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Anyone who has gotten one of these and forgotten it only to try and use it at a much later date knows the frustration — the fees and surcharges for gift cards that aren’t redeemed in a certain period of time.
And while this may not solve the problem of cards for defunct or soon-to-be-defunct companies, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill extending the period before which gift card fees can apply.
Here are the details:
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed legislation instituting new consumer protections for consumers using gift cards.
The bill (S.4771E / A.7610E), increases the minimum time before cards are charged a user fee, places additional restrictions on those fees, and expands the expiration dates of gift cards in order to protect consumers.
“These new protections will help prevent New Yorkers from being nickeled and dimed by hidden costs and fees,” Governor Cuomo said. “No one expects an asterisk when buying a gift card and I’m proud to sign this legislation to help ensure consumers get their money’s worth.”
Under this new law, the time period in which fees can be charged to unused gift card balances has been increased from 13 to 25 months and any monthly service fees that are applied after this time must be waived if the consumer uses the gift card within three years of the issue date. In addition, this law will require the gift card’s terms and conditions to describe exactly what the procedure is to replace a missing card. Finally, no gift card may now have an expiration date of earlier than five years from the date of issuance.
“Is there anything more frustrating than receiving a gift card for the holidays or a birthday, only to misplace it and learn later it is now worthless?” said Senator Rich Funke. “I think your money should be your money, whether it’s lost in the couch cushion for a few months or not! That’s why our new law will ban non-activity fees for two years, require clear disclosure of all terms and conditions, and waive all penalties when a lost card is found within three years. My thanks to Governor Cuomo and Assemblyman Dinowitz for helping to make this common sense solution the law of the land in New York State.”
“Too often have consumers either purchased or been given a gift card, only to later find out that there is little to no money left to spend due to exorbitant fees assessed on the card due to inactivity,” said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz. “Businesses selling gift cards have already made the profit of selling it, so there is no reason that a consumer should be penalized with fees for not using it within a specific time frame. It’s simply unconscionable that a consumer who pays for a gift card in full should lose their investment because they waited to spend it.”


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Reiterated by a report on Wednesday, an executive for Valve's Steam digital delivery platform has declared that preliminary versions of the company's VR platform will be available for macOS and Linux very soon.
Noted by VR enthusiast site RoadtoVR in October, and highlighted by Hexus.net ">on Wednesday, Valve developer Joe Ludwig demonstrated a running version of OpenVR and SteamVR on Linux to the gathered audience, and promised public releases "in the next few months" for macOS.
Ludwig and Valve believe that VR should be as open a platform as possible, and neither needs nor demands a "gatekeeper" limiting platform access.
The Linux demo utilized the Vulkan graphics API, running on an unnamed Linux distribution, with a HTC Vive headset. Most VR applications are coded with DirectX currently, and OpenGL or Vulkan utilization would be required for cross-platform use.
While rumors peg Apple using VR solutions to test self-driving cars and navigation systems, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently reaffirmed his stance that AR's ability to amplify human experiences makes it more likely to succeed over the more involved VR.
Though Apple has yet to outline an official strategy on either technology, the company is making strategic AR segment purchases like last year's acquisition of motion capture specialist Faceshift and German AR firm Metaio.
The company is also developing supporting tech in-house, as evidence by a growing portfolio of AR/VR patents like transparent displays, iPhone-powered virtual reality systems, advanced computer vision tech and more.

domain: news


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Apple Billionth iPhone App Page Leaked
Thanks a billion times.
More than one billion downloads in only nine months.
Only in the App Store.
A reader on MacMagazine.com.br
discovered Apple's webpage to celebrate the billionth downloaded iPhone application a little bit early -- approximately two days early since the estimated download of the billionth app is April 23rd. Btw don't forget that Apple is giving out a ton of stuff
to celebrate the billionth downloaded app. There is still time to enter and win!
thanks Tim for the tip


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2Steel Girls announce release of new EP album Train Wreck
The local mother-daughter country duo 2Steel Girls — mom Allison and daughter Krystal are announcing the release of their latest album, Train Wreck, on Saturday, Aug. 10. The duo performs country, pop and blues music as well as composing their own music. This is their first EP and they have written and co-written all of the music on the album. Train Wreck will be released for purchase to the public by digital download via iTunes, Amazon and Google Play, and physical copies will be available for purchase on their website http:www.2steelgrls.com Aug. 10. The single from the album debuted on “The Today Show” with Kathie Lee and Hoda.


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Upcoming Yamaha motorcycles may be based on the existing 150cc and 250cc platforms. What happens to the R3 then…?
Since the last few years, Yamaha has decided to play in the 150cc to 250cc motorcycle segment only. That means it had quit the 100cc and 125cc space completely.
The current portfolio consists of the FZ streetfighter range and the sportier R15/MT15 in the 150cc segment, and again the FZ range in the 250cc lineup. It has recently ventured in the neo-retro segment with the 150cc FZX. But that is what appears to be it!
In a recent interview to ET Auto, Motofumi Shitara, Chairman of Yamaha India, did not sound very enthusiastic about motorcycles over the 250cc segment. He specified that the company will continue to focus on the 150-250cc segment and will introduce latest technologies in both – the current portfolio as well as new models, as and when required.
In a direct question on whether Yamaha will consider local manufacturing of bigger, mid-capacity motorcycles, Shitara admitted that there has been a lot of action in this segment in the recent years and that it has a ‘vast potential’. However, he still believes that it is at a very ‘infant stage’ and due to its low volumes, he quashed any possibility (of local manufacturing) at this time.
Though this does not mean that Yamaha will not launch 250cc+ motorcycles in India, but it may not be very aggressive with them and that also infers that the new R3, if it is under consideration for our market, will continue to be a CKD.
In fact the whole tone appears to be saying that it will continue to upgrade current models. And there may be a few new variants based on the existing platforms, like the just-launched FZX.
Source – ET Auto


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As reported by The Mobile Indian earlier, Microsoft has on Wednesday announced the latest version of its Windows Phone operating system for India – Windows Phone 7.5 version which is also known as Mango. On the occasion, it has also announced the release of HTC Radar smartphone based on the new Windows Phone 7.5 version.
More Windows Phone based devices from Samsung, Acer and Nokia will follow soon, said the company in a release. Earlier, Samsung had launched Omnia W smartphone running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update on October 3 in India.
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango is a major update for Windows Phone smartphones and is said to be more user-friendly than any other smartphone OS from Microsoft. Microsoft has already opened the Windows Marketplace and with this launch, users of Mango can now receive relevant apps as well.
Announcing the launch of Windows Phone in India, Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India said, “We are incredibly excited about today’s unveiling of Windows Phone. With Windows Phone, we have looked at the consumer experience in an absolutely fresh way, and the end result is an operating system that is stylish, innovative, and one that seamlessly integrates the most sought after user experiences such as search, gaming, email and social networks across Bing, Office, Xbox LIVE, Facebook, Twitter and more.”
The OS will don an “all new rich and dynamic user interface of Live Tiles and Hubs”, which Microsoft said, will enable people to quickly find, connect and consume the things that they care about the most. The new OS sports a user interface called ‘Metro’.
The conventional application icons have been replaced by Live Tiles on the Windows Phone start screen. The Live Tiles come to life with real-time updates from the web such as news, appointments or the status of friends. New Live Tiles can be easily created from whatever content a consumer wants, for applications, websites and music.
Hubs in the new interface provides a central place from which one can post updates to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Windows Live in one step. Also with Microsoft Hub, you can easily share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone also brings together a user’s photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person’s entire picture and video collection.
The phone comes preloaded with Xbox LIVE as well. Windows Phone Office hub has mobile versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint for working on the go. These can synchronised back to SkyDrive, Office 365 or SharePoint sites.


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Americans' weaker appetite for mid-sized cars is eroding sales of two icons, the Honda Civic and Accord.
Honda Division spokesman Andy Boyd says high incentives offered by the competition also are hurting sales.
To maintain its brand image, Honda has resisted incentives, particularly customer rebates, despite fierce price wars.
On March 2, Honda began offering dealer cash of up to $600 on Civics and Accords. The more Civics and Accords that dealers sell, the higher the cash award.
Dick Colliver, executive vice president of automotive sales for American Honda Motor Co. Inc., says the automaker prefers to cut production rather than offer expensive incentives.
"Last fall, when the New York market went flat, we adjusted inventories," Colliver says. "The dealers wanted incentives, but we don't want to get into overstocking."
Asked if Honda Division would offer consumer incentives, Colliver said: "Never."
On March 1, Honda had a 73-day supply of both the Civic and Accord. Sixty days is considered typical for the industry.
Civic's U.S. sales dropped 26.9 percent in the first two months of this year to 33,481 compared with the year-ago period. Accord sales dropped 15.0 percent to 44,296.
As for the competition, Nissan Division, for instance, is offering $2,500 customer cash on the Sentra and $1,500 on the Altima, excluding the high-performance SE-R.
Honda is offering 2.9 percent cut-rate loans on all Civic and Accord models, including hybrids. Before March 2, hybrid versions of both cars were not eligible for the loans. Hybrids use an internal combustion engine and an electric motor to power the wheels.
The growing truck segment is the primary reason Civic and Accord sales are slipping, Colliver says.
He believes that Honda's first pickup, the Ridgeline, will help boost sales this year. The truck went on sale in February.
Colliver has said that Honda Division needs to broaden its truck lineup. Honda offers five light trucks, compared with three in early 2002.
He expects Honda sales to rise about 2.0 percent this year, "mostly on the truck side."
Through February, Honda's U.S. sales were down 10.6 percent to 149,819. In 2004, Honda Division sales rose 1.4 percent, to 1,195,479 million. The U.S. market also rose 1.4 percent last year.


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LONDON – Return on investment (ROI) is the holy grail metric for justifying any marketing spend. But whilst surveys can show whether ad campaigns lift brand awareness amongst consumers, proving whether those consumers actually go on to buy anything as a result is trickier – especially in the emerging world of video ad formats.
This is set to change, however, according to video ad tech vendor Videology‘s international product manager Catherine Hallam.
“We’ve had great success in the US with linking not just online purchasing from VOD exposure but offline purchase,” Hallam said during this video interview at Beet.TV’s recent London Video Ad Strategy Summit.
Following a campaign with Kantar, Hallam reports a 47 percent jump in unit sales of a razor brand advertised with online video – a consequence that, previously, may not have been evident. “You can justify VOD for not just branding but also start to prove that it is impacting customers’ journeys in store as well.”
Disclosure: This Beet.TV event was hosted by GroupM and sponsored by Videology.


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FILIPINO President Rodrigo Duterte has warned ISIS extremists he will “eat their livers” if they are captured by his troops.
He then threatened to “eat” organs of members of the Islamist militants that operated in his country.
Addressing the crowd, Duterte said: “Just drive me to extreme anger, and I can eat a person. Give me salt and vinegar and I’ll eat his liver.”
“You know, I am capable of eating a person. If you anger me, in truth, I will eat you alive. Raw.”
A number of higher-end retailers, including Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, recently stopped selling Ivanka Trump’s clothing and apparel line, citing slow sales. Now some Ivanka items are showing up on the less-glamorous racks of discount retailer Stein Mart, but without the Ivanka name.
According to Business of Fashion, a company called G-III has the rights to make and distribute Ivanka Trump apparel. And G-III has apparently, without knowledge of the First Daughter or others at her brand, relabeled some Ivanka items as “Adrienne Vittadini Studio,” and sold them to Stein Mart. It’s unclear if other retailers also purchased these items.
It’s the top story on ABCnews & CBSNews. Fox, NPR and NBC have stories near the top.
There is literally nothing important about the 100 day mark. But the media has a narrative, and goddamnit, they’re going to flesh it out.
If you’re using Chrome, Firefox, or Opera to view websites, you should be aware of a weakness that can trick even savvy people into trusting malicious impostor sites that want you to download software or enter your password or credit card data.
The weakness involves the way these browsers display certain characters in the address bar. Until Google released version 58 in the past 24 hours, for instance, Chrome displayed https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com/ as https://www.apple.com. The latest versions of Firefox and Opera by default continue to present the same misleading address. As the screenshot above demonstrates, the corresponding website has nothing to do with Apple. Had a malicious attacker registered the underlying xn--80ak6aa92e.com domain, she could have used it to push backdoored software or to trick visitors into divulging passwords or other sensitive information.
Because of a lab chemist‘s widespread criminal misconduct in analyzing drug samples, about 95% of 20,000 drug convictions in Massachusetts have been dismissed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.”That is a victory for regular people, for people who’ve been tarnished by these drug convictions,” said Carl Williams, a staff attorney for the ACLU.
Those drug convictions had relied on analysis from Annie Dookhan, a former chemist for the Department of Public Health. Dookhan worked testing drug samples submitted by law enforcement agencies from 2003 until 2012, when investigators accused her of contaminating drug samples, falsifying results, and mishandling evidence.
Investigators said she admitted to intentionally contaminating some samples to turn them from negative samples into positive samples. She also admitted to “dry labbing” in which she tested a few samples but reported the same results for multiple other samples.
Holy crap science.
Is there a term that describes a word which has no meaning because everybody who uses it has their own meaning?
If not, I am nominating “humpty“.
The word “neoliberalism” has become a humpty.
Look up the word pink in the dictionary, and you’ll probably find a lot more definitions than you might have expected. But of all the word’s meanings, the oldest on record is one that appears in only the most comprehensive dictionaries: Pink used to be yellow.
Didn’t Trump say he had a secret plan to defeat ISIS?
…you need better salespeople than this guy.


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KILLEIGH based Glenisk will be among the finalists at this year’s National Q Mark Awards ceremony which takes place on Friday, September 28 at Dublin’s Burlington Hotel.
The finalists were announced at EIQA House in Dublin earlier this week, and the team from Glenisk are shortlisted in one of the most prestigious award categories - The Q Mark Award for Hygiene and Food Safety.
The award honours businesses for their achievement in being recognised as having the highest standard of Hygiene and Food Safety in the country.
Glenisk is the Cleary Family’s business and this year they celebrate twenty-five successful years in business.
Their vision of an ‘Organic Ireland’ which relates to healthy soil growing healthy food, which ultimately helps to raise healthy families, is well on it’s way to becoming a reality as they are now considered to be one of the fastest growing brands in Ireland.
On hearing of their nomination for what are known as the ‘Oscars’ of business excellence, Managing Director Vincent Cleary said, “Our nomination for the National Q Mark Awards is a very welcome acknowledgement of the importance we place on quality at Glenisk. Our aim is not merely to comply with regulations or to conform to industry best practice, but rather to exceed standards at every opportunity and in so doing, to exceed the expectations of our customers.”
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Summer is (sort of) here, which means it’s time for eating, boozing and hopefully soaking up the sun on London’s rooftops. And now there’s a tasty offering on the roof of John Lewis on Oxford Street, as cheese toastie pros Morty & Bob’s are taking over the space this summer.
The department store’s Gardening Society Roof Garden is returning for another year, decked out with private summer houses (which are kitted out with a digital radio and a bell to press for service – fancy!), plenty of outdoor seating and a tiny pub – the Gardener’s Arms – where you can get cosy if the weather isn’t up to scratch.
But enough about the decor – the folks at Morty & Bob’s have created a special summer menu with dishes including burrata with honey and hazelnuts, Devonshire crab on sourdough toast with avocado, chilli and lime, and a posh fish finger buttie by chef pal Mark Hix.
But they haven’t forgotten their cheesy roots. There’s a choice of two grilled cheese sandwiches – the straight-up M&B classic and the ‘nduja salami and three-cheese (!) special, which is basically carby, cheesy, meaty heaven. I mean, just look at it:
If you haven’t been defeated by copious amounts of cheese, they’ve also got a daily changing menu of sweet treats, including Crosstown doughnuts, chocolate brownies and this awesome caramel cake:
It’s basically a cheesy oasis in the middle of Oxford Street – sounds like heaven to us.
Morty & Bob’s will be at John Lewis’s Gardening Society rooftop, 300 Oxford St, Marylebone, W1C 1DX. Until June 5.
In other food news, a burger and milkshake festival called Shake Your Patty is coming to London


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X Pro Block
X, the app formerly known as Twitter, is yet again making headlines. This time ‘round, Musk is attempting to remove the block feature because… this is Elon Musk we’re talking about. “Block is going to be deleted as a “feature”, except for DMs,” the billionaire said in a reply on Friday, followed up by “It makes no sense.”
Obviously, Musk’s tweet stirred up the sort of outrage you’ll only find on X, with many users making their thoughts known. Musk’s ideas on the block “feature” were known as early as June, when he said “Blocking public posts makes no sense. It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute.” What a stronger mute might look like – in lieu of the block button – we’re not sure. We may never find out.
See, Musk’s $44 billion splurge on Twitter came with a few Ts and Cs. As many pointed out – using the app’s Community Notes feature – both Google and Apple’s stores contain language that dictate social media apps must contain a block feature. The Play Store mentions apps must have “an in-app system for blocking [user-generated content] and users,” while Apple’s devs must include “the ability to block abusive users from the service.”
Whether this is something X can fight, we’ll have to wait and see. Our guess? The block “feature” might be sticking around for some time longer, considering Elon’s previous altercation with Apple (and subsequent backing down).
Threads gets a web launch
It’s been over a month since Meta’s own Twitter (now X) rival, Threads, launched. In that time, Threads has hit some major milestones, added a few updates, and lost more than 80% of its users. Yikes. Meta might be hoping to change that, with the launch of a Threads web version early this week, which has been glaringly absent in the app’s short life.
That news comes from The Wall Street Journal (via The Verge), with Meta CEO Mar Zuckerberg noting that the web launch would include a much-needed overhaul of the search function. As it stands, Threads’ search is barebones, only allowing users to search for other users and… not much else.
Despite the expected launch this week, the WSJ also noted that Threads’ web launch plans are not set in stone. “Launch plans aren’t final and could change,” say the WSJ’s sources. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, confirmed that the company was testing “an early version internally” and that “it still needs some work” before it goes live.
Say hello to the Lanzador, Lamborghini’s first serious concept EV
Lamborghini, the makers of every thirteen-year-old boy’s dream car, recently gave the world its first look at its Lanzador concept on Friday at Monterey Car Week. It’s a shape (and engine) Lamborghini hasn’t experimented with yet, with the closest thing being the Terzo Millennio concept from 2017 that never made it to the production line.
What makes the Lanzador so special? It’s an all-electric concept – like the Millennio – except this one has a real chance of reaching the 1%’s driveways – sometime in 2028 if all goes according to plan. The Lanzador’s oddly beautiful shape seems inspired by the company’s Urus and Sián ranges, while also wanting to make the driver feel as if they were piloting a spaceship.
Unfortunately, Lamborghini is being skittish about all the features you’d want to hear about on any EV. Stuff like charge time, range, price, or 0 to 100km/h acceleration. It’s not all bad news, though. Lamborghini did reveal one thing about the Lanzador, and that’s it’s capable of “peak power of over one megawatt.”
Still, that doesn’t tell us much. It tells us that it’s fast – with the equivalent of one megawatt equalling 1,341 mechanical horsepower – something a few cars like the Roadster are capable of. There’s plenty more to know about the Lanzador’s construction, Lamborghini’s promises of smoothness, and 23in wheels, all of which you can check out here.
But can it play Tears of the Kingdom? Probably
Nintendo changed the game in 2017. We’re not only talking about Breath of the Wild but the console it was released on: the Switch. A console so good it’s had about as many knockoffs as we’ve had joy-cons. Lenovo is the latest company to give the mini-PC idea a shot, taking form in the Lenovo Legion Go, which sports its own joy-con-like detachable controllers.
The Lenovo Legion Go is all but confirmed by the company itself. We know it exists (and what it looks like) thanks to a recent report from WindowsReport, which showed off a few leaked images of the upcoming device and detachable controllers. We also got a peek at those controller’s many rear buttons, along with the handheld’s wide-enough kickstand that, again, mimics the Switch.
As for any internals, however, those details are still being clutched close to Lenovo’s chest. Whether it’ll manage to compete with Asus’ or Steam’s mini-PC offerings, based on performance, price, and battery life, remains to be seen. We know Lenovo is planning to use AMD’s Phoenix processors and an 8in display thanks to WindowsCentral, though any other specifics are still up in the air.


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Business Hive Live 2017 date set
13th June 2017
The date has been announced for this year’s Business Hive Live, Grimsby’s biggest business-to-business event.
The third annual expo, organised by E-Factor, takes place at Grimsby Auditorium on Tuesday, October 3, from noon until 7.30pm.
International guest speakers are flagged up, following on from the likes of Midge Ure, Checkatrade founder Kevin Byrne and Grimsby’s own brand “riskpreneur” Richard Askam.
It will again feature more than 60 exhibition stands as well as – new for 2017 – The Tech Lounge.
For more information, call 01472 242667.
News Courtesy: www.humberbusiness.com


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Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s stock jumped more than 7% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company beat estimates on the top and bottom line, and announced the transition of Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat to president and chief investment officer in September.
Fueled by strong advertising sales, Alphabet
racked up fiscal second-quarter net income of $18.4 billion, or $1.44 a share, compared with net income of $16 billion, or $1.21 a share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Total revenue was $74.6 billion, compared with $69.7 billion a year ago. Sales minus traffic-acquisition costs were $62.06 billion, vs. $57.5 billion last year.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected on average net earnings of $1.34 a share on revenue of $72.85 billion and ex-TAC revenue of $60.25 billion.
“There’s exciting momentum across our products and the company, which drove strong results this quarter,” Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in a statement. “Our continued leadership in AI and our excellence in engineering and innovation are driving the next evolution of Search, and improving all our services.”
During a conference call Tuesday afternoon, he highlighted the intertwining of advertising and Alphabet’s strides in generative AI. He added the company continues to consolidate and align operations to streamline spending.
Shares of Alphabet have advanced 39% so far this year largely on the strength of generative AI and its potential. The broader S&P 500 index
is up 19%. Alphabet’s stock inched up 0.6% to $122.21 in the regular session Tuesday.
Google’s total advertising sales improved to $58.14 billion from $56.3 billion a year ago, and edged analysts’ average expectations of $57.45 billion. Google Cloud hauled in $8 billion, compared with $6.3 billion last year. YouTube ad sales rebounded to $7.7 billion from $7.34 billion a year ago.
Porat, who has played an essential role in Google’s advertising success since she became CFO in 2015, will start her new role on Sept. 1. She will be responsible for Alphabet’s investments in its Other Bets portfolio, and the company’s investments in countries and communities around the world. Porat will continue to report to Pichai.
“We see technology can make so much of a difference in people’s lives… and in economic growth globally,” Porat said during the conference call late Tuesday.
The monetization of AI continues to be an obsession of investors and Wall Street. Microsoft Corp.’s
AI version, Bing, hit the market first, but Google’s competing entry, Bard, is making headway, according to analysts. Alphabet is ramping up AI initiatives to improve operational efficiency and productivity.
When asked on the call about AI monetization, Pichai said the technology expands the company’s total addressable market, brings in potential new customers, deepens the versatility of its product portfolio, and differentiates core products such as cybersecurity.
AI’s importance was underscored by a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been spotted at the company’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters in recent weeks working with AI researchers on a large-scale project. Brin has been largely out of sight after stepping down from an executive role at parent company Alphabet in 2019.


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A new HairClub Center has opened in Wildwood for residents seeking hair loss solutions. It is in addition to HairClub’s other 120 HairClub Centers throughout North America and Puerto Rico. The HairClub Center is located at 4110 FL-44, Suite 504, Wildwood, Florida, in Freedom Plaza, a bustling crossroads of retail and professional offices near Town Square Brownwood.
“We are excited to present HairClub’s hair loss solutions to residents in Wildwood, bringing the number of HairClub Centers to 121 locations in North America,” said HairClub CEO Mike Nassar. “HairClub has a long history in Florida and is headquartered in Boca Raton, so it’s an honor to open another HairClub Center in this state.”
Christine West, the HairClub Center Manager for the Wildwood location will lead a team of Hair Health Experts to provide proven non-surgical hair systems and hair loss solutions for men and women of all ages. West is excited for the opportunity to grow with the Hair Club family at the new location.
“It’s a pleasure to bring our HairClub community to Wildwood, staffed with Hair Health Experts who are specially trained in hair loss,” said West. “We welcome new HairClub Members and invite everyone in the area to get to know everything we love about HairClub.”
Like other HairClub Centers, the Wildwood location will offer hair regrowth, hair replacement, and hair restoration solutions. They include services and products for regrowth for the early stages of hair loss like EXT Extreme Hair Therapy, to full hair replacement systems like Xtrands+, which provides full coverage for hair loss. New HairClub Members will join more than 600,000 others who have sought help with hair loss.
“HairClub offers premium, custom services for every stage of hair loss, at any age, but I think what makes us so unique is the support and compassion each HairClub Member receives in every HairClub Center,” said Nassar. “HairClub is a family, and that extends from our corporate offices and Hair Health Experts to our HairClub Members, and we can’t wait for new members from Wildwood and The Villages to discover that.”
The new HairClub Center is in Sumter County adjacent to The Villages. The complete address of the Wildwood HairClub Center is 4110 FL-44 #504, Wildwood, Fla. 34785. The new phone number is 352-251-3446.
Founded in 1976, HairClub is North America’s number one provider of proven hair regrowth, hair replacement, and hair restoration solutions. For over 46 years, HairClub has helped hundreds of thousands of members transform their lives. Today, HairClub has 121 locations throughout the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Aderans Co. Ltd., the world’s leading provider of total hair loss solutions. hairclub.com


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Appalachian State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship will hold the annual Young Entrepreneurs Symposium (Y.E.S.) Feb. 23 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center on campus. The event is sponsored by Backyard Burgers.
The event is open to the public, but registration is required at www.business.appstate.edu/yes. For additional information, contact Julia Rowland at email@example.com or 828-262-8325.
The 2011 Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner will be announced at the end of the symposium. The winner will receive a $2,500 scholarship.
Young entrepreneurs participating in this year’s event are Brandon Adcock ’06 and Paul Reichelt, founders of Direct Digital LLC. They will tell their story of how they have been able to generate tens of millions of dollars in sales in one year and have one of the best-selling products in GNC stores across America.
The symposium also will feature Chris Yura, founder of SustainU Clothing. SustainU is an American clothing company utilizing domestic labor and recycled fiber to create apparel for the collegiate community. Yura is a former Notre Dame University football star and international model.
In addition to the speakers, entertainment will be provided by current and former student entrepreneurs at Appalachian. Members of the dance troupe Dust It Off Inc. will perform, combining hip-hop, break dancing, step and other dance elements such as ballet, African and modern, to create a unique dance style called Krumping. Also performing is Chasing Parked Cars, an improvisational comedy group comprised of a small group of friends with big ambitions. Their performances involve stage exercises without scripts in which they create characters and situations on the spot in front of audiences.


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Pelosi should be thrown out of Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the current crimes which have taken over her city of San Francisco, which she is responsible for.
Instead of taking blame for her actions, Pelosi deflected from the fact that it was a leadership problem and claimed that she didn’t know what was causing it.
According to Fox, the amount of people robbing local businesses and selling the products online have reached an unprecedented high.
Pelosi appears to be forgetting that its Democratic legislation has made it easy for desperate Americans to commit crimes with little fear to make an easy living.
“It’s absolutely outrageous. Obviously it cannot continue,” Pelosi stated. “But the fact is that there is an attitude of lawlessness in our country that springs from I don’t know where… and we cannot have that lawlessness become the norm.
“These people coordinate with each other and they plan traffic patterns and the rest so they can reach their goal and depart very quickly,” Pelosi further noted. “”This isn’t like somebody stealing something to go home because they don’t have money to buy. This is about stealing for profit.”
Pelosi now says that they are working on a bill to introduce new provisions that will prevent people from “stealing for profit” such as selling stolen products online.


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As a member of the Mustang Club of Houston, you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody more excited than Keith Howard about the newly redesigned 2015 Ford Mustang.
"I want to drive it. For me, what matters is performance," Howard said.
The Mustang has undergone a complete overhaul and there's a certain retro feel with this new design, which was inspired by the classic 1960's model. It sits lower and wider, the roof tapers down dramatically in the front and back, and the long hood is still there as is the grill with the original Mustang logo.
"The interior is based on aircrafts and based on all new kinds of technology and the exterior is still Mustang, but it has some new cues that really brings it into the Ford DNA," said John Hinrichs, Ford Company President.
Local 2 showed Howard pictures of the newly redesigned car.
"From my first impression, I think they've done a good job of meeting in the middle and I think the performance of the car will speak to what it's all about," Howard said.
The American icon is about to turn 50, and for the first time, Mustang is going global. There may be a new 4-cylinder eco-boost engine but Ford says the star of the next generation car is still the 5.0 liter V8.
Ford isn't saying how much the new Mustang will cost but the current base model starts around $23,000.
The new Mustang has been engineered to meet various international safety and emissions standards, but Ford says going global in no way impacted the design.
Click here to view more photos of the car.


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A year of ‘hell’ for Uber
2017 has been anything but a good year for Uber. The world’s highest valued company has been reeling after being hit by too many controversies. Cases of sexual harassment, privacy invasion, property theft, and more being committed by the ride-hailing company have been making the news for months on end. And today, all of Uber’s troubles have finally culminated in the resignation of its CEO Travis Kalanick. YourStory traces the last six months to see where it all went wrong for Kalanick & Co. in what has truly been a year of ’Hell’ for Uber.
January 28 and 29: A #DeleteUber campaign spawns online and sees Uber lose out on valuable market share to its competitor Lyft after Uber continued to provide service at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, subverting the NY Taxi Workers Alliance’s strike in protest of President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order.
February 19: Susan J. Fowler, a former Uber site reliability engineer, publishes a blog post detailing occurrences of sexual harassment at the company and inaction of its HR department. Former US Attorney General Eric Holder is brought in to investigate the company’s workplace culture as Uber’s market share takes another hit.
February 23: Waymo, Alphatbet Inc.’s autonomous car division, files a lawsuit against autonomous truck startup Otto and its parent company Uber for the intellectual property theft of its Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology.
February 27: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick fires SVP of Engineering, Amit Singhal, after discovering that the Silicon Valley stalwart failed to disclose to Uber that he ended his 15-year stint at Google following allegations of sexual harassment.
February 28: A video of Travis Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver about the pricing of the company’s premium UberBlack services is released. Travis sends a letter of apology to Uber employees admitting the need to change his behaviour and his intention to get leadership help.
March 3 and 8: The New York Times reveals that Uber had been using a program, involving a tool named ‘Greyball’, to serve up an alternative (and non-functioning) version of its app in a bid to evade public officials and law enforcement personnel in cities where the ride-hailing app’s service had been banned. After initially defending the controversial program, Uber on March 8 announced that it will stop using the ‘Greyball’ tool to evade authorities.
March 19 and 20: Shortly after Uber CEO Travis announced his intention to hire a COO, Uber President Jeff Jones resigned on March 19 after only six months at the firm citing a difference in ‘beliefs and approach to leadership’. A day later, Brian McClendon, the Vice President of Maps at Uber, turned in his resignation.
April 12 and 24: A report in The Information published on April 12 reveals Uber’s use of a secret software program dubbed ‘Hell’ to track Lyft drivers along with those drivers who worked for both Uber and Lyft. On April 24, a former Lyft driver files a $5 million class action lawsuit against Uber for violating California’s privacy and wiretapping law.
May 26: Travis Kalanick is hit with a personal tragedy as his mother, Bonnie Kalanick, passes away in a boating accident which also left his father, Donald Kalanick, severely injured.
June 6: Uber announces that it has fired 20 employees following an investigation by law firm Perkins Cole into cases of sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination at the company.
June 7: Eric Alexander, Uber’s President of Business in the Asia Pacific, leaves the company after it was discovered that he illegally obtained medical records of a woman who had been raped during an Uber ride in India and then shared the records with Uber executives including CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael.
June 11: Uber’s entire board of directors convenes for a meeting to address the findings of Eric Holder’s months-long investigation into the company’s pernicious work culture.
June 12: Emil Michael, Uber’s SVP of Business and second-in-command to Kalanick, announces his departure from the company after reportedly being pressured by the Uber board to do so.
June 13: Travis Kalanick takes a leave of absence from Uber for personal reasons as the board of directors considers re-distributing his responsibilities among other senior executives at the firm.
June 21: Travis Kalanick resigns as Uber CEO after five major investors in the ride-hailing company demand his departure.


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It is our everyday habit to hold on to our phones every now and then. If we can only estimate how many times we look into our phones every single hour, I would assume that everyone agrees if I say more than ten times?
There is no point denying the fact that people nowadays are too attached to their mobile phones. As they evolve, they gradually allow us to call, text, chat, email, pay bills, watch movies and videos and just get connected to the world. In other sense, we have become too dependent on our phones for a number of reasons including ease and becoming one with the trend. However, with the evolvement of technology and people, the dangers that we are facing also seems to double.
When experts once warn of the dangers our mobile phone can cause to our brains and disabling proper language comprehension based on numerous reviews and researches, they are currently warning us of the allergy it can cause if we frequently use our own mobile phone accessories.
According to a recent study published in the journal Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, continuously using our phones for 30 minutes plus throughout the day can increase the risk of cell phone-related allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) for those allergic to nickel, cobalt, and chromium. The Peterson Group, distributor of mobile phones and laptop peripherals in Taiwan with their research team on their recent awareness campaign in Jakarta, Indonesia also stated, “Headsets, if kept on our ears for more than 2 hours, can accumulate 4,000 germs which keep on multiplying by the minute. These germs can crawl inside our middle and inner ear and eat away the bones. Since the ear only has a thin partition to the brain, this is not a laughing matter”.
As cell phone allergies are increasingly on the rise and laws restricting nickel use in consumer products remain ineffective, users can take several safety measures to limit their nickel exposure. Speakerphones now have rubber and protective screens which can minimize the exposure to germs. It is still important though that we use our headsets wisely. Also, the duration and conditions of your cell phone play a big role in the likelihood of getting a reaction.
Experts also advise to refrain from using fraud copies of accessories to avoid double exposure to germs and also from unexpected technical malfunction and other substances that can further cause harm.


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This holiday is over, for retailers. The tally of sales is grim for brick and mortar. Holiday spending rose 3%, but it was driven by a 49% rise in e-commerce. For another year, foot traffic fell. 2020 was simply worse than others, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were several huge retailer bankruptcies. Among them, the one that shuttered the most locations closed 1,000 stores.
As MasterCard SpendingPulse reported the 3% rise, its researchers pointed out that the figure was at the low end of most forecasts. And, the mix of consumer shopping patterns changed considerably. Steve Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard and former CEO and Chairman of Saks Incorporated, said “American consumers turned the holiday season on its head, redefining ‘home for the holidays’ in a uniquely 2020 way. They shopped from home for the home, leading to record e-commerce growth.”
Accounting firm BDO keeps track of retailer bankruptcies. It pointed out in its report on which retailers have gone under in 2020 that the pandemic, in particular, has accelerated the process of destroying physical stores. It is a process e-commerce began a decade ago.
Some of America’s most famous retailers filed for bankruptcy this year. These included Pier 1, J.Crew, Nieman Marcus, J.C. Penney, GNC, and Brooks Brothers. Among them, they closed hundreds of stores. The retailer that has closed the most locations this year, a total of 1,000, is Ascena Retail Group.
Ascena Retail Group is publicly traded. Its bankruptcy wiped out investors. The stock traded as high as $8.50 this year. That has dropped to $.08. The brands the company owned are Ann Taylor, Cacique, Catherines, Lane Bryant, Lou & Grey, LOFT, and Justice. It filed Chapter 11 on July 23.
As part of its reorganization, Ascena Retail Group closes all of its retail operations in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Canada. Private-equity firm Sycamore Partners bought several of the brands, which included Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant, Loft, and Lou & Grey. The transaction is what triggers most of the store shuttering.
Regardless of the owners, the Ascena Retail Group brands are not out of financial danger. The march toward an e-commerce future will likely continue to accelerate into next year. The spread of the pandemic has worsened. And, the consumer has gotten used to a level of convenience a trip to a store cannot match.
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A Brisbane-based broker has invested $100,000 in a new TV campaign starring a well-known comedian as it looks to grow their brand presence across the Sunshine State.
George Samios, founder of Madd Loans and winner of the Editor’s Pick category for Queensland at The Adviser’s Better Business Awards 2016, said the three-month campaign will include five different 15-second ads that star Australian comedian Vince Sorrenti, to be broadcast on Channel Seven and Channel Nine.
“The ads are all really weird but funny and people will think, ‘What the hell is going on?’, but that’s our branding,” he told The Adviser.
Mr Samios said the TV campaign will be accompanied by marketing on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and the Madd Loans website will be rebranded to promote the campaign.
“Our brand speaks for itself. Everyone knows that we do the right thing, we find the right loans for our customers and we try to make the experience as fun as possible, so the ads are going to reflect that,” he said.
Mr Samios said the key reason for the state-wide campaign is to take the company further in its branding and visibility, rather than generating new business.
“We’ve done cinema advertising, we’ve done YouTube, we’ve done social media, we’ve done radio so I think the next step for us is doing TV because I believe once you’re on TV, you’re competing against Aussie and Mortgage Choice, which is where I want to be,” he said.
“I don’t expect to get any loans from this. I want to open up more offices and build a brand, so there’s no call to action in the ads – it’s just simple, funny branding.
“We probably will do a marketing campaign with these commercials after the Brisbane one, but Brisbane is our core.”
The campaign is scheduled to launch next month.


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Sustainable biopesticides maker Eden Research said its commercial partner in Spain and Portugal, has received authorisation for the sale of Eden's bio-fungicide in Spain for use on a range of new crops for the control of a larger number of fungal pathogens.
The product 3LOGY in Italy and Mevalone in the rest of Europe, was authorised and marketed under the trade name "ARAW" in Spain, the company said.
'The new authorisation will see ARAW used on major crops including strawberries, peppers, courgettes, aubergine, tomatoes, lettuce, brassicas, and raspberries,' the company said.
'Authorisation has now also been given for the use of ARAW on an expanded list of diseases including powdery mildew on a range of significant horticultural crops, as well as on grapes,' it added.
|Find this article at: http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---38649.htm


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Apple offers Diwali offers to all iPhone fans in India. When you buy an iPhone 11 from a recently launched online store, Apple offers AirPods for free. The offer starts on October 17th. Apple announced on the homepage of the online store.
Currently, the price of the iPhone 11-based variant with 64GB of internal storage is ￡68,300. iPhone 11 costs ￡73,600 for 128 GB of internal storage and 84,100 for 256 GB.
At Apple’s Indian online store, the price of AirPods with a charging case is ￡14,900. AirPods costly for wireless charging cases ￡18,900.Customers need to shell out ￡24,900 for AirPods Pro.
Apple has joined Amazon and Flipkart and will be offering a special holiday season in mid-October.Amazon’s Great Indian Festival will also start on October 17th, with the e-tailer iPhone 11 ￡49,999. Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale starts on October 16th.
If you consider Amazon’s iPhone 11 offer, your customers will continue to pay. ￡3,000 if purchased directly from the Apple Official Store. Apple also has a disclaimer that this offer will be available on availability.
Introvert. Beer guru. Communicator. Travel fanatic. Web advocate. Certified alcohol geek. Tv buff. Subtly charming internet aficionado.


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Oct. 5 marks the one-year anniversary of Steve Jobs' death. During that time, Apple has had some amazing successes and some spectacular failures.
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Miss: Apple unveiled its Siri voice-control software at the iPhone 4S launch on October 4, 2011, the day before Jobs died. Last month's iOS 6 upgrade included a collect of modest Siri improvements, including the ability to open apps, provide sports scores and movie show times, and make dinner reservations. As personal assistants go, Siri can be both efficient and witty--yet maddeningly clueless at times. Yes, it's still in "beta," but that's a bogus label designed to deflect criticism. A year after its arrival, Siri remains a novelty act. Let's hope that ongoing refinements to its speech recognition engine will lead to a smarter Siri's in future Apple devices.
Building A Mobile Business MindsetAmong 688 respondents, 46% have deployed mobile apps, with an additional 24% planning to in the next year. Soon all apps will look like mobile apps – and it's past time for those with no plans to get cracking.
Join us for a roundup of the top stories on InformationWeek.com for the week of April 24, 2016. We'll be talking with the InformationWeek.com editors and correspondents who brought you the top stories of the week!


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File storage and home servers are getting more and more popular these days, with people getting wary about what companies such as Google and Apple are privy too. In light of this, Drobo has launched a new Android app for photo storage, named DroboPix, prompted by "high customer demand" after the iOS release last year. Read More
It would be understandable if you have never heard of Meizu. While it is one of the top electronics companies in mainland China, the company isn't massively popular outside of the country. The M5 Note is the newest device to come out of Meizu, and like many of its recent phones, is being sold internationally.
From the spec sheet, the M5 Note looks like a solid device. A Mediatek Helio P10 CPU, 1080p LCD screen, at least 3GB of RAM, a massive 4,000mAh battery. The price is perhaps most impressive, costing just 899 CNY for the base model - roughly $131 USD. For comparison, the Moto G4 Play with a Snapdragon 410, 720p display, and 2GB of RAM costs more at its regular price. Read More
You may remember that right at the end of December, OnePlus started rolling out OxygenOS 4.0, essentially Android 7.0 Nougat, for the OnePlus 3 and 3T. And you'd be completely correct. However, this was halted after 4.0 was found to be buggy and unstable for the OnePlus 3T. Now, 4.0.2 is rolling out, fixing the bugs and stabilizing the update. Read More
Back in August, Cody found strings in his teardown of Google Maps v9.34 beta that hinted at an upcoming display of parking difficulty. The option may have crept up for some users since then, but now we have our first glance into how the feature will work since it
has started showing up for more is live for users on Maps v9.44 beta.
Parking availability will be shown as a small rounded P icon next to your route duration estimate when you search for driving directions, followed by more descriptive text. Read More
The Xperia Z5 series (Z5, Z5 Compact, and Z5 Premium) was on the list of devices that Sony promised to bring Android 7.0 Nougat to. After releasing the update to the more recent X Performance and XZ, then the X and X Compact, Sony is now ready to bring Nougat 7.0 to the Z5.
The OTA has started rolling out to some Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Premium users and will probably expand to the Z5 Compact soon. It's a large download at more than 1.2GB, and it should up your phone's software to version 32.3.A.0.372. Read More
Google always seems to be tweaking reviews in the Play Store, changing how they're presented to users and trying to make it easier to see how an app/game fares and how users perceive it. We've been seeing Review Highlights, detailed Feature Ratings for games that divide the rating by controls, gameplay, and graphics, and more. One of the tweaks is Top Features, a list of the best features a given app has, approved by users who give it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.
Top Features started showing up back in August of 2016, but it seemed to be limited to certain users before (mostly in the US from our anecdotal evidence). Read More
A built-in sharing feature for YouTube has been in various forms of testing for months, but now is now live for all Canadian YouTube users. You read that correctly - Canada actually received a feature first. Read More
The power of Google searches has always had an Achilles heel: terrible connections. Whether you have little to no mobile signal or less than stellar WiFi connectivity, you know the frustration when you're trying to look something up. There is nothing to counter this, but Google has officially rolled out an "offline search" feature which will deliver your searches to you when an adequate signal becomes available. Read More
Samsung's Galaxy devices include several exclusive applications developed by the company, one of which is Samsung Email. Like many OEMs do with their applications, Samsung has moved the Samsung Email application to the Play Store, allowing the company to provide updates outside of Android system updates. Read More
The HTC 10 was released early last year to mostly positive reviews, minus the high price tag, and caused us to give HTC the "Most Improved OEM" award for 2016. The Nougat rollout for the unlocked HTC 10 in the US started last month, but users across the pond will have to wait a little longer. Graham Wheeler, Product and Service Director for HTC EMEA, announced that the unlocked HTC 10 and One M9 in Europe will receive Nougat in the next two weeks. Read More


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Matalan secures deadline extension for debt repayment
Matalan has announced that its debt payments have been kicked back several months, buying the high street retailer more time to find cash.
The discount clothes retailer said that a January deadline to refinance £350m of debt has been pushed back to July.
Matalan described the update as “an important milestone” in its recapitalisation plan and said it would provide “increased certainty” to the company’s 11,000 staff members.
Monaco based founder John Hargreaves has been gunning to take back control of the retailer, entering into talks with prominent activist investor Elliott Advisors this month.
Based in Liverpool, Matalan employs 11,000 people and trades from 230 UK stores.
It also operates an e-commerce platform and has more than 50 overseas franchise stores.
The company claims to have 11 million customers.
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MWC Consumer messaging software continues to be widely used by enterprise employees, yet many would flock to an enterprise version if it were available, according to a report released by Infinite Convergence Solutions.
The research, which polled 500 employees across four industry verticals – healthcare, legal, finance, and retail – found 44% of employees regularly use mobile messaging throughout the workday, while only 17% in comparison uses an internal-company created messaging app most frequently.
A whopping 92% of respondents in healthcare say they would use a company-approved, organisation-wide mobile messaging platform if their company decided to implement one, yet only 24% said it was in place at their organisation. Only 13% of respondents in the legal industry say their company prohibits third-party messaging apps, while two thirds (67%) in finance said a sanctioned messaging platform would make their job easier.
In retail, it was a slightly different story: almost half (46%) said their company has an official mobile messaging platform; of that number, a quarter (25%) say it is Skype, compared with Google Chat (16%) and Facebook Messenger (13%) respectively.
“Our study suggests that employees are increasingly using mobile messaging to communicate at work, but they’re receiving mixed signals on the dangers associated with third-party messaging apps,” said Anurag Lal, CEO of Infinite Convergence in a statement. “Many of them are aware that consumer apps are not secure, but their employers are not providing an official, compliant platform for their use.”
This publication has long since explored the ramifications for businesses who use consumer-grade platforms for their business needs. In September, Skype suffered a particularly debilitating outage that left the UK, parts of Europe, Japan, and Australia, in the dark. Naturally, there is an enterprise equivalent in Skype for Business, formerly Lync. Yet research also shows employees shun company-issued collaboration tools.
It’s all about getting the balance right between making employees more productive and keeping data secure, with a bit of skilful onboarding on top.
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam and explore the future of enterprise technology.


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A weakening economy forces textile shows to adjust.
NEW YORK — Organizers of international textile fairs are feeling the sting of the weak economy and poor exchange rates as they prepare to kick off another season of fiber and fabric shows next month.
The poor economic environment has already changed the makeup of New York textile week, which is slated to begin on July 16. One casualty has been the Turkish Fashion Fabric Exhibition, launched by the Istanbul Textile & Apparel Exporters' Associations, also known as ITKIB, in 2002. Attendance among both exhibitors and buyers had been steadily declining in recent years as Turkish mills grappled with rising costs and poor exchange rates, and over the last several years some mills opted to move to the higher-profile Première Vision Preview or Texworld USA shows.
Exhibitors at the January edition of the show saw few buyers and widely believed that it was unlikely that the show could continue. Several sales representatives noted that the Turkish government's financial support of the show mandated that at least 20 mills exhibit, but only 15 mills presented at the show. Others noted that the weak American dollar forced Turkish mills to focus their efforts on improving their business with European and Middle Eastern clients.
ITKIB has since confirmed that the New York show will no longer take place, nor will its show in Milan.
"We believe that the Texbridge New York formed a strong bridge between the American market and the prominent members of the Turkish textile [community] and that it proudly fulfilled its duty. Our valuable member companies have now solidified their place in the U.S. market," read a statement on the show's Web site. "Even though the Texbridge New York will no longer take place in the near future, we keep our full confidence and excitement in our future projects in the United States."
Prefab: The Supima Premium Fabric Show is also making significant changes for its fourth edition that organizers hope will better suit buyers' schedules. The show will move to a one-day format, occurring July 15 at Gotham Hall in Manhattan, and will dispense with the traditional trade show model of mills setting up booths to show their product. Instead, Supima has obtained fabrics from between 25 and 30 mills and will handle displaying them and taking sample orders from buyers."We're looking for the best way that we can serve the buyer," said Buxton Midyette, marketing director for Supima. "[Buyers] are really time constrained and need to get a lot done in a little bit of time."
Midyette said the format change should benefit those mills who previously exhibited at multiple shows during the week. It will also allow the organizers to show a broader range of fabric made exclusively from Supima. Previous editions of the show featured 12 to 15 mills that were allowed to show non-Supima products.
Organizers have also added a design competition that will culminate with a runway show the evening of the 15th. Supima hosted an open call for "emerging designers" on June 17 that drew 50 contestants. The field was narrowed down to 25 designers, each of whom will be given 10 yards of Supima fabric to use for their runway design.
Midyette said that because Supima is a premium fiber it has been somewhat shielded from the effects of the weakening economy. Exports of American Supima have reached record levels as well. For the week ended June 19, shipments of American Supima stood at 779,800 bales, a 36.8 percent improvement from the 570,000 bales shipped during the same period a year ago. Still, farmers are facing rapidly rising costs for things such as fertilizer, causing some to move toward crops with higher profit margins such as corn.
"It's just a slower environment, there's no question," said Midyette.
Stephanie Everett, group show manager for Messe Frankfurt Inc., which produces Texworld USA, said she has seen "a little pullback" from mills. According to Everett, the number of mills exhibiting at the show has decreased slightly. An estimated 185 mills, primarily from Asia, are scheduled to exhibit, representing 15 countries.
Texworld USA runs July 14 to 16 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
Everett said she and her staff have been speaking with many mills whose executives are nervous about the strength of the U.S. market. She has stressed to them that the number of preregistered buyers is still increasing and that there are still pockets of the market that continue to perform."Obviously there's not a pullback in terms of designers coming to the show," she said. "We're trying to get across to our exhibitors that there's still sourcing going on."
Alex d'Archangelo, marketing manager of textile shows at Messe Frankfurt, has presented mills with reports detailing current trends and those retailers who are performing well. Private label is one area showing strength as well as junior specialty stores, she said.
"We're trying to educate our exhibitors on what they should be trying to promote, like flexible minimums and shorter lead times," said d'Archangelo.
Everett noted that the weak dollar value should benefit lower-cost Asian mills. And despite the decrease in exhibitor levels, the show remains the largest in New York.
Paul Cavazos, director of marketing and sales with Olah Inc., which produces the Kingpins denim show, believes fabric buyers are facing extreme pressure to keep costs down.
"The pressure for the people who look at and buy fabric now is pretty strong," said Cavazos. "Nobody is behaving luxuriously. If before it was a penny business, now it's a half-penny business." Cavazos pointed out that fabric can often account for 50 percent of the cost of a garment.
"From the early stages the conversations are serious," he said. "The buyers are demanding, they have a lot of pressure right now."
Cavazos believes that the fabric industry could be approaching its nadir.
"I'm optimistic that the market is on the upswing," he said. "The fact that these textile shows are moving or closing is an indication of the dips of last year."
In May, Urban Expositions announced that it would be launching Material World West, a new Los Angeles show to replace its annual New York event. Tim von Gal, president of Material World, said the West Coast venue would open access to California's domestic production and manufacturing hubs, and serve as a gateway to the Pacific Rim countries.
"It's important for vendors, mills and contractors that we present the largest customer opportunity, and California, with its dynamic production community and fashion manufacturing base, offers exceptional access," he said.The inaugural show on the West Coast is scheduled for Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, 2009, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Première Vision Preview is set to run July 16 to 17 at the Metropolitan Pavilion. A show representative said more than 2,000 attendees have preregistered and that they are expecting to have the same number of exhibitors as the winter edition.
The Los Angeles International Textile Show will run Oct. 27 to 29 at the California Market Center.
“Azzedine has been one of the biggest influences in my life. He has always been such a strong, loving, fatherly figure to me. I call him Papa. His designs are indescribably unique, they are pieces of art. He knew how to make the female form look its loveliest. I have so many memories of him; my favorite might be during my first show with him in Paris. He liked me and he wanted to help me get more work. He called all his friends at Kenzo and Comme des Garcons, and asked them to book me. They said, ‘But she can’t walk!’ And he said, ‘but she has such a great ass!' His friendship and support has been the great privilege of my career. I can't imagine life without him. Repose en paix mon Papa.” - @stephanieseymour tells @wwd. #wwdfashion (📷: @steveeichner) #alaia #azzedinealaia
Azzedine Alaïa, flanked by two of his closest friends, models Stephanie Seymour and Naomi Campbell.
He designed Seymour’s dress for her 1995 wedding to Peter Brant, and treated Campbell (who famously called him Papa), like a daughter. For more on the legendary designer, tap the link in bio. #wwdfashion #alaia #azzedinealaia
Azzedine Alaïa's “I-did-it-my-way” ethos stood out starkly at a time when brands are experimenting with consumer-facing fashion shows, coed formats and trans-seasonal collections – anything to perk up lackluster sales of ready-to-wear in an age of Insta-everything. “It’s not creation anymore. This becomes a purely industrial approach,” the late designer told WWD in an interview last year. “But anyway, the rhythm of collections is so stupid. It’s unsustainable. There are too many collections.” Read more about the iconic designer’s life and work on wwd.com, link in bio. #wwdfashion #azzedinealaia (📷: @WWD Archive, 1986) #alaia
Sneaker reselling app @goat’s latest exhibit, "The Greatest: New York," tells the story of New York's sneaker culture. To celebrate the exhibit, an intimate crowd gathered on Thursday night at the pop-up gallery space, located at Platform in Culver City, to hear guest speaker and illustrator @esymai talk about her own rise in streetwear and women in the business. "For me I'm just someone who is creative. I like to create things," said Chang. #wwdfashion
Azzedine Alaïa, one of the most iconic couturiers of the modern era whose body-con designs defined Eighties fashion, has died in Paris. The diminutive Tunisian-born designer, known for his structured knitted dresses with fitted waists and impeccably cut, figure-hugging second skin silhouettes was deeply admired by his peers, and counted supermodel Naomi Campbell - his adoptive daughter - among his inner circle, one of a gang of glamazons including Farida Khelfa, Carla Bruni and Stephanie Seymour who became ambassadors of his style. (📷: Alexandre Guirkinger) #wwdblast


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The 2012 Olympics is finally within touching distance and one company that is fully engaged with the opportunity is BP. Its forecourts up and down the land have been appropriately adorned with Olympic imagery, most notably of the six athlete ambassadors that BP has been supporting on their Olympic journey for the past two years.
Three Olympic athletes heptathlete Jessica Ennis; road cyclist Lizzie Armistead; 110 metre hurdler William Sharman; and three Paralympic athletes wheelchair racer Shelly Woods, long jumper and sprinter Stef Reid; and sprinter and marathon runner Richard Whitehead were chosen by BP on the basis of their great medal potential and personalities.
"They’ve been fantastic ambassadors for BP," confirms Neale Smither, BP’s head of UK retail. "We think they’ve been powerful endorsements for the BP brand, doing promotional work, attending dealer forums and staff engagement sessions."
He views the company’s involvement in the Olympics as helping to put across the message that BP in the UK is investing to be associated with the best, and will represent the best of retail forecourt fuels and convenience.
"BP is very much committed to staying in the UK and to building a strong, leading footprint of fuel and convenience offers," he says. "The news flow fuel prices, companies like Total exiting the market, Coryton could get one to feel quite gloomy. But throughout we’ve remained very positive and continue to believe that the right mix of fuel and convenience on a forecourt is the way to build a strong business into the future.
"We should accept that our core product motor fuel is in long-term decline. But if you have a site that is well located, with the right offers, you can actually access growth in fuel by remaining as others exit."
Smither says he is more concerned about BP’s share of the best quality sites, and less about total market share although he does dispute Catalist’s current estimate that BP has 14.9% share of the fuel market.
"We believe we have 16% share if you include the fuel card business through retail sites so we would still claim to be market leaders. But that is not in itself a number-one priority. What is important is that we have more than 50% of the dealer network of sites that pump above 5mlpa. We are growing our share of the dealer market currently 875 and in particular the higher quality end. We don’t have a refinery in the UK, so the success of our business is not necessarily defined by how much volume we can push and sell.
"What we’re finding is the best route to maximising our profitability and ability to generate the cash required to grow the business, is by focusing on the better-quality sites, because they seem to be more robust against recession and the structural decline that we see in the fuels market in the UK.
"However convenience isn’t in structural decline. We would see the long-term growth rate of forecourt convenience to be somewhere between two and three per cent. So by being well-positioned in that space, you can access some natural market growth."
Smither says that the company’s 300-strong company-owned network has enjoyed strong growth by pursuing a four-strand strategy: quality fuels (Ultimate); good convenience offer (M&S, BP Express, which is currently being evolved as a simplified franchise offer for dealers); well-established loyalty programme (Nectar); and quality coffee/food-to-go proposition (Wild Bean).
"Working with Marks & Spencer (currently on 150 sites) has been a successful partnership that we’re looking to grow," says Smither.
Smither says dealers who pursue a similar strategy have also been successful, and he is absolutely thrilled to have recently signed the entire 12-site business of former Forecourt Trader of the Year, Patrick Sewell (see page 25): "I think the choice is becoming clearer for dealers. They can go with a major brand although those choices are becoming more limited as companies like Total exit; Shell focuses primarily on its company-owned network; and Esso looks to exit from certain geographies."
The other choice for dealers, says Smither, is to potentially look at some of the newer brands coming into the market, which are more wholesale driven. "Dealers in that situation might get a better price, but they’re not necessarily getting the benefits associated with consumer brand recognition.
"What we know is that when dealers move away from any brand, and put BP on the pole sign, they’re generally seeing volume uplifts."
Fuel brand is important, stresses Smither, but in order to sustain that position, it’s necessary to continue to get the BP message out to the public.
"That’s where the Olympics sponsorship is key, getting BP out into the public domain and continuing to build that brand recognition and preference."
BP decided that it was right, as a big, global corporation, headquartered in London, to be a lead sponsor behind a once-in-a-lifetime event like the Olympics.
"It presents our business with a fantastic opportunity which we’ve tried to translate for our customers and dealers through a number of initiatives," says Smither. "Firstly we are going to be the fuel provider for the entire Games fleet of vehicles a combination of around 5,000 cars and buses which will be driving athletes and officials around during Games time.
"They will be filling up exclusively at our London sites. We have around 50 in the London area which have all been primed to receive the Olympic fleet of cars and buses.
"We’re also supplying fuel to the generators that will fire up the stadiums. Many of the stadiums are not on the grid it’s a big responsibility for us to ensure diesel fuel gets to the stadiums to power the generators so they remain functioning through the Games.
"We’re also using the Olympics to showcase BP’s position as a leading fuels supplier with a ’BP Fuelling the Future’ project at our Hammersmith site. It is not only an example of what a modern BP site of today looks like, but the types of fuel products we could expect to be seeing on BP sites in the future.
"They will be advanced biofuel-friendly products but are a glimpse into the future, as opposed to us being ready to launch them.
"We hope dealers will benefit from raised/increased awareness around the quality of BP products, which will continue to persuade customers to come to BP-branded sites."
It is intended that the exposure gained by the Olympic sponsorship by focusing on BP as a quality fuels provider will continue into next year and the arrival of the new E10 fuel, and the confusion that might bring to motorists.
"BP is developing a strategy around the launch of E10 for our dealers to make sure they are well placed to respond when the product starts appearing in the UK market, and we go through a period of uncertainty for consumers," explains Smither.
Meanwhile, with its truck fleet, and 70% of its national network adorned with Olympic branding, BP is building engagement with its retailers and customers in the run-up to the event which runs from July 27 to August 12.
BP sites are also running an Olympic medallions collection promotion featuring 12 Olympic legends, with proceeds going to the British Olympic Association.
As Smither reflects on the coming weeks and months, he is very clear about his vision of the future for the BP network that a customer should have a similar set of expectations at whatever site they visit in the UK, whether it is owned by BP or a dealer partner.
"BP will continue to focus on those dealers and sites which we think are in the best locations, and are the best-operated sites with the four key propositions, because our vision is to create a national network of co-owned and dealer-owned sites which presents itself in a consistent high-quality fashion to consumers.
"We think Olympic fever is coming. BP is now well-placed with its brand presentation of the Olympics on our sites, on our trucks, and in the media, to associate BP with this once-in-a-lifetime event, and we think that will further help to build and enhance the power of the brand in the UK.
"Our hope is dealers will see the benefit of this association through stronger sales, not only now but going forward on their BP-branded sites."
Nick Lloyd, managing director, Symonds Forecourts
"All of our BP sites are getting the Olympics message out there and the closer we get to the Olympics the more important it will become. The flag scheme is really eye catching. From a point of difference perspective, it gives us something to shout about we’ve got the Olympics represented with BP. When you drive past other brand sites, there’s not a lot going on. The BP image looks very strong, very professional and it gives people another reason to pop in and see what’s happening.
"The medals promotion has been slightly disappointing. We’ve been trying to up-sell but unfortunately it hasn’t captured people’s imaginations. We’ve had a lot going on at the same with the Euros so it’s still quite early for the Olympics. There are 12 medals to collect and we’re on the fifth week but I think we’ve only sold about 20% of what we originally estimated, which is disappointing. Collectors schemes have always been good but we’ve got lots of stock left. It’s the timing issue, which is a challenge for retailers. Customers are just not in the Olympics mode yet. BP has recognised that we’re overstocked and are trying to find a solution for dealers. I think they are looking at doing something like a booklet of all 12 medals.
"The only dark side of the Olympics is what’s going to happen when the hours change for big stores on Sundays from July 22 to September 9. That’s going to be our biggest threat this summer. We’re looking at what we can do to maintain trade during that period because Sundays are our most profitable day of the week. The BP will activity will help because it’s so eye-catching and will make people stop and look at us."
Jonathan James, director, James Graven & Sons
"It’s to be celebrated that BP has got involved in the Olympics as much as it has. We’ve got all the banners and flags, which make the forecourt look lovely and very striking. The general feedback from customers has been good. The banners are certainly noticeable. Sales of the medals are ticking over they’re not flying out but the staff are getting behind it and upselling them. We’ve got far more stock than we need it’s like Royal Mint in the stockroom!
"The problem with the Olympics is it’s at the end of an incredibly busy summer anyway, but now its time has come. Everyone celebrated the Jubilee, and now England is out of the Euros, we’ve parked those bits, so now everyone can concentrate on the Olympics."
John Mason, managing director, Peregrine Retail
"The outside point-of-sale is very good. The flags and big banners have added some interest to the site and some interest in the Olympics. From that perspective it’s been worthwhile. We’ve also been sent an awful lot of products to sell the medals and die-cast models of things like a London Bus.
"We’ve only sold about a quarter of what BP sent, which was a bit below my expectation, but we were sent quite a lot. I can’t see many people wanting to spend £2 on a medal or investing in a collection and I don’t think the prizes on offer have caught too many people’s imaginations. We don’t get charged until they reconcile what we’ve sold against what we were sent."


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Details about the rumored Motorola phone code-named “Sholes Tablet,” the sequel to the recently released and highly-acclaimed DROID, leaked on a Chinese message board (Google translation). The leaked photos suggest an impressive spec sheet for Motorola’s encore, including a 3.7-inch screen and HDMI output.
Motorola’s DROID, released in October, is by most accounts a solid phone, anchored by its Google Android 2.0 OS and 550MHz processor. However, the DROID, whose codename in development was “Sholes,” may be bested by the Sholes Tablet in as soon as a few months. According to the leak, the Sholes Tablet will feature a capacitive 3.7″ screen at WVGA resolution with multi-touch support and the same speedy processor powering the DROID.
Most impressive, however, is the HDMI port built directly into the phone which will reportedly allow the Sholes Tablet to record and output 720p video. This is made possible by the 8-megapixel camera inlcuded in the new model, a step up from the 5-megapixel camera in the DROID. If these specs are true, your HD video collection may soon go mobile and make your Zune jealous.
One notable downgrade, however, is the removal of the sliding QWERTY keyboard. While Android does have support for an on-screen software keyboard, you may want to stick to the DROID if you find yourself writing long emails or editing your memoirs. Otherwise, the Sholes Tablet will have plenty to keep you entertained. Stay on the lookout for an official announcement.
[Mobile01 via BoyGeniusReport and Engadget]
Follow @ geektech on Twitter for more news on hardware, hacks, and cutting-edge tech.


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Qatar World Cup: Belgium away kit rejected by FIFA because 'love' is written inside collar
Belgium spokesman Stefan Van Loock said FIFA banned the shirt because of commercial links to the Tomorrowland music festival - not the rainbow colours classically linked to the LGBTQ community.
Tuesday 22 November 2022 11:26, UK
Belgium's World Cup squad have had their away kit rejected by FIFA due to the word 'love' appearing inside the collar, a team spokesman has said.
The white shirt features a rainbow-coloured trim and has 'love' written inside where the label would usually appear.
It was inspired by the Belgian music festival Tomorrowland, which promotes diversity, equality and inclusivity.
Belgium spokesman Stefan Van Loock said FIFA banned the shirt because of commercial links to the festival - not the rainbow colours classically linked to the LGBTQ community.
The squad's warm-up shirt has also been rejected due to references to Tomorrowland, Mr Van Loock said.
It comes as fans and members of the media report having rainbow items confiscated, despite assurances from Qatari and FIFA officials that fans would be free to wear them and wave flags.
Wales fan Laura McAllister, who stood for the FIFA council last year, tweeted about her experience following the Wales v USA game on Monday.
US journalist 'detained' over rainbow shirt
US journalist Grant Wahl said he was detained for 25 minutes for wearing a rainbow T-shirt to the same game and was forced to remove it by officials.
FIFA ruled just before the tournament kicked off that England, Wales and other teams planning to wear 'OneLove' armbands would have their captains punished with yellow cards.
The governing body has said Belgium will be able to wear their away shirts providing 'love' is taped over.
They were introduced in September and have been sported at several European games since.
Due to the FIFA ruling, the Red Devils will play their first three games in their home kit instead, Mr Van Loock said.
FIFA has not yet commented on the issue.


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The number of UK subscribers for TV services like Netflix, Amazon and NOW TV, has overtaken traditional satellite and cable TV for the first time, media regulator Ofcom announced.
Netflix, Amazon and NOW TV attracted 15.4m subscribers in the first quarter, ahead of 15.1m pay-TV contracts, Ofcom added, citing BARB Establishment Survey data.
But traditional pay-TV, such as Virgin Media’s cable and Sky’s satellite services, still generated significantly more revenue than video-on-demand subscriptions.
Talking about this shift, Ofcom Chief Executive Sharon White said: “The research finds that what we watch and how we watch it are changing rapidly, which has profound implications for UK television. We have seen a decline in revenues for pay-TV a fall in spending on new programmes by our public service broadcasters and the growth of global video streaming giants. These challenges cannot be overestimated.”
The development marks a major competitive shift in the TV industry as the rise of the global internet firms and changing viewing habits, especially among younger viewers.


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Wall Street has had a rough start to 2022 as continued weakness is being observed on the bourses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.5% on Jan 18. The other two broad market indices, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite, also declined 1.8% and 2.6%, respectively on the same day. In fact, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite touched its
lowest level in three months on Jan 18. For the first time since April 2020, the Nasdaq Composite closed below its 200-day moving average yesterday. Also, the small-cap benchmark Russell 2000 declined about 3.1%.
The reason for this tech market slowdown can essentially be the soaring benchmark 10-year Treasury yields, which went up as high as above 1.87% on Jan 18. Growth sectors like the tech space have been feeling the pain of rising bond yields as the same decreases the relative value of future earnings, making the popular stocks seem overvalued. Tech companies also face hurdles in funding their growth and buying back stocks due to higher rates (per a CNBC article).
High inflation levels continue to be a serious concern for Americans. Once again, the latest inflation data demonstrates the metrics’ record-high levels. The Federal Reserve has also hinted at taking aggressive measures to manage rising inflation levels. It is expected to begin raising its benchmark interest rate in March. In fact, Goldman Sachs is expecting the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates four times this year, according to a CNBC article.
In this regard, Kathy Bostjancic, the chief U.S. financial market economist at Oxford Economics commented that “The bond market is continuing to price in a more aggressive policy tightening by Federal Reserve based on still-high inflation and the Fed’s more hawkish guidance,” per a CNBC article.
Certain other factors are clouding the U.S. investment market. Investors are waiting for the fourth-quarter results and the outlook to be presented by corporate America for 2022.
The release of certain disappointing economic data releases is also raising concerns. For starters, the latest data on U.S. industrial output appears to be disappointing as aggravating COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant are affecting the recovery of the U.S. economy. Per the Fed’s recently-released data, total industrial production decreased 0.1% in December. A 0.3% decline in manufacturing output compared unfavorably with a revised rise of 0.6% in November. There was a 1.5% fall in utility production. Meanwhile, mining production witnessed a 2% gain mainly due to strength in the oil and gas sector. U.S. retail sales also slid 1.9% sequentially in December, marking the biggest fall since February 2021 and ending four successive months of strong growth.
Moreover, U.S. consumers are feeling the heat of continuously rising inflation levels. The latest disappointing preliminary consumer sentiment readings for early January that have slipped to the second-lowest level in a decade highlight the same. The University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment declined to 68.8 in early January from 70.6 last month. The metric lagged the market forecast of a fall to 70.0, per the Reuters survey on economists.
Consumer Staples ETFs to Watch
The consumer staples sector is known for its non-cyclical nature and acts as a safe haven amid unstable market conditions. Moreover, like utility, consumer staples is considered a stable sector for the long term as its players are likely to offer decent returns.
Investors can consider parking their money in the non-cyclical consumer staples sector during an economic recession. This high-quality sector, which is largely defensive, has a low correlation factor with economic cycles.
Research shows that consumer staples companies mostly outperform in times of market turbulence. Thus, the space generally acts as a safe haven for investors. Moreover, consumer staples stocks have more stable profit levels in a contracting economy.
Here we highlight certain ETFs that can be safe bets (see:
all Consumer Staples ETFs here): The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund ( XLP Quick Quote XLP - Free Report)
The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund seeks to provide investment results that, before expenses, generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Consumer Staples Select Sector Index. With AUM of $14.14 billion, XLP has an expense ratio of 12 basis points (bps).
Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF ( VDC Quick Quote VDC - Free Report)
Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF seeks to track the performance of the MSCI US Investable Market Consumer Staples 25/50 Index. With AUM of $6.70 billion, VDC has an expense ratio of 10 bps (read:
5 Defensive ETF Bets for Dealing With Fed Rate Hike Woes). Fidelity MSCI Consumer Staples Index ETF ( FSTA Quick Quote FSTA - Free Report)
Fidelity MSCI Consumer Staples Index ETF seeks to provide investment returns that correspond, before fees and expenses, generally to the performance of the MSCI USA IMI Consumer Staples Index. FSTA has an AUM of $934.1 million and charges 8 bps in fees.
iShares U.S. Consumer Staples ETF ( IYK Quick Quote IYK - Free Report)
iShares U.S. Consumer Staples ETF seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of U.S. equities in the consumer staples sector. IYK has an AUM of $782.4 million and charges 41 bps in fees (read:
5 Best-Performing ETFs of December). First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund ( FXG Quick Quote FXG - Free Report)
First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund seeks investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield, before fees and expenses, of an equity index called the StrataQuant Consumer Staples Index. With AUM of $324.4 million, FXG has an expense ratio of 64 bps.


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System monitoring can be expensive and difficult, but it doesn't have to be. Pulseway changes the enterprise monitoring and management game with its mobile management solution. Now you can receive alerts and manage your systems from anywhere on any device. Monitor and manage all of your Windows, Linux, and Mac servers and workstations with a simple app on your mobile device.
Showing results 1 to 20 of 2,540
The world's second largest semiconductor foundry is getting into MRAM, a high-performance, long-life alternative to flash. Here's what that means for storage.
With the move to buy Skyera, Western Digital is looking to beef up its HGST unit's solid state storage knowhow as flash storage becomes common.
Microsoft has added bitcoin as a payment option for US-based Microsoft account purchases of Xbox games and mobile content, along with other products and services in its Windows Store.
Microsoft will share more about the Windows 10 'consumer experience' at an event on January 21 in Redmond.
Coffee drinkers in Portland can now place a drink and food order on their iPhone, pay, then pick it up all without talking to a single person. Welcome to the future of mobile ordering.
Microsoft is working on its next preview releases of Windows 10 for desktops, mobile devices and servers. Here's the latest from tipsters about what to expect when.
The deluge of additions and upgrades at the Amazon Web Services summit last week just wasn't enough for the Internet giant.
Microsoft officials are attributing a nearly 11-hour Azure outage across a large part of the world earlier this week to a performance update the company made to its Storage services.
The brains behind Fusion-io — the company that revolutionized server economics with PCI flash storage — are at it again. Primary Data plans to disrupt enterprise storage. Here's how.
The latest update to Apple's mobile software comes with performance improvements to its older devices, notably the iPhone 4s and the iPad 2.
From secure containers to Docker support, to abstracted networking and storage, the most interesting features in the next version of Windows Server will come next year with a later preview and System Center beta.
The Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Flash Player all have critical security vulnerabilities patched in a new version.
Dell is ramping up its storage product line with high-performance enterprise capabilities, including all-flash and hyper-converged appliances.
HP's Storage unit unveiled new advancements on Wednesday intended to simplify the transition to flash storage while preserving legacy infrastructure investments.
Microsoft joins a push towards ARM servers that have been building up for years.
Microsoft is reportedly pondering an ARM-based flavor of Windows Server. The idea may just make sense.
All-flash storage companies funded by Samsung Electronics are expanding their presence in South Korea, reports ZDNet Korea's Cho Mu-hyun.
Salesforce's co-founder also clarified that the CRM giant's mobile strategy is focused on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone -- but not Blackberry.
Intel is buying its way into the mobile market with subsidies to vendors, but that investment — on track to lose $4 billion in 2014 — is needed if it's going to threaten the ARM ecosystem.
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Video Industry News Video Company News Technology Industry News Technology Company News Novelty Industry News Novelty Company News Gay Industry News Gay Company News Legal Industry News All Company News
Released: Dec 18th, 2007
Running Time: 132 Min.
Director: Jonni Darkko
Companies: Darkko Productions, Evil Angel
Cast: Jonny Depth, Eva Angelina, Lindsey Meadows, Brianna Love, Mark Ashley, Gianna, Renae Cruz, Rachel Roxxx, Alexis Texas
Critical Rating: AAAA
As usual, Darkko's female cast is extraordinarily hot. While the bikinis are more conventional in design than what you'd find at Wicked Weasel's online store, swimwear enthusiasts will nonetheless get their rocks off at the sight of these tight and toned beach bunnies. A second disc features a bonus not-to-be-missed Alexis Texas scene.
Pre-nom: Best Couples Sex Scene – Video: Brianna Love and Mark Ashley.
Retailing: Toned babes in a bikini bonanza; stock with Evil Angel titles.