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Saap Lao Kitchen, known for its savory beef jerky, has been popping up with events around Dallas for the last three years. Come the end of the month, the owners are holding an event to celebrate their new headquarters in Bedford.
"We were looking for a kitchen where we could produce primarily our beef jerky. That's the majority of our business," says Kim Chanthorn, who's a co-founder of Saap along with five family members. "We'll still be operating in Dallas, but Bedford offered us a good location where we could be in a kitchen to operate out of."
Beginning from a 2015 holidays goal of having one pop-up the next year, this family eventually developed a following from pop-ups, selling at the Farmers Market and posting on Instagram.
At events, they have Lao dishes alongside their jerky, which frequently sells out, Chanthorn says.
"The just-right spicy version has a first taste of a sweet, sticky glaze that could be applied to barbecued pork ribs. Sesame oil works its flavor into the corner like a shy person in a group photo. Then, suddenly, the heat arrives like a lightning bolt, chile peppers stabbing and lingering long after the meat is chewed and gone," critic Brian Reinhart wrote in 2018.
Having a full kitchen to prepare jerky means more of this flavor for more people. Chanthorn says there will be limited retail hours starting in October, too.
The celebration of their new spot will be 6:30-9:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at 2816 Central Drive, Suite 180, in Bedford. Expect a menu of Lao food: grilled wings, Lao sausage, nam khao, chicken laab, egg rolls, kua mee, sticky rice and jeow som.
Jerky deals and entertainment are planned to complement the Lao plates, while people can see where Saap operators will be producing items in their next phase of business.
They'll still do occasional pop-ups, and jerky is available for purchase online. If you really want to know what a pop-up of theirs is like, see our slideshow of the one they ran at Four Corners Brewery last month.
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Egyptian studio, Game Hermits have announced their latest project, which is an intriguing new concept based off a Middle Eastern setting called Illusion.
In a post on social media, studio head – Kamal Aittah said,
An enormous team effort and dedication was put into this game to produce one of the finest RPG story-driven mobile game with Saudi settings and characters.
It’s not yet been revealed which mobile platform the game will be released on with details thin on the ground, but the team claims a formal trailer is forthcoming and the entire game was built using Unreal Engine 5.
However, if you can’t wait, feel free to head to the Game Hermits Linkedin where a small gameplay video can be seen.

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European stocks erased earlier gains to close in negative territory on Wednesday, tracking losses in the U.S. where growing fears of a trade war sent markets lower.
Stocks in Europe had traded higher earlier in the day, buoyed after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said its bond-buying program will likely continue if underlying inflation in the region remains subdued.
Meanwhile, investors were also sifting through more corporate updates, including one from Adidas AG that sent shares of the German sports gear maker flying higher by double digits.
How markets are moving
The Stoxx Europe 600 index /zigman2/quotes/210599654/delayed XX:SXXP -1.50% fell 0.2% to close at 374.94, after trading as high as 377.71 earlier in the day.
France’s CAC 40 index /zigman2/quotes/210597958/delayed FR:PX1 -1.80% ended 0.2% lower at 5,233.36, while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 index /zigman2/quotes/210598409/delayed UK:UKX -1.96% fell 0.1% to 7,132.69.
Germany’s DAX 30 /zigman2/quotes/210597999/delayed DX:DAX -1.69% rose 0.1% to 12,237.74, lifted by Adidas.
The euro /zigman2/quotes/210561242/realtime/sampled EURUSD +0.4022% bought $1.2370, down from $1.2392 late Tuesday in New York.
What’s driving markets
European stocks started to erase gains in the afternoon and turned lower as U.S. markets suffered sharp losses. The downbeat mood stateside came as traders fretted that President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum tariffs could spark a trade war, with the New York Times writing that manufacturing stalwart Boeing Co. /zigman2/quotes/208579720/composite BA -1.46% could be among companies particularly hurt .
Regional indexes in Europe had traded higher earlier in the day as the euro pulled back during a speech by ECB President Mario Draghi at conference in Frankfurt. He did say the eurozone economy has been strengthening more than it had anticipated.
However, “there is a very clear condition for us to bring net asset purchases to an end: we need to see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation toward our aim, which is a headline inflation rate of below, but close to 2% over the medium term,” he said, adding that “the performance of underlying inflation remains subdued compared with previous recoveries.”
The euro declined as soft inflationary pressures would likely keep the European Central Bank from raising interest rates in the foreseeable future. “The key issues we need to examine are wage dynamics, their pass-through to prices, and the possible risks to the inflation outlook,” said Draghi.
A weaker euro can help bolster shares of European exporters as it makes their goods and services less expensive to purchase for overseas buyers. The euro on Tuesday leapt above $1.24 for the first time since March 8 after an expected reading of U.S. consumer prices February tamped down concerns that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates four times in 2018 instead of three as previously expected.
The eurozone’s final reading of consumer price inflation for February is scheduled for release on Friday.
What strategists are saying
“The positive mood in Europe has waned after U.S. markets turned lower. Equity benchmarks pushed higher this morning, but have faded toward the close as investors take their cues from their American counterparts,” said David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets, in a note.
“Growing fears of a trade war is weighing on U.S. stocks, and indices like the Dow Jones are losing ground quickly. Dealers are fearful that China will react to President Trump’s tariffs by imposing levies on the aerospace industry, and Boeing shares have taken a hit,” he added.
Stocks in focus
Adidas AG shares /zigman2/quotes/202556172/delayed DE:ADS -1.00% jumped 11% for the Stoxx Europe 600’s biggest gain after the sporting goods company upgraded its long-term profitability target even as its posted a fourth-quarter net loss due to a one-off negative tax effect. Adidas will also propose lifting its dividend of €2.60 a share and that it will initiate share buyback program of up to €3 billion.
Shares in Inditex SA /zigman2/quotes/203681809/delayed ES:ITX -1.46% rose 3.8% as the parent company for apparel retailer Zara said sales in stores that have been open for a year or more rose 5%. The rise, however, was a marked slowdown from the 10% growth reported the previous period.
Prudential PLC /zigman2/quotes/200530572/delayed UK:PRU -1.07% climbed 5.1% after the financial services company saying it will demerge M&G Prudential. Following that move, M&G Prudential will be an independent provider of savings and investment services.
Shares in Bpost /zigman2/quotes/208338632/delayed BE:BPOST +0.18% tumbled 22% for the Stoxx 600’s biggest drop after the Belgian postal-services company forecast 2018 core earnings of 560 million euros ($693 million) to 600 million euros. That was below a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of 637 million euros.


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Advice for flood victims cleaning their homes following flooding
Many people across southeast Texas are still cleaning up after Hurricane Harvey devastated the region.
KFDM/Fox 4 spoke with a store manager at Lowe’s who said after flooding one of the biggest concerns homeowners face is mold, which can cause health problems.
"When there's water, soon to follow there's going to be mold and the biggest thing with mold is making sure that's if it's already present you've got to initially kill it," said Blake Olivier, a store manager at Lowe's.
He warned against using bleach.
"Bleach is highly not recommended. Bleach will kill on hard surfaces but as you can imagine with studs and other porous material, you need to have that proper chemical to eradicate and prevent that mold from growing," Olivier said.
He suggested a product called Concrobium Mold Control to treat mold in homes following flooding.
"You have to first spray it and apply to control the mold. Allow it to fully dry. Wipe it clean and then actually come back with a second application to make sure that you prevent future growth. And that's the scary part about mold," said Olivier.
He said for an average size home it will take about 8 to 10 gallons of the chemical to treat mold, but it varies depending on the size of your house.
"This is going to be a process for those that were impacted and it's going to be a long process but the thing is just thinking through it and really being safe through the whole process is key," Olivier said.


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Home-grown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra on Wednesday reported a steep 55 per cent fall in total sales at 19,358 units in June.
Mahindra & Mahindra's (M&M) Supro range comprises nine vehicles, both in passenger and cargo segments.
The company said it sold 86,351 vehicles in the fourth quarter, down 47 per cent from 1,63,937 units sales in the fourth quarter of 2018-19.
In a regulatory filing, the company said its revenue and profitability will be impacted in line with the fall in volumes mentioned above.
'In the recent times, online has been a preferred purchase channel across categories and going forward, the online purchase of vehicles is set to gain more traction,' CEO said.
Exports were at 56 units last month as compared to 1,057 units in the year-ago period, a decline of 95 per cent, the company said.
In the domestic market, sales were down 90 per cent to 6,130 units last month compared to 59,012 units in March 2019.
Its revenue also moderated to Rs 12,120 crore in the latest quarter, as against Rs 12,893 crore in the same period last fiscal, it said.
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) today showcased its first ever driverless tractor which it plans to introduce commercially next year.


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CTI have been appointed design partner for DrupalCon 2014 conventions in North America and Europe.
The conventions - one in North America and one in Europe - are the largest of their kind, with 3,500 delegates expected in Austin, Texas, for the first one.
CTI has produced the brand for DrupalCon Austin 2014, which will be used on all web and print materials, including press packs, websites, social media, right down to badges for those attending the conference.
It has also designed and developed a holding page for the Austin convention website.
Nick Rhind, chief executive of CTI, said: “This project positions CTI as among the best in the world when it comes to Drupal, it’s that massive for us. It could open the door to more overseas markets.
“From the completion of the pitch process, we had 10 days to deliver a brand, produce press materials and develop a website.
"It’s testament to our team that we have delivered such a strong brand. Now we are going to be seen by some of the brightest minds in the world - all the major users, developers and designers using the platform.
"This firmly puts the north west of England on the global Drupal map. For CTI, it will help elevate us to the next level as a business and put us on the radar of companies in the US and beyond.”


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The Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association, in partnership with other key industry stakeholders, will host its 12th annual hiking festival; Hike Fest 2020 in the month of May. This year the popular hiking festival highlights the trails of our ancestors, under the theme: Neg Mawon: The Survivor Spirit. “This year’s Hikefest will concentrate on the contributions of our African ancestors, and their journey through the lush rainforests of Dominica. The hikes will take place every Saturday of the month and will feature historically popular trails including segments of the Waitikubuli National Trail”, Kevin A Francis, Executive Vice President of the Association.
Hikefest forms part of Tourism Awareness Month in May 2020 annual calendar of events. The objective of Tourism Awareness Month is to increase the public’s awareness of the Tourism & Hospitality industry’s economic, cultural and social contributions to Dominica.
The association is also predicting this to be one of the biggest Hikefest to date. “Based on the strength of our hiking product we have been able to gain the interest from the region with several islands coming to participate last year, including St. Kitts and Martinique.” Mr. Francis added. “This year we have been reaching out to our regional family to hike the nature island and they are answering the call.”
Mr. Francis outlined a new component to this year’s festival; the inclusion of packaged stay for regional travel. “Over the years, we have seen an increase interest in hiking the island from the regional. This year we have decide to pay special attention to this trend and at the same time maximize value to our members. Along with our Tour operator members, the association will be creating travel and accommodation package for persons wishing to travel to Dominica for the Hiking Festival. What is unique about this initiative is that it will be done exclusively with our membership. Truly a great opportunity for our members.”


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…As ex-workers picket BUA hqtrs over unpaid entitlements
By Bimbola Oyesola
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has urged the organised labour and civil society organisations to shelve their planned strike and join forces with government to ensure the full deregulation of the nation’s downstream industry.
The Chairman of IPMAN Committee on Land, Marine and Border Operations, Dr. Uche Ezeala, said that deregulation, if fully implemented, will open up the market and allow market forces to determine the prices of goods and services.
The IPMAN Committee on Land, Marine and Border Operations was set up under the leadership of Elder Chinedu Okoronkwo.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, Ezeala noted that “outside Abuja and probably Lagos, no consumer in any part of the country has been paying the approved pump price of N86.50.
Meanwhile, Workers of the defunct BUA Flour and Pasta yesterday pulled a surprise protest at the headquarters of the conglomerate in Lagos, demanding full payment of their entitlements from the sale of the company.
The workers had arrived the headquarters of the company around 11 a.m, without informing the management about their action, with several placards with inscriptions such as, “We are not slaves, a workman is entitled to his wages”; “Our redundancy is not negotiable”; “We need full contract employment with OLAM.”
The Coordinator of the workers, Akasan Sylvester, said the workers were at BUA’s headquarters to hand over their protest letter to the management and had decided not to inform them earlier so that the management would not disrupt the peaceful protesters with police.
In the letter to the management, the workers stated: “Your ‘Letter of Disengagement’, which specified our entitlements under some categories ignored the most essential of all disengagement of workers whose company had been sold and taken over by a new investor and owner. And this most essential, a redundancy pay off, was completely missing.
The rest of the country buys fuel between N150 and N250 per litre.”
He further noted that key to deregulation is its inbuilt ability to allow business to determine the operational procedure in an atmosphere of freedom and competition without government monopoly or unnecessary interventions.
According to him, the forces of demand and supply will now determine the prices of petroleum products. This, he added, will create a conducive atmosphere which will make it possible for consumers to buy the products in any part of the country without stress.
Ezeala stated that the present economic realities as reflected in the price of oil in the international market and the foreign exchange situation has made the fuel pump price increase inevitable.
According to him, the new fuel price regime will go a long way in removing all distortions in fuel supply and distribution in the country. He pointed out that with the new pump price, some of the sharp practices engaged in by major players in the petroleum industry would be eliminated.
Ezeala whose committee has the mandate to ensure that fuel is made available to Nigerians at the official price, noted that the new pump price will make the job of his committee easier as no marketer would have any justification to tamper with the official pump price.
He further explained that Nigerians will enjoy the petroleum sector as is the case with the telecommunications industry, where the consumer is king, with all the operators jostling for his attention.
Ezeala stated that IPMAN, which controls more than 80 per cent of all retail outlets in the country, is determined to support the government initiative as it will have a huge positive effect on the economy.
He assured that his committee will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that petroleum marketers play by the rule in order to ensure that Nigerians get full value for their money.
As part of strategies to ensure the smooth operations of his committee, he announced the appointment of Brig. Gen Lansdale Adeoye (rtd) as the National Coordinator of the committee, explaining he was engaged because of his vast experience in the fight against vandalism and other associated vices.
“It is our contention that our due entitlements have not yet been paid and that what was given to us is pittance compared to what actually should be paid to us.”
The coordinator who said the workers’ toil and sweat grew the company to the value of $275 million, insisted that it was a global practice to pay severance package to workers whose service are being severed due to sale of their company.
Consequently, he said the workers believed that their entitlements have not been paid fully and are therefore demanding payment of redundancy package to all workers of BUA Flour and Pasta to a tune not less than 20 per cent of the total sale of the company.


text: Lifestyle Style Kim Kardashian Says She 'Fought Against' Her Met Gala Mask: 'Why Would I Cover My Face?' Kardashian reveals to Vogue that she needed a pep talk before fully covering up in her now-famous Balenciaga Met Gala look By Brittany Talarico Brittany Talarico Brittany Talarico is PEOPLE's Deputy Style Director, where she oversees the brand's digital Style and Beauty coverage. This includes running lead on the Met Gala, which is among PEOPLE.com's top-trafficked red carpet events every year, interviewing the industry's top influencers (including all the Kardashian-Jenners), and breaking A-list celeb news (a New Jersey shore native, it is no surprise that her favorite interview ever was with Bruce Springsteen). Brittany is a style contributor to People Every Day Podcast and has represented the brand on national TV programs including Good Morning America and The CW's two TV specials on the British Royals. She joined PEOPLE from Cosmopolitan in 2013, where she was an Associate Editor. People Editorial Guidelines Published on February 9, 2022 12:02 PM Share Tweet Pin Email Kim Kardashian had the most talked about look at the 2021 Met Gala. But turns out, the outfit that launched a thousand memes — and even a Halloween costume! — almost it almost didn't happen. In the March issue of Vogue, the 41-year-old mogul gets candid about fashion, family and taking control of her wardrobe choices, nothing that she initially pushed back on completely covering up in the Balenciaga body stocking at last year's costume institute gala. "I fought against it. I was like, I don't know how I could wear the mask. Why would I want to cover my face?," Kardashian tells Vogue. "But Demna [Gvasalia, Creative Director at Balenciaga] and the team were like, 'This is a costume gala. This is not a Vanity Fair party where everyone looks beautiful. There's a theme and you have to wear the mask. That is the look.' " Kim Kardashian Still Got Glam with Full Face of Makeup Despite Wearing a Head Mask to 2021 Met Gala Arturo Holmes/MG21/Getty Images At the time, a source told PEOPLE that even though Kanye did not attend the Met Gala with his ex-wife, his presence was "felt." "It was Kanye who introduced Kim to Demna and was instrumental in the newly formed relationship between her and Balenciaga," the source said, adding, "This look on Kim is like a new subculture and fashion statement. No logo, no face, but everyone knows it's her. Kanye gave her the courage to push creativity and people's imagination through art. It's the ultimate confidence." Kim Kardashian Explains That Viral Met Gala Photo with Kendall Jenner: 'I Couldn't See' Theo Wargo/Getty In the Vogue cover interview, Gvasalia shares his take on Kardashian's influence on the fashion and beauty industry. "I think for many, many years, there hasn't been anyone who has redefined the standards of beauty, of feminine beauty, as much as Kim has," he says. "She did something that is very similar to what Marilyn Monroe did back in the day. She redefined our understanding of what beauty is." Theo Wargo/Getty Since the Met Gala, Kardashian continued her Balenciaga outfit streak, wearing a number of bold body hugging looks, including most of her wardrobe during her Saturday Night Live stint, and was recently named the face of the luxury label's new campaign. Kim Kardashian on the March 2022 cover of Vogue. Carlijn Jacobs/Vogue So what's the next style phase for reality star turned fashion industry tastemaker? Without Kanye in the picture, Kardashian admits she's entering uncharted territory. Kim Kardashian Says She's Kanye West's 'Biggest Cheerleader' with Their Kids amid Public Disputes "I always think, 'What will be next?' Because I always had Kanye, who knew exactly what the next fashion era would be for me. And there's something scary about being out there on your own, but also something so liberating," Kardashian tells Vogue. "Who knows? I might just be in Skims and be so comfy and casual and wear no makeup, and that might be what I feel like representing to the world. Maybe it's just not that serious." Given her influence, we're sure whatever does comes next, fans will be taking notes.


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HANGZHOU, CHINA – NOVEMBER thirteen: Alibaba founder Jack Ma attends the fifth World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Convention at Hangzhou World Expo Centre on November thirteen, 2019 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province of China.
VCG | Getty Photos
Alibaba is planning a secondary itemizing in Hong Kong which is seemingly to settle location in the last week of November and elevate roughly $thirteen billion, a supply with advise recordsdata of the topic told CNBC.
The Chinese e-commerce large will subject 500 million fresh fashioned shares plus 75 million “greenshoe” choices, the provision, who wished to dwell nameless on legend of they originate no longer seem to be licensed to communicate publicly, said. Greenshoe choices give the underwriting banks the skill to sell extra shares than the distinctive quantity space.
Alibaba obtained the greenlight from Hong Kong regulators on Tuesday to head forward with the percentage sale, the provision said.
The Chinese firm might perchance furthermore elevate around $thirteen billion, the provision added. Reuters and South China Morning Put up previously reported that the sale might perchance furthermore elevate between $10 billion and $15 billion.
Alibaba will extinguish listed in Fresh York where it implemented an IPO (initial public offering) in 2014, the provision said. That is unexcited the biggest IPO in history elevating $25 billion.
Alibaba declined to observation when contacted by CNBC. A spokesperson for the Hong Kong inventory replace became no longer straight readily available in the market for observation.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Price (SEC) on Wednesday, Alibaba acknowledged it had filed an application for a proposed secondary itemizing with the Hong Kong inventory replace. It added that the Fresh York Stock Exchange will proceed to be its “predominant itemizing venue.”
With a Hong Kong itemizing, the Hangzhou, China-based entirely mostly firm will pass nearer to home, doubtlessly giving merchants on this planet’s second-biggest financial system extra of an opportunity to purchase shares.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong itemizing would build it the principle fundraising of the year, sooner than Uber which raised over $eight billion in Can also just. It is also a spacious boost for the Hong Kong market which has viewed trade unhurried amid the ongoing pro-democracy protests, which delight in escalated in the previous few days.
Alibaba is coming off the lend a hand of its successful Singles Day trying match whereby it space a fresh gross sales file. Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares are up over 36% this year as it continues to thunder affirm in its core commerce trade, despite a slowing Chinese financial system, as properly as spacious revenue jumps in more moderen divisions love cloud computing.


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Tyson Foods Inc. has taken a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat, a maker of plant-based protein products.
Beyond Meat will use the money to expand its product offerings and distribution, the company said. The El Segundo, California, based company will remain an independent, privately held company, founder and CEO Ethan Brown said in a statement.
“This investment by underscores the growing market for plant protein. I’m pleased to welcome Tyson as an investor and look forward to leveraging this support to broaden availability of plant protein choices to consumers,” Brown said.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
“We’re enthusiastic about this investment, which gives us exposure to a fast-growing segment of the protein market,” Monica McGurk, Tyson Foods’ executive vice president of foodservice, said in a news release. “It meets our desire to offer consumers choices and to consider how we can serve an ever-growing and diverse global population, while remaining focused on our core prepared foods and animal protein businesses.”
Tyson acquired Chicago-based Hillshire Brands Co. — the maker of Jimmy Dean sausage and Ball Park hot dogs — in 2014, cementing a spot among the world’s largest food companies. Tyson’s brands include Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Sara Lee and State Fair.
Beyond Meat also has received funding from Bill Gates and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.


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What do Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan have in common? They all are regions where action RPG Monster Hunter Frontier has been released on PC. What do North America and Europe have in common?
They are regions where the game has not been released. Just because Monster Hunter Frontier has been announced for the Xbox 360, that does not mean the game is necessarily headed West anytime soon.
Capcom issued the following statement to Kotaku: "Monster Hunter Frontier is an online multiplayer action RPG currently only available in Japan and other Asian territories. Originally released in 2007 for the PC, it has now been confirmed that Monster Hunter Frontier will be released in Japan on the Xbox 360. As yet the title has not been confirmed for release in Europe or North America."


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This article was published in Triple Pundit. The full text version can be found here.
By Andrew Burger
Used widely in nature, lamination – the deposition of fine layers of materials on top of one another – has long been known as a means of manufacturing stronger, more durable and longer lasting metals. Founded in 2006, Seattle’s Modumetal is applying the process of lamination at nano-scale, enabling engineers to design and fabricate metals with superior performance characteristics and at lower cost than conventional methods.
The ability to cost-effectively fabricate nanolaminate metals that are more resistant to rust and corrosion alone would be a boon. Such materials could be used by engineering and construction companies for everything from civil engineering of public infrastructure to offshore energy (wind, as well as oil and gas), mining, home and building construction, tools, and consumer products. In a 2002 study, international corrosion authority NACE estimated corrosion in the U.S. results in direct costs of $276 billion a year across the economy.
At present, Modumetal’s products fall into one of four lines: structural parts, coatings and claddings, thermal barriers, and armor. Its zinc-based alloy NanoGalv outperforms conventional galvanization processes by over seven times, Modumetal co-founder and CEO Christina Lomasney said during an October 2014 interview for Rigzone. That significantly reduces the need for replacement parts over the life of metal components, as well as the risks and costs of fatigue and failure.
Nano-scale manufacturing of metal laminates
Development, and subsequent acquisition, of a new process to cost-effectively manufacture nanolaminate metal alloys at scale was the pivotal breakthrough achieved by Modumetal’s founders.
Rather than employing conventional vapor deposition – expensive and limited in terms of scale – Modumetal essentially “grows” custom-designed metals using an electrochemical process. This results in uniform deposition of nano-scale layers that conform to the exterior and interior contours of any object, no matter how complex its shape or form.
In an October, 2014 interview for Rigzone, Lomasney likened the process to the way Mother Nature builds structural components of living things, such as trees.
“If you look at a tree, you see the theme of a configured material,” Lomasney was quoted as saying. “In Mother Nature’s case, the structure is built so the seasons determine the density of the wood. In our case, electric field modulation is the equivalent of seasons, which is the core technology. We’re basically growing the laminated structure.”
The resulting nanolaminate metals and alloys can be designed to be lighter, stronger, more durable and more flexible than conventional metal products of whatever kind – steel, aluminum, etc. And they can be produced in high volume cost effectively, Modumetal touts.
Nanolaminate metal alloys: Lifecycle costs and commercial prospects
Major offshore oil and gas industry players have shown strong interest in Modumetal’s manufacturing process and products. Chevron and ConocoPhillips have invested in the privately-held company.
Modumetal has also announced it’s working with Hess on issues including corrosion, wear protection and structural reinforcement.
Building on its commercial prospects in the oil and gas industry, Modumetal in May 2014 announced it commissioned a new production facility in Washington state’s Snohomish County. The new facility “is supporting production lines for coatings and claddings of oil and gas production and casing tubulars, and is already expanding to accommodate growing product interest,” management stated in a press release.
Added Lomasney: “By using our patented coating and cladding technology in demanding, highly corrosive and punishing environments, we are demonstrating significant improvements in the performance, durability and longevity of oil-producing assets, all while maintaining cost competitiveness with commodity metal products.”
All other things held constant, effectively extending the life of metal alloys used across economic sectors would mean less demand for these materials and less need to mine more metal ores. Such reductions would also result in less air, water and land pollution by way of mining and metals production, thereby enhancing environmental and socioeconomic sustainability and quality of life.


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I don’t know how to feel about pink. The color has been inescapable of late, as Barbie branded shoes, clothes, rugs, and pool floats dominate my social media feeds. But the very meaning of pink seems to be changing. Barbie director Greta Gerwig has successfully wrapped a feminist message up in the traditionally girlie hue. And the public, in its enthusiasm for the movie, now the highest-grossing of the year, has adopted her signature color as well. Even men are wearing more pink. It’s not quite a neutral, but it seems to be trending more in that direction than it has at any moment in my lifetime.
Pink has always been fraught. It’s a color that many people either embrace or reject based on their concept of what it connotes. But it’s a question I’ve been wrestling with anew in the wake of reporting a Barbie cover story, and living in her pink world in the months preceding and following its publication, while simultaneously growing a baby girl inside me. As I scroll past yet another bubblegum onesie tangentially tied to the movie, I wonder, Do I incorporate Gerwig’s slightly subversive version of pink into my daughter’s life or is it still too restricting? Is pink’s rising popularity, especially among men, a signal that the gender binary is falling, or does it make the divide between men and women all the more defined? Put more plainly: Is pink still a “girl color,” and is it bad if it is?
To understand the meaning of pink right now is to study a marketing behemoth but also to recognize the societal changes that have been happening over time. Jada Schumacher, a color specialist and professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, argues that corporate entities beyond Mattel set the ubiquity of pink in motion long before the movie premiered. Pantone announced in January that its color of the year would be Viva Magenta, a more purplish shade of pink than the one associated with the doll. Shades of pink also cropped up last year at Valentino’s runway show and on celebs like Zendaya, Florence Pugh, and Anne Hathaway.
“It’s been alternating between saturated hues and very soft, but I think it’s been years in the making, regardless of Barbie,” Schumacher says. But as a Mattel executive put it to me in May, Barbiecore “didn’t just happen.” The company has tight ties to the fashion industry: Many successful designers dressed up Barbie as kids and have collaborated on a line of doll’s clothes at one point or another. The viral photos of stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling filming the movie no doubt stoked excitement and inspiration. And now pink has spread well beyond fashion. When Schumacher noted how pink even insurance commercials had become lately, I gently broke it to her that even Progressive has a specific Barbie partnership.
With each new pink partnership, the color seems to shed the notion that it’s exclusively reserved for girly girls or that it’s in any way unserious. Instead it’s an expression of empowerment. “The movie is reclaiming pink,” says Jo Paoletti, a professor emerita at the University of Maryland who specializes in fashion history and consumer culture and wrote a book on the pink-blue divide. “This is the kind of cultural phenomenon that launches 1,000 dissertations.”
Pink’s politics have changed in the last decade
It’s perhaps unfair to give Barbie all the credit. The perception of pink has changed radically just in the lifetimes of the Millennial women who flocked to see Gerwig’s film. That movie consciously references the aesthetic sensibilities of iconic female films from their childhoods—Clueless, Legally Blonde, and Mean Girls—to draw parallels between Barbie’s journey of self-discovery and those of other seemingly ditzy, fashion-obsessed blondes who found deeper meaning in life by the end of the film. When Elle Woods decides to wear a pink leather skirt suit for move-in day to Harvard Law School, the audience is meant to chuckle at her apparent frivolousness. She ends the movie in her all-black graduation gown. Cher’s pink-hued closet represents her obsession with fashion—until she finds new purpose and gives away many of her clothes. When Regina George insists, “On Wednesdays, we wear pink,” she uses the color as a status symbol distinguishing the cool (and vapid) girls from the mathletes.
Pink got a girl-boss makeover in the mid-2010s, according to Schumacher. A softer hue, Millennial pink, dominated the marketing of makeup company Glossier and period-underwear company Thinx, a nod toward their “made by powerful women, for powerful women” ethos. There was even a brief time where various interior design blogs argued that pink was the new neutral color to consider for your living room. Not coincidentally, Millennial Pink’s peak popularity around 2016 coincided with Hillary Clinton’s bid for President.
The next year, pink took on a new identity. Think back to 2017 and all the pussy hats at the Women’s March paired with rallying cries like “pussy grabs back” in response to former President Trump’s notorious Access Hollywood tape. Pink became an emblem for a more aggressive power, according to Rebecca Jordan-Young, the chair of the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies department at Barnard College (Gerwig’s alma mater). “The ramped-up vocal misogyny of Donald Trump…lots of women decided to own these symbols of femininity that had been grounds of disparagement,” she says. “The pink pussy hats were the most feminized moment of political activism I’ve seen in my adult life.”
That wasn’t an obvious transition. “People were saying, ‘Wait a minute, weren’t we anti-pink?’ and people were saying, ‘No, no, no, this is being used in an ironic way. We’re claiming femininity and women’s power,’” adds Paoletti. “Barbie has echoes of that, but it’s much more commercialized.”
Gerwig’s pink isn’t a color of protest. Frankly, that wouldn’t sell. Instead it’s one of fun vibes. It’s almost a relief for audiences to embrace the color without feeling they’re making a statement about their femininity. They’re simply reveling in the joy of an unabashedly feminine film.
But Paoletti believes the marriage of color and message is more complex than it might initially appear and applauds Gerwig’s ingenuity. “This isn’t a story about Barbie getting married and having a baby and becoming a compliant wife while wearing pink gingham. Not at all,” she says. In fact—spoiler alert for the end of the film—Barbie explicitly rejects a relationship with Ken in order to pursue her own path. “It’s the pairing of message and imagery that makes the pink powerful. Maybe it’s upsetting some conservatives exactly because people are using something that’s so traditionally feminine in a counterintuitive way.”
Is pink becoming more neutral?
As pink has become more popular, it’s figured more prominently in men’s fashion, as have other symbols of femininity. “The world is just becoming more gender fluid,” says Schumacher, though she cautions that pink still has different meanings for different age groups. “I think for Gen Z, maybe even Millennials, pink is becoming more of a neutral,” she says. Members of Gen Z think differently about gender than their predecessors: They are, for instance, are more likely to identify as trans or nonbinary and to believe that there are more than two genders than any previous generation. “But I think for Gen X,” Schumacher says, “we’re never going to totally lose that idea that ‘pink goes with girls.’” She says men of older generations probably won’t start wearing more pink, unless they’re “clotheshorses, urban trendy people, artists, people of that crowd.”
But that crowd can be rather influential. Lionel Messi, the most famous soccer player on earth, is wearing a pink jersey on his new MLS soccer team, Inter Miami. Not a jersey with a pop of pink. An entirely pink kit—shorts, socks, and all. As with Barbie, Messi’s arrival in the U.S. spurred a push for pink products, including Adidas literally spraying the city of Miami with pink smoke. David Beckham, the fashionable part-owner of the team and a soccer legend himself, championed the color. The team says that surveys have found Inter Miami’s fanbase wanted their players to wear pink because it would help the team stand out. Inter Miami is still the only American pro or college sports team to showcase the color, but they may not be the last. The pink jerseys are so popular that Adidas reportedly can’t keep them on the shelves. Still, old color stereotypes die hard: Iowa’s college-football team has notoriously painted their visiting locker room pink to discomfit other teams—a sexist choice they’ve been rightly roasted for on Twitter.
Messi isn’t the only dude wearing pink. Male tennis players from around the world have been sporting pink on the tour for years. Harry Styles has worn not only pink but clothing in general that defies the gender binary. Daniel Craig very consciously wore a pink jacket to the premiere of his final James Bond film at the end of a media tour in which he openly criticized the misogyny of the character. Pink has been the color of choice for several all-male K-Pop groups, including BTS. And pink was apparently inescapable on the streets outside men’s fashion week in Milan earlier this year.
These decisions tend to have a trickle-down effect, especially for younger generations. On TikTok younger men have been moving toward traditional symbols of femininity from pink to pearl chokers to bright-colored nails. Machine Gun Kelly, Tyler the Creator, and Pharrell have launched lines of nail polish. Men’s magazines are recommending the best pearl necklaces for men thanks to their popularity among even straight cis guys on mainstream reality shows like Love Island. Even professional baseball players are wearing pearls.
Still, Paoletti argues that it’s impossible to tell whether the trend will prove sustainable. Men started sporting long hair in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she says. It seemed rebellious at the time but has become fairly conventional since. Pink could follow the same pattern: “We won’t know until a year from now whether it’s mainstream.”
Jordan-Young, meanwhile, doesn’t believe that men wearing pink is a harbinger for some immense societal shift. Yes, the Kens sport pink and pastels in Barbie. But they do so to fit into Barbieland where all things revolve logistically and aesthetically around the Barbies. Jordan-Young argues that, if anything, the pink used in Barbie reasserts the gender binary: Barbieland is a woman’s paradise; therefore it’s pink. When the Kens and Barbies clash, Barbieland is briefly taken over by the Kens: They fill it with leather and cowhide and the traditional symbols of the hyper-masculine cowboy. Barbies like fashion and sleepovers. Kens like horses and boxing. There’s no crossover.
Jordan-Young says she admires Greta and the movie, but “found the gender binary of it, the pink of it, totally exhausting.” she says. “This movie is the most ‘war between the sexes’ thing I’ve seen since I was a little kid,” she says. That trope, that way of doing gender, is very, very mainstream.”
She’s hardly the only one to call out the lack of fluidity in the movie, though one could argue that Gerwig renders a rigidly binary world in order to critique the stereotypes associated with these two dolls, Barbie and Ken, who have always served as representations of “ideal” men and women—and does subtly hint with the character of Allan at a version of Barbieland that allows for a wider range of gender expression. One of the Barbies is played by Hari Nef, a trans actor who told TIME that she was attracted to the script because the very notion of a doll, or Barbie specifically, as the ideal of a woman is a complicated notion she wanted to explore with Gerwig. “It’s a tricky word that holds, for me anyway, such a strict standard created by the patriarchy that deserves to be scrutinized but also a promise of liberation and safety and belonging.”
The real test: Babies and pink
So where does all this leave the mothers of little girls? And how should I decorate my daughter’s nursery? For a while now, some parents who want to raise empowered daughters have been wary of dressing them or decorating their room in too much pink, worried about the power of princess fantasies and eager to avoid connecting their daughters to all those Legally Blonde-related stereotypes.
Laudable efforts have been made in the recent past to not impose pink and blue on babies. In the last decade, toy stores have begun to stop separating “girls’ toys” (dolls) in the “pink aisles” from “boys’ toys” (building blocks and chemistry sets) to mix everything together. In fashion, too, children’s clothing brands like Primary and Dinki Human are dedicated to ridding themselves of “boy” and “girl” labels in favor of vibrant options for all.
In some ways, the effort to rid the world of pink and replace it with a gender-neutral color scheme may even have gone too far. What’s come to be jokingly known as the “sad beige baby” trend favored by momfluencers has dominated Instagram for the last couple years. Baby Gap even created a beige section in some stores. The quiet luxury neutrals showcased by adult fashion brands like The Row and shows like Succession have made their way to toddlers to create one Instagram-friendly, minimalist aesthetic for the well-heeled parent—and those who want to avoid gendered colors anyway. In fact, the style has become so pervasive that even its own advocates are getting sick of it. As one TikToker points out, all those teeny-tiny beige baby clothes make children look like orphaned farmhands in a Werner Herzog film.
Now, if celebrities and influencers are any indication, parents seem to be rebelling against sad, beige babies and adopting, to varying extents, pink for baby girls once again (not that it ever entirely went away). Naomi Osaka’s nursery features both beige and pink. Chrissy Teigen and John Legend recently revealed in one of those addictive Architectural Digest videos that their daughter’s room is a bubble-gum daydream as is the one occupied by the child of supermodel Jasmine Tookes. The design magazine Domino assures me I’ll still love these pink nurseries after the Barbie trend fades.
But even if parents see pink as an empowering option for their daughters, they may not feel the same for their sons. Jordan-Young says the pink popping up is still definitively marketed to girls. “Are the pink baby clothes being sold to put the boy babies in too? That would be amazing, but I don’t think that’s happening,” she says.
If anything, Paoletti believes, companies are even more aggressively drawing lines in the sand when it comes to colors and babies. “Lavender used to be a perfectly acceptable gender-neutral color,” she says. “But now any kind of pastel, except for blue, is considered girlie. Even the territory of gender neutral has shrunk.”
Until we see a push by parents to dress their little baby boys in pink, the system remains rigid. The burden then falls upon the children themselves to find ways to express themselves sartorially. That’s certainly happening among teens and tweens, but it doesn’t indicate our notions of color will be completely overthrown anytime soon.
“I see individual people insisting that they can and will move outside and across the gender binary and not be captured by it,” says Jordan-Young. “But that’s very different from dismantling the binary itself. Those individuals shouldn’t be left to do all the work.” In other words, dressing in pink still means breaking with your given “team” as opposed to uprooting the very idea of teams at all.
“It hasn’t weakened the binary at all. If anything, there’s a way in which there is a more conscious articulation of gender as a binary than there has been in a very long time,” she adds. “It’s an interesting paradox.”
So if I dress my baby in Barbie pink, am I empowering her or imposing society’s conceptions of color on her? “It’s not that simple,” says Paoletti, reminding me that very young babies can’t even see color. The war is still among the adults.
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In addition to a lighter, faster and probably better version of its fast pro lens, Nikon also updated its 1.4x teleconverter.
T-Mobile announces that it will sell a trio of LG devices, including the company's new marquee Android phone.
Look out, Pentax is coming after the Tough TG-2, and it's bringing more than just a bright lens.
The LG Optimus F3Q for T-Mobile features a five-row QWERTY keyboard, Android 4.1.2, and 4G LTE connectivity.
Running Android 4.1.2 with 4G LTE, the prepaid LG Optimus F3Q is aimed for QWERTY fans on T-Mobile.
The prepaid carrier starts selling its most affordable LTE-ready smartphone to date.
The new midrange LG smartphone introduced at Mobile World Congress could soon find a home at Verizon Wireless.
The carrier introduces a new keyboard-equipped Android phone, and finally shares pricing on its first bendable handset.
An image tweeted by @evleaks shows a touch-screen device with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard destined for T-Mobile's network.
Using Formula 1 scoring, which wacky racer would mount the podium as the overall winner of the classic cartoon?


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Los Angeles: At the Tesla Cybertruck unveiling here, Elon Musk asked the companys lead designer, Franz von Holzhausen, to demonstrate the strength of the “Armor Glass” by throwing a solid metal, baseball-sized ball at the window, but surprisingly the glass broke when the ball was overarmed into it.
“We threw wrenches, we threw everything, we even literally threw a kitchen sink at the glass, and it didn’t break. For a little weird reason it broke now, I don’t know why,” Musk said on Thursday.
He then joked, “We’ll fix it in post.”
Interestingly, the video went private on Tesla’s YouTube channel about 30 seconds after the live stream was over.
Starting at $39,900, “Cybertruck” is inspired by “Lotus Esprit S1” from the Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me”.
The truck will come in three versions with 250 miles, 300 miles and 500 miles of range, respectively.
According to research firm IHS Markit, the Ford F-150 has been the top-selling pickup truck in the US for more than 40 years, followed by GM’s Chevrolet Silverado.
Pickup trucks are currently the fastest-growing segment in the US.
At the Los Angeles event at the Tesla Design Centre late Thursday, Musk took a dig at Ford, showing a video of a “tug of war” between F-150 and the Cybertruck.


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The Daily Mail's City team examine the basket of goods that are monitored to determine the price of our daily lives – And why broccoli has replaced Brussels sprouts in our affections.
What is it?
A virtual shopping basket containing 650 goods and services that are meant to represent a cross-section of widely purchased products.
The basket is used by number crunchers to generate the national inflation rate.
Prices are collected every month at 150 points dotted around Britain and aggregated into two main measures - the Consumer Prices Index and the Retail Prices Index.
What's in it?
Its contents change once a year, providing an intriguing insight into British spending habits.
Among the updates announced yesterday was the addition of olive oil (replacing vegetable oil), and broccoli (replacing the unloved Brussels sprout).
Brie, the king of French cheese, was unceremoniously kicked out in favour of pro-biotic drinks. But GPS navigation systems were added, despite their tendency to guide drivers into canals.
Does it matter?
The make-up of the inflation basket can be hugely significant.
For example, the Office for National Statistics was criticised last year for not giving gas and electricity bills enough weight in the index. The weighting was boosted yesterday, but given the big utility bill cuts looming this year, you could argue things have swung too far the other way.
If statisticians fiddle with the basket too often, it could result in chaos.
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Jio (Reliance Jio Infocomm) has refused that the reduction of IUC (interconnect usage charge) might profit the new contestant and actually referred the cut “6 Years too late”, pointing out that it must have taken place as per directive of the regulator in 2011.
“There is no query of any benefit from the new regulation of IUC to Jio since it has previously passed on all the advantages to users. We reject any advantages to Jio,” the telecom operator owned by Mukesh Ambani claimed to the media this week in a statement. This was in reply to the current players opposing that the rate cut of IUC of almost 57% advantages only Jio and will result in losses for an economic segment already under money owing of Rs 5 Lakh Crore.
Bharti Airtel, the market leader, claimed that the rate of IUC, which has been brought in at a fully non-apparent style, advantages only one company that takes pleasure in a big traffic irregularity in its support. Vodafone this week in a statement claimed that this was a nostalgic move that will advantage only Jio and effect the sector especially in the rural coverage. Jio, which experts claim will arrive to profit from the loss of the current players, refuses these charges too.
“References to economic pressure in the sector or the demand for IUC to market rural coverage once more shows the approach of the current operators in which IUC is being considered as a subsidy that the users of India must give to support these companies financially,” claimed the company to the media in response to the email queries. Jio actually claimed that the high price IUC rule thus far has led financial pressure for the new and smaller operators.
The rates of IUC was cut from the current 14 Paise to 6 Paise each minute this week and the regulator claimed that it might be dropped from 2020 down to 0 Paise. Jio claimed that it was dreadful that the current operators made accusations that the fresh rates were baseless and not transparent. “The current operators have a past of protesting all the regulations of IUC since the last 8 Years, but have been unsuccessful in discomforting passing of the advantages of reduced IUC to the users.”
The telecom company that has been battling for the BAK (Bill and Keep) model claimed that the users will profit from this order.


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Teiss guest blogger Andrew Davies, VP Global Market Strategy at financial services provider Fiserv offers some practical advice on stopping “fake CEO” fraud.
The risk of fraud within corporations has increased dramatically over the past decade. As the number of payment channels and methods increases to meet the demand of an ever switched-on society, the opportunity for fraudsters to hack into systems has similarly increased.
Today’s consumers are becoming more demanding when it comes to accessing their money, transferring money and making payments; they want to be able to view their accounts whenever and wherever they want. New technology provides vendors, clients and partners with an easy and efficient way to send and receive payments.
Alongside this growth however, fraudsters are aware of the high potential transaction value of transferring funds electronically and are turning to subversive means, such as impersonating senior executives, to fraudulently steal huge amounts of money from corporations.
A new type of fraud
With the amount of financial crime committed having increased by 53% in a year, and with financial fraudulent activity predicted to be taking place once every 15 seconds, it is no surprise that this particular type of fraud, often known as “CEO fraud”, has crippled many organisations over the past few years. Individuals create bogus messages appearing to be from a senior leader within a business, for example the CEO, which asks employees to wire funds across to them. The messages appear authentic and so this tricks the employees into transferring large amounts of cash electronically.
Fraudulent transactions such as these average around £50,000 ($67,000), although individual incidents targeting fewer people in a company can easily reach seven figure sums. It is easy to see how CEO fraud has the potential to bankrupt a major business. According to a recent FBI report, CEO fraud has cost organisations more than £2.3 billion ($3 billion) in losses over the past three years alone. Email deception, as well as scams carried out on the phone and over SMS, are now common tools in the modern bank robber’s trade.
The exponential payoff and high probability of success makes CEO fraud an attractive proposition for criminals. In order to reduce the risk of CEO fraud, and to ensure that employees have confidence in their employer, organisations need to implement advanced and accurate security controls to analyse patterns and flag potential frauds before transactions are completed, because once payments have been made, it is very hard to reverse them.
This is a large problem. But there are a number of effective methods organisations can introduce to make it more difficult for fraudsters to commit CEO fraud. As technology finally catches up with criminal intelligence, it is imperative that companies are prepared to protect themselves and their employees, not only through advanced technology, but also through new policy implementation.
1. Create special, risk-based processes for approving unusual transfer requests
Putting in place a system which will flag any payment requests larger than a particular amount, for example greater than £10,000, is a simple way for organisations to monitor transfers that appear unusual. Investing in the technology that can flag these irregularities also allows organisations to capitalise on its multi-faceted capabilities.
In addition to flagging large requests, this software is able to leverage analytics that can recognise and uncover deviations in an individual’s behaviour; if an employee never usually transfers large amounts of cash, the system will flag a large transaction as unusual activity to the fraud team and it can then be investigated.
Similarly, transactions requested in unusual locations can be recognised. For example, if a request and consequent transfer has come from a different continent, a notification can be sent to the organisation to look into the transaction. These additional layers of security can be easily implemented by companies, and can be a straightforward method of lowering the risk of falling victim to CEO fraud.
2. Outsource the review of transfer requests
Outsourcing is another, increasingly popular, method that organisations can implement to help combat the threat of CEO fraud. Employing an external accountant or financial assistant to perform sophisticated and thorough reviews of wire transfers can help in preventing unintended fraudulent activity. Sending the requests for review outside the organisation ensures impartiality, and different technology will ensure that checks are more stringent.
3. Perform regular and comprehensive scans of email systems
The most common method that allows fraudsters to commit CEO is being able to hack into email servers. Once the servers have been hacked, the fraudsters send authentic-looking requests for money from counterfeit C-level email addresses.
Employees more often than not respond to these emails without question. They see them as being sent from a senior manager and they may not necessarily be concentrating wholly on the request.As soon as these email addresses and emails have been created and distributed, the criminal deletes them and they become virtually untraceable.
In order to avoid this happening employees should be instructed to change their passwords and log-in information on a regular basis, and the organisation can run standard, routine checks of their email servers to ensure any fraudulent attempts or unusual behaviour are flagged.
4. Use analytics and predictive techniques for real-time detection
In this increasingly digital world, there is a constant influx of data, not only from internal processes, but also from customers and other organisations in the same industry. Companies can leverage this vast amount of data to help combat CEO fraud in real-time.
Collecting data, both internally and from industry consortiums, enables companies to track and understand better fraud patters. It provides the ability to create an in-depth analysis of CEO fraud, what it typically looks like and when and how fraudsters target employees across a wide variety of organisations. This in turn enables corporations to better recognise unusual behaviour, and increase the likelihood of pre-empting and preventing fraudulent behaviour.
5. Education and company policy
An additional method to lessen the threat of CEO fraud is that of education. An organisation should ensure that they have sufficient training in place to ensure that employees are aware of the risks of CEO fraud, as well as knowing what to do should they think they have been targeted. Companies of any size should ensure that they have an adequate reporting infrastructure in place so that employees are well aware of protocol, and to ensure that fraudulent attempts can be monitored and dealt with correctly.
Self-service risk management is also an easy way to ensure that employees are monitoring themselves and each other. This action does require a solid reporting infrastructure; yet company-wide awareness of what to look for can be very effective alongside the implementation of technology. Introducing a policy whereby all requests for money within a company are made verbally, or through an official channel, is an additional way that a corporation can help prevent large amounts of money being stolen fraudulently.
Wire transfers are typically large, fast and difficult to repudiate, and with the introduction of more and more real-time settlement systems globally, the transfers are often final and it is difficult to reverse the transaction once it has occurred. Incorporating and implementing steps such as outsourcing, predictive models and company policy to lower the risk of CEO fraud, is crucial to a company’s success in the digital age.
Organisations that can fit these solutions seamlessly into payment processes will be able to better protect themselves and their employees against this type of fraud. The UK government has committed to spending £1.9billion on cyber security and cyber crime over the next five years, and it is critical that companies capitalise on this investment and incorporate strategies into everyday practices to mitigate fraudulent losses.
Andrew Davies is vice president, global market strategy, Financial Crime Risk Management solutions at Fiserv. He works with Fiserv customers around the world to design effective risk management solutions to mitigate financial crime risks. He is also responsible for seeking new markets and applications for Fiserv’s financial crime detection and prevention solutions.
Davies joined Fiserv in 2007. He has worked in the software industry for more than twenty years supporting many of the world’s largest financial institutions. His experience covers real-time payments, front-office trading, risk mitigation of financial crime risk, settlement risk, and more.
Davies studied Pure Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Wales. He is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and has worked with customers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He is a respected industry speaker and author having presented at SIBOS and ABA events and contributed to articles in the American Banker and Credit Union Journal, among other publications.


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Samsung Phone Adds TV Reception
These days it seems like handset manufacturers are trying to add any random capability they can think of to their phones. The latest to get some attention is Samsung’s decision to add a TV tuner in the phone itself to pick up over the air television. For now, the phone will only be available in Korea. The article suggests that functionality like this could be a threat to carriers who want to offer “video on demand” style downloads (for a fee). Of course, with all this talk about watching TV on your mobile phone, I still remember the little portable handheld TVs that were popular for a year or so way back when. After showing it off to friends and maybe using it on one camping trip, most people ended up letting that TV collect dust in the closet. Watching television is not generally something you want to do “on the run”. Plus, with the growing popularity of digital video recorders, it certainly cuts down on the need to use a phone to watch a TV show now that you can easily record to watch later.


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February 02, 2021 6:47 pm
Tablet shipments through 2020 were led by brands including Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Amazon and Huawei.
November 27, 2020 3:26 pm
Foxconn Technology Group will move the manufacturing of some Apple Inc iPads and MacBooks to Vietnam from China
September 01, 2020 4:21 pm
There is no official word on the launch of the new iPad this fall or whether they will be launched alongside the new iPhone 12 series which has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
July 11, 2020 12:34 pm
Developers and testers of Apple’s most recent mobile operating system, iOS 14, found LinkedIn’s application was secretly reading users’ clipboards “a lot,” according to the complaint.
March 26, 2020 10:59 am
Apple releases new iOS and iPadOS update. Here's to download iOS 13.4 and iPadOS 13.4 on your iPhones, iPad.
December 01, 2019 10:47 am
Apple iPad 6th-gen, iPad 7th-gen, MacBook Air Core i5 5th-gen, and MacBook Air Core i5 8th-gen are available at discounted price during Flipkart's Big Shopping Days sale.
June 18, 2019 3:36 pm
Adobe Fresco will be the iPad drawing and painting app from the company, which was earlier called Project Gemini. Adobe had first revealed detailed about Project Gemini in October 2018
April 06, 2019 8:04 pm
It looks like the new iPad Mini (2019) can bend with some considerable amount of pressure but the screen does not break, according to well-known YouTube channel JerryRigEverything.
October 28, 2018 6:21 pm
Apple event on October 30: The Cupertino-based company is expected to launch a new range of iPads, as well as an improved Mac lineup and AirPods 2, at its event in New York.
September 20, 2018 7:51 pm
A recent tweet from developer Steve Troughton-Smith suggests that the company’s upcoming tablet is likely to support 4K external displays.
January 28, 2020 4:52 pm
Apple iPad has completed 10 years on January 27, 2020. Here is a timeline of how the tablet evolved over the years and became part of a larger offering.
June 22, 2020 6:08 pm
Apple iPad Pro 2018 is available in two versions. We tried out the 12.9-inch version with the keyboard folio and new Apple Pencil. Here is the review.


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Shipments of connected devices to exceed PCs in 2013
August 10, 2011
Shipments of Internet-enabled consumer electronics devices will exceed those of the PC for the first time in 2013, according to IHS iSuppli.
Shipments of Internet-enabled consumer electronics devices, a category including a wide range of products from televisions to video game consoles, to Blu-ray players will surge to 503.6 million units in 2013, up from 161 million in 2010. In comparison, PC shipments during the same period will amount to 253.3 million, up from 222.3 million.
In 2015, shipments of Internet-enabled consumer devices will breach three-quarters of a billion units, at 780.8 million units, massively exceeding PC shipments of 479.1 million.
“These new figures are the latest evidence that the Internet is not just for PCs anymore,” said Jordan Selburn, principal analyst for consumer platforms at IHS. “The Internet now is revolutionising the consumer electronics business by delivering a range of products that can bring web-based content to homes. Increasingly, each Internet-enabled consumer electronics device is vying to become the centre of what is known as the digital living room, aggregating content throughout the home and serving up movies, television programs, videos and music. In the future, consumers will be more likely to access the Internet through their televisions than via their PCs.”
The 50 per cent rise in the shipments of Internet-enabled consumer electronics devices will be led by the media tablet, projected to become the fastest-growing segment within the space and spurred by the massive success of Apple’s iPad.
This year, Internet-enabled consumer electronics device shipments are anticipated to reach 241.2 million units, up from 161.0 million units last year and 108.3 million units in 2009. After the 49 per cent increase in 2009 and this year’s growth, the market’s expected expansion in 2012 of another 50 per cent will mean three straight years of improvement at this magnitude.
The top Internet-enabled devices last year were game consoles, with shipments of 50.5 million units; and televisions, with 40.0 million. However, media tablets are set to grab the top spot in 2011 with projected shipments of 61.9 million, up a thunderous 214 percent from 19.7 million last year.
From virtually nonexistent levels just two years ago, media tablets will ship more than 300 million units by 2015, 15 times greater than in 2010, for a five-year compound annual growth rate of 73.3 percent. No other Internet-enabled device in the next four years will come close to that kind of growth.
Aside from the media tablet, other Internet-enabled devices that will grow rapidly in the years to come are Blu-ray players and set-top boxes.
In the case of Blu-ray players, expansion in the segment will be driven by the growing uptake of high-definition displays as well as the mandatory adoption of Internet capability. After media tablets, Blu-ray players will have the second-highest compound annual growth rate at 37.9 per cent.
For their part, set-top boxes offer features that cannot be duplicated by other systems-such as obtaining content from multiple sources like video on demand or “catch up” television, in addition to the content already available from cable or satellite providers-likely making the device a long-term, high-value fixture.


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As you've probably heard by now, Amazon just took the wraps off two new Kindle models: the Kindle Wi-Fi and Kindle Free 3G+Wi-Fi.
Let's set aside for a moment the curious naming conventions at work here. (Yo, Amazon: was something wrong with "Kindle 3" and "Kindle 3 Wi-Fi Edition"? What's with all the vague "All-New Kindle" and "Latest Generation" monikers?) The big news is price, at least for the Wi-Fi model: $139.
When the Kindle debuted nearly three years ago, I was excited by the hardware (I'm … Read more
Yes, the rumors are true.
Amazon on Wednesday officially unveiled a next-generation Kindle that is what many tech pundits thought it would be: smaller and lighter, with a better screen and some Wi-Fi thrown into the mix.
The new e-reader comes in a couple of flavors, one with both Wi-Fi and 3G wireless for $189, and a Wi-Fi-only version that costs $139, some $10 less than Barnes & Noble's Nook Wi-Fi. The new Kindles are available in graphite or white and ship on August 27, with Amazon taking pre-orders for both e-readers now.
On top of the more compact … Read more
Amazon has sold out of its least expensive Kindle, perhaps providing further evidence of the e-reader's popularity, or signaling a new device in the offing.
Anyone who has visited the popular e-tailer's site in the past year or so has grown accustomed to being greeted by the Kindle's image. However, as of Tuesday afternoon, the base $189 Kindle had been replaced on Amazon's home page by the $379 Kindle DX.
The page for the base Kindle featured a note to shoppers saying the device was "temporarily out of stock. Order now and we'll deliver … Read more
The second-quarter earnings that Amazon.com announced Thursday weren't quite up to par with what Wall Street had been hoping. But Wall Street had been hoping for good things, and the results were still pretty decent. One of the areas of growth worth highlighting the most for Amazon was all things Kindle--the e-reader device, and the huge marketplace of digital books available for it as well as for apps on third-party devices like Apple's iPhone and iPad and the Android mobile operating system.
In the earnings announcement Thursday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos characterized the Kindle system as an … Read more
E-commerce powerhouse Amazon.com said Thursday that its second-quarter revenues were up 41 percent from the previous year, jumping to $6.57 billion in revenues at $0.45 earnings per share.
Unfortunately, Wall Street had been hoping for $0.54 per share.
The gains were due in part to the increasing popularity of the Kindle e-book system--consisting of the physical Kindle e-reader, which has been an impressive hit, and the e-book marketplace that's also accessible via Kindle apps for devices like Apple's iPad. Earlier this week, Amazon announced that for the first time, it's selling more Kindle titles than hardcover books. … Read more
The Wylie Agency, which represents authors such as Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and John Updike, is publishing 20 books through its new Odyssey Editions imprint and making them available for sale exclusively in Amazon.com's Kindle Store for $9.99.
Andrew Wylie, the founder and head of the agency, has been locked in a battle with publishing houses over the digital rights to a number of modern classics and "backlist" titles. His new move makes a big statement to big-name publishers, which have been shut out of a potentially lucrative revenue stream. Because digital rights have only been included in more-recent book publishing contracts, the electronic rights to a multitude of famous books are held by authors.
Deals, such as this one with Wylie, have the potential of netting authors or their estates much higher royalties than if they'd signed an e-book deal with a major publishing house. … Read more
We tried, I swear we did; we had the sincerest intentions not to talk about Inception again, but all three of us have finally seen the movie and while we're generally happy with the film, it wouldn't be The 404 without Wilson almost ruining the ending for everyone who hasn't seen it yet.
We'll have to find a chicken leg to keep him busy next time. Full disclosure: the first 5 minutes of today's show is about Inception (with a little more during Calls From the Public), but it's definitely SPOILER FREE!
The big … Read more
Another decade, another attempt at an almost certainly ill-fated universal DRM scheme. Hooray! This time, it's UltraViolet, and no, Disney (meaning Apple) isn't on board. Also, new details on how Google and China reached their license renewal deal. Upshot: diplomacy in action. And Apple is closing in on surpassing Microsoft in actual revenue. Yowsa.Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (640x360) | RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS (640x360)… Read more


text: A relatively new startup in the bay, Leap Motion, has been causing a stir as they have unveiled the fruits of this last year’s labor – an affordable, fast, motion detection system for the PC and Mac. It has already been hailed as the final blow to the mouse. Since the release of Minority Report there has been a fascination with motion detection user input. Developers instantly saw it’s ability to change the way we interact with and control electronics. Nintendo struck the first blow with the Wii gaming console which detects the motion of a remote. Then, Microsoft released the Kinect for XBox, their gaming console, which can detect the motion of an arm or a leg. Leap Motion is 100 times more accurate, seeing details down to the movement of a single finger. They claim it will be the most accurate sensor available on the market.


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Full news story on Books-A-Million adds voice to oppose Dept. of Justice e-book price fixing deal.
Books-A-Million adds voice to oppose Dept. of Justice e-book price fixing deal
Jun 22 2012
Books-A-Million has joined the growing number of parties objecting to the Department of Justice’s agreement with Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins to settle the department’s e-book price fixing lawsuit. BAM’s letter, signed by president and CEO Terry Finley, strikes especially hard at the provisions in the settlement that would impose restrictions on how the publishers can do business with all third parties (including BAM) that were not involved in the lawsuit. If the restrictions on the agency model are upheld, it will “provide Amazon the opportunity to revert to its anti-competitive e-book pricing strategy which will place additional pressure on brick-and-mortar stores," Finley argued.
Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate(Jun 12 2013) Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position...


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Neste provides renewable fuel in California, K Group and Thrsty squeeze juice from discarded fruit, Ysub raises coin for CBD beverages, a VTT-led startup accelerator completes its first round, Arkki International launches education programmes in Turkey, and Lappeenranta is awarded for its climate actions. Click on the headlines for more in-depth information about each piece of news.
The Twin Rivers Unified School District (USD) near Sacramento, California, has switched its fleet of 75 diesel-powered school buses to run on renewable fuel provided by Neste. The switch enables the school district to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its buses by up to 80 per cent over the fuel’s life cycle and turn its fleet into one of the cleanest in the country. The Twin Rivers USD is the 28th largest school district in California with 26 000 students. Under normal circumstances, more than 25 000 school buses in the state bring millions of students to school every day, with about 65 per cent of the buses running on fossil diesel. Image: Neste
Finnish retail chain K Group and juice maker Thrsty have started a collaboration to turn edible fruit, vegetables and berries discarded at K Group’s central warehouse into juice, which will be sold in K-food shops. Fruit and vegetables sometimes suffer bruises when handled at the warehouse or don’t meet the cosmetic standards, which means they can’t be sold at shops but can still be turned into juice. The Hyvis juice will be available in K Group’s grocery shops from October 2020, in returnable plastic bottles. Image: Thrsty / Facebook
Finnish beverage startup Ysub Drinks has raised 250 000 euros in its first funding round. Launched in Finland in September, Ysub’s first beverage contains vitamins, hemp and lemon balm and is said to have relaxing qualities. The company brands itself as the opposite to the hectic contemporary lifestyle (its name is ‘busy’ spelt in reverse). Ysub is also preparing its second product, the first CBD (cannabidiol) beverage in the Nordics. Foods containing CBD are not allowed to be sold in Finland as of yet, but Ysub plans to launch the beverage first in select European and Asian countries where they are found, as well as the US, where they are already common. Image: Ysub
The first acceleration programme at the EIT FAN Nordic Hub, led by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, has been completed. Altogether, 10 Nordic startups took part in the programme that culminated in a demo-day event, where the teams pitched their businesses to investors, partners, media and judges. Two of the startups, Finland’s eniferBio and Sweden’s Mycorena, were selected to compete for 100 000-euro prizes in the European Food Venture Summit. Helsinki-based EIT FAN Nordic Hub is one of six accelerators in the European EIT Food Accelerator Network (FAN), which aims to promote a sustainable food system. Image: VTT
Arkki International has partnered with Turkey Design Council to bring its educational programmes to different regions of Turkey. The collaboration sets off with the Finnish edtech company’s creative workshops in Istanbul in the autumn of 2020. The partners will also broaden the scope of Arkki’s offering in the coming months, as well as provide long-term programmes in Turkey starting from spring 2021. Arkki has developed a novel creative education scheme that teaches children essential 21st-century skills like creativity, complex problem solving and critical thinking through architecture and design. Image: Arkki International
Finland’s Lappeenranta and Bulgaria’s Gabrovo have received the European Commission’s European Green Leaf Award, a recognition given annually to up to two cities with 20 000–100 000 inhabitants for commitment to better environmental outcomes. Read our full article by clicking the headline. Image: Visit Lappeenranta


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Worried about the Chinese New Year? A growing number of American businesses are. This year, the annual tradition of workers returning home for the holiday may yield disruptive effects on supply chains that provide “Made in China” products to American stores.
Already short on labor, the Chinese factories that will lose droves of workers for the 15-day holiday may not see those workers return. Many of these workers are believed to be hoping for new jobs as they approach the New Year. Factory jobs just do not hold the appeal they once had in this massive country. A loss of factory workers in China will snowball into a shortage of goods on American shelves. Any such snowballs ultimately land red on the bottom line of American businesses that source from the factories, which just may start the New Year sharply below capacity.
With the growing strain on workforce supply in China, American companies are beginning to reexamine ways to hedge against over-exposure in this sourcing market. “Made in China” is likely here to stay, but businesses will be sharpening their sourcing strategies.
The rising energy demand that has made China the world’s largest energy consumer is another concern floating around the water coolers of sourcing departments and in executive hallways. Why? This rising demand is driving a responsive rise in energy costs.
We may not know yet what will happen after the Chinese New Year. We do know, however, that China is looking to address its long-term energy needs. A major component in China’s energy management plan: nuclear power.
Nuclear energy is building quite the buzz among the energy professionals milling around our WaterCooler these days (see here and here). Wyatt Taylor started the conversation by noting that the American nuclear revolution has cooled. This cooling has occurred as economic climate shifts have erased projected profit margins now under pressure from low traditional commodity costs and decreased energy demands.
With energy demand projected to continue its rapid growth in China, the Chinese are not being slowed by the same economic pressures. Committed to reducing their energy outsourcing, they are moving forward with their aggressive nuclear energy program. Already with 40 percent of the world’s current nuclear power plants under construction, the nation is hoping to see a ten-fold increase in nuclear capacity by 2020 and a fifty-fold capacity increase by 2050.
Going forward, American shelves may end up shedding some of their products once manufactured in Chinese factories. Nuclear energy, however, will only continue to grow its “Made in China” footprint.


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The Oppo Reno 2 series has been launched in India, read on to know about the pricing, details, specifications and much more!
The Oppo Reno 2 series is coming soon to India, here’s a list of everything that we know till now about this upcoming smartphone!
The Oppo Reno2 series is coming soon. It will be an India first series with quad camera and a top of the line 20x zoom variant. Read on!


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World's biggest pork producer jumps into plant-based proteinsPosted: Updated:
The world's biggest pork maker is getting into the plant-based protein business. Smithfield Foods is releasing a new line of soy-based products, including burgers, meatballs and breakfast patties. Smithfields is following other meat producers in embracing meatless products. A recent Barclays report estimates the plant-based category could capture as much as 10% of the global meat market in 10 years.
Shoe brand Allbirds is getting into the apparel world with a line of socks. The new socks will all be made from sustainable materials, just like its lineup of shoes. Allbirds says it is releasing three styles of socks, priced between $12 and $16. The company was recently valued at $1.4 billion.
Snap has announced its newest model of spectacles, with an added HD camera for depth perception. The company says it will be a limited release and marketed for "fashion-forward" creative types. The augmented reality glasses will go for $380.


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Smart's hot four-door city car is on the way with 50 per cent more power, and our snappers have captured it with minimal disguise
Smart's dinky two-seat ForTwo has returned, sitting on a shortened version of the Renault Twingo's chassis
The new auto gearbox in the Smart ForTwo is a big leap forward from its flawed predecessor
A bit late for April Fools' Day, Smart's ForFour takes to the rails
Smart's new convertible city car is spotted tackling a rainstorm ahead of likely late 2015 debut
Smart's plan to build a small SUV may be revived according to Mercedes-Benz chief Dr. Dieter Zetsche speaking at Shanghai Motor Show
Smart fancies its ForFour as king of the urban jungle, but the SEAT Mii and Renault Twingo stand in its way
New five-door Smart ForFour city car adds practicality, but it comes at a relatively high price
Smart aims to stay ahead of rivals with new “facelift by download” concept through smartphone app
Smart’s ForFour blends city car running costs with added practicality – but is it worth its premium price tag?
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The wait is over! Coachella has announced it's line up for 2019 and it is JAM PACKED with some huge names. Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande are this year's headliners. DJ Snake, Diplo, Juice WRLD, Bazzi, Khalid, Kacey Musgraves, Zedd, Wiz Khalifa, The 1975, Janelle Monae, Ella Mai and J Balvin are just a few other reputable names that will be tearing it up in April!
Tickets go on sale Friday here.


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Forget Dry January... here comes Veganuary! Latest celebrity fad involves cutting out meat, fish and dairy for a month
- January 2016 will see 50,000 people in the UK dabble with veganism
- Brad Pitt, Beyoncé and Gwyneth Paltrow have all raved about the diet
- Health, animal rights and environmental factors top of people's motivation
January has traditionally been a time for abstinence, but this new trend might just be taking 'new year, new me' to an altogether different level.
The latest health fad is adopting veganism throughout the month of January and, according to experts, some 50,000 of us are taking part this year.
Eschewing all things meat, fish and dairy, participants of 'Veganuary' will be attempting to eat a completely animal-free diet for the entire month.
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Participants of Veganuary will cut out all meat, fish and dairy from their diet for the first month of 2016, in favour of grains, beans, fruits and vegetables. Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow are both famously vegan
Actors Gwyneth Paltrow, left, and Brad Pitt, right, have both extolled the virtues of veganism in recent years
It is the third official year of the campaign and, according to its organisers, the biggest yet, having grown from a mere 3,000 participants in 2014 to around 12,800 in 2015.
It may owe its growing popularity in part to high-profile vegans Beyoncé, Gwyeth Paltrow, Brad Pitt and Ellie Goulding, who have all raved about the benefits of an animal-free diet.
In 2013, Gwyneth famously boasted that she hadn't eaten red meat in 20 years, while Brad Pitt is an ardent animals rights activist.
Meanwhile, this month will see a slew of 'vegan-curious' celebrities including designer Vivienne Westwood and comedians Sarah Pascoe and Romesh Ranganathan choosing to dabble with veganism.
Organisers insist that veganism not just a display of sanctimonious healthy living; it is also a way of helping to alleviate the world's food crisis.
Fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood, left, and comedian Romesh Ranganathan will be taking part
WHAT DO VEGANS EAT?
A vegan diet is primarily made up of grains, beans, fruits and vegetables.
Vegans do not eat anything that comes from an animal.
Therefore, they do not eat fish, meat or anything containing animal fats.
They also avoid dairy products such as cows’ milk, cheese and yoghurt.
They do not eat eggs or products containing eggs.
They also avoid foods processed using animal products - such as refined white sugar and some wines.
They tend not to wear clothes made from animals - such as leather and wool - and using beauty products and medicines that have been tested on animals.
Veganuary's marketing manager Clea Grady told the Guardian that concern for animals and environmental factors were also top of the list of people's reasons for signing up.
She said: 'We ask about motivation when people sign up to Veganuary and, for the past two years, animals are the primary reason by a large majority, with health coming second, and the environment third.
'There is an increasing awareness and concern at how we treat, use and abuse animals, and this is growing year on year.
'Anecdotally, we know that, for whatever reason an individual approaches veganism, the lines begin to blur once education has taken place.'
Clea added that veganism had seen a significant spike in popularity over the past year and a half.
'There has been a marked increase in enthusiasm in the UK over the past 12 to 18 months, and that’s extremely exciting to see,' she said.
'This has resulted in more media coverage, many more vegan products on our shelves, and ever-increasing numbers of Veganuary participants. We are starting to catch up with the States, but they continue to pave the way.'
An estimated 12 per cent of people living in the UK are vegan. Those wanting to sign up should visit veganuary.com.
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At a cost of £14.5bn and counting
Analytics house GlobalData has calculated that British retailers have shut 382 million sq ft of floor space since the UK’s coronavirus lockdown on 23 March, causing a £14.5bn drop in sales – though it claims that equates to roughly £200 of delayed or cancelled spending per each local.
Maureen Hinton, global retail director at GlobalData, said: “Measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the community is hitting non-food retailers the hardest, particularly clothing specialists, which account for 36 per cent of these lost sales.
“While some of these sales will have transferred online the majority will not be recovered, speeding up the demise of the weakest operators and the permanent closure of even more retail space.”
Many traditional bricks and mortar retailers were already feeling the pinch of more shoppers switching online before the spread of the virus and unfortunately this outbreak may be the straw the broke the camel’s back.
Arcadia, which owns Top Shop, is reported to be considering permanently shutting 100 stores. It was already struggling and last year cut a deal with landlords to close 23 stores. Another 12 have been closed this year. In other signs of stress in the market, Debenhams, Oasis and Warehouse have all fallen into administration.
Dixons Carphone top brass take 20% pay cut as swathes of Brit workforce furloughed
This will inevitably have an impact on IT spend in retail. Last year, Gartner forecast global retail investment in technology would grow by 3.6 per cent through 2020 as retailers increase tech investment to better respond to changing customer habits. AI and analytics were topping the investment priorities, the research group said.
Still, it is hard to see how retailers can invest when their own cash is so dramatically depleted.
The overall economic picture looks bleak in the UK: last week the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent unit advising the government’s fiscal and monetary policies, said the economy could shrink by 35 per cent as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, and cause a 10 per cent unemployment rate.
Generally, IT spending in the past month has shifted to home working tech as businesses asked their employees to work remotely. Collaboration tools, notebooks, computer monitors, cloud services and enterprise software have gone through the roof. The same cannot be said for classic enterprise hardware.
Last month, Global Data predicted a drop in software sales for the year. “All IT projects that can be shelved will be shelved until at least 2021. Software vendors must prepare for a tough year where very little net new business will be won before the final quarter,” the data cruncher said.
With the virus crisis still not under control, it is very difficult to predict how the economy will emerge from this unprecedented period of change. There may be opportunities for IT as retailers try to reach customers online, but one thing is sure – the market won’t return to the way it was before 2020. ®
Choosing A Low-Code Vendor


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KUALA LUMPUR: A rare creation by Daniel Chong, a 22-year old fashion and retail design student from Lim Kok Wing Institute of Creative Technology, emerged first-prize winner of the Kebaya: The Interpretations fashion design competition at Shangri-La Hotel here yesterday.
Chongs outfit, combining a bright green crocheted top and a tutu-style batik skirt with netting and denim, beat 11 other entries to win RM5,000 and a trophy.
Chong, who drew inspiration from fashion reports, forecasts and historical information from the Internet, took just over a month to complete the outfit which he called Renaissance of Puah Tng Tay.
It means the rebirth of the half-long and half-short outfit in Hokkien. I wanted to create something completely different from the traditional kebaya, but at the same time, maintain its key elements, such as the kerongsang (a type of brooch traditionally worn with the kebaya) and batik, said the third-year student, who cited local designer Melinda Looi as his idol.
Noritta Ali, 29, a second year student at La Salle International Design School, won second prize with her creation named Rose Charmante while Stev Wong, 22, from SML Fashion Academy, won third prize with his Little Black Kebaya. They received RM3,000 and RM2,000 respectively.
The competition was organised by Malaysian Official Designers Association and Yayasan Budi Penyayang Malaysia in conjunction with the Nyonya Kebaya: A Showcase exhibition at National Art Gallery.
The on-going exhibition features the personal kebaya collection of Datin Paduka Seri Endon Mahmood, wife of Acting Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Judges at yesterdays finals included singer Camelia, cultural activist Azah Aziz, and designers Bernard Chandran and Victor Goh.


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Land Rover is a subsidiary of Indian multinational automotive corporation Tata Motors.
"Last week, Qorbani announced that Benz, Volkswagen, Volvo, Fiat, Rover, Skoda, Renault, Peugeot, Kia and Toyota would take part in the Iranian auto expo, adding that the US car-manufacturers would also join the event. 'In case of desirable conditions, General Motors and Ford companies will also attend the event.' He continued that some leading car parts makers, including Siemens, FORD Mendo, Busch, FRW and ACI would attend the gathering. The event will start work on December 10." (Fars News, "55 Giant Int'l Carmakers, Part-Makers to Participate in Iranian Auto Expo," 11/2/14)
In September 2011, an Iranian source said that Land Rover was being imported into Iran in 2010 and that “dealership land was bought, the service bay was being set up… [and] they had presold dozens of cars.” (PBS Tehran Bureau, “Iran’s Fast, Furious, and Filthy Rich,” 9/9/11)
In February 2010, it was reported that Land Rover is actively seeking entry into the Iranian market. (Arabian Business, “Land Rover seeks to tap Iranian market,” 2/7/10)