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Another day, another apparent Google Pixel 3 bug. This time it concerns the handset’s best feature − its camera.
Read more: Best smartphone
Affected users say that a message reading “The camera driver encountered a fatal error” appears when they try to open the Google Camera app, and that a separate message reading “Can’t connect to camera” appears when they attempt to access the camera via another app, like Facebook or Android Messages (via 9to5Google).
It isn’t clear what is causing the issue, but both Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL users are affected.
Some users said that restarting their handset has temporarily fixed the problem. Others, however, have had no joy at all, even after going as far as performing a factory reset.
A multitude of apparent Pixel 3 issues have been flagged up by users in recent weeks, including unexplained battery drain and overheating, poor audio, dead pixels and disappearing messages, but this particular bug might just be the worst of the lot.
There are, of course, plenty of reasons why consumers might choose to buy the Pixel 3 over other smartphones. Its unique design, the stock Android experience and regular software updates are three of these, but the most significant of the lot is the handset’s camera.
The Pixel 3 (both the little and large versions) quite simply has the best camera we’ve ever seen on a smartphone. It’s its biggest selling point. For that to stop working altogether, just weeks after the handset actually hit the market, is a huge blow for consumers.
Read more: Best camera phone
Google is yet to officially acknowledge the issue, but hopefully a fix is issued as soon as possible.
Have you been affected by this issue? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.


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We’re watching our local music scene build the foundation for an entirely new way of releasing single tracks and full albums that pay each writer, producer and featured artist their shares of the $0.01 per stream Arena offers in Bitcoin.
Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) May 03, 2017
Arena Music has announced that it will begin offering royalty payouts for music streamed through the Arena platform in Bitcoin worldwide starting in June. The company has been testing the digital currency in Phoenix and Atlanta over the last 6 months. In March, Bitcoin reached parity with gold for the first time since its inception. It’s been deemed the “most exciting monetary experiment in modern times.”
The company is an on-demand merchandising storefront that leverages a free streaming service to help artists monetize their content in an industry where consumers no longer buy music to own. By using the music as a loss leader, Arena helps artists and labels redirect consumer attention to exclusive merchandise offerings.
Offering payouts in the popular cryptocurrency highlights the company’s forward-thinking approach and alliance with independent content creators by offering them compensation with another form of capital or investment--one that can never be offered by any subscription-based streaming platform.
As the company is based in Phoenix, the first band to receive such a payout will be an independent punk band called Red Tank!, who released their third full-length album, “BIO/FEEDBACK” in collaboration with Arena Music in August of 2016. The band is known for their DIY ethos, energetic shows, and apocalyptic, dystopian, and existential lyricism.
When asked about the announcement, frontman Clipper Arnold remarked, “I think it’s an interesting, forward-thinking approach and it’s something we’re excited to be a part of. I think we share in the idea of pushing the imaginary of ways in which art can be created and can flourish outside of conventional approaches and infrastructure. I think this is a prime example of that paradigm in action.”
Arena Music founder and CEO, Damon Evans adds, “Phoenix is seeing the impact of Arena Music payouts in Bitcoin. We’re watching our local music scene build the foundation for an entirely new way of releasing single tracks and full albums that pay each writer, producer and featured artist their shares of the $0.01 per stream Arena offers in Bitcoin. Now that we understand how essential this basic detail is in today’s music economy, we’re starting think that this level of transparency should accompany all royalty payment methods.”
About Arena Music:
Founded in Phoenix, Arena Music is an on-demand merchandise storefront that leverages a patent-pending streaming service to encourage musicians to promote merchandise sales while listeners stream exclusive content from established artists and well qualified independent acts without advertisements or a monthly subscription. To start streaming, visit http://www.arena.com or download the free Arena Music app on iOS and Android.
For press inquiries, contact: pr(at)arena(dot)com
For artist & label inquiries, contact: artistrelations(at)arena(dot)com

domain: news


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After years of testing video, Rebecca Minkoff has settled on a strategy.
The company first tried highly-produced, slick video content showing off the product, which didn’t move the needle. The video content that drove sales, it found, was raw and personal, shot by Rebecca Minkoff herself on an iPhone.
Shifting to more personal videos, posted on a variety of social channels, had a massive and relatively immediate effect on the brand, cutting customer acquisition costs significantly. Moving forward, it plans to increase focus on video, expanding to YouTube and keeping the focus on low-cost videos that work to engage customers.
In the past few years, customer acquisition costs have been on the rise, thanks to overcrowding on social media platforms. The average cost-per-click on Facebook was $0.43 last year but has jumped up to $0.64 this year, according to marketing analytics platform Adstage.
“The costs of advertising have been rising on platforms like Facebook and Instagram,” said Rebecca Minkoff. “And it’s so competitive. You’re being outbid by the people you wholesale to. It makes it really hard to afford the costs that keep going up. So we started thinking, should we do a billboard or a subway takeover? Then we saw that the videos we had started doing were significantly lowering our customer acquisition costs.”
This year, Rebecca Minkoff shifted away from expensive paid campaigns produced both by agencies and the brand toward simpler and rawer content produced exclusively in-house. Rather than putting the focus on the product, Minkoff said the company instead had success making the product incidental to the content. For example, early this summer, Minkoff posted a video to the brand’s Instagram Stories of herself talking about the concept of collective success, in relation to an initiative she created in 2018 called the Female Founder Collective. In the video, she is wearing a shirt from the brand with the phrase “I am many” printed on it.
The video did not specifically direct attention to the shirt nor direct customers to purchase it, but Minkoff said the conversion rate of the video was high, with customers clicking to see the content on Instagram, which directs customers to the brand’s site, and buying from there. Since then, Minkoff has made raw videos of herself speaking candidly to the customer a regular part of the brand’s marketing strategy.
Minkoff did not offer specific amounts for what customer acquisition costs were before and after this new video strategy was implemented, but she did say that, in the last year, the cost-per-click for Instagram posts went down by 50%. This contributed to overall customer acquisition costs, which includes other types of marketing like its bimonthly in-store events, which went down by 35%. Since the content can be produced much more cheaply — most videos are just Minkoff herself speaking to the camera about her favorite pieces — and is more engaging to customers, the overall cost comes down.
“We’ve got 200 [items] on our site,” Minkoff said. “Obviously I like everything and want to promote everything, but when I do a video, I try to make it just me highlighting product that I personally like, whether it’s the newest thing or not. I think customers appreciate that authenticity.”
Minkoff said that the majority of these types of videos are made by her, and she picks the content and products mentioned and highlighted. Videos are posted in Instagram’s main feed every few weeks, and Minkoff posts herself on the brand’s Instagram Stories most days.
For now, the bulk of Rebecca Minkoff’s video strategy is focused on Instagram, though she said the company has plans to roll out a more ambitious video strategy on YouTube next year. Currently, the brand’s YouTube account is updated far less frequently than its Instagram.
Both YouTube and Instagram are key areas of video engagement for beauty and fashion. YouTube as a platform currently has around 2 billion active users, while Instagram has 1 billion. But despite YouTube’s recent efforts to attract the fashion crowd, Instagram has been a more popular source for fashion shopping and inspiration.
Beauty brand Cocokind said that its Instagram Stories engagement from customers has grown to 15% of its 130,000 followers. Meanwhile, Tiege Hanley said that its YouTube channel accounts for 15% of the brand’s monthly subscription growth.
“Somebody asked me what I missed about the early days, and I think it was the organic nature of how things grew,” Minkoff said. “You could cut through the noise without having this big paid strategy. Being part of ‘the new thing’ gets you a ton of organic press and coverage. It’s gotten a lot more expensive to get people to notice you as you grow.”


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By PETCHANET PRATRUANGKRAI
The type of franchised retailing operation they envisage entails little initial investment capital and inventory costs for such entrepreneurs, while offering the potential to make a profit of more than 50 per cent, said one of Easy Salad’s co-owners, Charee Sripaisalmongkol.
She and her partner, Ratchadaporn Lueagsuriya, are seeking franchisees and retailers to whom they can supply their salad dressings and other food products, because such a move would enable the duo to save on their current operating costs and give them more time to be with their own family, as they would be working from home.
Charee, 33, said that after establishing Easy Salad in 2012 and running the business for more than three years, she and her partner had decided to downsize from having a shop near a sports club to opening a small store in Bangkok’s Prachachuen area, from which they could focus less on retailing and more on franchising or supplying to other businesses.
The rationale was that they would no longer have pay for rented space, would have lower operating costs, while she would have more time with her family now that they have a baby.
Although their business income has decreased since they made the downsizing move, this has been more than offset by a significant fall in operating costs, she said.
To be a full-on retailer requires a great deal of time and energy, whereas acting as a supplier to other businesses will save in both these respects, while the firm’s production costs are significantly lowered, she said, adding that she also wanted to be able to help others have their own business at a small investment cost.
“In seeking retailers and franchisees, we are looking for shop owners that have sufficient free time from their daily work, or housewives that can work from home and take care of their families. This type of business needs only a small investment budget and, if well-managed, the cost of waste is minimal,” she explained.
Moreover, for those becoming retailers of Easy Salad’s dressings and other products, the potential profit margin is about 50 per cent, the co-founder said.
Charee said that next year, the company would launch a serious search for retailers or franchisees in different areas.
The company has a clear business model not to compete with franchisees, as it wants to focus on supplying products, while each franchisee would concentrate on retailing in a limited area around their own shop, she stressed.
She would provide training if anyone meeting her criteria wished to open such an operation selling Easy Salad’s range, she said.
Easy Salad was established four years ago after Charee and Ratchadaporn decided to quit their salaried jobs to run their own small business.
Ratchadaporn was well-versed in being a chef, after graduating from Le Cordon Bleu culinary arts and hospitality management institute in France and gaining hands-on experience in many restaurants abroad.
Charee, meanwhile, graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University.
The couple decided to leverage their knowledge of cooking and restaurant business management to establish the business as a joint venture between them.
Easy Salad, which is located in Prachachuen’s Pracha Niwet village, offers 14 fresh salad dishes, 10 salad dressings, a range of eight healthy sandwiches, and various fresh fruit juices.
The company also takes bulk orders for seminar groups and meetings, with its healthy snack boxes costing Bt45 to Bt70 apiece.
Charee said Easy Salad’s main strength lay in its homemade salad dressings, offering a wide range of good tastes, such as white sesame, Shitake mushroom, wasabi, raspberry, tom yum and blue cheese.
Some 70 per cent of its income is from wholesale business and providing boxed food for seminars and meetings, with the remainder coming from retails sales at their shop.
The company hopes to double its income next year, not least because of increasing awareness of the benefits of healthy eating, she said.


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The demand for meat in the Cambodian market is on the rise due to a growing population, a factor making the Kingdom’s pig farming sector a major industry.
Cambodia expects to receive millions of dollars next month in proceeds from the sale of nearly 300,000 barrels of crude oil stolen by the Bahamas-flagged tanker MT Strovolos last year following a payment dispute with the Apsara oil field’s Singaporean developer, KrisEnergy, according to a senior
The number of Bakong users has increased significantly to 445,000 as of July 31, 2022 with 12.7 million transactions valued at $7.2 billion, from 288,000 users as at end-December 2021 and 45,000 in 2020.
Cambodia and Indonesia have pledged to enhance tourism cooperation, and agreed on a five-pronged strategy to revive travel to either country as Covid-19 headwinds abate, according to the tourism ministry.
The General Department of Taxation (GDT) has collected $2.68040 billion in tax revenues year-to-date, equivalent to 95.07 per cent of the full-year target for 2022, its director-general Kong Vibol said on September 28. This leaves just over three months to reach the prescribed 11.419 trillion riel
FWD Life Insurance (Cambodia) Plc was fully launched in September 2021 with the vision of ’changing the way people feel about insurance’.
The South Korean National Assembly on September 27 ratified the Cambodia-Korea Free Trade Agreement (CKFTA), fuelling hopes for an export boom to Asia’s fourth largest economy.
The price of gold has continued in a downtrend fuelled by a stronger US dollar supported by interest rate hikes to tackle rising inflation.
The draft Law on Taxation is designed in line with the context of Cambodian, regional and global economies to effectively lure potential new investors to the Kingdom, and is expected to be approved by the National Assembly by the end of the sixth legislative term
The company FIS Co Ltd has expressed interest in importing potentially lucrative agricultural items from Cambodia for distribution to Japan, as cashew nuts and products thereof reportedly gain popularity among Japanese consumers.


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How to curb bank taking your cash
Consumers seeking loans should ensure the lender is a different credit provider to the one they bank with, Summit CEO Clark Gardner said in reaction to court action being taken against Standard Bank.
The bank told Fin24 this week that it will oppose a bid by the National Credit Regulator (NCR), which wants a court to order that the common law set-off has been superseded by section 124 of the National Credit Act (NCA).
“The NCR had received complaints from consumers, in relation to instances where the bank had taken monies, which had been deposited into their accounts held with Standard Bank and used these amounts to settle arrears on Standard Bank debts,” Jacqueline Peters, manager of investigations and enforcement at the NCR, told Fin24 on Tuesday.
“Consumers in these instances are left with no monies for their ordinary day to day living expenses or other debt obligations, ultimately leaving already over indebted consumers in a far worse situation,” said Peters.
NCA does not provide sufficient clarity - Gardner
Gardner said the NCR’s case against Standard Bank was yet another example of the NCA not providing sufficient clarity to all parties involved.
“In the case of setting off outstanding and arrear debts against savings one needs to look at how the set-off took place.
“Where the right authority was provided by the consumer to the credit provider then little relief can be provided. However, in many instances we have seen it would seem the set-off is done in a manner in breach of Section 90(2) (m) in that it gives priority to payments for the credit provider over any other credit provider.
“All credit providers should have equal opportunity to receive payments and therefore are required to make use of the standard or preferential debit order payments processes.”
Debit order mechanism is fairer - Gardner
Summit believes the debit order mechanism is a fairer process to set off payments in that the consumer authorises an amount and credit provider to be paid on a specified date.
“This should mean that the consumer is aware of the payment and can budget for it accordingly,” he said.
Gardner said the NCA and the evolution of the credit industry is planning to move away from leaving the consumer in desperate situations and instead ensure they are protected from unfair credit provider behaviour or from their own desperate behaviour.
“We strongly encourage this shift, which may mean unsecured credit is less accessible in the short term as only financially healthy and able consumers access such funding,” he said.
“The problem in allowing set-off, and I am not aware of the details in this case, is that the amount and date of payment can come as a complete surprise to the consumer who then can find them in the most desperate of situations financially,” said Gardner.
Advice to consumers
“Our advice to consumers to prevent set-off is to ensure that your lender is a different credit provider to the one you bank with,” he said. “This ensures that payments can only be collected via authorised debit orders, which have an effective dispute process where necessary."
Further, if a consumer cannot afford all their debt repayments they should take effective action instead of hiding from their lenders or accessing additional credit, Gardner cautioned.
“Effective action varies from negotiating with your lenders, reporting reckless lending to the National Credit Regulator to approaching a reputable debt counsellor.”


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The Federal Trade Commission announced today that Google and Apple have removed three dating apps from their app stores because they might be used by sexual predators to find children. In a parent consultant, the FTC lawyer Lisa Weintraub Schifferle wrote that FastMeet, Meet24 and Meet4U, all manufactured by the Ukrainian company Wildec, had apparently violated the Online Child Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC Act.
In a letter to Wildec in early May, the FTC said the apps did not prevent users under the age of 13 from using the apps or being visible to other users. When testing the Find24 search feature, FTC employees found users near their location who said they were already 1
COPPA requires app developers to seek verifiable parental consent before asking children under 13 for personal information. The FTC told Wildec that the failure appears to violate COPPA because the company "apparently [s] has the actual knowledge that children are using their apps." The agency also said it will review the apps again next month if they do to abide by the law.
Even with apps with security measures, the exploitation of children is still a serious problem. Earlier this year, for example, the UK Government began reviewing laws requiring age verification checks for dating app users, after over 30 cases of child rape have been reported in 30 cases in a Sunday Times report how Tinder and Grindr were linked
TechCrunch has emailed Wildec for comments.


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Bernstein Research had an AAPL price target of $615 per share. The firm has now raised its AAPL price target to $700 per share. According to Toni Sacconaghi, a Bernstein analysts, the firm is increasing its AAPL price target based on an anticipated surge in iPhone upgrades when the new models launch, MarketWatch notes.
Apple is expected to launch two iPhone 6 models later this year. One model is rumored to have a 4.7-inch screen, while the other takes a step into phablet territory, sporting a 5.5-inch screen. The current iPhone 5s has a 4-inch screen, smaller than many rival smartphones on the market.
“We believe investor anticipation of the iPhone 6 will be high because a new larger form factor could stimulate an accelerated replacement cycle and switching from Android users who value a large screen,” Sacconaghi wrote in a research note. He added that Apple may charge more for the larger iPhone, increasing revenue growth.
In Thursday morning trading, AAPL shares rose about 1%. Apple stock closed at $624.01 per share on Wednesday.
More AAPL News:


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Xiaomi Redmi 1S
HTC One E8
Idea 3G Smartfone Ultra +
WickedLeak Wammy Neo
Asus Zenfone 6
Asus Zenfone 5
HTC One (M8)
HTC Desire 616 Dual SIM
First Impression: Intel powered Digiflip Pro Android tablets from Flipkart
First Impressions: Xiaomi Redmi 1S, redefining the low-end segment
MyUniverse App: A smarter way to manage finances
First impression: Using the Mozilla Firefox OS on the Intex Cloud FX phone
Xiaomi Redmi 1S: 6 things you should know about the budget Android phone
How tech is taking football to the next level
Classic FPS games are a dying breed
Slowly gathering steam...
The obsession within
Carmick Shift: Can John Carmack and Oculus Rift change the world?
One Plus One 64GB version could be priced under Rs. 25,000
A new Google Glass app can detect emotions, age and gender
Apple's next iPhone may support NFC-based mobile payments
Xolo Play 8X-1100, octa-core phone for gaming enthusiasts launched
Google stops showing Authorship for search results
Moto 'G2' specs revealed in benchmarks
OnePlus One India launch confirmed
Xiaomi lists Mi3 cases and power-banks on Flipkart, offers 10,400 mAh powerbank for Rs. 999
Moto G2 expected to be announced on 10 September
Xiaomi goes for the kill, prices Redmi 1S at Rs. 5,999 in India
Oppo Neo 3 R831K
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IDC reports that domestic vendors like Micromax and Karbonn together are beating Apple, Samsung in overall smartphone market share.
Latest IDC report states that home grown vendors Micromax, Karbonn have grabbed a higher market share in the smartphone market than Samsung and Apple combined in the second quarter 2013. This can be attributed to demand of affordable markets in emerging markets like India and China.
IDC reports that mobile vendors shipped nearly 119 million units in 2013 Q2, an increase of 10% from the first quarter and up nearly 75% from 2012 Q2. The report added that local vendors in Asia/Pacific regions excluding Japan have higher shipments compared to international brands. Domestic brands had shipments of 46 million units, compared with 35 million unit shipped by Samsung and apple combined in the second quarter this year.
IDC identified local vendors like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Maxx and Intex as leaders in India and brands like K-Touch, Coolpad, Gionee, Xiaomi and OPPO in China have a major market share. Internal vendors from China like Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE shipped 27 million units in April-June 2013. Other global brands like HTC, BlackBerry, Nokia, Sony, LG and Motorala shipped nearly 10 million units combined.
Samsung remains the leader with nearly 24% of the market share followed by Nokia and local vendors like Micromax and Karbonn. Apple has been ousted from the top five for the first time in India due to these local vendors.
IDC stated that the first quarter saw increase in <US$50 segment of smartphones in China and for the first time devices in 5-6 inch segments gained market share in both China and India.


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Tourism Ireland teams up with Stena Line to grow car touring visitor numbers to Ireland this autumn
A new Tourism Ireland campaign with Stena Line, to boost car touring visitor numbers and to promote Ireland’s Ancient East, Dublin and the Wild Atlantic Way, kicks off in Britain today (Monday, 18 September).
The campaign, which will run until mid-October, is targeting our important ‘culturally curious’ audience and includes:
- radio ads, which will reach about 6.2 million listeners in London, South West England and South Wales – on Classic FM, Smooth Radio and regional radio stations; competitions will also run on Classic FM and Smooth Radio;
- online ads on popular websites, reaching millions more British travellers; and
- ads on Facebook.
Tourism Ireland is also promoting Stena Line offers on its website and social platforms.
Julie Wakley, Tourism Ireland’s Deputy Head of Britain, said: “We are delighted to partner with Stena Line once again, to boost car touring visitor numbers to Ireland over the coming months; visitors who bring their car on holidays tend to stay longer, spend more and are more likely to visit more than one region.
“Great Britain is a vital market for tourism to the island of Ireland. It delivers 47% of all overseas visitors and around 30% of all overseas tourism revenue. However, the decline in visitor numbers from Britain continues to be a real concern. The fall in the value of sterling has made holidays and short breaks here more expensive for British visitors and, at the same time, has made Britain more affordable for visitors from many of our top markets.
“This year, Tourism Ireland has placed a greater focus on our ‘culturally curious’ audience, who stay longer and spend more, because they are less impacted by currency fluctuations. We are also undertaking an expanded programme with key partners, like this campaign with Stena Line, communicating a strong price-led message. Competitiveness and the value for money message are more important than ever in Britain right now.”
Notes To Editors
- Tourism Ireland is the organisation responsible for promoting the island of Ireland overseas as a leading holiday destination.
- Tourism is the island of Ireland’s largest indigenous industry; responsible for in excess of 4% of GNP in the Republic of Ireland and employing approximately 281,000 people across the island.
- In 2016, we welcomed approximately 10.3 million overseas visitors to the island of Ireland, delivering revenue of about €5.3 billion.
- Tourism Ireland’s international website is www.ireland.com, 29 market sites available in 11 language versions around the world, which attracted 19.37 million visitors in 2016.


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US publisher Majesco Holdings Inc. has officially changed its corporate name to Majesco Entertainment Company.
In addition, the firm's NASDAQ symbol has been switched from MJES to COOL. The changes are designed to "more accurately reflect the company's identity as a diversified digital entertainment company." Majesco executives will mark the occasion by ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ Market Site on April 13.
âWe believe that the name Majesco Entertainment Company is indicative of our strategy to provide innovative and appealing digital entertainment products to the consumer," said Majesco chairman and CEO Carl Yankowski.
"Furthermore, we believe our new ticker symbol COOL represents the unique culture and innovative spirit of Majesco.â
Based in New Jersey, Majesco's games portfolio includes the forthcoming Psychonauts and Advent Rising. The company also produces gadgets, such as the recent FroggerTV Plug and Play, and Game Boy Advance Video titles.


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Reinsurance demand to grow as terms get even better, Jardine Lloyd CEO saysPosted On: Mar. 11, 2016 12:00 AM CST
Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group P.L.C. chief executive Dominic Burke expects to see an increase in reinsurance demand from cedents as they recognize that "reinsurance is an extremely efficient form of capital" at current pricing levels, Artemis.bm reported.
Some reinsurance buyers are seeing an opportunity to acquire coverage at its lowest risk-adjusted level ever given the current market conditions. "As we enter 2016, there are signs that demand for reinsurance is increasing," said Mr. Burke.


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In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, other hot drinks will see declining volume growth rates, mainly due to the reduction of disposable incomes as a consequence of the pandemic. However, other hot drinks will not record too much of a drastic decline due to the plummeting on-trade sales, as consumption opportunities have switched from foodservice establishments to in the home.
Nestlé with its Nesquik brand will continue to be the clear leader in hot drinks in 2020. Flavoured powder drinks continues to be dominated by Nestlé’s Nesquik brand, which benefits from widespread availability and promotion.
Towards the end of the review period, flavoured chicory saw growing assortment of flavoured, such as chicory with the addition of healthy plants and extracts, including blueberries, ginseng, ginger and honey. The introduction of healthier versions of other hot drinks was also evident, such as chocolate-based hot drinks that attract health-conscious consumers, for example, Nestlé offered a new Nesquik with 30% less sugar.
Over the forecast period, malt-based hot drinks will continue to record volume decline due to its low popularity among young consumers as it is more common amongst elderly consumers. Malt-based hot drinks are somewhat traditional and suffer from of lack of advertising, which prevents the product to reach younger consumers.
Chocolate-based flavoured powder drinks will continue to see a stable performance over the forecast period, despite the growing health and wellness trend. It will continue being a popular hot drink for children of mainly pre-school age as children up to the age of seven rarely consume coffee or tea.
Over the forecast period, the health and wellness trend will continue having an impact on other hot drinks, especially in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic whereby more consumers have begun prioritising their overall health. Other plant-based hot drinks, mainly chicory, is anticipated to record the fastest volume growth, becoming a popular alternative to coffee or tea.
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On the morning of Jan 23, 2021, a gran d retrospective fashion exhibition themed "Splendid Decade: Fashion China 2011-2020" kicked off at China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, the capital city of East China's Zhejiang Province.
Under the patronage of High Fashion Silk (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd., the exhibition is organized by the China Fashion Designers' Association an d China National Textile Product Development Center, an d presented by China National Silk Museum with support from the Silk an d Fashion Culture Center of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University an d Shanghai Business School.
The exhibition gives a full display of China's fashion history an d masterpieces of a few high-profile artists during the past 10 years. The masterpieces on show mainly come from more than one hundred domestic renowned designers such as Laurance Xu, Wu Haiyan, Guo Pei, an d so forth.
The exhibition not only periodically summarizes the fashion collection of China National Silk Museum in the past 10 years but also rejuvenates the traditional Chinese fashion culture by inserting more modern, sustainable, an d digital elements.
The exhibition opens to the public for free an d it will last until March 21st.
(Edited by Ye Ke, in Zhejiang)


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The Burke School Athletic Department is sponsoring a school themed face mask fundraiser. There are six different designs to choose from, all with the Bulldog logo and colors. We are trying to use the mask as a way for Burke fans as show school spirit, stay safe at athletic events, and do out part to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
All proceeds from sales will go to the Burke Athletic Department to help support young athletes.
Cost of Masks: $10
You will be able to purchase the mask between the hours of 11am-3pm Mon-Thurs. from the bus ramp location.


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Chevrolet has released a dark teaser shot of a concept vehicle it will show later this month in Shanghai. Dubbed the FNR-X, the concept looks remarkably production ready and likely serves as a follow up to the 2015 FNR Concept the brand showcased in Shanghai.
Thus far there isn’t much known about the FNR-X Concept. If it is indeed a follow up to the FNR Concept, it’s certainly bound for production. The FNR Concept was an outlandish, future-forward vehicle.
Rumors flying around suggest this vehicle will be all-wheel-drive and feature some form of a plug-in hybrid. CarNewsChina reports that the FNR-X Concept is indeed previewing a future Chevy model for the Chinese market; one that will slot between the Captiva and Equinox crossovers.
The concept will also feature an autonomous drive system that adjusts the car’s behavior based on the driver’s mood. Needless to say, we’re eager to hear more details about that system.
Expect all of the details on the FNR-X Concept once it debuts later this month at the Shanghai Motor Show.


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Episode 0 8
This Week in Android #8 with Itamar Weisbrod & John Shiple
TWiA #08 with Itamar Weisbrod and John Shiple
The app of the week was FlyScreen, an application that puts the content you choose on your lock screen for easy access. Itamar Weisbrod, CEO of Cellogic, told us about this app, which he co-created. He also discussed the frustrations in developing for Android.
- Google Buzz gets its own widget on Android. Could this signal the beginning of the growth of Buzz?
- A new car, the Roewe 350 is the first car to hit production this week running the Android OS.
- The Nexus One has been released for AT&T and Sprint, completing the list for the major US wireless carriers.
- PSP graphics may soon (3 years) be comparable to the Nexus One’s says the chip makers.
- Google Maps on Android devices 1.6+ has been updated to a version that has a new search page, a Latitude widget and the ability to make Google Maps your phone’s live wallpaper.
- Users in Canada can now purchase paid Android applications.
- Tim Bray, of Oracle, has left and has now joined the Android team.
- Facebook implements QR codes?
- The Android app marketplace has reached 30,000 applications.
- A new Android based e-reader, the Alex eReader is available for pre-order.
- Did the Motorola Droid outsell the iPhone? Perhaps.
- Is the Google Nexus One a trademark infringement? The courts say they can’t trademark the name.
- Samsung has trademarked “Android” in Korea.
- Update (more articles): Can Android survive its forks and fragments? and Google Draws Criticism for Android Changes


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Nanolumens – James Industries Partnership Bring LED Displays To Casino Gaming Industry
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
NanoLumens and James Industries have announced a strategic partnership to bring the next generation of LED displays to gaming manufacturers around the world.
As part of this new partnership, NanoLumens will exhibit its entire line of display technologies to the gaming industry at G2E 2012 booth #2224 at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas from October 2-4.
Casinos are filled with blinking lights, spinning wheels and flashing displays, making them some of the most difficult locations for a digital display to stand out from the crowd and demand attention. James Industries, a Las Vegas-based gaming manufacturer representation firm focused primarily on technology for gaming and entertainment, has set a new bar for the industry by representing NanoLumens LED displays which are energy efficient, ultra-bright and can be built to virtually any shape, size or curvature, making them the a great solution for manufacturers wanting to draw more attention to their games.
“Through NanoLumens’ new partnership with James Industries, the gaming industry is getting its first glimpse of the future with our design-specific displays,” says Josh Byrd, NanoLumens’ director of marketing,“Requiring little power, producing little heat, and exhibiting incredible brightness, our LED display technology is ideal for use on a busy casino floor. Its nearly endless configuration options allow manufacturers to create a unique game display that can be seen from far away and truly stands out in one of the most crowded signage environments imaginable.”
With hundreds of its curved 6mm pixel pitch displays already installed or being installed on slot machines across the country through its partnership with James Industries, NanoLumens aims to become a major digital signage player in the gaming industry.
“New display technologies are ushering in a new era of design for gaming machine manufacturers,” says John Blouin, president, James Industries. “NanoLumens’ design-specific displays offer compelling advantages with their high brightness, low power consumption and endless configuration options. These are extremely important characteristics for both slot manufacturers and casinos that can help lower electricity and cooling costs while driving increased traffic and revenue to the games.
“James Industries only represents the latest and best core technologies, and thanks to the stellar performance, price and fast delivery from NanoLumens, we look forward to implementing their incredible LED displays into a lot more games in the future.”


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It is back to school shopping season again, but things sure have changed. With the future uncertain, coronavirus could push back-to-school shopping to record levels as families make contingency plans for remote learning. The National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics released their annual survey on back-to-school spending, and consumers tentatively plan to spend record amounts on laptops and computer accessories in anticipation that at least some classes will take place online due to coronavirus-related closures. Total spending for K-12 and college combined is projected to reach $101.6 billion, exceeding last year’s $80.7 billion and topping the $100 billion mark for the first time. And now on to this week’s logistics news.
- Amazon, Simon Property Group look to turn stores into fulfillment centers
- Walmart and Instacart partner for same-day delivery
- Canada slaps retaliatory tariffs on US aluminium goods
- UPS packages will be more expensive this fall
- Coca-Cola bottlers expand blockchain adoption
- DoorDash launches new digital convenience store channel
- FMCSA extends coronavirus HOS exemptions to September
- Trick-or-treating is in doubt this year, so Halloween candy is coming early
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, more and more retailers have gone out of business or filed for bankruptcy protection. This in turn has left many malls with closed stores and no new tenants to take them over. With demand for warehouse space increasing, especially in population centers, Amazon and Simon Property Group are taking a creative approach to the increased number of empty stores. The mall owner has been in talks with Amazon to take over empty stores across the country and turn them into distribution hubs. The talks have focused on converting stores formerly or currently occupied by J.C. Penney and Sears, as both have been closing stores across the country. The move would put Amazon in a unique position to be able fulfill orders quicker while potentially creating region-specific inventory models. Simon malls have 63 J.C. Penney and 11 Sears stores, according to its most recent public filing in May.
As the country continues to turn to grocery delivery, Walmart, the country’s largest grocery retailer, is partnering with Instacart to offer same-day delivery. This is not an overly surprising move for Walmart as it continues to try to keep up with Amazon in the online arena. Amazon offers grocery delivery using its own services Amazon Fresh and Prime Now to deliver groceries from Whole Foods stores and its warehouses. The Walmart – Instacart partnership is currently in a pilot phase in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Tulsa, OK. While it remains to be seen whether the program will be rolled out nationwide, as online grocery shopping continues to grow it is difficult to envision a scenario where Walmart does not expand the partnership to more markets.
Last year, the US and Canada announced a deal to eliminate tariffs on steel and aluminium. Last week, President Trump reintroduced the tariffs and imposed a 10 percent tariff on some Canadian aluminium products. President Trump said US tariffs on Canada were necessary to defend the domestic aluminium industry because “producers to the north had broken their commitment to stop flooding the US market with a cheaper product.” Canada has answered with the announcement of a $2.7 billion tariff on US aluminium products. The new tariffs were announced after deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland previously promised a “dollar-for-dollar” fight. The retaliatory tariffs by Canada will go into effect on 16 September.
Both UPS and FedEx had already announced delivery surcharges ahead of this year’s holiday season. And now, UPS has announced a new round of surcharges for companies that ship large amounts of packages during peak season. The root cause of the surcharge is that the amount of people shopping online continues to grow and an unprecedented surge in packages is likely coming. For a company that ships more than 25,000 packages per week, the surcharge will cost between $1 to $4 depending on whether it’s delivered via ground or air. UPS decides the fee depending on the company’s shipping volume in February of this year, prior to the pandemic hitting the US. Fees will be implemented from November 15, 2020, through January 16, 2021. The big question is how these shippers will handle the increased costs – pay it themselves or pass it on the consumer.
The partner of Coca-Cola’s largest US-based bottling company is expanding its use of blockchain to enhance efficiency across the beverage company’s supply chain. Coke One North America (CONA) will use The Baseline Protocol to enhance transparency and reduce friction in “cross-organization supply chain transactions.” The announcement notes that the 12-largest North American Coca-Cola bottlers began using a Hyperledger Fabric-based blockchain platform for internal supply chain management last year, driving increased “transparency and efficiency” in bottlers’ intricate supply chains. The new project will see CONA expand its use of digital ledger technology beyond its internal network to incorporate external suppliers, such as raw material vendors distributing cans and bottles.
DoorDash is launching a new digital convenience store channel in an effort to grow its market share in the on-demand delivery world. The new service, dubbed DashMart, is available on the company’s platform for customers in eight cities: Chicago; Minneapolis; Dallas; Salt Lake City; the greater Phoenix area; Redwood City, California; and Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. This marks the first time that DoorDash has expanded its infrastructure to include distribution centers. The digital convenience stores will offer household essentials, ready-made meals, and restaurant retail items. Each DashMart location will carry roughly 2,000 items and delivery will be available in about 30 minutes.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has once again extended and modified its coronavirus pandemic-related hours of service (HOS) exemptions. In June, the FMCSA made modifications to the exemption, removing “food, paper products and other groceries for emergency restocking of distribution centers or stores” as they were no longer needed for “emergency relief.” Fast forward two months, and “current conditions” have added those categories back to the list. The declaration, which was set to expire today, is now effective through September 14.
While it is probably just my mind playing tricks on me, it seems as though Halloween candy arrives in stores earlier and earlier every year. But this year, it is actually happening. With trick or treating in jeopardy this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, candy manufacturers are changing course and hedging their bets on what is usually their busiest time of the year. These manufacturers are trying to extend the season by getting candy displays in stores two-to-four weeks earlier than normal. But, with the future unknown, many companies, like Hershey, are using less Halloween-specific packaging this year and putting more focus on family-size bags of candy. It is crazy to think we are already seeing Halloween displays.
Want to learn more about inventory optimization and omni-channel fulfillment? On Wednesday, August 19, Steve Banker and I will join Scott Fenwick, Sr. Director, Product Management for Inventory at Manhattan Associates to explore the impact of omni-channel fulfillment on supply chain planning. Register now.
That’s all for this week. Enjoy the weekend and the song of the week, Bob Dylan’s Things Have Changed.


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Deregulation is the New Buzzword in Washington — Except in the Tech Industry
By Vejay Lalla and Vanessa Katz
The past year has been a volatile one, from trade wars to the government shutdown to a stock market dive. One constant that U.S. businesses have become accustomed to, however, is deregulation across a wide variety of industries — except for technology. As innovation in that sector continues at a rapid pace, regulators will continue to address consumer protection concerns. In addition, technology companies will continue facing more aggressive enforcement as well as increasingly complex regulation at both the federal and state levels.
In this article, we look at digital advertising disclosures, data privacy and internet-driven products — three areas in which regulatory oversight of tech companies has dramatically increased — and discuss what the industry is likely to face in the coming year.
The Influencer Economy
One area in which regulators and enforcement agencies have targeted the entire digital advertising ecosystem — including advertising agencies, publishers, game companies, technology networks, traditional brands and even individual talent — is influencer advertising disclosures.
Advertisers have expanded their partnerships with influencers in recent years, and analysts estimate that spending on influencer marketing could reach $10 billion by 2022. Social media and content platforms have also invested heavily in this sector. (Facebook, for example, launched a search engine in June 2018 called Brand Collabs Manager to enable brands and content creators to search for partners with similar audiences.)
The Federal Trade Commission is the primary federal agency that regulates endorsements and testimonials. The FTC has authority under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act to prevent “unfair” or “deceptive” business practices, which includes online advertising and sponsorships. As early as 2009, the FTC issued updated guidelines for endorsements and testimonials specifically to ensure that disclosures are properly made in social and digital channels. The FTC stressed the importance of ensuring that consumers understand they are being advertised to in new online channels, as opposed to watching a celebrity on television, where a consumer readily understands they are being pitched a product.
In 2015, the FTC weighed in further on native advertising disclosures to push for disclosures that would delineate the blurred lines between editorial and advertising in digital and social channels. In the Native Advertising Guidelines, it distinguished between traditional product integration you may see in games or television and similar placements online, stressing that “deceptive door openers” such as headlines and content that appear editorial in nature are inherently deceptive and lead to consumers interacting with advertising that they otherwise may not have chosen to consume. During the same period, the FTC has also brought numerous enforcement cases against agencies such as Deutsch LA and major advertisers such as Lord & Taylor, as well as influencer networks and content and game studios, for failing to ensure sponsored posts on social media and in editorial were adequately disclosed.
In the past two years, the FTC has significantly expanded its enforcement efforts. It has continued to pursue cases against advertisers and brands, and issued further concrete guidance in its Endorsement Guides as well. For example, it reached a settlement agreement with Creaxion in fall 2018 for paying athletes to promote a client’s mosquito repellent. Creaxion reviewed and monitored promotional posts in advance, but did not require that the athletes disclose they were paid for their endorsements.
Since 2017, the FTC has also been enforcing sponsorship guidelines directly against influencers and content creators. In April 2017, the FTC sent over 90 warning letters to influencers and marketers related to disclosures of sponsored content or promotions on social media. That September, the FTC brought its first complaint directly against two influencers for falsely claiming that their reviews on social media were independent, and for failing to disclose their positions as owners and officers of the company they promoted, CSGO Lotto. The FTC has made it clear that all participants in the digital ecosystem are responsible for ensuring that advertising is clearly and conspicuously labeled.
We now see other agencies weighing in as well, most notably the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2018, the SEC reached a settlement with professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer Khaled Khaled (known as DJ Khaled). The SEC alleged that each individual promoted initial coin offerings on social media without disclosing that they received payments for their endorsements. Mayweather and Khaled paid over $300,000 and $100,000 respectively in connection with the settlement agreement.
Beyond expanded enforcement efforts by the FTC and SEC, influencers, media companies and brands also face — and will continue to face — increased pressure for self-regulation as well as scrutiny from the National Advertising Division, a division of the Better Business Bureau, on what constitutes sponsored content that requires disclosure. In one 2016 example, NAD investigated a partnership between People Magazine and the online shopping platform Joyus, and found that listing sponsored products and linking to sponsored content in People’s “Stuff We Love” section was advertising rather than editorial content. NAD recommended that the magazine implement changes to include adequate disclosures on this sponsored content. In another example, NAD recently investigated a shopping guide on skincare products that included monetized affiliate links. NAD ultimately found that the shopping guide was not advertising and was therefore outside its jurisdiction, because the editors created content independently without any input from their marketing team or the listed retailers and brands. However, NAD left open the possibility that editorial content with affiliate links could be considered advertising under other circumstances.
Overall, as the influencer economy continues to evolve, regulators will have to grapple with new issues to ensure consumers are protected adequately in the online marketplace. One such example is how regulators will treat CGI influencers such as Shudu Gram and Miquela Sousa . Also, whether such influencer marketing is deceptive on its face or whether the reasonable consumer now simply expects to be advertised to in this manner, similar to a television commercial.
The next area in which technology companies have experienced greater regulation at both the federal and state levels since 2016 — and will continue to need to make a top priority — is data privacy. Monetization and leverage of large consumer data repositories has become integral to corporate growth strategies across technology and other industries. Some analysts have called big data the “new oil.”
Last fall, enforcement agencies reached record-breaking settlements related to data breaches. For example, Anthem agreed to pay $16 million for claims under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The data breach underlying those claims resulted in over 78 million records compromised. In addition, a multi-state settlement agreement related to a failure to disclose a data breach required a $148 million payment. And the New York attorney general reached a $5 million settlement agreement for claims under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the largest fine to date under that statute.
Technology companies also faced several highly publicized investigations into their data privacy practices by Congress and enforcement agencies in the past year. These actions have even taken place at the municipal level. The city attorney of Los Angeles, for instance, recently sued the Weather Channel for failing to disclose that location data collected through the company’s mobile app may be used for commercial purposes like targeted marketing.
This past year, California passed a sweeping privacy law that adds significant disclosure and other compliance obligations for any company that collects consumer data. This law will come into effect in 2020 and will further increase regulatory exposure. Similar to the GDPR in Europe, California’s new law broadly defines personal data to cover almost any information related to an identifiable individual, expands notice obligations for companies that collect user data and creates new rights for users to request access or deletion of their data. In addition, companies may face greater liability in private suits based on statutory damages under the new law.
In response to the increasing complexity of the regulatory landscape, major technology companies have begun to lobby for a federal privacy law. 2019 and 2020 will be key years for the development of further U.S. privacy regulations, and in determining how much control consumers will have over the ownership and right to manage their own personal data.
To handle both consumer expectations over the management of their data and increased regulatory scrutiny, technology companies will need to continue to adapt to this new environment. In addition, ‘privacy by design’ may become less of a catch phrase and more of a term requiring deeper integration by U.S. tech-enabled businesses. And with the rise of smart cities, states and cities themselves will have to understand how they are collecting or enabling the collection of data on their residents.
As data privacy issues have drawn greater attention, regulators have increased scrutiny of connected devices. The market for internet of things devices has grown rapidly in the past two years, and analysts predict that it could grow to $520 billion by 2021. IoT devices pose unique security risks. They can collect sensitive data (e.g., security cameras) or be used for purposes that could pose a safety risk in the event of a breach (e.g., an automated vehicle or a traffic light). The FTC has pursued actions against device markers as early as its 2013 settlement agreement with TRENDnet, and published guidance on best practices for IoT device makers in a 2015 report, including security-by-design and transparency about data collected.
Until recently, the FTC advocated a “wait and see” approach to the IoT ecosystem. That said, since 2017, it has reached significant settlement agreements with IoT device makers, and new legislation at the state and federal level is targeting IoT devices. Furthermore, IoT device makers have faced enforcement actions related to data collection practices, and additional inquiries from lawmakers. A major TV manufacturer paid $2.2 million as part of settlement with the FTC and the State of New Jersey in 2017 based on claims that software pre-installed on “smart” televisions collected viewing data about 11 million users without their knowledge. In 2018, electronic toymaker VTech settled FTC claims under COPPA that a mobile app connected to its toys collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent. And this past summer, several U.S. senators sent letters to device manufacturers and the FTC requesting that regulators investigate the business practices of makers of IoT devices with passive listening features.
IoT device makers must also comply with new guidance and legislation governing connected devices. For example, in September 2018, California passed the first law governing IoT devices. It requires that IoT device makers implement “reasonable security features” that are appropriate to the type of device and the nature of the data it processes. There are also sector-specific regulations and laws on the horizon for IoT device makers. For example, the Senate is considering a bill governing autonomous vehicles, the AV START Act, which will increase federal oversight of the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles.
What to Expect this Year
U.S. businesses will continue to use data and technology as a means of creating efficiency and innovation in the marketplace. In fact, many of the largest technology companies are accelerating this process, expanding into new cities and hiring at a rapid pace. In certain areas of the tech sector — including digital advertising, connected devices and digital health — innovation is still in its early stages, but we will continue to see growing adoption of their products and services by both companies and consumers.
Although regulators are in catch-up mode, they are looking with an eye to the future, for example, by considering the imposition of trade restrictions on certain technologies, including artificial intelligence. The federal government will certainly continue to focus on the tech industry — both from a consumer protection perspective as well a fair trade perspective in regard to competition from China and others — but tech companies should also expect much more by way of state and local regulations in 2019, with California at the forefront.
Key IP Takeaways from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
By Allyson M. Madrid and Charlene M. Morrow
On September 30, 2018, the United States, Mexico and Canada reached a trade agreement to supersede the North American Free Trade Agreement. The aptly named United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement includes intellectual property provisions covering patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets and domain names. USMCA Chapter 20, which contains the intellectual property-related portion of the agreement, is based in part on the abandoned Trans-Pacific Partnership, maintains some NAFTA provisions and includes entirely new ones. Although the agreement awaits ratification in all three countries, the general consensus among intellectual property owners that is it is an improvement over prior trade agreements.
Longer Terms of Protection
One of the most notable aspects of the USMCA intellectual property provisions are longer terms of protection. Under the USMCA, patent holders are entitled to term adjustments when a patent registration is delayed due to circumstances outside the applicant’s control, triggered when the patent issues more than three years after an examination request is filed, or more than five years after the application was initially filed. This has been the law in the United States for decades but is new to Canada, which has four and a half years to implement it.
The protection term specifically for biologics — pharmaceuticals synthesized from biological sources — has also been extended. Under the USMCA, the term is 10 years, versus five years under the TPP and eight years in Canada (the United States currently provides 12 years of protection). Biologics were not covered at all under NAFTA, nor are they specifically covered by Mexican law.
Similarly, the USMCA extends the required copyright term in Canada to match the existing U.S. term — the life of the author plus 70 years — up from life of the author plus 50 years. In Mexico, the copyright term is already longer — the life of the author plus 100 years.
Enhanced Enforcement Mechanisms
In addition to longer terms of protection, the USMCA provides for enhanced intellectual property enforcement mechanisms. Taking a page from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States, the USMCA implements a notice and takedown procedure requiring Internet Service Providers to remove infringing content from their platforms in order to avoid copyright infringement liability. Canada may be exempt from this provision due to certain legislative intricacies. As a result, Canadian ISPs may only be required to notify users of infringement allegations (and will not be required to remove infringing content). Mexico, though, will need to create such a system. The TPP contemplated a similar provision, but NAFTA does not contain any similar provisions.
Further, the USMCA addresses technological protection measures intended to protect copyright content, listing certain types of activities that circumvent such measures, but are nevertheless deemed lawful. The TPP included a similar list, but the USMCA is more narrowly tailored.
In counterfeiting actions, the USMCA requires signatories to impose predetermined damages. (The United States already has statutory damages for counterfeit cases of $1,000 to 200,000 per mark, and up to 10 times that for willful counterfeit use, and provides for stronger rights for taking action at the borders against counterfeit trademark or pirated copyright goods. For example, border officials are authorized to use their own judgment to identify counterfeits (no court order is required) and may unilaterally seize or destroy such counterfeits.)
Trademark and Patent Provisions
The USMCA contains a number of provisions related to trademark protection, most of which are consistent with U.S. law. Canada was already implementing such changes with the new Canadian Trademarks Act that will likely come into force in early 2019. These include: (1) ratifying the Madrid Protocol; (2) adopting a classification system consistent with the Nice system and (3) permitting registration of scent marks. One outstanding requirement that Canada will still need to address is allowing the registration of collective marks (marks used by an association to certify membership or compliance with certain criteria). Mexico has already complied with these requirements.
As with trademarks, the USMCA imposes patent requirements that are already largely consistent with the existing laws in the United States and Canada. For example, the parties must either accede to the international patent agreement known as the Patent Law Treaty, to which the United States is already a member, or adopt procedures consistent with the “objectives” of the Patent Law Treaty. Canada has already amended its domestic laws to comply with the Patent Law Treaty, and those changes are predicted to come into effect in early 2019, but Mexico will have to amend its domestic law to comply with this provision.
Trade Secrets, Domain Names and a Committee on IP Rights
Trade secret protection under the USMCA is similar to NAFTA, and requires that signatories have laws in place to protect trade secrets modeled after Uniform Trademark Secrets Act in the United States. Term limits on trade secret protection are prohibited, as are restrictions discouraging or impeding the voluntary licensing or transfer of trade secrets. Unlike NAFTA and the TPP, the USMCA addresses how trade secrets are handled in litigation, requiring parties to allow submissions under seal to prevent disclosure.
Domain names are likewise covered by the USMCA, which requires the signatories to maintain an online database of domain name registrant contact information, and a domain name dispute mechanism modeled after the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which the United States and Canada already have. The TPP text contained similar provisions, but NAFTA did not.
Finally, in addition to the requirements enumerated in the agreement, the USMCA establishes a Committee on IP Rights, which will be comprised of government officials from each country and tasked with “identify[ing] appropriate opportunities to increase cooperation between the Parties on trade-related intellectual property rights protection and enforcement.” Neither NAFTA nor the TPP included a similar provision.
Given that the agreement must pass through each party’s ratification procedures, it could be many months or even years before it is in force. Once the USMCA takes effect, it requires that the countries re-evaluate the agreement every six years, and it also contains a 16-year sunset clause, requiring the parties’ agreement to extend.
To learn more, see the full text of the agreement and the Trump administration’s summary.
A Strategic Look at Champerty and Third-Party Litigation Financing
By Earl W. Mah and Charlene M. Morrow
Third-party litigation financing is a topic of increasing interest. The practice has become more common, and federal courts as well as the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board are responding to ensure that the real parties in interest are participating in intellectual property disputes. In addition, a proposal is pending before the Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure that would revise the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to require disclosure of third-party funding arrangements affecting all federal patent, copyright and trademark actions. Furthermore, a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Worlds v. Bungie, has tasked the PTAB with conducting an analysis of the real-party-in interest issue where evidence is presented by a patent owner to sufficiently put the issue into dispute.
This article addresses the limits placed on litigation financing by some states via the operation of the champerty doctrine. The law varies substantially from state to state, with some states having strict champerty doctrines and others none at all. That fact may impact venue selection for multi-state or multi-district disputes.
TPLF and the Champerty Doctrine: A Primer
A party, such as a non-practicing entity seeking to embark on a patent assertion campaign, may seek third-party litigation financing to bridge a gap in funding for a claim or as a strategy to hedge against the downside risk of an unsuccessful outcome. TPLF is generally non-recourse, meaning that the funding entity can only collect on the collateral pledged — in this context, a portion of the proceeds of the litigation determined by various factors, such as a percentage of any recovery, a multiple of the deployed funds or the length of the case.
Champerty prohibits outside parties from funding litigation in certain cases to which they are not a party. Its modern application can be traced back to medieval England, where champerty statutes prevented feudal lords from abusing the legal system by encouraging third parties to litigate against their rivals and claiming a share of the property awarded.
By common law or statute, many jurisdictions do not explicitly prohibit champerty or recognize TPLF as such, including Arizona, California, Louisiana, New Jersey and Texas. (See Paul Bond, Making Champerty Work: An Invitation to State Action, a 50-state survey). Other states, such as Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York and Pennsylvania, do recognize the doctrine, and explicitly prohibit champertous funding arrangements. In those states, third-party litigation financing arrangements can be found champertous, resulting in the litigation being halted.
Relevant Champerty Statutes and Recent Case Law
It is worth reviewing recent champerty rulings in Delaware and in New York, two of the states with the most fully articulated case law, to analyze how third-party litigation financiers might run afoul of the doctrine.
Under common law, Delaware defines champerty as “an agreement between the owner of a claim and a volunteer that the latter may take the claim and collect it, dividing the proceeds with the owner, if they prevail; the champertor to carry on the suit at his own expense.” Charge Injection Technologies v. E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company. In a champertous assignment, “an assignee of a cause of action initiates litigation at his or her own risk and expense in consideration of receiving a portion of the proceeds if successful.” However, an agreement cannot be champertous if the assignee has “an interest in the matter in controversy” or “where the assignee has some legal or equitable interest in the subject matter of the litigation independent from the terms of the assignment under which the suit was brought.”
In Charge Injection, CIT’s CEO entered into an agreement with an investment fund to finance their patent infringement action in exchange for any future proceeds from the action. The Delaware Superior Court held that this was not champerty, finding the financier did not encourage or control CIT’s pursuit of the litigation. The court similarly found no champerty in the assignment of a debt to a company that later filed suit to pursue payment in Southeastern Chester County Refuse Authority v. BFI Waste Services of Pennsylvania. Specifically, the plaintiff had an interest “intertwined with the subject matter of the case” and did not acquire the debt simply to pursue litigation: The interest in the litigation pre-dated the assignment. Nor did the court find champerty in Arcoria v. RCC Associates, when a company’s president assigned the company’s lawsuit to himself before pursuing his claim. While no recent cases have found an agreement to be champertous, the doctrine is presumed to be alive and well. In dismissing a case due to a champertous agreement, the court stated in Hall v. State of Delaware that “[i]t is the duty of the court to dismiss a case in which the evidence discloses that the assignment of the cause of action sued upon was tainted with champerty.”
In New York, champerty is prohibited by Judiciary Law § 489 and punishable by fines or even a misdemeanor conviction. However, the statute contains a safe harbor provision for assignments with a purchase price of at least $500,000. Champerty exists if the primary purpose of the purchase is to enable one to bring a suit, but not if the lawsuit is merely incidental. For example, New York’s Supreme Court found no champerty when the plaintiff received TPLF for a claim for the return of stolen art; the financier did not become a party to the suit and only provided financing for the plaintiff to fund his claim. Gowen v. Helly Nahmad Gallery. Certain assignments of mortgage and securities have also been found non-champertous by the courts. In 71 Clinton St. Apts. v. 71 Clinton Inc., the court found that the “plaintiff acquired the assignment for purposes of foreclosure; the law allows for such an acquisition.” Likewise, in Universal Investment Advisory v. Bakrie Telecom the court found an assignment is not champertous where an assignee obtains legal title of securities and the assignor retains beneficial title to their proceeds, though the assignee’s recovery is limited to costs and fees associated with bringing the lawsuit.
However, the New York Court of Appeals found an agreement champertous where a plaintiff acquired securities solely to bring a lawsuit, agreeing to pay $1 million for them if the lawsuit succeeded. Justinian Capital SPC v. WestLB AG. Further, because the plaintiff had not yet paid anything for the assignment, the safe harbor provision did not apply, and the court ruled against the plaintiff.
The Dividing Line Between Cognizable Funding and Champerty
In states where champerty is a consideration, funding agreements may be scrutinized for the extent of control ceded to the funder. There is a distinction between a financier providing acceptable non-recourse funding so a party can cover litigation costs and a third party who impermissibly uses funding to pull the strings and control the litigation.
In states where champerty applies, the assets encumbered by the funding agreement may also be scrutinized. In those states, third-party financiers should avoid initiating, encouraging or controlling litigation in which they have no direct interest.
There is a finer distinction to be made in the case of assignments of debt or securities. It is common practice to acquire a debt strictly for the purposes of receiving the benefit of enforcing it. If a lawsuit is incidental to that enforcement, the assignee of the debt likely has not run afoul of the champerty doctrine. Assignments of debt acquired strictly for the purposes of the lawsuit can be found champertous, particularly where the lawsuit could potentially exceed the return of the debt, where the assignee has not yet paid for the assignment, or where a clear strategy of harassment or burdening a defended with cost can be shown. Such was the case in Justinian, where the plaintiff had yet to make a payment for assigned securities before filing suit over them. If, however, a party is the legitimate assignee of debt or securities, then it has a legal interest in any suit arising out of them — so long as the assignee does not take over control of the litigation, such an assignment is likely non-champertous.
Considerations for Funders
Funders should remember that champerty provides limits on litigation financing in some states. In those states, the inquiry is on the interest the funder has in underlying assets and whether the funding agreement hands control of the action to a non-party. In fact, champerty concerns may lead some funders to prefer matters to be brought in states that do not recognize the doctrine.
Online Publishers Beware: An iPhone Snap May Go Viral, but Unauthorized Commercial Use is Still Not Fair Use
By Mitchell Zimmerman
When nuptials are celebrated at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, the newlyweds may be in for a surprise when the owner drops by to provide a photo op for the wedding party. Such an act in 2017 yielded a snapshot of President Trump with bride Kristen Piatowski, a photo that went viral. The photo was thereafter widely used commercially without authorization and precipitated a copyright lawsuit, Otto v. Hearst Communications.
When President Trump appeared at this wedding — the kind of happening that is marketed by the Trump enterprise as a possible fringe benefit of the venue — Jonathan Otto was among the guests who captured the event with his data phone. Otto took the snap for personal, not commercial, reasons.
Otto shared his photograph with only one other wedding guest and did not post it to any social media site. He was therefore surprised to find, the day after the wedding, that his photo had been published in TMZ, CNN, The Washington Post, the Daily Mail and Hearst’s Esquire website, among other sites.
The guest to whom Otto had sent the photo had in turn forwarded the photograph to others, and a relative of the bride posted it to her Instagram account, from whence it was apparently lifted by various news sites. Hearst used the photo in connection with an article, “President Trump is the Ultimate Wedding Crasher.”
None of the uses were authorized, and Otto promptly retained a lawyer to register the copyrights in the photo and assert his interests. In the suit he brought against Hearst, the only significant issue as to liability was fair use. On cross motions for summary judgment, Judge Gregory Woods of the Southern District of New York ruled for the plaintiff. “Stealing a copyrighted photograph to illustrate a news article,” Judge Woods wrote, “without adding new understanding or meaning to the work, does not transform its purpose — regardless of whether that photograph was created for commercial or personal use.”
The court engaged in the standard four-factor analysis of fair use.
The first factor considers the nature and character of the use, and commonly focuses on whether the use is transformative. Using a photo for the precise purpose for which it was created is not transformative, the court observed. The fact that Otto created the work for personal use and that Hearst used it for news did not represent a different purpose. The purpose was the same because the photo was used to illustrate and describe the same event as the story. Unlike an early case in which use of a photograph in a news story was held fair use, Nunez v. Caribbean International News Corporation, the Hearst article was not about the photo. In Nunez, a risqué photograph itself was the subject of a controversy concerning a Miss Puerto Rico Universe.
That issue may not, however, be as clear-cut as the court concluded. The Trump-bride photograph may not have been the subject of a controversy. But, it could be argued, the article was not solely about Trump’s crashing of weddings; it was also about his exploitation of presidential photo ops as a marketing ploy for his clubs. On that theory, the photo itself would have been a subject of the article and not merely serve to illustrate Trumpian party crashing.
The second fair use factor considers the nature of the copyrighted work, particularly whether a work is expressive or creative, as opposed to factual or informational. Cases commonly seem to treat photographs as inherently creative works. But here the court — noting that Otto did not pose the subjects nor control the lighting or background, but simply snapped it — deemed the photo to be on the factual end of the spectrum, and held this factor favored Hearst.
Hearst’s attempted defense on the third factor, the amount of substantiality of the portion of the copyrighted work that was used, was plainly an uphill battle since Hearst used the entirety of the photograph. Hearst correctly pointed out that using the entirety of a work can be reasonable when required by a transformative purpose. Because the court held that the defendant’s purpose was not transformative, however, that factor went against defendant.
The final factor — the effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — also favored the plaintiff. As soon as Otto realized that the photograph had market value, he sought to realize that value. The fact that he did not originally take the photograph with such intent was irrelevant, the court ruled, writing: “The creator of a work should not be precluded from future profits should they lack the marketing prowess to capitalize on their work at the time of creation. . . . Publishing the Photograph without permission essentially destroys the primary market for its use.”
Three of four factors tilted against fair use in the court’s estimation.
“Allowing a news publisher to poach an image from an individual’s social media account for an article that does little more than describe the setting of the image does not promote ‘the Progress of science and useful Arts,’” which is the constitutional purpose of copyright, the court wrote. Hearst’s use was therefore not fair.
Otto’s lesson: It seems surprising so many media outlets would need to be reminded, but the fact that a photo is posted on social media, has gone viral and is an amateurish effort still does not mean that using the photo without permission is risk-free. Copiers beware!
Scout’s Honor: Boy Scouts Rebrand Prompts Trademark Suit by Girl Scouts
By Matthew Slevin
A trademark infringement dispute involving unlikely opponents made national headlines last fall when the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) filed suit against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), following BSA’s decision to start admitting girls and rebrand its leadership program for older kids as “Scouts BSA.” In Girl Scouts of the United States of America v. Boy Scouts of America, filed on November 6, 2018 in the Southern District of New York, GSUSA alleges that BSA’s new branding infringes GSUSA’s trademark rights.
Although the two organizations have never been associated with one another, they have coexisted for more than 100 years. Then, in October 2017, BSA announced that, starting in 2018, it would begin welcoming girls into its ranks for the first time. While some welcomed BSA’s decision as a progressive move, it was also met with controversy, and GSUSA immediately began speaking out against it. In May 2018, BSA announced that it was changing its branding as well, revealing “Scouts BSA” as the new name of the organization’s program for children ages 11-17 and launching a promotional campaign featuring the tagline “Scout Me In.”
In its complaint, GSUSA alleges that BSA’s use of “Scouts BSA,” “scout” “scouts” and “scouting” in connection with leadership development services for girls creates a likelihood of confusion with GSUSA’s trademarks, which include several registered “GIRL SCOUTS” word and design marks, and its common law rights in GIRL SCOUTS and SCOUTS. GSUSA cites numerous promotional materials released by BSA targeted at girls that refer to “Scouts” or “Scouting” and other advertising materials that use phrases such as “New BSA Girl Scouting Program,” “Girl Scouts BSA Troop,” “Boys/Girls Scouts of America” and “Boy and Girl Scouts.” GSUSA also alleges that there have been numerous instances of actual confusion among the public in different states, where parents have mistakenly enrolled their daughters in BSA’s program believing they were signing up for Girl Scouts. Its complaint points to reports that some BSA representatives have even told parents, teachers and people in control of recruitment events that the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have merged.
GSUSA is asking the court to enjoin BSA from using the terms SCOUT, SCOUTS, SCOUTING, or SCOUTS BSA on their own without other distinguishing terms appearing before them. GSUSA is also demanding that BSA withdraw, amend or cancel several of its relevant trademark applications and registrations in the United States. It is also asking the court to require BSA to train its local leaders and troops about preventing confusion between the two organizations.
Ultimately, both GSUSA and BSA are looking to keep their membership numbers afloat, find ways to successfully evolve with the times, and protect their respective public images.
This case is an excellent illustration of how trademarks are among a business’s most valuable assets, and how trademark law can be an effective tool in protecting the core interests of a business. It also demonstrates the challenges that businesses with arguably descriptive marks may encounter when trying to stop others from using certain words in their branding.
GSUSA may have an uphill battle here given the arguably descriptive quality of the terms GIRL SCOUTS and SCOUTS (although the terms may have acquired distinctiveness given that GSUSA has used them for so many years). It will be interesting to see how this case develops, and how these two long-running organizations can continue to coexist.
Beating a DTSA Claim Does Not Necessarily Mean Recovery of Attorneys’ Fees
By John-Paul S. Deol
Absent an agreement to the contrary, the dismissal of a statutory cause of action providing for attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party would seem to entitle a defendant to its reasonable fees and costs. In a matter of first impression at the U.S. Court of Appeals level, the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed the denial of a request for attorneys’ fees in a case where the plaintiff dismissed its trade secrets claim under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act without prejudice.
In Dunster Live v. LoneStar Logos Management Company, Dunster had a contract with the Texas state government to construct and install signs advertising food, lodging and gas stations on Texas highways. Shortly before the contract between Dunster and the state was to expire, members of Dunster left to form their own LLC, LoneStar Logos, and were awarded a new state contract. Dunster sued under the DTSA, claiming that LoneStar’s new members stole its proprietary software and a database before forming the new LLC.
When Dunster moved for a preliminary injunction it was swiftly denied, prompting the company to request a dismissal without prejudice from the district court. Despite LoneStar’s vociferous opposition on the ground that Dunster was engaging in “bad faith” by seeking to avoid an adverse merits ruling and liability for substantial attorneys’ fees, the court nonetheless dismissed the case without prejudice. Upon dismissal, LoneStar and its members sought to recover attorneys’ fees of approximately $600,000. The court denied the request, ruling that a dismissal without prejudice does not render a defendant a “prevailing party.”
Reviewing the district court’s ruling, the Fifth Circuit held that, as with other federal fee statutes, a dismissal without prejudice (no matter how frivolous the claim) does not render the defendant a prevailing party.
In response to the defendants’ argument that such a rule enables plaintiffs to bring frivolous claims and avoid poor results without penalty, the circuit court noted that the defendants did not appeal the actual dismissal without prejudice and did not file a motion for sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11.
The Fifth Circuit also refused to look to state laws that allowed for attorneys’ fees in similar situations. For example, Oregon law provides that, when a trade secrets plaintiff files a notice of voluntary dismissal, either with or without prejudice, the defendant is generally the prevailing party for purposes of award of attorneys’ fees. Keith Manufacturing Company. v. Butterfield; see also Krafft v. Downey, (remanding for attorneys’ fees even though the plaintiff had voluntarily withdrawn its claims by stipulation). In so doing, the Dunster Live court held that the definition of a prevailing party under a federal statute is a matter of federal law and that “when Congress repeats a term of art like ‘prevailing party’ in a new statute like the DTSA, it ‘knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed.’” The Fifth Circuit thus points out a new distinction between federal and state trade secrets laws.
Although the ramifications of this ruling are yet to be seen, it might embolden trade secret plaintiffs to file their claims only under the DTSA and to dismiss before final judgment to avoid paying attorneys’ fees. The lesson for trade secret defendants is to ensure that, in the event such a situation arises, they not only oppose a motion for a voluntary dismissal without prejudice, but also serve and file a motion for sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 — and, if necessary, appeal the dismissal itself if it is granted without prejudice.
Can a Server Be a Regular and Established Place of Business? Examining the SEVEN Networks Decision
By Ravi Ranganath
Under the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), a patent suit may be brought in a “judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” After the U.S. Supreme Court clarified in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands that “‘reside[nce]’ in § 1400(b) refers only to the State of incorporation” — dramatically limiting venue under the first prong of § 1400(b) — focus has turned to the second prong of the statute, i.e., what it means to have a “regular and established place of business” in a judicial district.
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals provided some guidance in In re Cray, Inc., when it interpreted the second prong of § 1400(b) as imposing “three general requirements”: “(1) there must be a physical place in the district; (2) it must be a regular and established place of business; and (3) it must be the place of the defendant.” The court clarified that a “virtual place” or “electronic communications” could not be a “physical place” under the statute.
Though straightforward on its face, courts continue to take varying approaches in applying the Cray standard, as demonstrated most recently in SEVEN Networks v. Google. There, the court considered a venue challenge by Google that hinged on a simple question: whether Google servers in leased server racks in a district could be a “regular and established place of business” under § 1400(b). The case specifically concerned “Google Global Cache” (GGC) servers, which, as described by the court, were responsible for serving content requested via YouTube and other Google services. These cache servers improved the user experience and saved bandwidth by directly handling requests for content by local users without making requests to Google’s core data centers. The GGC servers were housed in rented server racks maintained by Internet Service Providers within the district.
The SEVEN Networks court found that the GGC servers were both a “physical place” and a “regular and established place of business” under § 1400(b). Noting that Google was “in the business of delivering information,” the court characterized the GGC servers as a “local data warehouse” akin to a local warehouse operated by a shoe manufacturer that sells products nationwide. It found that the servers were “specifically localized: a physical server occupying a physical space” and noted that the agreements with ISPs gave Google “total control over the GGC server’s physical presence within the ISP.” According to the court, this level of control was characteristic of a physical rather than virtual space. Relying again on the analogy between the servers and a brick and mortar warehouse, the court found that the GGC servers were a place of business involved in Google’s business of transmitting information to users. It thus found venue proper over Google in the Eastern District of Texas.
Google petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus, which the Federal Circuit denied per curiam. In re Google LLC, No. 2018-152, 2018 WL 5536478 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 29, 2018), petition for rehearing en banc filed Nov. 13, 2018. The panel majority declined to issue a writ because: (1) the district court opinion was based on facts specific to Google and did not present a “broad and fundamental legal question” for which mandamus relief would be appropriate; and (2) there was no widespread disagreement on the issue among district courts, because the issue had not had time to “percolate” in the courts below. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Reyna criticized the majority, stating that the district court’s opinion likely “disregard[ed] the admonishments” of the Federal Circuit in Cray through an application of § 1400(b) “even more expansive” than that vacated in Cray.
Given Judge Reyna’s strenuous opposition, the fact that the Federal Circuit did not specifically endorse the district court’s conclusions, and the fact that the majority left open the possibility of further review as the issue continues to “percolate” in district courts, it seems likely that the Federal Circuit will take up the issue again at a later time.


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Eric Moody used to go to New Hampshire to buy Powerball lottery tickets. Now he goes to his neighborhood store.
On Friday, Moody was among the first people to buy Powerball tickets at Joe´s Smoke Shop when they went on sale in Maine for the first time. Moody, 52, knows the odds of winning the jackpot are 120 million to 1, but he likes the huge payouts -- which can be 100 times higher, or even more, than the Tri-State Megabucks lottery.
"Set for life, right? The jackpot is $54 million this weekend, meaning you´d walk away with about $30 million after taxes. I think I could get by," Moody said after buying several tickets.
At noon on Friday, Maine became the 27th state, along with the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, to sell Powerball tickets. The first ticket in Maine was sold at a Hannaford supermarket in Bangor, according to lottery officials.
Powerball is known for its large jackpots, which start at $10 million and have gone as high as $315 million. At least three winning tickets bought in New Hampshire over the years have been claimed by Mainers.
In February 2004, a trust out of Portland won a $46 million jackpot. In 2001, Patricia and Erwin Wales of Buxton won $41 million. In 1998, a trust based out of Lewiston claimed a $25.2 million prize payable over 25 years.
At Joe´s Smoke Shop, customers came in during the morning hours in search of tickets, Lou Discatio said from behind the counter. After noon, people sauntered in to buy lottery tickets of all types, including Powerball, but no long line formed.
Discatio said Maine should have started selling Powerball tickets years ago.
"It´ll keep people in Maine instead of going to New Hampshire," he said. "Better we keep the money than give it to New Hampshire."
With the arrival of Powerball, Maine is projecting a 17 percent drop in Megabucks sales in the next year, said Pam Coutts, director of the state Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations.
But the state expects to make up for the loss by selling about 30 million Powerball tickets through next June. It projects making an additional $9 million overall with Powerball.
By comparison, Megabucks sales in Vermont fell 26 percent after it joined Powerball last July. New Hampshire Megabucks sales fell 20 percent when it began selling Powerball tickets in 1995.
But both states ended up earning more money with both Powerball and Megabucks than with just Megabucks, lottery officials said. Powerball sales in New Hampshire last year were five times greater than Megabucks sales; sales in Vermont were 2.4 times higher.
Maura McCann, marketing director of the New Hampshire Lottery, said New Hampshire expects only a "minimal" loss of sales with Maine joining the Powerball coalition.
Those losses will come from people like Jim Wise, who bought the first Powerball tickets sold at Joe´s Smoke Shop. Wise, who lives in Sanford and works in Portland, usually buys his tickets in Rollinsford, N.H.
It´s convenient that Maine sells Powerball tickets, but it´s nothing to make a fuss over, Wise said.
"As the world turns," he said, "it´s no big deal."