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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — As economic uncertainty sapped both consumer confidence and sentiment in June, shoppers also exercised caution with their wallets and delivered U.S. retailers’ worst monthly sales in three years.
Total June sales at stores open at least a year — a key performance metric that strips out the impact of new and closed stores — rose 0.1%, missing the 0.5% gain Wall Street was looking for. That was the smallest pace since sales declined in August 2009, according to Thomson Reuters. Sales rose 6.7% a year earlier. Read “Did mild winter melt June sales?”
Retailers Post Disappointing June Sales
American shoppers exercised caution with their wallets and delivered disappointing sales for retailers in June. Andria Cheng has details on Lunch Break. Photo: AP.
More than two-thirds of 20 retailers that reported their results missed estimates, Thomson Reuters data showed.
“Consumers are holding back, cautious and losing confidence,” said IHS Global Insight economist Chris Christopher.
Shortfalls were seen Thursday from discounters Costco Wholesale Corp. COST, -0.28% and Target Corp. TGT, +0.13% to department-store operator Macy’s Inc. M, -0.66% and teen-oriented Buckle Inc. BKE, +0.35%
BKE, +0.35% BKE, +0.35% BKE, +0.35% BKE, +0.35% BKE, +0.35% Signaling that retailers in the middle continued to be squeezed, Kohl’s Corp.’s KSS, -1.36% sales fell a bigger-than-expected 4.2%. The company said second-quarter profit would be at the low end of its previously forecast range of 96 cents to $1.02 a share.
Kohl’s shares, however, rose 7.3%, after it said sales improved in the latter weeks of the month.
Macy’s Inc., which had been outperforming, reported a 1.2% gain, missing the 1.9% estimate.
“This was a function of a macroeconomic environment that is stagnant at best, and lower spending by tourists in cities such as New York,” said Chief Executive Terry Lundgren, adding renovations at its New York flagship also hurt demand more than expected.
Luxury jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. TIF, -0.03% has also reported a drop in sales, especially to European tourists, at its New York store.
On the discount side, Costco sales rose 3%, missing the 3.7% estimate. Target sales rose 2.1%, missing the 2.4% estimate, even though Target forecast second-quarter sales and profit to meet its expectations and July sales would rise at a low-to-mid single-digit percentage rate.
The July 4th holiday that fell on Wednesday this year instead of Monday last year has led some pre-holiday food and other sales, which were captured in June last year, to be reflected in July number instead. Costco estimated the calendar shift may have hurt sales by a little over 1 percentage point.
Costco “lost a few pre-July 4th selling days in June as 60% of its sales are in consumables and food, said analyst Joe Feldman of Telsey Advisory Group. “When you add that back, core sales were still very strong.”
Meanwhile, lower gasoline prices and moderating food inflation may have also given shoppers less motivation to visit Costco and purchase its bulk items and typically cheaper gasoline, analysts said.
As stock markets declined in the past three months amid uncertainty about the euro-zone financial crisis, China’s slowing economy, and disappointing May job growth in the U.S., consumers paused in their spending even in the face of gasoline prices declining for 11 straight weeks.


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Bitwise Files Application to Launch Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) for ‘Crypto Innovators’
- Bitwise has filed to launch a new investment product, tracking performances of crypto companies.
- Investment firms are expanding their operations as crypto demand continues to grow.
- Asset managers and investment firms in the crypto industry are getting more creative as they look to attract new investors and grow their business.
This week, Bitwise Asset Management, a premier cryptocurrency fund manager, announced plans to launch a new product.
Tracking Crypto-Loving Companies
In its filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bitwise confirmed plans to launch a Crypto Innovators Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF).
The filing explained that the new product would track performances of projects on the Bitwise Crypto Innovators Index. Bitwise describes “Crypto Innovators” firms with services and transactions in blockchain and crypto-facing sectors. These companies include asset custodians, digital trading services, wallet providers, and others.
The Bitwise Crypto Innovators Index will include firms that derive over 75 percent of their revenues from the crypto sector. Eligible companies are required to hold at least 75 percent of their net assets in cryptocurrencies. Bitwise is also looking into large-cap firms that have “dedicated business initiatives” focused on cryptocurrencies.
It is worth noting that Bitwise’s proposed ETF won’t invest in any cryptocurrencies or crypto-based derivatives firms. The company will also not participate in any Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
Good Times for Crypto Investment Companies
Bitwise has seen tremendous growth in its core business recently. Thanks to investors’ focus on cryptocurrencies, the firm has seen significant growth in its business. Earlier this year, the company's assets under management (AUM) surpassed $500 million – a considerable increase from the $100 million in AUM that it held in October 2020.
In a press release, the investment firm explained that most of its new demand came in the fourth quarter of 2020 – a quarter where it surpassed inflows for 2018 and 2019 combined. Most of its new demand came from large investment houses – including hedge funds, financial advisers, family offices, and other institutions.
Bitwise’s most popular product remains its 10 Crypto Index Fund, which provides exposure to the ten largest digital assets by market cap. As the press release showed, the fund drew in $400 million from investors, with the Bitcoin and Ether-focused funds seeing exceptionally high demand. Now that it is launching a new fund, the company hopes to increase its business ventures beyond just cryptocurrencies themselves.
While Bitwise continues to grow in the institutional market, one company that’s in hot demand right now is Grayscale Investments. The New York firm is the industry’s largest asset management firm, and it is making significant expansion plays. It recently filed with the Delaware corporate registry to launch several investment trusts focused on the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
According to its filing, Grayscale hopes to launch funds targeting top DeFi tokens, including DOT, AAVE, and ATOM. The company is looking to capitalize on the growing DeFi space, which has seen over $20 billion in new assets locked this year alone.
Grayscale is also looking to open investment trusts in top-performing altcoins ADA and XMR, allowing it to expand its current count. The company, which has over $25 billion in AUM, has also seen significant growth in its business as institutions tend to choose it as their go-to source for crypto exposure.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Time Inc. has agreed to refund $4.9 million to customers across the country to settle complaints of deceptive sweepstakes mailings. The New York media giant also agreed that with all future mailings, it will disclose the odds of winning, explain that a purchase will not increase the chance of winning and make it clear that the customer has not necessarily won any prize. Time is one of the country's largest sweepstakes mailers, offering magazine subscriptions or books and music as part of its contests. The settlement announced Thursday between Time and states' attorneys general covers the District of Columbia and all states except Connecticut and Iowa. Full refunds will go to the 6,700 customers who spent at least $500 in any of the past three years in Time's "Guaranteed and Bonded" sweepstakes.
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Copyright © 2021, Orlando Sentinel


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Popular Southern-style restaurant Jacob’s Pickles will reopen at 509 Amsterdam Avenue between 84th and 85th Street for dinner this Thursday, following a February fire that caused extensive damage. The interior has been revamped and the restaurant is adding some new menu items. It will eventually add a basement bar too.
And that’s not all. Jacob’s plans to add a new dumpling restaurant up the block at 513 Amsterdam Avenue sometime later this year. “The new place will feature a short menu of dumplings, like the shrimp pillow dumplings on the menu at Maison Pickle, and soft-serve for dessert,” Eater reported. It appears to be in a former computer store next to Alibaba, based on this listing.


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Are you in the market for a new electric vehicle? Well, now is the perfect time to consider making that purchase.
Nissan just announced special pricing available to Plug-in NC Stakeholders on their 100% electric Nissan LEAF. Under this new incentive, Nissan is offering a rebate of $10,000 per vehicle. Combine this rebate with the $7,500 federal tax credit and you’ve got yourself a great deal! These incentives take a total of $17,500 off of the MSRP of a Nissan LEAF. Find out more about the offer here.
We’re excited that Nissan and Plug-in NC have worked together to help bring more electric vehicles to the roads in North Carolina. Stay tuned for more exciting incentives and opportunities like this in the future!
About Plug-in NC: Plug-in NC has been working since 2011 to establish North Carolina as a leader in electrified transportation. A state-wide program, Plug-in NC promotes electric vehicles through education and outreach, consulting and resource development. Plug-in NC also strives to provide a collaborative opportunity for stakeholders to work together to ensure seamless integration of plug-in electric vehicles into North Carolina’s local communities.
Featured Photo courtesy of Karlis Dambrans.


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Amazon Internet Companies’ (AWS) newest outage that for hours noticed some people in america locked out their properties, crypto exchanges powered down, and plenty of different regrettable incidents is a stark reminder of these dangers.
“Centralized cloud infrastructure has raised growing issues about service availability and reliability, knowledge safety and person privateness,” stated Dr. Xinxin Fan, IoTeX co-founder, a cryptographer with a Ph.D. from the College of Waterloo, an inventor with 15 info safety expertise patents, and a former Bosch Analysis Engineer. “This and outer outages and knowledge breaches up to now additionally serve to know additional how essential decentralization, blockchain, and Web3 are.”
AWS’ greater than 18 significant outages in 13 years, privateness violations by Fb and different Large Tech, and Fb (540 million accounts), Experian (15 million), Yahoo (3 billion), Microsoft, and Twitter knowledge breaches are loud wake-up calls that centralization is flawed.
“Internet 3.0, which is pushed by decentralization and user-centric methodology, sheds mild on addressing safety and privateness challenges in cloud computing and is changing into the important thing to rebuilding belief on the Web,” stated Dr. Fan. He spoke of a blockchain-powered IoT or MachineFi, or Web3 to interchange Web2. Dr. Fan and the IoTeX staff are paving the way in which for Web3 by securing good units with blockchain expertise.
Yale Regulation College Visiting Lecturer Sean O’Brien agreed, saying it’s important to construct a brand new community mannequin that resembles the peer-to-peer roots of the early Web. Web3 replaces the normal web by working on this peer-to-peer mannequin that eliminates the necessity for intermediaries, reminiscent of Large Tech.
“The most recent AWS outage is a first-rate instance of the hazard of centralized community infrastructure,” stated Sean O’Brien, a visiting lecturer in cybersecurity at Yale Regulation College. “Although most individuals searching the web or utilizing an app don’t realize it, Amazon is baked into many of the apps and web sites they use every day.”
Tens of 1000’s of individuals had been affected by the outage that left individuals reflecting on the pitfalls of getting clever properties or good units.
“I can’t vacuum as a result of US-east-1 is down,” tweeted Geoff Belknap, LinkedIn’s high info safety officer.
Amazon was a sufferer of its demise. Its warehouses across the U.S. stopped working on Tuesday, December seventh, as its AWS (cloud computing system) left it with out the expertise that powers its firm’s logistics operations.
“The AWS staff is working to resolve the difficulty as rapidly as attainable,” Amazon Spokesperson Richard Rocha stated in a press launch that was regrettable Tuesday morning. The AWS tech staff didn’t resolve the difficulty till later within the night.
The Scottsman wrote that very same day that “the outage is an instance of what can occur when too many firms depend on the identical software program or expertise supplier. Nevertheless, with the worldwide affect that Amazon has on lots of and 1000’s of firms all over the world, it’s unlikely that this outage could have an enduring impact on its utilization.”
“Useless Roombas, stranded packages and delayed exams: How the AWS outage wreaked havoc throughout the U.S.,” reads the title of CNBC’s report on the outage.
If historical past has proven us something, it’s that it repeats itself again and again, and if the individuals proceed to belief centralized entities time and again, would that not be the very definition of madness? Web3 represents technologists reaching for idealistic guarantees for higher Web and the chance for individuals to take again management of our knowledge, clever machines, and the worth they generate, which Large Tech has unscrupulously expropriated.
That includes a abstract of a very powerful every day tales on this planet of crypto, DeFi, NFTs and extra.


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Thieves normally look for electronics, jewelry, money, and credit cards while breaking into cars. However the thief in a weekend incident took a Bible.
A 42 year-old Four Oaks woman was shopping at Wal-Mart on North Brightleaf Boulevard in Smithfield Saturday afternoon. When she returned to her car she noticed a tote bag was missing. The bag contained the victims Bible.
Police said the victim left her car unlocked before going inside the store. Police have closed their investigation into the theft saying they don’t have any leads.
The Bible was valued at $40.


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LONDON: Marketers have moved too far in the direction of digital platforms and at some point they will start to come back to more traditional media, according to the new managing director of News UK Commercial, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp business.
"I think there's probably been a bigger shift of money to some of those [online] platforms than there needed to have been," Dominic Carter told Business Insider. "But there will be a correction at some point. I'm not saying it will all tip back to newspapers, but it'll definitely change."
In saying that, he was echoing others, notably Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP.
Facebook has emerged as a potent rival for advertising revenue while at the same time developing a role as a partner through its Instant Articles product which enables newspaper stories to appear in the News Feeds of Facebook users.
Carter accepted that the social media giant worked for advertisers – "it's got cut-through, it's a fantastic, interesting business" – but added that it was only one business with a role to play like any other.
"What [marketers have] probably done is re-weighted [their] media probably too far [Facebook's] way than I think they should have," he said.
He contrasted the attention levels that a digital platform like Facebook commanded with those achieved by print media. North American users of Facebook, for example, spend an average of 45 minutes day on the site, but that's spread over maybe 40 visits. A reader of the Times, however, might spend 45 minutes in one session with a newspaper, whether read in print or on a tablet.
"That's a large amount of time doing a singular thing, and there has to be a value to that, rather than someone that's dipping in for two minutes at a time, and each time they come in they could be confronted with hundreds of new messages," said Carter.
The main problem is how to prove to advertisers the value of newspapers in the marketing mix.
Earlier this year, News UK's Project Footprint claimed to show how advertising to subscribers who access content behind a paywall drives higher levels of online and offline behaviour and action.
The Financial Times has also been exploring the sale of advertising based on "engaged time" – cost-per-hour currently represents 7% of impressions served by the FT.
But Carter suggested the industry needed to work together to develop a new common currency.
Data sourced from Business Insider; additional content by Warc staff


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Canada got its first taste of one of the more popular American fast food chains earlier this fall season with the In-N-Out Burger Pop Up. A one day event that was sold out by mid-morning, the pop-up gave out wristbands to a group of very lucky people that ensured their chance of buying one of In-N-Out’s famous hamburgers, cheeseburgers or dual-patty Double-Double. They were available in Animal and Protein styles.
A great way to test whether or not the chain would do well north of the border, the In-N-Out Burger Pop Up was well-received by those residing in Toronto, Ontario. Held at the historic Ganzi Osteria building on Jarvis St, the In-N-Out Burger Pop Up also served up branded tees for those who wanted to walk away with more than a full and satisfied stomach.


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5,700 people lost their lives due to complications related to Non-Communicable Diseases in 2020.
According to the Economic Burden Report Fiji 2018, the total burden of NCDs on the Fijian society due to lost hours of work and healthcare needs is estimated to be $406 million annually.
Viliame Qio of Diabetes Fiji Inc says diabetes is among the most devastating of NCDs and high sugar intake makes this disease more prevalent and severe among our people across gender and ethnicity.
He says the 2013/2018 outpatient data recorded more than 176,000 patients treated for diabetes in Fiji.
Qio says that is a crisis and they welcome any measures that address the contributing factors to diabetes and will continue to advocate fiercely for healthier consumption from Fijians.
Head of Wellness Fiji, Doctor Devina Nand says the over-consumption of sugar, salt, oil and processed foods are all major contributors to the prevalence of NCDs in Fiji.
Nand says it is a shame that these unhealthy options fill consumer shopping baskets when Fiji has so many fresh fruits and vegetables and other nutritious food options.
She says changing consumer habits is a slow-going but essential effort that helps to build a more nutrition secure Fiji.
Stay tuned for the latest news on our radio stations


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- Auto Technology
- 1 min read
Prity Singh appointed MD of Elocity India Operations
Ms Singh will assume responsibilities for developing Elocity into a market-leading electric vehicle (EV) charging demand management technology provider.
"The entire auto and transportation sector is going through a major innovation cycle, and Elocity is a global business at the centre of it. People like Ms. Singh are key to our rapid growth and ongoing success," Elocity CEO Sanjeev Singh said.
From Elocity's North American office in Toronto (Canada), he said, “We're focused on supporting the tremendous growth in the global transition to electric mobility. Our innovative HIEV EV charging demand management technology empowers electric utilities, EV drivers and other businesses to benefit from a connected and optimised EV world.
The entire auto and transportation sector is going through a major innovation cycle, and Elocity is a global business at the centre of it. People like Ms. Singh are key to our rapid growth and ongoing success.Sanjeev Singh, Elocity CEO
Singh brings extensive industry and sectoral knowledge, decades of operational, safety, and leadership experience and a demonstrated commitment to ESG goals. In March she was celebrated as 'Business Disruptor of the Year' at the SolarQuarter's Women in Energy Leadership Summit 2021 Awards.
Singh has nearly 15 years of industry experience and has handled multiple transformation projects across the globe. She has worked with global companies like Vedanta and GE Power before joining Elocity.
CEO Singh observed, “Her new responsibilities align with our India growth strategy, putting an accomplished leader on the forefront, to give our customers and partners enhanced access to our technology and help them transition to electric mobility."


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Archive For The “Trucking Reports” Category
Eighty percent of the nation’s domestic citrus shipments originate from California and loadings this season look favorable despite more than a month of triple digit heat. Meanwhile, a look at apple shipments in the United States reveal a double digit drop in remaining volume compared to last season.
The state has a $3.3 billion industry with over 3,000 growers farming about 320,000 acres of citrus.
Technically, the California citrus season starts each year at the beginning of October with production and lemon shipments coming out of the Imperial County. The harvest then gradually moves north to the San Joaquin Valley for mandarins and navels. This year’s crop faced 34 consecutive of temperatures well above 100 degrees. This caused citrus trees to kind of shut down, which is expected to result in fruit with a lot more smaller sizes that a year ago. Still, the industry generally believes overall quality will be good. An upside of the hot weather should be better flavor.
California citrus – grossing about $7100 to New York City.
U.S. fresh apples remaining for the 2018-19 shipping season are down 14 percent compared to a year ago. The U.S. Apple Association reports as of November 1st there were 155.5 million cartons remaining in storages. The amount of apple shipments remaining are 11 percent less compared to the five-year average of 130.3 million cartons.
Total Honeycrisp fresh apples still in storage as of November 1st were 11.15 million cartons, up 6 percent from 10.56 million cartons last year and 58 percent higher than two years ago, when 7.06 million cartons of Honeycrisp were in storage.
At the same time, fresh market gala apples remaining in storage totaled 24.4 million cartons, down from 15 pecent at 28.6 million cartons last year and off 6 pecent from two years ago. Fresh market red delicious holdings were 27.6 million cartons on November 1, down 19 percent from 34.1 million cartons a year ago and 29 percent less than holdings of 39 million cartons two years ago.
Peruvian grape imports by the U.S. are expected to increase this season, according to a new report from the USDA.
The new forecast has grape exports from Peru for the 2018-19 shipping season show an increase of 7 percent.
From October 2018 to September 2019 Peruvian grape production is predicted to rise 7 percent, totaling 540,000 metric tons, according to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
“Grape production is recovering after heavy El Niño rains and unstable temperatures in early 2017 delayed harvest, reduced yields, and reduced quality,” the USDA said in the report.
With domestic consumption estimated at 271,000 metric tons, the USDA projects grape exports at 385,000 metric tons in 2018-19, up 7 percent from the previous year.
For the calendar year 2017, the USDA reported the U.S. was the top export market for Peru grape exports, taking 33 percent of the total volume.
Peru’s dry coast and 12 hours of sunlight daily, combined with irrigation, allows Peru to mature its grape crop 55 percent faster than neighboring countries, according to the report.
Grapes are grown primarily in Ica with 41 percent of the production and Piura with 22 percent of the production. The total area under cultivation, is estimated at more than 74,000 acres.
While the red globe variety dominates production — it remains popular in the growing Chinese market. The report notes growers are moving to higher-value varieties to supply other markets such as Crimson seedless, flame seedless, thompson seedless and sugraon.
One acre of grapes in Peru requires an initial investment of approximately $16,000, not counting the cost of land.
The report said about 30 percent of the cost of production is soil preparation and the irrigation system, 25 percent is establishing the trellis, and 14 percent goes toward the plant itself.
At $3,070 per metric ton, prices in the U.S. market were 27 percent higher than the average export price of $2,419 per metric ton in 2017. In the same period, the U.S. market represented 42 percent by value and 33 percent by volume of total Peruvian grape exports.
Here is a trifecta of produce loading opportunities. Granted two of the three will be limited volume (mandarins and broccoli), but Idaho potatoes always have big time shipments.
In another week or so Kishu mandarin loadings will get underway from California’s Orange Cove growing region.
The delicate, hand-picked item has relatively overall light volume and provides partial loads at best.
Kishu mandarins are a golf ball-sized mandarin that are sweet and easy to peel and sold for Ripe to You under the Lil’ Ninja Mandarins label. Harvest begins in mid-November.
“We’re still competing with our retail partner’s inventory of citrus from the Southern Hemisphere,” says Madalyn McCracken of Ripe to You, based in Reedley, CAs.
That said, she adds that the Kishus are a variety sought after by higher-end grocery stores. “We’ve had great feedback on our 1 lb. bag with a new Giro design and we look forward to the consumer’s reaction to it,” she says.
Idaho Potato Shipments
Shipments of Idaho potatoes through early October have been running ahead of a year ago, according to USDA statistics. As of October 6th, truck shipments of Idaho potatoes were 61.9 million pounds, up 9 percent from the same week a year ago.
Season-to-date truck shipments of Idaho potatoes through October 6th totaled 458.7 million pounds, up 14 percent compared with the season.
Rail shipments were also up, with season-to-date movement of 28.5 million pounds, up 6 percent compared with year-ago levels.
Fresh potato loadings are expected to ramp up as the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays approach.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $4700 to Atlanta.
Georgia Broccoli Shipments
While Maine broccoli shipments are finishing, shipper Fresh from the Start is launching its second season in Georgia with broccoli shipments starting in mid-November.
The company dodged the bullet with Hurricane Michael and is expecting good volume this season. Once its Georgia season is finished it will begin shipping out of Florida in January.
North American blueberry imports for the 2018-19 season will be good despite volume declining slightly from the record levels of a year ago.
With only a 5 percent decline in volume this season, it will hardly be noticed.
Chile has about 1,300 blueberry growers, primarily found in central and southern Chile. The country has about 100 exporters shipping 100 metric tons or more.
With nearly perfect growing conditions last season, Chilean exporters shipped about 110,351 metric tons of fresh blueberries to all export markets with 64 percent destined for North America, 24 percent to Europe and 12 percent to Asia.
This season,Chilean fresh blueberry exports are forecast near 105,000 metric tons with distribution of the crop to be similar to a year ago.
Chilean blueberry exports started in mid-October. Peak shipments will get underway the last week of November, and continuing through February. The season continues through March.
Organic blueberry exports continue and upward trend. Last season, organic blueberry shipments accounted for 9.5 percent of total fresh exports, or about 10,000 metric tons. About 85 percent of the organic “blues” were exported to the U.S.
Total Chilean blueberry acreage was 38,550 acres in July 2017, of which 17 percent was organic production.
Boat vs. Air Shipments
About 90 percent of Chilean blueberry volume to North America is shipped by sea container, and 10 percent by air. Few airplanes for shipping Chilean blueberries in the future is predicted since there is increasing competition from other exporting countries.
Last season, Chile exported about 40,000 metric tons of frozen blueberries — equal to about 40 percent of fresh volume.
Imports of Chilean fruit are seen as looking good in the new season. Meanwhile, a California shipper plans a big increase in it Sumo citrus loadings.
Among Chilean fruit imports expected to have strong volume destined for the U.S. are blueberries, lemons and citrus.
The Chilean fruit 2017-18 shipping season hit record levels for exports because of near perfect growing conditions. While the 2018-19 shipping season is also expected to be strong, volume is predicted to be down about 5 percent from 2017-18’s 110,000 metric tons. Organic exports are forecast to make up about 10 percent of the total volume.
Chilean blueberries are seen as having strong imports by the U.S. Increases in U.S. imports are being forecast for citrus and lemons. The Chilean navel crop had a small increase, with volume up to 99,000 metric tons over last season’s 84,000 metric tons. Of note is the U.S. imports about 90 percent of that volume.
The easy-peeler category was launched by clementines last May and W. Murcotts in July. Clementine volume was up about 40 percent, to 61,000 metric tons, and the W. Murcott crop saw an increase of around 30 percent to 110,000 metric tons.
Since the U.S. and Chile have opposite seasons, the later has the ability of exporting produce items when the U.S. is either out of season, or at low production.
We’ll soon be having an update on Chile’s biggest volume produce export item, table grapes.
Sumo Citrus Shipments
Suntreat of Lindsay, CA will have larger volume from the west coast this season with its Sumo citrus. Suntreat, which is a division of AC Foods, handles Sumo from Australia between mid-September and mid-October. This is followed by California’s Sumo season which ships product from January into April.
The Sumo, is a large mandarin developed in Japan, and is related to the orange family. The Sumo is an exclusive citrus varietal for the company. AC Foods expects to experience significant growth this year, shipping about 5 million, 5-pound cases.
Florida citrus shipments for the 2018-19 season is forecast at 86.9 million boxes, a 75 percent increase from last year’s Hurricane Irma damaged crop, according to the USDA.
Citrus shipments are still far below Florida’s peak volume of 244 million boxes during the 1997-98 season.
“This citrus production forecast offers a glimmer of hope to Florida’s iconic citrus industry,” said Adam Putnam, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, in a statement. “For more than a decade, we’ve battled citrus greening and the industry most recently was dealt a devastating blow last year from Hurricane Irma. This estimated increase in production is the much-anticipated good news that Florida’s growers have hoped for. Much work remains, but the citrus industry is strong and here to stay.”
Florida’s forecast for all oranges is set at 79 million boxes for 2018-19, up an impressive 76 percent from 44.95 million boxes in 2017-18, notes the USDA.
For grapefruit, the USDA forecast Florida shipments at 6.7 million boxes in 2018-19, up 72 percent from 3.88 million boxes from 2017-18. Florida red grapefruit shipments was 5.5 million boxes, up from 3.18 million boxes last season.
Florida tangerine/mandarin shipments for the 2018-19 season is 1.2 million boxes, up from 60 percent from last season.
California and Texas
California growers and shippers also are expecting to ship more volume.
The California navel orange shipments for 2018-19 is 49 million boxes is up 8 percent from last season’s final shipments. The California valencia orange forecast is 9 million boxes, down 5 percent from last season’s final utilization. The Texas all-orange shipping forecast is at 2.4 million boxes, is up 28 percent from last season’s final utilization, the USDA said.
The U.S. 2018-2019 grapefruit shipments are is forecast 33 percent higher than last season’s final utilization. In Texas, expected production of 6.2 million boxes is up 29 percent from a year ago.
The forecast for the 2018-2019 U.S. lemon crop is down 4 percent from last season’s final shipments. California volume forecast is at 20 million boxes is off 6 percent from the 2017-2018 season.
The USDA said the U.S. tangerine and mandarin crop is forecast up 22 percent from last season’s final loadings. California tangerine and mandarin forecast, at 23 million boxes, is up 20 percent from the previous year.
Timely arrivals for banana imports from Central and South America has been an ongoing issue this year due to factors ranging from disruptions by labor to weather factors.
Particularly over the last several weeks there have been late arrivals as a result of steamship line delays and issues. Major delays by shipping companies continue along the most commonly used routes from South America to the U.S. This has resulted in inconsistencies with steamship line arrival times to the U.S. and disruptions in banana supply across the board.
Labor strikes in Costa Rica have furthered the inconsistencies on steamship arrivals as any routes that include Costa Rica have experienced major slowdowns at Cost Rica ports. Contributing to the problems was a hurricane that hit the southeastern coast of Costa Rica in September.
Organics Unlimited of San Diego, CA has reported price pressure on organic bananas. The company contends there is a lack of understanding on what is figured into the higher prices needed for organic product versus conventional.
Chiquita Brands has referenced the rising costs of items ranging from paper, bunker fuel and inland transportation. There also are stricter regulations, fuel prices going up and lack of adequate labor, all which are having a negative impact on costs.
Bananas imported by North American companies are sourced mainly from Central America, where challenges the industry faced this year were mostly weather related.
The year started with colder weather than usual, and in Costa Rica and Panama above average rainfall, creating port service problems. The unstable political situation in the region continues to pose a challenge for a consistent and problem-free supply.
Del Monte Fresh Produce of Coral Gables, FL reports in recent months growing conditions have been good and banana availability should remain steady through the rest of the year, despite some transportation issues last September.
Oke USA of West Bridgewater, MA is the importing arm of Equal Exchange. The company reports weather has been ideal in Peru and Ecuador this year. However, 2017 was a difficult year for quality due to El Niño and excessive rains that led to wide-scale flooding, especially in Peru. In 2018, there has been less rain in general, rains coming at the right time and more optimal growing conditions in general. This has resulted Equal Exchange experiencing a decrease of over 50 percent in quality issues.
California table grapes remaining to be shipped this season at the close of September were the highest in at least a decade.
Red seedless varieties account for most of the increase from last season. Origin Fruit Services South America compiled the report showing California table grapes remaining to be shipped as of September 30th were 12.9 million boxes – 19 percent above the 10.8 million boxes at the same time last year.
The report has recorded stocks, or remaining shipments, for the past 10 years. The second-highest level over this period was in 2008 when stocks of 11.2 million boxes were registered. Since 2009, stocks as of September 30th have ranged from 7.5 million boxes in 2012 to 11.1 million boxes in 2010.
Remaining shipments of red seedless grapes recently amounted to 7.4 million boxes – up 39 percent from a year ago. White seedless volumes are the same as last year at 4.5 million, while black seedless are up 16 percent at 656,000 boxes.
Red Globes, meanwhile, are down 25 percent from last year at 365,000 boxes.
San Joaquin Valley table grapes – grossing about $7500 to Miami.
Record shipping volume
The California table grape industry set a new five-week shipping record, moving over 23 million boxes into the worldwide marketplace September 8th through October 12th.
About 60 to 65 percent of California table grapes are normally shipped from September 1st through January.
L&M Pepper Shipments
L&M Farms of Raleigh, NC has expanded pepper field acreage this year with proprietary-seed colored bell peppers under the Simply Sun brand, which is now grown and shipped year-round. Loadings are now originating from Georgia and then will shift to Florida before returning back up north on the East Coast to North Carolina and then over to Michigan. The Simply Sun colored bells come in red and yellow now, with orange peppers coming into the program as well.
Dave’s Specialty Imports, Miami, Fla., is importing a jumbo blueberry pack and has significantly expanded its imports of organic strawberries from Mexico.
Imported Mexican organic strawberries are crossing the border and will overlap slightly with the start of Florida strawberry shipments in January.
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. – CarbAmericas will start shipping Cypress Creek Organic green asparagus from Caborca, Mexico in January 2019. CarbAmericas is the premier importer of fresh fruits and vegetables celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2018.
The season will start in January and run through April 15 and pick up again from October to March. CarbAmericas will offer long term and contract pricing for its organic asparagus program. This new organic program will complement the company’s longstanding conventional asparagus offerings.
CarbAmericas will supply organic asparagus in 11/1lb and 28/1lb boxes, consisting of standard and large size asparagus.
“We will also pack our organic asparagus in a 12 oz bag that will be more convenient for the consumer, introduce “new customers” to the organic category through purchase triggers, and will provide a better price point,” said Jeff Friedman, president of CarbAmericas.
The Caborca-grown product will load in Yuma Arizona.
The company takes a holistic approach, working with category management processes and our retail partners to bring new customers to the Organic category.
CarbAmericas was established in 1993 and is a vertically integrated, year-round supplier and importer of fruits and vegetables. Specializing in asparagus, broccoli, mangos, berries, snow and sugar snap peas, CarbAmericas ships to both retail and foodservice in the U.S., Europe, Asia and South America. With team members working alongside their growers across the Americas, CarbAmericas truly stands behind its commitment to take a holistic approach, working with category management processes and retail partners to bring new customers to the organic category.
Mountain King Potatoes
by MountainKing Potatoes
HOUSTON, TX – MountainKing Potatoes has announced the completion of a bumper crop-like harvest of its Butter Reds, one of the company’s most popular gourmet varieties.
Originally from the Netherlands, the 100-percent all-natural variety from Colorado’s San Luis Valley relies on Beta-Carotene for its intense yellow flesh. Fresh packed in 3#, 5# and 10# poly bags, the newly harvested Butter Reds are available October to April.
Known for their waxy texture which holds up better to boiling, roasting and grilling, MountainKing’s Butter Reds have become a preferred choice for stews, potato salads and when roasted with fresh herbs and grilled.
MountainKing Potatoes is one of the world’s largest growers of high-flavor potato varieties. Currently, about one million U.S. households enjoy MountainKing products every week.
U.S. imports of Peruvian onions got off to a slow start this season, but quality is good and total production is expected to exceed those of a year ago.
Sweet Onion Trading of Melbourne, FL reports the onion crop is a little late due to colder than normal weather during the growing season. Still, good quality onions are being reported from all production regions.”
As of August 30th, imports of Peruvian sweet onions were down 215 containers from the previous season at the same time. It is the lowest shipments since 2014.
Keystone Fruit Marketing of Greencastle, PA notes U.S. imported Peruvian sweet onions are down 28 percent, but are expected to catch up with last season’s imports in time for Thanksgiving. Keystone Fruit Marketing’s initial imported onions from Peru arrived the first week of September. The company experience light volume in September and early October because of cooler temperatures during the growing season.
G&R Farms of Glennville, GA has reports its Peruvian sweet onion harvest starts in July, with retailers receiving their first product in mid-August. As with Sweet Onion Trading and Keystone Fruit Marketing, G&R Farms believes the slow start will see a rebound as the season progresses. The harvest lasts into late March or early April.
At Shuman Produce of Reidsville, GA, the operation imported more than 1,000 containers of Peruvian onions last season, marketed under the RealSweet brand.
With rising demand in the U.S. for sweet onions, the company plans to increase volumes this season.
Shuman Produce, which is one of the largest Vidalia sweet onion shippers, reported that season went very well. It has experienced a very smooth transition from its Vidalia sweet onion season to Peruvian sweet onions.


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H&M’s first half and Q2 were all about its ongoing recovery as the retail giant benefited from “increased full-price sales and lower markdowns”. But there remain challenges and comparison periods are getting tougher.
The sports market continues to grow and that means we’re seeing plenty of launches and deals at present with the latest deal being for a UK business and a French one that are combining to create a major sports group.
Menswear’s two most defiantly artistic designers – Craig Green and Jonathan Anderson – began Saturday with two strikingly unique visions in Paris, before Hermès presented a salutary lesson in nonchalant chic.
After leaving his position as CEO of French event sales site Showroomprivé in December, Thierry Petit has sold his 17.61% stake in the company. Eric Sitruk, soon to own a 7.5% stake, is set to become a board member.
London-based jewellery brand Astrid & Miyu has marked its 10th anniversary with the debut of its first permanent international store in New York. The opening follows a number of pop-ups in the city in previous years.
Ebay Inc. announced on Wednesday it has acquired non-fungible token marketplace KnownOrigin for an undisclosed amount, as the U.S. e-commerce marketplace looks to strengthen its product offering for digital collectors.
Sales of luxury goods are set to rise at least 5% this year as shoppers in the US and Europe continue to snap up high-end watches, jewelry and shoes despite political uncertainty and soaring inflation, Bain said Tuesday.


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The competition will take place at Dalhousie University on March 10 and 11, 2017 and is hosted and organized by Launch Dal, an initiative of the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship in collaboration with Dalhousie University’s Rowe School of Business.
Student entrepreneurs from across Canada will be traveling to Halifax to showcase their startup for a chance to win their share of the $50,000 prize pool presented by Deloitte Canada.
Canada’s Business Model Competition®
The competition is open to current full-time Canadian university students of any level of study in any discipline up to six months after graduation date. Full details can be found by clicking on the Eligibility Criteria link. Additional details can be found on the CBMC Website. Students can also apply here.
In addition, this year’s International Business Model Competition (IBMC) will be held May 11 and 12, 2017 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Canada’s Business Model Competition® is the national qualifier competition for the IBMC and the first place team will automatically advance to the International Business Model Competition. Other contenders may still apply through the general application found on the IBMC Apply page.
Visit the Canada’s Business Model Competition website for further details.


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4 Wheel Drive Cars Car finance has substantially grown in attraction over recent few years from it delivering an appealing alternative to total ownership over an automobile.
There are a predicted 8.7 thousand UK vehicle drivers along with a car finance contract, but a big symmetry of these feel 'caught', declares a brand new record.
Depending on to new analysis by Drover, around 28 per-cent of vehicle drivers along with financing packages can not pay for the final remittances to keep the cars and truck by the end of the agreement.
Drover Chief Executive Officer and also founder Felix Leuschner point out that drivers must think about other pathways when searching for a brand new cars and truck package.
4 Wheel Drive Cars " Purchasing a vehicle is actually a complicated prospect for lots of vehicle drivers-- certainly not only is there a great deal option, but car finance packages are hugely confusing," he claimed.
" Our company are striving to aid vehicle drivers by providing a more pliable technique to operate a vehicle without the dedication of car finance."
British customers have slowed their loaning on car finance packages among dropping vehicle purchases activated by new exhausts exams.
Numbers coming from the Banking company of England showed annual growth in non-mortgage consumer debt-- on private financings, charge card and also car finance packages-- lost to 7.7% in September to the most affordable degree due to the fact that June 2015.
Threadneedle Road claimed non-mortgage consumer debt boosted by about ₤ 800m last month-- lower than the amount recorded in August-- as new loaning for car finance dropped sharply. It mentioned this was actually "consistent along with extremely poor cars and truck registration amounts in September" 4 Wheel Drive Cars.


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Coupa Software (Nasdaq: COUP) reported an adjusted loss of 3 cents per share on revenue of $81 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2020. Analysts had expected Coupa to post a loss of 4 cents per share on revenue of $73.8 million. COUP stock, which closed down 6.16% at $102.48, was up about 5% in the extended hours of trading.
The revenue increase of 44% compared to the year-ago period was driven by subscription revenue growth of 46%. GAAP net loss was $20.5 million or $0.34 per share compared to a loss of $15.5 million or $0.28 per share in the same period last year. For the first quarter of fiscal 2020, revenue and adjusted EPS came in line with the company’s targets.
For the second quarter of 2020, the San Mateo, California-based firm expects the non-GAAP loss to be between $0.10 and $0.12 per share and revenue is expected to be between $84.5 million and $85.5 million. Subscription revenues are expected to be between $77 million and $78 million. Professional services and other revenues are expected to be approximately $7.5 million.
Coupa lifted its outlook for the fiscal year 2020. The company now projects adjusted earnings to be in the range of $0.07 to $0.10 per share versus the prior estimate of $0.04 to $0.10. The prior revenue gudiance range of $325 million to $327 million is now upped to a range of $342 million and $344 million.
“In the first quarter, we delivered strong financial results, including record quarterly total revenues, subscription revenues, and calculated billings, as we continued to execute on our business plan and further solidify our position as the clear leader in Business Spend Management,” said CEO Rob Bernshtey.
Coupa Software stock, which reached a new 52-week high ($116.13) on May 22, had returned 61% since the beginning of 2019 and 87% in the trailing 12 months.
Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) reported first quarter 2023 earnings results today. Sales rose 2.5% year-over-year to $13.2 billion. Net income attributable to Tyson was $316 million, or $0.88 per
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) this week reported its first revenue decline in more than three years, even as the high inflation continues to squeeze customers’ spending power. Sales of the
Chipmaker Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) has reported lower earnings and revenues for the first quarter of 2023. The company also provided guidance for the second quarter of 2023. At $9.5


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It’s not just Mixer. Microsoft announced on Friday that it’s permanently closing all of its retail locations. They’d been on hiatus since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but now the company is going all-in with online stores.
Four locations in London, New York City, Sydney and Redmond will be “reimagined” as Experience Centers that don’t sell anything. Like the Mixer shut down, making this move just before launching a new console generation seems odd, but COVID-19 may have accelerated plans that were already in place.
iOS 14 first look: Apple tries to do more but still keep things simple
Widgets and the App Library are just a start.
According to Chris Velazco, the next version of Apple’s mobile OS has “some of the biggest visual changes to iOS since its debut more than a decade ago.” While you’re probably better off waiting for the public beta in July or its official release later this year, he’s taken the developer beta for a spin to find out what’s new in iOS 14.
Engadget Podcast: WWDC breakdown and a health-tech check-in
Apple's keynote drives discussion around OS wars and health tech.
In Devindra’s absence, Cherlynn is joined by Dan Cooper as guest co-host, as well as senior mobile editor Chris Velazco to rip into Apple’s latest updates. From iOS 14 vs. Android, to watchOS 7, to macOS and Apple’s transition to ARM chips, there’s plenty to discuss.
Then, our hosts are joined by CNBC health and health-tech reporter Chrissy Farr to talk about the latest developments in healthcare and telemedicine. Do wearable companies have the right idea when it comes to developing products for COVID-19? What is Apple’s approach to this burgeoning industry?
Here's everything Apple announced at its WWDC 2020 keynote
All the details on iOS 14, macOS Big Sur and a coming split from Intel.
Need some time to catch up on all of the Apple news? We have the highlights right here, with every notable article about new CPUs and operating systems linked and waiting. Or, if you want a no-filler version of the keynote itself, a twenty-minute edit of Apple’s presentation will bring everything you need to know and nothing else.
Sponsored Content by Stack Commerce
This week's best deals: Apple Watch Series 5, Echo Dot and more
Plus a couple of Sony wireless earbuds for less than $200.
The Apple Watch Series 5 dropped to $299 again after WWDC kicked off earlier this week and Amazon still has some of its Echo speakers on sale (including the handy $35 Echo Dot with clock). You can grab some extra storage for your Nintendo Switch for less at Newegg and Steam’s Summer Sale has just begun.
Hype and hope: Wearables in the covid era
Put a ring on it.
Are wearables finally getting to the point where they could detect COVID-19 symptoms before they appear (or provide a form of confirmation at the onset)? Violet Blue looks beyond the promo material and into the potential issues, including what this means for privacy.


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An advert for Tesco-branded sausages has been banned by the UK's advertising regulator for misleading viewers that the meat used came from pigs bred outdoors.
The TV ad, for Butcher's Choice Sausages, featured scenes of pigs roaming in a field, as well as standing in a hay barn and following a farmer down a lane.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received four complaints that the ad was "misleading" because the meat used for Tesco's sausages came from pigs that were bred and reared indoors.
Tesco denied that the ad was misleading, claiming that the pigs had been reared to domestic and international agreed standards of husbandry and welfare. The supermarket giant also claimed that the farmer shown in the ad was one of its suppliers.
The ASA acknowledged that the term "outdoor bred" had an industry-wide recognised meaning that pigs were born in fields, kept there until weaning, then moved indoors.
However, it said that the ad misleadingly suggested that the pigs were "reared in an unrestricted environment", and therefore ruled that it "must not be broadcast again in its current form".
"We noted that in all scenes the pigs were shown to be in a spacious and free environment. In particular, we noted that the pigs were shown wandering unrestricted outside and, within the indoor barn scene, the barn door was shown to be open and the pigs' movement unrestricted," said the ASA.
"In that context, we considered that consumers were likely to interpret the ad to mean that the pigs used to make the Butcher's Choice sausages were reared in an unrestricted environment and had access to outdoor pasture. Since we understood that that was not the case, we concluded that the ad was misleading."
A Tesco spokesperson said in a statement: "We're a bit baffled by this ruling. The farmer featured is a Tesco supplier and produces some of the pork featured in our ad. We genuinely don't see how the ASA can say an ad showing a genuine Tesco farmer can be misleading."
Today's ASA ruling is similar to another judgement against Waitrose in October last year, in which a Heston Blumenthal-fronted commercial was banned for making misleading claims about pork.


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By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Do you have a landline phone? Cell phones are allowing more and more people to give up their landlines at home, and now it appears that businesses are doing the same. 3 On Your Side’s Jim Donovan has the details.
When Olga Feynshteyn moved into her first apartment two years ago she needed a lot of things, but a home phone wasn’t one of them.
She says, “So it’s very cost effective for sure, when I moved out on my own I realized there were so many other bills that I need to put my money towards.”
Thanks to cell phones, 47 percent of U.S. households surveyed said they didn’t have a landline in 2015. That’s up from just 11 percent in 2006.
Young people are leading the way. About two thirds of 25 to 34 year olds don’t have a home phone.
Feynshteyn says, “Even if it was free I don’t think I have a use for it.”
Joseph Marazzo owns a group of wine bars in New York that have no business or reservation lines. His customers can reach out on email.
He says, “I feel like they have a better experience because of it, so ultimately it’s a net gain.”
Matt Davis from telecommunications analysis firm IDC says the shift away from landlines to mobile phones is here to stay.
According to Davis, “There’s about half a million new businesses created every year and those new businesses are much more likely to be mobile-centric.”
IDC also found that more than 75 percent of corporations it surveyed plan to implement unified phone systems that extend to workers’ mobile phones.


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ADA, Okla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LegalShield, one of North America’s leading providers of affordable legal plans and the IDShield identity theft solution for individuals, families and small businesses, announced today that Glenn Petersen has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Broker and Partnership Sales.
“Americans face significant exposure to legal and identity theft issues every day”
Petersen brings a track record of driving growth and profitability in the Group and Direct markets across a broad spectrum of products and services. Prior to joining LegalShield, Petersen spent nearly 25 years at MetLife, most recently as Vice President in the Group Voluntary and Worksite Benefits Sales organization, which doubled voluntary benefits sales results through innovative market and distribution expansion, product enhancements and a focus on talent. His previous roles during his career with MetLife include: National Sales Director – Executive Benefits, Regional Sales Director – Group Voluntary Benefits and Account Executive – Group Voluntary Benefits.
“Americans face significant exposure to legal and identity theft issues every day,” says Glenn Petersen. “LegalShield is uniquely positioned to provide high value solutions, including voluntary benefit offerings, to mitigate these prevalent risks. We look forward to closely engaging the brokerage community to further the awareness and adoption of these valuable protection services.”
“We are very excited to welcome Glenn to the LegalShield family,” said James Rosseau, president of LegalShield Business Solutions. “Glenn’s expertise, combined with our best in class products, service delivery and mobile apps will accelerate our movement towards leadership in the voluntary benefit marketplace in the categories for which we currently compete, as well as those in which we will begin to compete. His experience lends immediate credibility and awareness of LegalShield.”
LegalShield has provided legal protection to millions of people for 44 years and has provided identity theft protection for 13 years. IDShield is one of the only identity theft products that offer complete monitoring and restoration in the case of identity theft. The company’s legal and identity theft plans cover more than 1.6 million families and serve more than 4.1 million people across North America. More than 141,000 companies offer the LegalShield and/or IDShield plans to their employees as a voluntary or fringe benefit.


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Facebook's Head of Advertising Integrity Rob Leidern has left the company. Rob Leidern used to watch the company's advertising products and during his time political and coronavirus misinformation was revealed. According to the news agency Reuters, his company has quit this week.
Rob was the Director of Product Management. He said last month that he would leave the company by December 30. However, the news of his leaving the company was not revealed yet.
According to Reuters, there is no response to this from Facebook.
Leidern said in a post that he was leaving the company to work on the privacy of consumers rather than just advertising and social media. But it did not tell where they are going.
This is also a dispute
In October 2020, a person from Newfoundland, Canada, posted an advertisement of onion seeds on Facebook, which also featured a picture of the onion. Facebook took this picture as a human body part and removed this post. Not only this, Facebook also sent a notice to the person giving the advertisement.
Facebook stated in its notice that sexual content has been shown in this advertisement, due to which it has been removed from the platform. After this, people associated with that online platform posted a screenshot of this Facebook message and the picture went viral. Facebook was very bad about it.


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Chinese high-tech-manufacturing industry-observer site Digitimes is sharing a bold new rumor: That when Apple does venture into the strange and wonderful world of TV making, it will distinguish its television set from many others in the market by using next-gen “4K” display tech. This means the screen would have 3840 by 2160 pixels, which is about 8 megapixels…or roughly four times as many pixels as your paltry “full HD” 1080p TV currently has.
The set will also allegedly use voice and motion/gesture controls and use Net connectivity.
LG is purportedly tipped to deliver these “ultra HD” TV screens to Apple, and may even be able to ship them in time for a late 2013 launch window.
The rumor certainly tallies with Apple’s push for higher resolution screens on its mobile devices, and even supports Apple’s long-held belief that the only way to enter a new market is by revolutionizing it. Speculation that Apple is getting into the TV game has been increasing over the last year, although Apple seems to have avoided using a spring window in its hardware release schedule to launch a new product.
Separately, Intel (erstwhile Apple supplier and arch-rival) is said to be in final discussions with TV networks about securing content for its own next-gen TV push.
Would ultra-high resolution be enough of a feature to tempt you into buying a new HD TV?
[Image: Flickr user Artnow314]


text: Charging personal income taxes is getting sweeter as American Express is now awarding double air miles to cardholders of its Delta co-branded credit cards. Under a special promotion for this tax season, holders of Classic, Gold or Platinum Delta SkyMiles credit cards will earn double SkyMiles when they use their card to pay individual federal taxes between February 15 and April 16. Corporate cardholders and holders of the Delta SkyMiles Options card will not be eligible for the extra miles. Participants in Membership Rewards will likewise not receive bonus points for tax payments. AmEx also announced this week it has added a new third party payment processor for credit card tax payments. PhoneCharge, Inc. will be used for the first time this year by AmEx. Since 1999, AmEx has exclusively used Official Payments Corp. as its third party payment processor. In addition to charging federal tax payments AmEx cards can be used to charge state income taxes in 17 states and the District of Columbia, nearly double the number of states that accepted AmEx cards for tax payments last year. For more information on paying taxes with credit cards, contact Official Payments Corporation (http://www.officialpayments.com) or PhoneCharge, Inc. (http://www.about1888alltaxx.com). Taxpayers can also pay via telephone by calling Official Payments at 1-800-2PAY-TAX or PhoneCharge at 1-888-ALLTAXX. For more information about the Delta SkyMiles Credit Card, consumers can call 1-800-SKY-MILE.


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Lego Expands Three Factories to Meet Increased Demand for Toysby
Lego A/S, Europe’s biggest toymaker, said it will expand three of its factories to meet increased demand for its colorful building bricks.
Lego will add about 3,000 workers to its site in Monterrey, Mexico, in an expansion plan through 2022 that will cost a “three-digit” million-euro amount, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. It will also invest in its Nyíregyháza factory in Hungary and in its site by the Billund, Denmark-based headquarters.
Lego, which is owned by Denmark’s billionaire Kristiansen family, announced the expansion plans as it builds a factory in China to tap the Asian market. The release of “The Lego Movie” as well as the launch of the pastel-colored Lego Friends line for girls has helped it win market share from U.S. rivals Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. in recent years.
The Hungary investment will initially add 150 jobs, but may be expanded to 1,600 new positions by 2020 depending on Lego’s sales, the company said.


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The DIY Oil Extractor That’s Affordable, Safe And Chemical Free
Tarik Naccasha believes the cannabis industry should always be striving to champion one thing: purity.
It goes without saying, then, that mainstream methods of extracting cannabis oil have become increasingly disturbing to him in recent years.
“About six or seven years ago, the dabbing style came about and people started processing with butane and CO2 and all these chemicals, which is not what the industry is about,” Naccasha told Civilized.
“The industry is about organic and clean and pure… Adding chemicals is something that other drugs do, but it’s never been in this industry until the last five years.”
Naccasha, who has multiple sclerosis, knew there had to be a safer alternative for those seeking the extra potent effects of cannabis oil – for pain or other purposes.
That’s when he found out about rosin, also known as the process of extracting cannabis oil through heat and pressure alone. It seemed like the solution he’d been searching for, until he realized that the only rosin presses on the market were tailor-made for major processors with multi-thousand-dollar price tags.
Pair this with the fact that in Naccasha’s home state of Oregon, it was impossible to purchase cannabis oil without a costly medical license until this month (and that the oil you could purchase had no guarantee of being chemical-free) and he knew he’d have to take matters into his own hands.
Just like that, the TARIK+ROSIN do-it-yourself oil extraction machine – also known as the T‑REX – was born.
It’s been one year since Naccasha and business partner Mike Warren released the $200 rosin extractor (which resembles an early 2000s-era portable CD player) that’s meant to offer a clean, simple and affordable option for acquiring cannabis oil.
“People are blowing themselves up using butane…doing it in their car, doing it around their kids, [engaging] in these harmful ways of making oil,” said Naccasha.
“This is a really great way for people to be able to make their oil without any type of chemicals whatsoever… [and] we wanted to put it in a ballpark where normal people could afford it.”
Naccasha said feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far, adding that many people – particularly those on the west coast, the company’s biggest customer base – have never even heard of rosin extraction before.
“Response has been really good; more on the west coast right now than the east coast [because] the west coast has definitely taken advantage of the rosin culture compared to BHO dabbing,” he said.
Naccasha believes that as the cannabis market continues to open up across the country, people will inevitably be learning more and more about the industry and will therefore want to seek out healthy consumption methods.
“[Expanding legalization] will get more people to understand what’s going on, medically and recreationally with cannabis,” he said. “I’ve always believed the culture is about purity and eventually people… [and the] industry will go back to wanting things to be pure.”


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German DIY chain pours EUR 28.5 mln in its seventh store in RO
Hornbach, one of the main local retailers of construction and gardening materials, is expanding its network in Romania.
It will open its seventh local store, in Oradea, on September 30, following an investment of EUR 28.5 million.
"We are glad that, despite the economic context generated by the pandemic crisis, we will be able to inaugurate the seventh store in the Hornbach network in Romania. The total investment is EUR 28.5 mln, an amount that also includes the initial stock of goods. With this store opening, Hornbach's total investments in Romania amount to EUR 175.2 mln," said Mugurel-Horia Rusu, General Manager of Hornbach Romania.
In the next period, Hornbach plans to open new stores in Cluj-Napoca and Constanta, Mugurel-Horia Rusu also said.
Hornbach reached a turnover of RON 875 mln (EUR 182 mln) in Romania last year, up 13% compared to 2018. The company had 723 employees in 2019.
(Photo: Constantin Opris/ Dreamstime)


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Dietician Erika Davies discusses healthy after-school snacks and appropriate portion sizes for kids with diabetes.
It is essential that parents observe and monitor their child’s sleeping schedule to ensure they are not suffering from lack of sleep.
Recently, Children’s National released a free celiac smartphone app called the Celiac Disease & Gluten-Free Diet Resource Center.
Although getting enough sleep is an important part of a child’s health and well-being, there are times to worry and times to be reassured.
Hand sanitizers often claim they “kill 99.9 percent of germs,” but they may not be the best option for fighting infection.


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Most U.S. hedge funds aren't expecting another big stock market sell-off as more firms curb bets on volatility, according to Nomura.Marketsread more
More tit-for-tat tariffs in the U.S.-China trade war could set the global economy up for a recession, according to Morgan Stanley.Marketsread more
A sell-off in chip stocks intensified following a report that chipmakers are cutting ties with Huawei after the Trump administration's ban.Marketsread more
A series of tweets Monday marked the latest chapter in Trump's decadeslong effort to refute published reports that his previous financial problems have rendered him an...Politicsread more
President Trump stands a chance of creating a new economic world order in his China trade fight, says the chief economic advisor of Allianz.Economyread more
Sens. Mitch McConnell and Tim Kaine plan to introduce a bill Monday that would raise the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21 in hopes of curbing what regulators are calling an...Health and Scienceread more
Ford Motor said Monday that it is laying off about 7,000 salaried workers, about 10% of that global workforce, as part of a restructuring plan designed to save the No. 2...Autosread more
Silicon Valley argues that the public market investors focus too much on near-term profits — but investors have embraced money-losing biotech IPOs.Marketsread more
Restaurants are thinking outside the box to attract and retain talent. A report from TDn2K, a restaurant analytics firm, finds that employee vacancies are a major concern for...Restaurantsread more
Forty percent of customers will choose a center to shop at based solely on the food that's there, JLL found in a new study. And nearly 38% of people want healthy options when...Retailread more
Harley was thrown into the spotlight of Trump's trade war last June after the company announced it would move production for its European products out of the U.S. because of...Autosread more
Gold turned negative on Wednesday, as the dollar briefly pared losses following U.S. manufacturing data and U.S. equities came off their lows, while the market tried to assess how close the Federal Reserve is to raising interest rates.
Data showed U.S. manufacturing activity expanded for a third straight month in May, but growth in new orders slowed further as factories grappled with sluggish overseas demand and weak capital spending in the energy sector.
Spot gold was down 0.2 percent at $1,212.31 an ounce, falling for the tenth out of the last 11 sessions. Gold shed around 6 percent in May, its biggest decline in six months. U.S. gold futures for August delivery settled down 0.2 percent at $1,214.70 an ounce.
"There is increasing expectation that there will be a (U.S.) rate hike by July and that has weighed on sentiment," ETF Securities analyst Nitesh Shah said.
"In the short term, the rate hike will be dollar positive and gold-price negative."
Later on Wednesday, the Fed's Beige Book report pointed to rising labor costs, potentially making policymakers more comfortable that inflation is on track to rise to the central bank's 2 percent target.
Higher U.S. rates would raise the opportunity cost of holding gold, and lift the dollar, making gold more expensive for buyers in other currencies.
"Gold should have rallied with the dollar selling off," said Phillip Streible, senior commodities broker for RJO Futures in Chicago.
"If we can't rally off the bullish news, we've got a patient on life support."
Bullion has climbed nearly 15 percent so far this year, but buckled after minutes from the Fed's April meeting boosted expectations for monetary tightening.
Analysts said further losses were possible, exposing psychological support at $1,200.
"Gold is likely to continue its outperformance relative to silver for the time being but we still think it's too early to 'buy the dip' outright, particularly ahead of Friday's deluge of U.S. data," ICBC Standard Bank said in a note, referring to upcoming non-farm payrolls, earnings, unemployment, services PMI and factory orders data.


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Japan’s central bank has announced new measures to try to spur economic growth there.
It is an admission that the near-term recovery in the world’s third largest economy is fading as exports weaken and growth in China slows.
The Bank of Japan is to buy more government bonds and for a longer period.
That is supposed to encourage borrowing and spending and make Japan’s exports more competitive.
This follows similar steps by central bankers in the United States and Europe.
Purchases of government bonds keep downward pressure on interest rates and the yen. The stronger yen has made Japanese products more expensive relative to other countries’ exports.
The yen slipped to a one-month low against the dollar, cash bonds rose and Tokyo’s Nikkei stock average hit a four-month high on the decision to offer the bigger-than-expected stimulus earlier than had been expected.
Recent weak data, including a slump in exports and factory output, has made Japanese central bankers less convinced that global demand will soon pick up to help a recovery in the export-reliant economy


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AMHERST, Mass. — The verdict is that almond milk yogurt is the best yogurt you can eat. A new study comparing the nutrition of 612 plant-based and milk-based yogurts found that almond milk yogurt offers the greatest health benefits.
Plant-based yogurts have overall less total sugar, less sodium and more fiber than dairy products, but have less protein, calcium and potassium than dairy yogurts, says lead author Astrid D’Andrea, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in a media publication. But when you look at the overall nutrient density, comparing dairy yogurt versus plant yogurt, with the nutrients we looked at, almond yogurt has a significantly higher nutrient density than dairy yogurt and all other low-fat yogurts. plant based.
The rationale behind the study was more than a yogurt popularity contest. DAndrea cites the growing boom in plant-based yogurt, which has a market expected to grow from $1.6 billion in 2021 to $6.5 billion by 2030. The rise is a reflection of adults away from food products of animal origin and eat more environmentally friendly sustainable products. However, just because he has the word “plant” in his name doesn’t mean he’s the healthiest for you.
Plant-based diets are gaining popularity, especially in American culture, but just because they’re plant-based doesn’t mean they’re more nutritious, explains DAndrea, who is heading into graduate school of food science at Penn State. There must be specific research that answers this question.
The research team collected nutritional information from 612 yogurts sold between 2016 and 2021. Of the 612 in the study, 159 were full-fat dairy products, 303 were low-fat or nonfat dairy products, 61 used coconut milk, 44 used almond milk, 30 used cashew milk and 15 were oat-based.
The study authors ranked all the yogurts using the Nutrient Rich Foods Index, which assigns scores based on the number of nutrients in each product. This allowed the researchers to compare the yogurts based on nutrients like protein, fiber, calcium, iron, potassium and vitamin D. They also compared how each product restricted things like sodium and saturated fat.
Almond and oatmeal yogurts have scored high on the charts due to their low levels of total sugar, sodium, and saturated fat. The findings could help the food industry develop new ways to improve the nutritional content of vegetable yoghurts. One option proposed by the researchers is to create a hybrid yogurt that is both plant- and dairy-based. Dairy yogurts are high in protein, and the combination might boost vitamin B12 and calcium, as well as limit sugar, sodium and saturated fat.
Switching from dairy to plant-based products is a big change, adds Alissa Nolden, a sensory scientist and assistant professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. There are changes in the nutritional profile and there is a change in the sensory profile, which may prevent consumers from trying it.
A separate study from the same lab actually found that people preferred two-in-one, plant-based, dairy-based yogurt over regular plant-based yogurt.
Blending offers benefits, Nolden explains. It provides a complete protein and the dairy part helps form the gelling structure within the yoghurt that we are as yet unable to replicate in a plant-based system.
Additionally, the researchers believe that a combination yogurt would create a delicious snack while saving the planet with less environmental impact.
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The study is published in the journal Frontiers of nutrition.
#nutritious #yogurt #study #choose #plantbased #milk #dairy #products
Image Source : studyfinds.org


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A pear-shaped 18-carat pink diamond billed as a rarity sold at a Geneva auction for 28.4 million Swiss francs ($28.8 million), including fees and taxes, on the lower end of the expected range.
The "Fortune Pink" fancy vivid pink stone, said to be the largest of its kind and shape to go on the block, headlined Christie's latest Geneva sale of jewelry. It had been expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million.
The auction house said an unidentified Asian buyer snapped up the diamond.
Max Fawcett, head of Christie's jewelry department in Geneva, said the stone with a strong, saturated pink color was mined in Brazil more than 15 years ago. He declined to identify its owner, but described the diamond as "a true miracle of nature."
Christie's says the first pink diamonds ever recorded were found in India's Golconda mines in the 16th century, before others turned up over the centuries in places like Africa, Australia, Brazil and Russia.
The pink stone's auction followed a showroom tour in New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Taiwan before its arrival in Geneva.
Managing director Tobias Kormind of 77 Diamonds, an online diamond jeweler, called the sale price disappointing.
"The extraordinary Fortune Pink diamond sold in Geneva, with its auspicious 18.18 carat weight, which signifies prosperity in Asia, sadly didn't bring the luck or uplift in fortunes many had hoped for," he said.
He suggested the result could be reflection of a "shaky global economy" and other financial factors, which have been "giving rise to worries creeping in, even among the top echelon of wealthy buyers."
The auction comes six months after Christie's sold "The Rock" - a 228-carat egg-sized white diamond billed as the largest of its kind to go up for auction - for more than $21.75 million, including fees. That was also at the low end of the expected range.
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(April 6, 2018) What’s enlightened about turning a blind eye to government policies that destroy traditional retail?
This article, by Lawrence Solomon, was first published by the Financial Post
Manufacturing towns aren’t the only part of the U.S. that have been devastated by perverse economic policies; urban areas dependent on retail have also been hit. President Donald Trump’s attack on Amazon may begin to reverse the unintended harm caused by online retail, leveling the playing field and saving many cities, suburbs and towns from being further hollowed out.
Conservative pundits have roundly criticized Trump for his anti-Amazon tweets, characterizing them as anti-free-market, and as antediluvian attacks against a wildly popular e-commerce industry that has lowered consumer costs and increased convenience. But what’s free market about a company, and an industry, profiting at taxpayer expense? What’s enlightened about turning a blind eye to government policies that destroy traditional retail, from mom and pop shops to icons such as Macy’s, J.C. Penny and Sears?
Online retail in general and Amazon in particular receive outsized subsidies through the United States Postal Service, according to “The Free Shipping Tax,” a Citi Research analysis that states, “by charging below market rates on parcel volume (mainly e-commerce) the USPS has essentially turned free shipping into a future tax payers’ burden.”
The taxpayer won’t be alone in facing unwelcome news, however. The subsidized shipping changed buying habits, spawning an unrealistic expectation of free shipping that today permeates internet shopping. This “unsustainable pricing,” Citi believes, is doomed to fail.
How unsustainable is it? Citi calculates that the U.S. Post Office’s (USPS) “average parcel rates would need to increase ~50 per cent initially to break even.” To cover its losses on parcel delivery, the post office has been gouging its first-class mail customers, where it has a monopoly, and defaulting on payments to its retirees’ health benefits fund. With the Trump administration now in power, government patience toward an USPS that hasn’t made a profit in over a decade is likely to end, forcing it to abandon its below-market pricing of parcel delivery and giving private competitors a payday of US$15 billion to US$19 billion in extra business. None of this comes as a surprise to FedEx or UPS, who in recent years have been aggressively expanding their capacity investments to capture the business freed up when the postal parcel business inevitably crashes.
Apart from the USPS, the biggest loser when all this comes to pass will be its biggest customer, Amazon, which relies on USPS for 40 per cent of its deliveries. If USPS loses all its subsidies and immediately introduces market-based pricing of parcel delivery, Citi sees the potential for a dramatic hit to Amazon’s profitability, at least in the short term — in the worst case, Amazon’s “North America CSOI (consolidated segment operating income) would be cut by 44-49 per cent and overall CSOI would fall by 19-23 per cent.” CSOI, an accounting term used in the internet world, is Amazon’s chief metric for assessing profit.
As bad as this market-oriented reform would be for Amazon’s bottom line, it would be far worse for other online retailers who wouldn’t have Amazon’s depth and ability to adapt. Those that survive would likely pass on the costs of shipping to their customers, ending one of online retail’s biggest selling points to cost-conscious consumers. Compounding the hit that online retail faces is the possibility that it will lose what’s left of another major gift that governments bestowed on online retailers — the ability to avoid charging customers sales taxes when shipping to different jurisdictions. That tax holiday, perhaps more than any other government giveaway, kick-started internet shopping more than two decades ago, resulting in the ruin of brick-and-mortar retail today.
“There was a time when we wanted the United States, as a matter of policy, to protect nascent Internet businesses by keeping down the tax burden,” National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said this week. “But that time is long gone.” The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear a case that may decide whether to end some US$10 billion in exemptions from sales taxes that online retailers enjoy. If the court doesn’t eliminate that subsidy, the Trump administration vows to.
Citi says it can’t predict how much consumer habits will change when what it calls “economic reality” hits — whether the end of free shipping and the start of price hikes that eliminate internet shopping’s price advantage will change the public’s buying preferences. But Citi does warn the hikes could “could provide a shock — depending on implementation speed — and may eventually lead to customer behavior changes related to eCommerce delivery.”
By then, it may be too late for consumers to return to many of their familiar bricks-and-mortar stores. Last year alone in the U.S., 50 chains filed for bankruptcy and dozens of major retailers shuttered some 9,000 stores. The carnage, far worse than seen during the recession, is continuing this year, when another 25 major chains will file for bankruptcy and another 12,000 stores will close their doors. Within five years, predicts Credit Suisse, 25 per cent of America’s shopping malls could have closed, largely because online competitors have put them out of business.
One of the greatest virtues of free markets is the provision of choice to customers. The story of Amazon and online retail has ultimately been one of denying consumers choice. To restore that choice, so that the consumer marketplace doesn’t distort the merits of shopping online over bricks and mortar, the expiry date for the government subsidies to Amazon et al. needs to pass.
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.


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According to a recent phishing report, nearly one in three users are likely to click on a suspicious link or comply with a fraudulent request.
This steady trend from the last two quarters of cybercriminals using email subjects coming from HR include messages related to dress code changes, training notifications, vacation updates and more.
Holiday and seasonal phishing email subjects were also utilized this quarter with four out of the five top holiday email subjects related to Halloween and fall items that are used as bait to incentivize unsuspecting end users. Additionally, the report reflects the consistent trend of utilizing IT and online service notifications as well as tax-related email subjects.
Read the full report KnowBe4 here.


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Hiku owns the cannabis lifestyle brand/ coffee shop Tokyo Smoke along with licensed producer DOJA Cannabis, and Canopy CEO Bruce Linton cited Tokyo Smoke as a major reason for the acquisition saying:
“Hiku equals brands. Canopy is built on brands. So we combined them”.
Once cannabis is legalized in October, Hiku plans to open cannabis retail stores in provinces that are allowing private retail. Along those ends, Hiku has applied for retail licenses in Alberta’s biggest cities and is working to open stores in Newfoundland and Labrador. Hiku also holds a conditional retail license in Manitoba.
“They need product to fill the stores. And we want to be able to have more and more stores”.
Hiku is a relatively new company, having formed back in January from the merger of Tokyo Smoke and DOJA Cannabis. Tokyo Smoke is often billed as a “hipster coffee chain” that sells cannabis accessories, while DOJA is a BC-based licensed producer.
Major shareholders in Hiku include Jeremy and Jason Drummond, who are members of the Regina-based billionaire family that have been accused of trying to control and monopolize the Canadian cannabis industry by cannabis activists like dispensary owner Pat Warnecke. Mr. Warnecke also told CLN in a previous interview that the Drummonds are major shareholders in licensed producers Aphria and Aurora Cannabis.
An impending cannabis oligopoly
One of the biggest problems with Canada’s legalization is that cannabis distribution is being controlled by the provincial governments, who are sourcing their cannabis from a few licensed producers, which will lead to a system where all retail stores are basically selling the same weed, regardless if the stores are public or private.
Canopy’s acquisition of Hiku gives the company another outlet for its cannabis while creating the illusion of choice because with all the mergers and acquisitions in the cannabis industry lately, it seems that despite a plethora of cannabis retail brands, they will all be owned by a few large companies- aka a classic oligopoly.
Is Canopy acquiring more brands to distance itself from past controversies?
It makes sense that Canopy would want to buy Hiku Brands- to get away from some of the negative associations that have tainted Canopy’s product over the past few years.
You may remember that Canopy is still facing a class action lawsuit over a recall due to Mettrum’s use of myclobutanil, a banned pesticide, which forced Health Canada to begin conducting random spot checks on LP weed to ensure no banned pesticides are being used.
Hiku’s previous deal with WeedMD canceled for $10 M
Back in April, Hiku had a $240M deal to merge with WeedMD, an Ontario-based licensed producer. This deal was canceled, which forced Hiku to pay WeedMD $10M in termination fees as it announced its new deal with Canopy Growth.
For comparison’s sake, estimates of Canopy’s deal with Hiku range from $250-350M.
In the wake of the deal falling through, WeedMD has appointed a new CEO, Keith Merker (who was WeedMD’s CFO) while retaining former CEO Bruce Dawson-Sculley as an advisor.
WeedMD CEO Keith Merker said in a statement:
“With an additional $10 million in non-dilutive capital . . . we’re in a solid position financially and operationally to continue executing and delivering on all of our goals and objectives”.


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Sunday, December 19, 2004Forbes has come with an excellent article about too much of data in corporates and the rising expectations in processing them. Excerpts with edits and my comments:
Cheap disk drives make it possible to store every piece of data your company creates. Billions, trillions, even quadrillions of bytes are piling up in computer centers. What to do with it all? Forty-five thousand slot machines generate $4 billion in annual revenue for Harrah's Entertainment, the world's largest casino operator. But that's only part of their job. With each push of the button, each swipe of the casino's loyalty card, these noisy bandits also gather information, zipping records of their 100 million daily spins across the Internet from 28 casinos to a computer in. By morning Harrah's knows which customers should be rewarded with free show tickets, dinner vouchers or room upgrades, enticing them to spend more of their gambling dollars in Harrah's rather than in rival casinos. The company is working to shrink this information loop to a matter of minutes. "We can see how much money is going through a machine, and how frequently it pays out, and how much it pays out, and what type of player is on it, male or female, and what age they are," says Tim S. Stanley, chief information officer at Harrah's in Las Vegas. "It's no different from what a good retailer or grocery store does. We're trying to figure out which products sell, and we're trying to increase our customer loyalty." Companies are always hoping to figure out what makes their customers tick, but never before have they been able to do it on the scale possible today. Casinos, retailers, airlines and banks are piling up volumes so vast it would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Harrah's data storehouse holds 30 terabytes, or 30 trillion bytes, of data, roughly three times the number of printed characters in the Library of Congress.
"A decade ago the biggest data centers in the U.S. had 10 terabytes of storage, and there were only five or ten of them, today there are enterprises with 2 or 3 petabytes," says Gil Press, senior director , EMC. Visa, the credit card company, manages more than a petabyte, or 1,000 terabytes. EMC says one of its biggest customers, a global retailer, expects to buy 3 petabytes of capacity this year (not all from EMC). Two years ago the same company bought 300 terabytes. It's the curse of cheap storage. All that customer data is out there, and it seems a shame to throw it away. But doing something with it is almost beyond the reach of the available microprocessors and database software. How do you scroll through a spreadsheet 1 billion rows deep? "The situation we're in is like having a dam that's filling up with water, getting bigger and bigger, and we're trying to get water out of it with a straw," says James Gray, manager of Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center, where scientists are studying ways to speed things up. Storage shipments this year will top 22 exabytes-or 22 million trillion bytes-of hard disk space, says market researcher IDC. That is four times the space needed to store every word ever spoken by every human being who has ever lived, and it's more than double the amount sold in 2002. By 2006 storage shipments will nearly double again, IDC estimates.
Demand for storage is so strong that even with prices plunging 35% a year, storage hardware makers EMC and Network Appliance will grow 30% this year, six times the rate of the overall data processing market. "Companies want to look at all the data. They want atomic-level data," says Sanju K. Bansal, chief operating officer at MicroStrategy , whose software analyzes vast databases, looking for customer trends. "Instead of analyzing data at a weekly level and a category level and a regional level-say, sales of men's socks in one week in all the stores in Virginia-now retailers are looking at gold-toe socks by Calvin Klein, in black, size 8, in every store, and by the hour. A decade ago our biggest customers were analyzing 10 gigabytes at a time. Today more than a third of our customers are using data sets that are larger than a terabyte," Bansal says. As data repositories grow larger, even simple chores like backup and recovery become a giant pain in the neck. "Managing all this stuff in an effective way is just enormously difficult to do," says Scott Thompson, chief information officer at Visa, the credit card company. "We're processing a billion transactions a day. And every one of those gets stored. That's why our storage keeps on growing. You're talking about very large data sets. Just backing them up becomes very difficult." This year Visa's network will process transactions worth $1.7 trillion, up 55% from $1.1 trillion in 2002. Much of the new volume comes from commercial purchases that are more data rich, carrying more than just dollars spent. Last year Visa built a data warehouse that produces 15,000 reports a day based on billions of rows of data, examining statistics on things such as fraud and chargebacks. At Premier, an alliance of 200 hospitals headquartered in San Diego, some queries were so complex that the company's IBM system couldn't return an answer in any amount of time. "Users would be frustrated. We had all this data, but it was useless," says Gary Feierstein, vice president of information technology at Premier. In 2003 Premier took a flyer on a Boston-area startup called Netezza whose specialized box zips through data 15 times as fast as Premier's IBM system, Feierstein says, enabling managers to query away to their heart's content. No wonder Netezza is on a growth spurt . Teradata, a division of NCR in Dayton, Ohio, made the multimillion-dollar machines running the world's biggest data warehouses, for customers like Wal-Mart, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless. Teradata boasts that it is stealing customers from IBM and Oracle, whose products, Teradata says, were designed to handle online transaction processing. "Customers try to use them for data warehousing, and they hit a brick wall," says Stephen Brobst, chief technology officer at Teradata. Its sales grew 11% in the first nine months of this year to $949 million, double the rate of the overall infotech industry.
The Teradata setup for Harrah’s, chugs through hundreds of jobs each day, analyzing 18 terabytes of data streamed in from 28 casinos around the country. The Teradata system helps Harrah's decide where on the floor to place its slot machines, which machines it should buy more of and even how much it should pay for them. A piece of visualization software generates a dynamic "heat map" of a casino floor. Machines glow red as they get busy, then turn blue, or white, as the action moves elsewhere. Because 75% of its 250,000 daily customers use a rewards program card, the casino can track them as they gamble, learning how long they spend at a certain machine, how often they visit a casino and for how many days. Harrah's keeps records on 30 million people and can combine those records with slot records to find out which games are most popular with women, or with tourists or with locals, or how much a certain person won or lost on recent visits and on which machines, and how long he usually plays before calling it quits. Harrah's claims that its loyalty program has boosted its share of customers' gambling budgets from 36% a few years ago to nearly 50%. Harrah's next ambition is to make these calculations in real time, from the moment a customer slips his rewards card into a slot machine or shows it to the front desk clerk at the hotel check-in. "The hotel clerk can see your history and determine whether you should get a room upgrade, based on booking levels in the hotel at that time and on your past level of play," Stanley says. "A person might walk up to you while you're playing and offer you $5 to play more slots, or a free meal, or maybe just wish you a happy birthday." If Harrah's planned $9 billion acquisition of Caesars Entertainment goes through, Stanley says he might need to double his Teradata system to handle Caesar's volume. He may double his Teradata system next year anyway, deal or no deal. "You just have this endless desire to put more information into the warehouse and to do more with what's already in there." |
|Sadagopan's Weblog on Emerging Technologies, Trends,Thoughts, Ideas & Cyberworld


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Says the social networking giant: "From the outset, we said we would defend ourselves vigorously against Yahoo's lawsuit, and today we filed our answer as well as counter-claims against Yahoo for infringing ten of Facebook's patents. While we are asserting patent claims of our own, we do so in response to Yahoo's short-sighted decision to attack one of its partners and prioritize litigation over innovation."
Yahoo, in their original suit, said the patents are related to methods and systems for advertising on the Internet. The new suit accuses Yahoo of infringing on patents relating to its homepage, content optimization, relevance engine, Flickr photo-sharing service and advertising.
Yahoo's response to the suit: "We have only just received Facebook's answer and counterclaims, but on their face we believe they are without merit and nothing more than a cynical attempt to distract from the weakness of its defense. As we have made clear from the outset, the unauthorized use of our patented technology is unacceptable and must be resolved appropriately. Other leading companies license these technologies, and Facebook must do the same or change the way it operates. We have proposed that Facebook join us in discussions to resolve the matter, but our overtures have been rejected. As a result, we are prepared to continue to seek redress through the courts."
Facebook is preparing for a $100 billion IPO in May.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 3 Apr 2012 22:28