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As the world awakens to the importance of environmentally-friendly business practices, data storage has been placed under scrutiny. Website hosting data centres use a staggering amount of energy to run their equipment and keep it cool. The high levels of power required to host websites and store their data, has inspired several providers to offset […]
Experts agree that 2020 will be a record-breaking year for online sales. The entire customer journey has gone digital, from marketing to direct sales.
For years now, many independent Canadian retailers have viewed the internet as a competitor. They blamed it for falling sales, then threw up their hands at the prices and selection that they couldn’t possibly compete with.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day and the entire holiday season can be a challenge, especially when you aren’t sure what to expect. Fourth quarter online transactions are expected to skyrocket this year, but how will it impact your sales specifically?
In most Canadian shopping circles, women rule. They’re a huge target market as the person in the household who does most of the shopping, both for themselves and their families. Internet shopping is a bit different though, especially when it comes to holiday shopping online. For example, an Ipsos holiday shopping survey found Canadian men […]
More and more Canadians are considering internet side hustles, home-based businesses, or selling their products online. Amazon provides a platform to quickly and profitably turn those dreams into reality, even if you’re new to online business. Within three months, most beginners have their Amazon business started and their first live listing. Almost all of them […]
Your Christmas eCommerce campaigns should launch by early October if you want to take full advantage of online shoppers. For the business-to-business (B2B) market, you should start even earlier. The online holiday season starts early because it ends early due to shipping time, and other factors can amplify the urgency (such as a pandemic). If […]
It’s going to be a record-breaking year in online sales this holiday season. From research to purchase, most of the customer journey will be online. Thirty-two percent of Canadians said they plan to buy more online this year, according to Canada Post, and that survey was conducted before the pandemic hit. We now know online […]
Online shopping for Halloween is expected to grow in Canada in 2020, thanks in part to the pandemic and more savvy online marketing. Canadians are taking enough of a currency exchange hit when ordering from the US to discourage it. Additionally, more and more Canadians are showing a preference for shopping in their own country […]
The value of content marketing for both Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) companies has been proven to a point of universal acceptance, yet it is still underutilized in Canadian eCommerce. Using content to its fullest extent and developing a working strategy is even more rare. The holiday season offers plenty of […]


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See the Synergy Grill in action at the industry’s leading events!
Hotelympia at ExCel in London last week was a huge success for the Synergy Grill team. As a product that has to be seen to be believed, we showcased Synergy’s numerous benefits and converted the thinking of many operators who thought they ‘weren’t in need currently of any grills or griddles.’ Welcome to the world of Synergy.
We put on cooking demonstrations all four days, giving visitors the chance to see and taste the superior effect that Synergy Grill has on the food being cooked: maximum caramelisation and retention of juices, allowing professional chef Ian Gibbs to talk at the same time as seamlessly serving meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, all without any cross-flavouring.
Not only were we at Hotelympia last week, we were also at the Lakes Hospitality Trade Show which took place at the Rural Auction Centre in Cumbria and is held as a celebration of the hospitality industry and allows local and national businesses to meet.
Top Michelin starred chefs like Cyrus Todiwala OBE and Shaun Rankin and leading hospitality groups were just some of those keen to be in on the action. Free Synergy demos are planned all over the country.
Next week the team will also be heading up north to Manchester for the Northern Restaurant and Bar Show which will bring the northern hospitality industry together for two days of networking, discovery and business improvement
We’ll be showcasing our multifunctional, fat-atomising, energy-efficient grill and if you’re visiting the show make sure you visit us at stand B40 to find out all about the intelligent cooking and unique benefits of the grill. No fat tray, no thermocouple, half the ventilation maintenance - can you afford not to operate with Synergy?
To find out more about the Northern Restaurant and Bar Awards, which is taking place at Manchester Central on March 20th to 21st, visit www.northernrestaurantandbar.co.uk and register for free to taste the best grilled food yet!
If you can’t make it, call or email us to book your free demo.

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Oracle’s Micros point-of-sale (POS) systems have found to have a critical vulnerability, which could be exploited to compromise and download a company’s complete business data. Micros customers are said to include a range of major retail chains, in addition to large worldwide hotels. ERPScan security researcher Dmitry Chastuhin who discovered the bug said it allows a hacker to gain unauthenticated read and write access to the POS server’s database.
In a blog post earlier this week, ERPScan said that access to a vulnerable device can allow an attacker to read local files and get hold of usernames and passwords to then have access to the entire database. This frequently includes customer names, contact information, and debit and credit cards. The flaw was classified by Oracle as an 8.1 out of 10 for its severity. ERPScan explained, “It means that the security issue is dangerous and must be patched primarily or an attacker will be able to read any file and receive information about various services without authentication from a vulnerable MICROS workstation.”
The bug is only exploitable by those with access to a vulnerable Micros POS device, for example, an employee. Many devices and machines in stores are ethernet-connected, which can allow a hacker to scan the entire network for vulnerable devices. Oracle said the complexity of the attack was “high”.
The flaw was fixed in Oracle’s CPU January 2018 as part of its quarterly patching schedule. In its post, Oracle said, it “continues to periodically receive reports of attempts to maliciously exploit vulnerabilities for which Oracle has already released fixes”. The company urged users to “apply Critical Patch Update fixes without delay”.
Oracle’s post led ERPscan to publish proof-of-concept code on GitHub.
Oracl Micros POS devices were also breached in 2016. In that instance, the attackers installed malware on the troubleshooting portal for MICROS payment terminals division, allowing it to capture customers’ usernames and passwords as they logged in. Gaining the log-in information allowed them to access customers’ accounts and remotely administer Oracle’s Micros POS terminals.
ERPScan issued advice, “If you want to secure your system from cyberattacks, you have to persistently implement all security patches provided by your vendor. In our case, refer to Oracle CPU January 2018.”
Point of sale terminals have frequently been under attack – if hackers can find their way in, they are greeted with the personal information, orders and credit card details of that company’s entire database of customers. Last year, Forever21 admitted that many of its POS terminals had been targeted, with malware installed on some of its pay terminals for over six months, putting thousands of customers at risk of credit card fraud in part because encryption had been turned off on some of its POS devices.


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PARIS -- As part of its goal to reach 600,000 global annual sales, Volvo Car Corp. wants to expand its product line into three new segments.
The new products will be spread above, below and smack in the middle of its present price range.
The three vehicles on the wish list are:
- A sedan-wagon crossover placed above the S80 and V70, based loosely on the V90 concept car.
- A car-based SUV derived from the S40 and V50 platform, similar to the BMW X3.
- A small hatchback-wagon sized below the V50, similar to the Audi A3.
The products have not received final approval. But Volvo executives say they are under serious consideration.
No introduction target nor projected volumes were given for the vehicles, but Volvo has said it wants to hit 600,000 annual sales by the end of the decade. This year, Volvo should sell about 450,000 units, which would be a record.
Through September this year, Volvo sold 93,817 vehicles in the United States, up 3.2 percent from the same period of 2003.
In stretching the lineup, Volvo Car Corp. CEO Hans-Olov Olsson has ambitious plans to see the Volvo lineup mentioned in the same breath as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus. Olsson also wants to see the Volvo brand have comparable profit, growth, customer satisfaction and perceived quality.
"We are going to outperform the Germans and Japanese," Olsson boldly predicted in an interview at the Paris Motor Show.
But Olsson also realizes that expansion plans carry risk.
"There is a balancing act of economies of scale versus integrity. We are not a mass manufacturer. You have to have an understanding when you are a premium brand about where you cannot compromise," Olsson said.
One area without compromise: interiors. Olsson nicked the German automakers for their over-reliance on gadgetry. Volvo will concentrate on refined interior materials.
"You can go wrong easily by over-investing in technology," Olsson said. "It is better to have sophistication in choosing your materials. There shouldn't be a shock for the person going from the outside to the inside."
At the top of the range, a large people-carrying crossover between a V70 and S80 is being examined, said Lex Kerssemakers, cqVolvo Car senior vice president for product and business strategy. But aduplicate of the V90 concept wagon is unlikely, because of its sheer size.
Another hot segment: small car-based SUVs. Kerssemakers said designers are still quibbling over "whether we make it a sport wagon like an Alfa 156, or a real SUV like a XC90."
Kerssemakers said Volvo has been working with Land Rover to share the architecture of such a vehicle, but that it is proving awkward.
"Land Rover is off-road focused with on-road capability, while Volvo is on-road focused with off-road capability," Kerssemakers said. "Land Rover knows they would have to make a lot of changes for theirs to work. But if they make all those changes, then we can't afford to build it, or at least we won't need all that capability."
Eric Noble, president of The Car Lab consultancy in Orange, Calif., said building a smaller version of the XC90 is "a no-brainer.
"If they made a Volvo version of the BMW X3 with any level of execution, and show the same aggressiveness on pricing as they did on S40 and V50, their biggest problem would be capacity," Noble said.
At the bottom of the product lineup could be a vehicle smaller than the S40 or V50. It could be a hatchback, a wagon, or a cross between the two. Former Premier Automotive Group boss Wolfgang Reitzle hinted at such a product in 2001, and Kerssemakers says such a vehicle is "high on our wish list."
Such a vehicle would help Volvo's corporate scores in fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions. But here Noble disagrees: "From a return on investment standpoint, there is no business case for a luxury brand to go down market, especially for a brand with smaller resources like Volvo. Why should they spend their money on a segment with smaller margins?"
Kerssemakers said the expansion of the product line also would include diversifying Volvo's existing offerings. Volvo's use of a V-8 engine likely will not stop with the XC90, he said.
"We're not going to go above the S80 sedan in size, because that is not our range. But we could put a V-8 engine in the S80 without making it a bigger car," Kerssemakers said.
But Kerssemakers added that the new entries would take a back seat to refilling the present product pipeline.
"The S60 and V70 are our first priority for replacement. We'll never grow to 600,000 units a year without making money on our existing products," Kerssemakers said. "It's a constant tradeoff."


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Dublin, Ireland —Salesforce, the global leader in CRM announced its company Tower in Dublin to add 1,500 new local jobs over the next five years.
The announcements were made with the Irish Prime Minister, where nearly 1,000 Salesforce employees were present to hear details of the new plans.
Salesforce Tower Dublin will be an urban campus of four interconnected buildings located on North Wall Quay within Dublin’s vibrant Silicon Docks, overlooking the River Liffey.
Salesforce employees are due to start moving into the 430,000
Salesforce has been named one of Ireland’s Best Places to Work for three years and the Best Workplace in Europe in 2018. Salesforce Tower Dublin will be a regional hub for employees across sales, customer service, technical and business operations delivering new innovations to its more than 150,000 customers around the world.
Salesforce has over 1,400 employees in Dublin and more than 34,000 employees worldwide. With plans to add 1,500 new jobs over the next five years, the company is actively recruiting for roles across all functions including engineering, customer support, sales
Ireland is home to many Salesforce customers including Brown Thomas Arnotts, Icon PLC, Property Button
“Europe is Salesforce’s
Salesforce is the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM), helping companies connect with their customers in a whole new way.
Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take advantage of powerful Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies cloud, mobile, social, internet of things, and artificial intelligence to get closer to their customers. The Salesforce Customer Success Platform includes industry-leading services spanning sales, service, marketing, commerce, communities, collaboration and industries, all on a single trusted cloud platform.


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SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Yonhap) -- Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc., an affiliate of Japan's chemical giant Toray Industries Inc., on Monday said it aims to more than quadruple its sales by 2030 with a focus on fostering new growth engines.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary of the company foundation, Toray Advanced Materials Korea said it is targeting 10 trillion won (US$8.4 billion) in sales and 1 trillion won in operating profit by 2030.
The company logged 2.4 trillion won in sales and an operating profit of 162.6 billion won last year.
To achieve its goals, Toray Advanced Materials Korea said it will first focus on developing materials used in next-generation displays, such as foldables and OLEDs. The company added it also eyes more business opportunities in sectors like new mobility, environmental-friendly products, water treatment and health care.
The company said its R&D center in Seoul, which was completed last month, will serve an important role to bolster its future growth engines.
Seoul-Tokyo trade row averts worst case
Luxury fashion powerhouses rush into S. Korean market
With Asiana acquisition, construction-centered HDC eyes biz diversification
Telco-cable TV mergers to reshape S. Korean media market
Possibility of S. Korean rate cut looms after U.S. rate reduction


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Britain said it would block Microsoft’s $69-billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard over its concerns it would harm competition in cloud gaming.
The country’s antitrust regulator said Microsoft’s commitment to offer access to Activision’s multi-billion dollar Call of Duty franchise to leading cloud gaming platforms would not effectively remedy its concerns.
Microsoft said in a statement it remained fully committed to this acquisition and would appeal.
The surprise ruling comes after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last month dropped its concerns about the impact of the deal on the console market led by Sony’s market-leading PlayStation.
That left cloud streaming services as the remaining hurdle, which Microsoft sought to overcome by signing licensing deals with the owners of streaming platforms including Valve Corp, Nvidia NVDA.O and Boosteroid.


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Metrology firm CoMech has the measure of the rail industry with plans for a new high-voltage laboratory and work with the universities of Derby and Loughborough.
We talk to managing director Keith Pallet about real graft, financial control and high-voltage growth.
It came as a shock to the management at CoMech when its website notched up its first sale. A rumour went around the office that the company had its first online sale and there was plenty of excitement among the workforce. Little or no effort had been made to promote the website as a retail tool as it was not the company’s main line of business. The design, manufacture, distribution and calibration of measuring equipment for the railway is a niche market so managing director Keith Pallet never expected to get thousands of hits.
However, three years after that inaugural internet sale, when it employed just nine people, the company has entered into a high-growth phase. It now has 32 members of staff and is selling to Singapore, Germany, France, Hong Kong, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. It is currently expanding into markets it never knew existed.
“It was never the plan to develop a retail business via the online shop but it has taken us into areas of the market beyond what we thought would be possible.”
Demand for its equipment has given the company a foundation on which to expand and develop. Six years ago, the business was turning over £250,000 per annum. At the moment, the company is notching up sales of £1.3 million and still growing. With the electrification of the Midland Mainline, the company has isolated an opportunity and is about to invest in a brand new laboratory.
“We are going to build a high-voltage laboratory because tooling and personal protective equipment needs testing, evaluating and calibrating.
“Given that a couple of nine-volt batteries have enough power to kill, with 50,000 volts, we have to be very careful.”
All told, it will represent an investment of some £100,000.
“At any one time, there can be as many as 150 items either on their way back to us or being sent out. Our own vans rack up 20,000 miles a year as well as sending out equipment via UPS. That’s why we’ve got a contract with Loughborough University to develop a logistic management tool.
“We are working with Professor Ming Lim, of the University of Derby, on radio-frequency identification for our kit to tell us whereabouts it is within the depot.”
Appropriately enough, the managing director started his working life driving trains for British Steel, transporting goods around steel works. CoMech was founded after a period working in laboratories in a variety of different industries. It all began in 1985 with a Triumph Toledo, a push bike and a belief that he had the knowledge and the contacts to make a go of it.
Though the technology being developed, manufactured and sold by the firm is highly advanced, the philosophy behind running the business is rooted in the kind of no-nonsense approach born and bred in Yorkshire.
“My grandad was a coal miner and worked down the pit. I remember him wearing knee pads and being completely black. That was hard, physical labour. That was work.
“I don’t really count what we do as work. You train your brain to cope with problems, calm down and move on. There will always be problems in a business that you have to overcome but it is not the same and doesn’t compare.”
Mr Pallett’s grandmother also inspired CoMech’s approach to financial control.
“She had a number of tin pots for different outgoings and would know to the penny what was in each one. She would have made a brilliant Governor of the Bank of England.”
Though the bespoke software produced in-house is more sophisticated than a series of pots, it performs exactly the same function. Every day, the managing director can tell at a glance exactly what is coming in and going out. For a company known for its calibration and measuring technology, it is appropriate that it applies the same precision to its money management.
“We don’t know what’s around the corner but we have to respond to it and we have to make money.”
The firm will need to keep a close watch on its finances because of its rapid expansion which will also throw up more management issues. Since Christmas, Wednesdays have been used for interviewing prospective employees and Tuesdays to inducting those already taken on.
“We have always been in Derby where there is a history of both heavy industry and precision engineering.
“There was Rolls-Royce, Aitons and International Combustion and now there are people in the city from all of these different backgrounds.”
The Casting Road company has expanded into the unit next door in order to house its employees and has plans to take office space elsewhere to shift its admin services.
Though storage space has been at a premium and technology is forever advancing, the company has retained rail gauges from the golden age of steam.
“There is a lot of knowledge here and we have some real rail enthusiasts. We were going to throw away some old rail gauges a few years ago but I was persuaded not to. They date from before British Rail, there are some with Great Western Railway stamps and a few from the 1930s.
“It was a good decision because there is a growing market for them from heritage railways who get in touch. I don’t know how they find us.”
The fact that it has rail heritage expertise on tap, as well as a passion for the rail industry, gives the business added credibility. And credibility is an essential component in the precision measurement industry and when employees have to deal with 50,000 volts.
This article was originally published by CoMech Metrology.
Use the form opposite to get in touch with CoMech Metrology directly to discuss any requirements you might have.


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Many Roku customers are experiencing problems with their Roku TVs after following OS 10.5 Year Update, According to Roku’s own published report customer forum And other sites, such as Reddit, affected Roku TV owners saying that many of their streaming apps — like HBO Max, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ and others — no longer work While others have more intermittent problems, such as Netflix.
Some are also facing their own problems the screen is freezing And his Roku remote is no longer working, he said, but for now it’s not clear whether these are related or separate issues.
Roku says it is aware of the problem and is working to resolve it.
While the 10.5 update debuted in October, Roku updates its streaming player first followed by its Roku TV devices. This means that many affected customers recently received the update because they own a Roku TV, leading to a flood of consumer complaints when favorite streaming apps were not working as a result of the update. In addition, the problems also affect Roku Ultra devices.
Although the issue started to crop up on the Roku forums last week, some users said they are behaving A non-functional TV for several weeks, which may cause them to buy a Chromecast or Fire TV Stick instead.
In an 18-page formula On Roku’s community forums, users reported problems with other devices, including Westinghouse, TCL, Sharp, and Hisense TVs. There many other sources, with dozens of responses. According to consumer complaints, customers with hardware and wireless network connections are affected. Some users said to reboot their TV or router Worked, but others said they tried that, as well as factory reset, with no resolution.
Roku has been aware of the problem for some time in the form of the Roku Forum moderator writing back For forum posters from at least last week, asking for information about your devices like serial number, Roku device model, device ID and software OS version.
With no official fixes available yet, Roku has been forced to roll back the update for some of its users by downgrading their devices to software version 10.0. But this option is not implemented automatically for all customers. Instead, members of the forum stated that a Roku representative had privately message sent After sharing your device information with them with instructions.
And, until last week, users were Asking for private message A Roku employee received a downgrade, along with their device information, indicating that the fix is being handled on a one-time basis. This process is frustrating some Roku customers who think a wider rollback is underway at this point.
The issues come at a time when many American consumers will be taking time off from work over the Thanksgiving holiday – meaning they have a lot more time to watch TV. For example, tuning into NFL football is part of the Thanksgiving tradition, but live streaming apps such as Sling TV and Hulu are affected by software issues.
A rep for Roku was reached for comment this afternoon, but no statement was yet available.
Later in the day, Roku shared the following comment with Nerdshala:
A small proportion of users with some older Roku TV models or older Roku Ultra players are experiencing issues with the latest firmware update, OS 10.5. We are actively investigating this and working to resolve it as soon as possible, and will provide our customers with real-time updates [on our website at support.roku.com/contactus and on twitter at @RokuSupport],


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NEW YORK (AP) — Americans showed their steadfast resilience and kept spending in September even as they grappled with higher prices, interest rates and a host of other headwinds piling up.
Retail sales rose 0.7% in September, more than twice what economists had expected, and close to a revised 0.8% bump in August, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Retail sales in August were inflated after gasoline prices spiked, however. That was not the case in September when gas prices began to ease.
A closely watched category of retail sales that excludes auto dealers, gas stations and building materials and feeds into the gross domestic product jumped 0.6% last month compared to the prior month.
September’s uptick in retail sales, the sixth consecutive monthly gain, reflects how the U.S. economy has remained resilient despite attempts by the Federal Reserve to cool spending and hiring. Spending has been volatile after surging nearly 3% in January. Sales tumbled in February and March before recovering in the spring and summer.
Spending at restaurants were up 0.9%, while spending online rose 1.1% last month, according to the report. Sales at general merchandise stores rose 0.4%. Business at grocery stores was up 0.4%. Sales at home furnishings and furniture stores were flat, while electronics store saw a 0.8% decline reflecting a difficult housing market.
The retail sales report came as businesses across the U.S. economy ramped up hiring in September, defying surging interest rates, and the ongoing threat of a government shutdown. The strength of hiring has surprised economists inside and outside of the Fed.
Consumer prices rose 0.4% from August to September, below the previous month’s 0.6% pace. The report from the Labor Department also showed that year-over-year inflation was flat last month from a 3.7% rise in August.
The retail data doesn’t capture the impact from the resumption of student loan payments, which started Oct. 1 and could have an impact on the critical holiday shopping season. It also doesn’t cover the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel by Hamas. Analysts say that shoppers could become rattled if the Israel-Hamas war is not contained.
The government’s monthly retail sales report offers only a partial look at consumer spending; it doesn’t include many services, including health care, travel and hotel lodging.
Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio


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Jun 7, 2023, 9:59 AM EDT
GameStop-inspired LEGO design wins hearts of online investors
A LEGO fan has submitted a wildly popular product design that’s inspired by the GameStop investment storm from earlier this year.


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We just had another photo of the Nokia Sabre, admittedly heavily "masked", land in our inbox.
It looks remarkably like the earlier shot leaked today but this time we can see the lower buttons, which should make quite a few people happy: they're physical. Yup, the front-facing buttons look to be nice, clear gel type buttons which should alleviate a lot of accidental clicks that come from capacitive buttons.
Although the screen looks small (3.7") and this might not be the spec killer that many want, it sure looks like a solid little number. And we're sure Nokia's quality will shine through.
Update: Since the phone is in the camera app and it's running Mango, there's no switch for the front-facing camera. That can only mean one thing, that this lacks one.


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UiPath, a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software company, announced the launch of UiPath Connector for Salesforce, available on AppExchange.
The UiPath Connector for Salesforce enables customers to streamline complex workflows across multiple technologies by launching UiPath automations built natively on Salesforce. The application connects Salesforce to Orchestrator, a centralized robot management dashboard where customers can easily deploy, secure, and manage their UiPath Robots. Users can launch UiPath automations in response to events in Salesforce via Flow Builder or Process Builder.
Built on the Salesforce Platform, the Connector for Salesforce is currently available on AppExchange.
Salesforce AppExchange, enterprise cloud marketplace, empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage in entirely new ways. With more than 5,000 listings, 7 million customer installs and 90,000 peer reviews, it is one of the most comprehensive source of cloud, mobile, social, analytics and artificial intelligence technologies for businesses.
UiPath and Salesforce integration benefits customers
Companies across industries can leverage the integration to improve response times to customer inquiries and facilitate better customer experiences.
Dhruv Asher, Senior Vice President of Alliances and Business Development at UiPath, said, “The integration between UiPath and Salesforce delivers more value to our joint customers and helps teams maximize productivity. With the UiPath Connector for Salesforce, users can streamline complex workflows with ease – all without custom development or invasive implementation.”
Taksina Eammano, VP of Product Management, AI and Automation at Salesforce, said, “We love seeing our partners build solutions like the UiPath Connector for Salesforce on AppExchange, as we realize our ecosystem is a big part of what brings the Salesforce vision to life. Giving customers the ability to tap into automated solutions such as this empowers them to drive more productivity for their teams and improve experiences for their customers.”


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Earth’s second-richest person settles defamation lawsuit for $10,000 Elon Musk has agreed to settle a three-year-old defamation lawsuit brought against him by an outspoken critic of Tesla.
According to multiple reports and a tweet posted by the plaintiff on Monday, the billionaire will pay $10,000 to Randeep Hoti, thereby ending the court proceedings.
In a tweet thread aimed at attracting lawyers to Tesla’s “hardcore litigation department,” Musk said Tesla would “never surrender/settle against us, even if we lose, even if we lose.”
Yet Elon Musk compromised. In March, the billionaire agreed to settle the defamation proceedings out of court, according to a press release from the plaintiffs’ legal team.
$10,000 is chump change for Musk—especially since it represents roughly 0.0000057% of his net worth—and less than one-seventh of a year’s earnings for most American households. But for Hothi, the victory appears to be more about the principle of the object than physical reality. He has celebrated the agreement as a major success in several public statements.
“I brought this case to defend my work, clear my name, and send a message,” he said in his law firm’s press release. “This case was about taking a stand, not seeking fame or money. I’m feeling fine on Twitter, Hothi echoed that sentiment several times—adding barbs against Musk. He posted, “I’m glad to see the world is now recognizing that he is a fraud.”
The now-ended legal proceedings revolve around Musk’s 2019 comments in which the Tesla CEO claimed that Hothy harassed and tried to kill Tesla employees. Plaintiffs denied the veracity of those statements, claimed they were defamatory, and said they had been widely harmed by the resulting online hate campaign. Seems, Tesla was unable to prove Hothy wrong.
Hothi, a graduate student, is a well-known figure to both Tesla and Musk as well as among the billionaire’s sycophants. He attracted a large online following under the Twitter account name “Skaboshka” in the lead-up to Tesla’s Model 3 car production. Hothy collected and posted drone footage and other images from the company’s Fremont, California factory, suggesting that reality doesn’t match Musk’s narrative.
The graduate student was on a mission to debunk Tesla’s claims about high-tech, automated production of its Model 3, which, like many of Musk’s statements, were untrue.
Hothy became a folk hero among Tesla short-sellers, attracting critical attention and anger from Musk. The CEO instructed Tesla’s guards to escort the “independent investigator” out if they ever saw Hothi or his vehicle near the factory.
In 2019, Tesla tried to arrest Hothy and later tried to go to court to issue a restraining order against the graduate student after two separate incidents. In one, the company claimed that Hothy injured a Tesla guard with his vehicle in an alleged hit-and-run at a publicly accessible Tesla showroom adjacent to the Fremont manufacturing facility.
However, according to the Los Angeles Times, Tesla dropped the case after law enforcement allegedly told the company that a security camera recording showed no evidence of a hit-and-run.
In the second incident, Tesla claimed that Hothy followed and harassed a Tesla driver off Tesla’s property. But the company dropped the case after a judge ordered Tesla to release footage of the incident captured by the car’s camera.
After both inactive legal efforts against the graduate student, Musk wrote an email claiming that Haughty was “actively harassing” and “nearly killing” Tesla employees. The recipient of the email, Aaron Greenspan, is another longtime Tesla critic and owner of the legal search engine Plainsight. Greenspan publicly published Musk’s email, and it became the basis for Elephant’s defamation suit.
This is not the first widely publicized case of its kind against Musk – who is known for running his mouth online and for lying, exaggerating and being untruthful. The billionaire was previously sued by a cave diver who helped rescue a stranded Thai football team.
Elon Musk referred to the diver, Vernon Unsworth, as a “pedo man” in a series of 2018 tweets. The world’s second-richest man won that case, which means you can legally say all kinds of creative things to Elon Musk – both publicly and privately. You just can’t make up a story about him trying to hit you with his Tesla.


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In addition to making machines and other products more accessible, CoffeeHomeDirect.com now features a social media outlet to keep all coffee drinkers on the same page regarding the latest news, products, and trends.
Santa Ana, CA (Vocus/PRWEB) January 04, 2011
Coffee Home Direct, in addition to its website at http://www.coffeehomedirect.com, has now launched a blog and social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and Stumbleupon. The company has officially entered the world of social media in an effort to strengthen the connection between customers and its products and services.
The website’s coffee blog includes postings that cover many facets of the popular drink, including information about beans, new coffee-making products and espresso machines, product recommendations, gift ideas, location-specific news, as well as company news. An opinion section is also included, and the blog enhances the company’s philosophy of providing customers with both the equipment and information to make their coffee, lattes, and cappuccinos at home.
Tara Alley, Content Developer for Coffee Home Direct, said, “Coffee resources are suffering worldwide and it is becoming more expensive to buy it. In addition to making machines and other products more accessible, CoffeeHomeDirect.com now features a social media outlet to keep all coffee drinkers on the same page regarding the latest news, products, and trends.”
The company has also launched a Facebook page, allowing customers to see company and industry news directly on the social media site, as well as interact with Coffee Home Direct and other visitors. Users of other social networking sites such as Twitter can post questions and get answers via “Tweets” and share information about the company with friends on sites such as Delicious and Stumbleupon.
“With social media, anyone can share their thoughts on Coffee Home Direct,” added Alley. “The best in coffee making at home can accomplished by shopping with us, so what better way is there to spread the word than on Facebook and Twitter?”
Coffee Home Direct sells various products for home use, as well as espresso machines, French press coffee makers, pod and vacuum coffee makers, as well as other types of hot drink machines. Grinders and other accessories are also available. The company offers machines from several leading brands and ships to anywhere in the United States. To learn more, visit http://www.coffeehomedirect.com, the company’s blog, and its social media sites.
About Coffee Home Direct
Coffee Home Direct is an online retailer, located in southern California, which specializes in selling coffee makers, espresso machines, and accessories to customers in the United States. The company offers informational online content that allows potential customers to do research on its website, and even provides customer service with well-informed sales people who can be reached via phone, email, and live chat. Offering fast shipping via FedEx, the company stays current with the latest industry trends and developments through its blog and presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
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Effective September 1, Netflix's streaming-only service will cost $7.99 per month while DVD rentals will cost $7.99 for one disc at a time and $11.99 for two at a time. Renting one DVD at a time plus streaming, therefore, will jump to $15.98 a month from the current price of $9.99.
PCMag asked our readers what they plan to do, and as of press time, 4,604 people have responded, with a vast majority (55 percent or 2,530 people) saying they're quitting Netflix.
The second most-popular choice is streaming-only; 27 percent (1,230 people) said they'll choose this option. Few readers are opting for the DVD rental route; just 6 percent (292 people) said they'll sign up for the one disc choice and just 4 percent (164 people) said they'll pick two discs. Eight percent of readers (388 people) said they will spring for the combination DVD rental/streaming plan.
Readers posted 52 comments on the poll, airing their grievances, expressing their thoughts on the price change, and divulging their plans for the future.
"I'm done with Netflix, that increase in price is unjustifiable without an improvement in the streaming library," user Mason wrote. "I'm switching to Hulu Plus. You're not the only game in town, Netflix."
User TheMokoda doesn't think the complainers will act: "[Netflix} expected the backlash. I have no doubt that they considered all the angles on this and it's hard for them to lose. They have 23 million subscribers. So far, the number of complainers has been estimated at about 30,000. So even if ten times that many actually cancelled, it still wouldn't hurt Netflix," he wrote.
User JA plans to choose an alternative: "Blockbuster offers something similar. Plus there [are] kiosks all over the place now. I'm not sure Netflix is worth it to me at this point. Even with 12meg download on my broadband, it still stops the stream often."
Others chimed in to defend Netflix.
"I agree that this announcement is a kick to the groin coming as quick as it did, but come on, Netflix has been delivering a good product for cheap for quite a while now," user kristofer kazakoff said. "I pay 30 buck a month for crappy cable that I never watch because it's bundled in with my Internet plan and I sure don't get to pick what I want to watch! 20 dollars a month to pick and choose? Still a great deal!"
So what will happen? The blog post announcing the price change has already ramped up more than 16,000 comments on the post and via Facebook. So will Netflix budge on pricing? Will there be a mass exodus from the service? Or will there be no significant effect at all? That all remains to be seen after the new model kicks in on September 1.
What's your plan? PCMag wants to hear from you. Give us your feedback in the comments section.
For more from Leslie, follow her on Twitter @LesHorn.


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Telos and Carbon Start Partnership To Launch New TLOSD Stablecoin
The stablecoin market just keeps growing and Telos and Carbon are the latest companies to become a part of it. The two companies have recently started a partnership to launch a new USD-pegged stablecoin called TLOSD. The new project will use the technology of Telos blockchain.
According to the announcement, all exchanges that already support the Telos blockchain or the Carbon API can list the token. The first two that will receive the tokens are Vapaee and Newdex, but others are expected to follow.
It was also reported that any purchase of the asset lower than $500 USD will not even need a Know Your Customer (KYC) procedure.
The CPO of the Telos Foundation, Justin Guidici, affirmed that this new partnership will be important because it will open several new opportunities for people who want to use the Telos network but wanted to use fiat cash as well instead of cryptos.
Carbon is set to support the stablecoin and also to provide market-making services to it in case the coin initially lacks liquidity during the launch.
Dan Shiferaw, a software engineer at the company, affirmed that the new token will provide the users with a reliable way to use cryptos at the same time that they are protected from volatility.
Recently, the stablecoin market is really booming. Several companies have decided to follow on the footsteps of important companies of the sector such as Tether, so it is no surprise that we are seeing so many of these companies.


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This article was created by StackCommerce. While Postmedia may collect a commission on sales through the links on this page, we are not being paid by the brands mentioned.
The internet has slowly chipped away at traditional retail sales, but the pandemic has sped up the process tremendously. Lockdown restrictions affected our shopping behavior, and what shoppers once considered a luxury is now a necessity as companies increasingly rely on e-commerce as their primary method of selling products during the pandemic. In the three months leading up to July alone, Canadian retail e-commerce sales were up 86.9 per cent year-over-year.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
That’s led to e-commerce platforms such as Shopify performing particularly well. Shopify doubled its revenue in Q2 now that more customers rely on the company’s e-commerce platform. It’s apparent that e-commerce is no longer the future. E-commerce is the now, but it’s not too late to bring your business up to speed. You just need to learn how to implement Shopify into your business, and The Complete Shopify Bootcamp Bundle can teach you how.


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Several weeks ago, we learned that Huawei entered in the race with Samsung for the launch of the first foldable phone in the world, where the thrill of the case F for several years, so Samsung has announced recently that it will be about some of the techniques used in the phone within a few months, but it seems that Huawei doesn’t want silence in front of it.
Huawei has started recently to obtain significant market share in the smartphone market, is threatened by Samsung that threatening email to replace them in the order of more companies manufactured phones in the world, and they seem to want to do the same thing with flip phones, where the director of Huawei executive, Richard Yu, during a recent interview with the news website of German Die Welt suspense for the company’s folding rule, saying that the only thing that still prevents us from getting rid of the computer is the screen small phones, but it is possible to make this folding screen.
He added on saying that the company is working on the phone already, so you won’t wait another year to see him, and although he did not disclose details of the phone, but he stressed the company’s determination to provide new techniques to support all of the networks of the fifth generation, artificial intelligence through its phones next.
Will artificial intelligence in Huawei phones next to making augmented reality and interpretation, in addition to improving the performance of the camera images as is currently happening, which would be thanks to the processor Kirin 980 new force.
As for the fifth-generation networks, he said on the day that we’ll see significant evolution in the smart phones, where users will get the greatest pleasure, and enabled speeds of new to this generation of communication get instant translation accurately and quickly, thanks to the speed of the communication between the phone and the information stored on the cloud.
This will be Huawei detects phones Mate 20 on 16 October, as this is the time to review more details about the phone company’s folding rule, in the case of a desire that precedes the Samsung before declaring the next.
The post Huawei: our phone folding may replace the computer appeared first on Tic-Foy.


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Mazda has released some details of its next-generation MX-5 and revealed the car’s underpinnings ahead of this week’s New York Auto Show, revealing its two-seater sports car will be smaller and lighter than ever.
As expected, rather than showing the whole car, Mazda has unveiled a rolling chassis comprising suspension, engine, drivetrain and subframes.
So, while the new design still remains a mystery, Mazda claims that shrink-wrapping panels over the new mechanical package will deliver even more exceptional driving thrills.
The MX-5 will lose 100kg in weight, largely by reducing front and rear overhangs for a shorter overall length, while actually having its wheelbase increased.
Extensive use of aluminium castings and a painstaking component-by-component analysis of each part already employed in the current car has reduced weight while maintaining crashworthiness.
Given that the current manual-equipped roadster is hardly a fatty at 1167kg, the next-gen MX-5 promises better straight-line performance from a SkyActiv 2.0-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine.
The rolling chassis also shows that effort has been put into moving the engine further back to improve handling balance, although the current car’s 50/50 front/rear balance will remain.
The engine has also been mounted lower to further reduce the MX-5’s centre of gravity.
Mazda has indicated that the driving position will be pushed rearwards, which together with a shorter rear overhang may compromise boot space.
The new MX-5 is being launched next year and will be followed by either a Fiat or Alfa Romeo version using the same mechanical package but with different styling.
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Bexley Police have released images of five people they would like to identify in connection with investigations into offences committed across the borough.
The first man is wanted in connection with an allegation of burglary committed at The Bakery in Bexley High Street on April 12, when a handbag containing credit cards and a quantity of cash was stolen.
The second man is wanted in relation to an allegation of shoplifting at the Asda, Lower Road, Belvedere on April 12 in which three bottles of Bells Whiskey were stolen.
The third man is wanted in connection with an allegation of theft at Asda, the Broadway, Bexleyheath on April 14in which an Apple iPhone was stolen.
The woman is wanted in relation to an allegation of theft at Sainsburys in Stadium Way, Crayford on April 9, in which a purse containing a quantity of cash and credit cards was stolen from a 79-year-old lady.
The last man is wanted in connection with an investigation of assault and shoplifting on April 1 at the Co-op, Halfway Street, Sidcup after two suspects entered the store and stole two boxes of Stella Artois, punching a shop assistant who challenged them.
Anyone with any information should contact Bexley Police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.


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January 5, 2007 2:09 PM PST
Wireless power gets recharged
(continued from previous page)
WildCharge and Fulton will have initial devices sold aftermarket beginning this summer; for both, however, that's also just the first scratch on the surface. They have similar visions of entire ecosystems of wireless power.
If consumers embrace the technology, both companies hope that public and private spaces--hotel rooms, kitchen countertops, airports, coffee shops and cars--will one day be outfitted with pads or hot spots that would supply power for a host of mobile devices.
"The (long-term) strategy is if I buy (a laptop) battery, I can charge my laptop just by setting it down on my desk," said Fulton's Baarman.
WildCharge and Fulton are banking on consumers' frustration with spending more money on a new adapter every time a new device is purchased.
"People are sick of buying a new adapter every time they buy a new electronics device. How many adapters do you throw away when you get a new phone?" said Baarman. "The social aspect of being able to have one adapter that powers all those devices is much more environmentally friendly and universally friendly to the consumer."
Of course, CES attendees have heard this before. At CES 2003, U.K.-based Splashpower showed off its wireless power product, a pad also using magnetic induction, but the company has yet to deliver the product to market.
Wireless power didn't exactly electrify the industry back then, so why do these companies think the second go-round will be different?
For one, the costs are considerably lower now, according to WildCharge's Matzkevich, who used to be MobileWise's vice president of marketing. WildCharge can make each pad for 66 cents per square foot, "a fraction" of what MobileWise could.
"There are a lot of challenges to do something like this mainly because the added cost to the building materials for this sort of technology is pretty high," said Richard Shim, an analyst for IDC. "When we're talking about adding it to low-margin products, it becomes a question of, 'Is this even feasible?'"
But backers say there's a demand for wireless capability today that has never existed before. "There's also increased awareness now, and excitement about everything else going wireless," Matzkevich said. "The only thing not wireless is power."
It's actually a chicken-and-egg issue, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for the NPD Group. "For it to be effective, it needs to be built into portable electronics, and so far, no major manufacturers have agreed to do that," he said.
At least not specifically. Motorola is an eCoupled partner, though the company is refusing to say what the extent of its involvement will be. Supporters of eCoupled insist there's going to be a solid network in place very soon.
"In previous implementations, that ecosystem wasn't in place," said Wingrove of Visteon. With Motorola, Mobility and others on board, "we're poised to release things that are compatible with one another at the same time."
Whether the second time's a charm is a difficult question, Shim said, but he agreed companies are "smart" to consider this market.
"With notebook adoption growing and with more mobile computing devices becoming an integrated part of people's lifestyles, there's certainly an opportunity."


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Next week, Marc Anderson will take over as the new President & CEO of Visit San Antonio. He’ll be assuming the helm of an organization that is working aggressively to spearhead economic recovery in our community.
From healthier hotel occupancy numbers to anecdotal reports regarding visitor traffic from many of you, we’re seeing optimistic trends in nearly every direction.
In fact, in comparison to last April when we were decimated by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, our hotel numbers for last month were fantastic. Indeed, our industry in San Antonio experienced an amazing 439 percent jump in room revenue (to $89.9 million), a 217 percent leap in room demand (to 890,369) and a 174 percent climb in occupancy (to 61 percent).
We look forward to Marc’s input and leadership as we move forward in this critical time. He’ll be introducing himself to you in coming weeks, and I know he’ll soon experience the spirit of warmth and hospitality that is the signature trademark of our destination and its travel industry.
Visit San Antonio has been particularly busy over the past month.
The first full week of May saw us recognize National Travel & Tourism Week, which had a different feel this time around in the wake of more than year of being impacted by the pandemic. The theme of this year’s NTTW was, “Power of Travel,” and we celebrated with various virtual outreaches to our industry, including a webinar I hosted that included a midyear report from our Partner, Marketing and Destination Experience and Sales divisions.
NTTW also offered a great opportunity for me to reiterate the importance of our industry through an op-ed piece that ran on the San Antonio Report website. In keeping with the “Power of Travel” theme, I wrote that “it is clear that a broader economic comeback hinges on recovery within the travel industry.” There is little doubt about that.
That recovery is gaining notice. The San Antonio Report this week noted that the meetings industry is showing signs of picking up, and Visit San Antonio is pleased to report no new cancellations or postponements in more than a month. The CDC’s decision to relax mask mandates also may be having a positive effect on travel plans, as we noted in a recent report on WOAI-TV.
Visit San Antonio has also been keeping a very close eye on continued discussions regarding the transformation of the Alamo grounds, including to the mission itself and surrounding projects. I had the chance to speak to the Bexar County Commissioners Court this week in favor of a plan for the county to invest in the construction of a world-class Alamo museum. Commissioners voted to contribute $25 million over five years into the museum.
I am also proud to serve on the 30-member Alamo Citizens Advisory Committee that has been working hard to determine the correct route to getting the $450 million project completed in coming years. The group is currently crafting an interpretive plan surrounding the Alamo story, and will hold seven topic-specific panel discussions this summer, starting next week.
We are moving forward with plans to host IPW, the travel industry’s premier international marketplace, in 2023. San Antonio is projected to have a return on investment of up to 400,000 new international visitors (not including Mexico), who will generate more than $600 million in estimated direct spending in the three years following IPW 2023. We look forward to your partnership as we prepare for this monumental opportunity.
Also as we eye the summer, we know that you are working to get your staffing levels back up to where you need them to be to serve the growing influx of business. Governor Abbott’s announcement last week that the state will no longer accept federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits is expected to have some impact in this regard. Visit San Antonio still is maintaining a job page on our website that allows you to post links to your employment boards. In order to participate, please submit here the following information: business name, business website, description of business and link to company job board/web page.
Finally, Memorial Day Weekend marks the start of something special. As we look ahead to that all-important summer season, which sees more than a third of our annual leisure visitation, we’re re-introducing our campaign, “Si San Antonio.” Throughout the summer, it will provide visitors with an app that features discounts to several of the array of experiences that make our destination unique. Also, the San Antonio Food Bank will benefit whenever visitors use the card. We thank all of you who are participating in this important promotion.
It has been my honor to serve as the interim President & CEO of Visit San Antonio these past five months. I now look forward to working alongside Marc Anderson to bring the world to San Antonio. As always, we appreciate our partnership with you. If you have any questions or suggestions for next month’s newsletter, don’t hesitate to contact me. We look forward to continued better days in 2021!
Dave Krupinksi, CTA
Chief Operating Officer
Interim President & CEO
Visit San Antonio


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Papa Keno’s in Overland Park plans 20th-anniversary celebration
Papa Keno’s is ready to party like it’s 1995.
The Overland Park location, anyway. Unlike the newly opened Westport pizzeria, which is co-owned by David Hawley (who also now owns the Lawrence original), the Papa Keno’s at 7901 Santa Fe Drive is co-owned by French-born chef Philippe Lechevin, whose day job is executive chef at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
Lechevin and managing partner Steve Robson bought the Overland Park location in November 2013, but the Papa Keno’s brand turns 20 tomorrow. So Lechevin and Robson are celebrating with a slice-and-a-beer special and some temporarily lowered prices. “We found an old menu in the basement,” Lechevin tells The Pitch. “We know what the 1995 prices were.”
Starting Saturday, September 26, and running through the end of October, the OP Papa Keno’s is selling a slice of pizza and a Free State beer for $6.99.
“We’ll also be offering — on Mondays only — any 18-inch specialty pizza for $18.99, and an 18-inch cheese pizza for $10.99. This special will be available through October 19,” Levechin says.
The Overland Park Papa Keno’s is also installing a Tuesday-only special: cheese-pizza slices for $2.25 through October 20.
“We’ll also give away, randomly, T-shirts and beer coozies through our anniversary period,” Levechin says.
Levechin says that, on his watch, Papa Keno’s uses no frozen ingredients, purchases fresh vegetables from the nearby farmers market, and prepares most dishes from scratch. “We even roast our own garlic,” he says.


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SHOPPERS with busy lifestyles no longer have to leave their car to pick up groceries – thanks to the arrival of a new-style drive-through.
Tesco Extra, in Fishbourne Road East, has become Chichester’s first drive-through supermarket, helping customers who can’t wait at home for their shopping to be delivered.
Matt Fielder, store manager, said: “We are very excited to be able to offer this new service to our customers.
“I speak to them every day about their shopping experience and this new drive-through will now offer even more choice in how they buy their shopping.
“Customers who are stretched for time can now buy the same products at the same prices without having to leave their car.”
Shoppers can order their groceries online then choose a two-hour collection slot.
They then drive to the collection point where they need to show staff their reference details and shopping is then packed into the boot by supermarket staff.
Ian Crook, marketing manager for tesco.com said the drive-through should help busy mothers and young professionals save time in their busy schedules.
“It offers a convenient solution to parents who want to avoid the challenge of shopping in a busy store with children in tow,” he said.
Claire Edgerton, who works in East Wittering, is one of the drive-through’s first customers and said she would recommend the service.
“I have used that service a couple of times now,” she said.
“Brilliant service. Shopping all present and correct, and the assistants were polite and helped load into car. Very quick and hassle free.”
Another shopper from Westergate said she found the service particularly useful, especially during the festive period, as it puts a stop to ‘mindless wandering’ around the store.
School children in the Chichester area have been asked to design artwork for a click and collect shopping bag.
People who would like help placing their first order can call Tesco on 0845 0700811.


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With the U.S. auto industry’s recovery expanding further, Borrell Associates made a prediction that expenses related to national and local advertising will increase by almost 14% in 2012, to $30.8 billion. The Virginia-based consulting firm also said that around 40 cents of each media dollar will be shifting toward digital. Borrell, which monitors local ad spending, said in its report that the rising trend for digital media will persist "largely unabated” and would aversely affect print, radio and direct mail.
CEO Gordon Borrell said that the company anticipates that the industry, which includes dealers and dealer associations, will spend almost $11.9 billion on search buys and online banner ads and that there will be trending toward repurposing manufacturers' agency spots for local video usage "tailored to their own purposes."
The $11.9 billion figure that the firm came up with signifies an overall increase of 39% from last year. In a summary of the report, it said that broadcast advertising isn’t anymore expected to be at the “top of the buying funnel.” The factors that influenced Borrell's conclusions are more availability of co-op advertising budgets, and the shift in marketing strategy to target potential buyers through their mobile devices. Borrell also found that almost 90% of the additional dollars – approximately $3.7 billion -- will be intended for digital.
Eleven marketing channels were examined for their spending data. These are newspapers, radio, TV, cable, magazines, outdoor, cinema, online, direct mail, directories and telemarketing. It also looked at the spending patterns by five types of auto advertisers such as manufacturers, franchised dealers, independent dealers, dealer associations and private-party sellers.
The report gives a conservative prediction of total sales of light trucks and cars of 13.5 million units. In the first quarter, the U.S. sales rate was 14.5 million. However, the report said that there may be “speed bumps” due to higher gas prices and limited credit.


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Exclusive: Paco Rabanne release designs ahead of Paris Fashion Week
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The designs will be available for purchase in the brand's new flagship Paris-based boutique as well as their newly launched website from tomorrow morning, March 3, 2016. The news comes just hours before their show at Paris Fashion Week tomorrow. Discover the exclusive campaign images here with Buro 24/7 Middle East....
Also, stay connected with Buro 24/7 Middle East as we bring you all of the front row news direct from Paris Fashion Week.


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Right at the heart of Phnom Penh’s central business district is Raintree, Cambodia’s first boutique office that comes with a loft event space and outdoor terrace. We speak to Zoë Ng, co-founder of Raintree, to talk about Cambodia’s new creative workspace.
With the steady growth of mobile users in Cambodia, Maybank has set the stage for online mobile banking in Cambodia with its new banking app.
With wildlife in Southeast Asia facing endangerment, Bangkok based NGO Freeland has designed WildScan, a wildlife identification app used to combat illegal trafficking. We got in touch with representatives from Freeland and the Wildlife Alliance to learn more.
Interview: Elida Kimsrun, the Sole Cambodian Entrepreneur at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016
Elida Kimsrun was the sole Cambodian entrepreneur to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016 at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. Having experienced workshops and talks from renowned professionals, we speak to Elida for more insight.
With an increasing amount of Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) operators in Cambodia, more investors are aiming to maximise the potential of the Kingdom’s online growth.


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No-kids zones first appeared in South Korea about a decade ago after a series of online complaints about parents not tending to their noisy and rude children in public places. Continuous complaints sparked an online controversy over whether it is okay for a store owner to only allow access to adults. Many young people in their 20s and 30s agreed with the idea of no-kids zones while older people claimed that children should equally be given access to cafes and restaurants, explaining that it is natural for children to be noisy and cause minor problems, as such happenings are part of kids growing up.
There are more than 500 no-kids zones in South Korea, according to a user-generated map on Google Maps. Parents with young kids use the online map to see if stores they wish to visit allow access to young children while younger people look for shops where they can drink and chat in peace. The map is updated and managed by ordinary users. Jeju, with scores of unique cafes and restaurants, has the highest concentration of no-kids cafes and restaurants, according to the map.
Jeju Provincial Council member Song Chang-kwon from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea said that a public debate will take place on February 15 prior to the enactment of an ordinance designed to ban no-kids zones in the resort island. In 2017, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea recommended that the country should ban No-kids zones as they violate the children's rights not to be discriminated against.
"As No-kids zone stores are subjected to register or receive permission from the local government to operate, it is hard to exactly know how many of them are being operated in Jeju. Because the Jeju area is a tourist spot loved by everyone, no child should be hurt or discriminated," Song said in a statement on February 7.


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Freemium apps, free apps that let users purchase additional content, are on the rise in both iOS and Google Play stores, according to a new report from App Annie, a data and analytics company dedicated to measuring app consumption.
Here is more from App Annie’s blog: “Over the last 24 months, worldwide revenues for freemium apps on iOS have more than quadrupled. In 2012, worldwide freemium revenues on Google Play have grown 3.5X. Premium revenues for both app stores remained relatively flat in these time periods.”
In the U.S. freemium apps are rising at a steady pace. The rate of growth is huge in China and Japan. In Japan, Google Play freemium revenues have risen 24x in the last year and a half. In China, iOS freemium revenues have grown almost 25X in the past year and a half.


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The Kano State Consumer Protection Council (CPC) in its effort to rid the state of contraband and fake drugs, has said the agency has confiscated fake drugs worth N300 million in one month.
This was just as the agency the council would launch clampdown of companies found to be flouting the council’s operation guidelines on 1st March, warning that any firm found wanting would be closed down and prosecuted.
Disclosing this on Wednesday, while speaking with pressmen, the Acting Managing Director of the council, Baffa Babba Dan-Agundi, said the agency would continue to arrest enemies of progress who deal in the illicit business.
According to him, “Since taking over as acting MD, less than two months ago, the council had confiscated over seven trucks of counterfeit drugs, worth N200 million.
Dan-Agundi who further disclosed that on assuming duty as acting MD, he had collaborated with Kano Patent Medicine Association, who helped the council confiscate about two trucks of illicit drugs, worth N100 million.
The MD also disclosed that the council would launch clampdown of companies found to be flouting the council’s operation guidelines on 1st March, warning that any firm found wanting would be closed down and prosecuted.
He added, “We will lock down any company found violating our operation guidelines. Any company found reopening the firm after we close it shall face the full wrath of the law.
“We will launch full operation on March 1st. Every erring company will be dealt with. We will not condone the bad attitudes of some fake companies to be producing contaminated foods for the consumption of our people.
“CPC will not condone proliferation of fake and counterfeit drugs in this state,” said Dan-Agundi.
Dan-Agundi, however, hinted that all food+producing companies must obtain health certificate to ensure that its staff do not have tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis and other diseases that could be transmitted to people.
He also said “This health certification will be extended to eateries. All management of eateries must ensure their staff are medically certified and free from the diseases I mentioned earlier.”
The acting MD then commended security agencies in the state for their cooperation towards the operation of the council.
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
The British Parliament at the Westminster Hall held a debate on ‘e-petition 554150, relating to Nigeria and the sanctions regime’ on Monday. The government of the United Kingdom has however responded…Kano Consumer Protection Council Kano Consumer Protection Council
The surprise visit made on Friday night by the leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to former President Goodluck Jonathan at his residence in Abuja triggered a stir in the major political camps, resulting in at least four possible theories..Kano Consumer Protection Council Kano Consumer Protection Council


text: Theodore F. Olt was elected president, chief executive officer and a director of Nichols-Homeshield Inc. Nichols-Homeshield, based in Chicago, is a manufacturer of aluminum products for the home building, improvement and remodeling markets. The company is also a supplier of aluminum sheets and wire to industrial users. Olt previously was executive vice president and chief operating officer. He succeeds James M. Morris, who is retiring as president. Morris will stay with the firm as vice chairman of the board.


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VCCP has won the Hovis account and will bring the brand back onto TV in a £2 million campaign this summer.
Hovis will return to TV before then by running old work with the familiar “As good today as it’s always been” strapline. The re-runs will include a new voiceover from Salford-born Christopher Eccleston, the former Dr Who actor who recently co-starred with Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country.
Alongside VCCP as the main creative agency Hovis has appointed Medialab for media strategy, planning and buying, and Clarion Communications for PR. Digital is led by Wearefreak.
Hovis brought back Ridley Scott’s famous “Boy on the bike” ad with a remastered version in 2019, but its last TV work was in 2021 with “The best thing since… 1886” starring Tom Kerridge and made by agency Initials CX. The brand was acquired from Premier Foods by private equity firm Endless LLP in 2020.
Adrian Mooney, brand communications lead at Hovis said: “This campaign provides a timely reminder to celebrate the treasured and reassuring role that Hovis plays in many millions of people’s lives. The ad and content highlight the everyday rituals of preparing, making, eating and sharing our well-loved products – and their creation of emotional connections and experiences which we sometimes take for granted.
“It’s an exciting moment for the brand, and we are delighted to be in partnership with our fantastic new group of agencies to create further great work in the coming years.”
Cliff Hall, CEO, VCCP said: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with a brand like Hovis, which is full of heritage and rich history and we look forward to working together to create a compelling campaign.”
It’s a wonder that VCCP still has space for new clients, but the agency keeps on winning.


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After ChatGPT’s explosive popularity, the AI battle between tech giants Google and Microsoft has spread to a new field—server chips.
Today, AI and cloud computing have become fiercely contested territories, and chips have emerged as the key to reducing costs and winning over business clients.
Originally, major companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google were best known for their software. But now, they are investing billions of dollars in the development and production of chips.
As ChatGPT takes the world by storm, major companies kick off a chip battle royale.
According to reports from The Information and other sources, these three companies have already launched or plan to release eight server and AI chips for internal product development, cloud server rentals, or both.
“If you can manufacture silicon optimized for AI, there’s a huge victory waiting for you,” says Glenn O’Donnell, a director at research firm Forrester.
Will these enormous efforts be rewarded?
The answer is not necessarily.
Intel, AMD, and Nvidia can benefit from economies of scale, but for large tech companies, the situation is far from the same.
They also face many daunting challenges, such as hiring chip designers and convincing developers to build applications using their custom chips.
However, these major companies have already made notable progress in this field.
According to published performance data, Amazon’s Graviton server chip and the AI-specific chips released by Amazon and Google are already on par with traditional chip manufacturers in terms of performance.
The chips that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google develop for their data centers mainly come in two types: standard computing chips and dedicated chips for training and running machine learning models. It is the latter that powers large language models like ChatGPT.
Previously, Apple successfully developed chips for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, improving the processing of some AI tasks. These major companies may be drawing inspiration from Apple’s success.
Among the three giants, Amazon is the only cloud service provider offering both types of chips in servers, thanks to its 2015 acquisition of Israeli chip designer Annapurna Labs.
Google launched a chip for AI workloads in 2015 and is developing a standard server chip to improve the performance of Google Cloud servers.
In contrast, Microsoft started its chip research and development later, in 2019, and has recently accelerated the timeline for the launch of an AI chip specifically designed for LLMs.
The explosion of ChatGPT has ignited global excitement for AI, further propelling the strategic transformation of these three major companies.
ChatGPT runs on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, using tens of thousands of Nvidia A100s. Both ChatGPT and other OpenAI software integrated into Bing and various programs require so much computing power that Microsoft has already allocated server hardware to the AI development team.
At Amazon, CFO Brian Olsavsky told investors in a conference call last week that Amazon plans to shift spending from its retail business to AWS, partly due to investing in the infrastructure needed to support ChatGPT.
At Google, the engineering team responsible for manufacturing Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) has moved to Google Cloud. Reportedly, the cloud organization can now set roadmaps for TPUs and the software running on them, hoping to get cloud customers to rent more TPU-driven servers.
Google: AI-tailored TPU V4
As early as 2020, Google deployed the most powerful AI chip at the time, the TPU v4, in its data centers.
However, it was not until April 4th of this year that Google first revealed the technical details of this AI supercomputer.
Paper: TPUv4 system has an optically reconfigurable network to assemble groups of 4x4x4 chips like legos (4x4x12? 16x16x16?). SparseCores help w/ embeddings. TPUv4 outperforms TPUv3 by 2.1x & perf/W by 2.7x, & has 4096 chips so ~10x faster overall.
— Jeff Dean (@🏡) (@JeffDean) April 5, 2023
Compared to the TPU v3, the TPU v4’s performance is 2.1 times higher, and after integrating 4096 chips, the supercomputer’s performance has increased tenfold.
At the same time, Google claims that its chips are faster and more energy-efficient than Nvidia’s A100. For systems of comparable scale, the TPU v4 can deliver 1.7 times the performance of the Nvidia A100 while improving energy efficiency by 1.9 times.
For similar-scale systems, the TPU v4 is 1.15 times faster than the A100 on BERT and about 4.3 times faster than the IPU. For ResNet, the TPU v4 is 1.67 times faster and about 4.5 times faster, respectively.
Additionally, Google has hinted that it is developing a new TPU to compete with Nvidia’s H100. Google researcher Jouppi told Reuters in an interview that Google has a “production line for future chips.”
Microsoft: Secret Weapon Athena
Regardless, Microsoft is still eager to participate in the chip fray.
Previously, it was reported that a secret 300-person team at Microsoft had been developing a custom chip called “Athena” since 2019.
According to initial plans, “Athena” would be built using TSMC’s 5nm process, expected to reduce the cost of each chip by a third.
If widely implemented next year, Microsoft’s internal and OpenAI teams could leverage “Athena” to complete both model training and inference simultaneously.
This would greatly alleviate the shortage of specialized computers.
Bloomberg reported last week that Microsoft’s chip division has been working with AMD to develop the Athena chip, which led to a 6.5% increase in AMD’s stock price on Thursday.
However, an informed source stated that AMD is not involved but is developing its own GPU to compete with Nvidia. AMD has been discussing chip design with Microsoft because Microsoft expects to purchase this GPU.
Amazon: Already One Step Ahead
In the chip race against Microsoft and Google, Amazon seems to have already taken a lead.
Over the past decade, Amazon has maintained a competitive edge over Microsoft and Google in cloud computing services by offering more advanced technology and lower prices.
In the next ten years, Amazon is also expected to maintain its advantage in the competition through its internally developed server chip, Graviton.
As the latest generation of processors, the AWS Graviton3 has up to a 25% increase in computing performance compared to its predecessor, and its floating-point performance has doubled. It also supports DDR5 memory, with a 50% increase in bandwidth compared to DDR4 memory.
For machine learning workloads, the AWS Graviton3 has up to 3 times the performance of its predecessor and supports bfloat16.
Based on the Graviton 3 chip, cloud services are in high demand in some regions, even reaching a state of supply shortage.
Another advantage of Amazon is that it is currently the only cloud provider to offer both standard computing chips (Graviton) and AI-specific chips (Inferentia and Trainium) in its servers.
As early as 2019, Amazon introduced its own AI inference chip, Inferentia.
It allows customers to run large-scale machine learning inference applications in the cloud at a low cost, such as image recognition, speech recognition, natural language processing, personalization, and fraud detection.
The latest Inferentia 2 has tripled its computing performance, quadrupled the accelerator’s total memory, quadrupled its throughput, and reduced latency to one-tenth.
Following the launch of the first-generation Inferentia, Amazon released its custom chip designed primarily for AI training, Trainium.
It is optimized for deep learning training workloads, including image classification, semantic search, translation, speech recognition, natural language processing, and recommendation engines.
In some cases, customizing chips can not only reduce costs by an order of magnitude and reduce energy consumption to one-tenth but also provide better service to customers with lower latency.
Disrupting Nvidia’s monopoly won’t be easy
However, so far, most AI workloads still run on GPUs, with the majority of chips produced by Nvidia.
According to previous reports, Nvidia has an 80% market share in the standalone GPU market and a 90% market share in the high-end GPU market.
For 20 years, 80.6% of the world’s cloud computing and data centers running AI have been powered by Nvidia GPUs. In 2021, Nvidia stated that about 70% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers are powered by their chips.
Now, even the Microsoft data centers running ChatGPT use tens of thousands of Nvidia A100 GPUs.
All along, whether it’s top-tier ChatGPT, Bard, Stable Diffusion, or other models, they are all powered by the Nvidia A100 chip, which costs about $10,000 each.
Moreover, the A100 has become the “mainstay” for AI professionals. The 2022 AI Status Report also lists some companies using A100 supercomputers.
It’s clear that Nvidia has monopolized global computing power, dominating the market with its chips.
According to industry insiders, compared to general-purpose chips, the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips that Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have been developing are faster and consume less power when executing machine learning tasks.
O’Donnell, a director, made a comparison between GPUs and ASICs: “For everyday driving, you can use a Prius, but if you need four-wheel drive in the mountains, a Jeep Wrangler is more suitable.”
Despite their efforts, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all face challenges—how to persuade developers to use these AI chips?
Currently, Nvidia’s GPUs dominate the market, and developers are already familiar with its proprietary programming language, CUDA, used to create GPU-driven applications.
If they switch to custom chips from Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, they would need to learn a whole new software language. Would they be willing to do so？
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