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The Ethical Fashion Report sheds light on what the industry and individual companies are doing to address forced labour, child labour and exploitation. Each report – since the launch of the first in 2013 – has tracked the progress within the industry. The change since 2013 has been significant. In this edition we have assessed 130 fashion companies, awarding each a grade from A to F based on the strength of their labour rights management systems to mitigate the risk of exploitation in their supply chain.
In 2019, we launch the sixth edition of the Ethical Fashion Report. This report is released ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, a tragedy which cut short the lives of 1,134 garment workers. When the factory came down, it simultaneously catapulted the poor and unsafe working conditions of the apparel industry to front page news and to the front of our minds.
The Rana Plaza disaster shocked the collective conscience of consumers and decision makers across the world, accelerating efforts to uphold the rights of workers throughout the entire apparel industry supply chain. Six years on however, the need remains pressing.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are presently 24.9 million people in forced labour exploitation and 152 million child labourers scattered across the global economy. Many of this number are forced to work in the farms and factories that resource the apparel industry. For millions of others working in the industry, wages remain so low that they are unable to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
The grades awarded by the Ethical Fashion Report are a measure of the efforts undertaken by each company to mitigate the risks of forced labour, child labour and worker exploitation in their supply chains, as well as protect the environment from the harmful impacts of the fashion industry. Higher grades are given to companies with ethical sourcing systems that, if implemented well, should reduce the extent of worker exploitation and environmental harm.
Our research team assesses each company’s ethical sourcing system according to 44 specific criteria. These assessments consider three critical stages of the supply chain as a proxy for the entire supply chain: raw materials, inputs production and final stage manufacturing. To find out more about how we grade brands, read our FAQ section.
Keep up to date with the latest stories and news from our team!


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It’s no secret that food stamps are notoriously hard to get your hands on.That’s why it’s so important that you keep track of what your federal benefits are worth.Here’s how to do it.
McDonald’s is cutting its delivery food program to help reduce the foodborne illness outbreak in the U.S. The company says it will no longer deliver food for those with food-related health conditions.The company says customers with food and water allergies should contact their doctor or doctor’s assistant for a referral.McDonald’s says the food-based program will […]
By: Nick Schoenemann/WiredThe first thing I’d do is get to know my diet.If I have a hard time with a food, I can tell my doctor, and he’ll make a note of it and give me an order for it.For example, if I’m feeling very stressed out, I’ll tell him I need a little bit […]
The latest issue of Science has a new cover story that explores the “bionic” food coloring used to make vitamin A foods and products, which is being tested in clinical trials.The article explains that, while the technology is still very early in development, the potential is huge: The color could be used in products like […]
If you’ve ever wanted to experience a little more of the world’s most famous cuisine, this is the guide to vegan foods around the world.You might not need a visa, but if you do, the best way to find a vegan food is to find it at the grocery store.The best places to start your […]
Orijens dog food is superior to McDonald’s.Orije is a family owned company and was founded by two brothers, the owners of the Oriyen Dog and Chicken Company.According to their website, they are a family that grew up in South Korea and Vietnam.The family started selling the Orishan Dog and Turkey Dog food and developed the […]
New Scientist magazine, November 18, 2018 edition Heart healthy foods include low-carbohydrate and high-fat foods, as well as high-fiber and nutrient dense foods.Nutrients in low-carbs, high-carb, and nutrient-dense foods include potassium, vitamin C, and folic acid.However, a review of the literature shows that most of these are associated with an increased risk of heart disease.Here […]
Foodie news.com.au/foodie/indian-food/india-food-top-10-indian/top-foods-india/indias-top 10-indians-food

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A little over a month ago, we brought you this new spot from Carl’s Jr./Hardees that introduced the slow-motion, bikini-clad sexy sandwich guzzler, “Miss Turkey.” At the time, I criticized the ad and agency David&Goliath for doing the same thing that the fast food giant’s former AOR, Mendelsohn Zien, did years before: make a hot girl in a bikini eat Carl’s Jr. food in slow-motion.
Instead of shying away from the criticism that I and others directed toward the company, Carl’s Jr. responded in a big way, issuing a statement saying, “We believe in putting hot models in our commercials, because ugly ones don’t sell burgers.” Good point, and fair enough. And, to further stand behind the company’s new mantra, Carl’s Jr. is now auctioning off the very bikini “Miss Turkey” wore in the original spot on eBay. Don’t think anyone cares about buying an bikini with turkey sandwiches on it that once touched the bare skin of model Gizem Memic? Well, the current bid on eBay is over $2000 and growing, with all proceeds going to benefit “Stars for Troops,” a new charity started by Carl’s Jr./Hardees for military families and veterans. Touche, Carl’s Jr.


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Google has been innovating and improving its search engine for a long while now. The company diligently adds new features to its search and that is the very reason why Google continues to be the top search engine. Now, the company is on the verge of enabling smart voice-activated search.
The ‘Star Trek’ computer is the ideal for Google. The company apparently wants to take its own systems to a similar level of sophistication. To that end, Google is now bringing voice-activated search to all Chrome users. The feature is very convenient and cool in that you can activate it by simply stating ‘OK Google’ within the listening reach of the computer.
This would activate voice-based search online. You can follow the aforementioned keyword with the search terms and it would start searching up the relevant results. Google has also introduced a similar functionality in Glass. You simply say ‘OK Glass’ and then you tell Glass which of the designated functions it should perform. You can then say out loud tasks such as ‘Record a video’ and Google Glass will start recording one.
Google promises that the new features for Google search will become available to Chrome users within the next few weeks. But the company wants to take things to the next level. According to Google Senior Vice President, Amit Singhal, “We would pretty much anticipate the next question you are going to ask.”


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Tesla Motors has lost a major part of its high court libel claim against BBC's Top Gear after a 2008 track test supposedly provided false information about the Tesla Roadster.
Ruling at the high court in London on Wednesday, Judge Justice Tugendhat said that no Top Gear viewer would have reasonably compared the car's performance on the show's airfield track to its likely performance on a public road.
Tesla may have lost a battle, but the war isn't over yet and the electric car maker can still hope for victory.
The hearing continues on other grounds, including Tesla's claim that the Top Gear presenters maliciously made five other false statements about the Roadster using "staged" footage.
Source: The Guardian


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Our innovation hub is now being launched in Sweden.
By PropTech SwedenMarch 05, 2020
Our innovation hub is now being launched in Sweden. It will help PropTech companies and property owners to build, create...
Collaboration with SF Invest
By PropTech SwedenFebruary 17, 2020
I think it is particularly important with a well-functioning tech community for an industry like the real estate industry. An...
Swedish jury members of EU Awards
By PropTech SwedenFebruary 10, 2020
PropTech StartUp & Scale-Up Europe Awards 2019-20
By PropTech SwedenFebruary 09, 2020
PropTech House, the European Alliance of National PropTech Newtorks, officially launched the brand new edition of the PropTech StartUp &...


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Small businesses are lagging behind their larger counterparts when it comes to awareness of the Data Protection Act, according to new research.The study, published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), found that just over half of small companies recognise the importance of keeping customer information secure, compared to 70 per cent of large businesses.
What’s more, 22 per cent of SMEs were aware of the need to keep consumer data accurate and up to date under the rules of the Data Protection Act, in comparison to 57 per cent of large corporations, according to the study.
“In an age where the risk of identity fraud is increasing these findings are of considerable concern,” Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, said today at the Privacy and Data Protection conference.
“Businesses, large and small, have a responsibility to ensure their customers’ information is secure and accurate. Companies must take this responsibility seriously. The majority of businesses are complying with the Act but my Office will not, and does not, hesitate to take action against the few businesses which are failing to protect their customers’ personal information effectively.”
The privacy watchdog has also released training guidance on its website for small and medium sized businesses to help staff understand the data protection requirements.


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Shoppers Stop hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 552, rallied 9% on BSE in intra-day trade, and Future Retail surged 6% to Rs 559 in early morning trade.
“The board of directors of Shoppers Stop, at its meeting held on Thursday, October 5, 2017, has approved sale of 77.16 million equity shares of Rs 10 each, constituting 51.09% of the paid up share capital of HyperCity Retail (India); (HyperCity / subsidiary company) to Future Retail,” Shoppers Stop said in a statement.
The takeover value of Rs 911 crore includes Rs 655 crore of stock and cash, remaining being debt. The deal will be funded through share and cash as part of which the seller will get about two per cent stake (9.31 million shares) in Future Retail.
“The acquisition would result in further consolidation in the business of Future Retail and increase its foothold in the hypermarket business,” Future Retail said in its communication to exchanges.
At 09:33 AM; Shoppers Stop and Future Retail erase early morning gains, trading 3.5% higher at Rs 525 and Rs 546, respectively.


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所谓的“物联网”（按照维基百科的说法叫Internet of Things, LOT）正是因此妙趣横生，尤其是现在，谷歌（Google）和苹果（Apple）也要开始大显身手了。
Nobody knows what the world is going to look like when the things around us get smarter -- when more and more of them are equipped with tiny radios that are connected to the Web.
Which is what makes the so-called Internet of Things(IoT, per Wikipedia) so interesting, especially now that Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) have begun to show their hands.
Google has been experimenting with Internet-connected eye glasses, and in January it spent $3.2 billion to acquire Nest Labs, the leading purveyor of smart thermostats and smoke detectors. With Nest, it also got Tony Fadell, an ambitious ex-Apple engineering VP whose previous claim to fame was the iPod.
Apple has been seeding its stores with iBeacons -- miniature BlueTooth detectors for communicating with iPhones -- and it is rumored to be set to unveil, perhaps as early as next week's developers conference, two new platforms: One for monitoring your health and one for controlling your home.
Who will make tomorrow's smart devices and how they will interact with one another is anybody's guess.
"One vision," writes Benedict Evans, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, "is that all these devices will work on common, open standards, and talk to each other and interact in clever ways. And so, if you walk into the house with someone your security camera doesn't recognise and your calendar mentions 'date', some sort of unified learning-based system will dim the lights, turn up the thermostat and start playing Barry White."
The Barry White scenario is unlikely, Evans points out, given the history of earlier technologies that achieved First World ubiquity -- the small electric motor, for example, or the computer chip. They generally don't share data unless they come packaged in a single device -- a well-eqipped automobile, for example.
Apple and Google would love to be the company that cashes in on -- or at least controls -- whatever turns out to be IoT equivalent of a modern automobile, with its hundreds of integrated chips and battery-powered activators. But they're approaching it from different angles -- angles that play to each's strengths.
"Many wearables feel like they should be satellites for a smartphone," writes Evans, "either as a remote sensor or a remote display, but the value ... comes from the cloud-based analytics: is it more useful to know how many hours you slept or to get big-data based suggestions as to when you should go to sleep and when you should set your alarm? iBeacon is [a] fascinating part of this dynamic, because iBeacons themselves are not connected to anything, but they add intelligence to the physical world. So every wall or retail display or suitcase or package can become a piece of data.
"That is, sometimes the device is dumb glass (or a dumb sensor), driven by the cloud. And sometime the cloud is dumb storage, driven by the device.
"There's an interesting Apple/Google dynamic here," writes Evans. "If most of these 'things' are some combination of smartphone satellite and cloud end-point, where is the value and control? Apple's hardware/software integration means it's best-placed to make things work well, but Google is better placed to do much of the cloud stuff."


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VMob, the mobile advertising firm which joined the NZX main board in January, widened its annual loss while investing in building a presence in the US market and in the development of its technology platform.
The net loss was $6.6 million in the 12 months ended March 31, from $4.4 million a year earlier. Revenue more than doubled to $6.6 million from $2.9 million in 2015.
Annualised committed monthly revenue (ACMR) rose 70 per cent to $5.4 million. In April, the company affirmed guidance for ACMR of $10 million within six-to-nine months and said it expected to reach that target by the end of September. ACMR soared more than 1000 per cent to $4.8 million in VMob's first half, when it reported a net loss of $3.2 million.
VMob said it expected to raise more capital in the second half of 2016, possibly including a US-based strategic shareholder. The company raised $8.5 million in the last financial year and is currently raising up to $4 million in a private placement.
Major international clients including McDonald's, Ikea, Anheuser-Busch and 7-Eleven Australia would underpin revenue growth in the year ahead, VMob said.
VMob's technology platform delivers personalised, location-based promotional offers to mobile phone users on behalf of major brands to increase sales.
In January, founder Scott Bradley said funds raised from an earlier $5 million placement would last the company through to mid-year with its cash burn hovering between $600,000 and $700,000 a month.
VMob had $2.6 million cash and equivalents as of March 31, from $1.
Shares closed down 3c yesterday at 35c.


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Nokia finalizes Finnish plant closure, repeats cut plans
HELSINKI, July 27
HELSINKI, July 27 (Reuters) - Struggling cellphone maker Nokia Oyj said on Friday it had agreed to close its Salo plant in Finland after talks with union representatives, and repeated it aims to cut 3,700 jobs in its home country.
Nokia unveiled the plan on June 14 as part of its global cost-cut programme, including 10,000 job cuts and the closure of the Salo plant - the last major cellphone manufacturing site in western Europe, the cradle of the global industry.
It said production had already stopped at the site and 780 people will lose their jobs during this year.
Once the world's dominant mobile phone provider, Nokia was wrongfooted by the rise of smartphones and is struggling to keep up with Apple, Samsung and Google. (Reporting By Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes)
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The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley has warned fans to expect fewer third-party showcases and events next month during the not-E3 summer season. Instead, companies will place game reveals at events like Keighley’s own Summer Game Fest as well as the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase.
The decision behind this is likely due to the negative reception that publishers faced last year. Companies like Square Enix, Capcom and Take-Two Interactive all hosted showcases in 2021 that were underwhelming, to say the least, revealing only a handful of games unnecessarily stretched into full conferences.
Keighley shed some more light on these developments while speaking on Twitter Spaces audio session recently:
“There were a lot of shows last year where everyone was disappointed when they weren’t really press conferences, right? Like Take-Two, Capcom, Square Enix and things like that.
I think [they] have learned that if you’re going to do a press conference, you kind of need to have 30 minutes-plus of stuff, and sometimes they only have one or two great games to show, which may not be enough to do a full event around.
So I think that’s going to be a bit of a shift. I have a pretty good sense of what’s coming in the next month, and I think people will be hyped about games in general. There is still a lack of games coming out right now, this kind of is the Covid gap year I think… with a lot of games being delayed because they were started during the pandemic. We’re still hoping for a lot of things to come out.”
On a positive note, this is great news as it means that we’ll only have to watch a few showcases where all publishers will reveal games as opposed to hosting several individual events. EA bowed out of hosting its annual EA Play Live event this year, while there’s no word yet on if Ubisoft will opt to host their usual yearly show.
Source: Geoff Keighley (via Video Games Chronicle)


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The Chairman of Indigenous Business Australia (IBA), Mr Joseph Elu, is to head a Board that includes some of the country’s leading former CEOs from the retail and wholesale sectors in a bid to improve and expand the number of remote community stores in Indigenous areas.
“This has been a long time coming. If it works the way we envisage as a successful commercial enterprise then it will undoubtedly underpin the economic development of remote area communities across Australia,” Mr Elu said yesterday.
He was speaking ahead of the inaugural meeting of the Board of a new entity called Outback Stores, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBA. It was formed to accommodate the Government’s recent Budget commitment to spend $48 million over four years to address ongoing concerns involving the running of remote community stores.


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Verizon Wireless will offer subscribers a free Apple iPhone 6 16GB if they sign a two-year contract and exchange their old phone. The 16GB iPhone 6 model costs $199, and eligible trade-in devices include the following: iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5C, or 5S smartphones. The launch of major smartphones is a selling point to consumers interested in switching carriers, which hasn't gone unnoticed by the No. 1 wireless carrier in the United States.
Even if many seem underwhelmed by Apple's recent announcements, wireless carriers have been quick to offer subscribers incentives to join their networks.
Apple's pricing is a rather curious one, as T-Mobile and other carriers begin to eliminate mandatory two-year contracts while also unbundling service. Equipment financing plans of more expensive smartphones isn't as appealing, with a growing number of subscribers interested in paying installments for expensive smartphones.
This year's 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' might have made just shy of $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office (and the entire series an astonishing $4 billion), but according to the Inquisitor, Director Michael Bay is finally walking from the franchise.
Many, including myself criticised the latest film for being far too long and indulgent, the fun of the first entry now a distant memory, so new blood at the top is a well overdue and welcome bit of news. Whilst the inclusion of Mark Wahlberg replacing the lead role previously played by Shia LaBeouf made for a novelty, it seems that he also has no interest in returning.
It's no surprise that Paramount wants to keep the franchise going, but without a director or key cast, the mooted 2016 release date seems all but impossible.
After a long, multi-million dollar restoration effort to restore one of the best loved science fiction TV series of all time, CBS Entertainment have unveiled plans to release the seventh and final season of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' on Blu-ray, along with a separate feature film version of the two part finale 'All Good Things'.
The six disc set includes all 26 episode episodes, fully remastered in 1080p, including a newly produced three part documentary 'The Sky's the Limit: The Eclipse of Star Trek: The Next Generation', an 'In Conversation: Lensing Star Trek: The Next Generation' feature which reunites some of the best Next Generation directors, three audio commentaries, 23 deleted scenes, a gag reel, original footage of the sets in 'A Tour of the Real Enterprise', the vintage documentary 'Journey's End: The Saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation', TV spots and all original DVD features.
Season 7 comes to Blu-ray on December 2nd in the US, and December 10th in Australia.
An interesting rumor is emerging, that Microsoft will acquire Mojang, the developer behind the super-successful Minecraft. The Wall Street Journal is behind the report, which gives it some weight, which says that a "person familiar with the matter" has noted that the deal is worth over $2 billion.
Other than that, there's not much to report on now, but you can be sure we'll have more to say if and when this happens.
Intel continues to develop and manufacture hardware for mobile devices, as Dell and other OEMs show their CPU partner support. In addition to its blossoming plans for increased tablet market saturation, the company also has its sights set on the lucrative smartphone market.
"We've made good progress getting into tablets," said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO, in a statement. "We've gone from nothing to something where I consider us a real tablet manufacturer."
Just a few years ago, Intel was fully dedicated to notebooks, PCs and servers - but a continuing migration to mobile devices shook the company up - and Intel fights for market share in a competitive market. However, Intel didn't want to miss the boat long-term, and invested in expanding mobile research and development. It will still be an uphill battle to compete with ARM, but Intel is grinding away to close the gap.
IFA 2014 is currently underway in San Francisco, with HGST showing off its newest member in its HelioSeal family, the new Enterprise-class SMR-based 10TB HDD. Yes, you read that right - ten terabytes of storage in a single drive.
HGST achieved this insane level of storage by using its Helium-filled HelioSeal technology mixed with Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), but it comes at a price. SMR writes to the disk in a way where its mainly a sequential write/random access read storage device. The tracks inside of the 10TB HDD are slightly overlapped as they're being written to the disk.
Thanks to this method, we have a massively increased density up to 10TB, but writing to the middle of the disk isn't possible without overwriting two shingled tracks simultaneously. PC Perspective explains this as "CD-RW writing, but for hard disks". These new drives will be a better buy than tape-based archiving methods, especially with storage now hitting 10TB per drive.
A Twitter account reportedly used by the Al Nusra Al Maqdisia (The Supporters of Jerusalem), a group that has pledged its loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), recently issued death threats against Twitter employees in the United States. The @dawlamoon account was quickly suspended, but not after urging "lone wolf attacks" targeting Twitter employees at the company's San Francisco headquarters.
ISIS and its affiliate groups use social media to recruit new members, spread propaganda, and antagonize rivals - but official terrorist group accounts are being purged from Twitter and other networks - which has apparently upset the Al Nusra Al Maqdisia.
It's unknown if Twitter is boosting security at its headquarters, but the federal government is aware of the tweets.
Salesforce, a company specializing in enterprise CRM, warned that its customers are being targeted with the Dyreza malware designed to steal data and credentials. Specifically, Dyreza was known to target financial institutions, and aims for larger companies. Salesforce was careful to ensure its customers that this isn't a security vulnerability within its platform.
"We currently have no evidence that any of our customers have been impacted by this, and we are continuing our investigation," Salesforce said in a statement. "If we determine that a customer has been impacted by this malware, we will reach out to them with next steps and further guidance."
To counter this threat, Salesforce urged customers to deploy IP range restrictions from corporate networks and VPNs only - along with using two-factor authentication to ensure only approved users are accessing CRM databases. As more information is stored - and accessible - in the cloud, security concerns such as this incident can make it even more difficult for businesses to keep data secure.
The Microsoft Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U game platforms saw sales bumps in August, but still couldn't compete against the Sony PlayStation 4 in the United States, analysts recently noted. The Xbox One saw a 14 percent month-over-month boost to account for 150,000 units sold, while the Wii U saw tremendous growth of 11 percent year-over-year up to 65,000. Although the PS4 had a 14 percent month-over-month drop, the console still racked up 175,000 units sold in the same timeframe.
"We expect PS4's [August] sales to again exceed those of the Xbox One," said Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan analyst. "[PS4 still outside Xbox One] despite the June introduction of a $400 Xbox One without Kinect and the August release of a $400 Madden NFL 15 bundle that includes a download code [for Madden], essentially bundling the game for free."
Although the Wii U and Xbox One both saw boosted sales figures in August, it must be troubling that neither platform can still compete on the sales chart against the PS4. Since the PS4 and Xbox One were released in November 2013, it has been domination by Sony's console - and despite a price cut and more console/game bundles, this will continue to be a slugfest.
Ebay announced that Braintree, a former competitor of PayPal and current subsidiary, will begin accepting bitcoins sometime in the next few months. There won't be direct bitcoin integration via PayPal or the Ebay marketplace, as Ebay reportedly was able to answer regulatory questions and other issues that had to be addressed.
"We're announcing PayPal's first foray into bitcoin," said Bill Ready, EBay Braintree unit chief, during a recent conference. "Over the coming months we'll allow our merchants to accept bitcoin. On the consumer side it will be a sleek experience."
Braintree customers include Uber and Airbnb, and will be able to accept bitcoins if they choose to opt in. It's a curious move that could lead to bitcoin integration within PayPal and eBay in the future, depending how things with Braintree go.


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David J. Pecker used to be pegged as the bad boy of magazine publishing. Some people in the industry compared him to a used-car salesman. Others called him a ''bottom fisher,'' with a ''bargain basement'' empire; a renegade, with a reckless disregard for the hallowed division between church and state -- editorial and advertising.
To some extent, Mr. Pecker earned this reputation. He bought foundering publications and cut the staffs to reduce costs and make the magazines profitable. He offered deep discounts and snazzy marketing ideas for big advertisers. He rejected membership in the Magazine Publishers of America, the industry association. He bought a full-page ad in large newspapers to criticize a competitor's ad strategy. And he killed an article in one of his magazines to appease a big advertiser, prompting his top editors to quit.
Moreover, Mr. Pecker seems to have cultivated a roguish, attention-getting image. With long slicked-back hair and a pronounced mustache, he has posed for photographs in double-breasted suits with a shotgun or a cigar.
But in his eight years as president and chief executive of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, Mr. Pecker, 46, has built his company into a serious competitor. He made Elle the No. 2 fashion magazine behind Vogue and ahead of Harper's Bazaar, turned heads by starting George magazine with John F. Kennedy Jr. and recently took over third place in total ad pages from Hearst Magazines, behind Time Inc. and Conde Nast Publications.
So the buzz on Mr. Pecker has begun to change. Now a number of his fellow executives speak of him with a grudging respect. And the media world has generally begun to pay attention.Continue reading the main story
In part, this is because of his success. But it is also because much of the industry has come around to Mr. Pecker's way of doing business: being highly flexible on ad rates, offering elaborate marketing partnerships and openly accepting the idea that editors in addition to publishers must be accountable for a magazine's bottom line.
''He's not thumbing his nose at the industry,'' said Kent Brownridge, the senior vice president at Wenner Media, which publishes Rolling Stone. ''He's saying: 'This is a business to make money. I will use my people and resources to make the most money in the best way I know how.' ''
Mr. Pecker has expanded Hachette -- which is owned by the French company Hachette Filipacchi Media, a unit of Lagardere Group -- from 14 magazines in 6 markets with profits of $30 million on revenue of $300 million to 30 magazines in 17 markets with profits of $82 million on revenue of $600 million. He has made a success out of magazines like Elle, Metropolitan Home and Car & Driver.
Lagardere's chief executive, Arnaud Lagardere, said yesterday that he was planning to give Mr. Pecker the added responsibility this summer of running Grolier, a direct marketer of encyclopedias and children's book publisher that Hachette's parent also owns.
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Pecker has thought big about his company as most executives are trying to do these days, using his magazines to develop additional sources of revenue, from selling Car & Driver motor oil to a daily television magazine show about women's issues.
''He understands very well how the various aspects of the publishing business come together to form a bottom line,'' said John Heins, the chief executive of Gruner & Jahr, which publishes Family Circle and other magazines. ''His style may be very different from my style and other magazine companies, but it clearly works.''
In custom publishing -- through which Mr. Pecker contracts to produce a magazine for a specific company -- Hachette has been churning out publications like Trump Style, which came out last month for guests of Trump properties, and magazines for Century 21, Ferrari and Philip Morris. Hachette is also planning to produce magazines for Cadillac, Universal Studios and America Online.
Indeed, given that some consider custom publishing an uncomfortable blurring of the lines between business and editorial, several publishing executives say they feel a little skittish about going down that road.
''I know he makes money on it; I guess it's smart,'' Mr. Brownridge said. ''It's just not our thing. I guess it makes us a little queasy.''
Mr. Pecker has gone even farther afield. Having produced ''Unzipped,'' the film about the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, Mr. Pecker recently established Hachette Filipacchi Productions, an independent film company. And in June, Hachette plans to start Indie, a magazine about the independent film industry.
Hachette's production company is developing television and radio programming based on its magazines and is negotiating to create programming for the new Paxon Network.
Mr. Pecker said he was simply adapting to a changing world. ''Ten years ago, the balance between advertising revenue and circulation revenue was 50-50 -- today, almost 75 percent of a magazine's revenue is advertising,'' he said at a recent interview in his spacious office in midtown Manhattan. ''A publisher cannot count this much on advertising. The economy is strong now, but it's only a matter of time before it turns again. That's why I'm on a quest for additional revenue.''
The integrity of Mr. Pecker's various ventures has been questioned over the years, particularly after he killed an article for Premiere on behalf of the Revlon executive Ronald O. Perelman, then a co-owner of the magazine. The article was to examine the business dealings of the actor Sylvester Stallone, including his role in the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain. Mr. Perelman was planning a venture with the restaurant at the time. Premiere's two top editors resigned over the incident.
''It was a business decision,'' Mr. Pecker said. ''But it was handled badly. I still feel bad about it today.''
Nevertheless, there have since been instances about business involvement in editorial content that have raised eyebrows in the industry or within Hachette's magazines. When, for example, Mr. Pecker suggested putting his friend, Fran Drescher, star of the TV series ''The Nanny,'' on the cover of Premiere in March 1996 after she had already appeared on the covers of two other Hachette magazines, Elle and Mirabella. (The editors, who later resigned, refused, and the cover never appeared.)
Or when Premiere published, at Mr. Pecker's insistence and over the editor's objections, a photograph of Revlon's top models at the Academy Awards in a June issue, three months after the event.
Or when Hachette wrapped a perfume ad around the cover of Elle Decor so that only the magazine's title was showing. ''I was told that it wouldn't happen again,'' said Marian McEvoy, the editor of Elle Decor. ''And it hasn't.''
Moreover, Mr. Pecker has been outspoken about what other executives may believe but would never say: that editors need to keep in touch with their advertisers' interests. ''When an editor goes out in the marketplace, they should hear how advertisers feel about their magazines,'' he said. ''An editor, just like a business person, should have all the information to make their decisions. If they don't want to do anything about it, they don't have to. But it's better to hear it from the source than hearing it from someone else.''
But, Mr. Pecker added, his editors have total freedom. ''The manufacturers expect to be slammed,'' he said. ''If they aren't and you're soft on products and you're soft on advertisers, then you have no magazine.''
While Mr. Pecker's openness with his perspective might sound like sacrilege to some in the magazine business, others in the media industry say he is basically telling it like it is.
''The notion of church and state across most magazine titles has diminished and he may have led the way there,'' said Alan Jurmain, the executive director of media services at Lowe & Partners/SMS. ''But he has opened up another dimension beyond price which is, 'What does it take to get the business?' ''
John F. Kennedy Jr., the editor and co-owner of George who was recently also named president, added: ''Anyone who's in the magazine business thinks about advertisers when they write about something. And anyone who says they don't is a liar.''
While Mr. Pecker said he kept his custom publishing operation separate from his consumer magazines, he acknowledged that these projects had helped his company get to know important advertisers.
''It definitely makes a big difference in the relationships between the two companies,'' Mr. Pecker said. ''But you won't see increased market share or increased advertising because of custom publishing.''
And several of Hachette's competitors said that while custom publishing ''is not what we do,'' more power to Mr. Pecker for doing it. ''He's almost buying admission into those clients,'' said Ronald A. Galotti, the publisher of Vogue. ''So you tell me, is that stupid? If I break even on it, am I smart?''
Some of Mr. Pecker's competitors may disparage Hachette's ad page gains over Hearst because of Mr. Pecker's reputation for essentially giving ad pages away. Indeed, Advertising Age recently reported that Hachette confirmed offering Mentadent toothpaste a free ad page in Elle and Mirabella in exchange for several pages of paid business.
But media executives pointed out that no one really knows what Hachette is offering advertisers behind closed doors. And while Mr. Pecker acknowledged discounts based on volume -- buy ads in more than two magazines, get up to 35 percent off -- he said: ''If I gave ad pages away, I would lose all my business.''
Editors and publishers interviewed at Hachette described Mr. Pecker as hands off when it came to editorial content and said he fostered an entrepreneurial atmosphere. ''It was like, 'Here are the resources, go make a magazine,' '' Mr. Kennedy said. ''It was terrifying at times, but ultimately, now that we're up and running, I'm kind of grateful for it.''
Born in the Bronx and trained as an accountant, Mr. Pecker went on to become the chief financial officer of CBS magazines, which were acquired by Hachette in 1988.
As for his reputation as a cowboy or a bean counter, Mr. Pecker will allow that he is competitive. In 1995, he took out a full-page ad in several large newspapers criticizing Hearst's decision to reduce circulation while raising ad rates.
But Mr. Pecker also feels he deserves some recognition for reviving the nine magazines he has acquired, many of which were on death's door. ''There would be 200 people without jobs and probably two million readers without those magazines,'' Mr. Pecker said. ''I never got any credit for bringing something back.''Continue reading the main story


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Controversy in the pharmacy industry
The pharmaceutical industry has been an easy target for critics over the years there is a perception that big pharma is strictly out for profit and that. Explore and engage in riveting health debate topics, including debates about obesity, medicine and much more. Canadian international pharmacy association an industry magazine, though not without significant controversy.
Pharmaceuticals industry pharmaceutical (and wu-tang) villain martin shkreli has courted controversy. Find pharmaceutical jobs, news, career advice and articles on pmlive, the leading resource for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. Epipen pricing controversy reflects larger issues in pharma industry the good news is that the controversy over epipen pricing has brought and pharmacy. Pharmacy times® is the #1 full-service pharmacy media resource in the industry founded in 1897, pharmacy times® reaches a network of over 13 million retail.
The impact of the epipen pricing controversy nor is it that unique compared to other industry supply chains as are pharmacy benefits managers. A supplement which has rocked the industry with so much controversy, review – controversy hounds decent pharmacy controversy hounds decent pharmacy. How does the pharmaceutical industry market its this marketing approach refers to face-to-face promotional activities directed toward physicians and pharmacy. Conferenceseriescom organizing clinical pharmacy conferences in 2018 in usa, europe, asia, middle east and other prominent locations across the. You finished your classesyou completed your rotations and you have graduated from pharmacy schoolyou are poised and ready to enter the pharmacy work force but.
2 east west college of pharmacy, bangalore much of the controversy over pharmaceutical patents relate to the pharmaceutical industry and drug. 492 journal of managed care pharmacy jmcp september 2010 vol 16, no 7 wwwamcporg what is the price benchmark to replace average wholesale price. The pharmaceutical industry is a highly competitive business and its success depends on the sales and marketing of each particular drug but more recently, there have.
With 2015 coming to a close, we wanted to provide a recap of the major updates impacting the pharmacy industry and what pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacy. Tax policy and controversy transaction radical change in the way channel is managed and leveraged by the indian pharma industry pharmacy. Watch video a civil war has broken out among the most powerful players in the industry, battle cry over prices: blame the others finger at pharmacy. Influenza vax controversy october 31, 2017 pharmacy daily is australia's favourite online publication dedicated to the pharmacy industry.
Federal investigation probing horizon pharma's patient assistance program as pharmacy benefit managers the free newsletter covering the top industry headlines. Two valeant executives who worked at the secret pharmacy at the heart of the of controversy that has been swirling retirement industry. The psychiatric industry gets more pharma funding than any other medical specialty psychiatric-pharmaceutical conflicts of interest.
The people's pharmacy controversy simmers over nc wood pellet not a viable carbon-neutral resource and the pellet industry is fostering environmentally. Pharmabizcom - india's most comprehensive online pharma news service it provides updates on indian pharma industry, allied sectors like hospitals & diagnostic. Documents reveal more on confidentiality controversy august 20, 2018 - latest news new stories how can this be 'privileged' august 21, 2018 - - latest news.
The controversy concerning big pharma is about the marketing malpractices used by these large pharmaceutical economy’s impact on the pharmacy industry. W steven pray, phd, dph bernhardt professor of nonprescription drugs and devices college of pharmacy southwestern oklahoma state university. Yesterday, valeant pharmaceuticals finally explained its complex interactions with philidor rx services, a so-called “specialty pharmacy” that has a previously.


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By Ben Levisohn
China’s brokerages are now offering loans similar to margin lending, the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time says. The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index rose 0.4% today.
India will begin selling inflation-linked bonds next month. The S&P BSE India Sensex Index gained 2.5%.
South Korea’s unemployment rate fell to 3.1% in April, below economist forecasts for 3.2%. The Korea Stock Exchange KOSPI Index rose 0.1%.
Malaysia’s economy grew at a 4.1% clip during the first three months of 2013, below analyst forecasts for 5% growth. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index fell 0.3%.
Russia’s finance minister said the government can’t increase spending to boost economic growth, while its central bank left interest rates unchanged. Russia’s Micex stock index has dropped 1.1%.
South Africa’s retail sales grew by 2.8% in March, above economist forecasts for a 2.4% increase. The FTSE/JSE Africa Top40 Tradeable Index has gained 0.4%.
Turkey’s unemployment rate fell to 10.5% in February, below economist forecasts for a rise to 10.8%. Turkey’s Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 Index has climbed 0.6%.
Brazil’s retail sales fell 0.1% in March from February, better than the 0.3% drop forecast by economists.
Emerging Market Stocks on the Move
Tencent (0700.HK) reported a first-quarter net profit of 4.04 billion yuan, up from 2.95 billion yuan one year ago and ahead of analyst forecasts for a profit of 3.87 billion yuan.
Oppenheimer downgraded Renren (RENN) to Perform from Outperform, according to Briefing.com.
VimpelCom (VIP) reported a profit of 25 cents a share, according to Briefing.com.


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News Briefs for July 29, 2011July 29, 2011
•Diageo’s Crown Royal has announced it will officially sponsor the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The race, called the Crown Royal “Your Hero’s Name Here” 400 at the Brickyard, is an offshoot of Crown Royal’s “Your Name Here” program, but will honor all types of the nation’s unsung heroes instead of just those with recent military service. One winner will be given the reins to their very own race, where they will get naming rights to the Crown Royal “Your Hero’s Name Here” 400. Diageo announced just weeks ago that it will end Crown Royal’s participation as a Roush Fenway Racing NASCAR team sponsor at the end of the 2011 season to focus more on the “Your Name Here” program.
•Morton’s Restaurant Group posted a 10.7% revenue increase in its second quarter ended July 3, to $78 million. Morton’s also saw an increase in same-store sales in the quarter, marking its sixth consecutive growth quarter, reporting an 8.2% increase year-on-year. The group owns and operates 78 Morton’s The Steakhouse restaurants across the country and internationally. Each location offers a selection of at least 200 different wines, a beer selection that features vintage brews and ultra-premium crafts, and a full-service bar.
•Australian brewer Foster’s Group Ltd. has publicly defended its recent rejection of SABMiller’s $10.4 billion takeover bid, explaining that the bid was too low to take into consideration. Reuters reported that Foster’s chief executive John Pollaers told analysts and shareholders that although the amount was significantly below expectations, Foster’s would remain open to future bids from SABMiller. Meanwhile, Foster’s has rebranded its Carlton & United Breweries beer unit, calling it Carlton United Brewers (CUB), redesigning its logo and introducing a new brand slogan, “Raised in Friendship.” The changes are part of a Foster’s strategy to reinvigorate its domestic beer business, whose Victoria Bitter, Crown and Pure Blonde labels have suffered from soft, below-cost sales and a shrinking market share in recent years. CUB’s volumes fell 5.8% in the last half of 2010, compared to the 7% drop of Australia’s overall beer market.
•Brown-Forman’s Bill Street has retired from the company’s board of directors after serving as a company director for 40 years. Street, who is currently chairman of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, had a long a distinguished career at Brown-Forman. He was president of Brown-Forman Corporation when he retired from active management in 2003, having held numerous top executive positions at Brown-Forman during his long career. At the group’s annual stockholders meeting yesterday, chairman of the board of directors Garvin Brown thanked Street for his service as a Brown-Forman executive and board member, as well as his continuing presence as a long-term shareholder.Subscribe to Shanken News Daily’s Email Newsletter, delivered to your inbox each morning.


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06 October 2017
Adidas has announced that it is shutting down its digital sports division and will not be making any wearable hardware.
The company stated that it will be discontinuing its standalone digital sports organization and is planning to focus on consolidating its app ecosystem. It will be focussing its efforts on the Runtastic and the Adidas app brand platforms.
“To further drive our digital transformation and win the consumer in this dynamic business environment, we’ve redefined our strategic approach toward digital, sharpening our focus on digital experiences,” the company said in a statement. “We will discontinue running a stand-alone digital sports organization and consolidate the Adidas app eco-system, focusing our efforts on two powerful brand platforms: Runtastic and the Adidas App. We are integrating digital across all areas of our business and will continue to grow our digital expertise in a more integrated way.”
Adidas had ditched plans of launching its standalone sports watch earlier this year. The company was planning to launch other wearable products in 2017, however, those plans have also been shelved. “We’re not going to see a new running watch from Adidas for a while.”
An Adidas spokesperson stated that the company will be reallocating its employees in the wearable division to other places in the organization. The spokesperson stated, “I don’t know that ‘layoff’ is the right word[…]hopefully finding them other places in the organization.”


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Yes, Apple really is slowing down your old iPhone -- but says it's for your own good
We now know for certain what many people have suspected for some time: Apple really is slowing down older iPhones. The phone-maker has finally come clean about what's going on -- it really is purposefully degrading the performance of its phones.
While there has been speculation that the company has been putting the brakes on aging handsets in a bid to encourage people to upgrade to newer models, Apple says that there's actually a different reason for old iPhones performing less impressively in benchmarks. That reason is battery life.
- Has your iPhone started crashing in iOS 11.1.2? You're not alone... and there's a fix
- Authorities serve Apple with a warrant to access the Texas shooter's iPhone SE
- Debunked: Apple slows down older iPhones to encourage upgrades
Beginning with the iPhone 6, Apple started to reduce the performance of handsets to avoid problems that could be caused by aging batteries. Last year, the slowdown was added to iPhone 6, 6S and SE handsets, and the release of iOS 11.2 saw it added to the iPhone 7 as well.
The secret throttling of devices is something that was thought to have been debunked, but an admission direct from Apple confirms people's suspicions, and has caused disappointment in the company's fanbase.
This week Apple said:
Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.
Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.
So, it seems as though iPhone 8 and iPhone X users have the same fate to look forward to, but Apple is insistent that the forced slowdown is not an example of built-in obsolescence. However, the secrecy surrounding the feature is something that is not going to work in Apple's favor. While it is possible to see the slowing down of devices as a way of prolonging their life, many iPhone owners will be asking why the company chose to wait so long to be honest about what it has been doing.


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Out-Law News | 26 Oct 2011 | 10:53 am | 2 min. read
The software giant said that licensing agreements were "overtaking" lawsuits and said they were benefiting both it and its agreement partners in protecting intellectual property (IP) rights.
"Amidst continuing clamor about uncertainty and litigation relating to smartphone patents, we're putting in place a series of agreements that are reasonable and fair to both sides," Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel and Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's corporate vice president, said in a company blog.
"Our agreements ensure respect and reasonable compensation for Microsoft's inventions and patent portfolio. Equally important, they enable licensees to make use of our patented innovations on a long-term and stable basis," Smith and Gutierrez said.
"While lawsuits may dominate many of the headlines, these are being overtaken by the number of license agreements being signed. At this point, the fast pace of licensing is reshaping the legal landscape for smartphone patents," they said.
Microsoft said they now hold licence agreements with original device manufacturers accounting for 55% of the market for mobile phones and other devices that support Google's Android operating system. The company said the landmark was achieved when it signed a licensing agreement with Compal, a Taiwanese manufacturer that makes smartphones and tablet devices for other firms.
In August Google shot out at its rivals, including Microsoft, for buying "bogus" patents and driving up the cost of using smartphones that support its Android system.
"A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a 'tax' for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers," David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer said.
"They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation. This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth," Drummond said.
Last month Google accused Microsoft of "resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others' achievements and hinder the pace of innovation". Google made the comments after Microsoft entered a licensing agreement with Samsung over the use of Microsoft's patents on Android-supported devices that the South Korean manufactures, according to a report by the Seattle Times.
Following the Samsung agreement Microsoft now has licensing arrangements in place with companies owning 53% of the Android-supported smartphone market in the US, the software giant said.
Microsoft said that their licensing agreements showed that it was possible to enter into the smartphone market.
"For those who continue to protest that the smartphone patent thicket is too difficult to navigate, it's past time to wake up," Smith and Gutierrez said.
"As Microsoft has entered new markets from the enterprise to the Xbox, we’ve put together comprehensive licensing programs that address not only our own needs but the needs of our customers and partners as well. As our recent agreements clearly show, Android handset manufacturers are now doing the same thing. Ultimately, that's a good path for everyone," they said.
Microsoft has spent about $4.5 billion in the last decade for the use of patents owned by other firms, and in the same period entered into more than 1,133 agreements that enable firms to make use of its patented software, the pair said.
"Over the past decade we’ve spent roughly $4.5 billion to license in patents from other companies," Smith and Gutierrez said.
"These have given us the opportunity to build on the innovations of others in a responsible manner that respects their IP rights. Equally important, we've stood by our customers and partners with countless agreements that contain the strongest patent indemnification provisions in our industry. These ensure that if our software infringes someone else's patents, we'll address the problem rather than leave it to others. And ... we've now entered into 1,133 agreements over the last decade to license our patents to other companies that share our desire to respect IP rights," they said.


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Marketers think Facebook is an important advertising platform, but they also doubt the effectiveness of their efforts on the world’s largest social network, according to a new survey of 3,000 marketing professionals conducted by Social Media Examiner.
There’s no question marketers recognize the potential of Facebook and social media in general. Overall 97% of marketing pros said they are participating in social media marketing, and 86% said it is important for their business; 79% said they have integrated social media with their traditional marketing activities, and 89% said social media has generated more exposure for their business.
When marketers were asked which social media platform was most important to their marketing efforts, Facebook was the clear winner, with 49% saying they would choose it over any other platform if they were only allowed to use one; the next most popular social media platform was LinkedIn, chosen by 16% of marketers.
However that doesn’t mean they are confident about their own social media marketing efforts, as just 37% of the marketers surveyed said they think their Facebook advertising campaigns are effective, while 22% disagreed and 41% were uncertain. Furthermore, 57% of marketers said they didn’t think social media in general has helped increase sales; the survey authors point out this may simply reflect a lack of firm measurement methodology.
Indeed, there is clearly a lot of confusion about how to measure effectiveness, as just 26% of marketers surveyed said they are able to measure their social media activities, while 87% said their top priority is figuring out how to measure ROI for social media. On the operational side, 84% said they don’t know which social media management tools to use.


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Incentives for buying electric cars should be extended to second-hand purchases, according to a new report.
Halfords made the recommendation as it warned the cost of new battery-powered cars is too high for many motorists despite Government grants of up to £3,000.
The most basic new EVs (electric vehicles) start at around £18,000 whereas an average non-luxury model costs nearly £30,000, the motoring products and services provider said.
It called for grants or loans to be made available for drivers across the UK looking to buy used EVs, to boost adoption of the technology.
Transport Scotland, an agency of the Scottish government, recently introduced interest-free five-year loans of up to £20,000 to cover the cost of a used EV.
Some 2.17 million used vehicles changed hands in the UK between July and September last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
Around 590,000 new cars were registered over the same period.
Analysis by Halfords in partnership with research group RAND revealed a regional disparity in the take up of EVs.
Hull, Peterborough and Plymouth have the lowest adoption rates of privately owned ultra-low emission vehicles out of 27 UK towns and cities studied, according to figures seen by the PA news agency.
Their share of the total fleet ranges between just 0.13% and 0.17%.
The London boroughs of Wandsworth and Barnet have the highest figures at 1.60% and 1.42% respectively.
The study also found a correlation between average household income and private EV ownership.
Andy Randall, managing director of Halfords Autocentres, said: “Our research indicates that a more targeted approach to EV incentives may be required if the whole country is to join the green transport revolution.
“We believe this should include financial support for second-hand EV purchases, in the form of interest-free loans or grants, and a renewed focus from central Government on targeting the ongoing EV charging infrastructure rollout in low-demand areas.
“This is crucial if we are to reach the ambitious 2030 target for the end of petrol and diesel vehicle sales.”


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ELIAS BROTHERS CORP., Warren, Mich., a franchiser of Big Boy restaurants, said it would close two restaurants in St. Clairsville, Ohio, and three in New Martinsville, Moundsville and Clarksburg in West Virginia. The company will try to find jobs in other Big Boy restaurants for some of the workers in those affected restaurants.
FRANCO-NEVADA MINING CORP., Denver, which has royalty interests in gold mines, said it had called off its planned merger with Gold Fields Ltd. of South Africa. Last month, the South African government effectively blocked the deal, when Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, declined foreign exchange approval for the transaction.
ANICOM INC., Rosemont, Ill., a maker of wire and cable for computer equipment, said it cut between 60 to 90 jobs through terminations and job attrition as part of a plan to reduce costs and increase profitability, and urged shareholders to reject an unsolicited tender offer from Sutter Opportunity Fund 2 L.L.C.
SUPERIOR INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL INC., Van Nuys, Calif., the No. 2 maker of vehicle wheels in the world, said it won aluminum-wheel orders valued at more than $60 million a year from General Motors and other automakers.Continue reading the main story


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Over two months have passed since the release of the augmented reality game, but until now, Pokémon GO has been enjoyed only by Android and iOS users. Unfortunately for Windows Phone users, Niantic Labs hasn’t made any announcement that the game will be released for this platform. On the other hand, recently, Niantic CEO John Hanke has talked about the company’s plans to bring the game to Android Wear.
Niantic CEO John Hanke has attended a recent TechCrunch event where he suggested that Pokémon GO might come to Android Wear, but he didn’t mention anything about bringing the game to Windows Phone. But this isn’t really a tragedy for users, because the hype died down and the Windows Phone community is no longer obsessed with playing the game on their smartphones.
In July, Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile users started a petition on change.org, requesting Pokémon GO creators, Niantic, Inc., The Pokémon Company, and Nintendo Co., Ltd., to release Pokémon GO on this operating system and they needed 150,000 signatures until August 2, but they didn’t reach the target number, as they needed 34,000 ore signatures. This means that millions of loyal fans were in reality only 130,000 people who wanted to play Pokémon GO.
Some of them have found out about a third-party app called PoGO-UWP, which unofficially brought Pokémon GO to their Windows Phone devices. The game was created by Stefano Tenuta, who was rejected by Microsoft, and until now, it has been downloaded over 1.5 million times. Since its launch on the GitHub page, PoGO- UWP has been played by over 50,000 unique users and this is why fans are no longer frustrated because Niantic is hesitating to release Pokémon GO for Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile. The good news is that this version of Pokémon GO can be installed on Windows PC and fans are taught in this video how to do that.


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Borneo Ant House gets three new attractions
Last Update: 02/09/2019
TUARAN, Sept 2 -- Three new attractions have been added to Borneo Ant House, a mini educational theme park located about 7.5 km from here.
Borneo Ant House general manager Suziana Sandhu said the latest attractions -- the Bajau Samah and Dusun Lotud traditional houses and zipline extreme game challenge -- have enhanced the appeal of Tuaran district’s leading tourist destination.
Visitors need not pay additional fees to enter the Bajau Samah and Dusun Lotud traditional houses, she told Bernama here today.
Borneo Ant House, which began operations on July 1, 2017, boasts, among other things, 618 ant replicas and other attractions reflecting the heritage, culture and nature of Borneo.
"Visitors can enjoy the view from a 75-metre high canopy walk, step into a tree house, explore the mini museum and buy some souvenirs.
"Weapons used by headhunters of the past are among the exhibits in the sword gallery of the mini museum,” she said.
Suziana said befitting its name, Borneo Ant House has also set up a laboratory to do research on ants.
She said one major unique attraction is its underground ant sculpture gallery.
Borneo Ant House started with 463 ant replicas but the number has increased to 618, including eight giant sculptures measuring 4.5 metres long, 2.66 metres wide and 1.36 metres high, she said.
"Borneo Ant House has won two awards on ant replicas -- Malaysia’s first underground ant sculpture gallery and largest ant replica -- from the Malaysia Book of Records,” she said, adding that it has attracted more than 25,000 local and foreign tourists.


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TORONTO — If there’s one thing that pandemic has made perfectly clear, it’s that COVID-19 has been a complete leveller for travel companies. High end, low end and everything inbetween: no travel company has escaped the impact of COVID-19 and its travel restrictions.
Virtuoso’s sales graph for March – July 2020 bears that out. Luxury travel can often ride out crises that hit other parts of the industry. But with COVID-19, Virtuoso has been impacted just like everyone else. Every bar on the graph is below zero, with March 2020 down about 78%, April 2020 down more than 100%, May 2020 just shy of 100%, and June and July 2020 down by close to 90%.
Sharing the stats as part of yesterday’s press conference during the virtual Virtuoso Travel Week 2020, panel moderator Misty Belles, Global PR for Virtuoso, said “travel is going to look a lot different coming out of this, than it did going into this.”
Virtuoso’s Chairman and CEO Matthew Upchurch, who was also part of yesterday’s panel, noted that 2019 was all about over tourism. Now in 2020, the travel industry is facing under-tourism. “While the rest of the world is dealing with a recession, our industry is literally dealing with a depression,” said Upchurch.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Coming off another record-breaking year in 2019, the global travel industry was set to mark a new milestone in the years ahead: five generations all wanting to travel at the same time. “The last of the Baby Boomers will turn 60 in 2024. After that, 80% of Baby Boomers were expected to live another generation in relative good health. All for the first time in history.”
Baby Boomers are wonderful travellers, and a key market for luxury specialist Virtuoso.
With COVID-19, says Upchurch, “there was a screeching halt of all the world’s economies”, and in the first weeks, 100% of the world’s travel destinations had travel restrictions in place.
While the travel industry has never faced a bigger challenge, there has also never been a greater opportunity for growth post-pandemic, he added. Upchurch famously told his team to ‘automate the predictable so you can humanize the exceptional’. “I coined that phrase about 20 years ago, and it’s true when things are going well, and when they’re not. In fact, the greatest loyalty was never created when things went perfectly,” he said.
The session, one of the kick-off events for the four-day Virtuoso Travel Week 2020 running Aug. 10 – 13, came on the heels of yesterday’s opening ceremony with more insights and stats from David Kolner, Virtuoso’s Senior VP, Strategy, as well as an interview Upchurch conducted with Gloria Guevara, President & CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
Here are some of the stats gathered by Virtuoso in its flash poll in July 2020, surveying clients about their travel plans for 2020 and beyond.
Virtuoso also surveyed its members, including Canadian agents, about 2020 bookings and how they’re faring during these challenging times. The agent survey took place in August 2020.
Q. If travel restrictions lift, what’s the farthest you’re willing to travel?
International flight – 59%
Nonstop domestic flight – 23%
Multi-segment domestic flight – 7%
One-day drive or shorter – 7%
More than a day’s drive – 4%
Q. What kind of trip do you want to take?
Island / beach destination – 47%
U.S. city destination – 27.8%
U.S. beach destination – 20.8%
Adventure destination (eg. Africa, Australia, Costa Rica, etc) – 20.8%
Ocean cruise – 17.1%
Wellness resort or destination – 16.2%
Exotic beach destination (eg. Fiji, Maldives, Tahiti) – 12%
River cruise – 9.7%
Expedition cruise – 4.6%
Q. Would you take a cruise right now?
Yes – 37%
I’m not ready – 63%
For cruise bookings Virtuoso notes that its 2021 bookings are outpacing 2018. River cruise bookings for the retailer are up 14% for 2021, while ocean cruise bookings for 2021 are down by single digits. “Traditional cruise clients will continue sailing,” says the company.
Q. Which statement accurately describes the new bookings you’re getting right now?
None or very few at this time – 47%
The majority of my new bookings are for travel in 2020 – 10%
The majority of my new bookings are for travel in 2021 – 35%
The majority of my new bookings are for travel in 2022 (or beyond) – 2%
A relatively even mix of new bookings for travel in 2020 and in future years – 8%
Q. When do you think leisure travel will begin to grow?
It’s already started – 5%
In the next one to two months – 2%
In the next three to six months – 23%
In the next six months or more – 55%
More than a year from now – 14%
Q. Which statements best describe your attitude about the travel industry right now?
After a vaccine is readily available, we will return to normal relatively quickly – 39%
I’m very concerned about our future – recovery will be slow – 43%
I’m confident out our future – travel will rebound fairly quickly – 16%
I’m thankful for Virtuoso members and partners’ ability to pull together – 39%
The worst is behind us – 3%
This crisis will forever change how consumers travel – 39%
This is an opportunity to reimagine our industry – 53%
We need to prepare for more turbulence – 21%
Other – 9%


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The announcement comes just seven months after the company became the first in the industry to develop HBM3 in October, and is expected to solidify the company’s leadership in the high-end DRAM market.
With accelerating advancements in cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, major global technology companies are looking for ways to quickly process rapidly increasing volumes of data. HBM, with significant competitiveness in terms of data processing speed and performance against traditional DRAM, is expected to attract industry attention and see increased adoption.
NVIDIA recently completed its performance evaluation of SK hynix’s HBM3 samples. SK hynix will supply HBM3 for NVIDIA systems which are expected to ship from the third quarter of this year. SK hynix will increase the volume of HBM3 in the first half in accordance with NVIDIA’s schedule.
The highly anticipated NVIDIA H100 is the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator. SK hynix’s HBM3 is expected to boost accelerated computing performance with up to 819 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is equivalent to transmitting 163 FHD (Full-HD) movies (5 GB standard) every second.
Kevin (Jongwon) Noh, president and chief marketing officer of SK hynix, says the company has achieved top-notch competitiveness in the high-end DRAM market through its close cooperation with NVIDIA. “We aim to become a solution provider that deeply understands and responds to the needs of our customers through continuous open collaboration,” he said.
About SK hynix Inc.
SK hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is the world’s leading semiconductor supplier offering dynamic random access memory (“DRAM”) chips, flash memory (“NAND flash”) chips and sensors CMOS image (“CIS”) for a wide range of distinguished customers worldwide. The shares of the Company are traded on the Korea Stock Exchange and the shares of Global Depository are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. More information about SK hynix can be found at www.skhynix.com, news.skhynix.com.
SOURCE SK hynix Inc.


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WOMEN’S SPORTS: FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP DEBUTS ELABORATE HUMAN ANIMATION IN OPENING CEREMONIES STAGED WITH 1500 GIRLS
(NEW JERSEY/June 17, 1999) — A testimony to the fact that women’s soccer has escalated from a grassroots trend to a commercially viable business, FIFA and Women’s World Cup have brought in a leading live entertainment producer to create an elaborate opening ceremony field production including what may be the first grand-scale human animation choreography ever. “1500 girls from local schools will form four giant female soccer players on the field. Through field choreography they will actually play soccer with one another, while maintaining their shapes,” said Bob Talmage of Bob Talmage Associates who’s company was contracted to produce the event.
To manage logistics, Bob Talmage rehearsed each giant soccer player individually at separate schools before bring all 1500 girls together for the first dress rehearsal at Giant Stadium on Wednesday, June 16. The ceremonies will cost over $500,000 and have been so tightly organized that they require no more than 28 minutes from set-up to strike. Furthermore, Bob Talmage Associates will move a large, multilevel custom stage platform complete with lighting and pyrotechnics onto the field that has been specially designed to preserve the integrity of the grass playing conditions.
“This is the middle of Baseball season so we had to bring in the grass field on trays for the event. FIFA has very strict contest regulations. To accommodate their requirements we staged the ceremonies taking into account everything from weight tolerances and special rigging hardware to the footwear worn by the performers, stage-hands and other technicians. We’ve probably got almost 1750 people on the field at the same time, and that’s a lot of weight,” said Talmage.
Talmage also arranged for an appearance by pop megastars ‘N Sync who will make a detour from their touring schedule to headline the ceremonies. Also performing will be teen sensations Billie and B*Witched. Name brand sponsors including Fuji, Coca-Cola and McDonalds have signed on making the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup what could be one of the first profitable professional women’s sporting event in the United States.
About Bob Talmage Associates
Most marketing executives understand that quality entertainment can be used to sell a consumer almost any product or service. And while any skilled producer can create a spectacular show, few have the ability to infuse the entertainment seamlessly with a strong corporate marketing message. Fusing the gap between entertainment and brand identity has long been the forte of live event producer, Bob Talmage who produces through his company, Bob Talmage Associates. His accomplishments introducing events, products and services to the trade and consumers for brands like Nike, Skechers and Sun Microsystems have earned him a place as a leading producer of live entertainment and corporate theater.


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Chain stores have recently faced a sharp rise in shoplifting incidents. Target has just announced that it lost $500 million to theft last year, and Walmart closed four of its stores in Chicago, claiming that they were frequently targeted by shoplifters.
Walgreens is another store that has been a victim of more shoplifting incidents in the last few years. And, to deal with the issue, the company has announced new anti-theft efforts.
In one of its newly designed stores in Chicago, US, there is a kiosk-only design. Almost everything is behind the counter, with only two aisles of products accessible to customers. If customers need a product, they now need to order it from a kiosk and pick it up later by asking the store employee behind the counter, as everything is locked away.
The kiosk technology works in a similar way to new fast-food restaurant ordering systems and was originally intended to keep stores more organized and tidy.
The two aisles will contain a small number of essential items, and everything else will need to be ordered at the kiosk, before going to the counter to pick it up from a store assistant.
Although the concept has been met with criticism from some customers, with some accusing the chain of treating innocent people like criminals and making their shopping more difficult, a spokesperson for the company said that the chain hopes to improve its customer experience by making the stores more organized and helping customers find what they need faster.
Although the anti-theft aspect is important, the company says it’s also “testing a new experience at this store with new concepts, technologies, and practices to enhance the experiences of our customers and team members” and “will continue to offer retail products and pharmacy services, just with a new look and feel that focuses on shopping digitally for convenience.


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Earlier this year we showed the images of the Nike Air Yeezy 2 ?Cheetah?. Believed to be a pair made specifically for Kobe but later disproven, more images have surfaced. Sporting a similar silhouette to the Kobe VII that dropped around Christmas, these are starting to make heads turn in the sneaker community. Still no word on if these are going to be an official release colorway but stay tuned to Nice Kicks for updated information.
Source: Sole U


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General Motors reintroduced the Chevrolet Blazer nameplate as an all-new midsize crossover for the 2019 model year. So far, the new Blazer has posted impressive sales performance, especially the sporty Chevy Blazer RS trim, which is penetrating at 35 percent of the Blazer portfolio, GM Authority has learned.
“It just keeps exceeding expectations,” said Senior Marketing Director, Chevrolet SUVs, Brad Franz, in an interview with GM Authority executive editor, Alex Luft. “We have moved forecasts up, and it just keeps growing.”
This sales performance is doubly impressive when considering the price point for the Chevy Blazer RS. Starting at $41,295, the Chevy Blazer RS is the second-most expensive trim in the new Blazer lineup.
The revelation coincides with a strong Q3 sales performance for the new Chevy Blazer, with the crossover posting its best quarterly figures since launch with the latest Q3 2020 numbers. The figures also represent a 2.2-percent retail market share gain year-over-year in Q3, making the Chevy Blazer the second best-selling model in the Two-Row Midsize Mainstream Crossover segment, bested only by the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Sales Numbers - Two-Row Midsize Mainstream Crossovers - Q3 2020 - United States
|MODEL||Q3 20 / Q3 19||Q3 20||Q3 19||Q3 20 SHARE||Q3 19 SHARE||YTD 20 / YTD 19||YTD 20||YTD 19|
|JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE||-8.61%||56,447||61,768||34%||34%||-17.39%||152,856||185,040|
|HYUNDAI SANTA FE||-6.11%||26,991||28,748||16%||16%||-26.89%||70,420||96,319|
As seen in the table above, Chevy Blazer sales surged 45.17 percent in Q3, with 29,486 units sold – a goof portion of which were Chevy Blazer RS models.
As GM Authority has covered previously, the Chevy Blazer crossover is heavily cross-shopped with the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ford Edge, two stout rivals in the segment. Per the table above, the Jeep Grand Cherokee nabbed the top spot in the segment with 56,447 units sold, while the Ford Edge was fourth with 28,211 units sold.
What’s more, nearly half of all Chevy Blazer buyers are new to the Chevrolet brand, certifying the crossover’s broad appeal.
Outside, the Chevy Blazer rocks an aggressive and stylish design, while the cabin space comes standard with an eight-inch color touchscreen.
Chevy Blazer RS models stand out thanks to a unique grille with a black finish, as well as a black finish for the roof rails, window surrounds, badging, and nameplate. The RS also features body-colored door handles, and the naturally aspirated 3.6L V6 LGX gas engine as standard.


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Retailers Say Federal Reserve Proposal to Lower Debit Card Swipe Fees Doesn’t Go Far Enough
Washington, February 23, 2011 – The National Retail Federation told the Federal Reserve this week that a proposal to cap debit card swipe fees at 12 cents per transaction does not go far enough, and that banks should honor debit transactions at or close to face value, the same as checks.
“History has shown that by adopting at-par presentment for checks, Congress and the Board got it right,” NRF said in comments filed with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on Tuesday. “A century later, Congress has provided the Board with the opportunity to get it right again by renewing the principles embedded in the Board’s at-par checking rules. When every party bears its own costs, the free market will force all parties to strive to minimize their costs and every party will have the potential to win.”
Under swipe fee reform included in last year’s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Fed was instructed to establish regulations that would result in “reasonable” debit card fees proportional to banks’ cost of processing debit transactions. Debit swipe fees are currently one to two percent of each transaction but the Fed proposed in December that they be capped at a flat fee of no more than 12 cents per transaction. Financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets would be exempt. The Fed is currently reviewing comments on the proposed rules, with an April deadline to approve a final version so the reforms can take effect in July.
NRF said the proposal’s “only shortcoming is its failure to carry the principles through to the extent necessary to achieve true market correction in a realm long lacking transparency and competition.” NRF noted that banks in their own filings with the Fed have claimed only 4 cents as their cost of processing a debit transaction, and that a study by the respected financial research firm First Annapolis Consulting estimates the cost at one-third of 1 cent for PIN debit and 1.36 cents for signature transactions.
NRF said it “strongly urges” the Fed to further reduce the cap “toward a level that more accurately reflects the actual costs.” NRF argued that debit cards are merely plastic checks that draw on the same bank accounts as paper checks and therefore should be treated the similarly. The Fed has required paper checks to be cashed at face value since being directed by Congress to do so in 1916, reasoning that if each party involved with a check had to absorb its own expenses they would have an incentive to reduce the cost, and merchants, customers and banks would all benefit.
The introduction of debit cards a generation ago dramatically lowered banks costs of giving customers access to their checking accounts, and some banks even paid retailers as much as 5 cents per transaction to accept the cards. But instead of continuing such practices, the banking industry has turned debit cards into a profit center, charging fees that “have increased the price of everything our customers buy and dampened merchants’ profitability as well.”
Debit card swipe fees currently total about $20 billion a year, and card company practices compel merchants to pass these fees along to customers through higher prices. The Fed estimates that its proposed cap would save merchants and their customers about 70 percent, or about $1.2 billion a month.
The Fed’s proposal also offers two alternatives intended to give merchants a choice of at least two unaffiliated, competing card processing networks to use when swiping a card. The first option would require that one PIN network and one signature network be available while the other requires that two of each type be available. NRF said it “strongly supports” the second option to ensure that true competition to give merchants the lowest costs will exist.
NRF’s National Council of Chain Restaurants division filed separate comments raising concern that the 12-cent cap is too high because it is a greater percentage of the small-ticket transactions often conducted by restaurants than it would be on the larger sales typically made by general merchandise retailers. Like NRF, NCCR called on the Fed to lower the 12-cent cap to a figure more in line with banks’ actual “reasonable and proportional” costs.
As the world’s largest retail trade association and the voice of retail worldwide, NRF’s global membership includes retailers of all sizes, formats and channels of distribution as well as chain restaurants and industry partners from the United States and more than 45 countries abroad. In the United States, NRF represents the breadth and diversity of an industry with more than 1.6 million American companies that employ nearly 25 million workers and generated 2009 sales of $2.4 trillion. www.nrf.com


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EA bringing video ads to social games, hires WildTangent's Dave Madden
"This biggest challenge [at EA] is engagement scalability by platform," Madden said to ISG. "Our users at EA appreciate content on multiple platforms. The biggest thing we've learned in social gaming is adding value to the user, putting the user in control." In other words, Madden wants to bring ads that users not only have control over, but will actually benefit from in their games. To do this could be simpler than you might think, according to an example the new senior VP provided ISG.
You know the feeling all too well. You hit a wall in your favorite Facebook game when you've run out of Energy. But instead of putting up for more, Madden suggests that players could watch a video ad for some more Energy. You get more Energy; EA gets its precious moola from advertisers; everyone is happy! Hey, at this point, anything beats shelling out cash.
[Image Credit: Inside Social Games]
Is EA onto something with this new proposed ad platform? Would you agree to watch an ad over paying for more Energy? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.


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Several vehicles will be showcased and launched at the upcoming Auto Expo 2018. Two-wheeler giants like Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda will be bringing their scooters at this year’s auto expo.
Here are the top five scooters that would be put on display at the 2018 Auto Expo:
1. Hero 125cc Scooter
Hero MotoCorp is likely to pulls the wraps off a new 125cc scooter at the Auto Expo 2018. The new scooter is being built in-house at Hero’s Centre of Innovation and Technology, Jaipur and is expected to be launched later this year.
After the launch, the new scooter will compete against the likes of Honda Activa 125 and Suzuki Access.
2. Suzuki 150
Among the two new products it is going to launch at the auto expo, a scooter will be launched by Suzuki, an Autocar India report has confirmed.
Speculations are rife that after Suzuki Lets 110 and Suzuki Access 125, the new scooter from the two-wheeler maker will be a 150cc.
Once launched, it will take on the likes of Aprilia SR150 and Vespa.
3. Yamaha Aerox 155
Yamaha is expected to officially introduce the Yamaha Aerox 155, which was recently spotted in a production-ready guise, at the Auto Expo 2018. The scooter is expected to be priced at about to Rs 65,000 (ex-showroom).
4. Honda PCX
Honda PCX electric concept is all set to be showcased at the 2018 Auto Expo. The concept was first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor show. A premium offering, the Honda PCX will hit sales in Japan and other Asian markets later this year.
5. Twenty Two Motors Flow
Twenty Two Motors Flow comes packed with a host of smart features and is all set to be officially launched at the Auto expo 2018. The scooter is likely to be priced around Rs 70,000.


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The highly anticipated E3 event is just around the corner and all gaming forums are buzzing with excitement about it. The world’s biggest gaming publishers are going to attend the event and reveal gameplay footage from their upcoming titles. One of those companies is going to be Microsoft and it will show off the new Halo Infinite, but there’s a catch. Even though Halo Infinite is a game for Xbox, Microsoft is going to showcase it running on PC.
Halo Infinite at E3
The folks at Thurrot have been making lots of predictions during this past couple of days and they all have turned true. This leads us to believe that an insider source is reporting information to them and therefore, the latest report from Thurot which is saying that Microsoft will use a PC that is equipped with the best hardware parts available on the market in order to present Halo Infinite gameplay.
“Further, the company will likely highlight features of the new platform such as using solid-state drives, Navi graphics, Zen 2, backwards compatibility and other components of the AMD platform. Also, expect to hear about how these new consoles can take existing Xbox One X games and enhance the graphics and gameplay experience,” said Thurrot.
CD Projekt RED and Cyberpunk 2077
Since we are talking about E3 we need to mention CD Projekt RED and its upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game. This is the most highly anticipated game in the world and it’s expected to revolutionize the gaming industry. After all, this is the developers of the Witcher series we are talking about. The latest rumor regarding Cyberpunk 2077 is saying that even though the game will be revealed at E3 2019, CD Projekt RED is more than likely going to launch it in 2020.


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Fintech has strengthened its position as Australia’s most popular startup sector among company founders, according to a major survey released today.
Below are our member announcements for November 2017:
SuperCharger is Asia’s leading Fintech accelerator that operates a 12-week program in Hong Kong and Malaysia. We provide global start-ups and scale-ups the resources and support they need to thrive in the Asian market, and simultaneously facilitate proof-of-concepts and productions deals between our startups and corporate partners. SuperCharger is trusted by tier 1 financial institutions and governments to catalyze their Fintech agenda. Read more
Australia has a record ten companies in this year’s highly-regarded Fintech100 report, putting it second only to the United States and ahead of other key markets such as Singapore and the UK when it comes to mentions on the list.
FinTech Australia – the nation’s association for Australia’s fintech industry – today congratulated fintechs listed in the 2017 Fintech100. Read more
Global Startup Challenge is an initiative of NRI Startup India to empower innovations & startups across the globe through the platform EDGE 196.
It’s a series of challenges which will get launched every quarter across multiple sectors. The first sector being highlighted is Fintech.
It’s been a whirlwind ride but Australia’s inaugural fintech festival – Intersekt – is over.
In this post, we’re keen to bring all the highlights and key facts and figures from the festival, held from 27 October to 3 November 2017 in Melbourne.
FinTech Australia’s new tech partner, Microsoft Australia, is inviting members of the fintech community to the Microsoft Summit being held in Sydney next week.
Daniel Paperny for FinTech Australia
Investment in cyber security and artificial intelligence will form the central focus for the Victorian Government who reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the local fintech and start-up ecosystem at FinTech Australia’s intersekt festival this morning. Read more


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Announced on Tuesday, the Fitbit Versa is the wearable manufacturer's latest attempt at cracking into the smartwatch market, and by far their best-looking watch-based product to date. The light metal smartwatch features advanced health and fitness features like 24/7 heart rate tracking, onscreen workouts, and automatic sleep stages tracking. From later this year the Fitbit app and Versa interface will allow you to log your menstrual cycle so you can better understand fluctuations in your health alongside your fitness and sleep.
The other bragging point is that the battery purportedly lasts four days or more on a single charge.
The Versa shape is much more similar to Apple's smartwatch, with what the company describes as a "rounded square" touchscreen display.
Dolphins plan to move on from Ndamukong Suh, Lawrence Timmons
He was named to four Pro Bowls while receiving an awesome three First-Team All-Pro nods during those five initial seasons. If Suh is designated as a post-June 1 cut, the team would save $17 million against the 2018 salary cap.
At the same time as announcing the new products, Fitbit has drawn attention to some improvements it has planned for the Fitbit app. However, the Versa does offer a few things the Ionic does not, including a new dashboard, called Fitness Today, that collects activity stats, workout history, and health information, then uses that data to give you daily advice and inspiration. A huge range of after-purchase accessories is available as well, offering tons of ways to customize the look of the watch, with those ranging in price from $22.95 to $99.95.
Smart notifications also work on the Fitbit Versa, so you'll be able to receive messages from a variety of apps right through to your wrist.
PHOTONEWS: US Secretary Tillerson, President Buhari Meets in Abuja
He said Chadian President Idriss Deby had "expressed his incomprehension" to Tillerson about the restrictions. The State Department said Tillerson was forced to skip out on some events Saturday, after not feeling well.
In terms of customization options, the Versa is offered in a selection of three color and two more special editions. There's even female-specific health tracking to help women keep tabs on their menstrual cycle.
Apple Watch-like tricks are also included in the Versa experience. The Ace, meanwhile, doesn't seem like much more than last year's Fitbit given a child-friendly body. Versa and Ionic will be able to view where they are in their cycle on-device; owners of other Fitbit trackers will still be able to track their periods via the app. Fitbit says the Ace's data collection processes are created to be COPPA-compliant so all that data pertaining to your child remains safe.
The normal version comes with a silicone band in the box, so if you want a more premium band you'll need to buy one separately to switch out.
"As childhood obesity rates continue to rise, it's more important than ever to empower the entire family to embrace a healthy and more active lifestyle", said James Park, chief executive and co-founder of Fitbit.
Manchester United's Michael Carrick confirms he will retire at end of season
On announcing his decision to retire, Carrick said: "I think it's pretty much already been said, to be honest with you". Carrick last played on 17 February in Manchester United's FA Cup win over Huddersfield.
We'll get the Fitbit Versa in for a full review, so be sure to check back once we've put it through its paces.