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Results of an authorities questionnaire are finding you to definitely pay-day lenders is not fully conforming that have industry standards earned a year ago
Conclusions out of an authorities survey had written now are finding you to pay day lenders aren’t fully complying with business requirements introduced history season to raised protect users.
- nearly a-quarter off consumers told you they were lay under some pressure to give their loan and about half of them interviewed told you that lenders don’t explain the risks on it of accomplishing so
- 1 in 5 people reported that the lender failed to query regarding their finances when taking aside a primary mortgage
- if it came to affording a great rollover, more than 60% from consumers said loan providers don’t apparently check their money
- there had been sub-standard consumer reviews with the access to continuing percentage authority (CPA ). Full almost 1 in step 3 users stated that CPA was not certainly explained to him or her and you will nearly sixty% just weren’t informed how to cancel CPA .
This research means that the industry enjoys don’t care about-handle efficiently. I cautioned the weeks ago whenever it failed to score their house under control we possibly may part of. Now the newest FCA has come out now and you can typed solid strategies that handle the problems industry possess did not target.
Many times loan providers aren’t starting best checks to be certain folks are able to pay back brand new funds as they are draining bank account out of the blue, leaving those with little money to locate from the
Checking if anyone have enough money for pull out loans, anyone are clueless those funds is going to be taken using their financial membership towards the a priority foundation, advertising and pressure to rollover loans are issues that however keep collection right up.
Now the new FCA has said you to definitely ads would be to bring exposure cautions hence lenders should provide users with information to the free financial obligation guidance ahead of rolling over financing
Too many people are being offered cash advance too effortlessly and you will rather than most knowing the dangers once they can not afford to pay the cash back. You want to make sure those who work in monetary issue can also be make correct choice for them and perhaps this will mean looking totally free obligations recommendations less obligations.
A primary reason pay check loan providers end up in like misery is that they can manage your savings account and make certain they receives a commission prior to the property owner or energy business. The new rules often put a stop to you to. Rather than the most recent totally free-for-all of the in which they may be able availability membership hundreds of times day, that is move merely twice during the period of the mortgage. The fresh restriction on the rollovers can help end anyone shedding on the an excellent spiral out of loans.
- installment loans IN
- nearly step three home out of consumers said these people were left untreated sympathetically when in financial difficulty and only 14% told you they’d been informed from the free or separate sources of guidance
- when it comes to understanding the cost of the loan, 97% from customers stated that the cost of taking out the first loan is actually clear however, one dropped somewhat whether or not it found knowing the cost of extending that loan
- users essentially ranked smaller lenders less well than big lenders inside traditions around the fresh new password commitments
Over 4,one hundred thousand someone responded to the consumer survey and you can forty-two loan providers to help you the firm questionnaire you to definitely looked at trick portion from inside the requirements and rent.
Additionally, lookup by the Ipsos MORI for the if or not users understand the will cost you and you will threats associated with the payday loan of ads by lenders has been had written now.
This proves one to consumers believed the newest advertisements was in fact geared towards vulnerable anybody, people underemployed otherwise not able to comprehend the terms of payday lending.


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A number of items from a Winnipeg bakery have been recalled due to a possible salmonella contamination.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says brand-baked goods from Jimel’s Bakery and Food Products may have been contaminated due to a rodent infestation.
Young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems may contract serious and sometimes deadly infections from salmonella, according to the CFIA.
Healthy people may experience short-term symptoms such as fever, headache, vomiting, nausea, abdominal cramps and diarrhea.
Recalled products should be thrown out or returned to the location where they were purchased.
For a full list of the items, visit the link below:

domain: news


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Frederick Achom looks at how the Brexit delay is affecting small businesses
Small businesses in the UK are showing signs of Brexit fatigue, according to research by the Telegraph. Its business trackers shows that , and the most commonly cited reason remains Brexit uncertainty.
The index analyses Tweets from 25,000 UK small businesses and entrepreneurs. After extracting marketing and neutral posts, it compiles the data to show how many businesses are showing signs of strain or positivity.
Government delay continues
There have been no further votes in Parliament regarding Brexit since 10 April, which has left the UK enduring a level of sustained uncertainty. As the path to leave the EU remains unclear, businesses have been sharing their opinions online.
The most recent results from Business Tracker concern Tweets from 25,000 small British businesses, start-up owners and entrepreneurs that were published between 26 March 2019 and 22 April 2019. As this is the immediate aftermath of the decision for a Brexit extension being taken by the Government, it has yielded particularly relevant data.
Overall, the tracker shows around 64% expressing pessimistic sentiments, and 35% remaining generally positive. Measured against 2018’s results, there has been a significant increase in pessimistic Tweets on a month-to-month basis. There are around 19% more negative Tweets from the representative sample of businesses compared with the same time period last year.
However, not all of the negative posts are directly concerned with Brexit. Just over half of the negative posts specifically point to Brexit as the cause for their flagging morale. So, while it isn’t the biggest concern for every business, it’s the biggest for a significant number. More than half are worried for their business’ future given the seeming lack of progress in negotiations. More than 11% are worried that the UK may still leave the EU with no deal at all.
Confidence measuring index
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) runs its own confidence measuring index (SBI). And the most recent data from the index concurs with the Telegraph’s findings. It shows almost 90% of small businesses completely ceasing to recruit new staff, and 12% actively reducing their workforce.
Out of the small businesses that rely on European exports for trade, expectations are the lowest in the eight-year history of the index. Just over 25% of SMEs that rely on trading overseas expect to see their exports rise during Q2+3 2019, compared with 42% last year.
Around 68% of small business say that international sales are either declining or failing to rise, up 3% since Q1 2018. And looking ahead to the near future, under 40% expect to see revenue rising, a fall of 45% from this time last year.
What the SME community can do
The SBI measures small business confidence at -5.0 for Q1 2018, compared with +6.0 from Q1 2018. Can Brexit be blamed for the sharp drop? Mike Cherry, Chairman of the FSB believes so. He says: “Small firms… have suffered 1000 days of uncertainty since the Brexit referendum, leaving us unable to plan, invest and grow.”
As a community of small businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, we must accept that, for now, the position remains uncertain. Starting from this basis, we must find ways to remain resilient and continue our contribution to the UK economy. The Brexit transition period is particularly difficult for the SME community, as they are lighter on resources and less likely to weather cashflow storms.
Some small businesses that rely on European trade are simply refocusing on different regions, such as the US and Asia. By transferring business operations to countries outside of the EU, they can retain some balance and remain in business.
We also shouldn’t ignore the positives showing in the economy nationally. We have decreasing levels of unemployment, for example, with 32.7 million currently in work. Additionally, data shows that small businesses outside of London are finding positives in the support they are receiving. About 12% of the Tweets in the Telegraph’s business tracker are enthusiastically positive about the high levels of support available to UK SMEs. This is where we can find the positive of the current situation and continue working towards a brighter future.


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Exclusive: Block's Cash iOS App May Soon Support USDC
Code and this image were found in the latest version of Block's Cash iOS app by TheTapeDrive suggests that the company is working on adding support for the buying and selling of USD Coin (USDC).
The code includes strings such as "The safe, easy way to save your money in USD Coin," "Hold USDC for as little as $1," and "Buy USDC." This suggests that Block is planning to offer a way for Cash users to buy, sell, and hold USDC within the app.
This is not the first time that Block has expressed interest in USDC. In September 2022, the company’s subsidiary TBD, announced a collaboration with Circle to work on standards for USD Coin.
Emily Chiu, TBD's COO said:
The U.S. dollar is the reserve currency today, and we think bitcoin might be the reserve currency of tomorrow. Stablecoins are the bridge in between.
If Block does add support for USDC to Cash, it would be a major step in the company's expansion into the cryptocurrency space. Cash is already one of the most popular mobile payment apps in the world, and adding support for USDC would make it even more attractive to users who are interested in cryptocurrencies.
It is unclear when Block plans to add support for USDC to Cash. However, the code found in the latest version of the app suggests that it could be coming soon.
USDC is a stablecoin, which means that it is pegged to the US dollar. This means that each USDC token is backed by one US dollar, which is held in reserve by Circle, the company that issues USDC.
Stablecoins are popular among cryptocurrency investors because they offer a way to store value without the volatility of other cryptocurrencies.
Block is a financial technology company that was formerly known as Square. The company is best known for its Cash app, which allows users to send and receive money, buy and sell bitcoin, and invest in stocks.
It remains to be seen how Block's plans for USDC will unfold. However, the company's interest in the stablecoin suggests that it is committed to playing a role in the future of cryptocurrency.


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As the YouTube viewer increasingly shifts to mobile, Google is actively searching for ways to build solutions that will allow advertisers to reach customers across screens in more effective ways. Last month, Google finally announced that they would be allowing users to use search data for YouTube targeting.
Up until now, advertisers have only been able to narrow targeting in YouTube using demographic information and browsing behavior, not including search histories.
Now, according to Diya Jolly, Director, YouTube Product Management, data from active Google accounts may be used to fine tune targeting for ads that users see on YouTube. A basic example that Google has been using is “a retailer could reach prospects who searched on Google for winter coats, and engage with them on YouTube.”
While this seems to be all great news for advertisers (who doesn’t want cross platform data sharing?), there is something very important to be aware of. Google is updating how users can control their advertisers preferences in a way that is “built for the mobile world.” Over the coming weeks, if a user decides to remove or “mute” an advertiser from Search, they will no longer to be reached via YouTube ads either.
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Washington, Nov 8 (IANS) More than 2 million pounds of chicken products were recalled in eight US states over contamination fears.
Approximately 2,071,397 pounds of Simmons Prepared Foods poultry products were part of the recall, Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service announced on Thursday, adding saying they were shipped to retailers in Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
The agency said that the problem was discovered by Simmons during further processing and urged the public to throw out or return the products, reports Xinhua news agency.
“There has been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider,” the agency warned.
The Arizona-based Simmons Prepared Foods also issued a statement, saying the company recalled “fresh and frozen chicken products due to the potential to contain extraneous material, specifically metal”.


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According to the report, which reflects responses from 1,500 consumers, those eating burgers at least weekly has dropped to 56 percent, compared to approximately 66 percent of consumers in 2013. Foodservice venues are feeling the pinch as higher menu prices for burgers with exotic toppings have caused a growing number of would-be diners to eat at home, according to Technomic. The report states that burger prices at the top foodservice chains have increased by 15 percent since 2013 compared to about 11 percent for non-burger menu items.
Other findings in the report conclude that consumers prefer burgers made from fresh ground beef versus frozen, with 48 percent reporting it is “very important.” Demand for breakfast burgers is on the rise with 26 percent of consumers responding that they are “highly appealing,” compared to 22 percent in 2015 and 35 percent of consumers said new and uniquely flavored burger options on the menu are “very important.”
“Burgers are becoming a more premium option as pricier toppings like brisket, fried eggs and avocado trend up on menus,” said Anne Mills, manager of consumer insights at Technomic. “While these ingredients are satisfying demands for new and unique burgers, increasing prices may make burgers a less practical option and push consumers to more affordable alternatives, especially as retail prices for burgers drop.”


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Started as one home decor store in Jackson, Tenn., Kirkland’s Inc. is now on its way to an initial public offering valued at $143.75 million. Considering the rocky road to Wall Street these days, a slew of venture capitalist that invested in Kirkland years ago are keeping their fingers crossed that this IPO is more successful as other retail IPOs have been in the recent past.
Since the company’s founding 36 years ago in 1966, the retailer has grown to have 236 stores operating in 28 states throughout the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest – most of which are located in shopping malls – and is poised for more growth.
Kirkland’s, which intends to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol KIRK, filed an S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission in mid-April. The company sells a myriad of home decorating products to its mainly female customers at competitive prices – most of the stores’ products retail at less than $50.00 each. According to the company’s S-1, sales at Kirkland’s have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 19% since the beginning of 1997.
Kirkland’s, which has yet to receive an offering date, is lead managed by Merrill Lynch & Co., and co-managed by CIBC World Markets, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. Proceeds from the offering are intended to repay indebtedness, including all the company’s outstanding subordinated debt and mandatory redeemable Class C Preferred Stock, and a portion of its new revolving credit facility.
Kirkland’s plans to grow its business by opening approximately 15 new stores in fiscal year 2002 and 35 new stores in fiscal 2003. Additionally, the company intends to increase store productivity by leveraging its new information systems.
Not The First Try For Kirkland
In late 1999, around the time Kirkland’s withdrew its first filing, the company invested $6.5 million in information systems projects that were aimed at developing a more efficient sales machine that would increase sales, improve operational efficiency and better control inventory. That change was followed up with the hiring of six senior managers, consolidating the central distribution operations and implementing a plan to improve sales, increase cash flow and return stores to higher profitability.
These adjustments resulted in a net sales increase of 13.3% for the 53-week period ending Feb. 3, 2001, and an adjusted Ebitda margin increase to 11.6% from 7.5% in fiscal 2000.
Retail Not So Hot
Since the beginning of 2000, only six other retail companies have hit the public market, and of those IPOs, four were Internet e-tailers.
However, it seems that the retailing strength lies in that all-important “R” these days. Each of those four e-tailers – B2bstores.com, Buy.com, Pets.com, and Homegrocer.com – has either gone under or was bought out.
The remaining two retailers are of a different breed. Coach Inc., the designer leather goods store that priced at $16.00 a share in October 2000, and Gaylan’s Trading Co., an outdoor and athletic equipment retailer that priced at $19.00 a share in June 2000, are showing investors’ mixed emotions toward retailers. At press time, Coach (NYSE:COH) was trading well above its offering price at $567.10, and Gaylan’s (NNM:GLYN) was trading just slightly below its original offering price at $19.16.
It is notable, however, that none of the above mentioned companies specialized in the home decorating sector of the retail industry. And with memories of home guru Martha Stewart’s stock rocketing into the public market still fresh on investors’ minds, Kirkland’s could be in for a comfortable ride.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which combines the success of Stewart’s home decorating ideas with the popularity of her television show, magazine, mail-order house and Web site, priced at $18.00 a share in October 1999 and opened way up at $37.25 the following day. At press time, Martha Stewart living was at $18.00 a share.
VCs Get Their Pay Day?
Like Martha Stewart Living, backed by venture fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Kirkland’s heads into its offering with backing from private equity investors. Since 1996, Kirkland’s has received buyout, mezzanine and expansion funding from private equity firms Advent International Corp., Allied Capital Corp., Capital Resource Partners, Marlborough Capital Advisors and an undisclosed non-venture firm, according to VentureXpert.
While Martha Stewart may have set the standard for how to succeed with a home decor company, the fact is, comparing its multimedia triumph to a bricks-and-mortar business like Kirkland’s may be setting investors up for disappointment. But, have no fear. Kirkland’s main competitors, which include the top two home goods chains – Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. and Linens n Things Inc., respectively – have been receiving positive attention from the market for some time now.
Bed, Bath & Beyond, which received funding from European private equity firm 3i Capital Corp., debuted on the Nasdaq with an $85 million IPO on June 4, 1992, priced at $17.00. At press time, Bed, Bath & Beyond (NNM:BBBY) was trading at $36.87.
Linens n Things (NYSE:LIN), which opened on the big board on Nov. 26, 1996, priced at the low end of its $15.00 to $17.00 range. At press time, the stock was trading at $34.85.
Contact Christa Fanelli at: Christa.Fanelli@tfn.com


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There's a lot to keep track of on September 9, with an Apple press conference and the release of The Beatles: Rock Band game. But we'd be remiss if we didn't call attention to the upcoming 10th anniversary of one of the best-loved game consoles of all time. It was 10 years ago tomorrow (September 9, 1999) that Sega released the Dreamcast in North America. Remembered primarily by video game history buffs now, this unassuming white box helped introduce some mainstays of the modern game console--even though the Dreamcast itself had a very short lifespan.
This was … Read more


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LAHORE: Fertiliser prices have skyrocketed as a result of rupee depreciation and rising production costs, putting agriculture and food security in greater jeopardy than previously anticipated.
Di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) is currently being sold for between Rs11,500 and Rs12,500 per bag, according to market trends. A bag of sulphate of potash (SoP) has gone up to Rs1,600 and the muriate of potash (MoP) price has jumped to Rs11,000 per bag. The urea, though out of demand, still costs Rs2,200 per bag in pockets of the province.
Engro Fertiliser increased DAP prices last week to Rs12,100 per bag, which is Rs700 more than what Fauji Fertiliser sells at. The SoP was being sold at Rs11,000 per bag till last week, which has jumped by Rs5,000 per bag to be sold for Rs16,000. The MoP has experienced the biggest jump – from Rs4,000 to Rs11,000. Urea, which had a fixed price of Rs1,850 per bag but dealers were allowed to sell it at Rs1,950 per bag, is now being sold at Rs2,100 to Rs2,200 per bag at different locations in the Punjab.
The farmers warn that these kinds of fertiliser prices could render the entire sector commercially unfeasible. “Rice plantation is about to begin. Expect it to be the first victim of this spiral. Maize, to be sown in July-August, may be next in line. If rice were to be the first victim, wheat would be the biggest loser. Growing wheat would be impossible at the current price of Rs2,200 per maund. With these fertiliser prices, wheat would not make commercial sense, even at a price of Rs3,000 per maund. The majority of farmers would almost certainly miss the wheat season, and the country would be in for an even worse food security disaster than it is now,” warned Abad Khan. He urged the government to take immediate action to halt the situation, or else farming and the country would face even bigger and deeper problems.
A high-ranking industry official, however, shifted the blame to the sliding value of the rupee. “What can one do if the free-on-board (FoB) price of SoP or MoP hits $1,000 per tonne and the rupee goes down to over 200 for a dollar?” he asked.
“At this price, each bag costs Rs10,000. Calculating this price becomes easier when you add port charges, unloading, loading, inland transportation, importers’ margin, and dealers’ profit. So, essentially, it is a dollar phenomenon that is setting off a multiplying disaster in the supply and agriculture chains,” he said.
The official added that if this equation worsens, fertiliser prices will rise even more. This high trend is causing much more serious damage to agriculture than suggested by this direct disaster, he said.
“If urea prices were kept artificially low while all other kinds of fertiliser prices multiplied, what would happen? Urea would become the only fallback and its application would become irrational and damaging to the cropping cycle. This is what is happening and this is what would continue to happen if the bigger fertiliser picture is not corrected immediately,” he said.
Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2022


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SoftBank Group Corp said on Tuesday president and chief operating officer Nikesh Arora has decided to resign from the company, in a sudden end to the India-born executiveâs tenure at the Japanese telecom and Internet conglomerate.
The development comes a day after SoftBank gave Arora, who was tipped to be the successor to chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son, a clean chit on allegations raised by unknown investors represented by a New York law firm after a panel of its independent directors reviewed those complaints.
SoftBank and Arora said the decision stems from Sonâs desire to stay at the helm of the company he founded for the next few years. âSonâs intention was to keep leading the Group in various aspects for the time being, while Arora wished to start taking over the lead in a few yearsâ time. The difference of expected timelines between the two leads to Aroraâs resignationâ¦,â SoftBank said.
Arora said on Twitter that Son wanted to continue as the CEO for five to 10 years and that he himself didnât want to wait that long.
Son reiterated this point in another statement. ââ¦I had hoped to hand over the reins of SoftBank to him on my 60th birthday - but I feel my work is not done. I want to cement SoftBank 2.0, develop Sprint to its true potential and work on a few more crazy ideas. This will require me to be CEO for at least another five to ten years - this is not a time frame for me to keep Nikesh waiting for the top job,â said Son, who will turn 59 in August.
SoftBank said Arora will cease to be a director on Wednesday at the conclusion of the companyâs 36th annual general meeting of shareholders. The company will withdraw a part of the agenda for the meeting that included Aroraâs re-election to the board. Arora will move to an advisory role at SoftBank.
Personal bet, Indian startups
Arora, a former chief business officer at Google Inc., joined SoftBank in September 2014 as vice chairman of the group and CEO of its subsidiary SoftBank Internet & Media Inc. He was namedÂ president and COO a year ago. Son subsequently named him his likely successor.
Arora led SoftBankâs venture investments in India, the US and other countries as the Japanese group backed more and more startups in search for the next Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the Chinese e-commerce giant in which it is the largest shareholder. He also led SoftBankâs recent multi-billion dollar stake sales in Alibaba and Finnish game developer Supercell.
In India, Arora led SoftBankâs investments in e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, cab aggregator Ola, realty portal Housing.com and hotel booking site Oyo. He said on Tuesday he plans to continue supporting Indian startups.
Arora was one of the highest paid corporate executives in the world when he joined SoftBank on a pay package of $135 million. He also made a personal bet on SoftBank in August last year when he decided to invest JPY 60 billion ($482 million then) to buy shares of the company.
Responding to a query on Twitter whether he had any plans to sell his shares, Arora said: âDone.â Replying to another tweet, he said he made a small loss on the share sale.
SoftBankâs shares have declined by a fifth since Arora announced the investment in the firm last August.
Arora was recently under fire from a group of unknown shareholders, represented by US law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, who made allegations of questionable transactions, conflict of interest and poor business decisions on his part. The letterhis decisions to invest in Snapdeal and Housing.com.
It alleged that he held a personal stake in Snapdeal as he spearheaded SoftBankâs investment in the company. It questioned the appointment of Baer Capital co-founder Alok Sama as a senior executive at SoftBank. The group of investors also raised concerns about Arora holding a senior role in private equity firm Silver Lake Partners which, they alleged, competed with his position in SoftBank.
SoftBank and its chairman Son had dismissed these charges at the time and again cleared Arora of any wrongdoing on Monday.


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EA released their official Madden NFL 15 trailer showing off some game-play footage, which can be seen below. Madden NFL 15 will be coming to Xbox One & Xbox 360 on August 26th. The Madden NFL 15 cover athlete has been chosen as well, the athlete is Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman.
We will hear more about Madden at EAs E3 conference on Monday. Stay tuned to G4X for all of your Xbox news.


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2020 looks like it will be the year of the folding phone, but OnePlus won’t be launching one any time soon.
You might think a challenger company like OnePlus would want to take on the big names at a folding screen smartphone. The Motorola Razr and rumoured Galaxy Z Flip are on the way soon and we’re sure plenty of other foldable phones will arrive this year.
However, OnePlus CEO, Pete Lau, has said there is no “significant advantage or value” to be had at moment due to the tech’s limitations.
Speaking via an interpreter, Lau said to the Vergecast “Foldable is actually an example of something that we have looked into but not pursued. That’s because, in looking into the application of what’s currently available for foldable screen technology, we haven’t found that the significant advantage or value that’s brought that isn’t outweighed by the shortcomings or the disadvantages of the current state of the technology.”
Lau added that current devices with folding screens have creases or or issues and wouldn’t be happy to launch a OnePlus device with this tech unless it is “really crisp and not impact the screen where the fold happens.”
The firm appreciates the different approach of the Razr, which folds vertically rather than horizontally like the Galaxy Fold, but this doesn’t solve the issue enough for Lau. Another issue may be that folding phones are extrememly expensive and OnePlus is known for offering good value.


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Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ), CEO at Binance has surprised and delighted crypto-exchange fans by inviting members of the XRP Community to offer their top pitches for why they think he ought to couple the digital asset with every other coin on the exchange.
CZ tweeted the invite on Sunday, showing his fun-loving side and how in-touch he is with the crypto-currency community.
The xrp base shill is strong. Let's get it out of your system, and put all your shills under this one tweet, and let's see how much we get. https://t.co/usiISCtuSj
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 18, 2018
This frisky tweet is in response to the XRP community’s endless calls to make their currency the standard. They constantly bombard CZ’s tweets with comments to this effect, so it’ll come as no surprise that he has decided to answer back at last, albeit rather tongue-in-cheek!
A Plethora of Memes
After tweeting, a plethora of memes were sent to CZ from the XRP community to try and convince him that this really was the best and only way forward in their eyes!
According to one follower, going by the name of Bank XRP, who responded to CZ’s tweet earlier today, there are four main reasons why:
- Environmentally friendly
- Low Transaction Fees
CZ wowed and delighted his followers even further by also tweeting a LinkedIn link to his witty, step-by-step guide on exactly how to get your coin listed on Binance.com.
Tips include advising against trying to put pressure on Binance to list your coin and suggests that the best way to get your coin listed would be to work hard on your project and that keeping Binance updated will highly increase the chance of being listed.
As CEO of Binance.com, CZ also shows his followers that lack of greed also prevails – all listing fees paid to Binance.com will be donated to charity.
Having taken over Ethereum as the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, XRP investors suggest that Binance should couple all its cryptocurrencies with XRP. For those of you who may not be aware, after overtaking Ethereum for the second time in one month, after a tense battle, XRP has now succeeded in achieving second place right behind Bitcoin!
This has all been largely aided by Ripple’s efforts to increase its customer base over the past few months. Further banks are joining the RippleNet where XRP is employed as a base currency using xRapid in cross-border funds transfers.
CIMB is Ripple’s most recent addition. Boasting its ranking as the fifth bank in ASEAN, CIMB Group enters RippleNet and implements Ripple’s tech. This will ensure that the bank provides its customers with instantaneous cross-border payments. Ripple reports that CIMB is among the first banks to leverage blockchain technology in an area where payments are notoriously inefficient and slow.
Also Rooting for XRP
The reasons why members of the XRP community are convinced that XRP should be the base on Binance is that it is now a base on the XRP United Exchange and also on the CoinField Exchange.
Weiss Ratings, which is among the largest rating companies, Tweeted back in August that they also agree that XRP should be the base.
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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.
Image courtesy of Pexels
XNO Token of Xeno NFT Hub listed on Bithumb Korea Exchange
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 25th January, 2021, // ChainWire //
Xeno Holdings Limited (xno.live ), a blockchain solutions company based in Hong Kong, has announced the listing of its ecosystem utility token XNO on the ‘Bithumb Korea’ cryptocurrency exchange on January 21st 2021.
Xeno NFT Hub (market.xno.live ), developed by Xeno Holdings, enables easy minting of digital items into NFTs while also providing a marketplace where anyone can securely trade NFTs.
The Xeno NFT Hub project team includes former members of the technology project Yosemite X based in San Francisco and professionals such as Gabby Dizon who is a games industry expert and NFT space influencer based in Southeast Asia.
NFT(Non-Fungible Token) technology has recently gained huge focus in the blockchain arena and beyond, making waves in the online gaming sector, the art world, and the digital copyrights industry in recent years. The strongest feature of NFTs is that “NFTs are unique digital assets that cannot be replaced or forged”. Unlike fungible tokens such as Bitcoin or Ether, NFTs are not interchangeable for other tokens of the same type but instead each NFT has a unique value and specific information that cannot be replaced. This fact makes NFTs the perfect solution to record and prove ownership of digital and real-world items like works of art, game items, limited-edition collectibles, and more.
NFTs are already being actively traded in markets globally. For…
Should Crypto Projects Devote Resources to Community Growth and Marketing?
2020 has been an incredible year for crypto as investors have generated windfall profits and crypto projects have seen their businesses gain the spotlight they’ve been looking for. While Bitcoin has received most of the attention after major institutional investors announced they were accumulating the increasingly scarce asset, many altcoins have also seen their fair share of glory. When looking at all the big winners of the past year, the first project that probably comes to mind is Chainlink, having appreciated by more than 550% YTD and now valued at over $4.5 billion. But, the actual biggest winner of the year is HEX with a YTD return of over 5,000%.
I mention both of the above projects as they have each taken slightly different paths to achieve greatness. Chainlink has devoted resources toward building a fundamentally sound business with many strategic partnerships while HEX has spent vast sums of money on marketing and promotion. Both approaches are valid, but one thing is certain, it is absolutely imperative for crypto projects to let the crypto community know what makes them special. Of course, one of the reasons that makes crypto so valuable is the powerful blockchain technology that most projects are utilizing.
Cryptocurrency vs. Blockchain Technology
It’s important to make a distinction between blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Although they are often used interchangeably, they are different. Blockchain technology and crypto were both created after the 2008 financial crisis, but cryptocurrency…
XENO starts VIP NFT trading service and collaborates with contemporary artist Hiro Yamagata
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 24th December, 2020, // ChainWire //
The XENO NFT Hub (https://xno.live) will provide a crypto-powered digital items and collectables trading platform allowing users to create, buy, and sell NFTs. Additionally it will support auction based listings, governance and voting mechanisms, trade history tracking, user rating and other advanced features.
As a first step towards its fully comprehensive service, XENO NFT Hub launched a recent VIP service to select users and early adopters in December 2020 with plans for a full Public Beta to open in June 2021.
“NFTs are extremely flexible in their usage, from digital event tickets to artwork, and while NFTs have a very wide spectrum of uses and categories XENO will initially focus its partnership efforts and its own item curation on three primary areas: gaming, sports & entertainment, and collectibles.”, said XENO NFT Hub president Anthony Di Franco.
He also added “This does not mean we will prohibit other types of NFTs from our ecosystem However, it simply means that XENO’s efforts as a company will be targeted into these verticals initially as a cohesive business approach.”
Development and Procurement Lead, Gabby Dizon explained, “Despite our initial focus, we found ourselves with a unique opportunity to host some of the works of Mr. Hiro Yamagata. We are collaborating with Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata to enshrine some of his artwork into NFTs.”
Mr. Yamagata has been…


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While the August recess and upcoming November midterm elections continued to put a damper on marijuana reform efforts at the federal level, the last two weeks nonetheless saw a number of important developments. Among the most significant were the submission of signatures to put recreational cannabis on the ballot in Oklahoma, ballot certification for a recreational legalization question in North Dakota, and opposition by California cities to the state’s plan to permit cannabis deliveries. You can learn about all that and more in this week’s Legislative Roundup!
On Wednesday, August 8, a group seeking to legalize recreational cannabis for adults in Oklahoma submitted signature to put the issue to voters in November. However, the fate of this effort is still far from certain because the group, Green the Vote, does not know how many signatures it even submitted, much less how many of those were valid. The Oklahoma Secretary of State will now count the valid signatures and make a determination as to whether the question qualifies for the November midterm election ballot. Green the Vote had announced that it had obtained the more than 124,000 signatures necessary, but later retracted that statement, saying that number was “inflated.”
Related Story: Cannabis Is Becoming A Truly Bipartisan Issue
That same week, Governor Mary Fallin signed off on a new set of regulations for medical marijuana in the state. The rules, which are among the least restrictive in the United States, come after the state legislature had sought to essentially replace the voter-approved medical marijuana law with a tightly restricted system. Lawmakers were forced to drop that legislation after the state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.
On Monday, August 13, North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger announced that supporters of recreational cannabis had submitted more than the enough signatures to put a legalization question on the November ballot. Legalize ND submitted 14,637 out of a necessary 13,452 signatures for a proposal to legalize the production, sale, and use of cannabis for adults 21 and older in the state.
In an open letter to state regulators Monday, the League of California Cities denounced recently-released draft regulations on home deliveries pf cannabis products. In the letter, the organization, which represents all municipalities in the state of California, argued that the rules would effectively circumvent the voter-approved cannabis law by allow unlimited home deliveries in localities that have banned marijuana businesses.
California’s most recent set of proposed regulations significantly loosened regulations on deliveries to allow businesses to operate under the so-called “ice cream truck” model, wherein delivery trucks essentially operate as fully-stocked mobile dispensaries, filling orders as they come in, rather than having to stock orders at a store and carry only what was ordered prior to departure.


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MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Governor Kay Ivey announced today that Trendco USA plans to invest $43 million to launch a manufacturing operation in a Tuskegee logistics hub where the company will produce nitrile medical gloves to expand domestic supply.
Columbia, South Carolina-based Trendco has committed to creating 292 jobs over five years at a facility in the new Regional East Alabama Logistics (REAL) Park off Interstate 85 in Macon County. The company also considered sites in Georgia and the Carolinas for the project.
“Trendco decided to locate its manufacturing facility in Tuskegee after considering many locations in other states, and I know that the company made the right choice by selecting Macon County for its investment project,” Governor Ivey said.
“I look forward to seeing the company grow and thrive in Sweet Home Alabama.”


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New Casio EX-Z800 and EX-S200 and EX-Z2300 14mp 1/2.3" P&S cameras (updated with one more)
UPDATE (Tue August 3): We have a third new Casio camera getting announced with this batch! It is the Casio EX-Z2300 with a 5X optical zoom lens and it is announced in Japan along with the other two. See it at computer-translated DC Watch Impress.
The official Casio Japan press release (computer translated) reveals the initial monthly production numbers for these mass-market P&S cameras. The EX-S200 and EX-Z2300 will be produced at 100,000 units per month clip, while the EX-Z800 will fill more future landfills at 150,000 units per month.
The three new Casios have been added to the Cameras of 2010 reference page.
Original post: New EX-Z800 and EX-S200
The new camera parade continues with the first new cameras of August, two 14mp 1/2.3" P&S compacts from Casio, the EX-Z800 and the EX-S200. The EX-S200 is part of the EX-S series of slim cameras, while the EX-Z800 is part of the EX-Z general purpose P&S LiIon compacts. Price and availability has not been revealed yet.
The feature-set is as expected, 4X optical zoom (starting at 27mm eq) with sensor-shift stabilization, 2.7" (230K) LCD, and things like that.
One new "feature" is the "Super Resolution Digital Zoom", which, according to the Casio press release, "extends" the max-telephoto range by 1.5X while "reducing IQ degradation". Another attempt to confuse the average consumer on optical vs digital zoom after they finally learned the difference between optical and digital zoom?
In other Casio news, they have announced new G-shock watches, with Ke$ha becoming a watch designer and brand ambassador. To Casio's defense, her big hit is "Tik Tok" :)


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By Christine Lavelle
JUNK mail was given a new meaning for thousands of Scots – who received a 48-page porn brochure through their letterboxes.
Royal Mail is launching an investigation after shocked recipients alerted them to the adult movie error last week.
Among the 350 titles available to buy from the brochure were The Horny Handyman, Wobbling Whoppers and Mucky Malcolm’s Misadventures.
Bill Parker, 74, a retired police officer from Edinburgh, was one of the shocked residents to receive a brochure in the post.
He said: “I am as broadminded as the next man but I am amazed this type of material can be legally sent through the post.
“I’m sure there will be many people disturbed and offended to get this sent to their homes.”
“Some of the material is extreme.
“It is as bad as anything I saw during 30 years in the police and gives a new meaning to the term ‘junk mail’.”
The same envelope also contained other leaflets, including promotions for vintage toy cars, gardening equipment and antique watches.
Sound & Vision, the company behind the adult movie catalogue, normally sell their content through a call centre – and – as no one there could be contacted, it is still to be determined as to how these leaflets managed to be distributed.
In the same mailshot envelope, Mr Parker received a letter from The Loyalty Awards Club (TLAC) offering prizes of up to £25,000 and a new car.
But – to claim the prizes recipients must call up a premium rate telephone number which can cost up to £9.
TLAC are owned by promotions firm Database Management PLC in Herefordshire, who have been accused of misleading customers by leaving out essential details – like the cost of the call – and putting it in the small print.
Dawn Williams, customer services manager, said: “We’re making inquiries with our insert booking contractor as t how our promotion could have been including with this mailing.
“The pornographic catalogue is not connected with our group in any way.”
Royal Mail launched their investigation into the promotion over the weekend, and said the PO Box number given on the envelope containing the porn content had expired last month.
A spokeswoman said: “It is an offence to send items which are indecent, obscene or offensive.
“If customers are concerned, they should contact our customer services.”


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CHICAGO — In 1995, Agnes Da Costa won fourth place in the Tribune’s 10th annual Holiday Cookie Contest with the sweetly named Friendship Cookies.
And while that might not be the most prestigious accolade in all of baking, I find myself flipping to her well-thumbed recipe in our “Holiday Cookies” cookbook again and again, making the simple drop cookie (the recipe only takes about 30 minutes from start to finish) for family, friends and, just as frequently, myself.
To me, this is what makes a perfect holiday cookie: An easy recipe for the busy holiday season yields a small gift of love and friendship to be shared with those we hold dear, with a little something special to make them stand out. This also happens to be what I love about the three winning recipes in this year’s Holiday Cookie Contest — now in its 36th year.
From a delicious shortcut using Rolo candies in decadently chocolatey cookies, to the sweet cinnamon lacing our third-place sugar cookie recipe, each of the winning cookies has a unique touch that left a lasting impression on our dozen judges from the Tribune newsroom. And yet, two of them can be made in under an hour.
This year’s contest featured an impressive range of recipes, from lijena pita, a Serbian apple pie-like cookie made for St. Nicholas Day, to galletas grageas, a Mexican cookie coated in a rainbow of nonpareil sprinkles. Delicately pink Candy Cane Crush cookies — which lost out on a third-place win by a fraction of a point — were a surprise favorite, with one judge in our “sugary slug fest” applauding the baker for “wisely subtle” mint flavor.
We had 35 entrants vying for the $250 first-place prize, and 1,465 votes were cast to narrow it down to our 12 finalists, whose recipes were baked and judged by Tribune staffers.
The winners are below, along with the stories of how their cookies came to be. It’s been a delicious pleasure, as always, to kick off the holiday season with a Chicago tradition more than three decades in the making. Happy holidays, and happy eating.— Ariel Cheung, food editor
Caroline Crispino: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Surprise Cookies
“It’s a chocolate cookie dough with a Rolo inside topped with flaky salt, which just truly brings out the saltiness in the caramel,” said Caroline Crispino, when asked to describe her first-place Chocolate Salted-Caramel Surprise Cookies.
Crispino speaks from a decade of experience with her recipe, which began with early disaster.
“The caramel I had made hardened too much,” she said. “And I was Googling caramel substitutes quickly.” Her search came up with Rolos, the roll-shaped chocolates with caramel inside, and they worked.
She also changed the finishing touch from kosher salt to Maldon salt when she happened to have some on hand. The artisan sea salt has long been prized for snow-white flakes.
“I put that on top and it was just so much better,” Crispino said. “When you can make it with Maldon salt, do it.”
The experienced baker and home cook has made variations of her recipe for years, and says anybody can bake it.
“The hardest part of this cookie is really unwrapping the 50,000 Rolos that you’ll want to use,” she added, laughing.
Crispino, 43, lives in Streeterville, and was just named vice president at Zeno Group, a public relations firm.
It’s a long way from where she started baking, and not just around the holidays.
“I grew up in Pittsburgh,” she said. Her dad came home one hot summer day to find his young daughter baking chocolate chip cookies. “He looked at me and said, ‘It’s 90 degrees outside and you’re running a hot oven?’”
But baking and cooking runs in the family.
“I’m Italian,” Crispino said. “My great-grandmother came over from Italy.”
The great-granddaughter grew up with people making great meals for their family, but the holiday cookie holds a special importance.
“Making a holiday cookie that people like is important to me,” she added. “I just love sharing recipes and making great food for people.”
Both of her grandmothers made holiday sweets, which she loves to this day.
“My maternal grandmother made buckeyes, and candied orange slices dipped in chocolate during the holidays,” she said. (Buckeyes are the chocolate-dipped peanut butter fudge named for the nut they resemble.)
Her late paternal great-grandmother, who emigrated from Durazzano outside of Naples, made pizzelles, traditional waffle cookies, and an entire Italian cookie collection, which Crispino says rivals anything you can get in Italy today.
“Especially her pignoli cookies,” she said.
Which got the baker thinking about next year’s holiday cookie contest.
“Maybe I’ll sign up next year and send in my pignoli cookie recipe,” she said, with another laugh. — Louisa Chu
Andrew Yohanan: Marbled Pistachio Almond Cookies
Crisp, crumbly and tender, these Marbled Pistachio Almond Cookies can be eaten while sipping a cup of tea in the morning for breakfast or the night before Christmas while waiting for Santa to come down the chimney, said baker Andrew Yohanan.
“This has been a holiday cookie for the past two years now, and my favorite because it looks very pretty without a ton of work,” Yohanan said. “It’s not as easy as a chocolate chip cookie, but it is easy for how good it looks.”
Yohanan was first inspired by author, chef and YouTube personality Claire Saffitz, who in 2020 shared her pistachio pinwheel cookie recipe.
“I liked them, but I had a few issues with them, so I changed them up a bit,” Yohanan said. “I increased the butter, added more pistachios and changed the shape.”
It took making four to five different batches to get the Marbled Pistachio Cookies just the way he likes it.
“They’re rectangular with crisp edges; a lightly golden and speckled almond dough contrasts the stark green ribbons of pistachios,” Yohanan said. “The cookies look like a perfectly wrapped present under a Christmas tree.”
In addition to swirls of pistachio-green, each cookie is “wrapped” with a red sanding sugar bow, adding to the festive aesthetic.
Between family, friends and co-workers, Yohanan guesses more than 100 people have tasted his recipe.
The DeKalb County resident works as a marketing strategies and insights consultant but considers himself a baker.
“I was the type of person who rolled into my apartment in my sophomore year of college with a stand mixer while most people just showed up with a mini fridge,” Yohanan said.
His love for baking began when he was about four years old. His earliest memories are spending time with his mother in the kitchen while she baked cookies for Christmas, pies for Thanksgiving and Texas sheet cakes for fun.
“I was doing a lot of the sampling though,” Yohanan said. “It’s evolved into me doing the baking and her doing the sampling.”
As for the Marbled Pistachio Almond Cookie, Yohanan hopes others will try his recipe this holiday season.
For those who are curious about making this dessert, Yohanan emphasized being careful not to overbake the cookie as it’s prone to drying out quickly and cracking.
“Watch very carefully for those lightly golden edges and you’ll have a perfectly moist, yet crumbly, buttery cookie,” said Yohanan. — Tatyana Turner
Christine Mayer: Decorated Snickerdoodle Sugar Cookies
Last year for Christmas, Christine Mayer wanted to try something new.
After searching online and finding a decorated sugar cookie recipe, the Evanston, Illinois resident and self-taught baker thought to herself, “these look so cute. How hard can this be?”
But when she first attempted, they didn’t turn out how she thought.
“I had no idea how to do any of the icing or decorating to make it look like something you would want to eat,” Mayer said. Since then, her decorating skills have developed tremendously.
A home-based baker of around five years, Mayer first submitted a recipe to the Tribune’s Cookie Contest in 2020, but didn’t place. Last year, she wanted to submit a recipe but missed the deadline. Finally this year, at her mom’s urging, Mayer submitted a recipe for her Decorated Sugar Snickerdoodle Cookies that earned her the third-place prize.
“I was looking for something kind of seasonal. And so snickerdoodle sounded really good,” she said.
She played around with snickerdoodle recipes until she found the right consistency of what is now a dense, chewy and sweetly spiced cookie. The key was getting the right balance of butter and flour for the dough to hold its shape once cut into a mold.
Now, her neatly embellished cookies are as nice to look at as they are to taste.
Mayer submitted a recipe with a photo of her cookies shaped like red trucks hauling green pine trees. Not only do they get her into the holiday spirit, Mayer said this design also allowed her to experiment with textures, such as sprinkles to imitate snow on the trees. Of course, home bakers can use any cookie cutter that stirs their inspiration.
“I’m not an artistic person in my everyday life,” said Mayer, who heads executive MBA admissions at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. “But when I get to the cookies, you can have a little fun.”
Though a time-consuming task, Mayer said she gets a lot out of decorating cookies, baking for holidays, snapping photos of her creations and getting reactions from loved ones who enjoy her baking.
“The only problem is that sometimes people tell me, ‘Oh this is too pretty to eat,’ ” Mayer said. “And I’m like, ‘No, you better eat it. I spent a lot of time decorating it and making it really pretty. I want you to eat it.’ ” — Lauryn Azu


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Just keep your returns: Stores weigh paying you not to bring back unwanted items
Investment strategist: Retailers are talking about 'unwanted inventory levels'ReplayMore Videos ... (16 Videos)Investment strategist: Retailers are talking about 'unwanted inventory levels'This is how much a restored Jaguar with electric power will cost youCEO on why in-office work requirement is 'foolish'Powell: Recession after rate hikes certainly a possibilityWarren to Powell: Don't drive this economy off a cliffAnalyst: Gas tax holiday 'won't change people's behavior'Beyoncé's single dubbed anthem for 'Great Resignation'Gary Cohn: Fed was late on interest rate hikesHear from Apple employees on union victoryA look back at Vince McMahon, who steps down as WWE CEO amid misconduct claims How this grandmother is combating nationwide lifeguard shortageThis crypto collapse has a human costWalgreens Boots Alliance CEO: I took steps down to advance my careerWhat the interest rate hike means for youVideo: Bill Gates mocks Bored Ape NFT'sRealtor.com chief economist shares her advice for homebuyers and sellersNew York (CNNBusiness)The chaotic mix of record fuel prices and an unending supply chain crisis have retailers considering the unthinkable: Instead of returning your unwanted items, just keep them.
In recent weeks, some of the biggest store chains, including Target (TGT), Walmart, (WMT) Gap (GPS), American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) and others have reported in their latest earnings calls that they have too much inventory of stuff ranging from workout clothes, spring-time jackets and hoodies to garden furniture and bulky kids' toys. It's costing them tons of money to store it.Now add on to that glut another category of product that stores have to deal with: returns.So instead of piling returned merchandise onto this growing inventory heap, stores are considering just handing customers their money back and letting them hang onto the stuff they don't want.goTRG processes more than 100 million units of returned items annually."It would be a smart strategic initiative," said Burt Flickinger, retail expert and managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group. "Retailers are stuck with excess inventory of unprecedented levels. They can't afford to take back even more of it."Read MoreReturned products are handled in a number of different ways, he said. Retailers take back merchandise from the customer, evaluate it, and if it's in good condition put it back on the shelf at the same or lesser price. The couple behind the bag that sold out in 2 minutesThey can refurbish damaged returns and sell them for less or offload them to liquidators to resell. They also can sell returned products to foreign liquidators for sale in Europe, Canada or Mexico. "Given the situation at the ports and the container shortages, sending product overseas isn't really an option," said Flickinger. Lastly, retailers can hire third party firms to handle all aspect of merchandise returns for them.Each of these options, however, tack on additional costs for retailers, he said. How America is coping with inflation: Buy what's needed, nothing more"For every dollar in sales, a retailer's net profit is between a cent to five cents. With returns, for every dollar in returned merchandise, it costs a retailer between 15 cents to 30 cents to handle it," said Flickinger.There is one other option for retailers to address returns while avoiding more product bloat and that's to consider a 'returnless return,' said Steve Rop, chief operating officer with goTRG, a firm that processes over 100 million returned items annually for companies like Wal-Mart, Amazon and Lowe's.Just keep itRop said his company's clients are 100% considering offering the "keep it" option for returns this year, although he wouldn't disclose if any of his customers have implemented the "Keep it" returns policy yet. In some instances, when they determine it would be easier, some retailers advise customers to just keep or donate their return after issuing a refund. Walmart said it had nothing to share at this time. Lowe's didn't provide a comment for the story."They're already discounting in stores to clear out products but, when there's heavy discounting, buyer's remorse goes up. People are tempted to buy a lot to only return it later," he said.The goTRG's facility in Bentonville, Arkansas stores a variety of returned general merchandise and consumer electronics.Refunding customers while simultaneously letting them keep their returns isn't a new practice, said Rop. "It started with Amazon several years ago," he said.The offer makes sense for some types of products -- lower price-tier bulky items like furniture, kitchen appliances, home decor, baby chairs, walkers, strollers where it's costly for the retailer to cover the shipping cost for the return."Other products like kids' toys, footwear, towels and bedding raise sanitary concerns when it comes to returns. It could also apply to these categories," he said. Another concern with cheaper items: Stores typically discount returned products, so the amount of money they can make on an inexpensive return is miniscule -- and may not be worth the tradeoff, says Keith Daniels, partner with Carl Marks Advisors.Still, a "keep it" policy has its own disadvantages, namely: Companies will need to ensure that they don't become victims of fraud."One thing retailers need to track and ensure is that customers that become aware of the [Keep it] policy do not begin to abuse it, by seeking free merchandise over a series of orders by getting a refund but getting to keep the merchandise," said Daniels.Click Here To Get Funded!


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The Super Mario Bros. Movie gets one final trailer in a Nintendo Direct next month
If you don’t want to see anymore of the The Super Mario Bros. Movie then you might want to skip this one. Nintendo is hosting one final Nintendo Direct for the movie which the final trailer will be premiered.
The Direct is taking place at the following times for Australia, it’s nice and early for most of us on a Friday morning. Quite a bit of notice too.
- Perth, Friday, 10 Mar 2023 at 6:00 am AWST
- Adelaide, Friday, 10 Mar 2023 at 8:30 am ACDT
- Darwin, Friday, 10 Mar 2023 at 7:30 am ACST
- Brisbane, Friday, 10 Mar 2023 at 8:00 am AEST
- Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra – Friday, 10 Mar 2023 at 9:00 am AEDT
Nintendo has said that there will be no gaming announcements during this Direct, it’s all about the movie.
Join us at 22:00 (UK time) on 09/03 for the world premiere of The Super Mario Bros. Movie's final trailer! No game information will be included in this #NintendoDirect. #SuperMarioMovie— Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) February 22, 2023
📽: https://t.co/6ROX7SMicQ pic.twitter.com/Y3BLIrxWTv
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Business centres courting financial firms in London’s Canary Wharf could find a completely different set of businesses heading their way.
Canary Wharf, London’s second financial centre, is a powerhouse of banking firms working shoulder to shoulder. Home to many of the UK’s tallest buildings and the instantly recognisable One Canada Square, it’s where firms like Barclays, Credit Suisse, HSBC and Thomson Reuters call home.
But nestled amongst the suits and traders that fill Canary Wharf’s soaring office towers is a growing army of firms that deal not in currencies or stocks or shares, but in servers, HTML and SEO. A new generation of business sectors are changing the face of Canary Wharf, and they’re bringing their own acronyms too. TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) companies are big business, and they’re muscling into new territories to get closer to their clients and pave the way for prestigious new business opportunities.
Among them, FinTech (financial technology) businesses are creating quite a stir. John Garwood – company secretary of Canary Wharf Group – recently commented on the growth of technology firms in this traditionally financially orientated area of London.
“Twenty years ago lots of our clients were in the financial services sector and the demand was for technologically sophisticated buildings with big floorplates,” he said, according to Building Design, “so we built that space for them. Now the market is changing. Demand is coming from other business sectors and we’re looking at a mixture of options to meet this new demand.”
Canary Wharf Group is addressing this shift by developing space with smaller office floorplates specifically for SMEs from the TMT sector, with schemes like Wood Wharf – located east of Canary Wharf – coming to fruition.
For business centres and virtual office suppliers, technology firms setting up shop in London’s corporate financial district is a trend worth watching. It is also notable that these firms are apparently shunning traditional tech-focused environments, including TechCity – the government’s £50 million attempt to rival California’s Silicon Valley.
TechCity is a media and technology hub based around Shoreditch and Hoxton, which is designed to provide office and incubator space for fledgling TMT firms. It’s backed by largescale investors including Cisco, Facebook, Google, Intel and Vodafone. And yet some start-ups are choosing the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf over the collaborative spaces and trendy vibe of Shoreditch.
Of course some TMTs are chasing the money in Canary Wharf. But financial clients aside, the region’s appeal could have a lot to do with increased accessibility and flexible workspace solutions – along with a brand new incubator space known as Level39.
Level39, Europe’s largest accelerator space for TMT start-ups, has just opened. Occupying the entire 39th floor of One Canada Square, it’s right in the middle of those all-important financial firms, and it’s got oodles of prestige too.
Affectionately known as TechCity 2.0, this new space is the brainchild of the Canary Wharf Group’s chairman and CEO, Sir George Lacobescu CBE. With its panoramic views, cutting-edge design (by Gensler – the architects behind Facebook and Google’s offices), a bar, and iPad controlled coffee machines, it’s a clear rival for TechCity. And it’s got the backing of London Mayor Boris Johnson too.
Its combination of fixed and shared desks are already over-subscribed, which is testament to the level of demand by FinTech firms to set up in less conventional areas like Canary Wharf.
While financial sector tenants are still expected to drive a large portion of demand in Canary Wharf, the region is steadily diversifying. The technology sector is growing, and business centres eyeing a new London location should pay attention to these emerging trends. Consider appealing to growing TMT businesses in London’s traditionally less tech-focused areas such as Canary Wharf. Servcorp and Regus are already there, and have been for some time. Could you do any better?
Image – Canary Wharf


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ACEA calls for Brexit deal to take into account ‘special’ automotive industry
08 April 2020
8 April 2020
Any trade deal that replaces the UK’s membership of the European single market must reflect the deeply intertwined automotive sector, or risks damaging the continent’s industry.
That is the recommendation of the European Automotive Manufacturers Association (ACEA), which also warns that the wrong kind of deal may also hamper the rollout of electric vehicles (EVs). With manufacturers relying on electric technology to meet emissions targets set by the EU, such disruption could have far-reaching consequences.
The association states that three million vehicles a year, with a total worth of around €54 billion, are traded between the EU and the UK each year. The trade in parts is worth €14 billion, while the industry relies on ′just-in-time’ deliveries for the 30,000 components that make up a vehicle.
′With this interdependence in mind, it is essential that tariff-free trade and an open flow of goods and services are a cornerstone of the ongoing negotiations between the EU and the UK,’ stated ACEA’s director general, Eric-Mark Huitema. ′Any future trade agreement must, therefore, combine zero tariffs, workable rules of origin, simplified customs requirements and ensure the absence of technical barriers to trade.’
ACEA states that the rule of origin for motor vehicles should reflect the very high level of integration between the EU and the UK. At the same time, special consideration should also be given to the trade in batteries for EVs, given the lack of European or UK manufacturing capacity.
′Developing and deploying battery technologies is a fundamental challenge for the automotive industry; it is also key to Europe’s ambitious climate agenda,’ explains Huitema. ′The rules of the future trade deal should not limit manufacturers’ ability to bring low and zero-emission technologies to the market.’
While both Europe and the UK are looking to become market leaders in battery manufacturing, the vast majority of batteries for electric vehicles currently come from Asia. In the UK, Nissan’s Sunderland plant builds the Leaf EV, while Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is tooling up its production facilities for the manufacture of electric models.
Any divergent legislation could become a significant impediment to trade, requiring manufacturers to adapt or develop new technologies to comply with different requirements. Huitema adds: ′In their common interest, the EU and the UK should actively maintain alignment across all key automotive legislation.’
This includes existing legislation on type approval, safety and environmental performance, as well as the framework for future technologies such as autonomous vehicles. Already, the UK is looking to move away from EU legislation in some of these areas, with manufacturers looking at the possibility of needing to obtain type approval for two markets. Volvo has warned that should this need occur, it would look to pull some models out of the UK, in a cost-saving exercise.
′The clock is ticking for these complex negotiations, and we are very concerned that the time remaining under the transitional arrangement is insufficient, especially given the ongoing COVID-19 crisis,’ warned Huitema. The unintended consequence of this could be a no-deal scenario. In terms of tariffs alone, this would have a massive impact, with some €6 billion being added to the cost of doing cross-channel trade.
′Such an outcome would be catastrophic to the automotive sector, and the European economy in general, and should be avoided at all reasonable cost.’
Brexit negotiations have been impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and the UK’s negotiator David Frost have both been in self-isolation after testing positive for the virus. At the same time, there are questions about how far talks can progress at present, especially with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in intensive care with persistent symptoms.
Therefore, it may be necessary to delay talks, and extend the deadline beyond 31 December. The UK Government originally intended to have a deal in place by June, stating it would walk away if nothing had been agreed – a move that is now almost certainly untenable. With resources focused on navigating through the COVID-19 crisis, Brexit is almost forgotten about, and without an extension, the UK risks crashing out of the EU without a deal at the end of the transition period.
The key consequence for the automotive sector is that WTO trade rules would be applied, resulting in higher prices for cars as well as for replacement parts and insurance. In a downside scenario analysis by Autovista Group, UK new-car registrations are forecast to decline by 32% in 2020 and increase by 29% in 2021 but only grow by a further 5% in 2022. At 2.1 million registrations, the market would still be 200,000 units lower in 2022 than in 2019.


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With its global reach, Unilever knows it has an important role to play in providing food, and has committed to sourcing all of its raw agricultural materials sustainably.
So how can it do this, while improving the livelihoods of the smallholder farmers it works with and help to make sustainable agriculture mainstream?
According to the FAO, current estimates suggest that less than 10% of smallholders are benefiting from lending, making a dent in crop production.
Enter a new blockchain pilot: the £600,000, year-long project involving fintech startups that are testing blockchain technology to unlock financial incentives in a bid to boost transparency in the tea supply chain for big retailers and manufacturers.
The project will trial a shared data system for tea farmers in Malawi – the world’s second largest producer of tea – that supply both Unilever and Sainsbury’s, and track the materials produced for the tea’s packaging.
One of the main aims is to verify sustainability data that can’t currently be accessed. By gathering said information from farmers, such as quality and price, and making it available to all parties can make the supply much more transparent and traceable.
Bringing this data to financial companies is “key to greening financial flows,” as Andrew Voysey, director of sustainable finance at CISL, puts it.
Such evidence means financial firms can then offer preferential terms or access to credit – which in turn can help smallholders increase investments in their farms to boost productivity without needing to convert more land, according to the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), which convened the pilot.
The pilot alone could reach more than 10,000 Malawian tea farmers – and, if scalable, could ultimately benefit the 1.5 billion families who depend on small-scale agriculture worldwide.
The initiative, led by Provenance with support from the likes of Halotrade and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), is a win-win. For banks, it checks off compliance with regulations such as the Modern Slavery Act and Bribery Act, attracting sustainably minded investors and clients; for consumer goods companies, fintech is simply cheaper and more reliable when it comes to verifying their products than current certification schemes.
But Provenance is already working with the Soil Association to reinforce the certification scheme – what with firms dropping marks such as Fairtrade in favour of in-house schemes, using tech can helping strengthen the Association’s integrity as well as its relevancy.
And the software firm is working on another commodity – coffee – in a project with the World Bank and Nestlé with a similar focus on smallholder gains, giving them a better deal and increasing access to finance.
This isn’t the first time Unilever or Nestlé has shown an interest in blockchain. Last year, IBM teamed up with the consumer goods giants, along with other major retailers such as Tyson Foods and Walmart, to collaborate on blockchain in a bid to address food safety. The tech can reduce the time to track a product from farm to shelf, from weeks to mere seconds.
The win-win-win nature of blockchain makes it a perfect application to genuinely help smallholder farmers.


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San Francisco/London | Elon Musk’s tumultuous reign at Twitter has led to a damaging rift with top brands and marketers, with the social media company’s $US5 billion-a-year ($7.4 billion) advertising business hit by tensions over content moderation and resources.
Multiple top advertising agencies and media buyers told the Financial Times that nearly all the big brands they represent have paused spending on the social media platform, citing alarm at Musk’s ad hoc approach to policing content and decision to axe many of its ad sales team.
Musk, meanwhile, has sought to personally call chief executives of some brands that have curbed advertising to berate them, according to one senior industry figure, leading others to instead reduce their spend to the bare minimum required to avoid further confrontation with the billionaire entrepreneur.
After several waves of job cuts and departures, Twitter’s ads business team has shrunk so much that many agencies no longer have any point of contact at the company and have received little to no communication in recent weeks, according to four industry insiders.
Some brands have been unable to get feedback on how previous campaigns have performed because of the staffing shortages, one media buyer said. Others are complaining Twitter’s ads systems have also become buggy, making it difficult or even impossible to run campaigns.
“It is quite unique. The turmoil, the damage, nothing of this magnitude has happened before. Never,” says a senior executive at a big four advertising agency.
“He seems to put off even those advertisers who wanted him to succeed,” another top advertising agency executive says.
Musk is under pressure to draw revenues from Twitter, as he faces $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in annual interest payments after loading the company with $US13 billion of debt to help fund his acquisition of the business.
On October 27, the day he closed his $US44 billion deal to buy Twitter, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive sought to reassure marketers that the platform would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” despite his plans to relax content moderation restrictions.
Soon after, he conducted rounds of calls and meetings to reassure top ad agencies and brands. One email, sent in early November and seen by the Financial Times, said of Musk: “He’s one of the greatest innovators in the world, and he understands our platform and product at a level that few people do. He wants to ship exciting things, and he wants to do it quickly.”
In the meetings, Musk appeared across all the details of how the platform is run, two agency executives said, impressing brands with his knowledge. “He knows more than [former chief executive] Jack Dorsey ever did. He has immersed himself very deeply in the business,” a senior executive at a top advertising agency said.
However, the relationship soon soured after Musk laid off more than half of the company’s 7500 workforce, upending Twitter’s ad sales team and trust and safety team, and heightening concerns that misinformation and hate speech could proliferate on the platform.
Groups such as General Motors, Volkswagen, Carlsberg and General Mills have announced they would pause spending on the platform given the moderation concerns.
Many in the advertising industry have struggled to keep track of the changes. Robin Wheeler, who started heading up Twitter’s ads sales business under Musk after former chief Sarah Personette resigned, left the company last week. Bloomberg reported that Wheeler was fired by Musk after refusing to sack more people in the ad sales team. Twitter and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s own use of Twitter – including reposting conspiracy theories and interacting with controversial accounts – has also unnerved brands that fear their content being placed next to toxic posts.
The self-described “free speech absolutist” has further irked advertisers when he relaunched Twitter’s premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, as its “blue tick” feature was abused by impersonators, targeting politicians and brands such as Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin. He initially paused the rollout of the service until there is a “high confidence of stopping impersonation”, saying on Friday that he would aim to launch it the following Friday.
Last week, Musk also began to reverse certain permanent bans of high-profile figures, such as former US president Donald Trump, despite previously pledging not to do so until he had convened a content moderation council of experts.
When asked on Tuesday why he reversed the bans without setting up the council as promised, Musk said “a large coalition of political/social activist groups agreed not to try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue if I agreed to this condition”. He added: “They broke the deal.” Several left-leaning groups have been pressuring brands to pull their spending.
The shake-up appears to have had a knock-on effect on Twitter’s advertising technology. Gabby Krite, head of digital operations at The Kite Factory, which used to spend “hundreds of thousands” of dollars a year on the platform, says she is experiencing technical difficulties in placing or changing advertising campaigns. “Tech issues on campaign management ... mean it’s completely unreliable as a platform to use,” she says.
Analysis by left-leaning non-profit Media Matters suggests 50 of the top 100 advertisers – accounting for $US750 million in advertising in 2022 – have paused or announced their intention to pause spending since Musk took the helm, and a further seven have reduced spending to a trickle. Those 50 advertisers accounted for $US317 million of Twitter’s $US5 billion in revenues in 2021, Media Matters said.
Agencies, too, have put out directives. In mid-November, Omnicom Media Group recommended clients pause spending on the platform, according to three people familiar with the move, following a similar recommendation from Interpublic. Last week, WPP’s GroupM raised their assessment of the risk of advertising on the platform to “high risk”, two people familiar with the situation said.
Omnicom declined to comment. Interpublic and GroupM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is unclear if and when brands will return. “It’s hard to have criteria [for returning to the platform] when Mr Musk manages by tweet and something changes on the platform every day that causes advertisers concern,” says an executive at another advertising agency.
“Musk’s best chance of bringing advertisers back to Twitter is to appoint a new CEO,” says Darren Savage, chief strategy officer at Tribal Worldwide. “Particularly, one who understands what Twitter is, has the credibility with advertisers, and users – and is then left alone to do their job.”
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Residents of Middletown, Pennsylvania will soon have the ability to purchase wine from vending machines. The machines will be protected by biometrics so that no one under the age of 21 will have access.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) is looking for a company that can provide a machine capable for dispensing 10-15 varieties of chilled wine, while also making it impossible for minors to make a purchase. The PLCB hopes high-tech features such as the ability to read biometrics such as fingerprints will make the machines secure, and even prevent people who are intoxicated from obtaining alcohol. The machines would go in supermarkets and other locations.


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TV is arguably the most impactful advertising channel, but Covid-19 has accelerated the shift to Connected TV beyond anyone’s expectations with 58% of Brits signing up to a new streaming service under lockdown. Patrick Morrell, Director of Strategic Publisher and TV Development at The Trade Desk looks at what the rise of CTV means for … [Read more…]
How do you make a big brand advert during lockdown? Jon Stroud, creative director, Jist Studios, helped create a campaign for a leading breakfast brand from scratch in the midst of the pandemic, mixing techniques with live plates, animation, user-generated content, GoPros, phone footage and the odd professional shoot with a skeleton crew. Here, he … [Read more…]
A new interactive timeline tool has been launched depicting WordPress’s rich history and powerful impact on the internet as the world’s most influential content management system (CMS) celebrates its 17th birthday.


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Do you have a data warehouse that stores more than 300 petabytes of data and struggle with the latency of queries? Well, few companies have data at Facebook's scale, but the performance of queries against your data warehouse is often still a serious productivity issue. Facebook has been developing a solution to that problem and today it offered that answer up to the open source community. It calls the answer Presto.
Today, Facebook released Presto to the open source community under the Apache 2.0 license.
"Facebook's warehouse data is stored in a few large Hadoop/HDFS-based clusters," writes Martin Traverso, software engineer at Facebook, in a blog post Wednesday.
"Hadoop MapReduce and Hive are designed for large-scale, reliable computation, and are optimized for overall system throughput. But as our warehouse grew to petabyte scale and our needs evolved, it became clear that we needed an interactive system optimized for low query latency."
The Magic of Presto
Presto supports standard ANSI SQL, including complex queries, aggregations, joins and window functions. The engine was designed with a simple storage abstraction that, Traverso says, makes it easy to provide SQL query capability against HDFS, other well-known data stores like HBase and even custom systems like the Facebook News Feed backend. Storage plugins, which Facebook calls connectors, provide interfaces for fetching metadata, getting data locations and accessing the data itself.
"Presto is 10x better than Hive/MapReduce in terms of CPU efficiency and latency for most queries at Facebook," Traverso says.
"Presto is amazing," says Chris Gutierrez, data scientist at Airbnb, which is among the small number of external companies with which Facebook has already shared the Presto code and binaries. "A lead engineer got it into production in just a few days. It's an order of magnitude faster than Hive in most of our use cases. It reads directly from HDFS, so unlike Redshift, there isn't a lot of ETL before you can use it. It just works."
"We're really excited about Presto," adds Fred Wulff, a software engineer at Dropbox, which has also been testing the engine. "We're planning on using it to quickly gain insight about the different ways our users use Dropbox, as well as diagnosing problems they encounter along the way. In our tests so far it's been rock solid and extremely fast when applied to some of our most important ad-hoc use cases."
Facebook currently has more than one million active users that generate a never-ending stream of data. The company operates one of the largest data warehouses in the world-it stores more than 300 petabytes of data used for applications that range from traditional batch processing to graph analytics, machine learning and real-time interactive analytics.
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Beginning today, Google Ads will display historical data for searches that earned impressions but no clicks in the search terms report for Search and Dynamic Search Ads campaigns. Advertisers want more data, and Google has to spend in its technology stack to provide it via Google Ads search terms report.
On February 1, 2022, the company will erase past query data that doesn’t match its privacy requirements, including data from before September 1, 2020 (the day before the company began restricting search terms reporting).
For the terms that a large number of users search, Google is still providing reporting. Starting this week, the search terms report will include only phrases that were searched by a large number of people. As a result, your report will have fewer terms. Only search words that were queried by a sufficient number of people were included in the new query data.
“We’re still just providing reporting for phrases that a large percentage of users have looked for across all Google searches,” said Naresh.
The rest of the information from February 1, 2021. This new data will be shown in Google Ads search terms reports from February 1, 2021, onward for queries advertisers received.
“When we upgraded our tech stack, we started saving searches that garnered impressions but no clicks on February 1st,” Naresh explained when asked why the data begins on that date.
After February 1, 2022, reporting for historical query data will be limited. From February 1, 2022, reports will only show historical data that has not yet reached the “current privacy threshold.”
Naresh said, “Most advertisers will continue to see the majority of their enquiries prior to September 1, 2020.” As part of our ongoing work to keep our privacy levels consistent throughout Google, we’re eliminating this data.
What is it we care about? So far, advertisers have gained access to additional data, but this upgrade is not a reversal of the modification that first reduced Google Ads search terms reporting, which took place in September of 2020. This data is only for inquiries that garnered impressions but no clicks.
Yet, this additional information may be invaluable to numerous advertisers. Failure to attract the correct audience could be revealed in the supplementary query data. Advertisers can utilize this data to generate better keyword lists to enhance their efficiency in campaigns.
Historical query data will be made available to the public for about five months, or until September 1, 2020. You should get as much data as you can while it is still available, because after February 1, Google will discontinue displaying the portion of information that does not fulfill its privacy standards.
Additionally, Google is claiming these modifications were made after consultation with the community. While it is true that September 2020 will bring a dramatic decrease in the amount of data transparency paid search marketers receive, it is also true that this is an improvement. It seems likely that Google will continue to report solely for “terms that are searched by a considerable number of users” in the near future.


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For cafe chains including Starbucks (SBUX 2.03%) and Dunkin' Donuts (NASDAQ: DNKN), growing business outside of the traditional morning rush has always been a sort of holy grail. If either company can find all-day or lunch items that connect with customers, they will drive traffic to stores at times that are less crowded. That would be a huge win because operating overhead does not change all that much between a busy store and an open, but more empty one.
Unfortunately for both of these chains, wanting to attract customers to less busy dayparts and actually being able to do it are two very different things. The idea that the right item or menu will make this happen has led to Dunkin' Donuts trying everything from pizza to soup, sandwiches, and even apple pie. For its part, Starbucks has failed with alcohol, a dedicated dinner menu, a late-afternoon offering, and even handcrafted sodas aimed at people who did not want caffeinated beverages later in the day.
Now, Starbucks is at it again, testing a dedicated lunch menu in around 100 stores in downtown Chicago. It's hard to see why this attempt will be much different than its previous ones (or Dunkin's decades of trying), but the lure of becoming a lunch destination will likely keep both chains trying.
What is Starbucks doing?
It's important to note that while Starbucks has not become a lunch or dinner destination, the chain has "grown its food business by 1.5 times since 2013 and plans to double it by the year 2021," according to a company press release. That growth has come from the company improving its baked goods, offering higher-end packaged snacks, and bringing in fun novelty treats like mini-stuffed bagels as well as Megpies, an adult take on a Pop-Tart.
Its new lunch menu, called Mercato, includes ready-to-eat salads, sandwiches, and various side items designed to serve customers looking for everything from high-protein meals to vegetarian and vegan choices. The new choices deliver on a promise to innovate its lunch offerings that the chain made at its December investor conference.
"The launch of Mercato signifies Starbucks' next step in building our food business through customer-driven innovation," said Senior Vice President of Food Sara Trilling.
The new menu includes a chicken and lemon tahini salad; a cauliflower tabbouleh salad; a steak and mango salad; a chicken and fig spread sandwich; a smoked pork sandwich; and an almond butter, strawberries, and jam sandwich. Starbucks plans to donate any unsold ready-to-eat food to various community groups through its partnership with Feeding America.
Will this work for Starbucks?
It's hard to see Starbucks becoming a lunch destination with premade food when customers looking for lunch could go to a rival like Panera Bread, where meals are made-to-order, and the menu is deeper. What Starbucks should be able to do is raise the average check from people already stopping in during lunch hours. In addition, the chain should be able capture a small number of customers looking to quickly pick up a lunch that is better than fast-food or convenience-store fare.
The Mercato menu won't change how people see Starbucks, but it should help it eke out an increase in same-store sales. The chain, like Dunkin' Donuts, simply lacks the facilities to compete with actual restaurants, but this effort should slightly expand its audience.


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Oliver Luedtke takes over as CEO at Colorgate
Published: 23 June 2023 | No comments yet
New Colorgate CEO Oliver Luedtke takes over from founder Thomas Kirschner
Colorgate Digital Output Solutions, developer of Rip and workflow software, services and tools for digital printing, has appointed Oliver Luedtke as its new CEO.
Mr Luedtke will take over from Thomas Kirschner on 1 July 2023. After 25 years as the company’s founder and CEO, including during the company’s acquisition by Ricoh in 2018, Mr Kirschner will remain with Colorgate as an advisor until January 2024.
Mr Luedtke has a degree in printing technology and more than two decades in the digital printing industry. He joined Colorgate in 2019 as CMO, having held senior positions beforehand at companies such as Heidelberg, Best, EFI and Kornit Digital.
During his tenure as CMO, Mr Luedtke helped reposition Colorgate towards not only sign and display printing, but also in various industrial applications, including surface decoration, garment decoration, packaging and ceramic printing.
Commenting on the new challenge ahead, Mr Luedtke said, ‘Every digital printer and decorator can benefit from what Colorgate has to offer. We provide key software technology that improves colour consistency, streamlines print data generation, and enables automation. We also offer comprehensive training and services to ensure successful operation. I am excited to take the reins from a successful founder and CEO. The technology, coupled with the passion and drive of the team, provides a strong foundation from which we will venture into new opportunities and projects to further expand our horizons.’