text:
Calif. Identifies 14 Firms Targeted in Marketplace Lending Inquiry
The first state inquiry into marketplace lending is seeking information from a broad mix of companies, including consumer lenders, small-business lenders, and firms that are not primarily in the lending business.
The regulatory path may also be bumpier for P-to-P lenders that focus on subprime borrowers, predicts Raj Date, a former second-in-command at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
California regulators on Monday identified 14 companies that the state is targeting as part of its recently announced inquiry into the marketplace lending industry.
Firms on the list have been asked to provide a slew of data to the California Department of Business Oversight, including information about their loan volumes, the annual percentage rates they charge to borrowers, and their investor bases.
The specific companies were not named in a Dec. 11 press release from the Department of Business Oversight, but many of them were quickly identified in news reports.
Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for the Department of Business Oversight, sent out an email Monday naming the 14 firms. "At this point, we decided that full disclosure was the appropriate course," he told American Banker.
The companies on the list include: Lending Club, Prosper Marketplace, Social Finance, CircleBack Lending, Affirm and Avant, all of which specialize in consumer lending; as well as OnDeck Capital, CAN Capital, Kabbage, Funding Circle, Bond Street and Fundbox, which provide financing to small businesses.
Also on the list are PayPal and Square, both of which offer financing to merchants that are customers of their payments arms.
In an interview Friday, Dresslar said that the state agency may at some point decide to look beyond the companies that received the initial data requests. "Folks shouldn't assume that this group of 14 is going to be the entire universe of lending that end up being part of this inquiry," he said.


text:
Motorola Solutions has purchased software communications company Twisted Pair Solutions for an undisclosed amount in an effort to grow push-to-talk over broadband offerings.
Twisted Pair will become a subsidiary of Motorola Solutions and be a part of the latter company’s government solutions business, the companies said Thursday.
“We recognize that our customers have multiple communications technology options for connecting land mobile radios, wireless broadband networks and smart devices,” said Bob Schassler, senior vice president for government solutions at Motorola.
Seattle-based Twisted Pair developed the WAVE platform, a communications application designed to consolidate voice, location, text messaging for interoperability with smartphones, PCs, tablets as well as land mobile radios and other communication equipment.
“The acquisition of Twisted Pair enables Motorola Solutions to address all of those choices and accelerate push-to-talk expansion across multiple technologies,” Schassler said.

domain: news


text:
MAN WITH A MISSION will be providing the image song for Capcom's new game 'Lost Planet 3' which will be released on August 29th. Their song "Wake Myself Again" will be used in its TV and WEB CMs in the coming days.
'Lost Planet 3' is the third installment of the popular 'Lost Planet' series. It will be released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC. Only the Windows PC version will be released a little later, on September 26th.
You can check out the PV for "Wake Myself Again" below.
Source & Image: natalie


text:
Getting To Know Stone Oak
By Stefanie Young
The Stone Oak and 10 West Business Associations are committed to creating a friendly network among its business members and the community. They provide a fun way to get to know the businesses that influence the community around them and give insight into the needs and demands of running a business, making changes for the better and expanding markets. Each month, the associations hold networking meetings open to both members and non-members, and every event offers a new and unique experience to those who attend.
SOBA and the 10 West Business Association kicked off the year in January with a combined speed-networking event at Canyon Springs Golf Club. Those in attendance used the opportunity to meet other like-minded businesses and make connections.
On March 20, 2014 the association hosted the first breakfast mixer of the year at The Egg and I. More than 50 people were in attendance and took part in the introductions, festivities and networking, all while enjoying a delicious meal.
“These breakfast events are unique and fun,” Said Sierra Hernandez, an organizer for the event. “Everyone gets to start their day the right way, have breakfast while helping to grow their business.”
This was just one event that the Stone Oak and 10 West Business Associations organized to provide their growing communities with networking opportunities and a free exchange of information as well as mutual support.
On April 24 SOBA held their 12th Annual business expo, as a fundraising opportunity to help the SOBA scholarship program benefit both Reagan and Johnson High School. The event took place on the Reagan High School campus and provided an opportunity for more than 60 local businesses to set up booths and market to the public.
“This is a regular event that has a good cause,” said a SOBA representative. “The proceeds go to college scholarships for high school seniors, but everyone who attends has a good time. Our goal is to get the community to come out. Community businesses win by having a chance to market, students win by receiving scholarships, and parents win by learning of new opportunities that may assist them.”
The Expo drew a variety of businesses (including both SOBA members and non-members alike) that all share the belief that marketing can support education. Many area restaurants provided free samples, while other businesses offered drawings and giveaways. Local businesses donated dozens of prizes that were raffled away to lucky winners throughout the evening, adding to the fun. By purchasing a booth at the expo, vendors contributed to making multiple student scholarships possible.
SOBA, taking into consideration the importance of correctly running a business, hosted a free three-part lecture informing guests about litigation dangers facing small business owners during its May breakfast mixer. The networking meeting and first half of the lecture took place on May 8th at The Egg & I on Sonterra Boulevard. Those in attendance received a complementary breakfast with coffee before Charles Vethan, founder of the Vethan Law Firm P.C., spoke about potential lawsuits facing small businesses.
“I think this was a fantastic meeting. A lot of business owners and decision makers were here, so the information presented benefits them, and it allows us to meet with them one on one,” Vethan said. “Our law firm is a very specialized firm – we have a very narrow focus, focusing on aggressively growing businesses, and what SOBA had here today is ideal. It was a mutually beneficial breakfast, and hopefully we met some new friends.”
The second half of the lecture took place on August 13th where Vethan picked up the discussion where he left off and spoke about establishing dispute resolution procedures before the need arises with the third discussion covering non-compete contracts and high management positions within a company on October 22nd. He also discussed how to keep the intellectual property of a business within the company.
After so much talk of business, SOBA decided to host a night of good company, delicious drinks and the sweet taste of Texas BBQ during the SOBA’s Summer Rodeo on August 22. The event took place at Tejas Rodeo located on Obst Road, in Bulverde, and offered its guests a chance to converse and exchange contact information while enjoying live music and relaxing within an old-fashioned atmosphere. This event was a mixer that brought guests back to the original idea behind SOBA: networking. Mixers such as these help small business owners meet as many new people as possible and create new useful contacts.
With the business expo in April being overwhelmingly more successful than anticipated, SOBA welcomed the opportunity to help businesses once again and hosted a second expo in September at Johnson High School.
The event took place in the cafeteria and courtyard area where more than 60 businesses set up booths and tables to market to the public. The event drew a diverse group of businesses together for a chance to market to the public while supporting education in our community. Health services, communication enhancements, tutoring, construction groups, home and auto repair businesses, and restaurants showcased their goods and services with tastings and demonstrations.
Prizes were donated by the businesses participating and were raffled off throughout the event while guests enjoyed samples of good and giveaways at individual booths.
“The money that is raised goes toward scholarships for the kids and that’s the important thing,” Chickie from Independence Hill explained when asked what she enjoyed about participating in the event. “Of course it’s always great when you make great connections and meet new people.”
The Stone Oak Business Association is dedicated to providing the growing communities with networking opportunities, a free exchange of information as well as mutual support. The organization will continue to hold monthly networking events and look for new ways to bring its members together and provide fun, working opportunities for companies to become more involved in their business community.
To find out more about the Stone Oak Business Association, the 10 West Business Association or the monthly meetings, email email@example.com or call 210-348-8233.


text:
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Sales of household power batteries in Germany may jump 67% in 2022 as residents employ energy-storage technology for a cheaper, renewable and more reliable supply of energy, industry association BVES said.
“High energy prices and the quest for security of supply will give home storage batteries a further push in 2022,” BVES said on Wednesday, presenting an industry-commissioned study undertaken by 3Energie Consulting.
Household power battery unit sales could rise by 67% this year from 430,000 at the end of 2021, the report said.
As of April, that number has already grown to 500,000, representing 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, equivalent to one or two big nuclear power stations.
The number of units for the end of 2021, mostly installed in houses with rooftop solar power generation, was up by 145,000, or 50%, from 2020, and is 14 times the number in 2015.
Germany counts 2.2 million solar photovoltaic systems which produce power at home. Before residential batteries were available, the electricity produced went exclusively to the grid.
Now, more and more people are buying batteries as they become cheaper and bigger, spurred further by a quest for self-reliance amid spiralling energy bills.
Householders, typically families with detached houses, have been upgrading their homes to store surplus power for general use and, increasingly, to fuel electric cars and heat pumps.
Leading home-battery vendors in Germany include domestic players Senec, sonnen, owned by Shell, and E3/DC, and foreign players such as LG Chem and Tesla.
Overall sales by the storage industry represented by BVES rose 29% last year to 8.9 billion euros ($9.7 billion), and may rise again by that percentage in 2022, 3Energie said, adding that the potential was uncertain.
Still, there were some hindrances to sales in the shape of logistics and supply-chain bottlenecks, which had led to shortages of raw materials and components, and the availability of qualified labour was tight.
Home-storage batteries for power and heat accounted for 4.4 billion euros of total turnover, which included pumped storage plants and grid size batteries to help power stations and industrial energy consumers regulate power supply flows.
($1 = 0.9170 euros)
(Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.


text:
Crimsonland screenshots and video trailer released by 10Tons LTd. as the 2003 top-down shooter gets a Steam/PS4 revamp coming this summer.
Crimsonland Screenshots and Video Released
Originally released in 2003 as a Windows title, Crimsonland is set to be remastered and released for both Steam and PS4. Crimsonland features over sixty playable levels during the campaign mode, which is fully playable in local co-op. Take down enemies using over 30 different weapons. Judging from the trailer, the weapons look pretty sick.
30Plus recently discussed Crimsonland with 10tons Ltd. The dev team is definitely looking forward to the remastered title, and it certainly looks like Crimsonland is ready to take on both Steam and the PS4. More details to come.


text:
When light strikes a photodetector, it sends a signal that drives current into the diode above it; the diode heats up, causing the black dye to turn transparent. This lets the white layer of silver show through. As the pattern of ambient light changes, the array of pixels match the pattern of light striking the structure.
The system, which works in a manner similar to the skin of cephalopods like the cuttlefish, grew out of the research of Roger Hanlon, a biologist at Brown University and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. Hanlon, Rogers, and their colleagues describe the work in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
The work was sponsored by the U.S. Navy, which has an obvious interest in camouflage, but Rogers says there could be a range of industrial and consumer applications, including mood lighting and sensors that change color based on exposure to ultraviolet light.
Though the team worked with black and white to demonstrate the concept, Rogers says the technique could also be used to display colors - and might incorporate actuators or even a camera. "We view it as sort of a general set of engineering approaches," Rogers says.


text:
What do AARP, Emory University, and the Sierra Club have in common? A dislike for CVS drug stores that try to substitute for a full line grocery store. 4,000 residents of Emory Village signed a petition, submitted to the CVS convenience store chain by the Save Our Village Committee, which signalled the intention of residents to boycott a proposed CVS store for a site currently occupied by a Kroger grocery store. Kroger has not renewed its lease on the site, but the SOV committee wants to keep a grocery store in that space, not a CVS. Helping their cause is a letter from Emory University President Bill Chace, who notes that “closing (the Kroger) would be a tremendous loss to the community.” The district’s AARP chapter has also weighed in against CVS, noting that its elderly members have grown to depend on a grocery store in that location.” SOV contends that CVS should focus on expanded their current location at the nearby North Decatur & Clairmont Road location, instead of replacing a grocery store. CVS, however, has hired a “Strategic Communications Counselor”, apparently to help translate CVS’s corporate strategy to the local folks. CVS’ strategy, according to company documents, is “to fill in existing markets through new store openings and acquisitions…and achieve a 20% to 25% increase in sales primarily in higher-margin, front-store categories as customers begin to use the stores differently”. No wonder CVS needs a “Communications Counselor”, but just who is being counseled is not clear. The CVS Counselor told residents that the company would add streetscaping, benches and “retromood” additions (translation?). Emory Village residents are not buying the strategy. “What we’re interested in is maintaining a grocery store,” said on SOV leader, “and any gimmick they come up with will not be accepted by the community.” Finally, the Sierra Club has also joined in the battle to keep the CVS out, retromood or any other kind of mood.
Please write to CVS and tell them to stop calling PR people “Strategic Communications Counselors”, and to stop using words like “retromood” to describe their acrylic and pylon architecture. You can contact CVS at: www.cvs. com, or write to them at: CVS, One CVS Drive, Woonsocket, Rhode Island 02895.Their phone number is: 401-765-1500. Tell them to give up on the Kroger site in Emory Village, GA. Who knows, maybe a letter from you might put the company in a retromood!


text:
“Any media company is a laboratory right now. There is no established way to do anything.” Thus spoke Adam Moss recently, in his role as editor in chief of New York magazine. The publication has altered its cadence and is expanding into the worlds of cable television and live events. His comment referred to print media but it might just as well have been applied to the entertainment industry at large.
The film industry, in particular, could benefit from more experimental, “agile” thinking and delivery. Over the weekend, The New York Times ran an article that was laden with anxiety over the state of cinema-going. As with all popular past-times that have been ingrained in our culture, we have a tendency not only to sentimentalise the activity but also to remove such activities from their contextual moorings. Going to the cinema has not been a consistent experience, as A.O. Scott sagely illustrates,
“The nickelodeons of the earliest days gave way to movie palaces, which were supplemented by humbler main-street Bijoux and Roxys. In the ’30s, the major home-entertainment platforms were radio and the upright piano in the parlor, and movies offered a cheap, accessible and climate-controlled escape. And millions of people went often, less out of reverence than out of habit, returning every week to take in double features, shorts and serials, newsreels and cartoons…
In the postwar years, the rise of car culture and the growth of the suburbs planted drive-ins in wide-open spaces, while grindhouses, art houses and campus film societies flourished in the cities and college towns. Moviegoing has never been just one thing.”
Much has been made of Sean “Napster and Facebook” Parker’s Screening Room initiative – offering newly released films at $50 for home viewing – that has very publicly split Hollywood in two. It has been referred to as “weaponised VOD“, in tones not dissimilar from those who worried about the end of cinema back when TV arrived on the scene. Such a technology, and more importantly such a way of consuming media, is hardly new. Millions of people have been watching films in this way (i.e. at home while the film sits in scarcity-inducing cinemas) for years, just without a legal way of doing it for the most part (shining exceptions include platforms like Curzon At Home).
The unfortunate trap this article falls into is to assume that any money spent on watching films using platforms such as the Screening Room platform is money necessarily lost by exhibitors. This thinking is overly simplistic and lacks any basis on quantitative data. It is the same argument made against those, referred to above, who pirate content. In reality, data from 2014 show that “people who illegally download movies also love going to the cinema and do not mind paying to watch films“.
Current industry inertia is not merely preventing new innovative consumer products and platforms from arriving, it is also hurting existing business models. While a sizeable minority of independent films are increasingly turning to day-and-date SVOD releases, they remain a minority, in an industry where risk is baked into multi-year franchises at $300m a go, but is nowhere to be found when considering if a film might need to be released in a tailored manner. Films showing up in such fashion look more often to be those that the studio don’t mind breaking even on, rather than a film that might hit home with a demographic who would be more likely to pay a premium to stream it from home. Last week, The New Yorker wrote about the antiquated distribution strategy of “limited” and “wide” release. This is where cinema can play a proactive role: in supporting independent cinema
“Because there’s no comparable venue now, far fewer independent films get proper releases; some of the best of the past few years… are still awaiting release.”
The article points out that such definitions of release, in an era of instantly available content, is not only anachronistic but harmful to films.
There are thus several opportunities for new revenue streams to be explored in the film industry. These can be adopted with a more experimental attitude toward distributing films; the kind of attitude that gave birth to the industry in the first place. It also requires that some of the risk of potentially destabilising tentpole film franchises be redirected into exploring the potential of films to reach a much, much wider audience.
In the course of history, many smart people have been scared by the rapid progression of technology and its impact on the way we live. Forget the printing press; Socrates was concerned that even the technology of recording via written documents (i.e. writing) would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories”. One need only look at the graphic above, representing swings in market share for tech titans, to see significant change in just the past 35 years.
January has been a difficult month for the stock market, with share prices around the world taking a tumble. A lot of the liquidity in the market rests on the valuation of a growing number of technology firms, whose route to profitability varies wildly. The oft-written about “Unicorns” are seemingly due for some market correction – no bad thing for the tech sector – but what about the bastions of the industry, how are they looking?
Twitter – The firm would have breathed a sigh of relief at the end of last year, when original co-founder Jack Dorsey committed to returning to the company. There were promising sounds at first, but recently it has been mulling a move away from the 140-character limit that defines its modus operandi. It has the potential, according to Forrester, to repackage such long-form fare in the mode of Facebook’s Instant Articles. But attempting to emulate what has already been done cannot hold any hope for actually catching up with its rival. An article in The New Yorker this week derides the social network, calling out its lack of direction, and questioning its relevance in a growing pool of competitors. Twitter’s US penetration has been flat for the past three quarters, and Snapchat is nipping at its heels in terms of engagement. While overall Twitter is seeing steady growth, it’s rate of growth continues to decline
Facebook – By contrast, Facebook is doing well, particularly concerning its financial performance. Its increasing collaboration with telcos as it explores new revenue opportunities pave the way for sizeable rewards in the medium term. And it is slowly learning from the likes of WeChat and Kakao Talk in Asian markets on how to better integrate various functionality into its Messenger app; it’s first foray is working with Uber to allow users to hire a car without leaving Messenger. (This week Whatsapp also begun to get the message, no pun intended). We commented in our last article about how the social network is fast having to adapt to an ageing user base and lower engagement, but Facebook is attempting to combat such trends with numerous tactics. Sadly, its attempt to provide free internet services in developing markets has run into obstacles. In both Egypt and India, government regulators have interceded to stop the network from running its Free Basics service, under the guise of net neutrality (which in our opinion stretches the definition, and the spirit, of net neutrality).
Yahoo – The troubles for this company are more than we can summarise in this short review. Let it suffice to say that Marissa Mayer’s wunderkind sheen has been significantly tarnished since her arrival at the company in 2012. In an editorial in the Financial Times last month, the company was described as a “blur of services and assets of different values”. As her inescapably significant role in the organisation’s lacklustre performance becomes increasingly apparent – hedge fund Starboard Value has issued an ultimatum for her to either leave peacefully or be replaced by shareholder vote come March – reports are that Mayer will have to lay off around 10% of the company. The FT puts it well,
[R]ather like AOL, it is considered a service stuck in internet dark ages. It is what grandma uses to look up the weather. It is not for Snapchatting teenagers. And it is not what investors crave most of all: the prospect of growth.
Amazon – Until this week the company had been faring extremely well, and its most recent concern was not getting investors too excited about its recent profit announcement. And while it’s reporting this week of a 26% YoY rise in sales was welcome, its fourth-quarter profits of $482m were one-third lower than what Wall Street analysts were expecting; the stock plunged 13% as a result. The disparity between rising sales and profits that don’t align to such a rise are nothing new for the company, unfortunately.
Holistic sector frailty – Two excellent articles in The Economist this month reveal a sector that is experiencing growing pains as the current digital era reaches a period of relative maturity. As the hype dies down, what hath such new ways of thinking, making and working wrought? The first article examines the seemingly glamorous role of a techie working in a startup firm, and the pitfalls that come with it. The article reports that “Only 19% of tech employees said they were happy in their jobs and only 17% said they felt valued in their work”. In looking at the explosion of demand for the inadequately named Hoverboard, the second article identifies that globalisation has vastly sped up a product’s journey from conception to delivery at a consumer’s home, at the expense of a proper regulatory system; it is unclear with so many disintermediated players who should shoulder the burden of quality control. The Economist sees such risk as a parable for the tricky place the sector as a whole finds itself in.
We’ve written several times over the years about the deployment of Big Data. One of the key challenges with such tools is the seductive risk of treating the data as a catch-all answer to a question not asked. Zeitgeist in the past worked with a large client in the public sector that understood this pitfall and studiously avoided it by knowing beforehand what Big Data meant to them, and how it could be used to improve its strategy and operations.
Without such forethought, applications of Big Data can be ineffectual, if not outright harmful, as the president of eBay Marketplaces said last year in an interview with McKinsey. Governments around the world – particularly in the West – have been using Big Data for some time now to help identify extremists. The jury is still out for some as to how harmful government digital surveillance can be. The deliberate weakening of virtual systems has its root in the fact that the US government originally classified once-arcane cryptography as a munition, which when licensed abroad was watered down. “The idea of deliberately weakening cryptography in the name of national security has not gone away”, writes The Economist. An article published in The New Yorker earlier this year investigated the NSA’s uses of Big Data – specifically mass surveillance of individuals in the US and beyond over cellphone metadata, social media, etc. – and found it wanting. This appears to be partly because there is no pre-determined strategy for what they want the data to do, other than to figuratively chuck it onto the pile with the rest of the data they have, which at some point might be used. The efficacy of such a practice, according to the article, has been minimal. In all of its surveillance, the article claims there was but a single case “
“Patrick Skinner, a former C.I.A. case officer who works with the Soufan Group, a security company, told me… ‘We knew about these networks,’ he said, speaking of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Mass surveillance, he continued, ‘gives a false sense of security. It sounds great when you say you’re monitoring every phone call in the United States. You can put that in a PowerPoint. But, actually, you have no idea what’s going on.’
By flooding the system with false positives, big-data approaches to counterterrorism might actually make it harder to identify real terrorists before they act. Two years before the Boston Marathon bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers alleged to have committed the attack, was assessed by the city’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. They determined that he was not a threat. This was one of about a thousand assessments that the Boston J.T.T.F. conducted that year, a number that had nearly doubled in the previous two years, according to the Boston F.B.I. As of 2013, the Justice Department has trained nearly three hundred thousand law-enforcement officers in how to file ‘suspicious-activity reports.’ In 2010, a central database held about three thousand of these reports; by 2012 it had grown to almost twenty-eight thousand. ‘The bigger haystack makes it harder to find the needle,’ Sensenbrenner told me. Thomas Drake, a former N.S.A. executive and whistle-blower who has become one of the agency’s most vocal critics, told me, ‘If you target everything, there’s no target.’“
This last quotation applies to strategy in general. Without anything specific to focus on as a strategic achievement or direction, one shouldn’t expect any improvement in that area.
We all seem to have less time to ourselves these days. But there seems to be more to watch – on more platforms – than ever before. What trends have led to this, and what’s the result? Much editorial ink has been spilled over the years about how our lives seem to be getting busier, with less free time to ourselves. This is somewhat of a painful irony given that many of our more intellectual ancestors thought our evolution as a species would quickly lead to a civilisation mostly consumed by thoughts of how to fill the days of leisure. In last week’s New Yorker, Harvard professor Thales Teixeira noted there are three major “fungible” resources we have as people – money, time and attention. The third, according to Teixeira, is the “least explored”. Interestingly, Teixeira calculated the inherent price of attention and how it fluctuates, by correlating it with rising ad rates for the Super Bowl. Last year, the price of attention jumped more than 20%. The article elaborates,
“The jump had obvious implications: attention—at least, the kind worth selling—is becoming increasingly scarce, as people spend their free time distracted by a growing array of devices. And, just as the increasing scarcity of oil has led to more exotic methods of recovery, the scarcity of attention, combined with a growing economy built around its exchange, has prompted R. & D. in the [retaining of attention].”
It’s such thinking that has persuaded executives to invest in increasingly multi-platform, creative advertising during the Super Bowl, and to media production companies taking their wares to the likes of YouTube and Netflix. But it’s all circular , as demonstrated last week when Amazon announced it would be producing films for cinema release. The plurality of such content over different channels carries important connotations for pricing strategies. At its most fundamental, what is a product worth when it is intangible and potentially only available in digital form? It chimes with an article written earlier this month in The Economist on the customer benefits of e-commerce. Though most knee-jerk reactions would assume price is the biggest benefit to customers, recent research illustrates this is not always the case. Researchers at MIT showed on average people paid an extra 50% for books online versus in-store. This isn’t because that latest David Baldacci is sold for more on Amazon, but rather because of the long tail. Which means more products are able to find the right owner, for a price, whereas in store comparatively they go unsold. More channels have meant more availability for content, which should benefit consumers in that more content destined to be a hit now finds a home, where once it might have been lost if turned down by the major TV or radio network stations. The Economist elaborates,
“Seasoned publishers have only a vague idea what book, film or song will be a hit. A major record label can sign only a fraction of the artists available, knowing full well it will unwittingly reject a future superstar. Thanks to cheap digital recording technology, file sharing, YouTube, streaming music and social media, however, barriers to entry have been dismantled. Artists can now record and distribute a song without signing to a major label. Independent labels have proliferated, and they are taking on the artists passed over by major labels. Hit songs are still a lottery, but the public gets three times as many lottery tickets.”
So while we may have less time to consume it, more content over more channels will allow for greater chances for breakout hits, particularly with avid niche audiences. Amazon Prime video content was until recently confined to a niche audience, and the show Transparent dealt with niche subject matter. But the show has broken out into the zeitgeist and won two awards at the recent Golden Globes ceremony. (Full disclosure, we know a producer on the show and were lucky enough to visit the set on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles last summer). It is likely such a great show – recently made available free for 24 hours as a way to upsell customers to Prime – would not have found a home on traditional TV networks, and thus in people’s homes, were it not for this plurality.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose… TV executives’ concern over changing viewing habits is nothing new. Sports coverage continues to deliver; it’s such thinking that pushed BT to pay almost GBP900m to show some football matches. But it’s not just knowing the score as it happens that has kept audiences from time-shifting. We wrote a piece back in 2011 detailing how the industry was trying to put a renewed focus on live events. Social media have contributed to this; having a constant stream of wry comments on Twitter to snark at while watching Downton Abbey can vastly improve the viewing experience. This is somewhat lost if viewing the show later.
There was a time when live events were much more common on network TV. Back then it was other formats – radio and cinema – that were running scared from the box in the corner. Now it is television that is trying to retain eyeballs; DVRs and OTT rivals are diminishing its sway; the cable industry lost 2.2m subscribes last quarter and Fox COO Chase Carey recently conceded the cable cord was “fraying”. TV viewing in general dropped 4% last quarter, Nielsen reported on Friday. Mobile use in general seems to be the largest culprit (see chart, below). As part of a strategy to keep viewers glued to scheduled, linear TV, NBC has previously screened the live performance of Sound of Music, and recently announced plans for a live rendition of A Few Good Men. Like the latter piece on content, Peter Pan similarly began as a play, and this past week saw its own broadcast, live, on NBC. It was a fine tactic in a broader strategy. Sadly, execution, and timing, are everything. Salon saw much room for improvement. The New Yorker compared it with earlier TV adaptations (NBC did a live version back in 1955) and found it lacking. More damningly, it also saw a broader disconnection from reality, as protests swept the nation in reaction to events unfolding in Ferguson. Viewing figures were half what the network got for Sound of Music. As The Wall Street Journal points out, live events may be losing their pull; both the Emmys and MTV Music Awards saw dips in ratings this year. Meanwhile though, marketers are still willing to pay a premium for advertising during such shows. Brands are said to have paid as much as $400,000 per-30 second commercial for the telecast.
“The nature of the internet as a platform for art is double-edged. The thing that makes it attractive — the fast turnover of content produced by unusual, gifted people — may be what stops it from bringing about a Golden Age 2.0.”
– India Ross, Financial Times
Another tactic in the strategy to retain eyeballs has been to license old seasons of shows still running to OTT providers like Hulu, Amazon and Netflix. On the one hand this may cannibalise viewers who are just as happy watching old episodes as new ones. On the other, it could provide a new platform to find audiences and increase advocacy and engagement. What Nielsen has found is that both are happening. As the WSJ reports, “Dounia Turrill, Nielsen’s senior vice president of client insights, said she analyzed the results of 16 such shows and found an even split of shows that benefited and those that didn’t”. Netflix, meanwhile, closed down its public API and is seeking world domination with culturally diverse content in the form of Marco Polo. Such OTT providers have their own problems to worry about, too; their niche is becoming increasingly cluttered. Vimeo is not mentioned often as a competitor to the likes of Amazon’s services, but it too is now producing original content for streaming, in much the same way as its peers, where shows are greenlit by popular demand and creatives given full rein. An article in this weekend’s Financial Times points out the limits of such a business model, “the internet audience — vehement but fleeting in its interests — may not always know what makes the best content for a more substantial series… returns are unreliable in a marketplace where even established services suffer at the hands of a capricious audience”.
In film, new possibilities arise in the form of ticket-booking innovation. While TV is recycling old ideas of content and engagement, these new tactics look to push the industry onward. This month through January 17, New York’s MOMA hosts a Robert Altman retrospective. One of his seminal films, The Player, shows in some ways how far the film industry has come, and in others how we haven’t moved on at all. The New Yorker wrote a brief feature on the retrospective. It’s insightful enough to quote at length, below:
“In the opening shot of “The Player,” from 1992, Robert Altman makes an explicit attempt to outdo Orson Welles’s famous opening to “Touch of Evil.” He has the camera zoom in and out, track left and right, pan one way and the other, and, before a cut finally comes, pick up with most of the major characters of the film. The scene also situates “The Player”—a movie about a studio created on a Hollywood studio lot—in film history, with passing references to silent film, forties genre work, the sixties, and, finally, the Japanese, who were then moving in on Hollywood, and are seen looking the studio over.
When it came out, “The Player” was regarded as a scorching attack on greedy and unimaginative Hollywood: in the film, the industry’s shining past surrounds the executives at the studio and shames many of them. Twenty years later, the huge profits from big-Hollywood movies—digital fantasies based on comic books and video games—have washed away that shame. The executives in “The Player” have stories pitched to them constantly by writers, and then they say yes or no. They don’t consult the marketing division on what will sell in Bangkok and in Bangalore. The thing that Altman may not have anticipated was that one would be able to look back at the world of “The Player” with something almost like nostalgia.”
We’ve written about Sony multiple times over the years, rarely in a good light. A parody Twitter account of the company’s CEO, Kazuo Hirai, often makes for entertaining reading. The company can’t seem to catch a break. Its latest financial results, released today, warned of a $2.2bn loss for the financial year, the sixth loss in seven years. For the first time since 1958, the company will not pay a dividend. Much of the blame fell to the ailing smartphone division, which generates a fifth of the company’s revenue, but other businesses hurt the conglom too. The company loses $80 on every TV sold; rumours abound they will sell the Spider-Man franchise back to Marvel for a quick payday; the one bright light, Playstation, which took the company into the black in Q2, is beginning to seem risky, as customers look beyond single-use devices like games consoles, a trend we spotted back in January last year. (Earlier this week, Microsoft continued to hint that it might spin off the Xbox business). Sony recently spun off its TV division into a subsidiary and sold its PC business. These actions in turn were supposed to bear fruit, but clearly haven’t.
Much of the difficulty Sony faces was elaborated on in detail in a brilliant profile of then-CEO Sir Howard Stringer for The New Yorker, back in 2006. Little has changed since then. In today’s FT, the newspaper outlines the longevity of Sony’s heartache.
June 1999 Nobuyuki Idei becomes chief executive. Four years later he presides over the infamous Sony “Shokku”, or shock, in which the group surprised investors with a profits warning.
June 2005 British-born Howard Stringer becomes chief executive, the first foreigner to lead Sony with a mandate to restore profitability and turn the core electronics business round.
September 2005 Sir Howard’s first major restructuring initiative outlines a plan to cut staff numbers by 10,000, or 7 per cent, and reduce costs by Y200bn. It will also close 11 manufacturing plants, streamline its number of products and generate capital from asset sales. “We must be like the Russians defending Moscow against Napoleon, ready to scorch the earth to stay ahead of the invaders. We must be Sony United and fight like the Sony warriors we are,” he says.
December 2008 A second wave of restructuring begins with plans to cut 16,000 full-time and part-time jobs in its electronics businesses around the world.
2011 Sony downgrades its net income forecasts four times.
March 2012 The group highlights its digital imaging, game and mobile units as the three core pillars of its electronics business.
April 2012 Kazuo ‘Kaz’ Hirai takes over as chief executive. Sir Howard says he will be a “tough-mind[ed]” leader. The first restructuring under Mr Hirai is outlined under the banner of “Sony will change”. Sony will shed 10,000 jobs, or about 6 per cent of its global headcount, over the next three years.
March 2013 The group reports its first full-year net income in five years.
October 2013 Sony warns on profits.
January 2014 Moody’s cuts Sony rating to junk.
February 2014 Plans to spin out the television business and sell the Vaio PC business are announced.
May 2014 Sony warns on profits for the third time in six months.
July 2014 The group surprises the market by swinging into profit for the second quarter.
September 2014 Sony warns that its expected annual net loss will be nearly five times as big as initially predicted at Y230bn.
How to define innovation, how has it been studied in the recent past, and what does future innovation hold for the human race?
Sometimes the word innovation gets misused. Like when people use the word “technology” to mean recent gadgets and gizmos, instead of acknolwedging that the term encompasses the first wheel. “Innovation” is another tricky one. Our understanding of recent thoughts on innovation – as well as its contemporary partner, “disruption” – were thrown into question in June when Jill Lepore penned an article in The New Yorker that put our ideas about innovation and specifically on Clayton Christensen’s ideas about innovation in a new light. Christensen, heir apparent to fellow Harvard Business School bod Michael Porter (author of the simple, elegant and classic The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy) wrote The Innovator’s Dilemma in 1997. His work on disruptive innovation, claiming that successful businesses focused too much on what they were doing well, missing what, in Lepore’s words, “an entirely untapped customer wanted”, created a cottage industry of conferences, companies and counsels committed to dealing with disruption, (not least this blog, which lists disruption as one its topics of interest). Lepore’s article describes how, as Western society’s retelling of the past became less dominated by religion and more by science and historicism, the future became less about the fall of Man and more about the idea of progress. This thought took hold particularly during The Enlightenment. In the wake of two World Wars though, our endless advance toward greater things seemed less obvious;
“Replacing ‘progress’ with ‘innovation’ skirts the question of whether a novelty is an improvement: the world may not be getting better and better but our devices our getting newer and newer”
The article goes on to look at Christensen’s handpicked case studies that he used in his book. When Christensen describes one of his areas of focus, the disk-drive industry, as being unlike any other in the history of business, Lepore rightly points out the sui generis nature of it “makes it a very odd choice for an investigation designed to create a model for understanding other industries”. She goes on for much of the article to utterly debunk several of the author’s case studies, showcasing inaccuracies and even criminal behaviour on the part of those businesses he heralded as disruptive innovators. She also deftly points out, much in the line of thinking in Taleb’s Black Swan, that failures are often forgotten about, and those that succeed are grouped and promoted as formulae for success. Such is the case with Christensen’s apparently cherry-picked case studies. Writing about one company, Pathfinder, that tried to branch out into online journalism, seemingly too soon, Lepore comments,
“Had [it] been successful, it would have been greeted, retrospectively, as evidence of disruptive innovation. Instead, as one of its producers put it, ‘it’s like it never existed’… Faith in disruption is the best illustration, and the worst case, of a larger historical transformation having to do with secularization, and what happens when the invisible hand replaces the hand of God as explanation and justification.”
Such were the ramifications of the piece, that when questioned on it recently in Harvard Business Review, Christensen confessed “the choice of the word ‘disruption’ was a mistake I made twenty years ago“. The warning to businesses is that just because something is seen as ‘disruptive’ does not guarantee success, or fundamentally that it belongs to any long-term strategy. Developing expertise in a disparate area takes time, and investment, in terms of people, infrastructure and cash. And for some, the very act of resisting disruption is what has made them thrive. Another recent piece in HBR makes the point that most successful strategies involve not just a single act of deus ex machina thinking-outside-the-boxness, but rather sustained disruption. Though Kodak, Sony and others may have rued the days, months and years they neglected to innovate beyond their core area, the graveyard of dead businesses is also surely littered with companies who innovated too soon, the wrong way or in too costly a process that left them open to things other than what Schumpeter termed creative destruction.
Outside of cultural and philosophical analysis of the nature and definition of innovation, some may consider of more pressing concern the news that we are soon to be looked after by, and subsequently outmaneuvered in every way by, machines. The largest and most forward-thinking (and therefore not necessarily likely) of these concerns was recently put forward by Nick Bostrom in his new book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. According to a review in The Economist, the book posits that once you assume that there is nothing inherently magic about the human brain, it is evidence that an intelligent machine can be built. Bostrom worries though that “Once intelligence is sufficiently well understood for a clever machine to be built, that machine may prove able to design a better version of itself” and so on, ad infinitum. “The thought processes of such a machine, he argues, would be as alien to humans as human thought processes are to cockroaches. It is far from obvious that such a machine would have humanity’s best interests at heart—or, indeed, that it would care about humans at all”.
Beyond the admittedly far-off prognostications of the removal of the human race at the hands of the very things it created, machines and digital technology in general pose great risks in the near-term, too. For a succinct and alarming introduction to this, watch the enlightening video at the beginning of this post. Since the McKinsey Global Instititute published a paper in May soberly titled Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy, much editorial ink and celluloid (were either medium to still be in much use) has been spilled and spooled detailing how machines will slowly replace humans in the workplace. This transformation – itself a prime example of creative destruction – is already underway in the blue-collar world, where machines have replaced workers in automotive factories. The Wall Street Journal reports Chinese electronics makers are facing pressure to automate as labor costs rise, but are challenged by the low margins, precise work and short product life of the phones and other gadgets that the country produces. Travel agents and bank clerks have also been rendered null, thanks to that omnipresent machine, the Internet. Writes The Economist, “[T]eachers, researchers and writers are next. The question is whether the creation will be worth the destruction”. The McKinsey report, according to The Economist, “worries that modern technologies will widen inequality, increase social exclusion and provoke a backlash. It also speculates that public-sector institutions will be too clumsy to prepare people for this brave new world”.
Such thinking gels with an essay in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs, by Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee and Michael Spence, titled New World Order. The authors rightly posit that in a free market the biggest premiums are reserved for the products with the most scarcity. When even niche, specialist employment though, such as in the arts (see video at start of article), can be replicated and performed to economies of scale by machines, then labourers and the owners of capital are at great risk. The essay makes good points on how while a simple economic model suggests that technology’s impact increases overall productivity for everyone, the truth is that the impact is more uneven. The authors astutely point out,
“Today, it is possible to take many important goods, services, and processes and codify them. Once codified, they can be digitized [sic], and once digitized, they can be replicated. Digital copies can be made at virtually zero cost and transmitted anywhere in the world almost instantaneously.”
Though this sounds utopian and democratic, what is actually does, the essay argues, is propel certain products to super-stardom. Network effects create this winner-take-all market. Similarly it creates disproportionately successful individuals. Although there are many factors at play here, the authors readily concede, they also maintain the importance of another, important and distressing theory;
“[A] portion of the growth is linked to the greater use of information technology… When income is distributed according to a power law, most people will be below the average… Globalization and technological change may increase the wealth and economic efficiency of nations and the world at large, but they will not work to everybody’s advantage, at least in the short to medium term. Ordinary workers, in particular, will continue to bear the brunt of the changes, benefiting as consumers but not necessarily as producers. This means that without further intervention, economic inequality is likely to continue to increase, posing a variety of problems. Unequal incomes can lead to unequal opportunities, depriving nations of access to talent and undermining the social contract. Political power, meanwhile, often follows economic power, in this case undermining democracy.”
There are those who say such fears of a rise in inequality and the whole destruction through automation of whole swathes of the job sector are unfounded, that many occupations require a certain intuition that cannot be replicated. Time will tell whether this intuition, like an audio recording, health assessment or the ability to drive a car, will be similarly codified and disrupted (yes, we’ll continue using the word disrupt, for now).
“The film market in China is like an experimental supermarket – with more and more racks but only one product… The viewers don’t care what they see as long as it’s a film. They’ll watch whatever is put in front of them.”
– Zhang Xiaobei, CCTV
LA is “a favourite place for Chinese businessmen to do business”, according to the objective opinion of China’s general counsel to Los Angeles. And that was back in 2011, before China extended its annual quota of foreign films allowed to be exhibited on the mainland. We’ve written before about the relationship between Hollywood and China, which in the two years since we wrote that piece has only deepened. It’s little wonder; EY has predicted China will be the largest film market in the world by 2020. Revenue is being squeezed in the film industry as millennials hang out on their smartphones and games consoles. When they do pay for movies, it’s more likely to be streamed rather than owned. Worse, that stream may be hosted by someone like Netflix, whose burgeoning clout makes negotiations for license fees increasingly difficult. So China provides a timely cash cow; an antidote to Western media fragmentation and fatigue. But at what cost?
China’s economic rise to superpower status has logically meant a rise in its viability as a place to invest in. From infrastructure, where cinemas screens have been springing up at the unbelievable rate of seven a day (as of May this year), to co-productions between Hollywood and homegrown Chinese outfits. These collaborations have resulted in overt references to China in storylines, such as that seen in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The Karate Kid and the Kung Fu Panda franchise, or the additional scenes filmed for Iron Man 3. This also includes the more recent Transformers: Age of Extinction, which saw not only a large part of the film take place in Hong Kong, but also included local talent and featured a mind-boggling amount of inappropriate product placement from Sino brands. The few production companies in China are also expanding, looking beyond more traditional propaganda fare, as well as to foreign markets, as is the case with China Film Group.
But the film industry in China is not quite as rosy as it appears. Interestingly, there have been few efforts at US talent getting involved in Chinese productions. This may be partly due to the mess that was The Flowers of War, starring Christian Bale, which was reportedly little more than a propaganda piece. And from a content point of view, caution has been the watchword for studios; The producers of World War Z removed a discussion over whether the zombie apocalypse started in China; Chinese villains were edited out of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Men in Black 3. Is that really necessary? And while scripts are edited to appear more appealing to China, so are balance sheets. For while Transformers 4 is now China’s highest-grossing movie of all time, according to The Hollywood Reporter, what THR don’t mention was the way the gross is measured. For, says Julie Makinen, a China correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, box office revenue is arbitrarily inflated. She elaborates,
“I think everyone agrees there’s some fudging that goes on… It’s fairly common to go into a theater, say, ‘Hi, I’d like to buy a ticket for Transformers,’ and they say, ‘Great,’ and they print out your ticket for a local romantic comedy. So I’m pretty sure the 20 bucks I just handed over is being counted in someone else’s basket. Things like that happen; a lot of statistics in China are suspect.”
Moviegoers aren’t being particularly discriminating yet because the act of going to the cinema as an event or experience is still a relatively new phenomenon for many. Product placement, which we referred to earlier, while an opportunity for some synergy between film and brands, risks being too commercial and overt if done without context. A recent article in the Financial Times said such promotions in Transformers 4 quickly “start flying faster than bullets from an Autobot’s wrist-mounted Gatling gun”. Apart from bringing viewers out of the fictional narrative into reality, creating a disappointing experience, inappropriate product placement can also cause ire between businesses. (We’ve written several times over the years about product placement, here.) Such an occurrence took place at the end of July when a tourism group in China sued Paramount Pictures for failing to show a logo of the park that the company had paid to be prominently displayed in the movie. The implementation of co-productions between the two countries evidently needs work too. Scenes added exclusively for a Chinese version of Iron Man 3 added little except some questionable product placement as well as the dubious plotline of Tony Stark heading to China, of all places, for medical convalescence. Lastly, the current quota of films to be exhibited in China means that many good-quality US films fail to be seen in the country. Much like bans on US games consoles and the Android app store, Google Play, the result of this has been an explosion of home-grown imitators. In this case, films in China are made that precisely mimic the formula and set-up of popular American franchises like The Hangover, which was never seen by Chinese audiences, thus the extent of emulation isn’t evident. Assuming that eventually the quota will be entirely relaxed, this type of tactic can only ever be a short-term measure.
One of the greatest opportunities the film industry in China has is in part due to one of its greatest weaknesses. Because of historically protracted release windows, and a narrow selection of films making it to cinemas, piracy has been rampant. Indeed, infringement has been widespread enough that the industry has had seemingly no choice but to innovate. We reported back in April how China has relaxed its embargo on foreign games consoles, and, more to the point, how Tencent, in partnership with Warner Bros., were making the latest 300 film available to rent, while the film was still in cinemas in the US. Such forward-thinking is welcome. As well as offsetting any losses from piracy, it also hopefully points the way to a more open business environment in China, at least for TMT companies. Such innovative thinking will need to be extended, however, to the structure of China’s film industry itself, which is reportedly a vertically integrated engine driven almost entirely at the whim of the state.
Just as China’s tastes have held increasing sway over the production of art and wine in recent years, so with film. The middling global box office performance of Pacific Rim found salvation in Asia, and that was all the justification needed for a franchise to be developed. There is certainly much to be gained from investment and co-productions in China’s films industry, especially while it is still relatively nascent, not least of which are the financial returns. How such relationships impact the content itself is another matter. Hopefully some of the approaches China is taking with regard to multi-platform releases might even trickle over to Western markets. Studios should also be wary about putting all their eggs in one basket; CNBC reports that growth in ticket sales for Hollywood films in mainland China hit a five-year low in 2013. Only three US movies made the top ten highest-grossing films in China last year, down from seven in 2012. One reason for the slowdown is a lack of variety. And yet don’t expect the blockbuster formula to change anytime soon; as much as it was born in the USA, it is also what audiences in the worldwide market love to gobble up. (Michael Bay’s films – expertly dissected in the above video – prove that point no end, and it has been particularly driven home recently as Bay himself as well as sometime employee Megan Fox have expressed nonchalance about any negative press from critics, knowing their products make millions despite nasty reviews. Specifically, actress Fox told naysayers to “F*ck off”.) There is a certain amount of momentum behind the two industries’ relationship with one another, but recent productions have shown that future projects should perhaps be treated with a little more caution, particularly as Chinese audiences tastes mature. Last month the film historian Neal Gabler was quoted in the Financial Times, in a point that usefully sums up this piece,
“The overseas market has changed the DNA of American movies… The bigger-faster-louder aesthetic is very deeply embedded in the American psyche. No one else can do it. It’s one of the reason they export so well. It’s so much a part of who we are. But we have been victims of our own success. It’s a Catch-22. The things that make our movies so popular overseas are now larger than the American market can support by itself.”
UPDATE (30/8/14): The production side of the industry continues to evolve, as China’s largest video website Youku Tudou demonstrated on Friday when it promised to produce 8 films for cinema release and 9 to premiere on the internet. Chairman and Chief Exec Victor Koo pointed out to the Financial Times that there was a gap in the market left by Hollywood, “The US film industry is highly developed. It tends to be either blockbusters or franchise films. But in China you’re talking about small to mid to large budgets…”. The logistics of creating a film for online release – more than likely to be consumed on a smartphone – must consider important limiting factors such as, according to Heyi Film chief exec Allen Zhu, smartphones in China running films get “very hot after 20 mins”. Youku Tudou’s plans may seem ambitious – particularly given it reported a $26m loss for the second quarter – but when 18 screens are erected in China every day (last year more cinema screens were added in China than the total in France), it seems a risk some are willing to take.
It’s no secret that the publishing industry is struggling mightily as customers shift from paying for physical newspapers and magazines to reading information online, often for free. The shift has caused ruptures among other places at that bastion of French journalism, Le Monde, with the recent exit of the editor as staff rued the switch to online. So-called ‘lad’s mags’, the FHMs and Loaded magazines of the world, have been hit particularly hard, as the family PC and dial-up internet gave way to personal, portable devices and broadband connections, which provided easier access to more salacious content than the likes of Nuts could ever hope to provide. FHM’s monthly circulation is down almost 90% from a 1998 peak, according to the Financial Times. Condé Nast have pushed bravely into the new digital era, launching a comprehensive list of digital editions of its wares when the iPad launched in 2010. More recently, the company launched a new venture, La Maison. In association with Publicis and Google, the idea is to provide luxury goods companies with customer insights as well as content and technology solutions. We’ve often written about the need for more rigorous customer insights in the world of luxury, so it’s refreshing to see Condé Nast innovating and continuing to look beyond newsstand sales. We’ve written about other ways publishers are monetising their content here and here.
Time Warner is not alone then in its struggles for new ways of making money from previously flourishing revenue streams. According to The New York Times, Time Warner will be spinning off its publishing arm, Time Inc., with 90 magazines, 45 websites and $1.3bn in debt. In 2006, the article reports, Time Inc. produced $1bn in earnings, which has now receded to $370m. Revenue has declined in 22 of the last 24 quarters. This kind of move is not new. Rupert Murdoch acted in similar fashion recently when he split up News Corporation, creating 21st Century Fox. But with the publishing side of the business there were some diamonds in the rough for investors to take interest in; a couple of TV companies, as well as of course Dow Jones’ Wall Street Journal, which has been invested in heavily. Conversely, the feeling of the Time Inc spin-off was more one of being put out to pasture, particularly as the company will not have enough money to make any significant acquisitions. Like the turmoil at Le Monde, there have been managerial controversies, as those seeking to shake things up have tried to overcome historical divisions between the sales and editorial teams – something other large business journalism companies are reportedly struggling with – only to be met with frustration.
Setting that aside, Time Warner moved swiftly. A day later, the FT reported that the company was “finalising an investment” in Vice Media. We have written extensively about Vice previously, here. The company certainly seems to know how to reach fickle millennials, through a combination of interesting, off-beat journalism, content designed to create its own news, as well as compelling video documentaries that take an unusual look at topical subjects. Such an outlook however does not preclude it from partnering with corporations. As a millennial myself, it seems what people look for from those like Vice is authenticity, rather than the vanilla mediocrity arguably offered by others. We don’t mind commercialism as long as it’s transparent. It does not jar then when Intel is a major investor in its ‘content verticals’, or when last year 21st Century Fox invested $70m in the company. This bore fruit for the movie studio most recently in a tie-up promoting the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The sequel takes place 10 years after the 2011 film, and Fox briefed Vice to create three short films that would fill in the gaps. A great ploy, and the result is some compelling content to keep fans engaged in the run-up to the film’s release, particularly in territories where the film opens after the US market. Such activity is far beyond the purview of the traditional newspaper. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. Publishers must face up to the reality that newspapers alone will not deliver enough revenue to be sustainable. Seeking other content revenue streams while engaging in strategic partnerships with other companies looks, for now, to be a winning formula.
UPDATE 08/07/14: When it comes to engaging with millennials, mobile is most definitely the medium of choice. The FT reported today on Cosmopolitan magazine’s 200% surge in web visitors, year on year in May. Fully 69% of page views were from mobile devices (compared to a 25% average for the rest of the web). The publication has also wised up to the type of content this group likes to consume, as well as create. Troy Young, Hearst’s president of digital media, said the new site is “designed for fast creation of content of all types… Posts aren’t just text and pictures. They’re gifs, Tweets, Instagrams.” Mobile will only get the company so far though. PwC thinks US mobile advertising spending will account for only 4.6% of total media and entertainment advertising outlays this year. Cosmo is looking beyond mobile though to “exclusive events or experiences”, perhaps along the same lines as those other businesses are practicing who are looking for additional revenue streams. The article suggests users might “pay to see the first pictures of an occasion like Kanye West’s and Kim Kardashian’s recent wedding”. Beggars can’t be choosers.
UPDATE 10/07/14: Have all these corporate manoeuvres on the part of Time Warner been in the service of making itself appear an attractive acquisition? As the famous and clandestine Sun Valley conference takes place this week, rumours abounded that Google or 21st Century Fox were both interested in buying TW. This according to entertainment industry trade mag Variety, which commented, “Time Warner could be an attractive target. Moreover, unlike Fox or Liberty Media, it is not controlled by a founder or a founder’s family and with a market cap of $63.9 billion it is a relative bargain compared to the Walt Disney Co. and its $151 billion market cap”.


text:
The Future of Grocery Totes
In 2007, San Francisco instituted a single-use plastic-bag ban, the first in the country, which soon spread to 81 other Californian cities and counties, as well as municipalities in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington.
San Francisco's ban added retailers last year and restaurants Oct. 1. Upon switching to paper bags, the respective store is able to keep the minimum-10-cent charge on each bag, which is to be waived for those using federal or state food assistance programs. As in San Francisco, there are typically exceptions, such as meat, produce, pharmacy, newspaper and doggy bags.
Portland, Ore. followed suit, passing similar legislation, but without the mandatory fee in July 2011. The first phase only targeted grocery stores and large retailers with pharmacies, but in November 2012, its City Council voted to expand the ban to all retailers and food vendors. Phase two went into effect March 1 for larger stores with smaller locations joining in Oct. 1.
Redwood City, Calif. adopted San Mateo County's ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags in March 2013. The city's minimum 10-cent paper bag charge went into effect Oct. 1, and will rise to 25 cents in 2015. Fines for non-compliance in all three cities are $100 to $500.
Some municipalities have started to charge for plastic bags instead of banning them entirely, but all of this aims toward one goal: reducing the usage of plastic bags that litter the streets and shores. While some consumers may switch to paper bags, for which many lawmakers are forcing retailers to charge a nominal fee, others will opt for reusable bags-a trend that has resulted in a boost for the industry.
"There's a short-term spike. Some distributors are pretty good at getting ahead of the curve," Christopher Duffy, senior vice president of marketing for Bag Makers Inc., said of bans, like in Seattle where they worked with retailers prior to the July 2012 ban's effective date to prepare them for the law change.


text:
2022 has been a busy year for Magic. In this article, I’ll look back on the year via 20 Magic-related tidbits, most of which were derived by analyzing Scryfall’s “Default Cards” dataset on December 27. A quick overview of the topics I’ll cover is as follows:
- Numbers 1-4 deal with the massive amount of card objects released in 2022.
- Numbers 5-10 dive into the enormous amount of text on Magic cards in 2022.
- Numbers 11-14 provide various creature-related statistics from 2022.
- Numbers 15-20 deal with the metagame and competitive formats in 2022.
Let’s run the numbers!
1. A record-setting 12,037 card objects were released this year
In recent years, the number of releases has been ramping up, and 2022 crushed all previous records. According to Scryfall’s definitions, which are clarified at the end of this article, a whopping 12,037 card objects were released in 2022. That’s a mind-blowing 15.5 percent of all card objects in Magic’s history, just over the last year!
With so many new releases, it keeps getting more exhausting to keep up. In 2008, head designer Mark Rosewater wrote: “as we examined the barriers for entry to the game, we realized that the speed of release of new cards was front and center. If new players quickly get overwhelmed they tend to walk away, never to return… We were just printing too many cards.” This statement applies all the more today.


text:
An international pharmaceutical exhibition opened at the Korea International Exhibition and Convention Center (KINTEX) in Ilsan on Tuesday, showcasing latest raw materials and finished products.
The Korea Pharm & Bio 2018, an eighth edition of the business-to-business exhibition, was hosted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association (KPBMA). Visitors can look around finished drugs, biopharmaceuticals, raw materials, medicines and bio-related services in one place.
To meet the growing demands in biopharmaceuticals overseas, organizers changed the name of the event from “International Pharmaceutical Ingredient Exhibition” to “Korea Pharm & Bio” this year.
Medium-sized drugmakers such as Daewon Pharm, Sinsin Pharm, Korea Arlico Pharm, Inist, Taiguk Pharm, Korea Pharma, and Huons will promote their flagship finished products and offer one-on-one consultations with foreign buyers.
In the section of raw materials, Korean firms including Daejung Chemical and Metals and Samchun Chemicals will engage in international exchanges with foreign government entities such as the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO).
India, which has one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world, is attending the Korean event every year. From China, the CCPIT’s chemicals division and individual business entities are participating.
In the field of pharmaceuticals, biotech research, clinical and analytical services, the Daegu Gyeongbuk Advanced Medical Industry Promotion Foundation, Life Science Laboratories, SLS Bio, and LSK Global PS will participate in the exhibition.
DuPont Korea will exhibit solutions for sensitive areas such as cleanroom protective clothing, air cargo covers, and medical packaging. Samsung Medical Rubber, which develops medical rubber products, will promote its next-generation, “Teflon laminated” rubber stoppers.
Organizers will hold various events to promote the excellence of Korean drugmakers and support exports.
For one-on-one consultations, the organizers will also invite buyers from 25 foreign companies interested in local pharmaceuticals, raw materials, cosmetics materials, and technology imports. The companies come from Romania, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, India, Indonesia, Japan, China, Thailand, the Philippines, and Hungary.
"The pharmaceutical industry is a new growth engine and a hope for the economy. The domestic pharmaceutical sector has surpassed 20 trillion won ($18.7 billion) in sales for the first time, and pharmaceutical exports have increased 11.5 percent annually on average over the past five years," said Lee Won-shik, director of the food and drug safety division at the ministry, at the opening ceremony. "I hope that this exhibition will be meaningful in that it can contribute to policymaking jointly by companies and the government and promoting trade exchanges.”
KPBMA’s board chair Lee Jung-hee said, “Every year, Korea’s pharmaceutical and biotech sector is seeing progress in international competitiveness. The Korea Pharm & Bio will be a good opportunity to disseminate the nation’s such capability.”
Participants in the opening ceremony also included KPBMA Vice Chairman Gal Won-il, Korea Pharmaceutical Traders Association Chairman Oh Jang-seok, Korea Biomedicine Industry Association Executive Director Park Jeong-tae and Ahn-Gook Pharmaceutical Vice Chairman Eo Jin.
<© Korea Biomedical Review, All rights reserved.>


text:
Elfbar, a popular brand of disposable vaping devices, recently changed its name in the United States. The parent company of Elfbar, Shenzhen iMiracle Technology Co. Ltd., was sued by VPR Brands for trademark infringement, which prompted the name change. The brand will now be called EBDESIGN in the U.S. market, while the Elfbar name will continue to be used in the UK and other international markets. In this article, we will delve into the reasons behind the name change and its impact on the future of Elfbar.
What is Elfbar and EBDESIGN?
Elfbar is a brand of disposable vaping devices that have gained immense popularity among vaping enthusiasts. The company offers a wide range of flavors and nicotine strengths, catering to the diverse needs of its customers. On the other hand, EBDESIGN is the new name of Elfbar in the U.S. market. The company has rebranded itself to comply with the legal requirements of the trademark infringement lawsuit filed against it by VPR Brands.
Why did Elfbar change its name to EBDESIGN?
The Lawsuit: The reason behind the name change is the lawsuit filed against Elfbar by VPR Brands. The lawsuit accused Elfbar of infringing on its “ELF” trademark, which is also a brand of disposable vaping devices. VPR Brands claimed that the design of Elfbar’s products was too similar to its own, causing confusion among customers. As a result, VPR Brands demanded that Elfbar cease using its trademark and pay damages for the infringement.
Shenzhen iMiracle Technology Co. Ltd. VS VPR Brands: The lawsuit filed against Elfbar was not an isolated incident. VPR Brands has been involved in several legal disputes with other companies over trademark infringement. However, the lawsuit against Elfbar was particularly significant due to the popularity of the brand and the size of the damages demanded by VPR Brands.
The impact of the lawsuit on Elfbar: The lawsuit was a major setback for Elfbar, which had established a strong presence in the U.S. market. The name change was a necessary step for the company to comply with the legal requirements of the lawsuit. The company has not made any official statement regarding the impact of the lawsuit on its sales or brand image.
The Future of Elfbar and EBDESIGN
Plans of the company: Despite the setback caused by the lawsuit, Elfbar remains committed to offering high-quality products to its customers. The company has not announced any plans to discontinue its operations or to halt its expansion plans. Instead, it is focusing on strengthening its brand and product lineup in the UK and other international markets where it can continue to use the Elfbar name.
The impact of the lawsuit on the future of the company: The lawsuit has undoubtedly caused some damage to the brand image of Elfbar in the U.S. market. However, the company’s decision to comply with the legal requirements and change its name to EBDESIGN shows its commitment to complying with the law and avoiding further legal disputes. The company may face some challenges in rebuilding its brand image in the U.S. market, but it remains a popular and trusted brand in other markets.
Possible repercussions of the lawsuit: The lawsuit against Elfbar has highlighted the importance of protecting intellectual property rights in the vaping industry. The outcome of the lawsuit may have implications for other companies in the industry that may be infringing on the trademarks of other brands. It may also encourage companies to invest more resources in developing unique designs and trademarks to avoid legal disputes.
In conclusion, the name change of Elfbar to EBDESIGN in the U.S. market was a necessary step for the company to comply with the legal requirements of the trademark infringement lawsuit filed against it by VPR Brands. The impact of the lawsuit on the future of Elfbar remains to be seen, but the company’s commitment to offering high-quality products to its customers remains unchanged.


text:
Gormon has exciting news!
We haven't been updating as frequently because we've been very busy preparing for something exciting!
GORMON is taking part in our very first art exhibition AND we will also be having a GORMON booth selling exclusive handmade GORMON products!
Two of our pieces will be on display at the Singapore National Library (Basement near the Multipurpose Room) from the 4th to 30th of November,
The GORMON booth selling handmade GORMON products will be at the National Library Building, The Plaza on the 22nd of November from 11 AM to 5 PM.
This is in-conjunction with TCZ Studio's Creative Market.
We will have more details on this event and also the items we will be selling closer to date. Stay tuned for more news!


text:
Moneypay: Safer Kiwi Online Transaction System Launched
With Internet trading at an all-time high, Kiwis can now look forward to a homegrown answer to online transaction security, and one that will have flow-on benefits for worthy community causes.
Moneypay, the brainchild of Wellington entrepreneur Dennis Ryan, goes live online today, giving New Zealanders a real e-commerce solution using an alternative third-party transaction service.
“We’re providing protection for those involved in online transactions where money changes hands between strangers, between people who are essentially ’invisible’ to each other,” says Moneypay CEO Dennis Ryan.
“Moneypay gives absolute protection to card-holders, buyers, traders… anyone engaging in online transactions.”
“It takes the risk out of online trading, where chances are you don’t know the vendor and they don’t know you. With Moneypay you have an extra degree of security,” says Mr. Ryan. You don’t have to give credit card numbers to anybody, or leave your signature on file anywhere"
Founder and CEO of Moneypay Dennis Ryan, of Wellington building firm Dennis Ryan Limited, has extensive commercial experience that puts him in good stead for the Moneypay venture.
Mr. Ryan says, “It adds a level of comfort, and we hope that allocation of a portion of the earnings to community causes will also add a degree of comfort to those who are in need.”
While no specific community groups or causes have been chosen yet, Mr. Ryan says he is investigating how funds could be allocated.
Meanwhile, Moneypay is just the tip of the iceberg in its present form; soon Moneypay will have its own debit cards that will be welcome in ATM Machines world wide, in the currency of the country of your choice, and wherever Visa is accepted.
“For transferring money to friends and relatives overseas we will have the safest, fastest and cheapest money transfer system on the planet, and this will be online in the coming months.” Mr. Ryan says other online ventures are planned which will feature Moneypay as an optional transaction medium.
“With today’s launch of Moneypay we’ll be offering free registration for a limited time. We believe Kiwis will welcome an online payment and transaction site that’s been developed here, largely for New Zealanders, and by people who really know what good business is all about.”
- Contact Information
- Dennis Ryan
- Contact via E-mail
This news content may be integrated into any legitimate news gathering and publishing effort. Linking is permitted.
News Release Distribution and Press Release Distribution Services Provided by WebWire.


text:
DHL is to be the official logistics partner to the 2011 Rugby World Cup which will take place in New Zealand.
DHL will be responsible for ticket distribution, express shipments and international and domestic freight movements, including the delivery of competing teams’ equipment.
The logistics company will transport this equipment as well as store and deliver uniforms and official equipment from training grounds to playing venues around New Zealand.
Approximately 200 movements of equipment will take place during the tournament, at two to six tonnes per move.
DHL Express chief executive officer Ken Allen said: “DHL has a heritage of supporting rugby, among others the British and Irish Lions Series. This game is about passion, teamwork and a can-do-spirit and those are characteristics that can be attributed to DHL Express as well.”


text:
Piston Cloud Computing -- which bills itself as the OpenStack enterprise company -- is the latest cloud vendor to offer a free or low-cost version of its software for customer trials and proofs of concepts.
And it begs the question: Why are cloud providers going cheap?
"We've spent a lot of time talking to analysts, customers, and most folks are in the 'we want to try before we buy phase,'" says Piston CEO Joshua McKenty, who is also one of the co-founders of the OpenStack movement.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU GET HACKED: How Wired reporter Mat Honan restored his once-lost data
Piston Wednesday released Airframe, which is a light and free version of its private cloud software based on OpenStack code. The biggest differences between the free and enterprise-class versions is that Airframe doesn't allow for automatic scaling of the service and it doesn't provide for high availability. That means when Piston updates the software -- new OpenStack code is being released about every six months now -- the free version has to be shut down for those updates to kick in, whereas the enterprise version allows for a rolling update. Also, in the free version, to scale up and add virtual machines, that requires re-engineering the system from scratch instead of just plugging and playing in the enterprise version. McKenty says he doesn't think the free version of the software will bite into sales of the priced product; instead, he's hoping it will be a lead-generation tool.
Piston's announcement follows news from Rackspace and VMware last week, which on the same day announced free and low-cost versions of their cloud software, respectively. Rackspace announced a free tier of its OpenStack-powered private cloud system while VMware offered an easy-sign-up trial for its vCloud public cloud storage service. Earlier this month Red Hat announced a preview edition of its OpenStack infrastructure-as-a-service software, which it plans to make generally available through a supported edition sometime next year. Rackspace, Red Hat and Piston have all now released free distributions of OpenStack, which is a free, open source project in and of itself.
The moves are classic examples of the "freemium" model many Web 2.0 companies employ nowadays, says Krishnan Subramanian, principal analyst at Rishidot Research. "Give away stuff that doesn't impact your bottom line, get them hooked to your platform and then monetize," he describes as the rationale by these vendors. "As the players in OpenStack ecosystem fend off Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google on one side and VMware and other large traditional companies on the other, these giveaways are essential for market adoption. They need to make their [OpenStack-based] products easy and seamless to install but also build a community around their own company."
Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social collaboration. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.


text:
Pixel And Pixel XL Could Be An Outstanding Success And Bring Google $4 Billion In Revenue Next Year
Google's new smartphones Pixel and Pixel Xl could be two of the greatest phone products in the world next year, since is expected that it could bring the tech giant company $3.8 billion in revenues, according to analysis made by Morgan Stanley. Although this doesn't even represent the half of what Apple´s earns with its iPhone, this would set a great start for Google, who´s expected to become a great competitor with its flagships.
Pixel And Pixel Xl Could Sell 3 Million Units
According to the International Business Times, Google could sell about five to six million units of the Pixel and Pixel XL, costing around $749 and $899 next year. Apparently, Morgan Stanley predicts that the tech giant could even sell three million of the Pixel smartphones, which would represent great news for the company and the customers, who will have a new product that is expected to be extraordinary.
Also, another interesting detail is that the Pixel and Pixel Xl will be half profitable for the tech giant just as the iPhone is for the Cupertino company, generating from 22 percent to 25 percent in gross profit. What´s even better for Google´s interests is that while customers spend three times more money on iOS apps instead of Androids, some of the features of the Pixel and Pixel Xl would be very helpful to close this gap.
Features Of The Google´s Smartphones
According to BGR, features as the Pixel and Pixel XL camera, Google assistant, the smartphones´ deeper app integration, improved computing powers and Daydream -which is Google´s virtual reality headset, which works with both the Pixel and Pixel XL- will ultimately lead the consumers to spend more money on Android as it was explained in the research note made by Morgan Stanley.
Although both phones hasn´t started to sell massively in the market, both the Pixel and Pixel XL´ initial reviews have been so positives that it would be a huge surprise of these products doesn´t succeed. Could Apple have a new strong competitor in short term? Is a little bit soon to say, but Google is betting a lot on these products.
The Most Incredible Uses Of Virtual Reality So Far
Just like revolutionaries innovations as the Internet or the smartphone, people in many different contexts have started to use the VR glasses in different in areas, improving by much anything related to it.
Samsung Is Being Forced To Split Its Business In Half
This year, Samsung has been struggling with many controversies as the Galaxy Note 7 recall, the "Crown Prince" joining the board and the company´s involvement with the corruption scandal in South Korea.
The Most Underrated Android Apps In Smartphone´s History
There are millions of apps you can download on your Android, but some of these are not so popular, even if its offers an incredible utility that could be helpful.
HTC Will Build Another Flagship Phone, Even After Billion-Dollar Deal with Google
HTC is showing signs of revival with the announcement of $1.1 billion smartphone business deal with Google.
Google Replacing Defective Nexus 6Ps with Pixel XL for Free
Owners of defective Nexus 6P units in the US and Canada are now receiving Google Pixel XL as free replacement.
MORE IN ITECHPOST
FonePaw Screen Recorder Review - Collaboration Made Easy
With today's technology, it is far easier to collaborate from the comforts of our own homes. Working remotely is common. People are making a career without having to leave their properties and spending all day in an office.
How Do Personal Emergency Response Systems Work?
Personal emergency response systems, known as PERS for short, are systems that help people to raise the alarm and get immediate help when a medical or personal emergency occurs. They are ideal for older people and anyone with a mobility issue or an injury or illness that can cause falls.
How to Download Free Android Emulator for Gaming on PC?
Are you looking to play Android games on PC with the help of the best Android emulator? There are numerous types of online platform which provide user friendly access and support for the interested communities to get immediate access to install their best recommended Android applications.
Netflix is Raising Prices, Here’s How it Now Compares to Other Streaming Services
Once a brand gains the trust and loyalty of its market, it is only logical that it attempts to flex its dominant muscle. Such is the tale that fits the recent price hike coming from the stable of Netflix. Having baited consumers into believing that streaming, and not cable subscription, is the right way to go, Netflix has now decided to drop its own form of a bombshell on consumers in the form of price increment. The news, which was announced earlier this year, detailed that Netflix would be raising prices across all of its plans by 13 to 18 percent.


text:
Apple Pay Added to 200,000 Vending Machines
USA Technologies today said it has added support for Apple Pay to approximately 200,000 of its vending machines. The company has been adding NFC capabilities to its vending machines, including coffee brewers, vending machines, kiosks, laundry equipment, parking pay stations, and other self-serve appliances, for nearly 10 years. USA Technologies' vending machine owner-operators will be able to accept Apple Pay at their machines in addition to cash and/or bank cards. This means owners of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be able to pay for vending machine and other stand-alone, self-serve retail goods with their phone.
Apple Pay To Support Loyalty Cards
Apple today announced that Apple Pay in iOS 9 will support store loyalty/rewards cards, starting with Walgreens and Dunkin Donuts. Apple is also adding support for store-brand credit cards.
Apple Pay, CarPlay See Significant Increase In Support
Apple said as of today it has tripled the number of locations that accept Apple Pay from 220,000 at launch to 700,000. The growth includes a large number of new retailers, 2,500 banks, and tens of thousands of vending machines.
Android Pay to Gain Loyalty Rewards, Other Promotions
Google said customer loyalty programs and other consumer-facing benefits are headed to Android Pay. Speaking at a finance conference in Las Vegas, Google's SVP of ads and commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, said the service has signed up "millions" of people since launch.
New Banks Join Apple Pay
U.S. Bank and M&T Bank today both added support for Apple Pay to their credit and debit cards.


text:
Imports at the nation’s major retail container ports are expected to end 2021 with both the largest volume and fastest growth on record despite supply chain disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
“This has been an unprecedented year,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. “We’ve seen more disruption than ever before because of issues along every step of the supply chain and continued strong consumer demand, but we’re also seeing more cargo and faster growth than ever before. There are still ships to be unloaded and containers to be delivered, but everyone in the supply chain has worked overtime this year to try to overcome these challenges. For the most part, they have succeeded, and consumers will be able to find what they need for the holidays.”
Imports for 2021 are expected to total 26 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units, an increase of 18.3 percent over 2020 and the highest number since NRF began tracking imports in 2002. The projected total would top last year’s previous record of 22 million, which was up 1.9 percent despite the pandemic. The growth rate would also be the highest on record, topping 16.7 percent in 2010 as the economy recovered from the Great Recession. A TEU is one 20-foot container or its equivalent.
While imports do not correlate directly with sales, the record comes as NRF expects holiday sales during November and December to grow 11.5 percent over last year.
Despite the double-digit import growth for the year, monthly totals have settled to single-digit year-over-year growth, a pattern expected to continue at least through the first quarter of 2022.
“After nearly a year of what seemed like runaway growth once the economy reopened from the worst days of the pandemic and unleashed pent-up consumer demand, port data now shows imports settling down,” Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett said. “As economic activity slows after the holidays, we do not expect to see a resurgence of year-over-year double-digit import growth. Instead, it will be more like ‘steady as she goes.’ ”
U.S. ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 2.21 million TEU in October, the latest month for which final numbers are available. That was up 3.5 percent from September but down 0.2 percent from October 2020, marking the first year-over-year decline since July 2020. The decline ended a 14-month streak of year-over-year growth that began in August 2020 after stores initially closed by the pandemic reopened and retailers worked to meet demand. Even with the decline, October was still among the five busiest months on record.
Port have not reported November numbers yet, but Global Port Tracker projected the month at 2.21 million TEU, up 5.1 percent year-over-year. December is forecast at 2.2 million TEU, up 4.6 percent.
January 2022 is forecast at 2.24 million TEU, up 9 percent from January 2021; February at 2 million TEU, up 7.3 percent year-over-year; March at 2.19 million, down 3.3 percent, and April at 2.2 million TEU, up 2.2 percent.
Click here to access the National Retail Federation website for the entire press release.


text:
In light of the latest news of the AccuWeather app that is reportedly collecting data on iOS users in secret: Just across the digital pond, Google recently removed more than 500 Android apps from the Play Store for similar reasons.
According to a report by the International Business Times, the 500 Android apps that were removed were discovered to have advertising software used by the affected apps that could easily be exploited and used to install spyware on unsuspecting Android handsets.
The software development kit (SDK) used to develop the apps is a Chinese-made SDK known as Igexin. The SDK is known to perform targeted advertising services, but is extremely vulnerable to attacks by hackers or programmers looking to sneak malware on to a device.
Igexin’s primary purpose was to help developer create advertisements for users of certain apps, and from there, help the app maker generate some revenue from the program. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to the creators of Igexin, the SDK’s control server was compromised by attackers and used to deliver malware to device.
“While not all of these applications have been confirmed to download the malicious spying capability, Igexin could have introduced that functionality at their convenience,” Lookout security engineers Adam Bauer and Christoph Hebeisen said in their report about Igexin.