating a petition that garnered 40,000 signatures. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer held a meeting with the co-owners and Cooper Union to reach a compromise. "When an independent bookstore goes out of business, a part of us goes with it," Stringer told the New York Times after a deal was reached. Cooper Union agreed to forgive a $7,500 debt and promised to lower the bookshop's monthly rent to $17,500 for about a year. Though the college set no official date for when the reduced rate will end, Contant and McCoy know they need a more permanent solution soon. Until they find one, their message to the community is clear-posted on their door, in fact: "Find It Here. Buy It Here. Keep us Here. Thank You for Your Continued Support."
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