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NEW YORK (AP) — Makeup company Revlon Inc. said Wednesday it is cutting 250 jobs, or about 5 percent of its workforce, as it exits two plants in a broad restructuring aimed at cutting costs.
Revlon, like other consumer products makers, has been facing high raw material costs, weakness in Europe and a slowdown in China.
In its most recent quarter revenue rose 1.7 percent, as higher revenue in the U.S. and Latin America was offset by a 4 percent drop in Asia Pacific and a 15 percent drop in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
New York-based Revlon, whose brands include Almay, Mitchum and its namesake, said it will close its manufacturing plant in France and leave its leased manufacturing plant in Maryland and move manufacturing to other plants and third parties.
It will also restructure operations in France and Italy and realign its operations in Latin America, including consolidating Latin America and Canada into one region.
The cosmetics company employs about 5,200 people overall.
Revlon will take third-quarter charges of $25 million, including $19 million in employee-related costs and $6 million in other costs including asset write-offs.
Revlon expects to save $10 million annually from the moves, including $9 million in 2013.
Its shares fell 21 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $12.98 in morning trading. They have fallen 28 percent since hitting 52-week high of $17.99 in mid-April.


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A few weeks ago we gave you some news about social media and mobile commerce and how shoppers’ buying behavior was changing with the increasing use of mobiles. Today we have news for you of an intriguing infographic that looks at mobile marketing.
As more and more people use mobiles on a daily basis, businesses have to adapt to mobile commerce with various platforms, strategies and marketing ideas and the infographic displays the breadth of the mobile market today. The infographic was created by Microsoft Tag and brought to our attention by Sarah Kessler over on Mashable, and you can see the full infographic below this story.
There are some interesting statistics. For example there are now 4 billion mobiles phones globally and 1.08 billion of those are smartphones. On present statistics it’s forecast that mobile internet usage will surpass that of desktop internet by 2014 and a staggering 86% of people use their mobile internet devices whilst watching TV. How much time do you think the average American now spends on their mobile phone daily? Apparently people are socializing via their mobiles for an average of 2.7 hours per day.
As far as social networking and mobile marketing Facebook now has more than 600 million users and over a third of those use Facebook Mobile. Although Twitter has fewer users, around 165 million, 50% of those use Twitter Mobile and mobile devices are also used to view more than 200 million YouTube videos daily. There’s plenty more information on the infographic so check it out in detail below. Are you surprised by any of the statistics and are you one of the many who uses their mobile for socializing? Let us know with your comments.

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Dar es Salaam. Apart from making calls to friends and families or enjoying internet services, telecoms are now providing huge businesses opportunities to Small and Middle Enterprises (SMEs) sector, a new report shows.
A Digital transformation in Tanzania report published by GSM, shows that telecoms are now enhancing the SMEs growth in the country, a sector that covers over three million businesses which collectively contribute to over 25 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)According to GSM report, to SMEs, the telecom sector is more than making a call, sending text messages and access internet networks because they are currently advertising their businesses, doing money transactions, paying various services and bills as well as get loans and insurance services.
The report shows that Communication is crucial to a business society, therefore, the sector must be supported as it continues to grow.
The GSM report took a telecom company, Tigo as an example of being the first network company to sign up to the Government’s e-Payment Gateway under its mobile money brand, Tigo Pesa service, ensuring that it is easier for businesses to pay their bills to responsible public authorities.
The company also, initiated the Apps like Tigo Pesa App which are supporting the businesses in collecting payments. Through the service Customers can pay for their transactions using their mobile money app and even pay their employees too using the app. It is reported that over 70,000 companies are using Tigo’s services in this regard.
According to the report, Tanzanians are also currently using Tigo pesa to access loans to fund their businesses and solving other financial challenges.
In addition, Tigo has launched a WhatsApp service for all customers, including its business customers. This service allows its customers to quickly get in touch with its customer service with any queries and ensures personalised and quick responses.


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The software as a service—or SaaS—market is going gangbusters.
That’s great news for SaaS companies, and in many cases for customers, who prefer to essentially rent their software and receive automatic updates rather than buy it outright and be responsible for its upkeep.
Subscription software usually requires less hardware and personnel to run. It’s updated and improved frequently—which means it often offers more features and functionality than software out of a box. And SaaS companies are known to be responsive with customer service.
Plus, the initial cost—with SaaS companies offering myriad payment options and introductory offers—is often lower than buying and maintaining software.
But over time, costs add up. In fact, the expense of software subscriptions—on a per-employee basis—is now rivaling the sky-high costs of providing employees and their families with health insurance. As a result, the proliferation of SaaS has become a big problem for the companies that use it and a giant headache for many information technology administrators.
“In some ways, this is like a runaway train,” said Brad Wheeler, vice president for information technology at Indiana University. Every chief information officer “has his hair on end about this. And we still don’t know where this is going.”
The worldwide SaaS market is on a trajectory that would make any Wall Street analyst salivate. It has grown from $5.6 billion in 2008 to a whopping $116.4 billion in 2018, according to research firm Statista.
Numbers from another leading research firm, Gartner, are slightly lower but show the same dramatic growth curve. Both research firms project the SaaS market will continue to climb at an annual rate of 17% to 23% over the next five years.
The percentage of companies that rely solely on subscription-based software is also rapidly rising. In 2016, that number was just 38%, according to Statista. This year, it is 58%, and Statista projects it will be 73% next year—and could reach 86% by 2023.
Companies like Oracle—which in 2016 announced that all of its software would soon be moved to the cloud and sold on a subscription basis—are pushing the trend.
While software subscriptions have been around for decades, the SaaS explosion was triggered by several factors from 2012 to 2014, tech experts said.
“It came during a time when a lot of corporate computer technology got old and was being changed,” Wheeler said. “At the same time, cloud companies matured and there arose this fear that technology was changing so fast that companies’ software and hardware would quickly become outdated.”
Adding to that, tech experts said, the ease of access to cloud technology made it relatively simple for an entrepreneur with a bit of technological savvy and vision to launch a SaaS company.
As a result, many niche SaaS products were born to solve specific problems. All those new software options turned corporate heads and other employees into kids in a proverbial candy store.
The business model is genius for SaaS companies. Subscriptions give them what tech investors covet most: annual recurring revenue.
“It’s a big deal to get that total contract on the books and have a guaranteed source of income for a set number of years,” Wheeler said.
Technology business experts told IBJ that SaaS companies often run gross margins as high as 80%.
“It’s definitely a high-margin business across the board,” an IT administrator told IBJ. “You’re essentially running one machine, but selling it to a lot of customers.”
To no surprise, annual software subscription costs have also gone up—way up.
According to a recent analysis of more than 30 million transactions, Zylo—a local firm that helps its customers track and manage software subscriptions—found enterprise companies are spending an average of more than $10,000 per employee per year on software. So, for every 100 employees, companies are spending $1 million on software subscriptions.
In comparison, the average cost for a company to provide health care to an employee and his or her dependents is about $14,000 per year, according to the National Business Group on Health.
“Companies are spending tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars a year on software” subscriptions, said Zylo CEO Eric Christopher.
According to Zylo data, companies with 1,000 employees have an average of 500 subscriptions. That can include basics like the Microsoft Office suite or specialty software like ADP’s payroll services.
Some companies have more subscriptions than they do employees, Christopher said, and the phenomenon is not limited to big companies. Zylo, for instance, has 60 employees and nearly 80 software subscriptions, he said. He admits to having 12 subscriptions himself.
SaaS companies make it easy to get started and often entice potential customers with introductory offers or payment options that make the programs look like a bargain compared with buying software.
“There’s this thought that you can subscribe to something for one year and see how it goes,” Christopher said. “In reality, though, subscriptions get locked in.”
That can cause SaaS expenses to creep up almost unnoticed.
“Little by little, each [subscription] decision seems like a modest step,” said IU’s Wheeler. “But at some point, it becomes real money—real big money. If you’re not careful, you find yourself renting it for $1,000 a month when you could buy it for $300 a month.”
The problem isn’t necessarily the number of software subscriptions a company has or their cost, said Chris Konow, vice president of CleanSlate Technology Group, a Carmel consultancy with a practice devoted to software spend management.
The biggest concern is making sure a company is getting an appropriate return for the subscriptions and eliminating waste and duplication.
“We preach that you need to put people in place that have an ownership of this issue, and you need a formal road map or process in place to track these expenses,” Konow said.
Without that, he said, a number of problems arise, not the least of which is that no one knows how much money is going out the door to pay for all the subscription software.
IT chiefs losing control
One of the biggest concerns for corporate IT administrators is software subscriptions acquired without the knowledge or control of the IT department
That, administrators said, leads companies to pay for duplicative services and sign deals that don’t leverage the buying power of the entire organization—not to mention the security concerns that come with tying various software services into a company’s central system.
According to research firm IDC, 60% of U.S. technology spending occurs outside companies’ IT department.
“This can be a serious issue for the IT department. There’s a real sense of losing control over this,” said Robin Fleming, former chief technology officer for Angie’s List who is now CEO and co-founder of Anvl, a local cloud-based software firm that markets business-safety applications to reduce and prevent injuries for maintenance workers.
“There has to be a balance between letting team members innovate and determine what they need and being so locked down that it stifles the company,” Fleming added.
“But you do have to have a method to monitor the spend. Having policies in place, doing formal audits and having someone or a firm dedicated to tracking the SaaS spend is really critical now.”
Fleming said managing SaaS spending is one of the top two concerns—along with cybersecurity—of any IT department.
“That’s how big of a deal this is,” she emphasized.
A company can get subscription software for just about anything these days. There’s Microsoft Office 365 for backbone office needs; Workday for human resources and financial management; and collaboration software like Dropbox, WebEx, GoToMeeting and Slack.
There are loads of marketing software packages, including Salesforce’s extensive suite. There are subscriptions for financial functions such as Financial Force, QuickBooks and Expensify. There are also subscriptions for services like Google Ads and LinkedIn.
Annual subscription costs, tech experts said, run from about $100 to millions of dollars.
Many subscriptions, Christopher said, cost $8,000 or so a month—or about $100,000 a year. And it’s not uncommon, he added, for subscriptions costing $10,000 to $50,000 annually “to never be seen by the IT department.”
This seismic shift in the way companies are handling computing needs is causing some to change their internal structures.
Entering 2017, only 30% of chief information officers had a cloud computing/SaaS strategy, according to Gartner. Just two years later, that number is 80%.
Strategy alone isn’t enough. IT administrators told IBJ that implementing a serious software subscriptions management plan can save a company as much as 30% on its SaaS bill. For a 200-employee company, that could be an annual savings of $600,000.
Zylo’s Christopher isn’t convinced companies have a handle on SaaS spending.
“They think they do, but they don’t,” he said. “Most companies don’t have anyone monitoring which subscriptions are being ordered and if they’re being used and what they’re being used for.
“We’ve seen companies buy the same subscription over and over again—even within the same department,” he added.
“Companies have human resources managers looking over employee issues, health care professionals managing the insurance and benefits programs, but no dedicated software manager. It’s too big an expense to let go unchecked and not coordinated. And the problem is only getting bigger.”•


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Hadoop is an open source software framework pioneered by Yahoo that's useful to handle tons of data in the cloud, which is exactly the type of thing that is really hot these days. We wrote previously about Yahoo's impending Hadoop spinoff; it's a potential billion-dollar business that's not in Yahoo's core, and so would be best spun off with Yahoo retaining a stake.
Now that the spin-off is happening, the startups that pounced on the commercial Hadoop opportunity should be scared. This particularly includes Cloudera, whose highest profile customer is Facebook which uses its services to handle its ginormous data stores, and which pioneered Hadoop commercialization.
Get the latest Yahoo stock price here.


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Late last winter, John Marzo and Melisa Vong decided to each test the cryptocurrency waters with a small investment. They both chose ethereum; Ms. Vong also added bitcoin. The price of ethereum in early March, 2017: between US$18 and $25.
Less than a year later, ethereum prices are currently hovering around US$864, and Mr. Marzo and Ms. Vong are shopping for two houses with rental units in Ontario's Kitchener-Waterloo region.
Mr. Marzo is 26. Ms. Vong is 23.
The young Toronto couple isn't purchasing coins on credit, and they're not being bankrolled by family. They belong to a new class of investor: Young, self-taught and armed with online research, they're utilizing their position as digital natives to capitalize on a burgeoning industry that the general public is largely still struggling to understand.
"I've always had this mentality [that] you have to work hard to get ahead, but you also need to work smarter," says Ms. Vong, co-founder of Namskara, a skincare company that uses natural and sustainable ingredients. "Because we grew up in the technology age and have become accustomed to using the internet as a tool, it only makes sense to leverage it. If you can make money off the internet, then why not take advantage of it?"
"I feel like now you can get real control over your financial situation with just an internet connection," says Mr. Marzo, an industrial engineering student at Ryerson University. He has since added to his initial investment and has seen growth of about 20,000 per cent since he first got started last year.
"Our parents grew up with encyclopedias. We grew up with Google. People need to leverage the tools that they have."
For Mr. Marzo and Ms. Vong, the foray into cryptocurrency was preceded by a couple years of trading other assets. They started with Forex, trading in the summer of 2015, when Ms. Vong was between her third and fourth years at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. With a group of friends, they started what Ms. Vong calls a trading house; together, using online resources, the group learned how to read and analyze charts, make trades and maximize profit-earning potential. When the couple's interest in cryptocurrency was sparked, they spent months researching blockchain technology, mainstream and alternative coins, and technical analysis, before buying in.
Michael King, co-director of the Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab at the Ivey Business School in London, Ont., says that cryptocurrency comprises one-eighth of the lab's research, and about 95 per cent of the questions they field.
"[The interest of] students is really high. Students are fascinated by the new technology," Mr. King says. "It provides lots of opportunity for younger people who are smart and technologically savvy. They see it as a way to overturn the traditional financial system to their benefit."
Although the availability of credible data is still slim, studies suggest that the cryptocurrency investor base skews millennial. In an online survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults in October, 2017, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Blockchain Capital, a venture-capital firm investing in blockchain-enabled technologies, 17 per cent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 reported being very familiar, owning or having owned bitcoin, compared with only 4 per cent of respondents between the ages of 45 and 54. That, according to Mr. King, is largely due to generational differences in risk aversion.
"Many investors who have been in financial markets for years have experienced business cycles that have been associated with booms or busts in asset prices and, in some cases, spectacular collapses," Mr. King says. "One of the shortcomings for millennial investors is that they may not have lived through those episodes, and so their risk aversion is quite different from someone who's already lost money in one of these previous booms and busts."
Personal experience aside, the skepticism surrounding cryptocurrency is valid. With a lack of regulation and security, the prevalence of hoaxes and scams, and the environmental toll, there's good reason to approach cryptocurrency with dubiousness. And there are the wild fluctuations in price, like the plunge of bitcoin in mid-January and again in early February. On Feb. 5, the total value of the overall cryptocurrency market plummeted to a more than 60-day low, according to data from CoinDesk.
Tim Chau, 25, agrees that caution is warranted. Though the value of his own investments is up between 30 and 40 per cent (prior to the recent price decline, they had, at points, doubled in value), the Toronto accountant says, "There's merit to what skeptics are saying. There's no doubt that trading right now is based heavily on emotions."
As a result, Mr. Chau has learned to do his homework. "I like to listen to all sides, and make my decisions accordingly. I do think there is inherent value to the idea of decentralized currency that can be traded instantaneously with low fees," he says. "I realize the potential of bitcoin, but I do also see its many flaws."
Mr. Chau's friend, Jon Ho, agrees. The 25-year-old is a senior growth marketer – a digital-marketing role focused on user acquisition and retention – at Uken Games, a Toronto-based social-game studio. He has a diversified portfolio of traditional investments, as well as "big three" cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum, and cardano, one of the lesser-known coins commonly referred to as an "alt-coin." His strategy: striking a balance between enthusiasm and wariness.
"I'm obviously hoping for financial freedom," Mr. Ho says. "But playing it smart, rebalancing your investments, cashing out when you think something is going to drop and buying back in when things are low, that's the way to reach that point. It's not simply throwing money at it and hoping it will rise."
The gains seen by Mr. Ho, Mr. Chau, Mr. Marzo and Ms. Vong are achieved through well-timed moves; buying a cryptocurrency during a high because of hype is a no-no, as is selling at a low because of the hysteria that ensues during a dip. While the four investors say their friends have also fared well during dips and climbs, the same can't be said for others. A quick perusal of online-forum Reddit reveals investors venting about losses of thousands of dollars, and expressing fears that the market won't recover. "It's all about timing, and the past few weeks have not been kind to crypto investors," Mr. Chau says.
While technical analysis is essential, so is an ability to weather those periods of media hype and hysteria, while maintaining an awareness of the emotional factors that can affect prices.
"No one is saying that you can't speculate on these currencies and perhaps make a gain, but you do have to recognize that you're speculating. You're taking a gamble and you have to be willing to lose everything," Mr. King says.
Mr. Marzo went in knowing the risk. Of his first ethereum purchase, he says, "My logic was 'worst-case scenario, I still have student loans, like everyone else. Or best-case scenario, this pays off and I can buy a yacht.'" The gamble has, thus far, paid off. Diligently observing the market and voraciously consuming research has helped Mr. Marzo, at only 26, put himself in a financial situation he hadn't thought possible.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the money I have to my name has been created from this crypto space," he says. "I'm not at the yacht yet. But I'm also not worried about student loans."
Som Seif, CEO of Purpose Investments shares his thoughts on investing in 2018.


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Are there other currencies like bitcoin
The value of the currency reached a record high shortly after the hearing.
What other currencies besides Bitcoin have experienced
Unlike some other digital currencies,. there are over 60 different altcoin.That would be impossible with digital currency like bitcoin,.But most ICOs do not provide an ownership stake in the company.Japan May Make Bitcoin and Other Virtual Currencies Legal. exchanges as well as taxation for popular currencies like Bitcoin,.Bitcoin entrepreneurs were represented at the hearing by Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle Internet Financial, a company that wants to provide tools for retailers using Bitcoin.Gain access to the most innovative people and companies in the world, and understand the technologies that will drive the new global economy.The Globalist One World Currency Will Look A Lot Like Bitcoin. to replace the dollar and that there is no other mechanism in the. like bitcoin.
I already know litecoin, the currency with 4 times as many coins to be mined as in bitcoin, but google is still being secretive about the.Why people are going crazy over bitcoin and other digital currencies. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are on. after a big development like what.The farmer would have been better off never spending the bitcoin in the first place.
Bitcoin Not as Easy to Mine as Other Crypto-CurrenciesFlagging possible black money risks from virtual currencies like Bitcoin,.This is analogous to the great automobile race of the early.
They think there could be a digital currency more lucrative than Bitcoin. Litecoin, like Bitcoin and most other digital currencies,.This leads bitcoin promoters to develop awfully strange and novel arguments to justify its value.The thing about cryptocurrencies as stock-like investments is that there is no accurate way whatsoever to value them the way we value stocks.
Bitcoin - Priced In Gold
Top 5 Cryptocurrencies Other Than Bitcoin. internet unlike paper based currency which has to pass through. to other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and.There are external factors which could contribute to currency-pair volatility like. exchanges and other bitcoin.
5 Top Bitcoin Alternatives - Mashable
Then the purchaser offers that price to all current shareholders.Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a decentralized currency. Just like physical currencies, there are multiple kinds of cryptocurrencies in countries or regions.If you are really interested you can check the sites like xe, bitcoin.
Their name tells us that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are meant to be currencies:. at the universe of other tokens available.Despite these similarities, however, cryptocurrencies are not stocks any more than they are honest-to-goodness currencies.As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing, beyond selling them to other people or crashing the market, thereby losing much of whatever money the person had used to buy up the bitcoin to begin with.
Indian citizens have until May 31, 2017, to tell their government what stance it should take on Bitcoin and other digital currencies.What if one person owned every single bitcoin in existence, or at least every bitcoin that is currently being traded.ICOs actually end up growing the main speculative bubbles, since the new tokens are funded via sales for bitcoin and ethereum.
Join us on Tuesday, September 19, at 11am EST for an interactive online discussion with Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT and a leading hurricane forecaster, moderated by senior editor, James Temple.Bitcoin has the biggest. 5 Top Bitcoin Alternatives. 769. but can act as another form of digital currency exchangeable for fiat currency, like.
The IRS recently issued guidance stating that it will treat virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, as property for federal tax purposes.


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FinTech & crypto launches in the month
The Tech Panda takes a look at recent Fintech and crypto launches.
Pencilton launches India’s first debit card with NCMC for teens
Pencilton, a teen-focused fintech startup, launched PencilCard, India’s first debit card with NCMC for teens. PencilCard is an NCMC-compliant (National Common Mobility Card) RuPay debit card specially designed for the teenager segment. It has been launched in partnership with Transcorp.
Following the principles of Bauhaus, the card’s design and packaging minimize wastage during manufacture and unboxing. Users can activate their card via the Pencilton app for loading money, getting a category-wise spend analysis, blocking/unblocking cards, setting limits, setting savings goals, saving in a ‘digital piggy bank’, finishing chores given by parents for bonus pocket money and accessing a variety of other functions.
The Pencilton app allows for gamified learning around pocket money, facilitated by interactive community involvement, making it more than just a payment app. Quizzes and exercises at various levels are included in this type of learning, and youngsters can earn PencilPoints while learning about money.
Speaking on the launch, Vishwajit Pureti, Co-founder and CEO of Pencilton, said, “We are very excited about the launch of PencilCard. The fintech for teens space has grown rapidly in recent years, highlighting the need for innovation and technology adoption to make financial literacy more accessible to teens. Therefore, Pencilton chose to bridge the market gap by introducing India’s first Debit Card for teens with NCMC that encompasses the very best of the ever so vibrant Indian fintech ecosystem.”
This is an incredibly smart generation who is adept with the latest technology, and we think they deserve to have a taste of the very best of the fintech revolution too
“This is an incredibly smart generation who is adept with the latest technology, and we think they deserve to have a taste of the very best of the fintech revolution too. So, we are launching the PencilCard, which is the most advanced debit card for teens, probably more advanced than the debit cards many of their parents have too, which will help onboard them into the digital financial ecosystem,” Vishwajit further added.
- Doubles up as a metro card and bus card – an all-in-one card. The debit card can already work as a metro card for travel in Delhi (Airport line) and as a bus card in Goa (across KTC buses).
- Scheduled to be accepted for metro travel in Pune, Chennai and Mumbai as well as in BEST buses (Mumbai) very soon.
- A contactless prepaid debit card that can be used for payments across various channels, including retail shopping offline, online shopping, travel and in the future – tolls and parking
- Capable of storing seasonal tickets and monthly passes, using which Mumbai Local authorities are planning to let season ticket holders top up the ticket via the card and purchase tickets
- It’s also a Platinum RuPay card, and therefore comes with additional benefits like free access to lounges at all airports in India
Biz2X powered Made in India middleware platform Maadhyam launched for lenders and aggregators
Fuelling the government’s mission of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, Biz2X, a Digital Lending SaaS platform that enables financial institutions to provide a customized online loan origination and servicing experience launched ‘Maadhyam’, an integrated cross-channel ecosystem middleware that brings more than just automation and analytics to the lender-borrower equation.
Maadhyam enables banks and NBFC’s to lend more easily, efficiently, and effectively. At the same time, it gives industry aggregators the ability to facilitate seamless and real-time credit among their partner networks. With the help of Maadhyam, the lenders will receive the data through APIs while experiencing a reduction in cost of financing loans for MSMEs.
SME’s hold the potential to script the next wave of overall economic growth in India… Thus, we are aiming to invest US$25 million over the next 3 years to grow Maadhyam and make India the fintech capital of the world
Commenting on the new product launch, Rohit Arora, CEO and Co-founder, Biz2Credit and Biz2X said, “Last year, we have made an announcement to support “Aatmanirbhar” mission of government by investing in Made-in-India Fintech products. With the launch of Maadhyam, we are now one step closer to our mission.
“SME’s hold the potential to script the next wave of overall economic growth in India. With Maadhyam, we will power India’s SMEs by assisting them with better and faster credit decisions. Thus, we are aiming to invest US$25 million over the next 3 years to grow Maadhyam and make India the fintech capital of the world.”
- Facilitates quick credit for MSMEs and provides them multiple lenders as options
- Is powered by next-generation technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- As a SaaS offering, the cloud infrastructure supporting Maadhyam enables the platform to be device agnostic and omnipresent
Aqilliz launches first of its kind music and entertainment NFT marketplace WishWorld
Aqilliz, a Blockchain-as-a-Service company building tools and technologies that prepares the marketing industry for the Web3 world, has set up a first of its kind, curated music and entertainment NFT marketplace, WishWorld in partnership with One Mercuri, a leading multi-domain business group headquartered in India.
Built as a marketplace, WishWorld provides creators and artists a platform to exchange their creations with their fans in the form of exclusive experiences; and fans will be given an opportunity to directly exchange their collections with other community members as well.
NFTs cannot be treated as a one of sale or a gimmick; it needs to be treated as an extension of the brand in the virtual world
WishWorld released the first set of exclusive assets from Music Maestro Ilaiyaraaja on the 14th of February.
Gowthaman Ragothaman, CEO of Aqilliz said, “There is too much being talked about NFTs without a strategy in place. We look at NFTs as a consumer engagement tool that brings a brand closer to the consumer. NFTs cannot be treated as a one of sale or a gimmick; it needs to be treated as an extension of the brand in the virtual world. I am extremely honored to be launching this marketplace with none other than the maestro himself to start with and sincerely thank Sriram for giving us this opportunity.”
- WishWorld will be releasing 100 unreleased albums from Music Maestro Ilaiyaraaja’s treasured personal collection as digital collectibles
- Will include original soundtrack, along with interesting anecdotes, features, and even musical notes from these compositions
CrossTower launches ‘Over the Counter’ service for Indian HNIs & institutional investors
CrossTower, a global crypto exchange launched personalised ‘Over the Counter’ services for its Indian users. With the launch of its new feature, CrossTower aims to guide, assist and enable High-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and institutional investors to trade in crypto assets. Aimed at large-volume traders and institutional investors, CrossTower’s OTC Desk provides deep liquidity 24×7 across multiple crypto-assets and ensures the best prices.
More than US$17 billion has been poured into digital assets worldwide by the end of 2021. Also, CrossTower observed that 70% of its platform’s trade volume is accounted for by institutional investors and large-volume traders in India. With the increasing adoption of digital assets by HNIs, CrossTower’s new feature will make trading crypto assets convenient for its Indian users. It will not only encourage India’s crypto adoption but also help establish the country as a major player in this sector.
Given the rapid uptake of digital assets by large-volume traders, we aim to make trading crypto assets for those investors as convenient as possible through this personalised crypto OTC Desk feature
Amit Arora, Head of Growth and Partnerships for CrossTower India said, “In it’s recent budget, the Indian government has taken a step towards establishing a progressive policy that will benefit the innovation, economic growth and financial inclusion of its citizens. It can be done by validating the asset class and easing the uncertainty that surrounds the digital asset sector. At CrossTower, we believe it is a positive step towards retail trading, followed swiftly by institutional adoption. Given the rapid uptake of digital assets by large-volume traders, we aim to make trading crypto assets for those investors as convenient as possible through this personalised crypto OTC Desk feature.”
- Ensures fast, secure and private trading of digital assets
- Considering the high volume of traders, there is a low-risk element, which saves investors time and money
- The traders are KYC compliant, which eliminates all fraud
- Permits investors to buy and sell substantial amounts of digital assets with low price slippage
- Investors can conduct significant transactions with high liquidity on a secure platform suited for high-value and high-volume investments
- Provides a relationship manager to each investor opting for the service and daily personalised daily crypto market update to investors


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Unity sparks new cycle of optimism
The easy part is done, so now it's on to the real makeover as the staffs at Motorcycle USA and Motorcycle Superstore look forward to consolidating their Medford headquarters under one roof.
President Don Becklin said Friday the front office area — on the south side of the 44,800-square-foot building wedged on just a little more than 3 acres between Automation Way and Chevy Way — is done.
The second phase, on the north side, will take another 90 days before the firm can move its 150 employees into the former Musician's Friend building.
"Phase I was primarily paint and carpet, and Phase II is more in-depth remodeling," said Becklin, who in 1998 founded what is now a $100 million motorcycle accessories and media venture in his Grants Pass garage.
The project will cost between $900,000 and $1.1 million, he said.
Becklin said members of the Motorcycle USA editorial staff, video editors and a couple of managers already have jumped from the suites the company has occupied along East McAndrews Road.
"We're kind of juggling people right now because we're running out of space," said Becklin, whose staff has grown about 20 percent from 125 a year ago. "We're dedicated to growth and adding additional resources, primarily on the information technology side."
The company has another 10 people in its Medford distribution center, along with 75 at a Louisville, Ky., distribution center.
In a still-rocky economic landscape, retailers are looking for edges wherever they can find them.
"Last year, we had an OK year at the superstore, but it wasn't the strongest year in the world," Becklin said. "What we're looking at is the future, especially on the technology side. We've got to be innovative. Even if last year wasn't great, we need to continue to innovate — especially if the economy rebounds. When the consumer comes back into our arena, we don't want to lose pace with our competition."
Rocky Mountain ATV/MC of Payson, Utah; Competition Motorsports USA of Portland; and Dennis Kirk of Rush, Minn., are primary competitors in a crowded field, Becklin said.
Just like other local Internet retailers, such as Harry & David in Medford and Fire Mountain Gems in Grants Pass, customer acquisition and retention is the name of the game.
"Would a sports-bike rider buy a dirt bike?" Becklin asked. "Will a dirt-bike rider want tires and something else?"
Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregMTBusiness, and read his blog at www.mailtribune.com/Economic Edge.


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RSS feed search engine and ad network Feedster has partnered with Japanese conglomerate Mitsui to launch in Japan. Feedster will provide the back-end infrastructure, host the search engine, and provide templates for the Japanese site to mirror the look and feel of the U.S. version, while Mitsui will bring to bear its “well oiled marketing machine,” Chris Redlitz, Feedster’s president, told ClickZ News.
Mitsui invested in Feedster back in September. Japan is the first of what Redlitz expects to be many Asian markets Feedster will enter, as those markets for RSS services mature. China presents a bigger opportunity by sheer numbers, but also carries a barrier to entry for a small company like Feedster, he said.
Businesses near ‘PokeStops’ are enjoying a huge surge in footfall due to the popularity of Pokémon Go, according to our first major ... read more
A new organization, The Coalition for Better Ads, has been launched to “leverage consumer insights and cross-industry expertise to develop and implement ... read more


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Intel is already building in Magdeburg
Chip giant TSMC is moving to Saxony
By Hannah Schwar
10/12/2022, 1:10 p.m
The federal government and industry want global semiconductor groups to invest in Germany. A major project is now under way.
The Taiwanese semiconductor group TSMC is pushing ahead with plans for its own production in Germany. According to information from “Capital” the chip giant is considering setting up a plant in the greater Dresden area. Other chip manufacturers have already set up production facilities there in recent years. In order to explore the possibilities in Germany, a TSMC delegation is to travel to Saxony in October.
TSMC’s explorations could be an important step in trying to make Germany more independent of global supply chains in the supply of semiconductors. Bottlenecks as a result of the corona pandemic had led to a chip shortage for months, especially among German car manufacturers. The German automotive industry is apparently pushing hard for a TSMC settlement in Germany. According to Taiwanese media, the plan is to use the technology of modern 300 millimeter wafers – the discs on which the chips are attached.
TSMC is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of semiconductors, but has concentrated much of its production in Taiwan. In the course of the tensions with China, the pressure on the group is increasing to also build factories in the USA and the EU. A company spokesman said that “no concrete decision had yet been made” on the European plans. TSMC referred to a period of silence before the next financial report, which will be presented on Thursday.
The Federal Ministry of Economics did not want to confirm TSMC’s specific interest on request. However, the federal government is prepared to extensively promote the settlement of semiconductor manufacturers in the country. The goal is to “increase research and production capacities in Germany and the EU and to support industry with good framework conditions to diversify their supply chains more,” said a ministry spokeswoman.
In mid-March, the US chip manufacturer Intel announced the construction of a gigafactory in Magdeburg. The project is to be subsidized under the European Chips Act – a law designed to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the EU.


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RIDGEFIELD, N.J. — There's no breaking stride at Colorite Polymers in spite of a pending change in the ownership of its parent company, PureTec Corp.
A recent visit found company officials focused on new varieties and applications for the firm's specialty PVC resins and PVC-based compounds. They seemed relatively unconcerned about the effects of Tekni-Plex Inc. of Somerville, N.J., acquiring PureTec in a deal valued at $325 million.
``I don't see any negative effect of the deal,'' Colorite President Robert Brookman said in a Nov. 18 interview at the firm's Ridgefield office. ``Tekni-Plex is a very dynamic company and we need their capital to keep growing.''
If Brookman's confidence is any indication, Colorite is well-prepared to defend its leading market positions in medical-grade PVC compounds and garden hose — which is manufactured by the Colorite Plastics division — and advance into areas as diverse as PVC/nylon blends and silicone replacement.
Cylon, a PVC/nylon blend introduced at NPE 1997 in Chicago, is being produced by Colorite's Cybertech Polymers division in Piscataway, N.J. Cylon's uses range from phone cords to footwear, and it is being tested by several customers, according to Nate Sofer, the division's vice president and general manager.
Cybertech produced 80 million pounds of specialty compounds last year, 70 percent of which went into the wire and cable industry, Sofer said. The 5-year-old division totaled between $40 million and $45 million in 1996 sales.
Colorite's newest product is Vinylbond, a flexible PVC alloy that attaches easily to ABS and polyester, as well as to cellular and rigid PVC. Vinylbond is expected to make inroads in coextruded window profiles and door gaskets.
Colorite's Unichem Products arm, which is devoted to the company's medical compounds, is touting Elastichem, a thermoplastic elastomer offering improved chemical and abrasion resistance. Colorite is on track to produce 1 million pounds of Elastichem in 1997, a number expected to increase tenfold in the next year and a half, according to John Ellward, the division's vice president of sales and marketing.
Elastichem also could benefit from concerns about latex rubber, which has been found to cause allergic reactions in some medical applications, Ellward said. Elastichem can come close to latex performance in some areas, he said.
Flexchem, a compound that can replace silicone, also is seeing healthy growth almost a year after its introduction, officials said. The material competes especially with silicone in pumping and feeding applications.
Overall, Unichem expects its medical compound sales to grow 5 percent by year's end, with 90 million pounds of production bringing in $65 million to $70 million in sales. This would allow Colorite to maintain its nearly 50 percent share of the medical-grade PVC market.
The growth rate for medical compounds is boosted to 10-12 percent in regions such as China and India, as fewer medical devices are reused each year, Ellward said.
Medical compounds made up 70 percent of the 220 million pounds of compounds Colorite produced in 1996.
The company's total specialty resin output stands at 120 million pounds at its plant in Burlington, N.J. The number is split about evenly between suspension resins used in flooring, and powder coatings and dispersion resins used in automotive underbodies, coated steel and inks.


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Twenty-eight years ago the Estes Park Brewery became the very first brewery in Estes Park, paving the way for the roughly half dozen more that would follow. Nearly three decades later the brewery is still going strong with a mix of classic brews and ever-evolving flavors.
Located off Moraine Avenue at 470 Prospect Village Drive, the Estes Park Brewery has gone from being the only craft beverage business in town when it opened its doors in 1994 to one of seven breweries, wineries, and distilleries in town.
“Our story begins in 1993 when Gordon Knight started High Country Brewery in Boulder. That same year Ed Grueff opened the Events Center in Estes Park,” the brewery’s website states. “In 1994 Ed and Gordon decided to combine the two businesses and the Estes Park Brewery was born.”
At that time, the brewery obtained a business license from the Town of Estes Park that allowed them to be the first to brew in town. Due to its relationship with the Events Center, the Estes Park Brewery was the only business of its kind for nearly two decades.
“It was exciting,” said former Community Development Director, Randy Hunt. “I have always enjoyed opening businesses, but the biggest key was to educate people about micro-brew beer. Most people were not familiar with it.”
After demand continued to grow, a significant change came to the Estes Park Municipal Code in 2013 when the Town Board voted to allow for standalone micro-breweries and micro-distilleries. Before the change, alcohol production was only allowed when attached to a business serving food.
The first summer of operation, the Estes Park Brewery served four locally crafted beers: Estes Park Porter, Estes Park Renegade, Longs Peak Raspberry Wheat, and Estes Park Pale Ale.
Knight sold his half of the business in the fall of 1994 and Eric Bratrud took over as Head Brewer. Around that time, the brewery expanded from a four barrel to a fourteen barrel brewhouse and has since expanded to 17 barrels.
In 1995, the brewery started packaging beer in 12 oz bottles, expanding their market and driving up sales. They also added more brews including Trail Ridge Red, Estes Park Gold, Stinger Wild Honey Wheat, and Samson Stout.
Since then, the Estes Park Brewery has managed to evolve in both brewing and restaurant operations while changing owners a few times. In 2003, Tyler Lemirande and Bratrud took over as co-owners but in 2013 Lemirande took over as sole owner and hired Kurt Meyer as his Head Brewer.
“The water comes from the headwaters of the Big Thompson River, high in the snow capped mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park,” Lemirande said. “Our water filters down through the moraines of Glacier Gorge, cold, fresh and clear to our brewery. We also use the highest quality of hops and barley in the making of the beer, not to mention the craftsmanship of our long time brewing team.”
In the nearly two decades since Lemirande has had part ownership, the Estes Park Brewery has continued to release a wide variety of brew flavors while expanding its food menu and entertainment.
“We have a Mountain coaster Rye IPA right now that we named after the Mustang Mountain Coaster. We go with what the public asks for on brewing new things and we have all our normal beers that we distribute all over Colorado using new age beverage,” Lemirande said. “We also have a full bar, restaurant, pool tables, video games, and a deck with mountain views.”
The brewery also offers a free sample bar for customers to make sure they enjoy a brew before ordering a glass, as well as a full souvenir shop.
Estes Park Brewery is open seven days a week during the summer months, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.


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Google has finally unveiled its latest line-up of Pixel smartphones. The new offerings from the tech giant include the affordable Pixel 4a, its 5G variant Pixel 4a (5G), and its next flagship smartphone, Pixel 5. While the Google Pixel 4a would ship to some markets later in August, the Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5 would be available later this year.
The much-awaited Google Pixel 4a will succeed the Pixel 3a. It is a low-powered iteration of the Pixel 4 with certain design changes that include a hole-punch screen, a rear-mounted fingerprint reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Pixel 4a promises same camera performance as the Pixel 4, with single camera modules present at the front and back of the device.
The Pixel 4a (5G) would boast a bigger screen than the non-5G version, whereas Pixel 5 will have a footprint similar to the Pixel 4a. Both 5G offerings, the first from Google's stables, will be limited to markets with the next-generation telecom technology.
Google Pixel specifications, features
The USP of Pixel 4a is going to be its camera which offers results at par with the current Google flagship, Pixel 4. The device has a single camera at its front and back - the selfie camera is housed in a hole-punch cutout at the top left corner of the screen, whereas the rear camera is placed in a square camera bump in the top left corner at the back.
The rear camera has a 12-megapixel sensor underneath an f/1.7 lens and a LED flash. The module offers HDR+ with dual exposure controls, Portrait Mode, Top Shot, Night Sight with astrophotography functions, and fused video stabilisation. The rear camera is also equipped with optical image stabilisation (OIS) for cleaner shots. The front camera is an 8-megapixel sensor with an f/2.0 lens.
Thanks to the hole-punch design, the front of Pixel 4a offers more screen real estate with narrow bezels and a very small chin at the bottom. The display is a 5.81-inch OLED panel with full-HD+ resolution at 1,080x2,340 pixels and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The screen offers good pixel density at 443 PPI. Even the always-on display feature offers HDR capabilities.
The Pixel 4a will ship in only Just Black colour option with the mint-coloured power button. Google will also roll out fabric cases for the device in Basically Black, Static Gray and Blue, made from 70 per cent recycled plastic. The device has a matte finish for a more secure feel in the hand. The fingerprint scanner has been mounted at the back.
The Recorder app on Pixel 4a will seamlessly save and share transcriptions and recordings in English. The device also has a Personal Safety app that offers real-time emergency notifications and even car crash detection in certain languages and countries. Pixel 4a also comes with Live Caption feature that will provide real-time captioning for video and audio content, as well as voice and video calls. This feature has also been rolled out for Pixel 2, 3, 3a and 4.
On the inside, the Google Pixel 4a features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G chipset coupled with 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The device also features Google's Titan M security module for on-device security. The Pixel 4a will run Android 10 out of the box with Google promising OS and security updates for at least three years. Connectivity options include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.1 + LE, A2DP 7, NFC, Google Cast, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, BeiDou, USB Type-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The device will be powered by a 3,140 mAh battery, with an 18W fast charger included in the box.
Google Pixel 4a price and availability
The Pixel 4a has been priced at $349 (around Rs 26,250) and is currently available for pre-order in the US via the Google Store and Google Fi. It will be available to customers starting August 20 through the Google Store, BestBuy.com, Amazon and other outlets, along with US carriers including Google Fi, US Cellular and Verizon.
Google will bring the Pixel 4a to India in October around Diwali. Pricing details for the device will be released around the time of its release here.
Google Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 5
The first 5G offerings from Google in the 5G space - Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5 - will be released in fall later this year. The Pixel 4a (5G) will be priced at $499 (around Rs 37,500), whereas the price for Pixel 5 has not been announced by the company yet.
These two devices will be available in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, and are likely to give India a miss.
ALSO READ: Samsung to launch new smartphone range in India as anti-China sentiment peaks
ALSO READ: Google Pixel 4a launch today: Check out price, specifications, availability in India
ALSO READ: Apple delivers blowout earnings amid COVID-19, market shrugs off iPhone delays
ALSO READ: Google ad recovery eases Alphabet's first-ever sales slide in 16 years
Copyright©2023 Living Media India Limited. For reprint rights: Syndications Today


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CABS upgrades mobile banking app
FINANCIAL services provider, Central Africa Building Society (CABS), has upgraded its mobile banking application system to guarantee improved security for its clients in the wake of an increase in cybercrimes.
The upgrade comes with new features that will give customers a smarter and more refreshed look and a faster and more reliable product.
The upgrade follows CABS’ enhancement of its mobile banking application on Android and IOS in November last year.
This allowed customers to do zip-it, internal transfers, balance enquiries, mini statement requests, buy airtime and ZESA tokens.
The improvement will allow CABS account holders to pay bills, school fees, change PIN numbers and view multiple accounts under one mobile application.
With the new added features on to the application, customers will now be able to register themselves and sign up to use the mobile application without physically visiting the bank.
The upgrade also enables biometric login for customers who use handsets with fingerprint and face recognition as well as blocking and un-blocking of their cards to combat card cloning.
In an interview with The Herald Finance and Business, CABS deputy managing director, Mr Mehluli Mpofu, disclosed that it is CABS’ duty to prioritise the security of its customers in this digital world.
“As we move into the digital era, the security of our user’s data becomes more and more critical.
In line with that, CABS has enhanced the security of the mobile application using different technologies.
“The best cryptography tools and techniques have been used to encrypt all user data (PIN numbers and user details) to ensure no one is able to decrypt the details once they have been transmitted.
“High level identification, authentication and authorisation measures have been put in place as well as tamper detection technologies that detect when your phone is being hacked and triggers the necessary prevention methods.
“Another technology used is the Principle of Least Privilege which monitors proper and strict access management of the app and interacting systems to ensure these only access information they need,” he stated.
Mr Mpofu assured reliability of the application saying it is continuously tested to verify that it is working as per design specification.
“CABS has set policies and standards to manage the application and servers for backups, patching, redundancy and DR in a PCI-DSS compliant environment.
“To top it all, CABS continuously invests in user education and awareness campaigns on how to protect devices, PIN numbers and personal data,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mr Mpofu said CABS is working with mobile network providers on a solution that will allow customers to use the application free of data, as its way to counter expense challenges that are pushing data bundle prices away from the reach of many, whose wages have not risen proportionately with the prices of goods and services.
However, CABS encourages users in areas with limited data connectivity to use the USSD using the short code *227# saying it is good in preventing network failures.
As part of its financial inclusion efforts — CABS revealed that it has card based products which include Textacash — a low KYC account which has no monthly fees, where customers are only charged per transaction.


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The 1992 model Mazda 929 sedan isn`t smart enough to come in out of the rain. But it has built-in intelligence so that when it`s parked in the sun all day it turns on its own fans to cool itself off.
The power to activate those fans comes from solar cells built into its glass moonroof.
In the wintertime, when there`s no need to cool itself off, the 929 uses the solar power instead to recharge the battery.
A handful of luxury cars are offering solar glass in the windshield and side windows to shield some of the heat that typically bakes a car interior. Mazda takes the process a step further and uses the sun to cool the car.
''Our goal is to become a world-class, premium motor car company, and you don`t do that by being the cheapest or the most expensive, but by being distinctive and personal so that there`s nothing else out there like your cars,'' said Clark Vitulli, senior vice president of Mazda of America Inc.
''Solar ventilation is one area where we will differ from all the other cars in the luxury market, and you`ll see more technology like that from our cars in the future,'' he said in an interview.
Don`t get the impression that solar power will transform the 929`s interior from sauna to iceberg in a matter of minutes. Mazda says the typical car parked in the sun for two hours could have interior temperatures of 167 degrees. By activating its own cooling fans the 929 can reduce that inside temperature to only 140 degrees.
The 27-degree reduction, however, will make it easier for the car`s air conditioning to reach the desired inside temperature more quickly, Mazda said, cutting the time it would take to bring interior temperatures down to 77 degrees by 30 percent compared with a car without solar ventilation.
When solar sensors detect that the inside doesn`t need cooling, say along about the middle of December, the system automatically diverts the power generated by the solar cells to recharge the battery whenever the car is parked in sunlight.
Again, don`t look for the solar cells to bring a dead battery to life. Mazda says that if a battery is at 70 percent charge, it would take the system five days to fully recharge the battery. In the dead of winter in the Snow Belt, the sun sometimes doesn`t shine for five days. While solar ventilation obviously isn`t as state-of-the-art as a set of booster cables, it holds promise as it`s upgraded and refined in the future.
The 929 has been totally redesigned for 1992. It`s the first in a line of changes at Mazda in which five new models will be introduced by late next spring.
The 929 and an MX-3 sports coupe arrive this fall; the next-generation RX-7 sports coupe arrives early in the spring; and a new 626 sedan and MX-6 sports coupe arrive late in the spring.
The 929 for `92 starts at $27,800, a $2,450 increase over the model it replaces. Mazda said the addition of driver- and passenger-side air bags is responsible for part of the increase.


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Nintendo is one of the biggest betting companies in mobile gaming, and evidence of this is that the Japanese company reached the start of the year billion dollars for its mobile gaming segment, even though it wasn't thanks to Mario. Names like Fire Emblem Heroes, are currently available. Mario Kart tour, a game we've already explored, though Dr. Mario World. However, Nintendo has just confirmed that it is expected launch more mobile games this year and next.
That is what you have revealed its current president, Shuntaro Furukawa, at a recent fundraising meeting. In a follow-up study of questions and answers at the meeting, Furukawa mentioned that the company has additional mobile games in development that will be released in the future, as collected from AlfaBetaJuega. Not only that, Nintendo's president has already confirmed that from the company they will continue to support the mobile titles they currently have in the market
Nintendo is very clear it will not leave the mobile market, or right now its value is Nintendo Switch, its hybrid console that can be enjoyed both on desktop and in portable mode. The company's focus will continue to be the same, as they do not want to fill digital stores with their IPs, but rather want to choose the games they will develop to enhance their most important icons, something already seen in the above articles or via Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.
The Game has spent billions of dollars on Nintendo mobile games to d ate, though most of that money comes from one article: Fire Emblem Heroes for $ 656 million
Nintendo developed many mobile games
Beyond that, along with the success of the Nintendo switchch, Shuntaro Furukawa has made that clear the company is developing many mobile games from Nintendo and for example implementation Crossing the Animals: New Horizons created a resurgence of interest in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Nintendo originally intended it use their mobile titles to promote their console games, something that had the desired effect on the Animal Crossing saga Thanks, for the most part, to the synergy between New Horizons and Pocket Camp, as well as the impressive sales of the switch title.
It may interest you | This app turns your Android phone into a Nintendo Switch controller.
In the past the Asian company just talk about developing some mobile games, but since then there has been no official announcement and the last title to arrive was the Mario Kart Tour. If we look at the Nintendo catalog, other similar frameworks Zelda myth or Metroid They do not have a game of smartphones, although there are other franchises like F-Zero that will also be able to fit well with mobile phones. For now, all that remains is to wait for Nintendo to provide more details on its plans and to officially confirm which mobile device games are currently building and when they will hit the market.


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Forget the Roaring Twenties, it's austerity Britain: Households reluctant to splurge £180bn Covid savings pile as consumer hedonism goes out of fashion
- More people shun 'live for today' mantra than endorse it for first time in 22 years
- Expectations of post-lockdown spending splurge could be wide of the mark
- Nationwide survey shows reset in how people see their finances
- Bank of England suggests people have stashed away an extra £180bn
A growing number of people are shunning the 'live for today' mantra and plan to keep hold of their lockdown savings even as restrictions ease, new findings suggest.
Expectations that the British economy will receive an injection of rampant consumerism after the pandemic could be 'wide of the mark' as people adopt a 'type of post-war austerity' last seen in the late nineties, Nationwide Building Society said today.
Figures from the Bank of England suggest that people have stashed away an extra £180billion worth of savings during the pandemic.
No splurge here: A growing number of people are shunning the 'live for today' mantra and plan to keep hold of their lockdown savings stashes
'With hopes for a summer spending spree, lockdown restrictions, combined with the fear or reality of financial hardship, have instilled a more prudent mindset for many', Nationwide said in its latest research.
More people are now shunning the ‘live for today’ mantra than endorsing it for the first time in 22 years, the findings claim.
The BoE recently upped its outlook for growth to 7.25 per cent this year, marking the best year of growth since 1941. But, this was largely on the back of a surge in pent-up consumer demand.
Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, which was commissioned by the UK Consumer Insight Panel led by Nationwide to conduct the survey, said: 'The public are not yet ready for a Roaring Twenties moment: prudence on saving and spending prevails and hedonist tendencies are at a 20-year low.'
More than half of people surveyed said they are spending or considering spending less as a result of Covid-19, while more than four in ten are saving more.
Three-quarters of people taking part in the survey said they wanted to put more money aside in order to protect themselves against risk and uncertainty.
Joe Garner, chief executive of Nationwide, said: 'The pandemic has acted as a reset button to a long-term culture of consumer hedonism.
'Lockdown has had a reversing effect on how we see our money – from a means to spend to a means of protecting ourselves against uncertainty and focussing on what’s important.
'As we look ahead to a brighter future, we want to capitalise on this cautiousness by seeing more work being done to help consumers spend safely and for the benefit of society.
'We must protect those who are struggling financially, as they have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and we cannot let them slip through the net.'
The latest findings also indicated certain generational differences when it comes to attitudes about spending and saving.
'Pointing to a generational divide, young people are much more likely to "live for today", with the research showing 61 per cent of Gen Z and 50 per cent of Millennials think this way, compared to 39 per cent and 42 per cent for Generation X and Baby Boomers respectively', Nationwide said.
Spending less: More than half of people surveyed said they are spending or considering spending less as a result of Covid-19
Fifty-one per cent of people said they thought 'financial wellbeing' was about having a financial safety net, compared with 20 per cent who thought it had more to do with spending money.
Nationwide said: 'By channelling public and personal spending in a way that benefits the nation in the long term, it is hoped that a "K-shaped economic recovery" – where affluent or struggling households further diverge due to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic – can be avoided at the same time as improving society.'
Research from Asda’s latest Income Tracker showed that average household disposable income increased by 13.1 per cent year-on-year in March, meaning households were on average £28 better off a week compared to the same period last year when lockdown began.
Never Go Broke: podcast special
The new book - Never Go Broke: How To Make Money Out Of Just About Anything, has been written by This is Money personal finance editor Lee Boyce and Storage Hunters TV star Jesse McClure
In this special, Lee is joined from Los Angeles by Jesse, to explain all to Georgie Frost and Simon Lambert on the This is Money podcast.
Jesse and Lee discuss how they met, how the book was created, and their three step approach to putting more money in your pocket with a little bit of entrepreneurial endeavour and reselling.
Most watched Money videos
- Watch the BANNED Land Rover ad that 'misrepresented' parking sensors
- MG's new scalable battery-powered Modular Scalable Platform
- Ford unveils 2,000bhp electric Supervan its fastest transit yet
- Land Rover unveils its new £80,000 Range Rover Sport
- Ford unveils electric version of Britain's best-selling vehicle
- German car giant BMW launches its first ever M3 Touring model
- Renault previews new family car powered by a hydrogen-electric system
- Bentley brings the comfort of a limo to their popular SUV
- McMurtry fan car sets new Goodwood Hill record as fastest car
- A rare 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR Coupe being driven at Goodwood
- RM Sotheby's has sold a Mercedes for a record £115million
- One-of-a-kind Ford Capri sells for new record price of £75k


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This article appeared in Frisco Enterprise on July 31, 2020.
The Frisco Chamber of Commerce will provide qualifying businesses with non-contact infrared thermometers, according to a Tuesday message to businesses from chamber President and CEO Tony Felker.
According to Felker’s message, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), through the Texas Division of Emergency Management, shipped the thermometers to the city.
“These are being distributed to support the safe reopening of essential governmental offices and essential business workplaces,” Felker stated.
Some of the thermometers have been given to the chamber, which will distribute them to businesses with a high need.
Workplaces that qualify for priority distribution include those with “essential critical infrastructure workers” that involve a large amount of person-to-person interaction.
“We expect to deplete our supply rather quickly,” Felker stated. “NCITs require AAA batteries, which are not included.”
The article can be found here.
UPDATE: The supply of NCITs have now been depleted.


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Now Playing: The new logo for the Disney Store Now Playing ‘Magic Kingdom’: Where it all began Now Playing What if a Disney Store employee’s last name was a mystery?
Now Playing The man who created the new logo has been arrested Now Playing How Disney can make a lot of money again Now Playing Meet Disney’s new logo Now Playing Disney is adding the word ‘Disney’ to its name Now Playing Are Disney Stores the new hipster hot spots?
Now Play Why do we like to use our phones to snap pictures of our kids?
Now Loading Now Playing Why don’t we just put our phones on our faces?
Now We’ve seen a lot in 2017, but nothing quite like the new Disney Store logo.
It’s a bold, colorful design that has a bit of everything going on.
It uses elements from traditional design, which has been around for a long time.
It has an eye-catching shape, but it also has elements of an organic, modernist design.
Its colors have been chosen to match the color palette of its surroundings, which are the same color palette as the store itself.
The brand has also used its logo as an icon of its new shopping experience, which includes a section dedicated to items.
Its “Buy Now” section has a similar design to what’s used in the company’s online store.
Here are a few of our favorite images from the new design.
The Disney Store has been in operation for over a decade now.
The company announced the new branding at the company headquarters on April 12, 2017.
But, the new look is only the first phase of a brand that’s long-term.
Disney’s mission has always been to create an immersive, magical place where the customers, staff and families feel connected.
Now, with its brand name, its merchandise, and its experience, Disney can continue to build on its long legacy of creating magical places. Read more.


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The National Centre for Commuters Safety and Protection in the Philippines, has opposed port operator Manila North Harbour Port Inc’s (MNHPI) plan to increase port tariffs by 37.45%, local reports said.
The NCCSPI, an umbrella organization of transport groups, has asked the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) to reject MNHPI’s petition due to lack of consultations with stakeholders.
Elvira Medina, president of NCCSPI, questioned MNHPI’s move which he said was already monopolizing port operations.
Medina warned that the proposed tariff adjustment would have a severe impact not only on consumer goods but also on transportation costs.
“We oppose this. It will have a heavy impact on the public, not just on cost of freight and consumer goods but also on petroleum products, which eventually will jack up transportation costs,” he said.
The commuters welfare group is the latest to oppose MNHPI’s tariff hike petition which is now pending before the PPA.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.


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A Breinigsville woman who says she was denied service at a McDonald’s in Whitehall Township because she is a Muslim filed a federal lawsuit Thursday, claiming her civil rights were violated.
Tanveer Walli alleges that a manager at the restaurant, which is in the Wal-Mart off MacArthur Road, behaved rudely and refused to serve her because of her Islamic headscarf, or hijab.
The Aug. 10, 2007, incident upset Walli so much that she cries uncontrollably, can’t nurse her newborn son and couldn’t celebrate her wedding anniversary, according to the complaint.
The suit, which also lists a Wal-Mart assistant manager as well as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart as defendants, is the second filed against Pany Enterprises, which operates the McDonald’s.
A similar federal suit, filed in May 2007, alleges that employees at the McDonald’s that used to be in the Lehigh Valley Mall and was also operated by Pany Enterprises harassed a Muslim family from Maryland.
Walli’s attorney, Jordan Yeager of Doylestown, said the similarities are too close to ignore.
”This case involves the same franchise owner from another case in which a gentleman and his family were harassed with the same rudeness, with employees telling them to go back to Iraq,” said Yeager, who also filed the 2007 suit. (MORE)


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NEW YORK CITY — Even as the world of available public drone fly space shrinks, DJI continues to innovate, hoping to find new ways to attract drone customers and encourage them to fly — even indoors.
The small, smart, foldable Mavic Pro, which DJI unveiled on Tuesday, is the company's latest siren song to the drone curious.
It cuts away at least one layer of the complexity that might have kept the drone-shy at bay: no more attaching the propeller blades.
DJI has owned the American drone market for a while, and for a dang good reason. DJI makes fantastic drones with some of the most advanced features on the market. With a little practice anyone can fly one and pull off the kind of ph...
DJI just took the wraps off their latest drone -- the Mavic Pro. This is a reimagination of the drones they usually make. Whereas the drones from the Phantom series are usually beast-like in size, the DJI Mavic Pro can fit into a ro...
Number one drone manufacturer DJI gives USA TODAY a test drive of it's new $999 foldable 4k camera drone, the Mavic Pro.
GoPro’s new Karma drone isn’t on sale yet, but it already has a nemesis, the Mavic Pro—a new quadcopter introduced Tuesday by SZ DJI Technology, the Chinese company that has risen to dominance in the consumer drone space.


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Christian Pfäffli(not a XING member)22 May 2006, 11:48 am
Nearly 41 tons of coffee was imported to Norway last year, meaning the country of just 4.5 million people is in the top ranks of coffee consumption on a per capita basis.
Perhaps it's the cold winters, or simply tradition in a country where it's common to invite people over simply for cake and coffee. The brew is a fixture at dinner parties, where it's common for dinner guests to leave the table after dessert and adjourn to another room for coffee, cake and often a cognac around smaller tables.
Whatever the reason, the import figures boil down to 8.8 kilos of coffee per person. According to the state statistics agency SSB, that would suggest that all Norwegians over the age of 15 drank around four cups of coffee a day.
Home consumption has been stable for several years, at around 5.4 kilos per person. The remaining coffee is served at work and in cafes and restaurants.
Norway, like many other countries around the world, has also seen a big increase in the number of coffee bars that have sprung up in the past few years, where it's become trendy to sip speciality coffees. There are no Starbucks coffee shops in Norway, however.
Coffee imports to Norway were valued at more than NOK 700 million last year. The majority of the beans come from Brazil.
source: Aftenposten English Web Desk


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According to Tech Insiders, Apple is allegedly giving Samsung and Motorola a run for their money, as they’re developing a foldable iPhone!
Apple has submitted patents and is currently prototyping folding screens to be tested within the company, but has yet to develop a full prototype handset, according to sources.
Basically, the idea is to create a hidden hinge behind the screen, allowing the phone to completely fold in half along one axis, taking us back to the early 2000s when Motorolas were all the rage!
So far, there’s nothing concrete to suggest they’re considering bringing something to the market especially since only a fraction of the stuff they patent actually hits the shops.
Meanwhile, Samsung has already delivered their promise on a folding phone which folds vertically along the middle, the Galaxy Fold – so Apple might want to keep up with their competitors here. Due to some sound complaints, Samsung later released the Galaxy Z Flip, a horizontally folding smartphone.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what Apple will eventually come up with if anything at all!


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The Capital Weekender with MistaJam 7pm - 10pm
More Comet stores will close today (10/12/12) including three on the South Coast.
The stores in Titchfield, Eastleigh and Poole will stop trading at the end of the day.
They are among the 125 store closures already announced by administrator Deloitte in a move expected to result in around 3,000 retail job losses. The remaining 70 stores are expected to be closed by Christmas unless a buyer can be found.
Comet collapsed into administration last month in what marked one of the biggest high street casualties since the demise of Woolworths in 2008 and followed a month after the failure of JJB Sports.
A number of firms are thought to have put forward potential bids, with Appliances Online confirming it had made an offer for Comet's website under plans to continue the business exclusively online.
But administrators said last week they had no option but to start closing stores in the absence of a firm offer for the whole of the business.
Around 2,600 jobs have already been axed by administrators, including more than 200 due to the closure of the company's distribution centre in Harlow, Essex, last Friday.
Comet was hit by weak high street trading conditions, competition from online rivals and being unable to secure the trade credit insurance needed to safeguard suppliers.
In particular, it was knocked by the lack of first-time home-buyers, who had been key customers for Comet.
Here is a list of those closing today:
:: Poole - Commerce Centre
:: Rayleigh Weir
:: Sheffield - Queens Rd
:: St Helens
:: High Wycombe
:: Liverpool - Bromborough
:: Cardiff - Valegate
:: Great Yarmouth
:: Merthyr Tydfil
:: Manchester/Trafford Park


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Qualcomm and Nvidia are looking to expand their mobile chip technologies beyond smartphones and tablets and into cars, smart TVs and other systems on the list of increasingly connected and intelligent systems.
Both vendors unveiled new chips at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014 that build off their capabilities in mobile devices to make moves in other systems. Neither company is looking to move out of smartphones and tablets, but like other vendors in the tech world, they see opportunities in the growing Internet of things, where massive numbers of systems—from appliances to cars to surveillance cameras—are connected and equipped with intelligence.
In Qualcomm’s case, officials are following up the release last year of the Snapdragon 800 chips for mobile devices with the Snapdragon 802, introduced at the event in Las Vegas Jan. 6. The Snapdragon 802 system-on-a-chip (SoC) is aimed at the growing numbers of smart TVs, smart set-top boxes and smart digital media adapters.
The chip includes features developed for TVs, including broadcast, analog and digital I/O interfaces and a custom Android Software Framework based on the latest Android 4.4 Kit Kat release, enabling system makers to create solutions optimized for the Google mobile operating system in smart consumer devices. Qualcomm officials said their new SoC will enable users to run more than one application at a time, such as playing a game online while participating in a video conference or streaming a movie.
“In addition to offering our expertise in the smartphone space, we also are introducing capabilities specific to the smart TV space, which enable our customers to redefine the smart TV category by combining the best of both TV and smartphone experiences,” Murthy Renduchintala, executive vice president of Qualcomm Technologies, said in a statement. “Combining the efficient integration of our Snapdragon processing and connectivity components with Qualcomm Technologies’ demonstrated expertise in Android will enable the ultimate home entertainment experience with compelling new ways to watch, play and interact.”
The Snapdragon 802 includes a quad-core Krait 1.8GHz CPU and an Adreno 330 graphics chip. The company will begin sampling the SoC early this year and officials said they expect the technology to begin showing up in systems later in 2014.
At the same time, Qualcomm also introduced the Snapdragon 602A, an applications processor also built on the quad-core Krait CPU and Adreno 320 GPU that is aimed at car infotainment systems.
On Jan. 5, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled the 192-core Tegra K1 processor, which is based on the Kepler graphics architecture that is the basis for the company’s GPUs and the company’s GeForce graphics cards. To be sure, the Tegra K1 is a powerful mobile chip that the company expects to find its way into smartphones and tablets, and will help the mobile devices compete with consoles in the booming gaming market. The chip will enable users to play any games on their mobile devices with the same capabilities found on the consoles, according to the company. During an event at the show, Huang demonstrated the Unreal Engine 4 game by Epic Games running on the Tegra K1.
Qualcomm, Nvidia Unveil New Powerful Chips at CES
“It’s a breakthrough that promises to bring the kinds of applications originally built for designers, games and supercomputers to a broad range of devices, erasing the lines between desktop and mobile devices,” Brian Caufield, editor of Nvidia’s corporate blog, wrote in a post on the company’s blog site.
Nvidia officials say the new chip offers three times the performance of Apple’s A7, and will come in two versions—a 32-bit quad-core chip based on the ARM Cortex-A15 CPU architecture and a 64-bit dual-core chip that uses a custom Nvidia-designed CPU code-named Denver. The 32-bit version will start appearing in devices in the first half of 2014, while the 64-bit version will come in the second half.
However, even as the company touts the chip’s capabilities in mobile devices, they also are looking to extend its reach into the automotive arena, particularly in self-driving cars. The Tegra K1 will be able to run such applications as camera-based advanced-driver-assistance systems (ADAS)—including such operations as detecting pedestrians, monitoring blind spots and recognizing street signs—and dashboard-mounted cameras that can monitor driver alertness.
“To process the steady deluge of sensor and camera data required by a self-driving car, Nvidia is bringing highly energy-efficient supercomputer technology inside the vehicle,” Taner Ozcelik, vice president and general manager of Nvidia’s automotive business, said in a statement. “Tegra K1 solves this by providing 10 times the computing power of previous mobile processors without consuming additional energy.”
The chip, in its automotive-grade form, can withstand a range of temperatures and harsh conditions, the company said. Nvidia sees opportunities in the automotive market. Already there are more than 4.5 million cars—including from such manufacturers as Audi, BMW, Tesla and Volkswagen—that include Nvidia processors, officials said.
The Tegra K1 chip will be fully programmable and able to be updated over the air. It will be available to OEMs and top-tier suppliers as a visual computing module, which is a full computer system for cars that can run a range of operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Android and QNX.


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Echo Global Logistics, a provider of transportation and supply chain management services headquartered in Chicago, announced a strategic relationship with Daymon Worldwide, which is launching Daymon Global Logistics, a new transportation management and logistics support solution. Echo also announced that Southeastern Freight Lines, a provider of regional less-than-truckload services, is the recipient of its Carrier Award.
Echo, which will support Daymon’s technology and transportation management requirements, maintains a network of more than 24,000 carriers, which now will be available to Daymon Global Logistics at market competitive rates, along with a customized Web portal to provide increased visibility and control of the supply chain. “Daymon supplier and retail partners will now have the ability to leverage our proprietary technology and take full advantage of a transportation and logistics management team to meet the individual needs of each Daymon partner,” says Doug Waggoner, chief executive officer of Echo Global Logistics.
Southeastern, based in Lexington, S.C., received Echo’s Carrier Award for its excellence in carrier rankings for categories that include quality of service, customer service and overall responsiveness. “We are honored to have received this award from Echo and value the outstanding relationship we have developed over the years,” says Mike Heaton, Southeastern’s senior vice president. “This recognition highlights the commitment of Southeastern and our employees to serve Echo and all of our third-party logistics customers.”
To determine award winners, Echo surveyed more than 400 associates, grading carriers based on service metrics such as timeliness and claims performances, as well as standards that include ease of doing business, customer service and creativity. “The review process includes daily data monitoring and working with customers and employees to address any issue that becomes apparent through this data,” says Mark Redini, Echo vice president of LTL carrier relations.


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You know it’s real when Walmart falls in line. The retailer has announced it will be removing all merchandise bearing the confederate flag from its stores and stop selling said items, too.
Walmart and Sears, two of the country’s largest retailers, will remove all Confederate flag merchandise from their stores.
The announcements are the latest indication that the flag, a symbol of the slave-holding South, has become toxic in the aftermath of a shooting last week at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. Gov. Nikki Haley announced in a Monday afternoon news conference that she supports removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.
As of Monday afternoon, Walmart.com carried the Confederate flag as well as attire featuring the flag’s design, such as T-shirts and belt buckles.
“We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer. We have taken steps to remove all items promoting the confederate flag from our assortment — whether in our stores or on our web site,” said Walmart spokesman Brian Nick. “We have a process in place to help lead us to the right decisions when it comes to the merchandise we sell. Still, at times, items make their way into our assortment improperly — this is one of those instances.”
It was only a matter of time, and common sense.
Walmart is still selling the Mississippi State flag, which not so subtly includes a Confederate flag in its design. Mississippi lawmaker Philip Gunn is calling for its removal from the state flag.
Photo: Ken Wolter/Shutterstock
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L’Oréal revealed what it believed was a game-changer for personalized makeup last year with Perso, a small device that creates customizable lipstick or foundation on demand. During this year’s virtual CES tech conference on Monday, the company revealed that it’s ready to make the concept a reality with its first launch at Yves Saint Laurent.
The brand will be the first to launch the lipstick version this spring under the Rouge Sur Mesure moniker. Limited pre-orders will began today, with first shipments rolling out in March through April. it doesn’t include the hair-care treatments.
The mechanized, app-controlled device is a small, highly pocketable unit loaded with color cartridges that can be blended into different shades of the YSL Velvet Cream Matte Finish.
Born out of the L’Oréal Technology Incubator, the Perso system behind Rouge Sur Mesure consists of an app and a connected hardware device loaded with color cartridges.
“The app allows you to see all the trends either curated by the brands or through your own social network [within the app],” Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oréal’s incubator, told WWD. “You can see lipstick trends and try on a trend virtually with augmented reality.”
Users have multiple ways to find or produce a desired lipstick: They can pick from a “shade wheel” for a ready-to-use look, match an outfit or existing lip color in a photo capture or rely on the smart “shade stylist,” an algorithm-based feature that can assess an outfit and recommend three options to go with it.
“If you like it, you click ‘dispense,’ and then it brings up the right amount of each cartridge,” he said. “You mix at the top and it gets you that color.” The device produces a single dose, but for more, the removable top allows users to take it on the go for touch-ups.
Of course, people can also create their own. They can even become trendsetters within the app by saving and sharing them. In that way, the app becomes its own social media network. YSL influencers will help populate the community, bringing their shades and trends, and users can peruse their own tailored feeds.
The spectrum of choices extends across four “color universes” — reds, pinks, nudes and oranges — expressed as four sets of three color cartridges. The range can yield more than 5,000 different lip colors.
The technology was five years in the making, and it represents “a culmination of many different launches we’ve had over the past nine years that I’ve been running this team,” Balooch said.
Over the years the incubator has developed a string of personalized beauty technologies, including dermatological skin-care system Custom D.O.S.E by SkinCeuticals, on-demand foundation platform Le Teint Particulier by Lancôme and My Skin Track UV by La Roche-Posay. And L’Oréal’s 2018 acquisition of ModiFace turned it into one of the beauty industry’s leading augmented reality developers.
It all comes together in Perso, and while its debut at YSL focuses on lipstick, the system can also work for foundation and skin care. In fact, plans are already in the works for a skin care-oriented Perso that can customize formulations based on the environment. It’s slated for the end of 2021.
L’Oréal is mulling over different ways to apply Perso to its brands, which could make it a genuine platform for consumer beauty tech.
As for the premiere Rouge Sur Mesure, the device will be priced at $299 and includes two cartridges. Additional three-cartridge sets will cost roughly $100 each. By the company’s estimation, each cartridge contains the same volume of makeup as one liquid lipstick.
The initial wave of direct-to-consumer orders will go out in limited supply across the U.S., with a global launch following in September via in-store and online availability.
In other company news, the beauty giant is also introducing the L’Oréal Water Saver, a sustainability collaboration with Swiss environmental tech company Gjosa.
Oriented to bring water and energy conservation to the salon setting, the Water Saver is a hair care system that can pipe a customizable blend of L’Oréal and Kerastase products — such as conditioner, shampoo and other treatments — into a water stream that’s reduced by 80 percent.
As Balooch explained it, Gjosa developed technology that shrinks the size of water droplets themselves, so there’s no discernible sacrifice in water pressure.
It’s a fully connected system that hooks into the back bar of the salon, he added, and it comes with reporting tools. It can record customized treatments for the client files, as well as reports for salon owners on how much water and energy they’re saving.
The company developed an at-home showerhead version that similarly promises to save water without undercutting the pressure. This model is likely more than a year away from launch.
According to Balooch, L’Oréal Water Saver fits into the company’s key values, which espouse inclusivity, performance and sustainability.
“It’s beauty tech for a better world,” he said.


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The mobile application for cryptocurrency trading, Bison powered by Germany's second-largest stock exchange Stuttgart Börse, and the Finnish start-up Sowa Labs is using an analytical tool based on artificial intelligence called Cryptoradar to determine market sentiment.
With the belief that all assets will be digitized in the future, leading investment platform eToro has announced it will launch a cryptocurrency offering in the United States. The launch will initially enable U.S.-based users to invest in 10 cryptocurrencies, with more to be added throughout 2018.
Regarding latest altcoin prices analysis, things are getting interesting. Currently, there is a rich news background, affecting the entire market of cryptocurrencies.
NASDAQ first crypto-exchange, based on its' own developed infrastructure, will be launched in June this year and will offer users trading with zero commissions. It is called DX Exchange, and at the initial stage, in addition to bitcoin, it will support five other highly liquid assets.
Analysts of the international social trading platform eToro published the results of a study of their user base. Among other things, they found out that the vast majority of crypto traders do not have previous trading experience on stock exchanges, and Ripple is the most "female" of the digital assets.
With the development of the cryptocurrency market, bitcoin may be pressured by altcoins in the same way that VHS videotapes supplanted Betamax in the 1980s.
In recent days, the prices of bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies have shown some decline. Currently, most digital currencies are in the "red zone". The current market capitalization is $423 billion, the dominance index of the first cryptocurrency is 36.8%.
Last week, the market was dominated mainly by buyers, but the attempt to push the price above the $ 9800 mark again failed.