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As soon as Donald Trump had won the elections the company General Motors said it was preparing special armored car Cadillac for the new US president. Trump will be able to drive it in the beginning of next year, although such a rich man has already got a lot of vehicles. Let's look at the most valuable cars from the car park of Donald Trump.
1. Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud 1956
This car Donald Trump bought at the beginning of his career, when he achieved the first success in the company of his father. In fact, old-fashioned burgundy limousine with in-line 6-cylinder engine is the first car of the future billionaire. Perhaps this is the main value of the vehicle, which is now gathering dust in the garage of the newly elected US president.


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“Your safety is not their priority!”
Merchoid, which is paradise for gaming, movie and comic themed merch, announced this morning that they will be releasing two hoodies based on the PlayStation 1 and 2.
The Elder Scrolls is set to suck away all our free time yet again. First with the Skyrim Special Edition coming to PS4 later this month and next with Skyrim Monopoly. … Continue reading Skyrim Monopoly Coming Early 2017

domain: news


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As a reflection of the global nature of the acrolinx customer base, the company has created a new regional structure for its key markets of North America, Europe and Asia, and has been able to recruit a strong regional management team to head these business units.
acrolinx has always been a global company supporting a user base in over 25 countries. As a reflection of the increasing critical mass of customers in North America, Europe and Japan, the company has created three regional business units, and created and strengthened regional management.
Tony Ehrens, formerly General Manager of RedDot in North America, will become VP - Sales to form a new acrolinx North America, Inc. team management structure with Kent Taylor - SVP &GM. Jörg Seeger, formerly EMEA Sales Director for Oracle, has joined acrolinx as General Manager Europe, and Hideo Yanagi, formerly head of the acrolinx practice at Sunflare, has joined acrolinx as Managing Director of the newly formed subsidiary acrolinx K.K., with responsibility for the APAC region.
“It became clear to us last year that our continued strong growth through the economic crisis presented both an opportunity and a challenge;” explained Andrew Bredenkamp, CEO of acrolinx, “we wanted to take the opportunity to go after the huge market we see opening up for our Information Quality technology, and at the same time address the challenge of how to best look after our existing customers around the world. Strengthening the regions will also allow our headquarters in Berlin to focus on continuing to deliver technology which is far ahead of the competition.”
Last year, acrolinx made more than half of its global revenue in North America and is expecting to make 20% of its license revenue in Asia in 2010. The company is also expanding into France and Scandinavia. The establishment of dedicated sales, marketing, support and professional services teams in each of the regions will help acrolinx to better address their specific needs.
acrolinx (acrolinx.com) is the world's leading provider of Information Quality Management solutions. More than 60 blue-chip customers worldwide, such as Cisco, IBM, Siemens, Philips, an d Caterpillar, rely on acrolinx in their information development process. The flagship product acrolinx IQ™ has rapidly become the leading quality management solution for high-value content. Its competitive edge is the award-winning linguistic technology. more information.
Nicole Koerber, Good News! PR
T: +49 160 8254495
Submitted by NeonDrum on behalf of acrolinx GmbH
Nicky Denovan / T: +44 7747 017654.


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To transport wine and olive oil from Madrid to Yiwu, China, via the ambitious “One Belt, One Road” project, Spanish producers need to wrap bottles in thermal blankets to protect them from the cold of the Russian tundra—or else their products will freeze and explode.
“The train containers aren’t heated or refrigerated,” César Jiménez, from Kerry Logistics in Madrid, explained to Quartz.
Even then, the thermal blankets can only keep the temperature of products within 10 degrees Celsius of the outside cold or heat, Jiménez said. Because most of the cargo coming from Spain to China is food and beverages, which are sensitive to temperature changes, that means the rail line is only an option in the mild weather of spring and autumn.
And that’s providing the exporting companies can pay the €2,000 price per container—far more than what it costs to ship products by sea.
In November 2014, China expanded an old cargo train line that linked Germany to China to transport car components to Spain, creating a 13,000 km railway with the aim of increasing exports from China and bringing Spanish food to Chinese consumers. The trip takes 18 days, crossing France, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan.
It is part of the massive “One Belt, One Road” commercial and military initiative launched by China in late 2013. OBOR, as it is known, includes a maritime route that would link Asia with East Africa and Europe through the Suez Canal; and an inland route following the old Silk Road that would cross Central Asia to Europe.
But Spanish producers aren’t embracing it. “It’s expensive—the train may be double the price—and it is not suitable for the extreme weather in summer or winter,” Jiménez said.
Only eight trains have traveled east from Madrid from the time the line started until March 2016, while 39 have arrived from China, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais. (Repeated calls to confirm these numbers made to Timex Industrial Investment in Yiwu, which manages the train, weren’t answered.) Spanish producers who are using the train told the paper it was because their products would get free advertising on Chinese state television if they did.
Spain’s experience highlights some of the on-the-ground flaws of the massive OBOR project, which China is relying on to help keep its economy growing, but has billed as a mutually beneficial development project. OBOR provides “wide and open avenues for us all,” one of the ruling Communist Party’s top officials said today (May 18) in Hong Kong.
Some analysts say one of the main reasons China launched the OBOR initiative is to try to find new markets for its domestic overproduction. The project will “build infrastructure in other countries to give Chinese steel and construction materials a commercial use,” explained Roland Vogt, a professor in the European Studies Program at the University of Hong Kong.
The overcapacity problem could be solved by closing down firms in China, but that would eliminate much-needed jobs.
Another major purpose of OBOR is geopolitical, said Chenggang Xu, a professor of economic development at the University of Hong Kong. “For example, some of the key sea routes are seen as controlled by the Americans. If there was a war and a blockade, China would have to rely on the trains,” he said.
China is financing several railway projects along Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, including a high-speed train from Belgrade to Budapest built by a consortium led by the Chinese Railway Group, on the stipulation that these European countries use products and equipment made in China.
The problem is, there’s really no need to use trains to increase commerce between Europe and China. Sea cargo transportation is much cheaper, and companies already rely on it. More than 19,000 containers can be placed on a single cargo ship, and they only take 30 days from Europe to reach China.
The railway’s cost is only getting more prohibitive as sea shipping rates go down, thanks to an ongoing glut of shipping capacity.
In fact, shipping rates have fallen this year to historic lows, because of a glut of ships.
Yes, the railway is faster than a shipping container, but is also riskier because it goes through a few unstable countries and can be interrupted by extreme weather, terrorist attacks, and politics, Xu said. “The Russian government is not very happy about the Central Asian link,” he added. “In their view they should dominate Central Asia.”
China is trying to justify its domestic overproduction by creating the “One Belt, One Road,” and framing it as a business strategy that is also beneficial for other nations—but the actual benefit for some trading partners and the long-term global economy is still to be seen.


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Denmark’s gamblers aren’t shifting their action online despite the mass closure of retail gambling options, while Spain’s government says its gamblers were gambling online more until it cracked down on operator marketing.
On Tuesday, Denmark’s Spillemyndigheden regulatory body released figures detailing Danish gamblers’ activity from March 9 to May 3 to determine how the pandemic-related March 11 closure of land-based casinos, betting shops and slots halls had impacted consumer behavior.
The results show a 60% decrease in betting activity, spurred by not only the retail lockdown but also the mass cancellation of major sports events. But while other markets have witnessed a surge in online casino activity during this period, Spillemyndigheden says online casino figures are up only 2% year-on-year, a much smaller growth rate than online casino enjoyed from 2018 to 2019.
The pandemic lockdown has also failed to produce “great variation” in the country’s ROFUS gambling self-exclusion registry. There were also fewer calls to the StopSpillet problem gambling help line during the period in question than the year before.
Spillemyndigheden chief Morten Niels Jakobsen cautioned that the numbers were preliminary but nonetheless stated that “it does not appear as if the decrease in gambling at land-based casinos and gaming machines as well as betting has caused an increase in gambling on online casino.”
That’s not the case in Spain, at least, according to Minister of Consumer Affairs Alberto Garzón, who gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed online casino, poker and bingo activity had soared during the first two weeks of the country’s COVID-19 lockdown.
Television viewing had also increased significantly over that span, which led Garzón to impose new restrictions on Spanish-licensed gaming operators’ advertising and marketing activity at the end of March. Garzón said Monday that these new limits had produced the desired decline in online gambling participation.
However, Garzón didn’t provide any hard figures to support his assertion of ‘enormous’ success in bringing online operators to bear. Garzón did say that the existing restrictions would be temporary, although he intends to press forward with plans to impose the permanent limits his ministry proposed in February.


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The world is changing fast and to keep up you need local knowledge with global context.
By Thomas Pfeiffer
(Bloomberg) – Naspers Ltd.’s full-year earnings rose by as much as a third ahead of the technology group’s planned asset spinoff in Amsterdam, a move designed to reduce its dominance of Johannesburg’s stock exchange.
Core headline earnings per share, which strip out non-operational items, are expected to have grown by between 31% and 33%, the Cape Town-based company said in a statement ahead of more detailed financials scheduled for June 21.
The market value of Africa’s biggest listed company has increased by five times in the past six years, largely due to growth in Naspers’s 31% stake in Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. to about $128bn. The company now makes up about 25% of the FTSE/JSE Africa All-Share Index, compared with 5% in 2013.
While Naspers didn’t give a reason for the improving operating performance, Tencent reported a better-than-expected 17% rise in first-quarter net income last month. The South African company’s stake in the Chinese firm is worth more than Naspers as a whole, and management led by Chief Executive Officer Bob Van Dijk are striving to reduce that gap.
The shares rose 0.8% to R3,489.41 as of 11:35am in Johannesburg, valuing Naspers at R1.5trin ($101bn). The stock has gained 24% this year, compared with a 13% rise on the FTSE/JSE Africa Top40 Index.
Cyril Ramaphosa: The Audio Biography
Listen to the story of Cyril Ramaphosa's rise to presidential power, narrated by our very own Alec Hogg.


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HONG KONG (Bloomberg) -- BYD Co., the Chinese automaker backed by Warren Buffett, reported a 66 percent decline in fourth-quarter profit after demand for its vehicles slumped in the world's largest car market.
Net income fell to 90 million yuan ($13.7 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31 from 1.46 billion yuan a year earlier. The fourth-quarter figure was calculated by subtracting nine-month earnings from the full-year results announced by the company in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange Sunday. That compares with the 830 million yuan average of 11 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg and based on their 12-month projections.
Rising competition from rivals General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co. led BYD to cut prices on its models last month as sales plunged for seven straight months through February.
BYD, whose F3 sedan was China's best-selling car the last two years, missed sales targets last year even after slashing the target by 25 percent to 600,000 vehicles.
"Last year was a tough year for BYD's auto business," Ole Hui, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Daiwa Securities Capital Markets wrote in a report last month.
Some of the company's key models were late to qualify for the government's 3,000 yuan subsidy for fuel-efficient vehicles, hurting sales, Hui said. The company also cut prices by as much as 9 percent in mid-2010 to clear dealer inventory, he wrote.
Falling sales, prices
The automaker's full-year earnings fell 28 percent to 2.9 billion yuan. Sales in 2010 increased 18 percent to 46.7 billion yuan from a year earlier.
BYD, headed by chairman Wang Chuanfu, missed its 2010 delivery target by 13 percent, selling 519,806 cars. It cut the target by 25 percent in August from an earlier estimate of 800,000 units.
To revive sales growth, BYD slashed prices of five car models by as much as 15,000 yuan last month. GM, Honda and Nissan are also adding new, lower-priced brands in the world's largest auto market, while the government in January ended tax incentives that helped boost sales over the last two years.
Xia Zhibing, BYD's head of sales, wrote on his blog last month that the company, 10 percent owned by Buffett's Omaha, Nebraska,-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is "preparing for a price war."
The company's price reductions may "cannibalize the upcoming new models' sales and lead to deterioration in margins" this year, Rebecca Tang and Don See, Hong Kong-based analysts at Standard Chartered Plc, wrote in a report last month.
Tang and See lowered their 2011 earnings per share estimate for BYD by 58 percent to 1.25 yuan on the price cuts and profit erosion.
China's vehicle sales surged 32 percent to a record 18.06 million in 2010, helping the nation remain the world's largest auto market for a second year. BYD has a consensus rating among 27 analysts compiled by Bloomberg of 2.7 out of a possible 5, with "sells" topping "buys" by 12-to-eight.
Seven recommend holding the stock. BYD will bring its E6 pure electric cars to the U.S. this year, Wang said in January, delaying a previous plan to begin deliveries in 2010. Fleet sales of the E6 will start at the end of 2011, while retail deliveries will commence in the first quarter of 2012, he said at the time. The carmaker said at last year's Detroit show it would bring the E6, which can run for more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) on a full charge, to the U.S. in 2010.
BYD fell 2.5 percent to HK$34.95 in Hong Kong trading on March 11. The stock has plunged 14 percent in 2011.


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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
GM Announces 4G WiFi In Vehicles Starting 2014:
2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was chock full of announcements and events. Cloud technology proved to be more integral to the standard mobile product. WiFi moved in industry discussions from alternative platform to legitimate profit-potential. And some dude recapped the past year where he worked exclusively from his mobile.
To me, though, one announcement stood out from these:
General Motors revealed it plans to install 4G wireless modems in vehicles of all its brands, beginning in 2014 with Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and its Opex/Vauxhill brand in Europe. This means that starting next year, American consumers will be able to buys cars that double as internet hotspots, ones GM pledges will apply to any brand of smartphone, tablet, or other mobile device.
"You'll be able to get in the back seat with your iPad, go to your hotspot, and do anything that you could do on any other hotspot," Greg Ross of GM's Connected Consumer Group says in an interview with Design News. "You could do voice calls or you could surf the Internet and watch Netflix in the backseat.", (to which a nation of parents trying to keep their kids quiet in the back seat rejoices, I guess....?)
Moore's Law to thank for that, although some would dispute its endurance). Automobiles, however, are designed for over a decade of use. It follows that by the time you're a long-term owner of one of GM's vehicles, you may find its technology a little outdated with what is offered on the new generation of brands.
Personally, I don't think that's going to be too much of an issue in the long run. The breakthrough here is your car being a wi-fi hotspot: that basic feature is enough to keep an owner happy for a very very long time, regardless of future innovations. Yet, it remains to be seen how sweet a deal this move makes for potential customers. GM repeats the specific mention of streaming Netflix in their press release, and I'm not so sure entertainment is the biggest draw here. Passengers already have quite a lot to entertain them in a car; it's not as if I can't watch a movie on a DVD or hook up my iPod to my vehicle's stereo system because I've been able to do that for almost a decade now. This move is about fulfilling the wish of the customer who wants to use instant internet access to be productive in transit. How much do we as a society prioritize that? GM- and the rest of the industry- will soon find out.
Donal Thoms-Cappello is a freelance writer for Rotor Clip Company.
Posted by Rotor Clip at 5:47 AM


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Tesco Bank raises interest rates across savings accounts and ISA range – full details
Martin Lewis advises on savings accounts for deposits
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Tesco Bank announced today it will be increasing interest rates on a range of its savings products. This increase arrived just as average savings rates plummeted to all time lows.
Tesco Bank increased the following accounts from today:
- Internet Saver: Interest rate increased from 0.3 percent Gross/AER to 0.41 percent Gross/AER
- Instant Access ISA: Interest rate increased from 0.3 percent Gross/AER to 0.41 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate ISA: Interest rate increased from 0.4 percent Gross/AER to 0.52 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate Saver – 1 year: Interest rate increased from 0.35 percent Gross/AER to 0.52 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate Saver – 15 months: Interest rate increased from 0.4 percent Gross/AER to 0.56 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate Saver – 18 months: Interest rate increased from 0.45 percent Gross/AER to 0.62 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate Saver – 2 year: Interest rate increased from 0.5 percent Gross/AER to 0.68 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate Saver – 3 year: Interest rate increased from 0.55 percent Gross/AER to 0.78 percent Gross/AER
- Fixed Rate Saver – 5 year: Interest rate increased from 0.75 percent Gross/AER to one percent Gross/AER
A Tesco Bank spokesperson commented on the increases.
They said: “At Tesco Bank we constantly review our savings products to ensure we offer the best value possible for our customers.
“Both our fixed rate and instant access savings customers will benefit from this increase in rates, which are among the most competitive in the market.”
Savers will likely be keen to take advantage of these kinds of increases as average rates sit at rock bottom levels.
Savers ‘can’t afford to give up’ as inflation hits 3% – what to do [INSIGHT]
Martin Lewis issues urgent warning on Premium Bonds odds [WARNING]
Martin Lewis breaks down his ‘top pick’ bank switching deal [EXPERT]
On June 18, Moneyfacts.co.uk released their latest mortgage and savings rate data which showed the average no notice savings rates sat at 0.1656 percent.
According to its findings, this means average rates are at their lowest levels since at least January 2016.
Rates are unlikely to rise significantly any time soon as the Bank of England has hinted it will keep interest rates low as the economy recovers.
On June 24, the central bank elected to keep the base rate at 0.1 percent, which in turn limits what retail banks can offer.
At the same time, it was highlighted inflation may rise to unprecedented levels in the coming months, which will impact savers further.
Jason Cozens, the Founder & CEO of Glint, commented on this in response to the Bank of England’s decision.
Mr Cozens said at the time: “Despite rapidly rising inflation, the Bank of England is refusing to adjust interest rates.
“Inflation is clearly out of control and consumers need more support from the bank. Currently, their cash and savings are losing value by the day as inflation outstrips interest rates.
“In the UK, we’ve already surpassed the two percent target and there is even talk of inflation hitting four percent this year.
“US inflation sits at five percent, the highest level since the financial crisis and production prices in China are up nine percent in a year putting global consumers at real risk of further price hikes if these increased production costs are passed on.”
“In addition to rapidly rising inflation and low interest rates, the value of our cash and savings is also eroded by consumers are hit by continued quantitative easing – around £900bn since the financial crisis – and shocking levels of government borrowing and debt – UK national debt sits at over 98 percent of GDP or £2.17trillion.
“These factors ensure that the purchasing power of sterling declines over time and reduces the value of the cash in our wallets and our savings in the bank.”
Source: Read Full Article


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Basic word processor features an elegant user interface.
OmniOutliner Professional 3.9.1 is still the best outlining and list management tool on the market.
In an ongoing dispute over the use of XML in Word, Microsoft called the claim by Canadian developer i4i that it plotted to drive the company out of business "distorted," and "a breathless tale" that was not supported by the evidence.
Hog Bay Software's document editing app for the iPhone and iPod touch was already an impressive offering. But Version 2 of WriteRoom has added more key features, including a new search tool and true synching capabilities via WriteRoom.ws.
Version 2 of the audio noise reduction and restoration plug-in boasts adaptive noise reduction features. Also Tuesday, Flying Meat updated its VoodooPad note-taking software and Letter Opener led the latest round of updates for Snow Leopard compatibility.
Microsoft won a stay of an injunction ordered by a Texas court that would halt sales of Word.
Ten One Design's Autograph application lets you use your MacBook's trackpad to sign your name digitally.
Scrivener 1.52 brings Snow Leopard compatibility to the writing app and adds support for syncing site writeroom.ws.
Microsoft has asked a court to stay an injunction that could put a stop to Word sales.
The version 2.0 update to Hog Bay Software's $5 note-taking app, WriteRoom, adds web-based syncing via Google App Engine.


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(NEW YORK) — Even before its splashy reveal last month, Ford Motor's all-new electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck had already been declared a success. Truck sales have exploded in the last 15 months. The F-Series' reign over its pickup competitors -- 44 years and counting... Read More.
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HALIBUT AND CHIPS OR CRAB LOUIE – YOU DECIDE
Calling all fishers and crabbers. Summer is here and ...


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A stream of today's Apple event will be available at Apple.com
Apple is offering a live stream of today’s media event… assuming you’re a Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPod user.
In an unusual move for Apple people with one of the company’s fancier products will be able to go to Apple.com at 6pm (Irish time) to see (assumedly) Steve Jobs take the stage to show what new and shiny things the company has for us all.
The general consensus is that the event will see new iPods – including new iPod Touches – get debuted as well as a refresh of the Apple TV (expected to be renamed the iTV).
All rumours will be confirmed, or otherwise, in about an hour…


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As TechCrunch noted, the first GPS systems recorded each week as a 10-digit number and rolled over every 1,024 weeks (about 20 years); it’s an issue that’s been compared to the infamous Y2K bug. The first rollover happened in Aug. 1999 before smart phones and their GPS capabilities were a thing. But the next happened in April, and the issues trickled down through GPS systems to cause issues with phones.
Even though the rollover happened in April, Apple said in July, when an update was released, that the issue wouldn’t affect older devices until Nov. 3, 2019.
SEE ALSO: Half of all active iPhones have made the leap to iOS 13
According to Apple, the update will “maintain accurate GPS location and [allow users] to continue to use functions that rely on correct date and time including App Store, iCloud, email, and web browsing.”
In other words, if you don’t update, all the useful features on your iPhone 5 will be useless. Or you’ll at least have to update your iOS via computer, which is never fun. Other devices, like the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, will lose GPS capabilities, but that’s all.
Not too many people are affected by this — Engadget says Apple reports only nine percent of users still use a version of iOS that pre-dates iOS 12, while Apple discontinued the iPhone 5 in Sept. 2013 and classified the iPhone 5 as “vintage” in Nov. 2018.
But if you still rock the 5, well, now you know.


text: Rwandan telecoms operator Rwandatel has announced that its mobile subscriber base has grown to 600,000 following the launch of a low-cost call tariff, local daily The New Times reports. According to telecoms regulator Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), Rwandatel had registered 443,534 active subscribers in June this year. Rwandatel’s corporate communications manager, Cleophas Kabasiita, attributed the increase to the launch of a new tariff which offers on-net calls at RWF3 (USD0.005) per minute and attracted 156,466 subscribers in less than three months. ‘Our mobile subscribers have grown steadily and we have seen an upsurge with the introduction of each new product and/or service,’ she noted. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, the company launched GSM services in December 2008 and competes with South Africa’s MTN Rwanda and Luxembourg-based Millicom Rwanda (Tigo). Rwandatel is owned by Libyan government investment vehicle LAP Green Networks (80%) and the Social Security Fund of Rwanda (20%).


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Noise has added a new smartwatch to its portfolio ahead of the Amazon Prime Day sale of 2022. With all these launches, the wearable brand probably reconstructing its base for the upcoming sale. The new Noise ColorFit Pulse 2 costs Rs.1,999 only and will come for sale on 13th July via Amazon India and Noise’s official website. As per the listing on Noise’s official website, this smartwatch comes with five colour options – Jet Black, Rose Pink, Mist Grey, Space Blue, and Olive Green.
Set Launch Reminder: https://amzn.to/3AT5CW7
Noise ColorFit Pulse 2 Features
The brand is offering a 40% bigger screen area than the predecessor this time. The ColorFit Pulse 2 has a 1.8-inch touch-enabled display with 550 nits of brightness. There is a rotating crown too to scroll and manage the UI list.
It brings all the call and message notification details directly to your wrist and also provides freedom to manage those. For fitness, there are 50 individual sports modes. Other than that, health tracking sensors, such as heart rate monitor, sleep tracker, and others are also present. Noise calls this bundle Noise Health Suite.
There is still some information to come out, including the Bluetooth version, IP rating, and battery capacity.


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Three of the UK’s leading video game developers must post coronavirus safety tips in their titles.
Candy Crush Saga, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Sniper Elite 4 are among the games that will include messaging.
The first announcements will focus on the theme: “Stay at home. Save lives ”.
Rebellion – one of the companies involved – is also publishing 2000AD among other comics, and has also offered space in them for the government’s campaign.
“I contacted DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] A few days ago, we said we could do anything, “Jason Kingsley, chief executive of Rebellion and chairman of the Tiga games trade organization, told the BBC.
“Many people spend hundreds of hours in computer games.
“And in this case, we thought we could help society by reminding people of their obligations to others. “
The inclusion of the Codemasters Dirt Rally 2.0 off-road racing game comes a day before it was included in Sony’s latest PlayStation Plus package. This should give it high visibility in the coming weeks and ensure that several thousand subscribers see advertisements in the game despite the fact that the title is over a year old.
Similarly, London-based division of Activision Blizzard, King, predicts that millions of players will see advertisements in its mobile games, which include Farm Heroes Saga in addition to Candy Crush. The company also donated 230 digital advertising screens it had reserved to spread information about coronaviruses.
Game creators will present promotions in different ways.
In the case of Rebellion, he will display the message on a screen displayed before the start of the game in his titles Strange Brigade and Sniper Elite. He normally uses the launcher pages to promote his other merchandise. For PC gamers, the pages will also contain a link to a website with additional advice on the virus.
On the other hand, Codemasters will take advantage of the fact that it has integrated the possibility of displaying announcements in the action itself, which it can update remotely.
In the case of the Dirt Rally, players will see the advice on the road banners in front of them.
Because the technology is geo-targeted, messages will be limited to players based in the United Kingdom. But Codemasters says it hopes to extend the initiative to other European and American players soon with localized public safety information.
DCMS is now inviting more than 2,000 other UK gaming companies to join the effort.


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Chocolate lovers will be over the moon on March 3 when the Chocolate Expo comes to Cradle of Aviation in Garden City.
Eighty vendors will offer samples of gourmet chocolate, baked goods, specialty foods, gelato, wines, spirits, hard ciders and more throughout the day, and fountains flowing with milk, dark and white chocolate will greet guests as they arrive in the museum’s atrium lobby.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission – which the air and space museum is celebrating with special events all year – the chocolate show will include a five-foot-tall sculpture depicting the lunar module and Neil Armstrong saluting as the American flag is planted on the moon, according to Chocolate Expo creator and producer Marvin Baum. The sculpture will be constructed with chocolates, cookies and colored sugar by food artist Nancy Baker. More than 25 costumed Star Wars characters will be on hand as well.
Tickets include admission to all museum exhibits, including shows at the JetBlue Airways Planetarium.
The event “promotes the great educational programs at the museum in addition to supporting the 80 small businesses, 70 percent of which are from New York State,” Baum said.
The Chocolate Expo, now in its eighth year on Long Island, debuted in Albany in 2006.
Tickets are $20 per adult and $15 per child ages 2-12 at the door (or slightly less when purchased online at TheChocolateExpo.com). The event runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.


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About National Record Store Day
Hundreds of independently owned music stores across the country will celebrate Record Store Day. On this day, all of these stores will simultaneously link and act as one with the purpose of celebrating the culture and unique place that they occupy both in their local communities and nationally.
It takes place on the third Saturday in April (except for Easter weekends). The date also moved during the pandemic.
This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record store—the staff, the customers, and the artists—to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned stores play in their communities.Find out more


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Square Enix has released a new batch of character art and screenshots for its upcoming title, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. Someone in the ranks of development studio tri-Ace must love the cutesy chibi style, because it has been scattered throughout the hype train of this excellent looking game.
The update includes a look at the barren Torekur Kingdom, a wasteland of a country which often finds itself at war with its rival nations over their fertile land. Our heroes hail from the neighboring Resalia Kingdom and have grown up to see Torekur as enemies.
Gathering skills are also hinted at in the screenshots. Our heroes have the ability to seek out treasures, plants, minerals, and other typical resources open-world RPGs have made available these days. And while some characters are better at scouting out items, others are better at scouting out enemies, making sure that the highlighted radar never gives the enemy a jump on the party in battle.
All of these abilities, and more intricate ones like emotional capacity, can be improved when characters level-up.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness will be released for the PlayStation 4 in North America later this year.


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ULSTER Unionist Economy spokesperson Sandra Overend has called for more to be done to tackle the increase in the number of empty shops in our high Streets.
Speaking following the publication of research conducted by commercial property agency Lisney which found that 23 per cent of shops in Belfast are vacant shops and with a Northern Ireland wide figure of 19 per cent, the Mid-Ulster MLA said action is needed now.
“Action is needed to ensure that the plight of empty shops is addressed,” said Mrs Overend, “I know that the Finance Minister has taken action in this regard through a 50 per cent empty property relief (or an exclusion if applicable) where shop fronts or shop windows are used for community, artistic or other non-commercial purposes, however, this results in largely aesthetic improvements.
“The legislation for Business Improvement Districts may also have a positive effect on the situation once implemented.
“More needs to be done to ensure that our town centres and the retail sector especially are supported. My colleague, the “DRD Minister Danny Kennedy, has played his part through not proceeding with plans to roll out on-street parking charges to around 30 towns and cities across Northern Ireland.
“I would urge other Executive Ministers to follow his lead and support our local town centres and retail sector.”


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Cadillac Brings Escala Concept and CTS-V Carbon Black Edition to Geneva
Cadillac sales were up in Europe by 34.7% in 2016, so the American luxury automaker decided the time was right to introduce two new models to the European market at the 2017 Geneva International Auto Show.
The first of these models is the Cadillac Escala Concept and despite the fact that the company has no plans to sell this particular car, it does provide a preview of the new designs and innovative technology that customers can expect to see from Cadillac in the future.
The Escala Concept is the third Cadillac model to make its world debut at Pebble Beach within the last six years and from there, the concept vehicle has also been shown at the 2016 LA Auto Show and 2017 Detroit Auto Show.
Based on the same large premium car architecture that’s also used with the Cadillac CT6 prestige sedan, the Escala Concept is longer than the CT6 sedan by approximately 152 mm. In addition, the Escala Concept comes with a unique lift back design and distinctive vertical lights, which have have been a Cadillac trademark for more than 60 years.
Powering the Escala Concept is a new 4.2-liter twin-turbo V8 that could eventually be offered with the CT6 sedan. As it stands right now, the Cadillac CT6 is available with a turbocharged four-cylinder, a naturally-aspirated V6, and a twin-turbo V6, as well as a hybrid option, but it’s lacking an eight-cylinder option.
One Cadillac that is offered with a V8 engine is the CTS-V Carbon Black Edition, which is the other new car that Cadillac brought to the Geneva Motor Show. Besides coming with a supercharged V8 engine good for 640 horsepower, the new CTS-V Carbon Black Edition also comes with a Black Chrome grille, carbon-fiber hood vent, and 19-inch dark premium painted alloy wheels, just to name a few of this model’s distinguishing features.
General Motors still plans to offer Cadillac models in select European markets, despite GM’s recent announcement that it sold both its Opel and Vauxhall brands to PSA Group. GM hopes to sell more than 5,000 Cadillac vehicles per year in Europe by the end of the decade.
Video: Cadillac Escala Concept Premieres at Geneva Motor Show
The News Wheel is a digital auto magazine providing readers with a fresh perspective on the latest car news. We’re located in the heart of America (Dayton, Ohio) and our goal is to deliver an entertaining and informative perspective on what’s trending in the automotive world. See more articles from The News Wheel.


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Hyundai IONIQ 6 has been named Favorite Plug-In Vehicle by the Midwest Automotive Media Association (MAMA) at the organization’s recent Spring Rally event in Elkhart Lake, WI. The IONIQ 6 stood out for its eye-catching design, intuitive connectivity features and interior spaciousness. Over 100 vehicles were evaluated at the drive program by MAMA members.
“The IONIQ 6 continues to impress with its appealing exterior and interior design features,” said Ricky Lao, director, product planning, Hyundai Motor North America. “We appreciate the recognition by MAMA in helping educate new and current consumers on EV technologies and the Hyundai IONIQ 6 voted as a favorite among competitors.”
“This year’s rally marked the second year of MAMA’s Favorites awards. Members chose winners among 90 vehicles across seven categories including favorite Family Vehicle, Luxury Vehicle, Plug-In, Off-Roader, Performance, Pick-up Truck and Affordable,” said Robert Duffer, MAMA president. “As MAMA’s Favorite Plug-In, the Hyundai IONIQ 6 never stood still at the drive event and impressed media with its technology and design.”
Founded in 1991, the Midwest Automotive Media Association (MAMA) comprises about 240 automotive journalists and industry professionals from approximately 25 states and the District of Columbia. Though based in the Chicago area, MAMA welcomes members from all over. The organization’s purpose is to provide a forum for newsworthy people, current issues and new products in the auto industry.


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Could a stronger housing market provide the lift the DIY market and wider retail sector so desperately needs?
Estate agents and home improvement retailers share a common interest - the state of the housing market. Both professions will be rubbing their hands with glee over the deluge of statistics published in recent months indicating a recovery could be on its way.
House prices have been climbing, albeit at a modest rate, and mortgage approvals have soared from last year, helped by the Bank of England’s Funding for Lending scheme, which provides banks with access to cheap credit.
The first leg of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme, providing borrowers with access to a 20% equity loan for new-build homes costing less than £600,000, has also given the housing market a lift.
In addition, housebuilders say more people are visiting new developments and more new homes are being sold than ever before.
A further catalyst is likely to come from the second part of the Help to Buy scheme, which will be launched in January and include all homes - both new builds and existing ones.
This is expected to release pent-up demand among those who have struggled to put together the hefty deposits that lenders have been asking for.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s recent commitment to keep interest rates low until unemployment falls will also help homeowners’ confidence in their finances.
Economists expect that house prices will climb over the next few years. Forecasting group the EY Item Club, which predicts 1 million people will move house this year, has pencilled in growth of 2.3% this year, 5.5% next year and 6.3%in 2015.
A certain trigger
The green shoots of recovery are certainly good news for home improvement and furnishing retailers, which stand to benefit from a healthier housing market as homeowners look to spruce up their new homes.
Carl Astorri, senior economic adviser to the EY Item Club, says: “This is one of the life events that causes people to spend money on furniture and fittings of various types. It triggers you to buy new curtains and carpets.”
The resultant increase in house prices will arguably provide the bigger catalyst to retail sales by making people feel richer and therefore more inclined to splash out on home improvement projects and other household goods.
Ernst & Young head of retail Julie Carlyle says: “We see a direct correlation between house prices, what they are doing and how much retail spend is.”
It appears that this has already been happening across the Atlantic where the US housing market has been delivering annual price increases in the double digits. US giant Home Depot is reaping the benefits. Its latest figures published in May showed a 4.8% increase in sales. And the most recent US retail sales data showed purchases at furniture and home furnishing chains rose 2.4% in June.
This all bodes well for British retail. Car sales have been going through the roof this year and electrical goods have been in demand. However, there is little evidence so far that people are doing much work on their house. The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium showed DIY fared well in July thanks to gardening sales in the sunny weather. But furniture, flooring and home accessories suffered their worst performance for a year.
A long-term change?
With the UK housing market recovery still in its infancy, shopkeepers are understandably cautious about when they will start to feel the benefits.
John Lewis buying director Paula Nickolds says: “The huge slowdown in housing transactions we’ve seen during this recession has undoubtedly impacted the big-ticket market in items such as furniture, floor coverings and window dressings.
“Because of how long the recession lasted, we have seen the replacement cycle kick in - people replacing items because they’ve worn out for instance - but the million dollar question is if we’re starting to see the beginnings of a recovery to drive real sales growth.”
She adds: “At the moment, the homewares market is still significantly smaller than it was in 2007, so it’s still an incredibly tough market and I’d say too early to tell if an uplift seen in the London market will translate to a long-term trend for the rest of the UK.”
In the DIY sector, B&Q reported some good news last month when it posted underlying sales were up 1.9%. But with sales of outdoor and seasonal products up nearly 20% it would appear that this growth was driven by better weather rather than the nascent housing market recovery.
It will be interesting to see how a housing market recovery does impact the home improvement market and whether both the DIY and ‘Do It For Me’ sectors are given an equal helping hand. Ian Cheshire, chief executive of B&Q owner Kingfisher, has made it clear he believes a return to a more buoyant housing market will reverse the decline that has hit the DIY market in recent years.
Statistics indicate Britain has fallen out of love with DIY. The market has shrunk to £7.54bn in 2012 from £9.76bn in 2004, but Cheshire is convinced this reflects a lack of first-time buyers rather than a more fundamental decline.
Investors seem to think he is right - Kingfisher’s shares are up more than 40% this year to date.
In contrast, Home Retail-owned Homebase has been trying to position itself more upmarket into the Do It For Me space after battling falling profits, which halved in the year to March 2.
It believes that shoppers are time-poor, haven’t had DIY skills passed on by their parents and are increasingly keen for tradesmen to do refurbishments for them.
Homebase has positioned itself as a home enhancement retailer, taking on John Lewis but at a lower price point. It has launched a new store format to reflect this and has refurbished five shops, where it is experiencing a 20% uplift in sales. The retailer is also pushing more upmarket brands such as Habitat, which Home Retail bought 18 months ago, and other exclusive brands such as Odina and Schreiber.
Homebase’s latest figures showed it had reversed its sales decline in the three months to June 1 and it is hopeful that the Government’s measures to breathe new life into the housing market will give it a further boost.
The next rung up
Chris Wermann, corporate affairs director at Home Retail, says the first part of the Help to Buy scheme is good news because the new homes will need furnishing.
He believes the retailer also stands to gain from the second leg of the scheme because house movers will be looking for new kitchens and bathrooms to smarten the homes they buy.
Wermann says: “January is going to be a very interesting time and if we get it right we can be part of the next generation of homeowners.”
He points out that some of those who have been battling to climb onto the housing ladder would have saved far more than the 5% deposit that they will need when the scheme is extended, leaving them with excess cash that they may spend on their houses.
But he admits there is no sign yet the housing market is providing a lift.
Topps Tiles is also likely to receive a boost from a healthier housing market, according to City analysts, and its shares have soared 74% this year in anticipation.
But sales in its third quarter fell 1.5% and chief executive Matt Williams is cautious. He points out that, while house prices are heading in the right direction, the increase is from a low base. House prices are still 10% below their all-time high of 2007, according to Nationwide.
Williams hopes for a sustained increase in house prices, which he says is more important to the business than housing transaction numbers.
Williams says: “Our customers are usually doing one of two things. They are usually refurbishing because they are moving into a new house and don’t share the same taste as the former owner, or they are looking to refurbish.”
He said the slump in housing transactions inevitably hampered the business it generated from house moves, pushing it to a 12% to 13% slice of sales from about a quarter at the peak in 2007.
Williams adds: “People refurbishing their existing homes is a much bigger part of Topps’ business and that bit is dependent on consumer confidence.”
Carpetright’s business is also viewed as closely correlated to the housing market but its recent numbers were
disappointing. Sales were down 1.9% as sunny weather kept shoppers in the garden.
Other retailers that could be lifted by a housing market recovery include Dunelm Mill and Marks & Spencer. But so far it is only at the hard end of the DIY market and in the builders’ merchants category that any significant uplift has been seen.
Wickes reversed its sales decline in May and June, lifting revenue by 8.6% thanks in part to improving consumer confidence, while Howdens Joinery last month reported that recent depot sales were up 7.6%.
So when will retailers such as B&Q, Homebase and others share these improving fortunes?
Analysts point out there is likely to be a time lag. It can take a while for people to complete their house sales and for their finances to recover after paying out stamp duty and solicitors’ fees.
Cantor Fitzgerald retail analyst Freddie George expects the impact to start to come through at the beginning of 2014.
“We will start to see things move next year,” he says.
Economists at Capital Economics forecast that the DIY market will grow by 3.5% this year, 2% in 2014 and 3% in 2015.
But they express concern about the impact that higher house prices could eventually have on consumer spending.
In a recent note, Capital Economics said: “Higher house prices will create losers, including those renting and homeowners wishing to trade up to more expensive properties. They could well reduce spending in response to higher prices.”
But it gave some hope to the troubled DIY and home improvement market. “DIY and home maintenance, which attract a large share of elderly households’ budgets, should benefit from demographic change,” it observed.
The recovery in the housing market is clearly expected to have some positive impact on home improvement retailers.
But the extent and how that is distributed between them remains unclear.
Whether it is the housing market recovery or the longer-term impact of the growth of the grey pound, the outlook for the sector looks a little bit brighter than it has done for several years.


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Fund will be used to cover three quarters of the cost of fitting chargers at homes, stations, and by the roadside
The government has today unveiled a £37m funding package to help install thousands of electric car chargers at homes, stations, and along roads throughout the country. The money will provide three quarters...
Campaign group Plan B says it is 'surprised and disappointed' by decision and will lodge an appeal against High Court ruling
Mercer's Jane Ambachtsheer joins banking giant to head up sustainability research, engagement, and governance efforts
BusinessGreen brings you this week's green economy headlines from around the world
Chris Hewett of the Solar Trade Association warns the government's latest proposals risk further uncertainty for the solar sector


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Apple has been very aggressive lately when it comes to defending the privacy of its users. Previously, the company got into a scuffle with authorities when it denied their request to unlock an iPhone to help in an FBI investigation. Now, the Cupertino-based is changing the definition of printing documents and the way it is done.
One more step towards privacy
A recent ad aired by the company shows that to make sure no one peeps into the personal documents one is printing in the office, all they need to do is carry their iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to the office. Then they can sign the document displayed on the iPad Pro and send it to whomever they want. Sounds pricey!
It is less of an ad and more of a campaign in which Apple does not ignore the opportunity to mock PCs. The company shows real tweets in which users complain about printing personal documents at work and having to “run to the printer to get your stuff before anyone else does.”
This campaign lasts for just 15 seconds, indicating that the company is not focusing on TV ads anymore. Apparently, the company has cut its marketing budget, forcing its ad partner TBWAMedia Arts Lab to lay off people, notes AppleInsider. The Cupertino-based company is turning its focus more on regional campaigns rather than global, such as Meu Bloco na Rua for Brazil.
Apple shows care for Pro users
The latest feature follows comments last week during the shareholders’ meeting. CEO Tim Cook dropped a strong hint for users and investors that Apple does care about Pro users. He also assured stakeholders that there is more to the iPad Pro in the future.
“The pro area is very important to us. The creative area is very important to us in particular. Don’t think that [because] something we’ve done or something we’re doing that isn’t visible yet is a signal that our priorities are elsewhere. It’s very, very important to us.”
The MacBook last got a makeover in October, the first time in five years. But it could not convince professionals who wanted the iPhone maker to show more care towards its desktop computers. Fans can expect three new models of the iPad Pro and an updated 12.9-inch tablet, a new 10.5-inch machine and an affordable 9.7-inch version of the iPad. However, there is no news on an iPad mini update for now.


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technews.am is a new community for breaking news across the technology sector. We are still in Alpha, so please bear with us.
Google on Tuesday announced a redesign of its Google+ social network for the mobile Web. The revamp is meant to bring the mobile version of Google+ in line with the. Today the CEO of France Telecom stated that his company intends to invest between 30 and 50 million Euros into the popular online video service Dailymotion, according to Reuters. Raleigh, North Carolina-based startup WedPics has raised $1.1 million to further the growth of its photo sharing app for weddings. Today Microsoft unleashed a wave of news relating to its coming Xbox One console, from its name to a slew of hardware specs and coming gaming titles. Microsoft confirmed today that its new Xbox One console won’t support backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 or original Xbox titles. Today at the Xbox event in Redmond, Washington, we got a chance to take a bit closer look at the new Xbox One, its accompanying Kinect sensor and updated controller. Today at the #XboxReveal event, the Call of Duty: Ghosts trailer was played, releasing it to the world. Today at its #XboxReveal event, Microsoft announced that it has partnered with the National Football League (NFL) to bring its sporting content to its coming Xbox One console. Google on Tuesday released Chrome version 27 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The new version features a big boost to page loads (now 5 percent faster on average) as well. Userfox, a startup which offers email services to help companies retain their users, has debuted a new A/B testing product which greatly simplifies the process of optimizing marketing campaigns.


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Source : 'HBW Insight'
US regulatory agencies’ latest warnings on fraudulent COVID-19 claims went to a Hong Kong firm offering a traditional Chinese medicine, a Florida cosmetics shop with a nasal gel and a California doctor pitching a package of vitamins and herbal supplements.
Each of the products with the violative claims remained for sale online on 1 July by the three firms warned by the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission during the final week of June.
On 26 June, the two agencies warned SuperHealthGuard and Loyal Great International Ltd. in Hong Kong after reviews of its website earlier in the month found claims for TCM Lianhua Qingwen including the blend in a capsule “has been proven effective for the treatment of COVID-19, China’s top respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan said in a webinar with overseas Chinese students. … It's the first time in the world that we have enough evidence to prove Lianhua Qingwen capsule is effective and can help patients recover, Zhong said.”
the center for wellness and Integrative medicine in soquel, ca, is offering this vitamin and herbal product pack for covid-19 prevention.
On the same day, the agencies warned Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, cosmetics shop Nuance Health LLC about unsubstantiated claims found for nasal gel Swype Shield on its websites in June and on its social media pages in March.
The warning references violative claims including, ““What Is Swype Shield? … an All Natural protectant nasal gel that has been proven to kill > 99.99% of all viral upper respiratory illnesses (VURI), including Coronavirus … Now with over 10 years of experience using and selling Swype Shield, and hundreds of happy customers, we take pride in knowing that regular use of Swype Shield will help protect your health.”
Physician Tom Yarema at the Center for Wellness and Integrative Medicine in Soquel, CA, was warned by the FDA and the FTC on 30 June about claims for its “COVID Supplement Protection Pack” with vitamins C and D, an herbal tea and silver flower herbal supplement.
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, cosmetics shop Nuance Health is offering nasal gel Swype Shield as a covid-19 remedy.
The letter states that noncompliant claims found on the center’s website earlier in June included: “I recommend each and every family purchase the ‘4 Horsemen’ to outrun the tide of COVID … Three (3) of these are for PREVENTION, and one (1) is for EARLY TREATMENT of symptoms. … COVID’s greatest hallmark, and it’s [sic] greatest danger is it’s [sic] RAPID PROGRESION in severe cases. … The 4th Horseman, SILVER FLOWER caps, are designed to ‘buy time’ during a RAPID ONSET of symptoms, especially if one feels ‘short of breath’ or ‘winded with minor exertion’.”
The three warnings push to 79 the number the FDA has submitted about fraudulent claims to prevent or treat COVID-19 since early March. The FTC, in joint letters with the FDA or warnings submitted on its own, has warned nearly 300 businesses and persons about making false and misleading claims for products from infrared lights to lotions to prevent or treat infections caused by the novel coronavirus. ("Twin Websites Selling Steroids OTC Also Offered HIV Influenza Drugs As COVID19 Treatments" "HBW Insight" )
Although TCMs from SuperHealthGuard and other firms aren’t allowed to marketed in the US with an indication of treating COVID-19, the herbal blends are being promoted in China by the country’s health care regulators as treatments during the coronavirus epidemic. ("As China Promotes TCMs Ban Against Criticizing The Remedies Proposed In Beijing Province" "HBW Insight" )
By Malcolm Spicer


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Times Schools Chi-Coms on Government Regulation
Now it's true that a variety of defective Chinese products have made their way into international commerce, from, as the Times enumerates, toothpaste sweetened with an industrial solvent [NB: file photo, not of defective brands] to tainted antibiotics. But for entertaining irony, it's hard to beat the spectacle of the New York Times criticizing a communist government for insufficient regulation of its society.
Killing the Regulator earnestly begins by criticizing Beijing's recent execution of its chief food and drug regulator for taking bribes and allowing the sale of tainted drugs. This, says, the Times, "is a perfect example of all that is wrong with China’s approach to regulation. [The Chi-coms] may think that killing the regulator is enough to reassure consumers at home and abroad that China is now ready to guarantee the safety of its products. But they’re wrong."
Well that's reassuring: the Times is against the summary killing of incompetent or corrupt regulators. But has anyone gotten Henry Waxman on record?
Things are apparently so bad in China that the Times is even willing to acknowledge that the private sector might have a role to play:
American importers need to provide the first line of defense. Companies like Wal-Mart should send inspectors regularly to visit the factories of Chinese suppliers, to ensure that products are up to acceptable standards.But the Times of course is unwilling to rely, in the long run, on the enlightened self-interest of the free market: "ultimately the American government will have to enforce these norms."
As dark as might be the cloud in China, the Times manages to find a silver lining. Problems there are a good excuse for more big government here:
It is hard to imagine anything good coming out of the China export scandals. But perhaps they will persuade Congress’s new Democratic leaders that America also needs a stronger and more transparent regulatory system.Speaking of Waxman, could we perhaps plug our gaping trade deficit with China by exporting him to Beijing? Just a thought.
Contact Mark at email@example.com


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Google's voice assistant has been released into the wild, making an appearance in several blockbuster smartphones unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.
The Siri-like assistant will feature in the latest flagship phones from Nokia, Samsung, Huawei LG, Sony and HTC.
It's the first time the artificial intelligence (AI) powered Google Assistant has featured in any non-Google products as the Silicon Valley giant announced it would also come to all phones running the latest Android operating systems.
BMW, Ford, Nissan Renault, Seat, Peugeot are among exhibitors this year, in what's expected to be a banner one for car makers "marking a new phase in their evolution toward becoming technology companies" said Ovum's IoT practice lead Alexandra Rehak.
Read the full article here.
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US team: +1 212-652-5335
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Once, long ago, Apple Computer, Inc. commissioned a new headquarters in Northern California just as it began losing its position as a leader in personal computing tech in the early '90s. Could history repeat itself in our modern era?
History repeats, always with a twist
As Apple more recently embarked upon its massive second modern expansion at Apple Park, pundits crafted a narrative claiming the company was fated to suffer from an 'arrogant construction hubris' and ultimately fail.
There's certainly no sign of that supposed "Curse of the Edifice Complex" today, a few years later as Apple expands even further beyond Apple Park with surrounding buildings— including its monumentally lavish Visitors Center in Cupertino— and the nearby third facility known as Wolfe Campus.
The tech media's future outlook for Apple appears to have always been pretty wrong. The same kind of handwringing that hung over Apple Park during its construction did not occur over thirty years ago when the company was completing its first major campus back in 1993, just prior to a period of actual uncertainty and upheaval that really did result in a dour Beleaguerment Era for the Mac maker.
To better understand some of the reasons why pundit advice and prognostication are so frequently misguided, take a look at the Old Apple during its first major campus project— in the context of what was happening at the company in contrast to what outsiders imagined was occurring based on a superficial understanding of the market— and consider what's different this time around.
Apple's 1990s "Golden Age" campus
Apple's first major campus project in Northern California, known as 1 Infinite Loop, had just finishing completion in 1993 at the tail end of what at the time had been commonly called Apple's Golden Age: the pinnacle of its then highly-regarded Macintosh business that was just approaching its ten year anniversary— not unlike today's iPhone.
The Macintosh-centric Apple had pioneered the development of advanced concepts including QuickTime digital video editing, voice synthesis and recognition, ultra-fast desktop computer hardware, new hyperlinked worlds with explorable nodes of virtual reality, and the promise of a new generation of mobile Newton personal digital assistant tablets.
Across the '80s, Apple had achieved a pattern of distantly outperforming the collective mainstream of commodity copycat cloners in the industry by seeking to achieve something much greater than just incremental hardware advancement. While almost entirely forgotten after its fall in the mid-'90s, Apple was commonly described at the time as having entered a Golden Age, a period of time where everything it delivered was impressive and exciting and desirable.
The new headquarters of 1 Infinite Loop reflected that Golden Age optimism while figuratively planting a nostalgic homage to representations of how it got there in its campus Sculpture Garden, a feature depicting cartoonish, low-resolution Mac icons sprouting from the lawn. The Apple of the early 90s could easily be mistaken for today's Google.
Apple's Golden Age meltdown
Anyone who lived through the 1990s, however, will no doubt recall a different descriptive phrase attached to the company. By the mid- to late-'90s it was virtually impossible to read anything about "Apple Computer, Inc." without a specific introductory adjective that was, at the same time, wistful, disparaging, infantilizing and dismissive. The company was, and always was, referred to as the beleaguered Apple Computer.
Despite suffering the consequences of both internal issues of its own making and outside problems beyond its control, Apple wasn't so much branded as being incompetent or victimized as it was just Beleaguered, as if it were inherently fated to always be chained to a hopeless dream and unachievable utopia that the company could envision and articulate but not instantiate in a viable, sustainable, commercially significant form.
But Apple's problems weren't really a romantic curse. There were solid, rational reasons why the company began drifting sideways, even if much of the media lacked any understanding of this— or even knew that things were headed in a bad direction at all.
Across the '90s, Apple had defined airy visions of the future. Those included its Knowledge Navigator demonstration of a voice-based assistant concept and the nearly magical Newton Message Pad tablet, both championed by Apple's late-80s CEO John Sculley.
The company actually defined the outer realms of possibility in computers by developing software powerful enough to anticipate the needs of non-technical artists with its intuitive Mac user interface. It then promised to allow them to author multimedia with QuickTime, the first non-linear digital video editing platform for personal computers. That futurist technology appeared for Macs at a time when commodity PCs were still struggling to play back simple audio.
Apple promised to usher in the same kind of future-forward upgrades for advanced page layout and printing with QuickDraw GX; for 3D graphics with QuickDraw 3D; for sophisticated local document search with V-Twin; for advanced OS and User Interface development with Copland and Gershwin; for non-proprietary files with the document-based OpenDoc, and for tools to create and explore virtual reality worlds with QuickTime VR.
The company also delivered major hardware-based Mac upgrades enabling advanced AudioVisual capabilities using Digital Signal Processors from AT&T and later RISC-based PowerPC chips in its partnerships with IBM and Motorola. This allowed Apple's computers to digitally ingest, edit and output video from a camcorder and to play or record CD quality audio right out of the box long before PCs could do either.
However, as the '90s dragged on Apple's consistent inability to actually deliver upon what it was promising at a price mainstream users would pay set it up for real-world failure. At the same time, the Mac maker began running into intense competition from generic DOS PCs.
Apple had been struggling with its own development plans for Copland, its modern new Mac operating system. It was still fighting to finish its Newton OS tablet software. And it had grown increasingly distracted with a series of other moonshots and side projects— including the Mac-based Pippin games console— that various teams of engineers were inventing within their personal fiefdoms inside Apple's Advanced Technology Group and other think-tank silos funded by the revenues from the Mac's Golden Age.
Apple wasn't just fudging things internally. It had also embarked upon three large-scale, ultimately ill-fated joint efforts with Motorola and IBM to design PowerPC chips, to develop a new next-generation cross-platform OS known as Taligent, and to build multimedia tools development tools at Kaleida Labs.
It had also launched a separate new mobile processor architecture for its Newton Message Pad, known as ARM, with partners Acorn and VLSI. There was a lot going on outside of Apple's core Mac business, but none of it was making enough money to sustain itself.
Across the company's first five years at 1 Infinite Loop, Apple appeared to be caught in the vortex of a swirling drain, losing its customers and market share to cheaper commodity PC makers while being forced to frantically delay and ultimately cancel failed initiatives such as QuickDraw GX and OpenDoc after they had wasted the time and resources of its third-party developers.
After a period of constant beleaguerment that seemed to last for a generation (but really only stretched from 1994 to 1998, shorter than either Microsoft's Windows-Zune mobile meltdown a decade later, or Google's increasingly bleak implosion of hardware attempts from Motorola to Nest to Nexus and Pixel today, two decades later), Apple began to emerge anew under the returned leadership of Steve Jobs, who slashed away failed experiments and underperforming business segments to focus on ones that customers would want and could afford and which could sustain Apple itself.
Could an Apple again fumble its Golden Age?
Today's Apple under Tim Cook is wildly different from the Apple of the early '90s. In part, that's because much of the executive team — including Cook— experienced first hand the results of the lack of curation and focus that nearly doomed Apple in the mid-'90s as they began working to salvage the company under Jobs in the late '90s. Jobs recruited Cook to Apple in 1998, at a time when many still dismissed the company as an unredeemable failure.
Other companies, including Microsoft, had only watched from afar as the Old Apple began rolling on its side. That allowed Microsoft's executives to blissfully preside over a series of ill-considered and poorly planned and managed projects like the Zune music player, the KIN initiative aimed at building a new kind of phone from scratch targeting the youth demographic, and the ambitious but poorly conceived and implemented Surface RT project to make PCs lighter, thinner and more mobile using ARM chips that couldn't run existing Windows software.
Beyond those internal failings— which included Microsoft's own Copland-like struggles with Vista, Windows 8, Windows Mobile and Windows 10— the company also engaged in dramatically bad partnerships and acquisitions. It spent $15 billion buying Nokia and aQuantive, with nothing remaining to show for either one apart from layoffs and losses.
Everyone one of those missteps was worse than Apple's fall in the mid-'90s. Microsoft had enjoyed a much more resplendent Golden Age than the Old Apple had, but then lost its key market position and relevance as the world shifted to mobile devices. For Microsoft, there was no return of its founder Bill Gates to put the company's old business back together again.
Following Microsoft, another Golden Age meltdown in tech
Microsoft wasn't the only company to fail to learn anything from Apple's mid-'90s brush with death: Google today has similarly spent billions on far-off ideas that failed to materialize as real businesses. Like Microsoft, Google also spent $15 billion to acquire two massive businesses, Motorola and Nest, then failed to do anything very productive with them as it fired thousands of workers and eventually sold off much of the remaining assets to China at a massive discount.
Google similarly had grandiose ideas about the future of computing but failed to deliver much more than a copy of Apple's original work. Many of the novel parts of Android were removed and replaced with ideas taken from iOS. Chrome OS was initially envisioned as a PC web-based netbook but is now trying to morph into an iPad-like touchscreen tablet.
Even Google's far off future "Fuchsia" OS strategy is abstractly named after a color, which not so subtly calls to mind the Blue and Pink cards Apple used while trying to lay out some deliverables for its Copland releases. Google has now been struggling to find a significant customer for Chrome OS a decade after it was outlined as a strategy in 2009. That's reminiscent of Apple's nebulous Newton strategy under early '90s CEO John Sculley and Microsoft's Tablet PC initiatives under Gates in the 2000s.
Rather than describing the failure of Chrome OS to find any traction anywhere apart from the very small, very unprofitable K-12 as being a Newton or Tablet PC type failure, today's tech journalists have portraying Google's struggling netbook as a problem for Apple, even though shipments of Chromebooks have had a minor impact on Apple's U.S. sales in K12 and no real impact at all on iPads among consumers, the enterprise, and in massive new emerging markets including China.
In parallel, Google's self-branded hardware efforts have been a mess despite double-digit billions in acquisitions and investment. Google's Nexus offered low-priced devices that sold in disappointing quantities, much like Apple's own ill-fated attempt at low-end Performa Macs from 1992-1997. Google's subsequent Pixel products offered premium-priced devices that sold in disappointing quantities, much like Apple's Newton and fancy vanity projects like the company's Twentieth Anniversary Mac.
Google is also today pursuing a dual OS strategy involving two entirely different architectures (JavaVM-based Android and its web-based ChromeOS), not dissimilar to Apple's Mac-Newton rift, or the problems Microsoft slogged through with DOS/Win95 vs NT, and again with the kernel disparity of Windows for PCs and Windows Mobile.
Three samples of failure exposed to varying amounts of criticism
For Apple, Microsoft and Google, launching a series of wild, unrestrained moonshots while having multiple, competing platforms all vying for attention in the same space while not actually selling much of anything turned out to be a really bad strategy with terrible results. But our science experiment subjects here also show the effects of outside stimulus.
The tech media initially cheered all on three because they didn't seem to realize that making news is not the same as making money. Once reporters discovered that a decade of moonshots and wild, unrestrained spending without sustainable sales was actually a big problem, they turned on Apple and reviled it.
There has been less criticism of Microsoft despite its massive loss of control over the future of technology, and very little of Google at all. A lack of criticism results in a lack of course-correction. Relentless criticism of Apple has greatly improved the trajectory of the company, as demonstrated by its fixes for iCloud, Maps, and the App Store in response to media castigation. Apple has also materially changed the direction of Siri.
Tepid assurances by the media that Microsoft could reassume its monopoly control over mobile devices and take back tablets by simply copying elements of Apple's strategy cooed the company to sleep. Today Microsoft has zero phone business and its tablet and PC sales are a low-profit busywork distraction that haven't grown across many years of trying, not unlike Performa Macs of the 90s or Google's more recent Nexus and Pixels.
Apple's non-golden age
Today, Apple is focused on fewer products that sell in massive quantities at sustainable profits. The company's software updates have achievable, short-term goals, rather than charting out far out future dreams or trying to deliver grandiose notions such as a voice-first ambient computing or an advertising-based social surveillance network that people may not even want once they see what it really means.
Apple's modern developer APIs are generally stable enough to rely upon, rather than being promises that don't ever fully materialize that are then thrown out once the focus changes. Yet Apple isn't praised as sitting on a Golden Age today. It's generally ridiculed by the media for not pursuing ambitiously entertaining public stories and moonshot ideas.
Rather than declaring Apple's wildly successful recent history as a Golden Age, pundits have been giving their lethal applause to Microsoft and Google. But those fun moonshots to nowhere— including blood sugar monitoring contacts that don't actually exist, its Andy Rubin robot initiatives that had little real commercial value, its stabs at social networking that nobody cared about and its radical efforts to shift society and industry— from Wallet to Glass to Project ARA to Tango— have been an unbroken series of expensive projects that never went anywhere.
Across the 2000s and early 2010s, Apple far exceeded the accomplishments of its previous Golden Age of the late 80s and early 90s. And did so while being severely constrained operationally in its corporate office space.
The new Millennium Apple, under Jobs, focused on a flexible, new eye-catching material he made more valuable than gold as he and his hand-selected team turned Apple around, as the next segment will examine tomorrow.


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A third day of action in Bangladesh has seen renewed attacks by police on striking workers
Bangladeshi police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas at striking garment workers in the capital Dhaka.
The third day of action saw renewed attacks by police on thousands of garment workers demanding an improvement in the minimum wage, with "scores" injured.
The violence mainly took place in the Gazipur and Savar industrial estates, just outside Dhaka.
Hundreds of factories producing clothing for many big global brands, including Wal-Mart and H&M, are located in the two areas and over 100 of them have closed as the workers joined the demonstrations.
Workers also poured into the streets at two major intersections in Dhaka, bringing traffic to a halt.
The strikers threw stones at police in retaliation for the rubber bullets and tear gas.
About 50 people had been injured on Sunday.
The workers are demanding that their minimum monthly wage is increased to 8,114 takas (£65).
The government is in talks with unions and factory owners on new wage scales, but bosses have refused to increase the current 3,000 takas (£24) minimum beyond 3,600 takas (£29).
Bangladesh last increased the minimum wage for garment workers nearly three years ago in response to months of street protests.
Bangladesh earns about £12 billion a year - almost 80 per cent of the country's total exports - from garment products, mainly to the US and Europe.
It employs about four million workers, most of them women.


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Calvin Klein flaunted a rather curious look of total white hair on a young model in the Spring 2009 ad campaign for the Calvin Klein Collection.
Shot by Fabien Baron, the ads feature rising model AJ Abualrub sporting platinum hair while posing in the latest monochrome creations in the Calvin Klein Collection.
After coming up in second place in the VMan/Ford model contest a year ago, AJ is shaping up to be a very successful model. See how he looks like with his normal hair color in the rest of the gallery images.
See more recent Calvin Klein features below.


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Arya – India’s largest post-harvest Agritech player, reports a growth in its Asset Under Management (AUM) of 125% – from INR 4200 to INR 9300 Cr on a Q-on-Q basis for the quarter ending June ‘21. The company’s success is a true testament to its platform’s robust expansion initiative that has impacted the lives of over 6 lac farmers on the platform. Given its commitment to stakeholders closer to the farmgate, the start-up has increased its FPO base from 300 to 500 over the past year. In this span, Arya has also expanded its warehousing footprint from 15 Lac tonnes to 50 Lac tonnes covering 30 Mn sq. ft.
Linked to around 5500 warehouses in 20 states at 1530 locations, 85% of Arya collateral’s presence caters to India’s rural locations servicing customers such as farmers, FPOs and small aggregators. Arya’s digital platform Arya.ag also witnessed a growth of 3X in its loan portfolio disbursing over INR 4400 Crores through its own balance sheet and in partnership with banks and financial institutions.
Speaking on this phenomenal growth, Prasanna Rao, CEO & Co-Founder, Arya said, “The pandemic has validated the relevance of our services. Greater adoption of technology across the agricultural value chain has ensured significantly deeper penetration of our integrated services, strengthening our position as a market leader in the agritech ecosystem. The growth in our business over the past 12 months is a reflection of the additional value created for our customers in near farm markets.”.
Arya’s integrated near farm solutions – covering aggregation, storage, finance, and market linkages -ensure better returns for its customers over 68 commodities. Addressing the issue of fragmented value chains in Indian agriculture, Arya offers a one stop solution through its integrated digital platform connecting the demand side with the supply side creating a layer of trust. The commodity marketplace on Arya’s digital platform facilitated a sale of agri-produce worth over INR100 crores in the last quarter. The complete visibility of quality and assurance provided by Arya guarantees peace of mind for the buyer.
The agritech startup has been a pioneer in deploying technology at the farmgate. AI enabled quality testing and IoT enabled storage solutions have been pathbreaking solutions that ensure better returns for smallholder farmers, FPOs and smaller aggregators alongside lower food loss. It is estimated that Arya’s has reduced value erosion of agricultural produce by over 15%. Arya has built its robust business around key risk mitigation structures. It has been the first player in the industry to secure warehouse occupancy insurance and price risk mitigation structures.
Arya is among the rare breed of startups that are profitable.
Arya is India’s leading Agritech start-up with a focus on integrated post-harvest services. Driving technology through a human-centered approach, Arya is leveraging technology to bridge the Last Mile by building a strong Agritech and Fintech platform. It’s simply an integrated and easy-to-use platform that helps users to choose ancillary services like warehouse management, access to finance, quality testing, storage protection services, and connecting produce to buyers all through a robust technology-enabled back-end ecosystem. Through its profitable business model with over 5.0 million tonnes of storage capacity across 5,500 warehouses in 21 Indian states, Arya helps farmers, aggregators, Farmer Producer Organisations, food processors and end-user corporates avoid post-harvest losses. It efficiently connects the supply side of the Agri ecosystem with the demand side. Arya assists sellers of agri-commodities to avoid distress sale of produce by extending post-harvest credit. It has completed loan disbursements of over Rs 4400 Crores.


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The main course on the Pierce County Council’s menu at its Oct. 27 meeting was making a tasty idea to help the restaurant industry endure the COVID-19 pandemic even more palatable.
The council unanimously approved Proposal No. 2020-114 to extend its Restaurant Rally program to include curbside and take-out eateries, modifying the original Oct. 6 ordinance that covered only dine-in restaurants.
“As a reminder, the restaurant support program provides financial assistance to the local restaurant industry by encouraging patronage of full-service restaurants and provides funding to restaurants that participate in the program…” senior legislative analyst Hugh Taylor said, noting more than 250 restaurants have applied to participate.
Between Nov. 8-12 and Nov. 15-19, customers will receive a 30-percent discount on purchases at participating restaurants. In turn, dining establishments will receive 50 percent reimbursement. Payments will be received on gross sales and will exclude alcohol.
The $7.5 million used to subsidize the county restaurant industry comes from federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funding. The decision to include curbside and take-out orders was regarded as a necessary pivot by the council, considering the financial fallout from COVID-19 that has hit food service workers especially hard.
“I appreciate the shift here,” Councilmember Marty Campbell said. “It’s needed. I wish we could open it up to more different types of restaurants because I think there are restaurants that operate on a very similar model, but they just filed for a different classification with the state, but would benefit exactly the same as other restaurants.”
County Economic Development Director Betty Capestany said she would keep the council apprised of how the money is being spent.
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- News tagged "google"
Friday, 27 Sep 2013
Google Search turns 15, and the company is celebrating it with a brand new search algorithm powering the engine called 'Hummingbird', as well as additional features to the Knowledge Graph.
Thursday, 26 Sep 2013
Google announced today, that Google Play Books for Android, iOS and web, is now available in Singapore. Famous Singaporean books like Riot Green and Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew can now be bought and downloaded from the Google Play Store.
Thursday, 19 Sep 2013
Known for taking "moon shots", Google has just announced the creation of Calico, a new company that will focus on health and tech, and aims to fight aging and disease.
Wednesday, 18 Sep 2013
Google is extending Indoor Google Maps to 31 popular venues in Singapore. From today onwards, you can navigate through these new multi-floor buildings in Singapore including museums, convention centers, a hotel and library, and even more malls.
Google has bought Bump for an as of yet undisclosed figure. Bump was a simple tool to help share files between smartphones by tapping them together. The Bump team were also responsible for photo album app Flock.
Tuesday, 17 Sep 2013
Developed by ASUS and Google, the new Nexus 7 is the latest 7-inch Android handheld with the sharpest-ever tablet screen and built-in wireless charging. It will be available at all ASUS brand stores and authorized retailers from 21 September onwards.
Friday, 13 Sep 2013
Microsoft is currently working on its own personal assistant, codenamed Cortana, which was originally an artificial intelligent character from Microsoft's Halo series. Just like the character from the game, Cortana is built to learn and adapt to Windows Phone users.
Thursday, 12 Sep 2013
Google+ has recently been updated with several photo editing tools powered by Snapseed. These easy-to-use tools allow users to make simple edits to their photos, simply by using your mouse pointer to drag the editing slider around.
Wednesday, 11 Sep 2013
Most of us may own a smartphone or two, but feature phones are still very much alive, and are still popular in emerging markets. Because of that Google recently updated Gmail for feature phone browsers, making it faster and even easier to use than before.
Wednesday, 4 Sep 2013
Google's Sundar Pichai, head of both Android and Chrome, has confirmed that the next version of Android will be release 4.4 and will officially be named KitKat, not Key Lime Pie as previously expected.


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Coinbase, U.S. biggest crypto exchange, announced it wants to launch a new feature that will allow U.S. users to deposit their USD paycheck directly into their accounts.
On September 27, Coinbase said that the feature would be ready in the coming weeks. This feature would let customers make direct deposits for any percentage of their paycheck. In a blog post published, Coinbase notes,
“Direct deposit coming soon: customers will be able to deposit any percentage of their paycheck into their Coinbase account in crypto or USD.”
According to the crypto exchange, users could also hold their assets in fiat or directly transfer them into selected cryptocurrencies at zero cost. To be more precise, the exchange said that the funds could also be used for crypto rewards or spending on the Coinbase card.
As Coinbase continues, it added that the upcoming feature is based on users transacting on the exchange via earning, spending, trading, and borrowing.
Expanding further, the company said that customers can get paid in crypto or USD and can choose any percentage of their paycheck to deposit. But via direct deposit, users can easily access their crypto-first financial services.
What is more, with the feature, Coinbase exchange aims to allow customers to deposit funds into their accounts directly without the need for banks. This is the result of users' complaints about regular transfers, which are tedious and time-consuming.
Moreover, Coinbase is also developing an infrastructure to let firms pay their employees in cryptocurrencies. The exchange could introduce an automatic paycheck distribution or give guidance to allow manual deposits via a company’s payroll system.


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One of the biggest tobacco companies Altria announced that it would reduce the volume of export cigarettes from America to Europe (to 57 billion cigarettes per year) and switch to supplies from other countries from its 42 factories around the world. The largest cigarette and tobacco factories are located in the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, Turkey and Ukraine. Last year 831.4 billion cigarettes were produced by Altria Tobacco Company.
Sales of cigarettes and tobacco at European and Latin American markets are falling slowly ( 0.9% and 2.6% respectively for the last year), in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa up to 0.8%. As for Asia cigarette sales are growing rapidly - by 15.9%.
Sales of tobacco products in the U.S. fell by 3.3% for the last year.
The share of Philip Morris International in the world market for cigarettes is 15.4%, but it will change shortly.


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While Portugal is perhaps best known as the source of great vintage port, the country's white wines have made dramatic improvements in recent years, one specialist has said.
Speaking at the Vinho Verde tasting in London, Dr Jamie Good told The Drinks Business that viticulture is improving, and producers now have the confidence to experiment and create some "really interesting dry white wines".
"They are very contemporary wines that fit with modern tastes," he told the publication.
"The more modern styles are intrinsically fresh and slightly higher in alcohol, leading to more complex, flavour-intense wines."
Meanwhile, he described Portugal's reds as "Marmite wines", with some loving their freshness and vivacity while others dislike their rawness.
Recently, the Intercontinental London Park Lane hotel announced that it will offer the extremely rare Taylor's Scion 1855 vintage port to guests for £100 per glass, to celebrate the launch of its first hotel in Portugal.
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Bionda Castana seems to have found another winning shoe style. In the past few weeks, the London-based footwear brand’s Zoe platform peep-toe has been spotted on several big-name celebrity feet, from Lady Gaga to Jessica Alba.
The laser-cut details, platform and chunky heels give the shoe a ’70s vibe without going full-on disco inferno. The brand also seems to recognize the buzz and shared a sketch of the style with a special shoutout on Instagram yesterday.
The shoe, a part of Bionda Castana’s pre-fall ’15 collection, has been spotted twice on Jessica Alba just last week, once on Lady Gaga back in May and also on Brittany Snow at the CMT Awards.
The stars showed how versatile the shoe is. From Snow’s sparkling jumpsuit to Jessica Alba’s punchy orange sheath dress, the style is easily dressed up or down, for day or night, a sign that Zoe is definitely a shoe to watch.
Even better? The style comes in a silver, berry and navy suede.


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Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney opened the Dice Summit game event in Las Vegas today with a call to make the industry more open and liberate it from the monopolistic practices of platform owners such as Google and Apple.
In a talk about his vision for games in the next decade, Sweeney alternated between criticizing all of the big players in the game industry to criticizing specific players with examples of how their behavior isn’t good for consumers or for competition.
Sweeney is able to make this kind of talk because he isn’t as dependent on those he is criticizing. The success of Fortnite, which has generated billions in revenues for multiple years, has given Epic Games the financial freedom to be a “forcing function” for prying open the closed and fragmented platforms of gaming. He also owns the majority of Epic Games, while China’s Tencent is a minority owner,
This article was originally published on on VentureBeat.
Click here to read the rest of the article.


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Cubicle 7, producers of the new DC Thomson-comic inspired Starblazer game, have just announced that their Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG will be released in October 2009.
There's no more details yet about the game.
• Look out for more details in the coming months on the Cubicle 7 web site: www.cubicle-7.com
Stan Lee backs revived Eagle Awards - The Eagle Awards are back, and, hot on the heels of promoting next week’s Free Comic Book Day (3rd May) US legend Stan Lee has joined the team behind them ...
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