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Google, which had until now sought coupons and special offers directly from merchants for its Offers service, will now also aggregate and market offerings from other online daily deal providers.
A new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would allow law enforcement officials to shut down websites that enable or facilitate copyright infringement, leading some digital rights groups to suggest that YouTube, Twitter and online ne...
Two administrators of the defunct movie-download site NinjaVideo.net have pleaded guilty to charges related to copyright infringement, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Groupon's China venture posted a net loss of US$46.4 million for the past nine months, generating only $2.1 million in revenue as it fights to gain dominance in the country's highly competitive group buying market.
The Office of U.S. Trade Representative has asked the Chinese government to explain its policies related to blocking some websites in an effort to gauge the impact on U.S. small businesses operating in China, the agency said Wednesday.
This year's Web 2.0 Summit will focus on the critical role that online data plays in the Internet economy and on how its use and misuse can make the difference between success and failure in markets like online gaming, Web advertising, search, social...
While representatives of the online advertising industry questioned whether new laws are needed to protect consumer privacy online, several U.S. lawmakers on Thursday called for new regulations targeting online tracking.
EBay has launched an application development platform called X.commerce that pulls in tools and functionality from a variety of its sites and products, including the eBay marketplace and PayPal, as well as from partners.
After a recent survey revealed that almost 80 percent of its largest customers lack a mobile-optimized website, Google has decided to launch a program to address that issue specifically among retailers.
Many top websites share their visitors' names, usernames or other personal information with their partners without telling users and, in some cases, without knowing they're doing it, according to a new study from Stanford University.
Two founders of movie download site NinjaVideo.net have pleaded guilty to charges related to copyright infringement, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Google's share of the U.S. search engine market has dropped below 65% for the first time in two years, new data shows.
Google has launched a new portal in China that catalogs group buying deals, a return to activity there after pulling back from its operations in China more than a year ago.
More people in the US will access the Internet via mobile devices than through desktop computers or other wired devices by 2015, IDC predicted on Monday.
China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group entered the search engine business so that China's leading search engine, Baidu, wouldn't sleep well, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said over the weekend.
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Philip Morris International Inc. said cigarette shipment volumes continued to fall, although the company said its results exceeded expectations by a slight margin amid higher prices and gains in market share.
The company, which cited stiffer currency headwinds in its results, also tightened its earnings forecast for the year. It now expects per-share profit growth in the range of 6.5% to 7.5%, compared with its previous outlook of 6% to 8% growth.
Philip Morris said its total cigarette volume fell 0.4% to 222.3 billion units during the most recent period, as growth in the European Union and its Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa regions partially offset declines in Asia and Latin America.
The company singled out Japan, Canada and Mexico as drivers of volume contraction, while it cited Italy, Indonesia and Pakistan as growth areas.
Philip Morris, like its rival tobacco companies, has struggled with declining cigarette consumption as people increasingly consider the health risks that come from using tobacco products. The company also hopes to be a major player in the fast-growing e-cigarette market. Earlier this year, it reached a deal to buy U.K. e-cigarette maker Nicocigs Ltd.
Overall, Philip Morris posted earnings of $2.16 billion, or $1.38 a share, down from $2.34 billion, or $1.44 a share, a year ago. Excluding asset impairments and other costs, earnings were $1.39 a share in the latest reporting period. Excluding those items, as well as currency impacts, earnings were $1.59 a share, the company said.
Net revenue, excluding excise taxes, fell 0.9% to $7.9 billion. Excluding currency, the company's revenue rose 4%.
Analysts had projected $1.33 a share in earnings and $7.62 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters.
Write to Michael Calia at firstname.lastname@example.org
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domain: news


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BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - French wine producers said they were expecting a small but high-quality 2013 vintage after violent storms and the coldest spring in more than 25 years afflicted vineyards.
Output was expected to fall to some of the lowest levels in two decades in many parts of the world’s largest wine-producing country, they said, as the harvest started in the south.
But dry and warm summer weather that helped ripen the grapes should keep up the quality, barring any more problems with the weather, they added.
“Everything is in place, producers are optimistic,” Jean-Philippe Gervais, technical director of the Burgundy Wine Board, told Reuters.
Raging storms and hail destroyed up to 90 percent of the vines in parts of the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions this summer, while cool and damp conditions across the country in June hampered grape growth.
This prompted the agriculture ministry to cut its estimate for this year’s wine output on Monday.
France is now expected to produce 44.5 million hectoliters (hl) of wine in 2013 - the equivalent of nearly 6 billion 75-centilitre (cl) bottles - above last year’s weather-hit harvest of 41.4 million hl but well below average.
Prices should rise in consequence but only modestly as producers feared losing clients.
“In 1991, we lost part of the harvest of white (grapes). Prices rose and that made us lose some of our markets. The lesson has been learned,” said Olivier Bernard, head of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, which promotes nearly 140 of the region’s top producers.
Champagne lovers were due to have a better year, producers said. “This year’s harvest is looking very good and much better than in 2012,” said Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, executive chairman of Taittinger champagne, one of the last remaining major family-owned brands.
He expected a 30-50 percent rise in output on last year, which was particularly bad in the north.
Further south in the Beaujolais region, Frederic Laveur, who promotes wines from the Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages areas, said a late-June flowering had led to smaller bunches of grapes and, therefore, smaller quantities of juice.
“To compensate it will ripen faster, easier, and the juice will be more concentrated,” he said.
Overall, grape-picking will start two to three weeks later than normal because of the slow development of the fruit, said producers. Red grape picking was not expected to start until early October in the Bordeaux region, they added.
But, weather allowing, there was still time for good quality grapes to develop. “There is a great potential for red wines’ quality but like in tennis matches, it is the last set that determines the winner,” said Paul Pontallier, director of the prestigious Chateau Margaux label.
Additional reporting by Catherine Lagrange in Lyon, Claude Canellas,; Gus Trompiz and Astrid Wendlandt in Paris; Editing by Ingrid Melander/Mark Heinrich


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John Lewis boss Dame Sharon White calls for clampdown on shoplifting gangs with tougher legislation as retail thefts skyrocket
- Dame Sharon White urged the Government to bring in tougher legislation
John Lewis and Waitrose chief Dame Sharon White has called for tougher legislation that will clamp down on a rise in shoplifting gangs stealing and looting from retailers.
Britain's high streets have endured a scourge of shoplifting targeted by county lines-style gangs stealing items to order as thefts rise by more than a quarter in a year.
It comes after the antics of teenage TikTok thugs who have used the platform to organise large displays of antisocial behavior in busy shopping areas like London's Oxford Street and Manchester city centre over the summer.
Yesterday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said police forces should investigate all crimes with 'reasonable lines of inquiry' ahead of an extraordinary agreement from all forces in England and Wales that no crime was too minor to be probed.
Last week, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said that reported retail thefts had now risen by 27 per cent across ten of the UK's largest cities - and were up by 68 per cent in some.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Dame White suggested that in order to combat the rise in anti-social behaviour and criminality across England, the Government could look to introduce tough new legislation to deter people.
Suella Braverman has insisted that police have the manpower to investigate all crimes, and said no crime should be considered 'minor'
LONDON: Police officers detain a person as disruptors target shops during a shoplifting spree flash mob on Oxford Street
She explained: 'I was in our Glasgow store at the end of June and I saw a gang of teenage boys and I instinctively started following them around.
READ MORE: Oxford Street 'disruptors' are arrested following day of clashes between youths and police over fears of TikTok-inspired looting
'They were deterred. The same gang then went to our John Lewis Edinburgh store the next day and stole from our beauty department. They were then caught.
'The interesting thing about Scotland is the police were there.
'The legislation is different in Scotland so if you’re a shop worker and you’re abused and attacked there’s a specific law that means it’s an offense. Legislation could do more and of course the police are stretched but its not a victimless crime.'
Under Scotland's Protection of Worker's Bill it is an offence to assault, threaten, abuse, obstruct or hinder a retail worker.
It was brought in following the coronavirus pandemic after a reported 450 per cent rise in violence towards retail staff.
According to Dame Sharon, measures like this would make a tangible difference to the safety and longevity of Britain's High Street.
Dame Sharon White told Good Morning Britain the Government should introduce tougher legislation
MANCHESTER: Police officers were pelted with eggs and milkshakes by teenagers who were causing chaos in Manchester City Centre last month
MANCHESTER: July's incident saw eggs and milkshakes being pelted at police officers
She continued: 'This week I liked that the Home Secretary Suella Braverman said "every crime matters".
READ MORE: Inside the extraordinary lengths county-lines style shoplifting gangs are willing to go to on Britain's Wild West high streets
'I think there is a growing recognition that these aren’t trivial crimes, because those costs, if you’re suffering theft, those costs go back to the customers.
'I think if we had the legislation we had in Scotland where it is an offense to abuse retail workers it would be a massive plus.
'I think it makes a massive difference knowing your local copper will be there and take it seriously.'
In a bid to increase police presence in their stores, Waitrose is offering on-duty officers free hot drinks and discounted food.
They hope that just having a police car parked outside may be enough to deter would-be thieves.
The BRC has said incidents of violence and abuse against retail staff have nearly doubled from more than 450 per day in 2019/2020 to more than 850 last year - with crimes including racial or sexual abuse, assault and threats with weapons.
JD Sports has been at the eye of the shoplifting storm this month after widely shared posts on TikTok and Snapchat two weeks ago invited yobs to wear balaclavas and gloves and 'rob JD Sports' on Oxford Street at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon.
Other chains such as John Lewis, Waitrose Tesco, Sainsbury's and Boots are now issuing staff bodycams and training to deter violence from aggressive thieves.
LONDON: Large groups of young people were seen running away from police amid the clashes on Oxford Street earlier this month
LONDON: Police officers try to stop youths as they run out of a McDonald's restaurant on Oxford Street earlier this month following disruption
Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, told MailOnline: 'This year we have seen a significant increase in retail crime.
READ MORE Waitrose offers free coffees to on-duty police officers in bid to deter thieves - as long as they bring a reusable cup
'In the past, shop theft has been dominated by people with chaotic lives and driven by a drug dependency. However, there now seems to be a more organised approach with people stealing to order.
'Large supermarkets are using security tags on products like meat and cheese, or displaying empty jars of coffee.
'One of our members recently reported an incident when a gang, outside of the area, targeted a few shops and moved on. All very quick, organised, professional, and choosing a variety of small businesses and a range of products.
'Other members have made similar comments as they know the local problem criminals, but new faces are now committing the crime.'
Mr Goodacre also told The Times the new wave of organised crime is 'not dissimilar to the county line issue for drugs', adding: 'For the small retailers this level of crime can remove all their profits. Many have invested in CCTV but security guards are out of the question.
In the 12 months to March, police recorded 339,206 cases of shoplifting - but the BRC estimated the true figure was eight million, costing shops nearly £1billion across the year.


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Today, NECA posted this for Ash Wednesday. The Hero From the Sky Ash. There were talks about a new figure for the Evil Dead 2 line, I thought it would be this. Super excited.
Also bought the Deadite Ash and A Farewell to Arms Ash, should be shipping soon. Hero Ash & Henrietta figure are being released this summer! Can’t wait!!!!
From the San Diego Comic Con, NECA has revealed their Evil Dead 2 line. I’m very excited for this, especially for the Hero Ash. Here are some photos:
For more photos from this line and other figures that NECA is currently working on:


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Korea Digital TV News
SK Broadband selects NAGRA forensic watermarking for IPTV STBs
Jan 12, 2021 – NAGRA (SIX:KUD.S) has announced that SK Broadband has selected NAGRA’s NexGuard forensic watermarking technology to protect the operator's premium content on a wide range of IPTV set-top boxes.
News categories: NAGRA, SK Broadband, Stéphane Le Dréau, SangBum Lee, Digital TV, IPTV, Korea, Set Top Box, Watermarking
Samsung to continue LCD panel manufacturing throughout 2021
Dec 31, 2020 – Despite previous expectations to shutter its LCD panel manufacturing operations, Samsung Display (SDC) will continue manufacturing panels in Korea, according to TrendForce.
News categories: TrendForce, Samsung Display, Jeanette Chan, Digital TV, Korea, Market Research, Smart TV, Worldwide
Pay TV revenues in Korea expected to continue to grow
Dec 22, 2020 – The Pay TV market in South Korea is expected to reach US$7.2bn in 2025, mainly driven by subscription growth in IPTV services as well as in overall pay TV ARPU, according to GlobalData.
News categories: GlobalData, Aasif Iqbal, Digital TV, Korea, Market Research
Samsung TV Plus expands to 12 countries with over 740 channels
Dec 21, 2020 – Samsung has announced that Samsung TV Plus has now expanded to 12 countries and 742 channels worldwide, bringing access to over 60 million Samsung Smart TVs. Recent new countries include Australia and Brazil.
News categories: Samsung, Seline Sangsook Han, Apps, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Digital TV, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, OTT, Smart TV, Spain, Switzerland, UK, USA
NextGen Video Information Systems Alliance creates three working groups
Dec 17, 2020 – The NextGen Video Information Systems Alliance, a coalition driving the definition and realization of ATSC 3.0 technology, has announced the addition of four new members and the formation of three new specialized working groups.
News categories: NVISA, Edward Czarnecki, Sang Jin Yoon, Tim Bischoff, Mike Snyder, Fred Engel, ATSC 3, Digital TV, Korea, USA
KT deploys virtualized headend from Synamedia
Dec 8, 2020 – Synamedia has announced that KT Corporation will implement the first virtualized headend in the Asia Pacific region with its Olleh TV IPTV service. This is the first win for Synamedia with KT's IPTV business.
News categories: Synamedia, KT Corp, Sue Couto, Content Distribution, Digital TV, Korea
Asia Pacific to add 200 million SVOD subscribers
Sep 7, 2020 – According to Digital TV Research, Asia Pacific will have 467 million SVOD subscriptions in 2025, up from 267 million in 2019. China will contribute 279 million SVOD subscriptions in 2025 – 60% of the total.
News categories: Digital TV Research, Simon Murray, Asia, Australia, China, Digital TV, India, Japan, Korea, Market Research, OTT
LG Display working on stretchable displays
Jun 11, 2020 – LG Display has announced that it has been selected by South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) to lead its national project to develop stretchable displays.
News categories: LG Display, MOTIE, Dr. Soo-Young Yoon, Digital TV, Korea
Large-area FPD panel availability set to tighten significantly in 2021
May 11, 2020 – According to Omdia, the coronavirus crisis is impacting FPD demand and creating uncertainty. Challenged to maintain profitability in this environment, Korean suppliers have accelerated plans to completely exit LCD TV panel production in Korea in 2020.
News categories: Omdia, Charles Annis, COVID-19, Digital TV, Korea, Market Research, Smart TV, Worldwide
- NEXTGEN TV comes to Grand Rapids, MI
- Polestar develops streaming app for Polestar 2 cars in Europe
- JW Player acquires VUALTO
- 3SS powers TCC Android TV service on SDMC STBs
- du partners with ATEME on OTT and DTH projects
- Beachfront completes OAR-compliant ad trial on VIZIO TVs
- Peach launches global ad distribution platform
- India sees huge headroom for growth in TV and digital
- Sinclair unifies ad sales with Operative Media
- Dominant share for MediaTek in smart speaker market
- Connected TV continues to drive U.S. digital video ad growth
- VBox announces ATSC 3.0 Android TV Gateway
- Small growth in global pay TV subscribers to 2026
- Brightcove powers Studio Mojo's ‘Koode’ OTT service
- Vivendi, Fininvest and Mediaset end their disputes
- fuboTV partners with LiveRamp on addressable ad targeting
- Verizon Media to be acquired by Apollo funds
- Stoneroos acquired by NEP The Netherlands
- AirConsole casual gaming for TrueID TV Box users in Thailand
- Charter residential video customers down 156,000 in 1Q 2021


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You may have heard of the Tesla Roadster, Toyota Prius and maybe even the Mahindra e2o (previously known as the REVA), but how much do you know about electric cars or electric vehicles (EVs)?
The market: In 2017, global sales of EVs crossed 1 million units for the first time ever and total number of electric cars on the road crossed 3 million, but that is a small percentage of total cars on the road. The International Energy Agency (IEA) thinks that there will be 125 million electric vehicles on the road globally in 2030, when the total number of cars powered by fossil fuels will be a little less than 2 billion!
What are EVs? Most of the cars we see on the road today have internal combustion engines (ICE) that run on fossil fuels such as gas or diesel. EVs on the other hand use electric motors and are much better for the environment if the electricity that charges them comes from clean and renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind.
Why are electric cars important? Due to global concerns about climate change and increasing air pollution, the auto industry has been under pressure from consumers and governments alike to become more environmentally friendly. How? By producing cars that have high performance, are more fuel-efficient, and are charaterized by low-emissions. With reducing battery prices, support from governments and commitments from top car manufacturers, the future of cars does look electric!
Countries that are considering bans on ICE only vehicle sales
Subsidies and Incentives: Subsidies are incentives such as discounts, that are provided to help industries to grow. Governments have have been providing subsidies to help the EV market. In some countries like Norway, those purchasing EVs can for example pay lower tolls, and are charged lower taxes on purchasing these cars. With an improvement in technology, some expect EV costs to drop to the point that they will no longer need to be subsidized by 2024. Daimler, Volkswagen, Nissan, and Volvo are some of the leading automakers that have made plans to electrify their vehicles over the next decade.
Only a handful of countries have significant market share: EVs have significant market share in countries such as Norway, Iceland, Sweden, China, Germany, U.S. and Japan.
So why aren’t there more electric vehicles on the roads? Compared to regular cars, it is still more expensive to manufacture EVs because some rare or scarce materials such as cobalt and lithium are required. The time needed to fully charge the cars is quite high and because they have a limited range, you would need to stop to recharge your EV frequently on longer journeys. Unfortunately since the EV industry is still growing and developing, there are not nearly enough charging stations available at present.
What can we expect from this market by 2040?
- It is estimate that by 2040, 55% of all new car sales and 33% of the global fleet will be electric
- China is and will continue to be the largest EV market in the world till 2040
- India is aiming to have at least 15% market share for electric vehicles in the coming 5 years
Did you know?
Scottish inventor Robert Anderson invented the first crude electric carriage powered by non-rechargeable cells all the way back in 1832!
Written by: Zarir De Vitre. Zarir is a Mumbai based sustainability consultant. He enjoys drinking tea, playing with Lego, and football and basketball.


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Food and Wine
- Three types of Asian cuisine help Scranton restaurant stand out
- Anniversary ale continues love affair with Weyerbacher
- Turn to fizzy brachetto for a low-alcohol treat
- Scranton woman combats icy nights with spicy delight in Chilly Day Chili
- Dunmore’s Sushi Thai more than a flash in the pan
- Chic Chic Marketplace’s new shop focuses on local
- Bordeaux often linked with reds, but inexpensive whites worth a try
- Scranton woman finds new way to use extra food with casserole
- Grill at the Highlands and Pizza Deli gains popularity with focus on details
- Turn to dark, thick IPA for warming winter drink
- Minervois wines present unique but divisive flavor
- Pigs in the Blanket highlight of Eastern Orthodox Christmas festivities
Carbondale Chamber sets wine tasting on April 27
Greater Carbondale Chamber of Commerce's Sipping Into Spring wine festival will be Saturday, April 27, from noon to 6 p.m. at Pioneer Plaza Hotel, 25 S. Main St., Carbondale.
There will be tastings of products from select Pennsylvania wineries, craft beer from area breweries, live entertainment, wood-fired pizza, Italian specialties, pretzels, chocolate, cheeses and olive oils.
Free parking will be available.
Tickets are $30 in advance before Sunday. Tickets at the door are $35. Designated-driver tickets are $12 and active-duty military and veteran tickets are $20 at the door. All tickets include a $5 food voucher.
Tickets may be purchased online at sippingintospring.com or in person at Maiolatesi Wine Cellars, Paradocx Vineyards, Bartolai Winery, Grovedale Winery, Capra Collina Winery, Antler Ridge Winery, 3 Guys & A Beer'd, Susquehanna Brewing Co., Endless Brewing, Carbondale Technology Transfer Center and Steve Pronko Diamonds.
For more information, call 806-1158 or email email@example.com.
Pizza by Pappas to hold fourth autism fundraiser
For every pizza sold at Pizza by Pappas on Tuesday, April 23, and Wednesday, April 24, customers will have half the purchase price donated on their behalf to the Northeast Regional Autism Center at Friendship House.
This is the fourth annual Autism Awareness Fundraiser conducted by Pappas. The first three raised more than $19,000 for the autism center.
For more information, call 346-2290 or email charity @pizzabypappas .com.
BOB GELIK is Times-Tribune food editor. Send information to firstname.lastname@example.org.


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Paytm Payments Bank has launched a separate mobile application for its mobile banking services. The mobile app will enable customers to check their balances, raise a request for physical debits cards, access digital debit cards, etc. Customers will also be able to receive 24×7 help and support through this mobile banking app. The new app is already available for download on the Google Play store, while iOS users will soon get the update on the Apple app store.
“The new app has been introduced exclusively for its bank’s customers to provide a wide range of banking services in a phased manner,” says Satish Kumar Gupta, MD, and CEO, Paytm Payments Bank, in a statement. “The purpose of the new app is to segregate its operations from the existing app which caters to customers of several group entities. However, PPB customers will continue to serve its customers on its older app should its customers desire so. Both apps will co-exist.”
Paytm launched its payments bank services back in 2017 after RBI granted permission to the applicant companies to launch their own versions. The company claims that its payments bank now has 43 million customers, two million out of which now own physical debit cards.


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As has been tradition for some time now, every year around this time the digital health community gets a wake up call. The Pew Internet & American Life Project published its latest report on mobile health this morning and while it is filled to the brim with helpful, encouraging statistics related to mobile health adoptions, buried deep within is an outright discouraging one. Health app adoption has remained flat.
Since 2010 about 10 percent of American adults with mobile phones have had some kind of app on their phone that helps them track or manage their health, according to Pew's survey. While the figure presented in Pew's reports has ticked up or down one percentage point this year and last year, it's within the survey's margin of error.
Pew's Associate Director Susannah Fox told MobiHealthNews that this year's survey has a bit more of a focus on smartphone users, which have about twice the adoption rate for health apps when compared to the general population. About 19 percent of smartphone users have some kind of health app that helps them track or manage their health.
Of course, not all of the consumer health-related apps available today explicitly help people to "track" or "manage" their health, some simply provide helpful tips or reference materials. Pew's question seems to hit on more interactive apps. Fox said that's for a reason.
"When we wrote that survey question back in 2010 it was about wanting to find out about people's engagement," Fox said. "The Pew Internet Research Project studies the social impact of the internet and back in the year 2000 it was very much about people's changing relationship with information. As the Internet evolved our project evolved to study not only how people access information but how they engage with information as well as with each other and instutions. That was the context of writing that question. This comes to the point again where we can examine what a survey question is good for and what it is not good for. We write a survey question in the hopes that just the general population can understand what we are talking about."
The question also specifically asks about a "health app" and does not explicitly include fitness as part of the question. Even Apple makes a distinction between the two as demonstrated by the name of its AppStore category Health & Fitness. Still, of the survey respondents who said they used a health app to track or manage their health, the largest cohort said they used a fitness tracking app. Did other fitness app users say "no" because they didn't consider their running app a "health" app?
Pew's surveys are the gold standard for mobile and digital health metrics. Few would disagree with that sentiment. That said, Fox is open to improving this survey if possible. Any helpful suggestions for rewording or similar surveys that might inspire new questions are welcome, she said.
Assuming Pew's survey results are correct and there still is a large portion of the population that would benefit from health apps, what might drive adoption moving forward? There has been a significant proliferation in the number of health apps available, but seemingly no increase in adoption.
"What is going to be the trigger for health app adoption given the fact that for three years running we have not seen significant growth?" Fox asked. "The trends that I am watching -- I don't make predictions -- but [there are three] trends that I am watching. [The first is] smartphone adoption. If smartphone adoption continues increasing and we see continued engagement with smartphones users getting health apps, then looking for increased health app adoption among smartphone users seems to make sense."
While there is something intuitive about the growing adoption of smartphones leading to a larger base for health apps, if you examine Pew's data on overall health app adoption among all mobile phone users -- not just smartphone users -- you find flat adoption for three years, despite the significant gains in smartphone adoption that occurred between 2010 and 2012. Fox didn't disagree with this but made clear that this isn't the only trend worth watching, other factors are important, too.
"The other aspect is media portrayal of apps," Fox said. "I perceive that there has been an increase in mainstream media coverage of health apps."
This is without a doubt true. Big name newspapers and blogs of all stripes have been promoting suggested health app lists throughout 2012.
"The third aspect of this that I am watching for is clinical integration," Fox said. "That is when your doctor prescribes an app. That is going to have a different effect on your interest in trying it, over you just downloading it, or it coming pre-installed on your phone. Those are the trends I'm watching -- again, they are not predictions, just some of the trends I am keeping an eye on."


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|Raquel Quesada, Michael Herklots and Patricia Quesada|
On March 6, 2013 an event was held at the iconic Nat Sherman Townhouse in NYC, celebrating the success of the Dominican-made Nat Sherman Timeless Collection No. 2. The Sherman Family, along with Patricia and Raquel Quesada, welcomed family, friends and NY VIPS to the exclusive member’s only Johnson Club Room to celebrate the cigar, which Cigar Aficionado recently proclaimed “the best Nat Sherman cigar ever tasted.’ The Timeless Collection No. 2 was ranked No. 10 in the publication’s coveted annual ‘Best Of’ list. Patricia and Raquel, along with their father, Manuel, own and operates MATASA, the factory in the Dominican Republic where the Timeless is manufactured.
|Bill Sherman, Michele Sherman, Joel Sherman and his wife Myrna Sherman.|
|Barry Entner, Michele Sherman, Rudy Giuliani, Joel Sherman
and his wife Myrna Sherman
Nat Sherman was happy to welcome a number of notable attendees, including Rudolph Giuliani and Top Chef Finalist, Dave Martin, as well as Nat Sherman President & CEO, Joel Sherman.
Source: This information was sent to Cigar Coop via Evins Communications Ltd. Cigar Coop will post information as a free service to all cigar companies that choose to send Cigar Coop information to share.


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Compare Group, a Dutch holding company consisting of five price comparison services in four different countries, wants to welcome 50% more visitors in 2015 than it had last year. And in terms of clicks it thinks it could achieve even much more growth. We interviewed CEO Ben Kerkhof, who explained to us why the company mostly thinks about a girl named Lisa these days…
Dutch ecommerce software provider BiedMeer will change its name into CCV Shop starting January 13, 2015. The company was acquired by CCV Group nine months ago and it now wants to use this name to start its services in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, as the name “BiedMeer” (literally: “offer more”) won’t ring any bells across the Dutch borders.
Ecommerce offers many opportunities on the European market and it’s important that Belgium manages to keep a “piece of that pie” for itselves. That’s one of the things Minister Alexander de Croo told the audience during the first edition of E-commerce Xpo. The government wants to create the best possible climate for ecommerce companies.
Things aren’t going well for Otto Group, the German online retail company. After it sold Otto Touristik in June of this year, it’s now looking for a buyer for Otto Office, its office supplies subsidiary. Otto Group has instructed investment bank Rothschild to find a buyer for its reseller.
AO, the British online retailer of domestic appliances, has launched its German website, but that’s not the only expansion it has planned. AO World is also looking at starting businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium. Austria, Switzerland and France are also potential targets for the retailer that reported some strong growth in revenue for the first half of the year.
H&M will launch online stores in eight different countries in Europe during 2015. The new online markets will be Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia. H&M’s online stores are already available in eleven European countries.
Since time immemorial, the Netherlands and Belgium have influenced each other on several fronts. They not only share the same language (although the Walloon part of Belgium speaks French, not Dutch), but also have much in common on cultural, sport and economic levels. In the ecommerce industry however, it’s mostly Dutch players who influence the Belgian industry and not the other way around.


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Now that the Black Friday and Cyber Monday have ended, it’s time to start examining trade gross sales of smartphones. New information launched via Localytics display that, unusually,the Google Pixel outperformed the iPhone 7 as the most well liked acquire ultimate weekend.
As indicated analytical Localytics Black Friday of the Google Pixel reached 112% of gross sales in comparison to its earlier information. On the different hand, the Samsung Galaxy S7 noticed its gross sales via 36% . As for the iPad Professional and iPad Mini 2 gross sales rose 24% and 19% respectively. And in the end, the iPhone in July higher gross sales via 13% .
Pixel The Google smartphone has surpassed iPhone gross sales in July during Black Friday, sure, however why? We will inform you then.
There are a number of info to imagine about the triumph of Google Pixel to the iPhone 7. First is noteworthy to point out that the smartphone Google began with a bonus because it used to be submitted later than the iPhone 7. But additionally its worth it’s a lot more inexpensive and this encourages extra consumers in search of Black Friday improbable offers.
One among the primary causes lies in the superb gives Google Pixel, significantly better than Apple for sure. In truth, the Cupertino corporate didn’t be offering any promotional be offering for the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus . Simplest he presented present playing cards 50 € for iPhone 6s, 6s Plus iPhone and a few different tool.
Clearly, the Google Pixel has now not offered extra devices than Apple iPhone 7 overall . However this triumph of Black Friday at Apple position the smartphone Google just a little nearer to the terminal of the corporate chew the apple.
From Localytics additionally they sought after to percentage a statistical chart appearing a comparability of iPhone gross sales iPhone 6s and 7 during the Black Friday in 2015 and 2016, respectively.And the effects are completely shocking!
Anyway, we will have to acknowledge that Google Pixel is giving a lot to speak about. It has a lot advantage that the new Google smartphone gross sales have surpassed Apple and Samsung, if just for a weekend. However the coolest factor of all is that the wager Google may totally trade the panorama of cellular smartphone trade sector over the coming years.


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In 2012, China has taken the lead from USA and become the world’s largest food and grocery market. Next year, they are expected to be the biggest player in the luxury good market and surpass USA again by 2016 as the world’s largest retail market. While Western consumers reduce their spending expenditure, the rapid growth in emerging markets will contribute to a hugely different global retail landscape in 2022.
China is the largest retail market but it’s not the only place to focus on. Besides China and Western Giants, global leading retailers also keep an eye on markets in India, Brazil and Russia. By 2022, these four emerging markets will form four of the six largest retail markets in US-dollar terms and if the Indonesian market continues to grow rapidly, it could be among five of the top seven largest retail markets. In ten years’ time, Indian new economy alone could expand to the scope of the Western Europe marketGlobal giant retailers such as Walmart have already left their footprint in China. Emerging markets such as Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and India and these markets continue to be fertile grounds for the investors. Over the next decade, the growth of these markets will depend largely on the easing of regulation over foreign investment.
In the emerging markets, especially China, luxury good firms are already fighting to retain their market share. Although it is tough to keep the double-digit growth in the luxury goods sector in the next 8 years, by 2022, a strong platform for luxury goods in these new markets will be formed due to an increasingly willing and wealthy consumer base.
By 2022, Western markets will be influenced by emerging markets more directly and these rising markets are also driving global retail growth domestically. Western markets have received heavy investment from emerging markets mostly in primary or manufacturing sectors. By 2022, emerging markets will facilitate a flood of outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&As), with cash-rich corporations from China, Brazil and India seeking to get their feet in the Western market, especially in Europe, where investors can benefit from the current retail slowdown.
Besides the highlighted changes in this article, 2022 will see shifts in consumer habits as well as marketplace. Find out more about those shifts in the report “Retail 2022 - How the Economist Intelligence Unit sees the retail landscape changing over the next decade".


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In the December quarter the group reported earnings of 434 million rupees, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier. The group reported earnings 6.11 rupees per share for the quarter and 27.81 rupees for the year.
Revenues rose 28 percent to 16.3 billion rupees and cost of sales also rose 28 percent to 13.4 billion rupees allowing gross profit to rise 30 percent to 2.9 billion rupees.
Revenues from ship building rose 43 percent to 11.0 billion rupees in the year.
The group said its focus and a reputation for building high quality support ships for the oil industry had brought benefits.
"Our focus on shipbuilding for the Offshore Supporting Vessels (OSV) market segment has also held us in good stead in that the strategic diversification decisions taken many years ago have seen us charter into niche areas, " Chairman Akihiko Nakauchi told shareholders in the annual report.
"The ship repair area of our business, meanwhile, did have to contend with survival strategy, where ship owners minimised spending and delayed repairs until statutory regulations dictate that repairs be completed."
In 2012, an anchor handling tug supply vessel and two multi-purpose platform supply vessels had been delivered.
Managing director Mangala Yapa said the order book was full and capacity fully utilized until the end of 2013.
Four platform supply vessels are to be completed in 2013, and another in 2014. Colombo Dockyard was also building two 400 passenger cum 250 tonne cargo vessels to be used by Lakshadweep administration in India.
Ship repair revenue rose 4.8 percent to 4.6 billion rupees, but the firm said there was less business from long-time India based customers, and overall market conditions were weak with prices slashed at by Chinese yards.


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New Ford GT supercar production run doubled
The all-new Ford GT's production run has doubled from two to four years.
Ford Performance initially announced the carbon fibre supercar would be built for the 2017 and 2018 model years. However, today it revealed that a second two-year run had been scheduled.
The decision coincides with the company announcing that it will be expanding its Ford GT race programme from two to four years. Four GTs compete in the IMSA and World Endurance Championship series and will now continue to do so until the end of the 2019 season.
When the car was first announced, prospective buyers could apply to buy one with Ford bosses selecting the best candidates. More than 6,500 people submitted completed applications for the GT, far surpassing all expectations.
Dave Pericak, global director of Ford Performance, said: "While we can't build enough Ford GTs for everyone who has applied, we are going to produce additional vehicles in an effort to satisfy more of our most loyal Ford ambassadors.
"We want to keep Ford GT exclusive, but at the same time we know how vital this customer is to our brand."
To reward those who applied early, the third year of production will be allocated to people who missed out on the first round of cars. For the fourth year, Ford is opening up applications to new customers.
Ford has been keen to stress that the road car and race car have been built in tandem. Raj Nair, vice president of product development and chief technical officer, said: "The road car and race car will live on, side-by-side, for the next four years, providing ample opportunity to test and prove innovative new technologies both on and off the track."


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Kay Jewelers parent sues Zale over diamond claims
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Sterling Jewelers Inc., the operator of Kay Jewelers and other stores nationwide, filed a preliminary injunction to stop a Zale Corp. (NYSE:ZLC) advertising claim that its Celebration Fire Diamond is "the most brilliant diamond in the world," the Akron Beacon Journal reports.
In the lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, Sterling seeks to immediately halt the advertising amid the fiercely competitive holiday sales season, saying there is no legitimacy to the statement.
The brilliance of a diamond “is not a statement of subjective opinion but is capable of being systematically, reliably and scientifically measured," Sterling spokesman David Bouffard told the newspaper.
Zale spokeswoman Roxane Barry told the Akron Beacon Journal the lawsuit is without merit. “Our advertising was based on testing by an independent laboratory, and our ads make that fact clear."
Sterling is based in Akron and employs about 2,000 in the area, according to the newspaper.
Morning Call is compiled from news reports originated by other media organizations and Columbus Business First staff.
Evan Weese covers funding and capital for Columbus Business First.
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The husband and wife shoved their filled shopping carts toward the front doors of the Farragut grocery store.
They knew that once they hit the parking lot, they and their $600 worth of stolen goods were home free because store employees rarely confront shoplifters past the front doors.
But not this holiday season.
Outside the store, the couple were met by undercover officers from the Knox County Sheriff's Office who had been alerted by store employees of the suspicious pair. The man and woman bolted when they realized this shoplifting trip was different, but both were arrested after a short foot chase.
The Safer Holidays Task Force had added two more arrests to the nearly 200 apprehensions recorded since the group hit the streets Nov. 21.
"Apparently they're regulars who have hit grocery stores all over town," said Sheriff's Office Lt. George Edlund, who commands the unit. "They're frequent visitors who happened to have been caught tonight."
It was a scenario that would play out more than a dozen times that Friday evening in retail stores at all points of the compass in the city and county.
Retailers for years have known who the thieves are in their stores. Until Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones opted to embrace retailers' concerns, they didn't have a pipeline to law enforcement to see that knowledge yield arrests.
"Before I got into this and talked with people, I had no clue to the number of people who shoplift for a living," the sheriff said.
Years in the making
Four years ago, loss prevention specialists from across the nation converged on Knoxville to work with local law enforcement agencies to stymie shoplifters during the holiday season.
In one November weekend, officers arrested 33 people and recovered more than $33,000 in stolen merchandise. Included in the arrests were eight members of the Austin-East Performing Arts and Sciences Magnet High School football team, who were accused of felony theft from an East Knoxville clothing store.
That effort convinced authorities of the need to address organized shoplifting, Edlund said.
The Sheriff's Office first created a secure email site on county servers to coordinate intelligence among retailers and law enforcement agencies in Knox, Anderson and Loudon counties, Edlund said. Just as financial institutions alert one another when a robbery occurs, the retailers began sharing information on individuals, groups and methods employed to defeat devices and policies targeting shoplifters.
Edlund said the site went active last year and involves sharing of pictures and videos of suspected professional thieves in action, when they struck, getaway vehicles, targeted merchandise and potential accomplices.
In 2011, Jones had Edlund create a task force of officers that concentrated on coordinating efforts with merchants' loss prevention specialists in the area.
"We went out the day before Thanksgiving to meet the managers and ended up making four-five arrests that day," Edlund said. "We had 37 arrests by the weekend."
By the time the task force wrapped up its holiday work last year, the group had recorded 125 arrests and recovered about $60,000 worth of stolen merchandise.
This year, Edlund said, the task force started earlier because Thanksgiving fell sooner on the calendar. Task force members come from different divisions within the Sheriff's Office, including the ranks of court bailiffs, patrol, school resource officers, detectives and the drug unit.
"Quite a few of our officers have worked retail theft on side jobs," Edlund said.
"We're not necessarily targeting shoplifters. We're in the crowds looking out for the shoppers' safety. We notice things the public wouldn't. It's low key but very effective."
Sometimes it's the shoppers who get in trouble. Edlund said an officer this month encountered a car parked in front of a Walmart, the keys in the ignition and three children under age 4 in the back seat.
"I don't care what big a hurry you're in, you don't leave your children unattended," Edlund said.
The mother of the children was getting a cake. She got the cake and a charge of leaving the vehicle unattended and a visit from the state Department of Children's Services.
Acne-afflicted teenagers snapping up a compact disc when the clerk is distracted are not the task force's targets.
"Some of these folks are very sophisticated," Knox County District Attorney General Randy Nichols said. "The sheriff tells me these guys have walkie-talkies and devices for removing theft devices."
Methods used by professional shoplifters include "booster girdles" used to conceal multiple cans of baby formula; fake breasts; fake pregnancy props; removing security tags; switching price tags; using children to conceal items; large purses; aluminum foil to thwart radio frequency theft devices; wearing stolen clothes out the door; and simply filling a shopping cart with items and darting out the store.
Others employ "staging," where one person fills a sack with pilfered goods and sets it at a prearranged location in the store for an accomplice to retrieve. Because the accomplice can feign ignorance of the theft, charges can be difficult to prove.
Organized groups place spotters armed with cellphones in a parking lot watching for law enforcement while a team of three or four accomplices shoplift in the store.
One merchant attending a recent meeting of the task force recalled a woman who was swallowing necklaces while in the store to avoid detection.
"They're very creative," said Jeff Marcinek, loss prevention group manager for Burkes Outlet. "They work in teams and distract the clerk — there's all kinds of ways."
Baby formula is a favorite target of shoplifters because of its cost. One loss prevention specialist said of all the people he's caught stealing baby formula, not one had an infant.
Edlund said the retailers' employees have cellphone numbers for the task force members to alert them of a suspicious person in the store.
"Even if you don't see them steal anything, let these guys know," Jones said. "That way, if they violate any traffic laws, we can stop them if there's probable cause."
Often law enforcement officers are finding cars filled with clothing from multiple stores and even trunks loaded with stolen meat.
Retailers label professional thieves as organized retail crime and have two categories for them: local and national.
Local professional shoplifters cater to their neighbors in an apartment complex and unscrupulous restaurants and retailers, said Joe Fryar, director of loss prevention for Food City stores in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.
"They steal local and sell local," Fryar said. "We've even caught them with a list."
While all professional shoplifters are good at it, the national groups are more organized, he said. Such groups move from state to state, often storing stolen goods in rental warehouses for later retrieval.
Both groups use the Internet to sell stolen goods at bargain prices. Fryar warned, however, that thieves restamp stolen items with bogus expiration dates to make them appear fresh.
Fryar recalled one thief who had the location of all Food City stores preset in his GPS device.
"These are not teenagers making a bad choice," Fryar said. "These are professionals."
Some thieves don't bother trying to resell stolen goods, which usually yields 30-50 percent of the actual price of the pilfered items.
"You can steal stuff from one Walmart and take it down the road to another Walmart and get a gift card," Edlund said. Those gift cards then can be traded for drugs.
"The minute we figure one thing out, they've come up with another," he said. "There's never a dull moment."
In the past, merchants became accustomed to the "catch and release" policies of law enforcement concerning shoplifters. An accused shoplifter was detained for a few minutes, cited to court and turned loose.
But Jones and Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch altered that for the holidays. Now, every accused shoplifter goes to jail, is booked and has to make bond to get out of jail.
"It's to make an impact," Rausch said. "If I'm writing you a ticket, you are free to go down the street to steal from another store."
Edlund said he's getting some wide-eyed looks of astonishment when informing shoplifters they're going to jail. Even the theft of a soft drink merits a ride to the Knox County Detention Facility.
"They arrested one guy in the afternoon who had a shoplifting citation on him from earlier that day in North Carolina," said John Gill, special counsel with the Knox County District Attorney General's Office. The prosecutor's office is part of the task force.
While the Knoxville Police Department hasn't assigned officers to the task force, Rausch said his crime analysis unit is providing intelligence to the group and making sure his officers respond to help if needed.
Nichols said shoplifting items worth under $500 is a misdemeanor offense with a top punishment of one year in jail. Stealing items valued at $500-$1,000 yields a Class E felony, which carries a one- to two-year jail term. Stealing items valued at $1,000-$10,000 merits a Class D felony, which provides for two to four years of imprisonment.
While state law does not provide enhanced penalties for multiple-shoplifting offenders, Nichols and Gill said prosecutors can request that judges impose longer punishment based on previous convictions.
Area merchants have been so impressed with the efficiency of the local task force that they're selling the concept to other law enforcement agencies. "We're taking this concept and developing it in the Tri-Cities," Fryar said. "Law enforcement is just becoming educated to the problem."


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Here's how people on social media reacted to the launch of iPhone 8 and iPhone X by Apple yesterday.
It is that time of the year when new iPhones come into the market and the lives of a few people. Because clearly, not everyone can afford a phone that costs more than Rs 80,000. Many would rather have eight decent Android smartphones, two for each person in a family of four.
The new iPhones are here. There are three of them - iPhone 8, iPhone 8 plus and what Apple calls the "future" - iPhone X that comes without the signature home button.
Thousands of people saw the Apple event live via social media platforms and were live-tweeting. Kidney jokes, dear to Indians, were back on Twitter; some loved the new designs, those who can't afford it (no, no, not you!) began slamming it saying Android phones will give the same features at a much lesser cost and others had a lot of fun.
The iPhone X has a new feature. Apple calls it Face ID. The phone can be unlocked with just a glance (of course, not any random person's glance) and it has a "Neural Engine" that makes this possible.
But people do not seem impressed. Many think Apple needs to step up in terms of innovation.
By the way, even celebrities couldn't help tweeting about the new iPhones. WWE wrestler John Cena, for instance and we must say he didn't disappoint us. Here's how people, including Cena, reacted to the Apple event:
Me to iphone lover:What's the difference between iPhone 7 & iPhone 8September 13, 2017
Paying 90000 INR sounds right If #iPhoneX include Animoji of RaGa, Manmohan, KapilSibal, RamRahim and Asharaam.- Django (@GhantaGyaan) September 13, 2017
For more news from India Today, follow us on Twitter @indiatoday and on Facebook at facebook.com/IndiaToday
For news and videos in Hindi, go to AajTak.in. ताज़ातरीन ख़बरों और वीडियो के लिए आजतक.इन पर आएं.


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Online Advertising Trends: The PubMatic AdPrice Index - June 2008
PubMatic the world's first service to automate and optimize ad inventory decision-making for Web publishers, released yesterday its third monthly PubMatic AdPrice Index, an industry-wide measure of online ad network pricing for professional web publishers.
The Pubmatic Ad Price Index for June 2008
In June, the index highlights the economic slowdown in the U.S which continues to affect the online advertising industry, with overall monetization dropping by 0.7 percent from last month after the previous month's 23 percent drop.
The June 2008 PubMatic AdPrice Index also revealed significant improvement in monetization for social networking and gaming sites, with eCPMs increasing by 66 and 51 percent respectively.
While monetization for sports sites in May stayed relatively level, monetization for entertainment, news and technology sites continued to drop, by 11, 13 and 22 percent, respectively.
Of large, medium and small Web sites, large Web sites (100 million page views a month) showed the biggest improvement with a sixteen percent increase from April, from 18 cents to 21 cents. This was likely a result of the significant spike in social network and gaming ad pricing, which generally fall into the large size category. Medium sized Web sites (1 million to 100 million page views per month) stayed consistent, having a less than one percent change from April, while smaller Web sites (less than 1 million page views per month) suffered a 12 percent downturn from the previous month.
The PubMatic AdPrice Index is based on data from more than 3,500 publishers, approximately 85 percent of which are based in the US, and billions of ad impressions.
PubMatic AdPrice Index
June 18, 2008
The PubMatic AdPrice Index is a broad-based measure of ad network pricing information. It is based on anonymous data from over 3,500 publishers who work with PubMatic for ad network and layout optimization services.
The June PubMatic AdPrice Index indicates that the sputtering economy is still having an affect on the overall monetization of online advertising, while certain verticals, especially social networks and gaming, had a significant upswing in ad pricing.
Web Site Ad Price Changes by Size
PubMatic's AdPrice Index reveals there was a 0.7 percent drop across all aggregated Web sites.
Large Web sites (more than 100 million page views each month), however, fared much better than their medium and small counterparts with a 16 percent gain from the previous month.
Medium sized Web sites (between 1 million and 100 million page views per month) showed a less than 1 percent difference in pricing from April to May - they remain at an average 33 cent eCPM. Small Web sites (less than 1 million page views per month) showed a 12 percent drop from the previous month going from $1.29 to $1.13 average eCPM.
Web Site Ad Price Changes by Vertical
The biggest surprises this month came from the social network and gaming verticals.
Social networks showed a very sizable 66 percent average eCPM increase going from 19 cents in April to 32 cents in May. While this is an increase from April, this is still not back to as high as the March average.
Gaming also experienced a strong surge, with the vertical's average eCPM increasing 51 percent. In April, the gaming average eCPM was 66 cents and in May, the average eCPM was $1.00.
The entertainment vertical had a modest 11 percent drop, going from an average eCPM of 33 cents in April to 29 cents in May.
While online news has one of the highest ad pricing of all verticals, they also experienced a similar drop of 13 percent during the same period, going from an average April eCPM of $1.30 to $1.10 in May.
Small Web site segment: Less than 1 million page views per month.
Medium Web site segment: Between 1 million and 100 million page views per month.
Large Web site segment: Over 100 million page views per month.
Aggregate Index: Data for All Web sites is computed using a weighting of 65 percent large Web sites, 20 percent Medium Web sites, and 15 percent Small Web sites based on an estimate of overall traffic in the online publishing market.
* Note: The pricing data reflects net publisher monetization via ad networks and excludes ad networks' share of ad spends as well as inventory sold directly by publishers to ad agencies or advertisers.
The PubMatic AdPrice Index has been prepared by:
Albert Madansky, Ph.D., H.G.B. Alexander Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and recipient of the 2005 American Statistical Association Founders Award
Michele Madansky, Ph.D., media and market research consultant, former VP of Global Market Research for Yahoo!
You can also subscribe to the monthly updates of the PubMatic AdPrice Index by going to www.adpriceindex.com and registering your email address.
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By Prince Okoafor
NEXT generation mobile games developer, Sandbox, in partnership with technology company YuuZooNetwork group recently launched series of mobile games, including the Unstoppable Rex and Mr Twister, in Nigeria.
While unstoppable rex is centred on a dinosaur on rampage, causing maximum destruction through the streets of a city, Mr. Twister is jumping over vertically ascending spinning hurdles in the form of stairs, all to stay afloat.
These series, according to the developers, were launched to bring people together and promote development of the gaming community.
Digital Marketing Manager for Yuuzoo, Mr. GbengaOgunbiyi, said: “These are hyper casual games that can be played during leisure and can help reduce depression which is at an alarming rate.
“You download, play, enjoy, entertain yourself and stand a chance to win any of our weekly incentives on social media including Facebook and Instagram @sandboxglobal.
“The gifts range from smart phones, cash to shopping vouchers on smearena.com.ng and recharge cards” he added.


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China’s Lenovo has recently announced its new ThinkCentre A62 desktop PC. Designed to reduce your power bills with low energy consumption and to provide an ease on IT administrators, this new PC is undoubtedly one of the cheapest and most advanced PCs.
“IT departments, especially in the business world, don’t like change," said Lenovo’s executive director for global desktop marketing, in a statement. "The new ThinkCentre A62 was built to provide business customers with longer PC buying cycles. It combines top-notch performance, manageability, and environmental responsibility in a high value machine."
Lenovo A62 Desktop PC will begin shipping with a 160 GB hard drive, 16x DVD-ROM, 1 GB of RAM and gigabit Ethernet. This new PC from Lenovo has been built around a 15-watt AMD Althon X2 5000M AM2 CPU that runs at 2.6 GHz. To start off with, this system will be shipped with Dash 1.1 that enables users to manage the system remotely.


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As digital disturbance continues to depend on future job security majorly, AirAsia, the Southeast Asian airline teamed up with Google to inaugurate a new technology academy to reskill employees. AirAsia Google Cloud Academy, the first of its kind, will manage by the venture arm of AirAsia, RedBeat Ventures, and will suggest courses including digital marketing, tech infrastructure design and software engineering – all of which will accredit by tech giant of Silicon Valley.
Tim Synan, the Southeast Asia regional director of Google Cloud statement that the agreement would allow participants to understand its technology in a better way. They are working together to upskill AirAsia AllStars with appropriate expertise in Google Cloud tech and develop deep technical as well as Cloud expertise including Cloud Artificial Intelligence, Kubernetes, smart analytics and more. AirAsia has a partnership with Google since 2018 when it hit an agreement to integrate machine learning capabilities of Google Cloud to improve its digital capabilities.
Malaysia’s AirAsia intends to co-found a tech academy in partnership with Google Cloud. The venture will develop tech talent within AirAsia and provide staff with an opportunity to retrain in preparation for a changing digital economy, @NAR writes: https://t.co/aNdEqV1Wxf.
— Reconnecting Asia (@ReconAsia) January 14, 2020
Airline’s group president, Aireen Omar about tech Academy
AirAsia didn’t confirm more details immediately about the training facility. Head office of AirAsia is present in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Aireen Omar, the airline’s group president, told the Nikkei Asian Review the academy would originally open to present employees next month, before being extended to the community by 2020 end. She says that the launching of the academy is part of the long-term strategy of the budget carrier to prepare workforces for the shifting jobs landscape.
Omar told Nikkei that more jobs might become laid off in the upcoming three years, so they are giving their workers the opportunities to reskill to suit the latest digital economy. The inauguration of the technology academy is the newest move by Tony Fernandes, the AirAsia founder to expand his business for the digital age. Last year, AirAsia announced that it might start selling flights from over hundred rival carriers as part of the ambition of Fernandes to become the Amazon of travel.
Somewhere, ReadBeat Ventures attained a string of non-airline businesses, including payments platform BigPay, parcel & cargo firms RedBox Logistics & Red Cargo, online ticketing website RedTix to boost the revenue streams of the company. Whereas, in December 2019, AirAsia announced its first restaurant selling airline food’s launch. Fernandes said at that time that he hoped T&Co’s Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia outlet and Santan – that serves meals from RM15 at $3.60 – would be the first in a line of restaurants of AirAsia, with a Times Square location labelled as a dream.
Read Also: Google to Open Cloud Region in Poland


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U.S. traders could also be planning to make use of their second $1,200 stimulus cash to purchase bitcoin – once more.
The U.S. authorities is, on Monday, anticipated to approve plans for this second payout, White House officers have confirmed. The bailout is meant to cushion households towards the covid-19 fallout.
Instead of shopping for groceries or paying hire, many Americans opted to put money into the highest cryptocurrency after they obtained their first stimulus checks in April.
And the gamble — ditching inflationary authorities cash for deflationary crypto — is paying off. Those that transformed the free cash to bitcoin have raked in as much as 54% in revenue in three months as the worth of BTC barrelled previous $10,700 on July 27.
At the time when the checks had been first issued, every bitcoin traded for round $7,000. Today, every $1,200 test invested in BTC is value about $1,829, a achieve of greater than $600.
Now, historical past could also be about to repeat itself.
“Straight to the BTC, straight to the chilly storage pockets,” mentioned Reddit consumer Limited-Visibility, whereas responding to a thread began by Wocketman0351, who requested: “Who else is changing their free authorities cash straight to BTC?”
Another Redditor, Rapierce0238, acknowledged: “What I do get will go straight to bitcoin, identical to final time.”
“It’s actually the best strategy to keep away from hitting the inflation from the silly Fed constantly printing cash,” opined Girafferage.
Someone else claimed: “I might be shopping for extra automotive elements and bitcoin. We have loads of meals as a result of we’ve been stocking up all summer time.”
According to U.S. authorities officers, the newest stimulus checks are anticipated to be paid out someday in August. White House financial advisor Larry Kudlow instructed CNN that households will obtain this second $1,200 payout as a part of a $1 trillion stimulus bundle.
When the federal government first paid out the stimulus cash in April, massive cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance reported a spike in precisely $1,200 equal deposits on their platforms.
Brian Armstrong, chief govt officer of Coinbase, mentioned on the time that the variety of $1,200-worth deposits and buys on the alternate climbed by almost 400% that month.
Will extra Americans purchase bitcoin with their stimulus checks? Share your ideas within the feedback part under.
The publish Americans to Buy Bitcoin With Their Second Stimulus Checks After Initial Investment Turned in 50% Profit appeared first on Bitcoin News.


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Since we’ve been discussing Mazda the past few days, Timothy Cain, TTAC’s favorite indepndent sales analyst, has taken a look at how well the much-loved Mazda CX-5 is doing.
From Mazda’s point of view, the CX-5 has likely been a roaring success. But Mazda’s point of view doesn’t require success to be measured against other popular vehicles. Other than the 3, Mazda simply does not sell a high-volume product. Even the 3, which accounted for 45% of Mazda sales in the U.S. in 2012, sells once for every two-and-a-half Civics.
To understand the CX-5’s success, you have to understand that Mazda, as a whole, sold fewer vehicles in 2012 than Honda sold Civics. 40,863 fewer, in fact.
So when we say the CX-5 is a roaring success, that’s because it’s not forgettable like the old Escape’s Tribute twin, poorly marketed like the surprisingly fun 5 mini-minivan, or awkwardly sized and priced like the CX-7. Compared with its classmates – Escape, CR-V, Rogue, Forester, for example – the CX-5 has been mostly ignored since it went on sale last February. The CX-5 outsold the Jeep Compass last year, and the Volkswagen Tiguan, and Mitsubishi’s small crossover duo. But even the GMC Terrain sold more than twice as often as the CX-5.
Measuring success on Mazda’s in-house success-ometer, the CX-5 is popular enough to be considered a vital part of the family. With only ten full months on the market, the CX-5 outsold all Mazdas save for the 3, and did so by a hefty margin, beating the soon-to-be-replaced 6 by 9563 units.
The CX-5 accounted for nearly 16% of Mazda USA volume in 2012. Good, right? Unfortunately, “good” at Mazda equals “alright” everywhere else. The CX-5 was America’s 88th-best-selling nameplate last year, behind the Toyota 4Runner, Subaru Legacy, BMW X5, and Fiat 500, to name a few.


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The Thai government has plans to set up a rice trade zone in four eastern provinces in Thailand to process Cambodian rice for export, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday.
Tikhumporn Natvaratat, deputy director-general of the Thai Department of Foreign Trade, was quoted as saying: “If Thailand exports the rice to the European Union, it may benefit from the privileges under the Generalised System of Preferences that the EU offers to Cambodia because the origin of the rice is Cambodia.
"Consequently, Thailand can boost its competitiveness and benefit from by-products from rice milling including bran and broken rice that can be sold."
Thailand may initially import between 100 and 1,000 tonnes of rice from Cambodia for the export project that is planned in Chanthaburi, Trat, Sa Kaeo and Chachoengsao provinces, he said.
Among the types of rice considered to be imported from Cambodia are paddy and brown rice, according to the Bangkok Post.
Kong Putheara, director of the Ministry of Commerce statistics department, said he welcomes the plans of the new Thai strategy to potentially buy paddy from Cambodia, saying that most of the problems of the Cambodian agricultural sector stem from markets, rather than production.
“In the short term, there is no concern because it will help farmers getting more bargaining power on the price,” he said.
“If more come to buy, the price will increase so the technology and credit supply in the agricultural sector will be better.”
He also said the government does “not have enough budget to buy all the paddy” from Cambodian farmers, who therefore export much of it to neighbouring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.
As Cambodia aims to cut down paddy exports and increase milled rice exports, Hun Lak, general director of milled-rice trading company Mekong Oryza, predicted that the open markets would translate to higher demand, which will eventually benefit the farmers.
“In my opinion, more demand will help [make] the price higher and gives farmers an incentive to increase productivity for more profits,” said Lak.
“However, we want our paddy process locally before [we] export as it provides more value-added.”
Tikhumporn did not reply to an email sent yesterday.
According to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, Thailand exported 6.9 million tonnes of milled rice in 2012, an almost 35 per cent decrease compared with 2011.
Data from the association show that between January 1 and March 8 this year, Thailand exported 835,160 tonnes of milled rice, a 0.17 per cent decrease over the same period last year.
Earlier this month, the Post reported that Cambodia exported 49,815 tonnes of milled rice in the first two months of this year, an increase of 106 per cent from the same period last year.


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Okay, real talk: We didn’t expect to hear about a lot of exciting stuff when Globe held its first Wonderful Wold with Globe event for the year, for reasons that would probably resonate with local tech insiders.
Fortunately, we were wrong. It turned out that Wonderful World with Globe 10, abbreviated as WWGX, was an eventful affair that featured a Tony Robbins quote about us living in an “entertainment age” and announcements that kept us from dozing off or standing idly on the sidelines while conducting mini-interviews with company executives. (Full disclosure: We did conduct interviews, but only after the show.)
Globe made a lot of noise and a lot more sense the other night, and we were all ears. Here’s a quick recap of yesterday’s highlights.
Globe kicked off WWGX by reminding the audience of its ambitious broadband goal for 2020: 20 million households and 20,000 barangays — nearly half the number of barangays in the Philippines — connected through fiber. That’s a rather tall order considering the few fiber-ready areas Globe currently has in place. Still, it was good to hear that more people in the part of the world where fast internet is an exception to the norm would eventually have access to fiber-optic speeds sooner rather than later.
Speaking of fast internet, Globe gushed about its subscribers getting double-digit download speeds on LTE networks using the 700MHz spectrum it acquired from San Miguel Corporation. The telecommunications company also announced a part of the Philippines’ capital city that now enjoys a high-speed internet experience with its fiber plans.
Globe got the audience up to speed with its recent deal with Disney Southeast Asia, which brings Watch Disney Channel apps for mobile devices to paying customers. The app themselves live up to their names, offering live and video-on-demand content from one of the largest and most enduring media companies in the world.
In keeping with its continuing transition to an entertainment company, Globe announced a partnership with U.S. media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting, whose IPs include CNN, TNT, and Cartoon Network. We’re told the latter will benefit most from the deal, meaning more Cartoon Network shows will be available for those who pay a monthly fee.
It also took to the stage to announce a new partner in Smule, a San Francisco-based startup whose claim to fame is a karaoke app for Android and iOS. The app has seen 50 million downloads on Android’s Play Store since launching in October last year.
Also joining the fold is eGG, a dedicated eSports channel that brings coverage of the world’s biggest video-game events and more. For Globe subscribers, eGG will be available via the Astro app.
Sports Illustrated, meanwhile, will offer news, event coverage, and live sports programming, as well as original content from SI sites FanSided and SI Kids.
The last but certainly not the least addition to Globe’s expanded portfolio is Netflix. We’re unsure what the agreement entails, and whether Netflix’s “first partner in the Philippines” has indeed something delightful to offer, but in an interview with GadgetMatch, Globe senior advisor Dan Horan revealed it has something to do with exclusive offerings, possibly tied to new or existing data and broadband packages.
One of the biggest announcements at WWGX was the unveiling of the second phase of Globe’s modern retail push. Central to this effort is the Tim Kobe-designed Globe Iconic Store that will soon open its doors at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, alongside two giant high-res outdoor screens hanging from the store’s glass bridge. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen from a telco player — or any retailer, for that matter — and true to the hype, the Iconic Store may be the most memorable retail location in the Philippines for years to come.
At WWGX, Globe retail boss Joe Caliro announced Globe Live (which he also now heads). “We’re not going down the path of sponsoring anymore,” he said, before detailing Globe’s commitment to collaborating with artists and creative professionals to produce quality musicals and live performances. The company’s first production is “Green Day’s American Idiot,” a musical based on the punk-rock band’s album of the same name.
Globe has looked to expand its footprint in the entertainment space and recently launched its own production house, Globe Studios. The company has already begun the early stages of developing shows and films top-billed by a talented bunch of contemporary directors.
To close the show, Globe unveiled new broadband bundles that include a TV, a peripheral, or a video game console, depending on the subscription.
[irp posts=”9513" name=”Globe Prepaid Home WiFi review”]
Even Microsoft listens to your Skype and Cortana recordings
Absolute privacy is a myth
A couple of weeks back Apple admitted it listens to accidental triggers of Siri to analyze and improve user experience. They also added that none of the recordings are associated with the user’s identity. However, contractors tasked to listen to these recordings admit coming across clips that revealed personal data.
Now, even Microsoft admits it uses human contractors to review its users’ audio. The list of “listening” companies also includes Amazon, Facebook, and Google. If you want absolute privacy, going off-the-grid may be your only option.
Microsoft uses third-party contractors to listen to your voice conversations on Skype and virtual assistant Cortana. The updated privacy statement says a human review is used to help build, train and improve the accuracy of its artificial intelligence systems.
While other companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple have suspended these collections, Microsoft says it will “continue to examine further steps we might be able to take.” In simpler terms, “Screw you, we’ll continue doing it.”
The company also says the recordings may actually be subject to “transcription of audio recordings by Microsoft employees and vendors.”
Users are increasingly worried about online privacy since the Cambridge Analytica scandal was revealed. Technology companies have a huge chunk of our daily lives and many aren’t comfortable with it. Especially when privacy policies are complex and security loopholes are widely abused.
Facebook will have dark mode for mobile
Things are looking bright for our eyes
Facebook is working on Dark Mode for mobile
I wrote a blog about this: https://t.co/X5tAZuIlPz
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 12, 2019
Wong came across the unreleased dark mode for Android by looking in the code underneath, indicating that the tech giant has recently started implementing the feature. However, it seems that Facebook’s dark mode is still in its early stage of development.
By “early stage of development”, this is what I mean
Only the Groups tab is looking good for the demo at the moment 😅 pic.twitter.com/L1SHaWlSk1
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 13, 2019
While some users declared having it already on Facebook Watch, Wong emphasized that the dark mode is underway across the whole Facebook app.
There are no words yet from Facebook regarding dark mode nor its timeline for implementation. However, things are looking bright for our eyes that are hurt by bright lights should the tech giant implements the much-awaited feature. It’s only a matter of time before we embrace the dark.
Creative hacks to improve your Instagram Stories
Using only Instagram and native phone apps
Instagram has become an outlet for a lot of creatives over the years. It’s evolved from a platform where we share mundane photos of food and moods to hyper-curated grids — until Instagram Stories was introduced, that is. If you’re one of those people who barely post anything other than stories, here are some easy and not-so-simple ways on how they can look better so you can tell your stories better:
Use the native camera app
Most phones released in 2019 now have at least two different cameras — a combination of wide angle and telephoto, or wide angle and ultra-wide angle. Some even have up to three or four in total. Take advantage of these lenses by taking your photos on the native camera app instead of going straight to Instagram. By using an ultra-wide angle lens you can fit more in your shot without walking several steps backwards. If your phone has a built-in night mode, your low light shots will also turn out much better when you take them using the camera app instead of Instagram’s camera.
“Wrap” your caption around shapes
If your caption is a bit long, get creative by wrapping them around your subject’s shape. If you have a photo of food or coffee for example, you can type the letters one by one around the plate or cup.
Apply your video camera’s built-in filters
Smartphone cameras are getting more and more features each year. On the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 for example, there’s a feature called Live Focus Video where you get a TV glitch filter. This adds a retro, vaporwave aesthetic to your videos without having to install a third party app.
Make your subject pop by doodling around it. You can add dots, lines, hearts, stars, or broken lines around it — whatever you can think of! Doodles can also add a better narrative to your story than captions when Spider-Man appears out of nowhere for instance.
Animate your captions
By simply adding small GIFs like stars around your caption, or integrating word GIFs into your caption can make it look like it’s animated. If you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10, you can also get animated handwriting with the S Pen using the phone’s native editor whether that’s on a photo or a video.
“Mask” your subject
Another way to make your subject stand out is by “masking” lines or handwriting behind it. Simply write over your subject using any of the pen shapes, then erase parts of the lines or handwriting to make it seem like it appears over and under the subject.
Mix fonts with your handwriting
Instagram’s font selection may be limited but doesn’t mean your imagination should be. Pick any font to write your caption with — ideally anything but Neon — then pick one word to replace with your handwriting. You can also play around with tracking by simply adding spaces in between letters.
The trick in making your Instagram Stories look better is to not overshare and not overdo any of the effects. Just because you can add GIFs doesn’t mean you should plaster the entire screen with them. While it should feel more raw than your posts, be more purposeful in what you share — always try tell a story whether you’re sharing a photo or a video. It’s called Instagram Stories for a reason.
How do you make your Stories different? Share your tips with us in the comments section below.
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China's TV makers plan Taiwan shopping spree: report
A delegation of Chinese television makers is heading to Taiwan to buy five billion US dollars' worth of components, part of Beijing's efforts to boost the island's economy, a report said Sunday.
The delegation will include representatives from television manufacturers Haier, TCL Corp, Changhong Corp and Konka, the Economic Daily News reported, without identifying its source.
The buying mission will be one of several sent to Taiwan by China to help boost the island's exports, and Taiwanese trade officials say at least one or two such missions visit the island every month.
Last year a similar delegation bought more than three billion US dollars' worth of flat screens and other components, at least 800 million more than the target set ahead of their arrival, the Economic Daily News reported.
China regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, although the island has been self-governed since the end of their civil war in 1949.
But ties have warmed since the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou administration took office in 2008, with the two sides signing agreements that have led to regular direct flights, increased investment opportunities and a tourist boom.
Taiwan's export orders from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong combined hit a record high of 9.82 billion US dollars in April, a significant rise of 40.7 percent year-on-year, the economic ministry said last week.
(c) 2010 AFP


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An outdoor shop is taking over the space of a well-known drugstore in Park Slope.
Gear To Go Outfitters is expanding to the space where Palma Chemists stood for more than 50 years.
Gear To Go started as a street stand in 2009 and eventually grew to its shop on Garfield Place.
The tight space has made it difficult to get to supplies for backpacking, hiking and camping.
Gear To Go's owner, Kevin Rosenberg, says the new space will allow his business the chance to offer more classes and other services.
He says he hopes to have a grand opening in late March or early April.


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Helder Almeida - Fotolia
Cloud services have begun focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), as evidenced by a spate of recent product introductions from the cloud giants, including AWS, Google and Microsoft. With these new announcements, IoT cloud services vendors seek to build an ecosystem that can win developers and capture the fast-growing market for enterprise IoT projects. In this tip, I scan the new IoT entries and offer advice for IoT product decision makers.
At the 2015 AWS re:Invent conference GE discussed its use of AWS to replace traditional data center workloads and as an IoT data processing engine. AWS launched an ambitious IoT service to manage intelligent "things" (connected devices and physical objects). The service includes an object abstraction layer (Shadows), object registry, message brokers and a message rules engine that can trigger other AWS services.
Not to be outdone, and in a pre-emptive strike the week before, Microsoft released an IoT suite that, like Amazon's, is designed to capture, integrate, analyze, and report information collected from myriad devices, with the cloud acting as the focal point for data aggregation and processing. Google also has an IoT message for its cloud services; however, it's not a cohesive product and it requires a DIY approach to stitch together existing services like Big Query, Cloud Pub/Sub (message bus) and Firebase to a streaming data backend.
Besides handling IoT data analysis, the other key requirement IoT cloud services must address is security. Here cloud services are ideal due to their proven ability to scale and if there's one thing IoT requires -- with millions of devices and terabytes of data -- it's scale. It's a multifaceted problem that includes device and user authentication, security credentials management, incident detection, alerting and auditing, and even threat prevention and mitigation. A promising strategy uses the cloud back end as a security hub to control connections and enforce policies for IoT device communication. Microsoft implements what it calls service-assisted communication through the Azure IoT hub; however, the AWS IoT security model takes a similar approach.
Those who are developing systems using smart, connected devices are wise to investigate and demo public IoT cloud services. Although AWS and Azure lead the way, others are sure to follow. Focus your evaluation on three areas: data streaming, collection and management; big data analysis; and security (being certain to look at the full spectrum of authentication, credential and monitoring features).
Don't forget IoT analytics
Strategies for IoT success
Building IoT apps for the cloud


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With high hopes of more to come, Mayor Annise Parker, Council Members Stephen Costello and Dwight Boykins, the Houston Redevelopment Authority (HRA) and others broke ground on the first project to target a Houston food desert. With financial assistance from the city, Pyburn’s owner John Vuong is building a first-class grocery store to serve South Union and surrounding neighborhoods. The store is scheduled to open the first quarter of 2015.
“An estimated two-thirds of Houstonians are overweight or obese and a high percentage of them live in food deserts with no access to fresh food,” said Mayor Parker. “This forces families in these areas to rely on unhealthy processed or fatty foods from convenience stores and fast food restaurants. I am excited that we are able to take the first step to address this problem that impacts the overall health of our residents and am confident there will be additional opportunities for grocery stores in other food desert areas in Houston.”
“Everyone should have access to fresh food, no matter the zip code,” said council member Costello. “I am grateful to the Vuongs for recognizing the need and reconfirming their commitment to serving the community. Pyburn’s will not only provide fresh meat and produce to South Union, but will also create jobs for our city’s youth and spur economic development in an area ripe for more industry.”
Vuong and his family own and operate 11 stores, nine of which are located in Houston. They have extensive experience operating in low to moderate income areas. The new venture, which must create a minimum of 25 jobs, will be the next generation of the company’s stores, named Pyburn’s Farm Fresh Foods. The funding agreement with the city requires that the store be designed to provide customers with a shopping experience equal to that of grocery stores in high income areas of Houston. In addition, there is room at the site for additional complementary development. The loan agreement prohibits uses inconsistent with community revitalization, such as liquor stores and pay-day loan establishments.
“My family purchased the land at Scott and Corder over eight years ago and this opportunity to partner with the City of Houston allows us to realize our dream of bringing healthy fresh food choices to South Union and the surrounding communities,” said Voung. “We are humbled by this opportunity to invest, serve and bring over 25 new jobs to this community.”
Council member Dwight Boykins is excited the new store will be located in his council district. “As a child growing up on welfare, my walk to school took me by this site,” said Boykins. “I am thankful to the mayor, the Voung family and all the other people who worked so hard to secure this opportunity for my community.”
“Everyone deserves the opportunity to purchase healthy food for their family,” said Yael Lehmann, Executive Director of The Food Trust. “We applaud this initiative by the City of Houston to increase access to grocery stores in underserved areas,” said.”
The City is providing a performance-based loan of $1.7 million for predevelopment, land acquisition, construction and equipment. The total project cost is estimated to be $3.7 million. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds awarded to the Houston Redevelopment Authority for economic development projects will be used for the project. Funding is available for additional projects and HRA will work with potential partners on a case-by-case basis to determine eligibility for building or revitalizing grocery stores in food desert areas.
To combat food deserts in Houston, which has fewer grocery stores per capita than most large cities in the country, the Mayor, partnering with Council Member Costello, The Food Trust and Children At Risk, created the Houston Grocery Access Task Force in 2011. At the end of 2012, the Task Force issued their report, Roadmap for Encouraging Grocery Development in Houston and Texas. Economic development tools, such as performance-based loans, were highlighted as key opportunities to increasing access to fresh food. The report can be accessed here.
The Chron story is here. We first heard about this proposal in December. Council passed an update to its ordinance about the minimum distance a retailer that sells beer and wine must be from schools and churches in January to allow supermarkets to be built in some places where they would otherwise have been forbidden. Here’s a Google map link to where this Pyburn’s Farm Fresh Foods is going up. According to CultureMap, the closest existing grocery store is an HEB at Scott and Old Spanish Trail 1.2 miles away. That’s not that far, but if you live south of Corder it could get to be a bit of a hike, especially if you depend on public transportation. Be that as it may, I think it’s a good thing to encourage this kind of development in parts of the city that don’t have it regardless of whether there are any associated health benefits to it. I do hope someone is going to follow up with a study, however, because if there really are health benefits we as a country should pursue this kind of development more aggressively, and if there aren’t we should at least be careful to not make dishonest arguments in favor of it.