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Jason Saft, a real-estate agent for Compass who also runs a staging firm, always borrowed a little bit from his own home — occasionally grabbing a knickknack or a throw pillow to add a last-minute flourish to a client’s home. But during the pandemic, when supply-chain issues made it hard to get anything at a moment’s or even six months’ notice, Saft really started raiding the place, pulling artwork off the walls, moving out chairs and ottomans, even taking his 5-year-old daughter’s toys. “I had to get creative. A lot of basic things we were waiting on or running around to stores trying to find. There was so much uncertainty,” said Saft, who, in addition to pilfering items from his own home, used Facebook marketplace, secondhand websites like Kaiyo, vintage furniture stores, online auctions, and places like the Restoration Hardware warehouse, where items can be purchased directly off the floor. Also, he stockpiled. “There was this fear-buying mentality. Everyone else was buying paper towels and toilet paper, and stagers were stockpiling duvets and pillow inserts.”
Over the last two years, the supply-chain crisis has made it difficult to buy everything from a car to the color blue. New couches come with shipping delays of at least six months, and the competition on Craigslist can be fierce, even for secondhand Ikea basics, whose appeal, heretofore, was mostly that it was furniture that didn’t require much effort. In this atmosphere, staging, which relies on large quantities of readily available items — everything from lamps and throw pillows to sectionals and statement light fixtures — has become something of a nightmare. A lot of people are selling, stagers are booked up months in advance, and everything is more expensive, brokers say. That, and a number of apartments on the market are either empty, their owners having taken all their belongings with them when they left, or worse, furnished with the castoffs that they decided weren’t worth taking.
“I feel like I’ve never dealt with more staging contracts and staging woes than I am right now,” said Kirsten Jordan, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman. “First of all, sellers want to push pricing, and if you want to push pricing, you have to stage. Then we’re dealing with more listings coming in. And because staging is more expensive, sellers want several estimates. It feels like all we do is spend our time on the phone with stagers.”
Scott Harris, an associate broker at Brown Harris Stevens, said that he just got an estate-sale listing that needs to be staged. But the stager who came by to look at the place told him it would be a six-week wait. “That almost kills the spring market,” Harris said. He added that staging is a lot more expensive than it used to be. The minimum is $10,000 to $12,000 for a one-bedroom with a rough rule of $10,000 more per bedroom, and costs balloon from there for higher-end revamps. Stagers who used to be willing to come in and supplement a lackluster listing’s décor are now insisting on empty apartments. This means paying not only for a full staging but also the cost of putting all the owner’s possessions into storage. “It’s an emotionally charged time in the market, and staging elicits an emotional reaction,” he said. “But it’s hard for sellers to swallow the cost.”
For clients who don’t have the budget for a full redecoration, Harris and his team do lighter makeovers themselves, although like everyone else, they’ve had to work with limited resources. He’s learned how to vet fixtures on Amazon: “If you’re trying to buy something with a lot of detail, it can sink you. You don’t want it to look cheap,” he said. “If it has clean lines or is something more contemporary, you can often get away with it.”
The pandemic has pressed even brokers who regularly rely on staging professionals to try their hands at DIY fixes. Tom Postilio and Mickey Conlon, associate brokers at Douglas Elliman, got accustomed to laughing with buyers over missing washers and dryers during the past year, but other supply-chain absences struck them as more problematic. At one new development, all the chandeliers were back-ordered, so there was nothing but wires protruding from the ceiling. Hoping to improve the situation, they put in a basic light fixture the builder had on hand. “We thought maybe it looked kind of minimalist,” said Postilio. “But whenever anyone walked in, they looked up and said, ‘Is there a chandelier coming?’” When buyers are impressed with the staging, it presents another problem. “People are asking if they can buy places furnished,” said Conlon.
Throughout the pandemic, brokers who offer full staging services have spent huge swaths of time hunting and refinishing secondhand finds — the only thing that’s reliably available. Christophe Tedjasukmana, an associate broker with Corcoran, used to source furniture from places like CB2 and West Elm. “I tried to get stuff that had one uniform look, a feel or a mood,” he said. One-stop shopping was convenient, and he could often recoup a lot of the costs by reselling items afterward. But when that kind of shopping became impossible, with shipping delays exceeding the length of listing contracts, he started buying secondhand pieces available locally. “If it’s within 50 miles of Manhattan, I’m considering it,” Tedjasukmana said. He visits local Greenpoint stores like Copper+Plaid and Nice Vintage Things, uses Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, and shops the Housing Works window auctions. He also supplements the purchases with his own possessions, like a pair of vintage pigeon illustrations he found on a road trip. The downside to using items you love, however, is that buyers often love them too. While many stagers are happy to part with a Wayfair rug or a knockoff Saarinen table, when the buyers asked to keep the pigeon prints, Tedjasukmana balked and offered them a headboard they liked instead.
Though buying things secondhand is more time-consuming — Tedjasukmana has had to carry a bedframe down from a sixth-floor walk-up and steam clean a sectional he found on Craigslist that smelled like the previous owner’s dog — overall he’s enjoyed the challenge and thinks that it leads to more enticing, interesting spaces. “It gives the impression that someone lives there,” he said.
Before the pandemic, staging was moving away from bland, austere design to more personal, eclectic styles, according to Saft, and the lack of bland inventory seems to have accelerated that shift. “There’s a whole different approach to it,” he said. “People don’t want something to look like real life with kid stuff everywhere and beat-up furniture, but they do want spaces that are contextual and authentic.” Not everything can be a beautiful antique or charmingly vintage, however. Staging requires a large volume of stuff, everything from hand soap to lightbulbs, and stagers admit they’ve bought “filler furniture” they wouldn’t have gone for before the pandemic — All Modern sofas from Wayfair, club chairs from Target — because they were available for delivery in a pinch.
Even designers accustomed to working with vintage have suffered pandemic-induced headaches. Cem Evirgen and Aurelio Licon of Monomid Design Studio said that, by and large, the last few years have been great for up-and-coming firms like theirs. “The pandemic was kind of a silver lining,” said Licon. “In the past, a lot of real-estate groups wouldn’t work with new talent, but we’re not crazily expensive like some companies. We also bring a fresher design aesthetic.” But it can be hard to get furniture refinished quickly these days — when some chairs needed to be refurbished, they realized that it would take three to four weeks to send them out, so they spent a whole day doing it themselves. And competition at auction houses close to New York City has become intense, so they started bidding on items further away. Collecting a sofa in Pennsylvania took half a day; after an hour-long drive to another auction house, they realized the Brutalist console they’d bought wouldn’t fit into their car. And then there were the beautiful mid-century chairs — a steal at $80 each — that were too far away to pick up but they figured would still be a good deal after shipping. Then they got a quote. It was for $800.


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The price involving bitcoin improved greatly in the particular year 2017. Coinbase, one of many world’s largest cryptocurrency transactions, was in the suitable place with the right time to capitalize in the spike in interest. In spite of this, Coinbase isn’t interested in consuming it is crypto gains without any consideration. To stay ahead around a much larger cryptocurrency marketplace, the company will be plowing money back into their own get good at plan. Up right up until 2017, the company’s revenue was reported from $1 million and over $150 million of investments were traded in across 20 million clients.
Coinbase, the San Francisco structured company, is acknowledged as the leading cryptocurrency trading software in often the United States sufficient reason for its continued success, landed from the No. 10 spot on the CNBC Disruptor listing in 2018 after screwing up to make the record the previous a couple of many years.
On their path to be able to accomplishment, Coinbase has quit no stone unturned in poaching key executives via New York Stock Alternate, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In check crypto prices , the sizing of their full-time anatomist team has pretty much doubled.
Earn. com seemed to be acquired by Coinbase this kind of 04 for $100 , 000, 000. This specific platform permits the users in order to give and get a digital money while responding for you to mass market email messages together with completing micro tasks. At the moment, the company is considering of bringing a former Andreessen Horowitz venture capitalist, Generates creator in addition to CEO as it is first-ever primary technological innovation official.
According to present value, Coinbase valued alone with about $8 billion in order to set out to obtain Earn. Junto de. This worth is much over often the valuation of $1. 6th billion which was projected in the last circle of venture capital loan in the summer of 2017.
Coinbase declines to be able to comment on its valuation inspite of the fact that this has more as compared to $225 million in funding from top VC’s like Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and also by the New York Stock Exchange.
To satisfy the needs of institutional investors, the New York Stock Exchange is planning to start its own cryptocurrency exchange. Nasdaq, the rival of NYSE is usually thinking of a good similar move.
� Competitors is Coming
As competitive organizations look to acquire a nip out associated with the Coinbase’s business, Coinbase is looking to some other venture capital prospects within an attempt to develop a moat about this company.
Dan Dolev, a new Nomura instant expert, stated that Square, a good company manage by Twitter CEO Plug Dorsey could eat into Coinbase’s exchange business as it began trading cryptocurrency on their Square Cash app in January.
According to help the reports by Dolev, Coinbase’s typical trading fees were approximately 1. 8 pct throughout 2017. Costs this great could commute the users additional more affordable exchanges.
Coinbase searching for to help become a one-stop retail outlet for the institutional investors while hedge it is swap business. To help lure in that white baseball glove investor class, the company announced a fleet of new merchandise. This school of investors has recently been especially diligent to jump into this volatile cryptocurrency market.
Coinbase Prime, The Coinbase Institutional Coverage Group, Coinbase Custody of the children and Coinbase Marketplaces are the products launched with the company.
Coinbase feels there exists billions of bucks throughout institutional money which may be invested in typically the digital currency. That by now has the custody regarding $9 billion in buyer resources.
Institutional option traders can be concerned about safety regardless of knowing Coinbase has not suffered a hack such as many other world-wide cryptocurrency trades. Coinbase president and COO said that the popularity of launching the Coinbase child custody last November seemed to be the insufficient trusted custodian to safeguard their particular crypto property.
� At present Wall structure Streets Shifts coming from Whacking Bit to Cryptocurrency Dionysus
According to latest data available from Autonomous Subsequent Wall Street’s, interest around cryptocurrency seems to become increasing. At present, you will discover 287 crypto hedge money, while in 2016, at this time there were just 20 cryptocurrency hedge means that been around. Goldman Sachs has possibly opened a cryptocurrency investing desk.
Coinbase has also introduced Coinbase Ventures, which usually is an incubator fund for early-stage online companies being employed in the cryptocurrency plus blockchain space. Coinbase Projects has already accumulated $15 billion for further investments. Its initial investment was basically announced in the startup named Compound which usually permits one particular to borrow as well as bring cryptocurrency while generating an interest rate.
From the beginning of 2018, typically the company launched Coinbase Marketing, which allows vendors to accept important cryptocurrencies for payment. Another bitcoin new venture was BitPlay, which not too long ago raised $40 million at venture dollars. Last yr BitPlay processed a lot more than $1 billion in bitcoin obligations.
The promoters of blockchain technology believe that later on, cryptocurrency will be in a position to get rid of the need regarding central banking professionals. Around the process, that will lower costs and create a good decentralized monetary solution.
� Regulatory Protection Remains Powerful
To keep access constrained to four cryptocurrencies, Coinbase has drawn a good deal of criticism. But they will must tread meticulously while the U. S. government bodies deliberate on how for you to police selected uses of the technological innovation.
Intended for cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase, the matter of concern can be whether or even not cryptocurrencies are stock options which might be subject to Investments and Exchange Commission legal system. Coinbase is admittedly sluggish to add new money because the SEC announced throughout Strut that it would likely apply security laws to be able to all cryptocurrency transactions.
Wall membrane Neighborhood Journal claimed that will Coinbase met often the SEC officials to register themselves as a licensed brokerage house together with electronic trading site. A wonderful scenario, it would become simpler for Coinbase to support a lot more gold and silver coins and also to conform with security regulations.

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The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) will hold its annual Hawaii Tourism Conference on Aug. 22 and 23.
The two-day event will take place at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu and include presentations as well as roundtable and panel discussions with industry experts covering “everything from hotels and airlift to the economy and social media” along with strategies to sustain the state’s tourism business long-term, according to HTA officials.
Andrew McCarthy, probably best known for his acting roles in the films “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Pretty in Pink” and “Weekend at Bernie’s,” will be the event’s keynote speaker. Now an editor-at-large for National Geographic Traveler and a best-selling New York Times author, McCarthy will share some of his personal insight on the transformative effect of travel and his perspective on what visitors want.
The HTA’s global marketing partners, including the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, which manages North American marketing for the Hawaiian Islands, will also present their 2014 plans.
Early-bird registration fee (by July 31) is $175 per person and includes includes all educational sessions, breakfasts, lunch and reception. The Hawaii Prince Hotel Waikiki is offering a rate to all conference delegates of $189 (plus taxes).
To find out more, go to www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/about-hta/hta-events/2013-hawaii-tourism-conference


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After a day or two of speculation, Valve has officially confirmed to the public that the Steam database suffered a security breach earlier this week. Valve Software co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell issued a statement to members letting them know what happened and if there might some concerns about the security of their Steam accounts. The take-away for Steam account holders is that passwords were "hashed and salted" and credit card information was encrypted. Still Newell cautions Steam users to pay attention to their account activity. The full statement is below:
"Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,
Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.
We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.
We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.
While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.
We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.
We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.
I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.
As Newell noted in his statement, it never hurts to change your password. In fact changing your password regularly and not using the same password at multiple sites is always a good idea.


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Rovio is spreading some love on Valentine's Day this year. The game maker is bringing Angry Birds to Facebook on Feb. 14 from 6-9pm, though it did not specify a time zone.
In November, Rovio announced that Angry Birds had been downloaded more than 500 million times, which Rovio said made it the most downloaded game in the history of gaming. Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said on Monday at the Midem conference in Cannes that the company has used piracy to help fuel its success, the Guardian is reporting.
"We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but especially in consumer products," he said. "There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products. We could learn a lot form the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy."
Hed explained that contrary to the way things work in the music industry, Rovio only takes legal action against pirates when it feels they are selling unlicensed products that are harmful to the Rovio brand or doing things that hurt Angry Birds' giant fanbase.
"Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day," Hed said.
"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: talk about how many fans we have," he continued. "If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."
There is no indication that Angry Birds will become a regular fixture on Facebook, however Rovio is encouraging Facebook users to help make the Valentine's Day event the biggest Facebook event ever. If successful, it's possible that it could show up on the site in future events.
For more from Leslie, follow her on Twitter @LesHorn.


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The Ministry for Primary Industries is predicting export revenue to fall for this financial year, driven by declines in the export value of dairy and forestry products.
But, in its latest situation and outlook report released today, it is expecting better times to come in the next four years.
The ministry is forecasting primary industries' total export revenue in the year to June to be $35.2 billion - an 8 percent drop on the same period a year earlier.
However, it is expecting a 1.5 percent increase in export earnings for the next financial year, to $35.7 billion.
It also forecasts steady longer term growth across all sectors, including dairy, forestry, fruit and vegetables and arables, and is predicting the overall export value will be $41.3 billion by June 2019.
It said this would be underpinned by income and population growth in China and South East Asia.
Fundamentals for dairy still strong - MPI
Dairy accounts for more than 40 percent of the country's overall export revenue.
MPI director of sector policy Jarred Mair said dairy had been the driver behind this year's fall.
"That's predominantly being led by a softness in both price and that's being led predominantly from the decline in the Chinese market," he said.
"So what we're seeing there is a bit of a weakness in terms of their demand for whole milk powders - but conversely we are seeing some good growth and strength from other markets ... The volumes that are now going through South Asian countries has actually extended and [is] growing quite significantly."
But he said the fundamentals for dairy were still strong.
"We've got good strong growth in terms of our export markets in terms of the wealth of their consumers, and also the growing populations in those countries...
"We see the global dairy market return to equilibrium, in terms of the supply-demand dynamic [and] good strong growth, and we are predicting that to return to roughly around 2 percent a year, as we've seen over the last decade."
Growth expected for meat and wool
High prices for beef and veal and strong production have driven export revenue for the meat and wool sector, which is expected to be 8 percent higher this year.
Mr Mair said severe droughts in Australia and America have driven the beef price because those countries have had to reduce their capital stock.
"What we have now is an opportunity for New Zealand to increase its beef production and feed that into the American market in particular.
"What we will see though over the next two years is a rebuilding of that capital stock into the Australian and the US market, and we'll see those prices return to more traditional growth."
He said this offset weaker returns from sheep meat.
"That's predominantly again led by the Chinese market, just in terms of a dampening in demand there, but again, long-term demand for protein is pretty strong.
"We're also seeing some quite good strong demands for the wool clip as well, so the sheep sector, although having a bit of a bump at the moment, has got a good future over the next couple of years as well."
Tough year for forestry
A slowing Chinese economy and real estate market were also factors in the tough year for forestry.
This was compounded by high log inventories in China and the potential for more Russian exports, which Mr Mair said could mean the remainder of the year would be tough for the sector.
"The story there is predominantly based on the demand for construction out of China. While we will see that probably stay relatively low over the next couple of months, we are predicting a bit of an increase over the next three to four years.
"So we will see revenues returned to - we're roughly about $4.5 billion now, they will return to about $5.3 billion over the forecast period, so good strong growth over that period."
Higher volumes of kiwifruit and wine exports were behind an expected 4.8 percent increase in total horticulture export revenue, estimated to be nearly $4 billion for the year.
Mr Mair said horticulture was a great story at the moment.
"We've got kiwifruit growing strongly as the recovery from PSA comes through, we've got wine coming through, again very strongly and good investment back into that sector.
"And pip fruit, although it's taken a bit of a bump this year has been growing tremendously well, and we'll predict and continue to grow over the coming seasons."
Seafood earnings were also expected to be higher as a result of growing demand from New Zealand's top export destinations, China, the EU and the US.
The value of arable seed exports was expected to have declined largely due to drought conditions in much of the South Island, which has meant lower crop yields for some farms.
A growth in live animal exports, particularly dairy cow exports to China, has bolstered other primary exports.


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New York-based specialty coffee chain Bluestone Lane has announced plans to open 15 additional locations in 2021, including its first stores in Texas.
The move would bring the chain’s total number of company-operated coffee shops to 67. It comes just shy of three years since Bluestone Lane received a $19.5 million minority investment led by RSE Ventures and one year since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that stymied the United States coffee retail segment.
In an announcement of its 2021 retail ambitions last week, the company said it would be placing new emphasis on mobile ordering and suburban drive-through locations following a drive-through pilot in Los Altos, California.
“Many locals have moved to the suburbs, but we also know that major cities like New York aren’t going away,” Bluestone Lane Founder Nicholas Stone said. “So our expansion plan includes both. Today’s Bluestone Lane experience pairs contactless digital ordering without losing the personalized Australian hospitality that we are known for.”
In addition to its suburban locations, Bluestone Lane is entering some higher-profile retail spaces, including a new location in Manhattan’s Battery Park last week. Other forthcoming locations include three bars at New York’s Chelsea Piers fitness complex, and a bar at a new residential tower called The Avery in San Francisco. Next month, the company plans to open at the Fox Studios lot in Century City, Los Angeles, which is owned by the Murdoch family’s Fox Corp. and was famously leased to Disney in 2017.


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Toronto-based Electrovaya Inc., a maker of advanced lithium superpolymer batteries for electric vehicles and other applications, has struggled to compete for financing and attention in a market where rival, better-funded companies such as A123 Systems have captured the love of cleantech watchers eager to see an electric-vehicle revolution unfold, starting with plug-in hybrids. Despite its financial woes, Electrovaya does have a competitive technology. So investors were understandably revved up after reading the announcement that the company is establishing a joint-venture with Electrotherm, the leading manufacturer of electric vehicles in India. The two companies plan to build a manufacturing plant in India capable of producing 10-megawatt-hours per month of battery storage. Electrovaya, while taking an equity position in the joint venture, will get payment for the use of its battery technology and a royalty payment down the road based on plant output. An added bonus is that Electrovaya would have the exclusive right to export the batteries manufactured in the plant to other countries, for example, China.
Now, caution, caution, caution. This is a penny-stock company with falling year-over-year revenues announcing a “non-binding memorandum of understanding,” meaning nothing in this deal is solid beyond a handshake. It’s encouraging, but anything could happen and it’s difficult from our comfortable desks in North America to monitor the status of this development. That said, investors liked the news, which sent Electrovaya’s share price skyrocketing by 54 per cent today — from 28 cents to 43 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange. And the fact is, Electrovaya’s technology — which the company claims has five times the energy density of lead-acid batteries and less than one-third the weight — is being tested by a variety of potential buyers.
Hell, if the company can’t get respect in North America good on them for milking connections in India. Let’s hope this is a real deal with promising results down the line, not a vapor announcement meant to boost a money-losing company’s lagging share price and make a few people richer in the process.
A small Waterloo, Ontario-based company called RenewABILITY Energy Inc. has convinced Home Depot Canada to carry its drain heat-recovery systems for sale on its Web site. The company’s Power-Pipe technology is basically copper tubing that wraps around a residential drain pipe. Cold water is pumped through the tubing and captures the heat from drain water after it comes out taps, dishwashers, washing machines, etc…. The warmed up water from the tube is then sent to the residential hot water tank, which doesn’t have to burn as much natural gas or use as much electricity now because the water has been pre-heated by several degrees. It’s a simple system, sold in a variety of designs by a number of different companies, that should be required in every home. The company claims the system will pay for itself in two to five years, it can be used in new and old homes, and it can reduce home energy consumption by 5 to 10 per cent. Not bad when you consider the hot water portion only accounts for 20 to 30 per cent of total home energy use.
The Power-Pipe comes in three models — 36-inch, 48-inch and 60-inch long tube models ranging from $600 to $1,000 (Canadian) and including the cost of installation. Just type in “Power-Pipe” in the HomeDepot.ca search engine. “The typical 60-inch Power-Pipe unit can bring you cold water temperature up from 10 degrees C to as much as 24 degrees C,” the company says.
I’m not sure about U.S. or European availability and incentives, but in Canada customers who purchase the system can also qualify for up to $300 in federal and provincial incentives. It’s good to see Home Depot giving some profile to this simple approach to achieving energy efficiency in the home.
I’ll let the following photos speak for themselves. They were kindly sent to me by Emil Moller, a PhD researcher in the Netherlands, who had a chance to visit the Solucar 11-megawatt solar tower (or solar thermal plant) outside of Seville, Spain. More information about the tower can be found reading this BBC online article, which also has a handy graphic that shows how the technology works. It truly strikes a heavenly pose, and shows the power of concentrating technology. Thanks Emil for sharing these photos with us. It must have been a sight to see in person.


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Urban Outfitters Wins Apparel’s 2012 Top Innovator Award
Hats off to Apparel’s Innovator winners — companies that are forging paths for others by leading the way in building relationships with the consumer, developing new performance apparel, perfecting fit, reducing waste, or streamlining the supply chain to improve global collaboration.
Apparel Innovators are committed to finding new ways that technology can make life better — for their customers, employees and everyone else. To our 33 Innovator Award Winners, Apparel salutes you for your creativity, commitment and vision.
from p. 43
Understanding your customers and connecting with them on an emotional level. Sound easy? It’s not. Urban Outfitters says it finds success doing this because its brands — Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain and BHLDN — are both compelling and distinct, with each brand offering an eclectic mix of merchandise displayed amidst a mix of found objects and placed into “creative selling vignettes.”
Across its brands, Urban Outfitters has focused on creating an environment that connects to the customer on an empathetic level, and more recently it has worked to extend that experience by connecting on a physical level via its rollout of a new mobile assisted selling solution, Starmount Engage, across its brands.
“Our customers have come to expect a differentiated shopping experience,” says executive director of IT John Devine. “With the mobile POS solution, our sales associates are freed from behind the cash wrap to interact with customers at the point-of-interest, enhancing customer service.”
Delivered on the Apple® iPod Touch, the solution, says Devine, brings the inter- activity, speed and convenience of the online experience to brick-and-mortar stores by providing a faster checkout process and reducing lines, while also allowing store associates to provide more personalized customer service by providing full transaction capabilities anywhere in the store. Overall, the solution offers customers a “more connected shopping experience,” says Devine.
Customer feedback about the mobile POS has been very positive, he says, adding that one area of particularly noteworthy success has been the ability to check out customers as they are leaving the fitting room. Continuing to enhance the solution, the company in late 2011 rolled out the ability to fulfill store “out of stock” items from its e-commerce inventory.
The mobile POS device also allows Urban to process different purchase paths within a single transaction. For example, a customer might make an in-store purchase, but also place an order for another item that is out of stock in the store, but pay for both items with one swipe of her credit card. Future enhancements, says Devine, will allow Urban Outfitters sales associates to use the mobile POS to access product reviews, designer notes and outfitting suggestions.
Written by Jordan Speer
To read the full article, download it here: Apparel Article


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Low and detrimental rates of interest have been a burden for account holders throughout Europe for a while. And it’s solely getting worse, because the European Central Financial institution simply introduced a brand new price lower to a file low of -Zero.5%. Personal and company prospects in lots of nations on the continent don’t have loads of choices to protect the worth of their holdings, at the very least not within the fiat cash world. Nevertheless, cryptocurrencies which have seen a revival this yr supply an actual various – one that may convey revenue as a substitute of losses.
Additionally learn: Large Banks Gained’t Contact Crypto Purchasers – However These Smaller Banks Will
Interest Rates Freezing Deeper
The European financial system by no means absolutely recovered from the 2008 world meltdown. What began as a subprime mortgage disaster within the U.S. the earlier yr, finally grew right into a large-scale worldwide banking disaster adopted by a worldwide financial downturn. On the Previous Continent, it sparked a debt disaster which damage nations utilizing the widespread foreign money, the euro. Governments and central banks launched into large bailouts of economic establishments and different insurance policies — reminiscent of a endless reducing of rates of interest — to stop a collapse of the normal monetary system.
These financial and financial measures didn’t assist nations reminiscent of Italy, Spain and Greece to get out of the debt swamp. The Italian financial system, the eighth-largest by nominal GDP, slowly caught up with the widely weak Eurozone development indicators, but it surely continues to suffocate from its large public debt amassed by way of extreme authorities spending for many years. Not less than a 3rd of Italians reside in poverty or danger of social exclusion. Italy’s projected development for 2019 is barely Zero.1%, in response to the IMF, and the nationwide institute of statistics, Istat, discovered the financial system stagnating within the second quarter.
Financial development has been slowing down throughout the remainder of the Eurozone, largely as a result of looming commerce wars and the Brexit saga which damage worldwide commerce and financial prospects. Eurostat revealed that gross home product of the group’s 19 nations grew simply Zero.2% throughout the identical three-month interval, in comparison with Q1 of 2019 when the bloc’s financial system expanded by Zero.four%. The annual development registered within the second quarter was 1.1%. Between April and June, the German financial system, the most important within the financial union and the EU, shrank by Zero.1% quarter-on-quarter and slowed to Zero.four% year-on-year.
ECB Proclaims Extra Quantitative Easing
On this backdrop, the European Central Financial institution (ECB) made good on its plans to implement new measures to stimulate Europe’s sluggish financial system. Truly, these measures are nothing new, per se: a deeper deposit price lower, by 10 foundation factors to an all-time low of -Zero.5%, and a contemporary open-ended spherical of quantitative easing. In November, the financial institution will begin buying 20 billion euros’ price of bonds every month. That’s a dedication which can proceed indefinitely, or at the very least till ECB decides to boost rates of interest. The “new” in these strikes clearly applies to the truth that the benchmark rate of interest hasn’t been lowered prior to now three years, and QE hasn’t been carried out since final December.
This resolution got here from an ECB convention in Frankfurt final week. Later, Eurozone’s central financial institution clarified that the rate of interest, at which European banks deposit funds, will stay on the newly launched stage till inflation reaches the two% goal. The establishment additionally mentioned it’s planning to exclude some European banks from the subzero charges. Negative rates of interest have already precipitated antagonistic reactions in European nations. A political initiative in Germany, for example, goals to legally prohibit banks from imposing punitive curiosity on financial savings of as much as 100,000 euros.
The brand new file low price is being launched as Mario Draghi is getting ready to step down as the top of ECB. Draghi, who will quickly vacate the put up, has by no means raised the rate of interest throughout his eight-year time period. He might be changed by Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the Worldwide Financial Fund who will assume the brand new workplace on November 1 this yr. Some predict a tough begin to her time period as analysts consider 2020 would be the yr when the subsequent huge monetary disaster might hit.
Cryptocurrencies Are a Safer Wager for Europeans
Within the present scenario, the place residents of many nations within the Eurozone and its periphery are pressured to simply accept the burden of detrimental rates of interest, decentralized digital currencies have gotten a viable various for savers, spenders, and buyers. That’ll be much more so if predictions of a brand new main crash within the fiat system come true. This yr’s rebound of crypto markets is a proof of that, and the variety of crypto proponents within the area is more likely to develop.
Banking is vital for each companies and personal people. And whereas cryptocurrencies have been invented partly to keep away from third events in monetary relations, demand for banking providers within the crypto area has been rising prior to now months and years. Typically, conventional monetary establishments have been unable or unwilling to supply them. Happily, a brand new technology of fintech corporations have been filling the hole, providing aggressive monetary merchandise for the cryptocurrency consumer.
A few of them, like Cred which is a accomplice of Bitcoin.com, permit prospects to earn curiosity on their crypto holdings. The charges are as excessive as 6% on bitcoin money (BCH) and 10% on bitcoin core (BTC) invested with the Credearn product. Thus, protecting your digital property with Cred will convey you a lot larger returns than changing the cash into fiat and depositing the cash right into a checking account. That wouldn’t be a good move in Europe due to the extraordinarily low and detrimental rates of interest on financial savings in central bank-issued foreign money.
No Must Promote Your Crypto if You Need Some Fiat
In case you want fiat liquidity but in addition wish to preserve your crypto investments intact, corporations like Nexo lengthen loans backed by numerous main cryptocurrencies. Utilizing digital cash as collateral, you may get an instantaneous credit score line in additional than 45 fiat currencies, in over 200 jurisdictions. Purchasers can borrow from as little as $500 and as much as $2 million. Nexo costs between eight% and a most of 16% per yr. Additionally they supply saving choices and you’ll earn as much as 6.5% curiosity on stablecoins reminiscent of USDC, TUSD, PAX, DAI, and USDT, with plans so as to add different cryptocurrencies sooner or later. A compounding curiosity of as much as 6.5% is paid out on euro holdings as effectively. Only for comparability, a Swedish financial institution lately imposed a detrimental rate of interest of -Zero.40% on euro accounts.
London-based Cashaa is an organization that helps crypto companies and customers open a checking account for each conventional and digital cash, nonetheless a problem in lots of jurisdictions. They function globally with just a few exceptions like america and a few sanctioned nations. The platform permits prospects to simply accept funds in fiat currencies reminiscent of euro and British pound in addition to in numerous cryptocurrencies.
The Cashaa U.Okay. present account comes with a Mastercard which helps you to spend your cash whereas procuring and withdraw funds at ATMs around the globe by way of crypto-to-fiat conversion. You too can make and obtain native and worldwide cash transfers. Debit playing cards with crypto options might be ordered from two different platforms primarily based in Britain as effectively — Wirex and Revolut.
Bitwala is one other main European crypto banking and fee supplier. The German firm is now providing residents of the European Financial Space financial institution accounts with an built-in bitcoin pockets, a debit Mastercard, and a cell app. You should use its providers to conduct your every day banking actions in each crypto and fiat foreign money. Clients can even commerce digital property straight from their checking account with Bitwala’s regulated accomplice, Solarisbank.
Bankera stands out amongst fintech companies primarily based in Japanese Europe because it has develop into a number one supplier of providers to crypto prospects within the area prior to now six years. The Lithuanian firm is presently working to determine a web-based financial institution and supply loans backed with digital property. Its ambition is to develop into a “one-stop retailer for all monetary providers, in the identical method conventional brick and mortar banks are.” To realize that, Bankera plans to make use of know-how to restrict counterparties and decrease the price of banking for the tip consumer, whereas offering revolutionary options.
If you’re new to the crypto area and you might be on the lookout for a protected and safe option to purchase your first digital cash, you should purchase bitcoin money (BCH) amongst main cryptocurrencies at purchase.Bitcoin.com utilizing a bank card. You too can freely commerce your crypto property on our noncustodial, peer-to-peer market native.Bitcoin.com, which already has 1000’s of customers around the globe. Additionally, attempt our newly launched premier buying and selling platform, alternate.Bitcoin.com. Registered customers can entry it proper now.
What’s your opinion about crypto banking as a viable various to providers supplied by conventional monetary establishments? Share your ideas on the topic within the feedback part under.
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.
Do you want a dependable bitcoin cell pockets to ship, obtain, and retailer your cash? Obtain one at no cost from us after which head to our Buy Bitcoin web page the place you may rapidly purchase bitcoin with a bank card.


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NEW YORK (AP) — Small businesses are getting better at paying their bills despite the sluggish economy.
A study by research firm PayNet shows that the 30-day delinquency rate of small businesses was 1.1 percent in June. That means the amount of money that companies hadn't paid by 30 days after the due date came to about $1 out of $100. That compares with a 4.4 percent rate — or $4.40 per $100 — in May 2009. That was just before the recession officially ended.
The 90-day delinquency rate came to 1.5 percent. It peaked at 4.8 percent in May 2009.
The numbers show that companies are having an easier time managing their cash flow, says William Phelan, the president of PayNet. He says the cautious way that owners have run their companies since the recession — including a reluctance to take on debt — is leaving them with more cash available to pay their bills on time.
PayNet compiled its figures from loan and leasing data reported by lenders in its database.


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FedEx has announced that it will begin delivering on Sundays in 2020, making it possible to receive overnight parcels every day of the week. FedEx already ramps up deliveries to seven days during peak seasons, like the holidays. Now it will harness a vast fleet of trucks and planes to meet increasing delivery demands. It’s another sign of how the logistics sector is growing in the face of fierce competition between Amazon and other online retailers.
If you’re a member of your local public radio station, we thank you — because your support helps those stations keep programs like Marketplace on the air. But for Marketplace to continue to grow, we need additional investment from those who care most about what we do: superfans like you.
Your donation — as little as $5 — helps us create more content that matters to you and your community, and to reach more people where they are – whether that’s radio, podcasts or online.
When you contribute directly to Marketplace, you become a partner in that mission: someone who understands that when we all get smarter, everybody wins.


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NEW YORK — Former J. Crew executive Arnold P. Cohen has been named EVP and CMO at Cache, a specialty chain of women’s apparel stores.
Cohen has more than 30 years of experience working with brands in management, creative and brand-building roles. The brands include J. Crew, Gucci USA, American Eagle Outfitters, Taryn Rose and DSW. Cohen is the founder and managing director of Raspberry Red, a consulting firm, focused on digital strategies and web marketing, assisting small and mid-sized companies with branding, merchandising, operations, finance and ecommerce. He also developed an early Internet/physical store concept Lyte backed by Western Development, AT&T and EDS. For the past eight years, he has been associated with American Eagle Outfitters as an executive and consultant leading the first mobile concept, creating the original concept that became Martin and Osa, as well as the “back on campus” initiative with a rollout to 50 colleges, including a strong social digital element.
Earlier in his career, Cohen created and directed all aspects of the store concept as the first employee of J.Crew. In addition to directing J.Crew’s store strategy, as president and COO, he led international development with licensing partnerships in Japan and France, as well as the opening of its direct sourcing office in Singapore. Revenue grew four times during his tenure.
“We are so pleased to have Arnie join our senior management team. His love of brand, brand positioning, taste, style, energy and overall marketing genius will be a huge addition to our team. Aligning marketing and online under one team with a clear omni-channel approach is an important step in reaching our long term goals,” said Cache chairman and CEO Jay Margolis.
“I am excited to join Jay and his team and take part in restoring the luster of Cache. I believe the scale and platform are just the right size to build upon and see significant potential for growth fueled by Jay’s vision to capitalize on Cache’s distinctive positioning and strong brand awareness with a customer proposition that is not currently served,” added Cohen.
Cache is a nationwide, mall-based specialty retailer of sportswear and social occasion dresses. It operates 249 stores, primarily situated in central locations in high traffic, upscale malls in 41 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.


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Last updated at Mon, 30 Oct 2023 19:58:43 GMT
Black Friday and Cyber Monday form the biggest consumer shopping frenzy of the year, as retailers continue to see explosive annual growth on these sales holidays. But while the average consumer is in search of hot deals on electronics, furniture, clothing, and sporting goods, the underground markets on the dark web will be offering more nefarious assets, like admin credentials, personal identifiable information, and drugs.
While some Tor dark web markets have shut down over the last couple of years – most notably Dream, Wall Street, and Deep Dot Web – there is still an abundance of markets selling goods and services to hackers and cybercriminals. With so many markets coming and going, buyers are in need of a way to find the best new sources constantly. IntSights’ research and intelligence team has unearthed a new indexing service that fills this need: Kilos.
Kilos allows buyers to search for products across numerous dark web sites. While this can be done using other services like Torch and TorLinks, having a product specific search engine seems to be a useful tool for potential buyers. The concept itself is not a new idea, as engines such as Grams have been operational in the past with some degree of success.
Kilos and Grams share several similarities that don’t seem coincidental. They are both dark web product searches, they both clearly attempt to mimic the Google aesthetic, and they are both named after weight measurement units. However, this is where the resemblance between the two ends. Kilos has taken the search concept one step further to include forums, in addition to black markets.
Kilos also offers the granular search options that buyers in dark web markets have come to expect, such as price ranges, specific markets, shipping origins and destinations, and currency types. The filtering options highly resemble those that were offered on Dream Market.
Another interesting functionality that Kilos offers is the ability to peruse the most popular search terms. As of last week, the most popular product family searched for, by far, was narcotics. However, it will be interesting to follow this list and see how it changes and evolves over time. Readers will notice several non-drug related searches such as ‘gun’, ‘passport’ and ‘bank drop’ – the latter two alluding to fraud related intentions.
While some of the buying and selling business has moved from Tor to P2P environments like Telegram, there is still a whole lot of traffic and commerce being conducted on the dark web that justifies services like Kilos. As markets tend to have limited life cycles before they are shut down by authorities, Kilos provides dark web shoppers with a more thorough way to discover new sources as they emerge.
Learn how Rapid7 can help protect your organization against threats lurking on the clear, deep, and dark web.


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So i was thinking g about the future of the Metriod series after Federation Force and remembered this.
"If we started for Wii U now, it would likely take three years or so. So it would likely now be on Nintendo's NX console,"
The Metroid Prime creator said there was no game in development. He also said it would take three years to complete one. We know Retro is working on a game since 2014 and since this was said in 2015 its not Metroid Prime. So unless they started development on a Prime game last year then the next game in the series is launching in at least 2018. Are you serious Nintendo? The last Prime game launched in 2009 that's almost 10 years, and its not like the series sells bad since the game sin the series has sold over 1 million units. This is unacceptable from Nintendo.


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Skype Leads the Evolving VOIP Industry
AuctionBytes highlights some impressive statistics coming out of PC Pitstop showing that Skype is far and away the most popular VOIP application. Combine this with statistics mentioned at SkypeJournal from TeleGeography showing Skype's incredibly fast-growing share of international minutes and you can imagine how disruptive this technology could be in the short term. The losers? Established telcos and, in some cases, governments. Case in point, just this week we have heard several industry experts predicting Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) will abandon its voice product yielding to pressure from telcos. And similarly, we have heard of the possibility of India banning services like Skype altogether.
Craigslist Dismisses Integrating PayPal
Given eBay's 25% stake in Craigslist, it would seem likely that PayPal would eventually feature as an integrated payment option on the classifieds site. However, at the UBS Media & Communications conference hosted yesterday, CEO Jim Buckmaster dismissed such plans. He said integrating PayPal didn't make sense "because most Craigslist transactions are local and face-to-face, unlike on eBay."
Jim Cramer Comments on eBay Again
Controversial Cramer is at it again, calling eBay "cheap" and "a steal." In Thursday's edition of Mad Money, Cramer told viewers that at $31 and change, the time has come to buy eBay. He said the stock price reflects "all of the problems the company has but none of the positives."
EBAY 1-yr chart


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ACG organises seminar on India’s readiness for global track and trace
Senior officials from the pharma packaging industry took part in the seminar
ACG Inspection, part of ACG Worldwide Group, and provider of high-tech camera systems, recently organised a technical seminar called ‘Índia’s Readiness for Global Track & Trace.’ Senior officials from the pharma packaging industry took part in the seminar to explore the latest developments in the field of serialisation. Express Pharma was the exclusive media partner for the event.
ACG Inspection fills the gap between effective online checks and product quality. As an advanced inspection company, it provides its expertise in both manufacturing and packaging. With the Indian pharma companies making efforts to adapt global standards in serialisation, the seminar gave them crucial inputs on how to manage this transformation with greatest degree of success while also minimising business disruption.
Ettore Cucchetti, CEO, ACG Inspection Systems gave the welcome address.
The chief guest for the event, Rahul S Shakhapure, Assistant Drug Controller (India), (Air Port), Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (Mumbai), said, “Many deliberations have taken place at various forums on serialisation. There are few regulations in countries like China, Brazil etc. European Union and India too have issued their guidelines and circulars in this regard in a phased manner. The US has passed the resolution in 2013 on serialisation and track and trace system. The Government of India (GoI) is of the view that we can have barcode systems of international standards. These barcodes will be 14 digits barcodes which will have GTI number, batch number, expiry date and unique identification number. The information in the 14 digit barcode will be uploaded on the national server given by the GoI. There can be advantages and disadvantages of the entire process. It can make it easier to trace the product but implementation of serialisation can al so add to the cost. Harmonisation depending on different regulations will also be a challenge.”
Bill Fletcher, Managing Partner, Pharma Logic Solutions, US, spoke on the topic, ‘understanding Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) and sharing its implementation experience across 33 companies. Fletcher said, “Indian companies are facing problems while exporting because different countries have different regulatory requirements. Many times, genuine companies suffer because counterfeiters counterfeit their drugs and final consumer and also the doctor think twice before prescribing that particular brand. Global trade will drive counterfeiting to areas of the world lacking adequate traceability regulations. Variations in product identification and requirements for uniqueness necessitates data system agility.”
According to Abhijit Puradkar, Implementation Officer, GS1 India, who was also one of the speakers at the event, such events help pharma companies to get knowledge about the regulatory requirements in several countries. They also get a chance to clarify their doubts regarding the regulatory requirements by the expert panelists. These events also help to spread awareness about Indian regulatory requirements on pharma exports.
“Implementing track and trace systems leads to secure healthcare supply chain and also help in tackling the healthcare industry challenges like counterfeits , authentication, traceability and recall. Due to this reason, many countries are enforcing regulatory laws and hence it’s important for Indian companies to make themselves aware of such requirements,” said Puradkar.
A very stormy debate on GS1 standards was the highlight of the seminar where almost every attendee tried to clear their doubt by asking different queries to the speaker. Professionals present for the seminar expressed their desire to attend more such seminars in future as well.


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Staunton college bucks ‘all you can eat’ trend
STAUNTON – Executive Chef Michael Clay claps his hands and about a dozen food services workers standing around the second floor of Hunt Dining Hall at Mary Baldwin College snap to attention and focus as Clay gets them ready for the second meal of the day.
Clay goes through each of the dining hall’s five food stations, describing each dish, which ingredients are locally sourced and which dishes might have common allergens such as gluten or cheese.
Although some of the workers attending the prelunch meeting might not normally interact with students, they all need to have the answers in case someone asks.
Standing in the back is Director of Dining Services Tracy Hiner. He prepared the menus for the day’s lunch, but it’s been weeks, and he needs a refresher on what he came up with.
Hiner has been in charge of feeding the masses at Mary Baldwin for five years. Before that he was the assistant director to Mary VanNortwick, who is also a dietician.
Together the two came up with a plan to shrug off the notion that a college dining hall has to be either food court style or all you can eat. Why couldn’t a dining hall offer locally sourced ingredients and force students to choose their food wisely, rather than contributing to excessive waste that some college campus’ see?
“I wanted to make the food better, healthier,” Hiner said. It started out as one station in Hunt Dining Hall, “destination local, fresh,” but has since grown beyond that.
Mary Baldwin’s size — 788 students in the undergraduate residential program and 541 employees — has made its effort to be one of the few colleges to offer sustainable food options, a success.
For the past few years, Mary Baldwin has been partnering with Sunset Farms in Stuarts Draft. Each year the school purchases about 14 cows and 14 hogs and a dozen or so whole chickens cut up. By buying the entire animal, the school is able to get the meat at a price it can afford, Hiner said. Sometimes it means serving liver and onions — not a hugely popular choice — and it means making their own stock from the bones, but it also means that they can offer at least one dish a meal, if not more, that’s made from locally sourced meat.
Mary Baldwin also gets meat from Buffalo Creek Beef in Lexington.
Depending on the time of year and the availability of locally produce, Mary Baldwin will purchase as much as it can. Hiner has a $1 million budget annually and to make that work, planning menus around what they have and what’s available is key.
But it’s not just about local ingredients. Hiner wants students to have a good dining experience and wants to serve food that they are going to enjoy. He also wants them to look at their eating habits from all angles.
When coming up with Mary Baldwin’s sustainable dining model Hiner came up with six areas of consciousness to help students connect the dots: health and wellness, human and social capital, carbon footprint, food services, food product and food source.
It took students some time to get used to the change in food and, more so, to get used to picking one meal from one station and eating only that, Hiner said, but now students enjoy their dining experience.
Senior MacGyver Dallas said not only does the food taste good but there is a wide variety of options that cater to everyone’s preferences, whether it be gluten-free or vegetarian.
The Hampton native said she likes to know where her food comes from, something that is a norm at home.
“Not a lot of schools do that,” Dallas said of the sustainable dining. “I have a lot of respect for Mary Baldwin for doing something like that.”


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A one-time labour recruitment company chaired by Lyndon Rowe is being used by Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris for a back-door listing of his new venture on the Australian Securities Exchange.
In a deal featuring many familiar faces to those in WA business circles, ITS Capital Investments has entered into an agreement to acquire financial services company Yellow Brick Road in return for the issue of over 99 million ITS shares.
ITS will cease operations after the deal is completed, effectively ending its WA operations to focus on YBR's efforts on the east coast.
Mr Engles formed Australia Visa and Migration Services in 2004 after leaving CCI, merging with another firm in 2008 to create Interstaff.
In May this year, Mr Engles and partner Sheila Woods bought the migration part of the business in a management buyout, and continue to trade as Interstaff, while the main company changed its name to ITS.
Mr Khan takes the position of interim chairman, highlighting the fact that ITS will effectively cease to be once Yellow Brick Road takes control of around 85 per cent of its shares as part of the deal.
ITS had a total comprehensive loss for the 2009-2010 financial year of over $340,000, following on from a $2.8 million loss the year before.
The company estimates that after the acquisition of YBR, the combined group will have assets of around $17 million.
YBR was established in 2007 and provides wealth management advice, products and services to retail and SME clients.
Just this year the company has gone from 16 to 46 branches across the eastern states and is aiming to challenge the big four banks in the wealth management and mortgage markets.
After the acquisition, up to three YBR directors will join the ITS board, and some ITS board members will be asked to stand down.


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NORMAL — Cannabis businesses should steer clear of Illinois State University, residences above businesses and mobile home parks, a Normal commission said Thursday.
The town should allow any type of cannabis business — craft growing, cultivation, dispensary, infusion, processing and transportation operations —but within strict guidelines, Normal Planning Commission recommended.
Those guidelines go to Normal City Council for approval Nov. 18. Such businesses could come to town as soon as Jan. 1, when cannabis use by adults becomes legal statewide.
Up to three businesses could come to McLean and DeWitt counties. In Normal, each would need to get a special use permit from the town's zoning board.
One business is throwing its hat in the ring: The Green Solution, which has owned and operated a medical cannabis dispensary in north Normal since 2016. The company hopes to turn that facility on Northtown Road into a dual medical/recreational dispensary next year, Illinois Operations Manager Andrew Cordes told the commission.
"We can help be an economic driver for Normal," said Cordes; the company current has 12 employees at the store but could add another 20 with a recreational business on site. "People in the town of Normal will get cannabis if they like it."
Commissioners said they can support cannabis businesses coming to Normal, but they should be at least 100 feet away from churches, daycares and schools, and 200 feet from residences — with special provisions to protect university students and those who live in non-traditional homes.
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"I like the idea of not having a dispensary within an easy walk of a university," said Commissioner Bob Broad; he noted research presented by former Normal City Council member Jeff Fritzen about the substance's effect on young brains.
Commissioner Rick Boser responded that students will get cannabis if they want it, especially on the black market, and noted multiple liquor stores are in the area exempted from cannabis development.
"I just want to make it a little more difficult," said Broad.
Residents were divided on the merits of bringing cannabis businesses to town during a public hearing before the commission.
Some, including McLean County Board member Laurie Wollrab, said the town should welcome new sales tax revenue from the substance and give greater access to residents who want to use the drug for medical purposes. She noted residents are already using cannabis that's untaxed and less safe.
"People are happy to purchase from a legal source to ensure safety and reliability, especially if that source is easy to get to," she said of concerns about illegal sales undercutting the legal market.
Fritzen encouraged the commission to disallow all cannabis businesses in the town because allowing the substance sends mixed messages to teens who are told not to do drugs. He also noted how difficult it is for businesses to hire if they have zero-tolerance policies, like businesses that use large machinery.
"We should not be sanctioning that by welcoming this into our community," said Fritzen.


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Registered mobile money accounts across the three major telcos have – for the first time, outstripped the country’s total population; a development that portends future growth in the mobile money space.
The latest data from the central bank’s Payment System show that the registered number of mobile money accounts increased from 21.36 million in June 2017 to 29.99 million in June 2018. This represents an increase of 40.40 per cent over a one-year period.
Given Ghana’s population of 29.61 million, based on projections from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the Population Council there are currently 374,253 more registered mobile money accounts than citizens; a huge increment in the number of subscribers since 2012.
In 2012, the number of registered mobile money users stood at a paltry 3.78 million. This shows that between 2012 and the first half of 2018 the number of registered users increased by 693.69 per cent.
The data shows that the number of active users on the platform has also increased by 24.29 per cent in the first half of 2018 to 11.8million from 9.5 million in the first half of 2017.
Meanwhile, the number of active users stood at a paltry 345,434 in 2012 – which was less than 10 percent of registered users at the time.
The number of mobile money subscribers and the volumes means that there are now more mobile money subscribers than bank accounts in the country. The World Bank estimates that there are about seven million unbanked adults in the country.
Ghana was in a similar situation in 2013 when the number of voice subscriptions or registered SIM cards, which stood at 28.03 million, overtook a population that was pegged at 26.43 million.
The latest data on voice subscription from the central bank shows a 2.78 percent increment from 36.43 million in the first half of 2017 to 37.45 million in the first half of 2018.
Several experts have lauded the surge in mobile money usage, noting that mobile money has deepened financial inclusion and has – for the first time – brought millions who were not banked into the banking and formal financial sector.
In May government went a step further to launch mobile money interoperability, which allowed the transfer of money from one network to another without going through a third party or agent. Since the launch, interoperability has seen 287,822 transactions in volume and GH¢25.36million in value.


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While it often feels as though Britain’s low-volume automakers are better at producing grandiose claims than actual cars, we’re still excited by the relaunch of one of the most evocative names ever to be stuck to the front of an English sports car: TVR.
Although none of the company’s last-generation vehicles were ever officially exported to the United States, the company’s combination of outlandish looks, simple construction, and huge performance, plus a starring role in early iterations of the Gran Turismo video game, meant that at least some of its notoriety managed to cross the Atlantic. The use of a TVR Tuscan in the not entirely dreadful 2001 John Travolta action flick Swordfish even triggered rumors the company planned to come to America—this despite its proud refusal to fit any driver aids to its brutish model range, not even ABS. It never happened, and with slipping sales and a change of ownership, TVR stopped producing cars five years later.
The brand continued to exist in deep stasis, with control passing to a company led by former software entrepreneur Les Edgar. Now, a new car has been shown and is set to launch in 2018. While its name references an early TVR—the Griffith that was sold between 1991 and 2001—the new model promises to be a vastly more technically sophisticated car than its basic predecessor. Whereas the original Griffith had fiberglass bodywork over a simple tubular-steel frame, the new coupe is built around what’s called an iStream chassis architecture, developed by Gordon Murray’s company, which uses carbon fiber and aluminum. The bodywork is composite and aluminum and has benefited from considerably more aerodynamic consideration than any previous TVR, including what’s described as a “full ground-effect aerodynamic package” with a flat floor, a novelty for a front-engined car.
While relatively few technical details have been released, we do know that the new Griffith is 169.8 inches long, with the company claiming that it weighs just 2756 pounds unladen, split exactly 50/50 between the front and rear axles. Avon tires are sized 235/35R-19 at the front and 275/30R-20 at the rear. A six-speed Tremec manual gearbox is standard, and the suspension at each corner consists of control arms with adjustable coil-over dampers. The only concessions to modernity seem to be the inclusion of both traction control and anti-lock brakes and the use of electrical power assistance for the steering.
While TVR used to build its own engines (and even developed a monstrous V-12 engine with nearly 1000 horsepower), the new company has opted for a more conventional solution, using a modified version of the 5.0-liter Ford V-8 from the Mustang. This has been reworked by Cosworth, which fitted dry-sump lubrication, and is said to produce about 500 horsepower. TVR claims this will give a zero-to-60-mph time of less than 4.0 seconds and a top speed of 200 mph.
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European deliveries are set to begin in late 2018 with the fully loaded Launch Edition, which costs the equivalent of almost $120,000 in the U.K., inclusive of local sales tax. Once again, there is no immediate indication that the new Griffith will be coming to the United States, but the company says it is planning to take the new car racing in the near future.


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mobile phone users
LAST UPDATED : Jul 19, 2019, 12:35 PM IST
- Smartphones under Rs 12,000; Galaxy M10, Redmi 6 Pro, Honor 9N and more
When we say mobiles under Rs 12000, we talk about the phones that are reasonable and have several impressive features. In the list mentioned here, we talk about phones like Samsung Galaxy M10, Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro, Moto G6, Honor 9N and so on.
- French MPs back ban on mobile phones in schools
The legislation was one of President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign pledges which critics say will do little to end classroom disruptions or cyberbullying. While schools in many countries have rules limiting mobile phone use France is one of the first nations to introduce a total ban, covering primary and junior high schools.
- These Google Chrome products don’t interest users
Google Chrome extensions seem to have very few takers About 50% of Chrome extensions have less than 16 installs. Chrome extensions, according to the report, have struggled to build a database. Around 87% of all the extensions available on Chrome have less than 1,000 installs. Google Chrome browser gets 1 billion active users in a month.
- This is DoT's warning to mobile users on international calls
The Department of Telecom has sent out a text message warning about receiving fraudulent international calls. DoT in its message said that users should notify if they receive an international call which has an Indian number or has no number displayed on the screen. It’s not clear what prompted DoT's message but international call frauds have been quite common.
- iPhone users worldwide need to thank these Google researchers
When it comes to bugs and security flaws, Apple iPhone is quite better than the competition. However, it really isn’t a flawless phone. Recently, two Google researchers discovered as many as 6 security bugs in iOS. The two researchers work for Google’s Project Zero that looks into bugs and security flaws and found that 4 bugs were really dangerous.
- Google researchers have a warning for iPhone users
If you are using an iOS device then head to the 'Settings menu' and update to the latest iOS 12.4 version as Apple has patched six crucial security bugs. The bugs allowed experts to inject malicious code on an iOS device remotely. The attacker could do this by simply sending a malicious message to the iPhone and the code gets executed once the user opens the message.


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Current Affairs - Banking - Discussion
Discussion Forum : Banking - Latest Current Affairs (Q.No. 135)
Which bank became a net seller in June 2022 by selling USD 3.719 billion?
Reserve Bank of India turned net seller of the US currency in June after it sold USD 3.719 billion on a net basis, the central bank data showed.
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Recreational marijuana was legalized in Michigan, but it could be months, even years before growing operations and retail stores open. In the meantime, community members and even larger corporations are planting their roots in medicinal marijuana.
Steven Roberts is one of them. He said he started the process of opening Aim High Meds LLC in October 2017. The process hasn’t been easy. While weed is legal, cities and towns can still deny businesses like his from locating in their communities.
Tekonsha Township said no. Tekonsha Village said yes. Village President Thomas Bowling said the decision was based on the community’s wants.
“We worked with zoning to be able to come up with a zoning ordinance, the 425 that allowed for that kind of business to be in the location it is, but yet keep the residential and the schools somewhat removed,” Roberts said of his work with the village.
After resolving the zoning issue in December 2017, Roberts applied for a medicinal license in January 2018.
“We were on the docket on July 12. It took that long to do the background check and process through the state,” he said.
With five yes votes, remodeling began in July 2018. Roberts purchased an old bar. An architect laid out the flow of the building for its specific purpose.
“We started taking down the building and starting over again. Separate counters are designed to be HIPPA compliant so you can talk to individuals one at a time,” Roberts said.
Yet Roberts faced another roadblock. The law also requires security for both dispensaries and growing operations.
“The way you walked in, you were behind glass. It’s bullet proof glass. The idea is you pass the driver’s license over to our secretary or receptionist, then she buzzes you in that second door,” Roberts said.
Others like Marty Webber with Heartwood Pharms are not even that far along in the process. Webber and his partners spent more than a year looking for a location for their future medicinal marijuana grow.
“Our plan is


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This week’s automotive headlines – 23 April 2022
23 April 2022
Autovista24 looks at some of the biggest headlines in the automotive industry from the past seven days. In this week’s round-up, BMW’s ‘monolithic’ new 7-Series, Zap-Map’s survey uncovers new EV driver behaviour, Mini takes on the challenge of the Nürburgring 24 Hours, and new gigafactory announced in California.
‘Monolithic’ new BMW 7 Series
BMW has unveiled its new 7-Series model with sustainability and digitalisation playing a vital role in the car’s make-up. In terms of technology, the Bavarian manufacturer is striving for a multi-sensory vehicle experience with the latest generation of BMW operating systems, as well as a choice of combustion engines, plug-in hybrid (PHEV) systems and an all-electric drive option for the first time in the 45 years of 7-Series production. Manufactured at BMW’s Dingolfing plant in Germany, the new 7-Series is now on pre-sale, and will be available to customers from November 2022, with BMW saying the latest iteration: ‘Has been designed to meet the needs of a modern target group that sees itself as committed to meeting challenges in a responsible manner – and one that views personal mobility as a way to experience unique moments in everyday life and on trips away.’
Zap-Map’s survey uncovers new EV driver behaviour
Zap-Map, an app and digital platform which enables electric-vehicle (EV) drivers to search and pay for vehicle charging, has published its annual comprehensive report focusing on the habits and behaviours of the UK’s EV owners. Based on the responses of over 3,000 participants, the key findings of the survey include the uncovering of new trends in an EV driver’s charging behaviour. According to Zap-Map, these are centred on the area of high-powered ‘en route’ charging and the increased popularity of charging hubs. Rapid chargers spanning a power range of 25kW to 99kW remain the most popular charging medium for EV drivers, and it is notable that usage of ultra-rapid chargers jumped to 27% of EV drivers – up from just 16% in the previous survey. ‘We know that EV charging use cases are diverse, as the survey makes clear, and we absolutely need a range of charge speeds to match them,’ stated Melanie Shufflebotham, Zap-Map co-founder and COO. ‘However, amongst other considerations, the demand for high-powered chargers revealed in this report indicates that ultra-rapid chargers and charging hubs continue to be a crucial area of investment – for the simple fact that they make long journeys easier.’
Mini take on the challenge of the Nürburgring 24 Hours
Alongside the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Spa, the Nürburgring 24 Hours is one of the toughest endurance races in motorsport. Every year, major manufacturer-backed teams such as Audi, Porsche and BMW battle it out on the infamous 25-plus km Nürburgring circuit in Western Germany to be crowned winners of this gruelling event, and the 2022 edition of the race will see a return of one of the automotive world’s most famous names. This year, Mini will be entering the race with a one-off 320bhp Mini JCW GP. The car has been prepared by the Bulldog Racing team, with some specialist parts from BMW’s M Performance department, as well as huge rear wing and a special red and white livery, paying homage to Mini’s iconic motorsports history over 60 years. A Mini last appeared at the Nürburgring 24 Hours a decade ago in 2012 and will line up for the 2022 event which takes place between 26 and 29 May.
New gigafactory announced in California
Founder of Britishvolt and founder-CEO of Italvolt Lars Calstrom has announced the launch of a new company, Statevolt, and with it the construction of a 54GWh gigafactory in southern California. The new facility will be located in Imperial Valley, and the launch has been accompanied by the signing of a letter of intent with lithium and renewable project specialists Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR). Once fully operational, the gigafactory will be one of largest in North America, with a battery production serving around 650,000 electric vehicles a year at full capacity. Working together, Statevolt and CTR plan to deliver sustainable, locally produced lithium and geothermal power. ‘We are pleased to be collaborating with CTR and its industry-leading, and highly-specialised approach to sustainable lithium production and development,’ commented Calstrom. ‘Together, through the construction and development of Statevolt, we will support the nation’s energy transition while retaining a keen focus on low-cost, sustainable battery manufacture.’


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With the Text Analytics Summit about to get underway, we’re seeing a wave of vendor announcements hit, such as Clarabridge’s news earlier this week. SAS also said today that it’s introduced Industry Taxonomy Rules starter kits, prebuilt add-ons to SAS Enterprise Content Categorization for speeding text analytics implementation efforts. Also on the agenda: Attensity’s announcement of Analyze 6 and its latest vertical out-of-the-box analytics capabilities, aimed at the retail banking industry.
The focus for Analyze 6 was to take the key capabilities of Attensity’s core engine and use that to put text analytics on the desktops of business users who want to understand and respond to customer data – at the speed of social media, which means without waiting for IT experts to create reports for them. “The thing about social media and customer data is it is like a tidal wave,” Attensity CMO Michelle de Haaff says.
Building on its Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) Platform Data Grid computing system for helping enterprises quickly analyze large-scale data sets, end users can select from over 100 report templates (with multiple kinds of analytics for each), or they can choose what questions to ask through its new Exploration environment. Basically, that’s a wizard-based way to drill deeper into a category set, leveraging Attensity’s pre-defined semantic classes tailored for each specific vertical industry rather than having to predefine taxonomies themselves to look at data.
Among other features the software has incorporated, according to de Haaff, are visualizations of the data (multiple chart formats, tabular reports, tag clouds, and so on). “If there is kind of analytics or data you want to look at, you should have chart that helps you – that is our goal,” she says. Other ways to understand what’s being said in social media are accommodated by hotspots, a measure of the significance of a change in a data value from one time period to another, which might require further analytical exploration or quick online engagement with customers. “We do Six Sigma-based calculations to look at trends happening and changes in them to determine if a new or existing trend is now creating problems in your market,” she says.
It’s also including customer profiling in this version. “Customers can be very specific and detailed when posting a review or giving a comment or sharing an opinion. So we augment the profiles of individual customers and leverage that to help companies determine who to engage with and how,” she says. “Because of our semantic understanding of data we can attach to an individual insights about that individual.” Knowing what individuals own or use also can make it easier for a company to conduct customer service or marketing efforts, but Attensity adheres to opt-in and customer interaction rules to respect individuals’ privacy boundaries, de Haaff says.
As social media has continued to grow, it’s also created deeper working relationships between departments like marketing and customer service, she says. After all, if customers are complaining loudly about a problem with a product, marketing needs to know that before it starts a big social media campaign. So the latest version also is making it easier to share dashboards of reports (or restrict them as required), by turning them into analytics into PDFs, Powerpoints, or Excel documents that can be emailed around to colleagues or even high-level business execs for quick insight.
Retail banking is the second vertical industry Attensity has tackled (telco was first), applying to millions of banking conversations online its semantic understanding of their contents, and coming up with the pre- packaged analytics, taxonomies, and entity trees with terms specific to the financial services space. “We built the engine to be sensitive to them and delivered out-of-the-box analytics for that industry, including competitive intelligence,” she says. Its Attensity Respond, which creates queues for business users to traffic-cop the marketing and customer service sides of social media engagement, now is sensitive to banking industry semantics, as well.
When it comes to social media, accuracy in understanding conversations matters a great deal, de Haaff says. “People are taking action now. You can’t route a conversation to a social media responder and be wrong. You can’t recommend or even deliver action into a CRM system if you’re wrong,” she says. “So our deep semantic understanding and patented engines are very important.”
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25.7% of Australians aged 65 and over have a disposable income that is less than 50% of the median household, the third highest rate among OECD nations following Korea and Latvia.
In contrast, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic all have rates between 3 and 4%.
This lack of cash has left many priced out of traditional retirement village product – but able to buy into the land lease model according to Ingenia CEO Simon Owen.
“What really underpins our model is that we’re not so much selling a home; we talk to our residents about ‘what would your life look like if you had an extra couple of hundred thousands dollars in the bank to support the pension?’” he said.
Up to 90% of Ingenia’s home owners are pensioners.
Another selling point for LLCs.


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The keyboard kingpin’s latest iPad model protects both sides of the tablet.
Why aren’t there better smartphone apps for serious travelers?
Pay With Square is supposed to make paying with your phone at Starbucks a snap. But it flunked Fast Company’s real-world test.
Today, with four billion hours of viewership a month, YouTube is more popular than ever. But it’s also part of an Internet that’s radically different than it was when YouTube was young.
Big companies like to buy small startups and kill their products. But Dropbox says it wants to make Mailbox even better.
A chat with the CEO of the upstart Internet TV service which the networks hope to sue out of business.
Here’s what popped into my head during and immediately after Samsung’s Radio City Music Hall extravaganza.
For the first time ever, the future of Google’s mobile operating system will be determined by someone who isn’t Andy Rubin.
A new site makes you pick two destinations, then chooses one at random.
A new service lets film fans go to the movies as often as once a day, for one monthly charge.
As usual, I've been spending most of my South by Southwest Interactive conference hanging out and chatting with interesting people. On Sunday afternoon, I did so with Chi-Hua Chien, a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner,
ComiXology is changing how comics are read — and is now accepting submissions from independent writers and artists.


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Deka Lash, owned by twin brothers Tony and Brad Zancanaro, has announced the opening of a studio in Newton. Deka Lash provides semi-permanent eyelash extensions featuring online booking and extended hours including weekend appointments. With 40 studios in 17 states, this will be the first Deka Lash location in Massachusetts.
To celebrate, the studio will host a grand opening event open the public to tour the studio, have Champagne and refreshments, view eyelash demonstrations, gift bags and register to win raffle prizes. Proceeds benefit Centre Street Food Pantry, a charity selected by the lash artists.
Deka Lash Newton is located at 55 Needham St. in the Needham Street Village Shops. The studio is open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.


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The Chuckling Cheese Company have curated and launched a special edition Cheddar Truckle in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration, that its founders say is fit for a Queen.
This special edition Cream Tea Cheese is a creamy cheddar cheese, infused with delicious strawberry jam, and laced with juicy raisins.
The combination of these flavours aims to resemble the taste of the traditional British jam and cream scone – an institution of British culture – arguably just like Her Majesty The Queen.
The Cream Tea Cheese is available to buy both online and in one of the Chuckling Cheese’s stores.
You can also find this new Cream Tea Cheddar Truckle in a variety of carefully curated hampers and gift boxes online including our ‘Jubilee Hamper’, and ‘Get Jammie Gift Box’.
The Chuckling Cheese Company is family-run company, established in 2015 by Emma and Stuart Colclough, and now boasts shops all across the country.
The company has recently invested £500,000 in a new warehouse and offices, which offers 10 times as much space and the company has increased the number of warehouse staff by 50 percent, including six new roles.
Alongside the increase in employees, the move has required a large increase in stock and the new warehouse is able to hold 200 percent more products than the company could at the start of 2021.
To find out more about the Chuckling Cheese Company, visit their website at https://www.chucklingcheese.co.uk/


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i-Mates Warrior and Legionnaire: The Best Netbook-Phone (?)
Apparently i-Mate few more aces up their sleeves at Mobile World Congress. The company revealed , in addition to that credit-card sized qwerty device -now named Centurion, two more devices. The first one, the Warrior is actually a...
I-mate still alive, offers life-time guarantee on new phone
I-mate, who’s future has been in question since the day they opened their doors (and even more recently after they were delisted from the stock exchange) is set to announce a net of new devices at Mobile World Congress. One ...
i-mate Will Unveil Ground Breaking New Device at MWC this February
We don’t have many information about this, but i-mate will apparently reveal its’ new revolutionary device at Mobile World Congress in a couple of weeks. This next quote from msmobiles, the source of this article, is t...


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Summary Of Weekly Real Estate Transactions For The Week Ending 28 July 2023
The real estate and properties transactions valued at AED 10.6 billion in total during the week ending 28 July 2023. The sum of transactions was 3,252.
319 plots were sold for AED 1.92 billion, 2,137 apartments and villas were sold for AED 5.75 billion.
The top three transactions were a land in Palm Jumeirah sold for AED 150 million, followed by a land that was sold for AED 90.19 million in Al Hebiah Fourth, and a land sold for AED 58.01 million in Saih Shuaib 4 in third place.
Madinat Hind 4 recorded the most transactions for this week by 96 sales transactions worth AED 133.39 million, followed by Al Hebiah Fifth with 69 sales transactions worth AED 187.68 million, and Wadi Al Safa 3 with 60 sales transactions worth AED 476 million in third place.
The top three transfers for apartments and villas were a was sold for AED 265 million in Marsa Dubai, a was second in the list sold for AED 207 million in Al Goze First, and thirdly it was a villa sold for AED 68 million in World Islands.
The sum of the amount of mortgaged properties for the week was 2.53 billion, with the highest being a land in Marsa Dubai, mortgaged for AED 570 million.
283 properties were granted between first-degree relatives worth AED 495 million.


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Prominence Poker Launches on Xbox One
505 Games and veteran indie studio Pipeworks, are proud to announce that Prominence Poker, the underground poker role-playing game (RPG) and the latest original IP from the publisher, is available now on Xbox One.
During launch week, Prominence Poker will be highlighted in the Xbox Summer Spotlight which features the summer’s most exciting games! Additionally, poker fanatics can hear more about the inspiration behind the game’s development with the Pipeworks team by tuning into the Xbox Game with Feature livestream.
“Prominence Poker presents a unique, unparalleled poker game experience with an engaging storyline, colorful cast of characters, and highly stylized, gritty environments,” said Lindsay Gupton, President of Pipeworks. “After two years of development, we’re excited to share the experience of high stakes, backroom poker with the Xbox community.”
Prominence Poker allows players to enter the city of Prominence and seek out fame and fortune with high stakes poker games in a gambling utopia founded by crooked goons. By building their reputation through defeating cunning factions in Prominence, players will have the opportunity to go up against “The Mayor” – the mysterious town founder.
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