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by Maria Cristina Pavarini — December 04, 2023
The designer Stella McCartney is participating in the running edition of the COP28 UN Climate Conference, taking place in Dubai from November 30 to December 12, 2023.
For the occasion, she launched a sustainable innovation exhibit and platform titled “Sustainable Market: Innovating Tomorrow’s Solutions”, showcasing over 15 next-gen pioneers alongside regenerative agriculture insiders, bio- and plant-based alternatives to plastic, animal leather and fur, and traditional fibers.
For over two decades, the British designer has been a trailblazer in sustainability and environmentally conscious fashion, as she was the world’s first luxury house to never use animal leather, feathers, fur or skins and adopt extensive sustainability principles.
Photo: Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney ‘s Sustainable MarketSince then, she has worked in order to sensitize fashion consumers and insiders’ consciences by investing in cruelty-free alternatives, material and process innovations, strategic partnerships across industries, regenerative and nature-restoring practices, circular ambitions, and transparency around impacts and communities, among other aspects.
McCartney explained that the fashion industry is estimated to be responsible for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fashion brands should become aware and activate themselves in collaboration with private and public leaders, to increase the speed of decarbonisation.
During COP28, she will unveil the key achievements from her brand’s 2023 Impact Report. She will also speak about how her brand’s products will renew their commitments to innovation and fossil fuel reduction across materials and processes throughout production, sale and end of life.
She signed a series of strategic partnerships in order to reduce the brand’s impact on the environment, while soon disclosing her upcoming 2024 Circular Design Guide to openly share sustainable circular design and materials knowledge, principles and guidelines across industries. She will also launch a new campaign with PETA to emphasise alternative and innovative materials for leathers, furs, feathers and fills.
In addition to advocating and collaborating to transform the fashion industry, Stella McCartney will continue to lead with her sustainability ambitions – including a 2040 net-zero target. This includes cutting emissions across its supply chain by 46.2% by 2030 and developing projects that support supply chain partners, innovators and global communities in their climate-resilient journeys.
Read more about the article here: https://www.the-spin-off.com/news/stories/The-Designers-How-Stella-McCartney-is-participating-COP28–17668


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The bet on paywalls, meters and other methods of charging for access to digital content is that the revenue generated directly from consumers will outpace an expected decrease in ad revenue.
The other assumption is that a publisher’s paying audience will become more valuable to advertisers on the theory they’ve proven a deep connection with the publisher by opening their wallets. The problem, of course, is this is a tough sell to ad buyers operating in a digital media world awash in ad impressions.
“In digital, what tends to overcome that kind of conversation, often, is that there’s so much available out there,” said Andy Chapman leader of digital investment at Mindshare. “You can get audience in different places, so a story a publisher is telling is blunted by the realities of the marketplace. Setting up a paywall, creating more value, maybe that audience gets smaller, but maybe it’s a more crystallized and more valuable audience. But it’s the nature of marketplace, and I haven’t seen that directly translated.”
And, sure, there are some examples of a publisher putting up a paywall and then being able to sell its high-quality audience. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are always the first to be mentioned. But CPMs haven’t necessarily increased because of a paywall. In fact, other moves are more likely to increase ad prices.
“Sites are trying to incorporate video increasingly and can command higher CPMs,” Chapman said. “It’s because they’re trying to sell experiences rather than increase of CPM for paywall or audience reasons.”
According to a New York Times spokesperson, its paywall hasn’t caused the publication to change what it charges. Additionally, it hasn’t hurt its ad-selling process, but the spokesperson said the paywall has allowed for new opportunities, such as the deal with Lincoln during its launch of the subscription model. Lincoln provided free access to 100,000 of the publication’s “most actively engaged” readers. Another example is the Ralph Lauren sponsorship, which unlocked sections of its iPad app.
“I don’t think a publisher can ask for a premium of buyers without a full analysis,” said Kat Chung, associate director of digital at Initiative. “Ultimately, it comes back to the advertiser, and if differentiation is more valuable to them, it’s up to the publisher to show it.”
As paywalls become more the norm — in just the last week, The Washington Post and The Daily Beast each floated up balloons suggesting they’ll join the walled garden club — publishers will also need to strike a balance between audience growth and other advertising-based revenue mechanisms.
“No one wants to see anyone fail, and we’re seeing an increasing number of examples of publishers doing it right,” Chapman said. “It’s still the early days, but it looks like there’s some kind of recipe to work from for traditional print and newspapers to find the right balance.”
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Ben Kneen, senior director of product management, Xandr It’s a challenging time for retailers in the advertising industry. As they cope with supply chain woes and inflation-related pressures, they seek high-margin revenue streams amid evolving privacy regulations and massive shifts in identity solutions — including IDFA, the deprecation of third-party cookies and more. In light […]
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domain: news


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Delay in production from Gigafactory, which is Tesla’s battery manufacturing facility, is leading to global shortage of cylindrical batteries. As Panasonic has given most of its supplies in Japan to Tesla, many small and large companies that are in need for cylindrical batteries are knocking on doors of Samsung SDI, LG Chemicals, and Murata (previously Sony).
However due to limited output, these companies are helpless with increased demands. As a result, many global IT, non-IT, electric vehicle, and home appliance companies have been left with no batteries for many months.
According to industries on the 5th, there is an extreme shortage of cylindrical batteries globally. Samsung SDI, LG Chemicals, Panasonic, and Murata are currently producing more than 80% of global cylindrical batteries (standards: 18,650, 21,700).
Excluding set manufacturers who already signed off on contracts before 2017, many other companies are having difficulties in making purchase orders and it will not be easy for them to secure additional supplies until the end of the first half of 2018.
“It is impossible to purchase cylindrical batteries within Japan and we were even notified by Panasonic that they are not going to sell cylindrical batteries anymore.” said a representative for a Japanese battery distributor. “It has come to a point where we cannot even purchase products from Samsung and LG and even products from Samsung and LG that were produced in China.”
Number of demands for cylindrical batteries has recently increased from markets such as electric vehicles, power tools, electric bicycles, cordless cleaners, e-cigarettes, and power banks.
As there was a serious problem with operation of Gigafactory, Panasonic had to bring its supplies from Japan in order to patch up this problem. Panasonic is even supplying its batteries that are produced in Japan to Tesla for its electric vehicles.
According to industries, Gigafactory has not had normal operation for many months due to unstable supply of power and extreme shortage of manpower. Since a battery (100kWh) used for single Tesla ‘Model S’ can be used to produce 200 electric bicycles, previous customers are taking significant blows.
“We have received more inquiries about our products from Japanese and global set manufacturers.” said a representative for a battery manufacturer. “Because cylindrical battery markets are expanding towards markets for power tools, electric vehicles, and e-cigarettes, it will not to supply these batteries until the end of the first half of 2018.”
Although Tesla initially planned to construct Gigafactory in the middle of desert in Nevada and supply power through its own solar power generators, it is difficult for Tesla to have normal operation with Gigafactory due to reasons such as uneven amount of generation of new regeneration energy. It is also facing shortage of manpower due to accessibility of its Gigafactory.
Staff Reporter Park, Taejoon | firstname.lastname@example.org


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Bellwether reveals ad budgets rise for third quarter in a row
By Katherine Levy, campaignlive.co.uk, Thursday, 19 April 2012 12:00AM
Annual marketing spend for the financial year has risen for the first time since 2008/09 and marketing budgets have been revised up for a third-successive quarter, according to the latest IPA Bellwether Report.
This increase was marginal, however, with 22 per cent of companies reporting an upward revision of budgets during the first quarter of 2012, compared with 21 per cent that reported a reduction.
Analysis of marketing budgets by medium for Q1
Media spend trends continued with traditional media budgets cut by 2.7 per cent, while internet adspend grew by 7.8 per cent.
Revisions to total marketing budgets
Client confidence in their own company prospects jumped dramatically to the highest levels in two years, with around 38 per cent of marketers more upbeat than they were three months earlier.
Marketing executives business confidence
Despite the rise in confidence, companies remain cautious, planning to increase their budgets by 7 per cent for the new accounting year, the lowest predicted rise in three years.
Nicola Mendelsohn, the IPA president, said: "There is no doubt that key events such as the London 2012 Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will do much to ensure that marketing spend continues to rise."
This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk
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The late great Nipsey Hussle released his debut album Victory Lap in February of 2018 after years of fans anticipating it and it was pretty much universally agreed that it was well worth the wait. It debuted at #4 selling 48k in the first week. Fans have been calling it a classic for a while and now as we approach its two year anniversary, we have some great news.
The album has officially been certified platinum by the RIAA. You can further support it and Nipsey by streaming it here.


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Britain's AG Barr has raised its annual profit forecast and said that revenue for the year is set to top pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels after it enjoyed strong sales of soft drinks like Irn-Bru and cocktail mixer brand Funkin.
While drinking in pubs and restaurants took a hit due to COVID-19-related curbs in Britain with renewed restrictions in December due to the Omicron variant, at-home drinking has picked up over the course of the pandemic.
Cost Control Actions
AG Barr said that it has initiated cost control actions, including increasing the prices of its drinks, to mitigate a hit from previously-flagged inflationary cost pressures.
Revenue Forecast And Profit Expectation
The beverages group forecast revenue of £267 million for the year ended 30 January, and said that it expects profit before tax and one-time items to be slightly ahead of its forecast in November.
"We have remained fully operational throughout the year," CEO Roger White said, adding that the company will make further investments into the business, giving it confidence for continued growth in the coming year.
AG Barr rival and tonic maker Fevertree had also raised its annual revenue forecast last month.


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GEORGE TOWN, Oct 7 — A Chinese-born Hong Kong-American master chef Martin Yan today recognised Penang as one of the global street food centres.
Yan, a highly respected food consultant and chef instructor, praised Penang chefs for continuing to preserve the street food cooking style for over a hundred years.
“Over so many years, they still cook street food, that is great. One can only do that if they cook the food with the heart and passion to serve it to their customer.
“I totally agree with Penang being labelled as the street food heaven,” he told reporters after the closing ceremony of the Battle of the Chefs 2018 by Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow at Setia Subterranean Penang International Convention and Exhibition Centre (SPICE) here today.
He said street foods were unique in the way that people could see the food prepared in front of them and enjoy it almost instantly.
“Foods that are prepared on the street are considered street food but if you serve street food in the restaurant or hotels it can become Michelin-rated food,” he said.
He added that preparation of street foods was unique and even some restaurants were also starting to adopt the open kitchen concept.
However, Chow hoped that the Penang Chefs Association could benefit from Martin on culinary arts in order to boost food tourism further.
The three-day Battle of the Chefs 2018 held today was the 17th edition of the competition and the next one is expected to be held in 2020. — Bernama


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A 5.5-inch phablet from a big-ticket manufacturer with an octa-core processor with 64-bit support, 4G, and dual-SIM support at Rs 22,000 may sound like a pipe dream. But HTC’s Desire 820 aims to deliver exactly that in a package. Let us see if the phone lives up to the lofty expectations HTC has set for […]
Category: HTC Hero
Most investors know that GoPro (NASDAQ: GPRO ) dominates the video camera market, but many don’t realize that Sony (NYSE: SNE ) sits in second place. In 2013, IDC reported that GoPro controlled 30.4% of the camcorder market, compared to a respectable 20.8% for Sony. In the “action camera” subcategory, however, GoPro commanded 47.5% of the market, easily shadowing Sony’s 6.5% share.
Sony, Canon, and Nikon form a triumvirate which dominated roughly 60% of the global camera market last year, according to IDC. But instead of capitalizing on that lead to launch new action cameras, the three Japanese giants mostly pumped out more digital cameras and camcorders. Meanwhile, GoPro turned the niche action camera market into a mainstream success, blurring the lines


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In response to the ongoing sugar crisis in Pakistan, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has initiated a comprehensive operation targeting sugar mills across the country.
This operation aims to assess the stock positions and supply activities of these mills to address concerns related to hoarding and tax evasion.
Official sources have confirmed that the FBR issued directives on Saturday, invoking Section 40B of the Sales Tax Act, 1990. The instructions mandate the deployment of Inland Revenue officials to sugar mills for the purpose of closely monitoring sugar stock levels and dispatches.
The timing of this operation is crucial as Pakistan grapples with a significant sugar crisis, marked by a sharp increase in retail sugar prices, soaring by approximately 100 percent to around Rs 185 per kilogram. In an effort to stabilize the domestic market, the federal cabinet recently re-imposed a ban on sugar exports. Despite these measures, sugar prices have continued to rise, prompting the FBR to take proactive steps.
Sources within the FBR reveal that such interventions are not unprecedented, with tax authorities historically deploying officials to sugar mill premises annually to prevent tax evasion and hoarding. Section 40B of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 empowers the FBR to assign officers of Inland Revenue to registered persons or specific categories of individuals for monitoring the production, sale of taxable goods, and stock positions.
The latest instructions from the FBR direct Chief Commissioners of Inland Revenue to ensure that the teams assigned to each sugar mill conduct an initial stocktaking. These teams are required to submit a mandatory report to the FBR, providing crucial insights into the stock positions and supply activities of the sugar mills.
The FBR’s move reflects a proactive approach to address the challenges posed by the sugar crisis and underscores the government’s commitment to ensuring transparency and accountability in the sugar industry. By closely monitoring the operations of sugar mills, the FBR aims to curb potential tax evasion, deter hoarding, and contribute to stabilizing sugar prices in the domestic market.
The nationwide operation signals the government’s determination to take swift and effective measures to address economic challenges and safeguard the interests of consumers. The FBR’s efforts align with broader initiatives aimed at promoting fair business practices, preventing market manipulation, and fostering a more transparent and accountable economic environment.


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This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A key Utah lawmaker in the business-regulation arena is working on legislation that could open up to the public some or all consumer complaints filed with the state Division of Consumer Protection and now maintained as private records.
"One of the thoughts is that if a company has tens or hundreds or thousands of complaints, [disclosing] that in and of itself may be a deterrent to the company's success in ripping people off," Sen. Curt Bramble, chairman of the Senate Business and Labor Committee, said in an interview.
The Department of Commerce, which oversees the consumer-protection agency, is "working closely with" Bramble on the issue, spokeswoman Jennifer Bolton said. "We appreciate his efforts to clarify what needs to be addressed in balancing the rights of consumers and businesses in Utah."
Bolton said the department "will support any changes to current state statutes as [lawmakers] see fit."
But the agency in charge of protecting Utahns from and warning them about shady companies has in recent months insisted that consumer complaints are confidential under state law and making them public could hurt legitimate businesses.
Consumer Protection attorney Ché Arguello, during a public hearing in November, said disclosing such information would violate the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
"The fact that there may or may not be 1,000 complaints against a company is, in my opinion, with respect to public information, irrelevant," Arguello argued before the State Records Committee.
That panel sided with the division against a nonprofit consumer group, Truth in Advertising, in finding that the state did not have to disclose consumer complaints against a Provo-based multilevel-marketing company called Wake Up Now. In fact, the division has declined to say whether the company is the target of any complaints, citing a state law that says the agency cannot reveal the identity of a person or business under investigation.
Wake Up Now, profiled in a recent episode of the public-radio program "This American Life," is based on distributors recruiting friends and neighbors to build an ever-expanding chain of paying members.
It sells financial software and strategies, access to coupons, weight-loss and energy products and appears to fit the kind of "business opportunity" and online marketing model that Bramble says he wants to regulate more closely.
"One of the areas I'm looking at, and I don't know the constitutionality yet, but one of the thoughts I had was if a business fits a certain profile meets a critical mass of business attributes in this arena then complaints filed with consumer protection would be public," Bramble said.
"One of the things that happens with frauds is when complaints aren't public and it takes government awhile to investigate … you could have hundreds or thousands of complaints with new victims every day," the Provo Republican said. "And yet if those complaints, when they were made, if they were public, that may actually alert someone before they put their money up."
Bramble acknowledges that trying to establish different treatment for these so-called biz-op marketers may be tricky if not impossible.
What about simply opening up all consumer complaints to the public as some other states and the Better Business Bureau do?
Bramble says if that's the only way to require public disclosure of complaints against online marketing firms, he might be game.
"I want to look at what other states do is Utah an outlier?" But one of the problems with consumer complaints, Bramble said, is that sometimes they can be frivolous or ambiguous.
" 'I don't like the way you comb your hair, therefore I'm going to file a consumer complaint. I don't like your attitude, therefore I'm going to file a consumer complaint,' " he said by way of example. Clearly, Bramble added, those don't deserve the level of scrutiny as that of a complaint alleging a company has lied to consumers or cheated them out of money.
Truth in Advertising believes full and quick disclosure of all consumer complaints is the best way to protect people from rip-offs and schemes.
The Connecticut-based nonprofit points to the Federal Trade Commission, which it says readily discloses consumer complaints upon submission of a Freedom of Information Act request.
That proved to be the case when Truth in Advertising turned to the FTC for complaints against Wake Up Now, providing information about the 160-plus consumer complaints it had received against the Utah company.
Fran Silverman, editor of Truth in Advertising's website and newsletter, said the FTC also recently handed over 600 consumer complaints against electronic-cigarette marketing companies, including several based in Utah.
The federal agency was "very responsive," Silverman said in an interview. "We were able to see which companies had the most complaints and the nature of the complaints. There was a pattern developing about free trials that weren't free and people with debit cards getting debited every month when they didn't OK that."
Utah's Division of Consumer Protection refused Truth in Advertising's request for similar information, even after the agency had completed enforcement action against three e-cigarette companies that admitted to hundreds of violations of state law. On appeal, the State Records Committee in mid-December ordered the division to disclose those complaints, but Silverman said her group has yet to see them.
She also noted that the records were ordered released only because the agency already had taken enforcement action against the companies. "Our feeling is it can take years before the state takes action and while it's … a wonderful step forward, it's important for consumers to have that information readily available in case the state never takes action, or it takes forever."
Truth in Advertising was the first to report that Utah regulators had quietly settled for $31,150 in payments from those three e-cigarette marketers weeks after it had issued a news release touting citations carrying fines of $1.1 million.
In a recent records request, the nonprofit asked for financial information the companies agreed to submit to the state to back up their claims they could not afford to pay steep fines.
The Division of Consumer Protection has refused to disclose those records, saying they are private.
"We don't even know if the companies ever turned anything over to the Division of Consumer Protection to prove they couldn't pay the fine," Silverman said. "They might not have turned over anything, we'll never know."
In the meantime, Truth in Advertising's website tagged the deal one of its "five worst settlements of 2014," saying, it's a case "where consumers truly got smoked."
The division has refused to discuss why it settled for 2 percent of the original fines, but did point to settlement deals in which the e-cigarette companies agreed to reimburse customers who should have been satisfied previously, to clearly spell out their cancellation and return policies, and to stop unsubstantiated advertising claims.


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Solomon Lew has struck a blow against Myer by securing a first strike against the department store chain's executive remuneration.
Mr Lew, whose retail group Premier Investments is Myer's biggest shareholder with a 10.8 per cent stake, opposed all of the beleaguered department store chain's resolutions at its annual general meeting on Friday.
Myer confirmed in a statement to the ASX that more than 25 per cent of shareholders had voted against the remuneration report.
The company said it was pleased incoming chairman Garry Hounsell and its two other nominated directors JoAnne Stephenson and Julie Morrison were all elected to the board with a "clear majority."
"Myer's shareholders have spoken, and as chairman of the company I am delighted with the clear mandate we have received to continue with the implementation of the New Myer strategy," Mr Hounsell said in the statement.
With final figures yet to be released, proxies shown at the meeting indicated about 29 per cent of votes went against Myer's remuneration report.
This sets Myer up for a possible second strike and board spill at its next AGM.
The ballot came after outgoing chairman Paul McClintock warned shareholders that Mr Lew's campaign against the board threatened to derail the company's transformation.
"I am most concerned that tactics employed by Premier threaten the successful transformation of this great business, for our customers, for our shareholders and, for our team members," Mr McClintock told the AGM.
"Today is your opportunity to send a strong message that you want the board and management to get on with the job of delivering New Myer (Myer's five-year turnaround plan)."
His pleas followed more bad news from Myer chief executive Richard Umbers who said there had been no trading improvement in the second quarter of 2017/18.
First-quarter sales fell 2.8 per cent, the company reported earlier in November.
Mr McClintock said Premier had asked Myer shareholders to believe that it had a superior strategy.
"I believe it was not a strategy for Myer. It was a strategy for Premier to run Myer for the benefit of Premier."
He said Premier, which owns Dotti, Peter Alexander and Just Jeans brands, wanted to install its own board directors so it could sell more of its brands' products in Myer's stores and benefit from the chain's attractive rentals in major shopping centres.
Myer in October rejected Premier's request to have three of its own nominated directors on the board.
Myer shares were down 0.7 per cent at 70.5 cents at 1421 AEDT.


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The board of directors of Batory Foods, a national distributor of commodity and specialty food ingredients, has appointed Vince Pinneri to the position of president and member of the executive team, effective August 31, 2020. Pinneri will succeed Ron Friedman, who has led the company since 2014. Friedman will remain the company’s chief executive officer and managing shareholder.
Prior to his appointment, Pinneri was executive vice president of Batory’s Specialty Ingredients business, during which time he led the company’s market expansion. For five years prior to joining Batory Foods, Pinneri was the senior vice president & general manager of the specialty foods division at Tate & Lyle, a global provider of food & beverage ingredients & solutions. Early in his career, Pinneri gathered almost 30 years of industry experience with the Coca-Cola Company holding many general management and strategic roles across the globe, including Brazil, Germany, Australia, North America, Asia, and Pacific Islands.


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A young boy has been arrested in Australia after admitting to putting needles in strawberries.
At least six brands of strawberries have been found to be contaminated with sewing needles and pins in recent weeks.
New South Wales Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said today that a young boy had been apprehended over behaviour that ‘could be a prank’.
He said: “Obviously in the last few days we found a young person has admitted to a prank, including putting needles in strawberries, and he’ll be dealt with under the youth cautioning system.”
The maximum sentence in the region for contaminating a food source is 10 years in prison.
Needles were also found in an apple and banana in NSW, police confirmed this week.
Truckloads of fruit have been dumped in Australia over fears of contamination.
Needles were first discovered in fruit in Queensland before the scare spread across the nation, with discoveries in all six Australian states.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison condemned the deliberate contamination earlier this week.
He said: “This is a shocking and cowardly thing for this individual and others who have jumped onto the bandwagon here to have engaged in.”
Queensland Strawberry Growers Association vice president Adrian Schultz said what had started as a single act of “commercial terrorism” had brought a multimillion-dollar industry to its knees.
“I’m angry for all the associated people, it’s the farmers, the people who supply them, the packaging people, the truckies with families to support, who suddenly lose their jobs … it’s far-reaching,” Mr Schultz said.
Major Australian supermarket chains Coles and Aldi have pulled all strawberries from their shelves across Australia except in Western Australia state as a precaution.


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According to the company, a New Jersey-based manufacturer of industrial fabrics will open a second U.S. production site in central North Carolina.
Precision Textiles aims to begin operations in its newly leased facility in Troy, North Carolina, by the beginning of September, according to the Triad Business Journal. The redevelopment is intended to generate 100 new jobs, with some of them being filled by former employees of the building’s previous occupant, automotive textile manufacturer Auria Solutions.
Company officials told the journal that growth in its mattress products prompted the decision to expand beyond its native Totowa, New York.
Precision Textiles has opened a new factory in Troy, New York, which it says will double production of high-loft quilting fiber and bolster production of needle-punch nonwovens. The company also makes textiles for the automotive and health care sectors. “This new factory will enable us to better meet the needs of our customers throughout the nation,” Scott Tesser, the company’s CEO, tells The Wall Street Journal.
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[Devel] Apertis release roadmap for 2020Q4
emanuele.aina at collabora.com
Wed Sep 30 13:30:31 BST 2020
A new quarter has begun so let's see which releases we're cooking
before the end of this year. :)
== Stable v2019.5 and v2020.3
Updates to the stable v2019 and v2020 channels, shipping the latest
== Preview v2021pre
The release on the v2021 channel that will lead to the stable v2021.0
release in 2021Q1.
The only significant change expected for this release is the kernel
update from version 5.7 to the latest LTS that will be released later
in the quarter.
Product teams are recommended to start playing with v2021pre once it is
released to get an early feeling of the latest release channel based on
Debian 10 Buster.
== Development v2022dev0
The first development release on the v2022 channel, which will lead to
the v2022.0 release in 2022Q1.
While v2022dev0 will still be based on Debian 10 Buster, v2022 is
expected to be based on Debian 11 Bullseye. Given that the Bullseye
soft freeze is planned in Feb 2021 and the hard freeze in March 2021
the current plan is to prepare for the rebase in the v2022dev1 cycle in
2021Q1 and then go ahead with the rebase in 2021Q2 for v2022dev2, which
will be the first release based on Bullseye.
Check https://www.apertis.org/release/ for more details.
More information about the Devel


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These days, from meat to milk, Americans are looking for plant-based alternatives.
The Little Choc Apothecary in Brooklyn, New York, serves up a plant-based menu that attracts many vegans, and crepes are a big seller. “We make sweet crepes here and honey is a very popular sweetener for the crepes,” says Little Choc Apothecary Managing Partner Elena Beresneva.
But many vegans don’t eat honey because they avoid food from animals. So Beresneva is testing out new honey that is creating a lot of buzz. It comes from the startup company MeliBio and uses synthetic biology to produce natural honey without bees.
“We learned how to work with plants and extract stuff and create a proprietary process and put that together into a plant-based honey,” says MeliBio CEO and Co-Founder Darko Mandich.
The number of honeybees continues to dwindle. Scientists believe several artificial and environmental factors are to blame. As the bee population drops, so does the production of honey. The USDA says it was down 14% from 2020 to 2021.
Our appetite for this delicious and amazing product comes at a huge consequence,” says Mandich, who believes his product could be an alternative to honey from bees.
So how does it taste?
It has that floral clover taste that a lot of vegan honey substitutes lack. It honestly tasted exactly like honey,” says Little Choc Apothecary customer Erin Mitchell Boyle.
Restaurants in New York and Los Angeles are trying out MeliBio’s product. The company hopes to start selling to consumers next year.


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HP today unveiled the HP Z Workstation series -- a reinvention of the product category from the core outward that offers customers unprecedented performance, value and serviceability in a sleek new design. The HP Z800, HP Z600 and HP Z400 Workstations are the culmination of more than 20 HP design innovations -- including a self-checking power supply -- and take advantage of the new Intel® Xeon® processor.
Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Workstations, HP, said, "The new Z line marks the first HP workstations to be totally serviceable with your fingers - from the power supply to the motherboard. Early studies show that an HP Z Workstation may pay for itself in a surprisingly short period with its performance and productivity gains."
Verena Kloos, president, BMW Group DesignworksUSA, said, "Opening the door of the new BMW Z4 and the side panel of the new HP Z Workstation reveals that both are as aesthetically powerful and innovative on the inside as they are on the outside."
Three workstation lines to meet every customer need:
* The HP Z800 Workstation is HP's most powerful and expandable workstation for users working with applications such as 3-D animation, broadcast video, oil and gas discovery, and medical imaging.
* The HP Z600 Workstation is designed with the environment in mind, offering high performance in a compact size for professionals in industries such as video production, finance and midrange CAD.
* The HP Z400 is the first single-socket workstation based on the Next-Generation Intel Microarchitecture (Nehalem) and can be built with the latest Intel Xeon processors.


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At the same time that Amazon is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its big splash into the grocery channel, Google, arguably its chief rival in several markets, is leveraging its own services to help grocers hit back hard at the Seattle-based ecommerce behemoth. And although this one involves one of the top international grocers in the world, we should expect to see similar partnerships coming to U.S. grocers.
Carrefour Group, the Boulogne-Billaincourt, France-based retailer that operates stores in more than 30 countries, is partnering with the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech giant to develop a future-proofing strategy based around three initiatives involving a new buying experience through Google platforms, an innovation lab, and accelerating the retailer’s digital transformation. To fuel the partnership, Google will bring its technology and skills in artificial intelligence, cloud and new consumer shopping interfaces like Google Assistant, while Carrefour will contribute its product expertise and logistics and sales knowhow.
“The common objective of this partnership is to bring together the expertise of both companies to offer consumers new and innovative commerce experiences in France, whether that’s in a store, online, on smartphones or with voice,” the retail giant said.
More specifically, the three initiatives will involve:
A new buying experience from Carrefour across Google platforms: These will consist of Google Assistant, Google Home and a new experience on the Shopping website in France, all of which will help expand the Carrefour footprint digitally. The common goal of both companies is to provide simplified, intuitive buying experiences for users, and by early next year, users in France will be able to shop for groceries through the aforementioned channels. They then can choose home delivery or in-store pickup for procuring their purchased goods.
The opening of an innovation lab in Paris this summer. In partnership with Google Cloud, Carrefour will unveil a new location where its engineers will work alongside Google Cloud AI experts to create new consumer experiences together.
A training program to accelerate the digital transformation of Carrefour Group. The two companies, through the initiative, will aim to create a culture of quick decision-making and agility within the group, training more than 1,000 Carrefour employees with the support of Google Cloud in six months. Carrefour will deploy Google Cloud’s G Suite productivity and collaboration solutions (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Hangouts, Docs, etc.) to more than 160,000 Carrefour employees; and the use of Google Cloud Platform infrastructure will be accelerated.
"This alliance makes Carrefour the first partner of Google on grocery ecommerce in Europe, creating a strong bond between the two companies. It also marks an important step in the new story written by Carrefour since the announcement of the Carrefour 2022 plan. It allows us to accelerate our digital evolution and get a head start in deploying the omnichannel approach we want to offer our customers," said Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour.
Added Sébastien Missoffe, VP and managing director of Google France: "Shoppers today are saddled with disconnected experiences through the shopping journey, which often lead to abandoned shopping carts and low customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customers want assistive, simple and personalized experiences that help them make decisions on what to buy, assist with easily building baskets across surfaces, and provide a seamless checkout. With Alexandre Bompard and his team, we wanted to explore new distribution models and ecommerce technologies to deliver simple, frictionless and deeply relevant experiences for shoppers in France.”
This is the second time in the past week that a major technology company has been reported to be working on ways to help grocers better defend themselves against the Amazon threat. Last week, Reuters reported that Microsoft is creating a system for grocers similar to the one Amazon uses in its now-expanding Amazon Go format. The Redmond, Wash.-based company's new system reportedly can track whatever a shopper takes off a shelf and places in his cart.
The technology company is said to have showed the new offering to a number of retailers worldwide, including Walmart, which has reportedly been in talks about “a potential collaboration.”
Randy Hofbauer is the former digital and technology editor of Progressive Grocer. He has more than a decade of experience as a content strategist, researcher and marketer, almost all of it covering CPG retailing. His insights and work have been cited in a nu Read More


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It’s a shocking revelation that Starbucks, the coffee shop that provides a relaxing atmosphere that keeps customers coming back for more, plans to remove national newspaper and select local newspaper sales racks from its 8,600 United States locations, this month.
Coffee and newspapers got happily married back before America was formed. The founding fathers’ intelligent mission was to create a nation solidified to an information foundation serving the people for the ages.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787, to Edward Carrington, that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, “I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Clay Lambert, editorial director of the Half Moon Bay Review, alerted us to the attempt by Starbucks to provide just one-half of the coffee and news alliance.
He urged that if the coffee company wants to change and finds the nation’s newspapers a bad fit for today’s market, perhaps it should consider adding a rack for local community newspapers, instead.
Lambert wrote, “Starbucks could help brew a more informed America. Starbucks’ CEO Kevin Johnson told CNN that the company was modernizing stores with an eye toward ‘convenience, comfort and connection.’ As a local newspaper editor, I humbly suggest another hard ‘c’ to go with Starbucks coffee and caffeine: community. Newspapers like ours make for a more engaged customer base that embraces Starbucks own stated corporate values: embodied in a mission statement that reads: ‘to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. The nation’s ‘third place,’ where millions of people gather each day, sometimes to talk about the news of the day, has turned its back on the most reputable and portable, least expensive and intrusive news delivery system ever invented.”
He concluded with this question, “What better way to improve the world’s interdependent neighborhoods than to support real journalism and encourage discussion of the day’s events over a good cup of coffee?”
Newspapers, who have editors, are much more reliable in dealing with the truth than social media misinformation contributors.
Starbucks: many of us need a good cup of coffee to start the day, which can be blessed with the daily treasure of true facts, which newspapers offer as their sacred mission.


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The U.S.-China trade war and the pandemic have had a profound impact on cross-border supply chains. In the past few years of U.S.-China tensions, China has been accused of engaging in unfair competition by abusing its national power, from trade and technology to COVID-19 responses. Amid such accusations, some countries have been stepping back from cooperating with China due to national security concerns. As the lockdowns have further disrupted value chains and highlighted the vulnerability of global supply chains, enhancing supply chain resilience has now become a national imperative for the U.S., Japan, and other countries, with an emphasis on strengthening their production capabilities in the semiconductor and medical care industries.
After entering the WTO in 2001, China has developed a rapidly growing trade surplus. Its exports to the U.S. increased apace and hit the $500 billion mark in 2017. As the trade imbalance widened, a rising trade deficit drew the U.S. government’s attention and eventually led the Trump administration’s decision to prioritize this matter. While there were high hopes that WTO accession terms would lead to market liberalization in China, the People’s Republic has violated trade rules by continuing to subsidize state-owned enterprises, infringing on intellectual property rights, forcing technology transfers, and manipulating its currency. All these unfair trading practices have dramatically reconfigured value chains and negatively impacted worldwide economic activities.
According to the World Bank’s 2019 Global Value Chain (GVC) Development Report, GVCs were traditionally centered on three hubs—the U.S., Japan, and Germany in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, respectively. Connections were established based on adjacency. However, China’s entry into the WTO has reshaped this order by restructuring the lineup of supply centers. By 2017, China had replaced Japan as the regional supply hub in the GVC networks. Its connections also extend to the Americas and Europe. China has become an important producer and trading center across GVC networks.
Globalization has spread the division of work in the GVC networks to a global scale. Crossborder investments have narrowed the technological gaps between countries and taken on an added importance of the differentiation in production costs. Therefore, vertical collaboration apportions value chain activities to different countries based on their location advantage. Taiwan has been heavily involved in the complex technological ecosystem between Japan and the U.S., and has benefitted from the two countries’ research and design (R&D) capacities and key technologies. Embedded in this ecosystem, Taiwan emerged as a leading manufacturer in the semiconductor industry with policy support.
Years of gradually rising wages have eroded China’s once-overwhelming cost advantage, which accelerated changes within the regional supply chain. The U.S.-China trade war has furthered these shifts. Companies from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, Europe, and the U.S. are all reshaping the cross-border supply chains in the region. High-end manufacturing is reshoring to Taiwan, Japan, Europe, and the U.S., while labor-intensive sectors have been relocating to ASEAN and South Asia, where seemingly inexhaustible pools of relatively low-wage workers are available. On the cusp of its economic transformation, Taiwan is faced with challenges such as slow recovery of the global economy, reindustrialization of developed countries, and the emergence of China’s red supply chain. Past success in production and manufacturing is unlikely to be achieved again, given that the current economic model has encountered development bottlenecks. New growth catalysts are required to revive industrial development and boost economic growth.
In 2016, Taiwan launched a new model for economic development that focuses on strengthening industrial advantages of critical industries. After the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, Taiwan has begun to adjust its economic structure, with a view to diversifying supply chain risks to avoid large-scale production suspension and disruption. Such efforts include boosting industrial upgrades and transformation, encouraging Taiwanese businesses to reshore, spearheading the development of cutting-edge industries, and developing high-end R&D and managerial talent. Taiwan has been closely following the Biden administration’s policy in technology and trade with China, stepping up cooperation with developed countries in R&D and technology, and relocating production to nations
targeted by the New Southbound Policy.3 Adjusting industrial structure and deepening collaboration with the U.S., Japan, Europe, as well as the targeted countries of the New Southbound Policy will help Taiwan secure its vital role amid the reshuffling of international supply chains.


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Business & Finance
02 August 2022, 2:56 pm. 1 minute
Reuters exclusively revealed Unity Software Inc, the U.S. developer best known for software used to design video games, is in talks to spin off its China unit to help it expand in the world’s biggest games market. San Francisco-based Unity has sought strategic investors to join it in a business valued at over $1 billion during talks.
Topics of Interest: Business & Finance
Type: Reuters Best
Win Types: Exclusivity
Story Types: Exclusive / Scoop
Customer Impact: Significant National Story


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Royal Raises $55M for Platform That Sells Music Royalties as NFTs
Gone are the days when music fans would line up around the block to spend $18 for a band’s new CD at Sam Goody or Tower Records.
While some loyal fans still buy digital and physical copies of albums, most artists rely heavily on revenue from concerts and merchandise, as online streaming services like Spotify pay fractions of a penny per stream.
Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted that less than 15,000 musicians, or 0.2 percent of the 8 million musicians on streaming services, earn more than $50,000 per year from streaming royalties.
Royal, an Austin-based startup, hopes to offer another revenue stream to emerging artists with a new platform that allows music fans to purchase rights to and earn royalties from their favorite songs.
Royal allows anyone — yes, anyone — to buy non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs, that represent a share of a song’s royalties. The tokens can be bought and sold on the blockchain.
Three months after raising $16 million in seed funding, Royal announced Monday that it has raised another $55 million in Series A funding, including contributions from musicians such as The Chainsmokers, Nas, Logic, Stefflon Don, Kygo, Joyner Lucas and Disclosure.
The Series A round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included investments from Coinbase Ventures, Founders Fund, Paradigm and Creative Artists Agency, which represents musicians and other artists.
“We believe blockchain technology has the ability to transform music ownership the same way the internet has transformed the way music is listened to,” The Chainsmokers in a joint statement. “At the dawn of Web3, Royal’s model of modernizing the way we collect and share music made perfect sense to us as musicians and investors — we had to get involved.”
Royal was co-founded by college friends Justin Blau, a DJ and electronic music producer also known as 3LAU, and JD Ross, who co-founded digital real estate platform Opendoor.
More than 120,000 users have signed up for the platform since it was announced in August. The company said it will use the capital to invest in expanding its network, as thousands of artists have expressed interest in working with Royal.
“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome a roster of innovative artists that believe in our mission,” Blau said in a statement.
Last month, 3LAU gave away 333 limited digital assets representing half of the streaming ownership of his latest single.
Within the first two weeks, the song reached an implied value of over $6 million, with fans holding half of the value. The tokens have traded at more than $650,000 in secondary market volume, Blau said, showing how an open market values ownership in music royalties.
Katie Haun, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, wrote in a blog post that the founders of Royal envision a future where artists can layer NFTs with opportunities to attend live and virtual events, win merchandise and gain access to exclusive communities.
“Royal is building a music service that in the past would’ve only been a pipe dream — letting fans participate directly in their success,” Haun wrote.


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Alltel Wireless today announced it will launch parental controls to manage their child's internet usage from mobile phones.
Alltel, with mobile internet provider Bytemobile, will soon reveal Alltel Parental Controls, allowing parents to filter content on their child's mobile phone, blocking inappropriate and offensive websites. The blocks come from a comprehensive database of particularly raunchy websites, including those featuring pornography, violence, and gambling. There are new, vile websites launched all the time, you say? No worries, as RuleSpace has teamed up with Alltel and Bytemobile to remain informed of new, unrated sites. The Controls will be available to all Alltel parents by visiting MyAccount on www.alltel.com.
Technically speaking, Alltel is sitting pretty. Since the stock's 10-day and 20-day moving averages made a bullish cross in late August, shares of AT have muscled more than 6%. The equity has consistently rode its 10-day moving average as support, marking a new all-time high of $71.53 in mid-October. Currently, the shares are flirting with that number, as AT has today hit an intraday high of $71.35.


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Republican congressman demands Trump fire controversial adviser Stephen Miller over immigration controversy
Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) told 9NEWS he's planning a trip to the border and is calling on President Donald Trump to fire one of his senior advisors. Shortly after the article was published, left-wing journalists began to share it across Twitter, which resulted in Miller's phone being inundated with aggressive phone calls and texts.
Called the Event Pass , this new system solves the game's severe progression problem , while also rewarding players more regularly with cosmetic content. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is Fortnite's biggest competitor. If you want to unlock content from Sanhok Event Pass permanently, you'll need to buy into it.
We went from candybar phones to clamshells, to sliders, back to the candybar (with every smartphone following that framework), and then in the pursuit to have bezel-less displays , phones are revising the slider format to hide elements like the front-facing camera .
But it looks like Sony is doing a little something to alleviate that going forward. At retailers, PlayStation Hits games will be offered in red packaging instead of the usual blue and on the PlayStation Store, participating games will feature a red banner to help them stand out from the crowd.
Supported browsers include Chrome , Firefox, Safari , and Microsoft Edge . The rollout of the new feature will be staggered throughout the remainder of the week. That means that text messages can be sent and read on the PC. If you're looking to send some animated GIFs, all you have to do is type a term into the chat window and, instead of pressing the send icon, hit the one that says "GIF Search".
The device will be officially launched in India on July 12, 2018. "OPPO's relentless efforts in creating smartphones that push the boundaries led to the creation of the Find Series". From a distance, it's easy to mistake the OPPO Find X for the Samsung Galaxy S9 , with its near-edge-to-edge screen and curvy body. OPPO is so confident of their 3D Facial scanning system that they've dropped the fingerprint sensor entirely.


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Following the Covid-19 pandemic, Expo 2020 Dubai postponed by a year from its original schedule. The conveyor-belt sushi chain Sushiro will open a restaurant in the Japanese Pavilion, with 22 other sponsors confirmed.
Sushiro is the only restaurant operator in the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. FOOD & LIFE COMPANIES (the operator of Sushiro) expressed its determination. “We want to convey the beauty of Japanese sushi to visitors from around the world. By utilizing full use of the finest sushi ingredients and the latest technology”.
“We will work together with our sponsors to recreate Sushiro’s devotion to deliciousness with halal compliance at the Dubai Expo”. “This will be our first appearance in the Middle East. We will take this opportunity to promote the Sushiro brand among international patrons, leading to future overseas expansion.”
The 22 sponsors include fishery, agricultural and livestock-related businesses, manufacturers and distributors of commercial kitchen equipment, POS, lightweight systems, sushi robots and more.
The Dubai Expo is the first World Expo (or Registered Exhibition) in the Middle East and Africa region. It will take place in Dubai, UAE, in 2021 (the 50th anniversary of the country’s founding).
Name: Expo 2020 Dubai
Period: 1 October 2021 – 31 March 2022 (182 days)
*Japan National Day: 11 December 2021
Venue: Dubai, UAE (United Arab Emirates)
Theme: Connecting Minds, Creating the Future
Sub-theme: (1) Mobility (2) Opportunity (3) Sustainability
Area: 438 ha (1,080 acres)
Participants: 192 countries confirmed
Visitors: approx. 25 million (estimation)
Groovy Japan introduces Japanese products and services for the Islamic market in English and Japanese. Follow us on our social media and keep up-to-date with the latest news.


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Monti gives Santander the wink
EUROPEAN Union Competition Commissioner Mario Monti has signalled that Brussels is ready to give the green light to Santander's £8.75bn bid for Abbey National.
He said at first glance the deal was in line with the Commission's aim of having a 'more integrated' European financial services market.
But the outspoken Italian's comments have angered Anglo-Scottish banking giant HBOS, which will decide later this week whether to press the button on a £10bn counterbid.
The Commission has yet to make a formal ruling on an Abbey/Santander merger and Monti's remarks could be deemed a breach of regulatory protocol.
'It's like a judge giving his verdict before the trial has actually been held,' said an HBOS spokesman, who described the Monti's communication as 'totally inappropriate'.
Most analysts expect the Santander deal to be waved through without comment in the next month and are more interested in whether HBOS is willing to table its own offer.
Its board was to due convene last Thursday to make that decision, but the meeting was called off to allow more groundwork to be done.
Legal adviser Allen & Overy will help determine whether the deal could be blocked by the Competition Commission and its findings may convince HBOS to curb its ambitions. 'There can be no certainty we will proceed with a bid,' the spokesman warned.
Should HBOS take the plunge it would trigger a major scramble for the mortgage lender. Lloyds TSB is expected to throw its hat in the ring and it has hired Deutsche Bank to advise.
The odds are also shortening on HSBC, which has pockets deep enough to fund a bid and no competition worries.
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Mountain of discarded mobiles grows at 'frightening' rate
Monday 24 December 2007
Snazzy new mobile phones like the iPhone and other must-have electronic gadgets, such as the latest laptops and iPod models, will fill many stockings this Christmas. But disposing of the older devices will not be at the forefront of most people's minds.
Around 11,000 tons of unused phones already sit dormant in drawers across the UK, and that figure is likely to rise this Christmas as people upgrade to better devices. Factoring in old laptops, games consoles and portable music players, the environmental implications of celebrating Christmas with a new digital toy start to look ominous, as most of the older electronic products will end up in landfill sites, leaking dangerous chemicals into the earth.
While reusing the devices either by passing them on to friends or selling it is the best solution, recycling the gadget is the next best thing. Companies such as the Body Shop and mobile phone operators such as Orange have been offering to recycle handsets for years, but UK consumers are still much more likely to bin their old phone as soon as they have transferred their numbers.
Johan Thomsen, a manager at Green Mobile, argued: "The problem today is that people upgrade their mobile phones every year and only a small percentage of these phones are disposed of safely." The situation is "frightening", he said.
Green Mobile, a small operator that passes on a portion of its profits to environmental charities such as the Woodland Trust and Friends of the Earth, does not woo users with a free, leading edge handset, as is commonplace in the UK. Instead, it asks people to hold on to their existing phones for as long as possible and passes on the savings of not having to subsidise a new handset to the user through lower call charges.
Mr Thomsen said that a handset is designed to last five years, yet 100 million people in Europe upgrade to a new phone every year. The company also offers environmentally friendly wind-up phone chargers for customers who want to reduce their phone's environmental impact further.
For those mobile phones, laptops and iPods that have seen better days, recycling is the best way to reduce the environmental impact of the product. EU legislation requires that hardware companies that produce electronic products are also responsible for disposing of the device, and a number of companies, including Fonebak, ReCellular and Eazyfone, have built businesses based on recycling phones on behalf of manufacturers. Meanwhile, device makers are designing phones that are easily recyclable and contain less hazardous chemicals.
ABI Research expects that shipments of recycled phones will exceed 100 million units in 2012, driven by shorter handset replacement cycles, growing demand for low-cost mobile phones in emerging markets, regulation and growing consumer demand. By 2012, ABI expects the market for recycled handsets to be worth $3bn (1.5bn), but the analyst Shailendra Pandey said the key challenge is to revamp the old mobile phones at the lowest possible cost, to ensure a decent margin on the resale.
However with 1 billion handsets sold around the world every year, and Nokia alone shipping 1 million mobile phones a day, consumers need to take some responsibility for the safe disposal of their old devices, starting this Christmas.
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Welcome to the Jennings car and van news reel, read the latest motor industry news, new vehicle launches, car technology, and a whole host of Ford, Mazda, SEAT, Kia and car-related news.
Showing 1-20 of 88 articles
Posted on 05 March 2018
The award-winning Ibiza supermini model is continuing to steal the spotlight by being the number one choice for customers at Jennings SEAT, part of the Jennings Motor Group.
Posted on 21 February 2018
To celebrate SEAT winning at the 2018 What Car? Car of the Year Awards, Jennings SEAT is hosting a Winning Feeling Event. From Thursday 22 February until Tuesday 6 March 2018 SEAT are offering a £1000 saving across the new car range.*
Posted on 20 February 2018
Following a competition for members of the public to name the third SEAT SUV in the range the final choice has been revealed. Beating the options of Alboran, Aranda and Avila, Tarraco received 35.52% of the votes cast.
Posted on 08 February 2018
SEAT has made a major change to its new car offering with the announcement of the Cupra brand becoming a standalone brand. The first models to be solely Cupra branded are set to arrive at Jennings SEAT later in the year.
Posted on 29 January 2018
Since its launch towards the end of 2017 the New SEAT Arona has been impressing leading industry experts. With a bold design and high-levels of technology, the SEAT Arona has been crowned What Car? Best Small SUV of 2018. Jennings Motor Group takes a look at just what has led to the leading publication granting it the top spot in the competitive category.
Posted on 25 January 2018
The What Car? 2018 Car of the Year Awards has named the All-new SEAT Ibiza as Best Small Car. Taking the overall winner crown for the £12,000 to £20,000 category, it was praised highly for superb handling, running costs as well as practicality.
Posted on 11 January 2018
With the year only a few days old the first car industry awards have already been given out. The stunning All-New SEAT Ibiza has beaten all the competition to be named Best Supermini at the 2018 UK Car of the Year Awards.
Posted on 18 December 2017
From now until Monday 22 January 2018 customers can save an extra £1000 above all offers when ordering a new SEAT. Choose from the award-winning SEAT range to find a vehicle that meets your individual requirements.
Posted on 06 December 2017
Simply by taking a test drive at Jennings SEAT visitors can save a further £500 on the award-winning new SEAT range. Until Tuesday 3 April 2018, the special saving will continue to be available across all retail offers.*
Posted on 20 November 2017
The All-New SEAT Arona has been officially launched at Jennings SEAT following a successful VIP launch weekend. With a model on display in the showroom and further models available to test drive, visitors were able to get behind the wheel for the first time.
Posted on 16 November 2017
Ahead of the exclusive VIP event, the All-New SEAT Arona has arrived at the Jennings SEAT showroom. With the team busy making preparations for the launch event, the stunning SUV can now be found at the centre of the refurbished showroom.
Posted on 15 November 2017
The new Arona has arrived at Jennings SEAT, part of the multi-award winning Jennings Motor Group.
Customers are being invited to the group’s Cargo Fleet Lane dealership in Middlesbrough this weekend, where SEAT’s latest SUV crossover model will be unveiled.
Posted on 10 November 2017
To keep in line with changes that modern day modernists face on the road today, the DVLA has announced a number of changes that are going to be implemented. Coming into practice from Monday 4 December 2017 the driving test in England, Scotland and Wales will include new skill requirements.
Posted on 10 November 2017
Ahead of the highly anticipated UK launch of the All-New SEAT Arona, the stunning SUV has been award the maximum 5 star rating while undergoing Euro NCAP testing. In receiving the maximum score it joined the three other leading models; All-New Ibiza, Ateca and Leon.
Posted on 08 November 2017
The team at Jennings SEAT are starting to prepare for the upcoming exclusive SEAT launch event. Throughout the weekend of Friday 17 November to Sunday 19 November 2017, our SEAT dealership will be welcoming the stunning new SUV for the very first time.
Posted on 01 November 2017
Visitors to Jennings SEAT can save an extra £500 simply by taking a test drive. Between 1 November 2017 and 4 December 2017, discover the award-winning SEAT range to make the saving. Available on all retail order, now is the time to try something new.
Posted on 30 October 2017
Ahead of it’s the official launch weekend between Friday 17 November and Sunday 19 November 2017, leading motoring publication Auto Express has road tested the All-New SEAT Arona. Jennings Motor Group takes a look at what Auto Express thought.
Posted on 23 October 2017
Ahead of the official launch of the All-New SEAT Arona SUV, Jennings SEAT is hosting an exclusive launch event weekend. Between Friday 17 November and Sunday 19 November 2017, visitors will have the first opportunity to get up close and personal to the stunning SUV.
Posted on 09 October 2017
Set to arrive at Jennings SEAT next month, the official order book for the All-New SEAT Arona has opened. Complementing the multi-award winning SEAT Ateca, the Arona has a starting RRP of £16,555 and is available in a range of impressive specifications.
Posted on 09 October 2017
A loyal and dedicated member of staff at Jennings Motor Group, is adding another string to his bow after transferring to work in sales at the company’s SEAT franchise in Middlesbrough.


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iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 devices will soon arrive to New Zealand and Australian customers.
Pre-orders of the iPhone 15 will start being dropped off to customers in the two regions. The AirPods Pro with USB charging, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and Apple Watch Series 9 are expected to be shipped as well. There are posts on social media on customers who received their units and shared pictures of their new smartphones. Australian customers can also buy an iPhone 15 at their nearest Apple Stores, which unfortunately isn’t available in New Zealand.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max and Pro are sold out in terms of pre-orders, although more units are expected to arrive come October or November. The demand for the non-pro units won’t be as high, which means there’s a greater chance to snag one up on official Apple outlets.
After New Zealand and Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America customers are next.


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Foreign Brands’ Chinese New Year Advertising That Went Viral: Comparisons of some of the big-hitting foreign brands’ takes on China’s most important festival.
What do Chinese New Year Marketing Trends Look Like During a Pandemic: Compared to previous years where campaign messaging centred around family reunions, prosperity and luck for the new year, this year is focused on understanding the current context and relating to consumers on an increasingly emotional level. More brands are focused on celebrating in your ‘resident city’ as opposed to traditionally travelling back to everyone’s hometowns.
Chinese Consumers Focus More on Health, Safety When Buying Holiday Goods: Survey: 62.8% of consumers will focus more on the health and safety of goods for purchases during this year’s Spring Festival shopping spree according to a China Youth Daily survey. 60% will try to reduce close contact with others, and 36% will check the quarantine certificate and trace information of imported goods.
Chinese Cities Offer Cash Rewards, Points for School Admission and Other Perks to Stop Spring Festival Travel: Amid fears of COVID-19 spread, a growing number of Chinese cities are offering financial incentives and other perks to persuade residents, especially migrant workers, not to travel home for family reunions ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday. In cities like Suzhou, Ningbo, and Taizhou, those who avoid returning to their rural places of origin are entitled to earn extra points when applying for permanent household registrations, the hukou. In addition, their children will be granted an advantage when choosing local schools to attend. Migrant workers in Hangzhou and Tianjin are given cash rewards up to ¥1,000 ($154) to remain where they are during the holiday. Shanghai is handing out 3,000 “entertainment packages” and 5,000 “snack baskets” for free to migrant workers who stay behind.
The Human Side to Another Lost Spring Festival: People from across China share how they’re celebrating the Lunar New Year holidays, dampened for the second straight year by COVID-19 outbreaks.
China’s Flight Prices Plummet After Holiday Travel Discouraged: Whilst air tickets normally go sky-high for the Chinese New Year holiday, in late January the average price for airline tickets fell to ¥651.4 ($100), the lowest pre-booking price for Spring Festival flights in at least five years, with flights as low as half of last years’ prices.
China Prepares for Smallest Lunar New Year Travel Rush on Record: The world’s largest human migration is expected to be its least-busy in 18 years, with just 1.15 billion trips, 20% down on even last year’s Covid-disrupted festival.
Online Sales of Holiday-Related Goods Surge Ahead of Chinese New Year: From January 20-29, online sales of holiday goods reached ¥344 billion ($53 billion) in an online sales event organised by China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and others. Food sales surged 49.6% from last year, with partly-prepared food up 376%. Fitness equipment also grew strongly, with skipping ropes up 351%.
The Party is Over at Clubhouse, the App that Had China Talking: Not even the most taboo of subjects were off-limits in the rambunctious, unfiltered chatrooms of Clubhouse, before China’s censors silenced the conversation following a session hosted by Elon Musk which went viral.
Beijing Faces High Food Prices Ahead of Lunar New Year Due to Lockdowns Nearby: The pressure on food prices is especially sensitive in the run-up to the country’s most important holiday as families gather around the dinner table. Already high because of exceptionally low temperatures since December, vegetable prices in Beijing, have jumped after many cities in Hebei province locked down following a jump in coronavirus infections. Large cabbages, celery, eggplant and daikon radish, for example, are double the price of last year.
Luckin Coffee Files Bankruptcy in US, Will Keep Shops Open: Founded in 2017, Luckin operated 3,898 outlets as of November 30 with another 894 “partnership” stores. The chain pulled in customers by offering massive discounts and sought to reach 10,000 locations by the end of 2021. Sales still grew 35.8% in the quarter ended September compared to a year ago.
Intime’s 2020 Success Demonstrates Brick-and-Mortar Relevance in New Retail Strategy: Alibaba-owned department store Intime was the world’s top-performing retailer for 13 of its international beauty and cosmetics tenants in 2020. In light of Covid-related changes, the retailer upgraded its omnichannel strategy and adapted to new trends such as spiking at-home consumption, counter-to-home delivery and in-store pickups. Demand for skincare and eye makeup soared as people focused on self-care and beautification. China became the largest market for French beauty products for the first time in 2020, ahead of Germany and the US.
Tonic Snacks Trending as Chinese New Year Gifts: JD’s data shows that remote orders of tonic products grew more than 35% from last month. Many people living in first-tier cities have started to send tonic gift boxes to their families in third or fourth-tier cities since this January. Top tonic choices include bird nests, health tea, cordyceps sinensis, fish maw and ginseng. Female consumers account for more than 70% of sales for bird nests and fish maw, consumers under 30 years old fancy health tea, and those above 45 years old prefer cordyceps sinensis and ginseng. People from the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta spend more on raw ingredients and prefer to cook them in the traditional ways for fine nourishment, whereas northern China and northeast China are more likely to buy ready-to-eat offerings.
Throwaway Economy: Chinese Consumers Are Ditching Luxury Goods Within 1-3 Years, Says New Study: A global study by luxury giant Kering found China to be the most prominent throwaway culture market, where the majority of respondents reported keeping their items for only one to three years. Only 6% of Chinese shoppers kept their luxury goods for more than 10 years, compared to 31% and 33% of consumers in the US and Japan respectively.


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Sony unveils PlayStation Vita TV
Streaming TV is all the rage right now, and Sony are getting on in the act with their latest gadget
Sony unveiled their latest gadget at the SCEJA Press Conference and it's a pretty interesting little piece of gear that will stream what's on your Vita over to your TV.
This means that, obviously, you can play your games on the big screen, but this little gadget has the processing power of the Vita and can download games for the PSP and the PSOne. Essentially, it's a mini version of the handheld console that plugs into the side of your TV.
It has a game slot so that you can play Vita games themselves, and you can just use your PS3 controller to play. However, it may spell the end for the Vita itself seeing as it has most of the functions of the console. However, Sony have invested serious money in the Vita and plan to have a good deal of interconnectivity between it and the PS4, so this will also be another way to keep that money from being wasted. Incidentally, they also announced that the Vita itself will be getting slimmed down and re-released.
The main attraction of this, for many users, will be the ability to stream media like Netflix and YouTube direct to your TV, as well as Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited, and that will be the big selling point, we imagine.
No word yet on whether this is going to be released over this side of the world soon, but it is confirmed for Japan, so success there will surely mean that it heads over here too.
Hat-tip to PC MAg and betanews for the pic


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“On behalf of the International Hospitality Institute and the American Hospitality Institute, it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Elisha Attai as our Global Partner, Board Member, and Chairman, Nigeria.”
Dr. Jeffrey O.
President – International Hospitality Institute
These were the words of the President of the globally known hospitality industry leader.
Commenting on the new post, the chairman, Dr. Elisha Attai said, “I am excited about this new opportunity and chapter in my service to Humanity. I give God all the Glory. Thank you IHI for finding me worthy to pilot the affairs of this great institute in Nigeria along with my dynamic team”.
The economy according to PWC, the global rating agency shows that the Nigerian economy has experienced sharp up-and-down swings in recent years, reflecting large fluctuations in oil prices as the Nigerian economy is dominated by oil opening venues for the hospitality sector.
- Nigeria remains an attractive market for major hotel brands with a strong infrastructure for urban visitors.
- The MICE sector will drive guest nights and overall room revenue.
- The mid-scale market will present the best opportunities for growth.
Hotel room revenue
Hotel room revenue for the five markets as a group will increase at a 5.8% compound annual rate to R50.6 billion in 2023 from R38.1 billion in 2018.
The International Hospitality Institute is a global advocacy, training, and standards organization for the hospitality industry. With offices in various countries, IHI is committed to fostering excellence in the hospitality industry worldwide. IHI will work to improve wage conditions and work climate for hospitality practitioners while also pushing for supportive corporate, legislative, and governmental policies on behalf of the industry’s stakeholders. The global hospitality industry includes hotels, resorts, restaurants, casinos, spas, bed and breakfasts, airbnbs, clubs, cruise ships, theme parks, hospitality schools, hospitality students, hotel companies, senior living centers, retirement communities, REITS, airlines, event planners, transportation companies, entertainment companies, and industry vendors and partners.
The core focus areas of the International Hospitality Institute are:
1. Training and certification of hospitality professionals
2. Recognition of excellence in the hospitality industry through the Julian Star Award which is issued in partnership with the American Hospitality Institute.
3. Function as a think-tank and advocacy organization to influence national policy for the benefit of the global hospitality industry.
4. Function as a bridge and ombudsman between national governments and the hospitality establishments in each country.
5. Establish core operational standards for the global hospitality industry.
6. Establish a unified global Code of conduct for the hospitality industry.
You can contact them by Email: email@example.com
Your help to our media platform will support the delivery of the independent journalism and broadcast the world needs. Support us by making any contribution. Your donation and support allows us to be completely focus, deeply investigative and independent. It also affords us the opportunity to produce more programmes online which is a platform universally utilised.
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As the holiday season approaches and retail projections begin rolling in, food sales look promising. That is, as long as the pandemic and its accompanying labor and supply constraints are kept in check.
Overall, holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 7% and 9% in 2021, according to Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast, with e-commerce sales projected to grow by 11-15%.
“We anticipate strong consumer spending for the upcoming holiday season. As vaccination rates rise and consumers are more comfortable being outside of the home, we are likely to see increased spending on services, including restaurants and travel, while spending on goods will continue to hold steady,” said Daniel Bachman, Deloitte’s U.S. economic forecaster.
At the same time, 29% of U.S. consumers plan to spend more on holiday shopping than they did last year, despite unchanged feelings about their own personal financial situations and the state of the economy, according to NPD Group.
With these statistics in mind, what are the prospects for holiday food sales?
On the grocery front, 34% of shoppers surveyed said they’d spend more—21% only “a little more”—on holiday groceries in 2021 versus last year, according to retail solutions platform Field Agent.
Field Agent also cited Walmart (65%) and Target (38%) as the top two retailers where consumers will purchase most of their holiday foods, snacks, and beverages. Asked which foods/beverages will be served in households for Christmas Eve/Day, chocolate candy (74%), freshly-baked cookies (73%), soda (69%), and chips (68%) hold the top positions.
In the first half of 2021 industry trends were positive, but there is still a long path to recovery. A National Restaurant Association survey conducted over the summer found that the delta variant threatens the gains made earlier this year.
“The trends from the first half of the year are promising, but a lot of uncertainty remains in regard to the delta variant, consumer confidence, and ongoing labor challenges,” said Hudson Riehle, Senior Vice President of Research for the National Restaurant Association. “We expect restaurant pent-up demand will remain high in the coming months. However, in this state of flux, maintaining the availability of on-site dining with few capacity restrictions will be critical to keeping the overall sales momentum going forward, especially for full-service operators.” (Vending Market Watch, Sept. 7)
According to the Specialty Foods Association (SFA), sales hit $170.4 billion in 2020 and continue to grow this year with more consumers buying across more categories.
“We see this continuing for the holiday season,” SFA said in an e-mailed statement to The Food Institute. “Consumers had to embrace cooking and eating at home more in the past year and a half and while they are eager to resume dining out, our research suggests that they won’t abandon the cooking skills they learned or refined.”
SFA also noted that early reports indicate that specialty foods as gifts and stocking stuffers will be popular this season because consumers have been cooking at home. Some categories, like olive oils, pastas, vinegars, seasonings and sauces, have been among those enjoying a sales boost during the pandemic, and they fit the food-gift category nicely.


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Idol Manager has been given a release date for its Nintendo Switch launch.
Idol Manager puts the entertainment business into the player's hands. You take on the role of a talent manager at a relatively small agency. Here, it's your job to grow the next bunch of talented pop stars. But, managing a celebrity's career isn't smooth sailing. players will face PR disaters, gossip and rumor mills, and all sorts of other set backs that could make or break their careers.
If you think you've got what it takes to manage the best talent in the biz, you might be wondering when Idol Manager is set to release on Nintendo Switch.
When is the Nintendo Switch Release Date for Idol Manager?
Idol Manager will be heading to the Nintendo Switch on August 25.
The game has already been availabe on PC, Mac and Linux for some time, having released back in July 2021. The upcoming Switch release will be the first time Idol Manager has amde its way to consoles.
The game's release date was revealed as part of Nintendo's latest Indie World Showcase. If you're curious about what other games were revealed during the presentation, be sure to check out our full run down and our list of the five best games to look forward to.


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Update: the latest on this story can be found in this article – ‘MTV wants its MediaCityUK…or does it?‘
The MediaCityUK rumour mill is in full flow after rumours that a major worldwide media company is about to announce it’s move to MediaCityUK.
Currently topping the list are MTV, Sky, CNN, Al Jazeera, ESPN and TV5.
Actual details are slim, but the company is apparently a well known global brand, and we can expect more details within the month. MTV certainly seems to be the current front-runner, so watch this space.


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A much-loved Perth burger joint will be opening its third location and is celebrating with a decadent, limited-edition lobster roll and its very own Margaret River-made prosecco.
Betty’s Burgers will throw open the doors to its Westfield Whitfords venue on Wednesday and is inviting foodies to dig into their boujee seafood option.
The lobster roll — which retails for $19 — will be filled with lobster meat, green onions, chive mayo and lettuce and served in a warm buttered bun.
The delicious burger will be served at all three of Betty Burgers’ WA locations — including Scarborugh and Forrest Chase — until sold out.
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To add to the excitement, Betty’s Bubbles will also be launched — an exclusive prosecco made in collaboration with Margaret River’s Small Things Wine. Customers can sip the luxe beverage for $12 a pop.
Burger lovers will also be able to enjoy a sweet deal at the grand opening on Saturday, with the Bestie Bundle offering a Betty’s classic, soft drink and an iconic Betty’s Burgers cap for just $10.
On October 27, the retro beach-inspired burger chain — which opened its first diner in Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast nine years ago— hosted a “dive-in” pop-up beach cinema on Scarborough Beach to celebrate the opening of its second WA outlet.
The company now employs more than 100 West Aussies and is looking to expand further after a big demand for its burgers.


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Are India's street markets under threat?
Traditionally, a great deal of business in India has been conducted in the streets.
They are home to a thriving economy, with all kinds of goods changing hands and services being provided.
But in a changing India, could these pavement based businesses be under threat?
The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan reports from Mumbai.


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Though it is not surprising that Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has been looking to dabble in the American healthcare sector, CEO Jeff Bezos has now convinced his counterparts at both Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) to join him in an ambitious attempt to revolutionize the healthcare industry.
On Tuesday, the three giants announced a partnership to form a not-for-profit healthcare company that looks to disrupt the industry by reducing costs and improving services for the companies’ combined 1.1 million employees. The partnership looks to challenge the world’s most expensive healthcare system, which is currently experiencing exorbitant costs that have been hurting corporate profits.
Though details of the new venture were not provided, its first goal will be to target technology solutions to provide a high-quality, simplified, and transparent healthcare system. A search for the new company’s CEO is also underway.
According to industry experts, the partnership company could eventually negotiate directly with drugmakers, doctors, and hospitals, thus undercutting the need of a “middleman” like health insurers, pharmacies, and benefits managers. It will also have a good grasp of what health service costs should be based on the massive amount of data owned by Amazon et al.
Commenting on what’s considered a landmark partnership in U.S. healthcare, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said: “The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy. Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable.”
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon added: “Our people want transparency, knowledge and control when it comes to managing their healthcare. The three of our companies have extraordinary resources, and our goal is to create solutions that benefit our U.S. employees, their families and, potentially, all Americans.”
Those familiar with the healthcare sector have long been calling for big shakeups regarding its cost structure. Annual spending on healthcare has been rising faster than inflation, and it accounted for a whopping 18% of the U.S. economy last year.
Major healthcare players have been trying to tackle this issue for a while, exemplified by last year’s acquisition of insurer Aetna Inc. (NYSE:AET) by CVS Health Corp. (NYSE:CVS). But today’s development could potentially have a dramatic and long-lasting effect on the entire landscape of the industry.
Praising the initiative taken by the three of the most dominant forces in the economy, Adam Fein, President of Pembroke Consulting, said it’s “long past time” for employers like these three to force innovation into the healthcare system.
“Rather than merely bashing the current system, I hope this new organization can help patients and their physicians make more informed and more cost-effective decisions. Technology will be necessary but not sufficient to make positive changes,” continued Fein.
The partnership created by Amazon, Berkshire, and JPMorgan is already sending a huge shockwave throughout the industry. Upon their announcement, health insurers that have been providing benefit management or health plans to the three companies took a hard hit on the stock market, led by a 4.1% drop in CVS shares and a 4% fall in the shares of Unitedhealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH).
Featured Image: quaintise


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The Trash Pandas broke records in merchandise sales before their first pitch was even thrown.
The manager of the Trash Pandas Emporium, Bud McLaughlin, said the excitement shows in their merchandise sales.
“They’ve been going literally through the roof. Yesterday, we had an all-time record for Monday sales, and it just set our standard for today. In our first 45 minutes, we had $1,500 in sales,” he said.
There was a line of people waiting for the Emporium to open Tuesday morning. McLaughlin said people can't control their excitement when they come into the store.
“They come in through the door and they look up and around. It’s like being in a candy store, being in a toy store and everybody’s coming in with a smile on their face," he said. "Now, there’s a whole new excitement going and you can just tell the excitement."
Like the Emporium, The Yard Milkshake Bar is ready for many people to stop by before the Trash Pandas' home games.
“We have full staff, all the staff on deck, they’re ready, they’re excited," said Camila Buque, the General Manager of The Yard. "They’re like, ‘Oh, this is going to be a fun night. We’re ready for it.’ Everybody’s super excited, looking forward to this. We're just expecting to be super busy.”
Both stores hope their sales continue to grow as the Trash Pandas' season goes on.


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Apple gives in to criticisms against Apple Music.
Apple Music wasn’t the first product to offer a music streaming service, but it is certainly the most controversial. Just the other day, famous singer Taylor Swift announced that her latest album ’1989’, will not be available to stream on the new music platform.
“I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company,” Taylor wrote on her blog.
All users of Apple Music will get a free 3-month trial and during that period, Apple originally would not pay artists. But a quick turnaround happened this morning when Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cut tweeted to Taylor that “#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period.”
The quick turnaround was met with praise from other artists and Taylor herself. Apple Music will debut with iOS 8.4 on June 30 and will feature a monthly subscription for an unlimited music streaming.