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Akamai Technologies has ramped up beyond its internal development efforts to create a premier content delivery, management, and monetization platform with the stated merger today with Nine Systems Corp.
, a San Diego-based rich media production, publishing and distribution services and solutions provider.
The inclusion of such a content management capability -- across the spectrum of formats in demand today
-- places Akamai in a powerful position. It can expand its application delivery optimization and content-delivery services
benefits by solving the demands of those seeking to create and monetize all sorts of digital content -- not just deliver it around the world in a jiffy. Akamai is moving to an end-to-end, full spectrum solutions role for broad Internet activities.
"...The combined Akamai and Nine Systems rich media framework will allow us to develop the best solutions to help our customers simplify the control, management, distribution, reporting, and monetization of digital assets on the Internet," said Akamai President and CEO Paul Sagan in a release.
Akamai says it plans to integrate Nine Systems' Stream OS
into the global Akamai network. Stream OS is a suite of configurable rich media management tools that enable production and publishing of content online. The goal is to provide customers worldwide with a unified solution for managing content and controlling delivery across the Akamai rich media distribution network platform.
"This is a big win for our customers, and for companies requiring rich media management, publishing, and robust delivery," said Troy Snyder, president and CEO of Nine Systems, in a release. "Nine Systems' rich media publishing and management tools already power the online media experience for some of today's best known companies in the music, broadcast, sports, entertainment, inspirational, advertising, education, and government markets. By joining forces with Akamai, our customers will have access to the leader in accelerating content and applications online, supported by a combination of the most experienced teams in the industry."
The move comes as Akamai is also ramping up Link Syndication offerings that help its media delivery customers move their business models up the food chain along the following progression: pay per view, subscription, advertising, and syndication. Akamai is increasingly reaching out to developers of RIAs, AJAX apps, and SOAs so to allow them to more easily exploit the benefits of Internet acceleration, and to automate the speed and reliability of these inherently complex and highly chatty applications.
The Nine Systems acquisition comes as the impact of Web 2.0
and social networks is being felt, and monetized. More "user generated content" is going up and through the pipes, and needs management -- both for creators as well as aggregators and end-users. This could have huge implications as users create and want to distribute more HD video at scale. Also podcasting and blogging "platform" providers are increasingly moving to video, begging the question of why content creators and media companies would not seek an all-in-one provider with the advertising and sponsorship services embedded across all content modes.
The Nine Systems acquisitions places Akamai in the role of an emerging service layer to those media companies aspiring to become Internet distribution and advertising powerhouses, not just content creators that feed other distribution networks.
Akamai began as a content delivery network in the 1990s, but has progressed to a software intellectual property bank and global server distributor. The Wall Street darling
is clearly moving more closely to becoming a B2C and B2B online sales and marketing services company that also hosts more and more of any Internet-facing company's edge infrastructure, while also managing all types of digital assets.
Disclosure: Akamai is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect B2B podcasts.


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Ferncast and Videolink announce strategic Distribution Partnership for the Swiss market.
Online PR News -19 November 2019 – Aachen, Germany
For immediate release
Ferncast, developer of innovative audio transmission software solutions, is happy to officially announce an exclusive sales and distribution partnership with Videolink for the Swiss market and to add a premium distributor to its growing list of partners in Europe.
Videolink, a leading vendor of broadcast solutions and related products in Switzerland, has an extensive and successful history in bringing audio and video transmission devices as well as Broadcast and Pro AV products to Swiss customers, from corporate purchasers to public broadcasters. Over the years, Videolink has built up a reputation for reliability and excellent service which made it the right business partner for Ferncast.
Stephan Ammann, co-founder and partner of Videolink AG, commented: “At Videolink we distribute products of leading tech companies for broadcast solutions in Switzerland. With Ferncast, we have found new partners who haveinspired us with theirmodern sales and development approach and the extraordinary products theyhave developed for high-quality audio streaming and communication. Our first customers’ feedback on aixtream, Ferncast’s core software solution, is very positive, and the hardware options like fernStudio and fernBerrie are also very interesting. With our sales expertise and the quality of Ferncast’s products we are convinced that we can deliver a whole new world of audio transmission to the Swiss market”.
Both Ferncast and Videolink are very excited about this new strategic partnership and the mutual benefits it will bring for both companies as well as their Swiss customers. The entire distribution of Ferncast products in Switzerland is carried out exclusively via Videolink. The full range of Ferncast products will soon be available on the Videolink website at https://www.videolink.ch/de/ferncast
About Ferncast GmbH: Ferncast is a team of dynamic developers in digital media signal processing and systems engineering from Aachen, Germany. Lead by Dr. Hauke Krüger, who is already known through multiple publications in the areas of digital signal processing, including significant contributions to the Opus codec algorythm, the Ferncast team develops new solutions to revolutionize the broadcasting industry. The capable minds of Ferncast include skilled experts from Germany’s leading technical universities. Ferncast’s first project is the development and release of a suite of software solutions to enable broadcasters to eschew traditional hardware audio codecs in their audio transmission.
You can visit their newly redesigned website to read more about Ferncast :
Virginie Davin Danker

domain: news


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Everything at Chipotle will be GMO-free from now on. This includes tortillas, salsa, chips, and marinades.
Beginning Monday, the Mexican food chain will only serve food that is organic and devoid of genetically modified ingredients. This is something no other major restaurant chain has done before.
Becoming GMO-free is a goal that Chipotle has been working towards for many years. In 2013, the company was the first to disclose all the ingredients containing GMO on its menu.
According to CNN Money, Chipotle’s pork and chicken will continue to come from animals that eat GMO-feed. However, the chain states that it has been successful in switching out all the other GMO-containing ingredients from the menu. This is including using rice bran oil instead of soybean oil.


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Research in Motion Monday issued its formal invitation to reporters and analysts to attend the previously announced Jan. 30 unveiling of the new BlackBerry 10 smartphones that will likely decide the company's fate.
Many smartphone users are wondering whether their Android, Nokia and BlackBerry devices are spying on them after security researcher Trevor Eckhart recently claimed that a piece of diagnostic software on the phones was acting like malware.
Between the popularity of Apple's iPad and the looming threat of Amazon's Kindle Fire, times are tough for other tablet makers. But their loss is your gain, as retailers have resorted to offering deep discounts on tablets that were, in all honesty, n...
The new iPhone that Apple is expected to announce on Oct. 4 is already on the shopping list of many BlackBerry and Android users.
Android devices have outsold the iPhone by a 2-to-1 margin in the past three months, according to a new Nielsen survey.
Perhaps you've heard that the HP TouchPad tablet has suffered an untimely demise? There are a lot of lessons that rival tablet vendors can learn from the death of the TouchPad (and the feeding frenzy it created in its wake). More importantly, though,...
Optus has announced pricing and launch details for RIM's new range of BlackBerry smartphones, specifically the Torch 9860 and the Bold 9900. Both handsets will be available exclusively through Optus from 1 September.
Hackers defaced the official Blackberry Blog today in retaliation for Research In Motion's pledge to assist police "in any way we can" in their efforts to quell the riots in London in recent days.
Optus has announced it will be the first Australian carrier to offer RIM's new range of BlackBerry smartphones, specifically the Torch 9860 and the Bold 9900.
RIM is dead.
Apple's iPad owns the tablet market, according to a new study of Internet traffic in the U.S., but that doesn't mean the competition is going away.
More than 5,000 iOS developers are in San Francisco for Apple's big party at the Worldwide Developers Conference, but a new report says the hippest place to be is the Android Market. The study, from Bluevia and Vision Mobile, found that 67 per cent o...
Slowly but surely, the Amazon tablet is becoming one of the biggest tech rumors of 2011.
Another day, another report saying Android rules the smartphone world, this time from Gartner.
As if facing lackluster reviews for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet debut wasn't bad enough, now Research In Motion (RIM) is being forced to recall about 1000 tablets due to software problems.
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Social Media Scorecard: Spotlight on the Healthcare Industry
The healthcare industry in the United States is massive. The top insurance providers in the United States take in a combined $415 billion in annual revenue, employ over 400,000 people, and provide healthcare coverage to millions. With such reach and power in mind, we’re taking a closer look at how the biggest industry players handle their social media activities.
Positive or negative, health insurers are constantly being mentioned in various publications and on social media. Here’s a snapshot of the last week of the 26.7K mentions for the top five insurers:
The number of mentions around Aetna this week were striking. Talkwalker’s social analytics platform can tell that the company dominated 63.1% of the conversation. When a health insurance company is caught up in controversy, that conversation is amplified through social media.
Social listening platforms like Talkwalker can provide the healthcare industry a way to analyze positive, neutral, or negative sentiment toward a brand. Analyzing sentiment is a way for brands to see how the public views the company. It’s common for customers to utilize platforms like Twitter for complaints, which may skew sentiment data negative. Brands can use Talkwalker’s platform to benchmark their positive and negative mentions, watch for any drastic changes, and create new goals.
Emojis are a fun way for customers to express a variety of emotions when talking about their health insurance providers. For companies, they provide an extra level of insight into brand sentiment.
Customer Support on Twitter
While Humana is the smallest of the top five healthcare insurers, it has an active Twitter account and provides robust customer support. Its followers are the most engaged of these insurers.
For being the county's biggest private healthcare provider, UnitedHealthcare doesn't reach as many people as it should through social media, as shown below.
When people turn to Twitter to vent their frustrations, social listening ends up being more important than ever. Being able to interact with someone, even though a social media channel, may end up solving a problem and leave the customer with a more positive impression of the company.
Hello. We are here 24/7 if we can assist with anything now or in the future. Thank you. ^JL— Aetna (@AetnaHelp) August 9, 2017
To learn more about social listening and reputation monitoring for healthcare, request a free demo from Talkwalker.


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More details have been revealed about GLAY's new album and two bonus ballad collections.
Yasuda Rei's first album has been released internationally on iTunes and in a special edition for fans in Taiwan.
The Cheserasera will release their first full-length album on January 14th.
Silhouette from the Skylit will release a new single on December 3rd.
A previously unpublished hide song, Co Gal, will be released on December 10th.
Visual kei "air band" Golden Bomber to release two additional live DVDs in December.
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It's the spot where Medical Marijuana caregivers and patients come to conduct business. The Happy Carrot opened in 2010 in Marquette Township.
"Getting patients away from drug dealers was one of the purposes of the Happy Carrot. Now in 2014 there's an over abundance of supply and we see more caregivers looking to find patients," said Brian Bloch, Co-Founder.
Bloch says they serve between thirty and fifty patients a week, and there's promise of more.
Right next door to the Happy Carrot, it's only been about three weeks that the Upper Peninsula In Smoke head shop has been open. Both business owners say the stores compliment each other.
Inside of UP in Smoke you will find a variety of pipes, vaporizers, posters, tapestries, and novelty items.
Since it's opening they have made around $5,000 in sales. Co-owner Justin Stockwell says a lot of it has to do with Happy Carrot.
"Having a network that's right there. It's easy to tell them, go over and you can talk to other caregivers and patients that are networked together, and see how other patients are doing it in the area," said Justin Stockwell
Even though the store has been open for a couple of weeks they have seen an increase number of people stopping and the Happy Carrot is also experiencing the benefits.
Some neighbors in the area who declined to go on camera say they're not happy about the store's location, but others don't mind it.
"It's good for the patients to be able to have all that support in one area. Good safe place to provide them with their medicine. Friendly people to help them use it," said Dan Rantanen.
U.P. In Smoke is looking to obtain a tobacco license to sell hookah products sometime this summer.


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iPhone 6 Release Date 2014 Expected with Curved, Wraparound Screen, Specs and Features Rumor Roundup
All the unfulfilled wish lists from the iPhone 5S is now carrying over to the iPhone 6, which is slated for a March 2014 release date.
Unyielding iPhone rumors persist as Apple recently released the iPhone 5S and 5C, pointing to the release date of the 6th generation of the giant's flagship smartphone sometime in first quarter of 2014
While Apple has uttered no word on the iPhone 6, rumors and leaks, rather in the form of wish lists, are flooding in, mostly pointing to a March 2014 release date for the next-generation iPhone.
The iPhone 6 is alleged for a bigger display screen, following suit with Apple's longtime competitor Google's Android smartphones, namely the Samsung Galaxy family.
Rumored sizes range from 4.5 to 5 inches, and many are speculating that Apple may even release a "phablet" size smartphone to beat Samsung.
The curved screen was rumored ever since the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 6 may finally debut with a curved, wraparound screen, a recent Apple patent filing in Eurpe suggests, Patently Apple reports. The wraparound AMOLED screen could look like the iPod Nano 4, and can be "unrolled" or "unfolded" with the help of a hinge which is "a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together," according to the patent, which also discusses facial recognition, gesture control and 3D screen.
Another Apple patent filing also hints a "smart bezel" feature that would display information around the screen.
"The primary display could be used to convey visual content to a user, and the secondary display could be used to guide a user providing inputs to the device. For example, the secondary display could be selectively illuminated to provide one or more indicators that represent where or how a user can provide inputs to the device," explains the patent, according to DesignnTrend.
Apple is also rumored to be moving on from infrared sensors to sonar sensors, according to Apple Insider.
The sonar technology is able to "detect slight changes in ambient sound and send corresponding signals to a processor which then compares the two to determine whether an object is in close proximity to either of the mics," the site reports.
The LiquidMetal that wraps around the screen also enhances durability, which would be an upgrade to be applied to the future iPhones and iPads.
Apple is also reported to be shifting from A7 to A8 processing chips, IBTimes Australia reports.
"Taiwan SemiconductorManufacturing Company (TSMC) has stepped up its purchases of manufacturing equipment for its 20nm process," reports DigiTimes of Taiwan.
Volume production of the chips will begin by the first quarter of 2014, in time for the iPhone 6 release date.
According to Apple, the iPhone 5S is already 20 times faster than the iPhone 5, with an A7 processor that marks the first ever 64-bit CPU to come with a phone.
The iPhone 6 with the alleged A8 processor would make a beast.


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RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - With the impact of the pandemic on household income and the rising cost of energy due to the water crisis, more Brazilians are unable to pay their electricity bill on time.
According to the National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL), 39.43% of low-income households have delayed their bills for at least a month in 2021.
The share of these consumers with overdue bills has been growing since 2012, when the index began to be measured, and stood at 17.85%.
With no funds to pay their bills, households are now exposed to shut-offs, allowed . . .


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Tired of the McAloo Tikki and McVeggie burger?
How about a McMasala Dosa burger with molaga podi sauce for breakfast?
In an attempt to boost business, the fast food joint is all set to launch a new range of dishes in its breakfast menu in the country.
The new range, which is a mix of Indian and continental cuisine, will include masala dosa burgers, spinach and corn and hash brown brioches, plain and masala scrambled eggs, waffles and hotcakes, The Economic Times reported.
Some of the items in the new range will only be available in the mornings.
McDonald's will launch the new range first in Mumbai during this weekend, following which it will be made available in its other outlets across the country.
"We continue to look at inspiration from Indian cuisine and bring it as a McDonald's format which will give you flavours from the west but the familiarity of Indian," said Amit Jatia, vice-chairman of Westlife Development, which runs McDonald's restaurants in the west and south, told ET.
Twitter, however seems to be sceptical of McDonald's decision to combine a burger with a dosa.
Masala Dosa burger means the product guys at McDonalds have officially run out of ideas— Gappistan Radio (@GappistanRadio) January 11, 2017
So now you have Masala Dosa Burger and you thought 2016 was bad.— Avinash Iyer (@IyerAvin) January 11, 2017
McDonald's might come out with a masala dosa burger, but as a Bombayite I'm just glad there's never going to be a vada pav burger.— Tanvi (@sinpulsive) January 11, 2017
Why no outrage about the McDonalds Masala Dosa burger yet? What next...Veg Biryani latte? Dei!— That Goan Boy (@schmmuck) January 11, 2017
I dunno what is insulted more by Masala Dosa Burger. The dosa or the burger.— Ra Ch Na (@raggedtag) January 11, 2017
With out-of-home breakfast being one of the fastest growing business platforms in India, McDonald's has also been looking at the possibility of starting an All-Day Breakfast campaign, which is available in the United States, in the country. This would mean that customers could order items from the breakfast menu throughout the day instead of only in the mornings.
The company has been serving breakfast items in India for a few years now and the present menu includes hash browns, Veg McMuffin, Hot Cakes, McEgg and Sausage McMuffin.
While world over McDonald's is known for its Big Mac beef burger, in India it does not serve beef and has had to localise its menu significantly to adapt to the Indian market.
It was in 1996 that the multinational company opened its first branch in India, in New Delhi's Basant Lok. It also was the first McDonald's restaurant in the world which did not serve beef and pork-based products.


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Only on Che.com :: Latest News
October 20, 2014
Chemtura expanding antioxidant production capacity in Italy, Canada and Taiwan
Chemtura Corp. (Philadelphia, Pa.; www.chemtura.com)
has announced that three of its major production sites are now increasing capacity for its Naugalube alkylated diphenyl amine (ADPA) liquid antioxidants to prevent predicted future shortages of antioxidants in the automotive petroleum additive industry worldwide. By 2015, the company will increase capacity at its Elmira, Ontario, Canada site by 20%, its Latina, Italy site by 25% and its Kaohsiung, Taiwan site by 10%.
Automotive applications make up nearly 75% of global antioxidant consumption. When automotive lubricants, such as engine oils and transmission fluids, are formulated with antioxidants, they provide protection against oil degradation and help reduce automotive emissions as mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Union, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and the regulators of other countries.
Antioxidant demand is being driven by greater fuel-efficiency standards, particularly CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards that are moving the industry toward downsized turbo-charged engines with higher power densities. This, in turn, results in higher engine operating temperatures and accelerated oxidation in engine oil. According to projected growth rates, the demand for antioxidants is expected to increase annually by about 5% through 2018.
"The requirement for superior oxidative stability in automotive formulations is critical and underpins this strong growth," said Michele Ottavio, automotive market manager at Chemtura. "Chemtura is committed to invest in our antioxidant capacity to support this growth and more effectively serve our global customers."


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Australian dollar falls
The Aussie dollar also bought $1.05 New Zealand dollars, 4.912 Chinese yuan, 79.98 Japanese yen, 56.33 British pence and 62.46 euro cents.
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Williams-Sonoma on Wednesday reported net revenue in the third quarter rose 7.5% to $1.37 billion from $1.28 billion in the year-ago period. Comparable sales grew 6.5%, primarily driven by strong performance in its West Elm and Pottery Barn banners, according to a company press release.
By brand, comps rose 4.2% at Pottery Barn and 3.7% at Pottery Barn Kids and Teen, but fell 1.1% at Williams Sonoma. Comps soared 17.5% at the company's West Elm brand.
Williams-Sonoma raised its fiscal year guidance and now expects net revenues to be between $5.74 billion and $5.9 billion (from between $5.67 billion and $5.84 billion). Comp growth is expected to be between 3% and 6%, and non-GAAP operating margin to be in-line with the prior fiscal year.
While West Elm continues to post the most impressive comp growth, the success from Williams-Sonoma's Pottery Barn banner indicates the company's initiatives are paying off.
"We've diversified our product offering with more aesthetics and scale, including the launch of our successful new businesses, Pottery Barn Apartment and Marketplace, both of which are driving new customer acquisitions and brand reconsideration," CEO Laura Alber said on a call with analysts, according to a Motley Fool transcript.
To further drive growth in its other banners, particularly Williams Sonoma, which was the only brand to post negative same-store sales in the quarter, the company continues to encourage shopping across all of its channels through its cross-brand loyalty program, The Key. Alber said Williams-Sonoma added 1 million members this quarter, bringing the total number of members to 6.4 million.
The company also indicated that it's moving full steam ahead with its plan to mitigate the impacts of tariffs. Alber said Williams-Sonoma plans to cut its production in China in half by next year. "We started executing on our tariff mitigation strategy earlier than most and as evidenced by our results this quarter, we were able to cover the financial impact of List 3 tariffs," she added.
CFO Julie Whalen said the company is also pushing to "pull forward as much inventory as possible this quarter, which appears to be a good idea in light of the most recent tariff announcement," which indicated a tariff increase of 15%, from the originally announced 10%, on the remaining $300 billion worth of Chinese imports. These tariffs are set to take effect in stages, Sept. 1 and Dec. 15.
As a result, Williams-Sonoma's merchandise inventories in the quarter increased 8% to $1.2 billion. In addition to moving some of its production out of China, Whalen indicated Williams-Sonoma is trying to mitigate tariff impacts through cost reductions with its vendors and selective price increases. Alber, however, noted that "we're doing everything else we can" to mitigate the impacts on the consumer.
While Alber said moving production out of China is "not pleasant," the company isn't "having any quality degradation. We're not seeing any disruption in shipments."


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KUALA LUMPUR, 23 August 2018 – iMoney, a leading fintech platform in Malaysia, announced the launch of iMoney CreditScore, the first, free and easy-to-use tool for Malaysians to check their credit score and understand their financial health. In line with its vision of empowering consumers to make intelligent decisions on money matters, iMoney CreditScore offers […]
Latest iMoney Press and Media Releases.
Additional investment by ASX-listed company gives it a majority shareholding in Southeast Asia’s leading marketplace for financial products KUALA LUMPUR, 03 October, 2017 — iSelect (ASX:ISU) the ASX listed comparison company, has today announced it has increased its shareholding in Intelligent Money Sdn Bhd (“iMoney”) positioning iSelect as the majority and single largest shareholder in […]
iMoney Group, South East Asia’s largest financial services comparison service, today announced it has raised approximately RM13 million (USD$4.0 million*) from iSelect Limited, Australia’s leading online comparison service.
iMoney Group, a Malaysia-based financial comparison startup, announced that it has raised a $2 million Series A round led by Singapore-based venture firm Jungle Ventures. Other investors include ECONA AG, Rebright Partners, IMJ Fenox, Fenox Venture Capital, 500 Startups, Vogel Ventures and angel investor Lim Der Shing. iMoney’s Series A comes less than five months […]
iMoney, one of the region’s fast-growing financial comparison websites, has officially captured its fifth and sixth territories in Asia with the launch of iMoney Hong Kong (operating under the name “BestMoney”) and iMoney Thailand today.
KUALA LUMPUR (June 26): Intelligent Money Sdn Bhd (iMoney), a company specialising in financial product comparisons, has received a RM500,000 grant from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd — an agency under the Ministry of Finance. This is the company’s second outside funding after receiving US$500,000 from Asia Venture Group — a private Internet holding group. iMoney […]
THE first time Digital News Asia (DNA) featured Intelligent Money Sdn Bhd (iMoney) was last July when co-founder and chief executive officer Ching Wei Lee (pic) shared his plans for the site, his motivation for launching it and revealed that Khailee Ng of Says.com was his angel investor.
Malaysian startup iMoney has raised $500,000 in seed funding, revealed co-founder and CEO Lee Ching Wei today. The online personal finance platform raised the funds from Asia Venture Group (AVG) and will use the cash for its expansion across Southeast Asia.


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FRANKFURT, May 29 (Reuters) - Porsche will sell around 80,000 cars in the current fiscal year and expects to post a full-year operating profit of between 700 million euros ($979.5 million) and 800 million, a state politician told a German newspaper. Claus Schmiedel, a member of parliament in Porsche's home state Baden-Wuerttemberg, told Stuttgarter Nachrichten in an interview to be published on Saturday he had spoken to Porsche's finance chief and taken a look at the carmaker's books. ...
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Keep Australia Beautiful week is now upon us. Launched in 1968, it is the first anti-litter campaign advocating for a litter-free and sustainable Australia.
This year the campaign is putting a spotlight on eliminating single-use plastic waste to help protect the country’s biodiversity from the material’s harmful effects. According to a 2020 report by Boston Consulting Group commissioned by conservation organisation WWF Australia, 130,000 tonnes of plastic consumed by Australians leaks into the environment each year.
Keep Australia Beautiful is encouraging Australians to commit to a 7-Day Plastic Pledge and lead by example, asking participants to refuse single-use plastic such as disposable face masks, takeaway packaging and coffee cups and switch to reusable alternatives. The campaign also urges participants to share about their progress in order to encourage others to adopt plastic-free habits.
In Australia, one million tonnes of annual plastic consumption is single-use plastic. With just 13% of the plastic consumed in the country being recycled, the plastic crisis has become a top environmental focus of local, state and federal governments, with state and territory governments rolling out bans on problematic single-use plastics such as plastic cutlery, straws, plates and stirrers.
After convening a National Plastics Summit in 2020, the Australian government has also developed its National Plastics Plan outlining its plan of action for plastic prevention, recycling and innovation. Working with industry, the government plans to phase out “fragmentable” plastic such as biodegradable plastic by July 2022 and aims to have 70% of the plastics consumed in the country to be recovered by 2025.
In addition, every state and territory government has, or plans to have, a container deposit scheme to reduce plastic bottle pollution.
Keep Australia Beautiful runs from August 16 to August 22. It’s not too late to play your part in keeping the country pollution-free. Take the plastic pledge here.
- 12 Simple Ways to Use Less Plastic
- 10 Ways to Avoid Single-Use Plastic When Out and About
- 20 Items That Should Be On Your Zero Waste List
- How to Transition to a Plastic-Free Lifestyle in Just 8 Simple Steps
- Where to Shop Online For Sustainable, Plastic-Free and Zero Waste Products in Australia
- Educational Docos and Short Films About Plastic Pollution and Living Plastic-Free
- 5 Reasons Why I Failed Plastic Free July
Cover image by Sarah Chai.


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AVB rolls out technology upgrades
LAS VEGAS — As the AVB team introduced new technology rollouts at the annual summit here, CEO Jim Ristow reflected on a time when retailers realized they needed quality websites to keep pace with the consumer demand. Now, he said, retail has arrived at another crossroads in the shopping experience.
“Five or six years ago the light bulb went out for (retailers) to have a really good website,” Ristow said. “We think we’re at exactly the same point in the shopping experience.”
To enhance the shopping experience, technology advancements include an integrated experience that merges online and offline shopping, point-of-sale advancements that add more real-time views of inventory, an endless aisle more deep and more. This is part of an effort to improve the experience for retailers and consumers.
Along with the new sales and merchandising services, existing tools were already available to members, which enabled the group to gain significant market share during the pandemic. A big part of the announcement was that AVB took these various tools and services, which can be overwhelming for a retailer, and bundled them into four simple service levels under the Alta banner, as part of the Simplify initiative. + Unify of the group.
“Our members have the best salespeople. What they didn’t have was a tool that connected all of this information, all of these processes, and everything that people get online with what they do in-store. There is a gap,” said Dave Meekings, chief operating officer. “Consumers go online and see all this information, images, videos, specs, documents. They come to the store and the seller, the best they can do is go online themselves and find the exact same thing. We take all of this data and information and put it into an interface designed for the sales professional.
AVB officials agreed that progress is needed because of the way technology has become more integrated into everyone’s life and has become an expectation rather than a novelty.
“Think about how technology has supplemented the things you do every day,” said John White, chief marketing officer. “When you enter a restaurant, you are not given a menu; there is a QR code and you scan it.
One of the new features can sync an online shopping journey with an in-store visit. A consumer visits a retailer’s website, selects a piece of furniture and places it in their cart, but wants to sit down before making a purchase. With the system, the consumer can share information with a salesperson in the store, who can then review the history to pick up where the consumer left off.
“It works both ways. You can start with the seller and finish online at home,” Ristow added.
Updates to AVB’s Kiosq platform add more SKUs to a retailer’s offerings. “In the furniture space, there’s a very limited selection compared to what’s out there. You may have 200 SKUs on the floor, but there are 200,000 available. That’s the way to get part of that inventory,” White said.
AVB is also working with a handful of POS vendors to create a system that will integrate with them to offer real-time views of inventory, pricing and more.
“They’re to the point now that if you’re on this system and using it to its capabilities, you can connect to our tools really seamlessly and it’s a unified platform at this point,” said White.
Additionally, AVB has a browser-based point-of-sale system, Sync, in beta. It is designed to integrate with existing AVB systems and meet the essential needs of a furniture or appliance retailer.


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Call it a symptom of the work-life merger: An employee signs up for the weekly Chamber of Commerce newsletter, or for a community 5K race or a free month of online video-streaming using work e-mail.
But what may be innocent strokes of a few keys could place companies — from banks to retailers — at greater risk for a cyberattack or corporate espionage, according to a report to be released Wednesday by Recorded Future, a Cambridge technology firm that uses online information to predict trends.
This year, 44 percent, or 221, of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies had their employees’ credentials, such as e-mails paired with entire or partial passwords, exposed on public websites, Recorded Future’s survey found.
Because most people reuse a single password multiple times, it’s likely that the password used to log in at work is the same one they use for their personal online activity, said Scott Donnelly, a senior analyst for Recorded Future.
Hackers can use that information to penetrate a company’s internal systems, he said.
“Most companies are focused on what happens in their network,” Donnelly said. “They need to be monitoring third-party sites and vendors — where their employees are out on the Web.”
It’s unclear how often hackers have used employee credentials to attack a company, Donnelly said. But in 2011, cybercriminals infiltrated defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin by using information they had gleaned through a breach of one of the company’s vendors to crack a Lockheed contractor’s coded password and gain access to the company’s computers. Similar information about consumers has proven to be valuable to hackers.
This month, more than 7 million usernames and passwords from Dropbox users were allegedly compromised after other third-party sites were hacked. Soon after, Facebook informed its users that to protect their privacy and prevent breaches, it often scours the Internet looking for leaked and stolen customer credentials.
“Organization usernames and passwords are the keys to the kingdom,” said Andy Obuchowski, the head of security and privacy in the northeast region for the Chicago-based accounting firm McGladrey LLP. “It is certainly a concern.”
In many cases, employees visit third-party sites or forums, such as online antique trading posts, hotel review chats, and trade association links, and use their corporate e-mail addresses and passwords that are the same as the ones they use at work. These smaller businesses get hacked without generating much attention, but then cybercriminals can use the information to target larger companies, sell the data, or just post it on sites frequented by computer coders, called paste sites, to show off.
Recorded Future searched public websites and found the e-mail addresses and passwords of people who worked for financial corporations, public utilities, technology firms, and health care companies, Donnelly said.


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Accounting for 14% of Vietnam’s total shrimp exports, South Korea is one of the important export markets of Vietnamese shrimp products. However, Vietnam’s shrimp exports to this market are implemented under the quota mechanism, if exports exceed the quota, the import tax rate can be up to 20%.
In the first 2 months of 2023, Vietnam’s shrimp exports to South Korea reached more than 46 million USD, down 25% compared to the same period in 2022. Shrimp exports to South Korea in the first months of this year followed a general downward trend as the world economy fell into recession, inflation increased, purchasing power decreased.
In 2022, South Korea is a market with stable shrimp consumption demand. Moreover, the advantage of close distance, and a quite moderate inflation rate have helped to boost Vietnam’s shrimp exports to South Korea to reach $468 million, up 26% compared to 2021.
In 5 years (2018-2022), Vietnam’s shrimp exports to South Korea grew steadily from 386 million USD in 2018 to 468 million USD in 2022, up 21%. In particular, whiteleg shrimp products exported to Korea have grown sharply and continuously from 2019 up to now.
The FTA between Vietnam and South Korea, which was effective since 2015, has facilitated trade and import tariffs for Vietnamese shrimp products. However, according to detailed information from VASEP member enterprises, Vietnamese shrimp products imported into Korea are being subject to quota regulations.
The South Korea Government request auctions to buy shrimp import quotas from Vietnam at the price of 14-16% of the import value.
Outside the quota, the import tax rate is 20%. Thus, importing Vietnamese shrimp into Korea will be charged tax rates of 14-20%. This is a big disadvantage, causing lower competitiveness of Vietnamese shrimp in this market.
Meanwhile, Peru and Korea also have FTA, according to that, the tax of 20% is reduced under the 5-year roadmap from August 2011. Now the tax rate for Peru shrimp has reached 0%, so its shrimp products exported to the Korean market do not have quotas and taxes.
Every year, South Korea imports over 100,000 tons of shrimp with a value of $800 million – $1 billion (ITC data). In which, Vietnamese shrimp always occupies the highest market share of over 50%. The volume of shrimp exported to South Korea by Vietnam has been more than 50,000 tons, which is 3-4 times higher than the quota amount (15,000 tons with 0% import tax).
From 2018-2022, shrimp exports from Peru to South Korea increased 10 times. Particularly in 2022, shrimp imports to South Korea from Peru recorded a strong growth of 176% compared to 2021.
In order to improve the competitiveness of Vietnamese shrimp in the Korean market, VASEP has sent an Official Letter to the Minister of Industry and Trade, proposing the Government, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review and proposed to the Korean side to consider abolishing shrimp import quotas from Vietnam and to adjust the tax rate to 0% for Vietnamese shrimp in VKFTA.


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What is China seeing in electric vehicles that the rest of the world is missing?
Chinese car companies are behaving like they really know something. If history is any guide, the answer could reside with Xi Jinping and a future master plan for cars and energy in China.
This week, Geely Automobile, Dongfeng Motors and other Chinese automotive firms are bidding to take over Fisker, maker of the Karma premium electric sedan. And Buffett-owned BYD plans to launch the Denza — a brand new electric car developed in a joint venture with Daimler – later this year.
The cars were the main attraction at the press opening of the Beijing International Automotive show, but most automakers burnished their sheet metal with an array of accompanying human models–mostly female and mostly Chinese–in varying states of dress.
Among them: Donfeng Motors Groups’ butterfly-winged dancers around its E30L electric vehicle, the ballroom gown-attired Lexus booth hostesses, and the Volvo booth’s battalion of pose-ready Swedish blonds.
By far the oddest entry in this ad hoc beauty contest was a bikini-clad model who strolled around wearing a white two-piece and motorcycle crash helmet with a shaded visor.
China’s auto market is about to get a lot more competitive.
Auto makers and analysts say China’s once red-hot demand for automobiles could register single-digit growth rates for a second year in a row, the slowest back-to-back years since the market first took off in the late 1990s. Analysts and industry executives say the slowdown will likely make competition in the world’s No. 1 auto marketplace more cutthroat as more auto makers pile in.
Some industry executives meeting at a major auto show in the southern China city of Guangzhou said Monday that the slowdown presages a shift away from dependably strong growth as the market matures in China, even as auto makers increasingly depend on the country for growth amid sluggishness in the U.S. and Europe.
Driver’s Seat is a blog featuring news, views, and advice about cars, auto safety, driving, and transportation. Driver’s Seat is written by Jonathan Welsh with contributions from auto critic Dan Neil, columnist Joe White and Wall Street Journal staffers and others.


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Tasti D-Lite hopes to keep customers cool with a summer of social media. The frozen treats chain has set up its loyalty cards program so that customers who use Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter can automatically share when they earn rewards points from in-store purchases.
Foursquare users will be able to simultaneously “check-in” and earn Tasti D-Lite rewards points whenever a cashier scans their loyalty card. As part of Foursquare’s locations-based game, the check-ins will help customers earn badges and become mayor of that particular store. And when their loyalty cards are scanned, the activity feeds of Facebook and Twitter users will reflect new purchases/earned rewards points.
Around 30 of the brand’s 44 locations are taking part in the initiative. B.J. Emerson, social technology officer for the Franklin, TN-based Tasti D-Lite, said his company will also test incorporating coupon links into customer messages that appear in the social streams.
“So the automatically generated post would include a coupon for their friends,” he said. “It’s not just a boring message where their friends are thinking, ‘OK, that’s great. I see you’ve checked in there.’ We are adding value to their feed.”
Emerson continued, “What we will be doing after that is making coupons unique to the person who generated and sent them. So the customer will gain referral points when her friends redeem a coupon.”
The retailer became intrigued about such a loyalty program, he said, after monitoring a bevy of customers voluntarily sharing their purchases on its Facebook page and Twitter account. “We then wanted to automate the process and reward them with points,” Emerson said.
Therefore, the brand’s “TastiRewards” loyalty cards program was slowly rolled out at stores late last year and debuted online in mid-January. Social media elements were shored up two weeks ago. Loyalty members receive a point for every dollar spent, while Tasti D-Lite rewards them with a medium-sized freebie item when they reach 50 points.
With the social aspects in play, customers can get an extra TastiRewards point for every automated Foursquare check-in, Facebook update, or Twitter tweet. Therefore if they activate their loyalty programs for each service, customers can receive three extra rewards points on every purchase.
Users Choose From 12 Default Messages for Social Streams
Via a password-protected dedicated site, MyTasti.com, members can change which of the three social entities they want to use for sharing purchases/rewards points. They can select one or more default messages – from 12 available options – that their friends will see post-purchase in the activity streams. If members choose multiple default messages, the system randomly picks one at the point-of-sale.
Here are two examples of the default messages they can select. “Had to get my fix over here at Tasti D-Lite [store location]. I’m [X] points closer to a freebie. http://myTasti.com.” And, “Yes, I’m eating Tasti again. Just earned [X] more TastiRewards points! http://myTasti.com.”
Emerson said 7,000 consumers have registered in stores for the program, while 1,000 have signed up online. Heading into spring and summer, he expects a big uptick in activity – especially as locations realize their incentive to increase sales through the loyalty program’s automated social media aspects.
“It’s been encouraging that 28 percent of those who have registered online have enabled connections to one or more of their social networks,” Emerson said. “On average, those people have 91 friends or followers. Do the math when considering tens of thousands of customers [if the program takes off]. We are just now rolling it out.”
The brand also plans to put up a points leader board at MyTasti.com so customers can compete nationally for the top 10 spots and prizes, he said. “We also want to take that virtual activity and put it into a digital display within our locations,” Emerson said.
Foursquare and Facebook May Be in for a Summer Battle
Meanwhile, Foursquare and Facebook appear set to go head-to-head in the geo-social advertising space. This month, Facebook is expected to launch a platform for brands that will allow their customers to post about products when they arrive at stores. According to an Advertising Age report, McDonald’s will be the first company to test the platform.
And in the coming weeks, many brands using Foursquare will be anticipating when they can also get plugged into Facebook’s geo-location service. Dustin Clark, Web project manager for Mountain Hardwear, said he’s recently synced up the outdoors manufacturing brand’s two retail outlets with Foursquare’s business program. Clark said his Richmond, CA-based company would also likely implement Facebook’s geo-location service into its strategy if it became open to other businesses.
“I’ll recruit consumer participation however I can,” he said. “I’ll support both of them until there’s one clear leader – if they end up to preaching to the same crowd, that is.”
Follow Christopher Heine on Twitter at @ChrisClickZ.
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Laurenzo's Midtown Shutters After Six Months in Business
Insufficient sales are to blame for the Laurenzo's Midtown shutter.
Photo courtesy of Laurenzo's
Laurenzo's Bar & Grill, the 300-seat offshoot of Washington prime rib and Tex Mex staple Laurenzo's, just opened at 1910 Bagby Midtown in January 2017. But its six-month run has already come to an end. A press release today, June 29, announced the restaurant's closure.
"Regrettably it never generated sufficient sales to be viable. That's all. Thank you," wrote Roland Laurenzo in the brief announcement.
According to the Chronicle , the owners of the space, Landmark Hospitality, originally approached Laurenzo to open an El Tiempo in the location, formerly home to Republic Smokehouse & Saloon. But he decided Laurenzo's was a better fit.
The Laurenzo family, children of Houston's famed culinary matriarch Mama Ninfa, currently operate seven El Tiempo locations along with the original Laurenzo's and Tony's Mandola's.
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"Last week the price of gold reached $900 an ounce" said Ian Shiell, Founder of GoldPawnShop. "With the release of Gold Price Grabber, consumers can now track the price of gold daily. If gold happens to hit $1,000 an ounce, they can sell gold jewelry right away, allowing them to capitalize on the high gold prices as they occur."
"With over 500 million applications downloaded in less than a year, and more than 15,000 applications in the iTunes store already, the App Store has proven to be an effective way to reach consumers on the go" said Gregg Weiss, CTO of Blue Whale Web Solutions, Inc.
Pawn Shops around the country have seen a significant increase in business due to the economic conditions consumers are facing these days. The Gold Price Grabber application for the iPhone and iPod Touch was designed by Tommy Spero for Soul and developed by Blue Whale Web Solutions, Inc. an iphone application developer based in South Florida.


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David Harkin, CEO of innovations company 7billionideas has been shortlisted as Entrepreneur of the Year for the highly prestigious UK Business Awards, 2018. The accolade recognises David’s outstanding achievement in progressing 7billionideas, an ideas company that exists to create memorable moments in businesses and schools around the world by connecting people with their own ideas.
An entrepreneur with a passion for helping create entrepreneurs of the future, David places himself right in the centre of education and industry, providing not just a link but a springboard into business for enterprising pupils across the world.
The business, established six years ago, stemmed from David’s vision of a social media app to link the seven billion people on the planet with their own ideas. The concept quickly caught the imagination of the public, raising a record £30,000 in just two hours via Crowdfunding. “We realised that 7billionideas had massive potential if we could just harness its philosophy and take that out to the entrepreneurs of tomorrow”, David explains. The company began collaborating with some of the largest corporations in the world, before embarking on a strategy to bring this entrepreneurial spirit into schools. He was swiftly taken on as Entrepreneur in Residence in several UK and international schools, offering a unique blend of initiatives designed to involve pupils, teachers and school leaders in connecting with their own ideas.
To date, 7billionideas has worked with 60,000 pupils in 400 schools across the UK, Europe, Dubai and Asia, untapping entrepreneurial as well as intrepreneurial spirit. More recently, it has launched 7billionideas in a UK young offenders’ institute as well as a psychiatric hospital. “I believe everyone has at least one good idea and very often they just need the confidence and skills to see their ideas valued – and maybe turned into something amazing”.
On becoming a finalist for The Business Awards 2018’s Entrepreneur of the Year, David commented, “I’m really honoured to be acknowledged for this prestigious prize. It’s wonderful to have the whole team at 7billionideas recognised in this way, and to see the importance of entrepreneurship itself honoured by industry experts”.
The UK Business Awards final will be held on 7th December in London.


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What you need to know
- Google debuted an excellent Portrait Light feature with the Pixel 5 and 4a 5G.
- It allowed users to retrospectively edit the direction of light sources in their portrait shots from the Photos app.
- Portrait Light is now available for older Pixels.
With each new Pixel release, Google often trickles down software features to older models either via Play Store updates or Feature Drops. This time, it's a photo editing feature — Portrait Light — that's making the leap. Introduced with the Pixel 5 and 4a 5G, you no longer need to buy one of those to try it out as older phones have now gotten the Portrait Light feature by way of an update to the Photos app.
Reviewing the Pixel 5, Android Central's Daniel Bader found the portrait lighting feature compelling, saying:
Announced alongside this update, Google has also rolled out a new Google Photos app that's proving divisive. It comes with AI suggestions for enhancements and a new photo editor, but the new design has left some cold with the inability to manage multiple controls on a single screen. At least something like Portrait Light should prove to be a fun feature no matter where you stand on that.
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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was scheduled to be a target by the hacking group Anonymous Monday in response to its “poor treatment” of online game company Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA), which has lost most of its market share in the online games market since Facebook (FB) changed its format to the current “Timeline” layout that has obscured users’ access to such formerly popular games like Farmville.
So while Anonymous threatened to stand up for the employees at Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) who were being laid off due to plummeting revenue and blaming Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) for it, nothing ultimately happened Monday other than a few reports of brief interruptions that were not blamed on hackers. That may come across a good news for investors in Facebook (FB) stock like billionaire fund manager George Soros of Soros Fund Management. However, the same can’t be said with other companies, as other hacker groups reportedly got into ImageShack, ZPanel and Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC). Hack the Planet, a hacking group, claimed that it had gathered a wealth of personal data from people who are connected in some way with these sites.
What might be troubling for Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC) was that Hack the Planet’s breach claimed to gather e-mail addresses and passwords for nearly 3,200 employees. Who knows what Anonymous could have gotten from Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) if it had carried out its attack?
“Symantec is aware of the claims being made online,” said Symantec Corporation (SYMC) spokeswoman Katherine James. “We take each and every claim very seriously and have a process in place for investigating each incident. Our first priority is to make sure that any customer information remains protected. We are investigating these claims and have no further information to provide at this time.”
While there actually was a data breach at ImageShack, ZPanel and Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC), there was talk that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was going to go dark if Anonymous went through with its attack. With one billion users on the site, how might the Internet universe have looked if the Blue F was offline for a day? Would it have affected Facebook’s relationship with Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA)? What are you thoughts about these hacks or theats? Are you invested in any of these companies? How do you feel about online security?


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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The markets finished near session highs ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
On CNBC's "Fast Money" TV show, Brian Kelly, founder of Brian Kelly Capital, said Apple (AAPL) looks to have momentum to the upside and should benefit from a strong holiday season. He said the stock could potentially move higher by $100.
Tim Seymour, managing partner of Triogem Asset Management, said a deal with China Mobile Limited (CHL) should give the stock a boost and the company no longer has any supply issues.
Guy Adami, managing director of stockmonster.com, said that although the stock has had a great two-day run, he would wait to see if it holds the $545 level before chasing it higher in the next several days.
Josh Brown, a financial adviser at Ritholtz Wealth Management, said Apple would be trading for $600 if investors just gave it the same multiple as the broader market. He added that it should have a blowout holiday season this year.
Liz Dunn, senior consumer analyst at Macquarie Capital, was a guest on the show who said Macy's (M), Nordstrom (JWN) and Polo Ralph Lauren (RL) should do well during Black Friday. She added that beat-up stocks such as Coach (COH) and J.C. Penney (JCP) could get good bounces on positive news and Urban Outfitters (URBN) unfairly gets sold off with the teen retail stocks.
Seymour said he is not a buyer of COH, while lower gasoline prices should help consumers.
Kelly disagreed, saying he liked COH although it is sitting at stiff resistance near $60.
Brown suggested investors keep it simple and buy Visa (V) instead of trying to pick individual retailers.
Kelly said investors should not short the airline stocks because there is heavy demand from investors and the fundamentals have improved a lot.
Brown said shares of Twitter (TWTR) could find a "floor" of support when the company's quiet period expires next week, allowing it to communicate with big institutional investors.
Adami said he still likes Yahoo! (YHOO) for its ownership stake in Alibaba.
Kelly said he would be a buyer of the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity ETF (DXJ).
Brown said he remains long the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK).
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) was the first stock on the show's "Pops & Drops" segment and Seymour said he wasn't a buyer after the big move higher despite its cash flow and valuation.
Tile Shop Holdings (TTS) jumped 3% and Kelly said he was a buyer.
Tesla Motors (TSLA) popped 5% and Brown said he would avoid it because it looks like it could head lower.
Tivo (TIVO) dropped 4%. Adami said it looks like it could go to $12, where he suggested it would be a buy.
Seymour said he is a buyer of the U.S. dollar. Likewise, Kelly suggested investors could sell-short oil, silver and gold -- commodities that decline when the U.S. dollar goes up.
Seymour said McDonald's (MCD) is the best stock to own for fast-food restaurants.
Brown likes Yum Brands (YUM) because of its products and recent breakout in the stock.
Despite being extremely volatile, Adami likes Imax Corp. (IMAX) and thinks it can go to $40.
Seymour said Baidu (BIDU) held the $160 level and now seems to be breaking out. He likes the stock on the long side.
Brown said International Business Machine (IBM) is a hard stock to short, even though its business is struggling. He added that eventually the company will get it right and suggested traders who have done well on the short side take their profits.
For their final trades, Kelly is buying Pilgrim's Pride (PPC) and Brown is buying Constellation Brands (STZ). Seymour is buying Concha y Toro Winery (VCO) and Adami said to buy L-3 Communications Holdings (LLL).
-- Written by Bret Kenwell in Petoskey, Mich.


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Groupe PSA has confirmed that the next generation of Vauxhall’s Vivaro van will continue to be built at the firm’s Luton plant, safeguarding hundreds of jobs.
Production at the plant will increase from 70,000 vehicles to 100,000, and the new van will be based on PSA’s existing EMP2 architecture to streamline proceedings across the Peugeot, Citroen, Vauxhall and Opel brands. The Peugeot Expert and Citroen Dispatch already use these underpinnings.
The investment in the plant is a vote of confidence in Luton in spite of Brexit uncertainty and follows talks with the UK government, Luton Borough Council and the Unite union, which represents workers at the plant.
Though today’s announcement only concerned the Vivaro, PSA did say that future production of its Peugeot Expert and Citroen Dispatch models could move to Luton if demand for light commercial vehicles (LCVs) increases. The group is already Europe’s leading manufacturer in this class.
PSA’s investment has been bolstered by a significant cash injection from the UK government. The total investment will be £170m, of which the UK government contributed £9m. It’s expected to create 450 jobs. Business secretary Greg Clark said: “Today’s decision is a vote of confidence in Vauxhall’s highly skilled workforce and the UK’s world-leading automotive sector.
“This investment in upgrading the production platform will safeguard and grow jobs, ensuring the future of the Luton plant well into the next decade and help ensure the plant is well positioned for future Vauxhall models to be made in the UK.”
The deal will likely see the end of a joint venture that’s been ongoing since 2001 – the Vauxhall/Opel/Renault deal which produces the Vivaro’s sister van, the Trafic, as well as rebadged models sold by Nissan and Fiat.
Renault would not comment on the future of the Trafic, but did say: “Groupe Renault has worked with PSA to discuss these changes and reached a mutual agreement. The co-operation with PSA on the Vauxhall Movano/Renault Master produced in Groupe Renault’s Batilly plant in France is not affected at all by this announcement.”
“It is great news that this new product should see van production at Luton for the next 10 years to come,” McCluskey said. “This is a very welcome investment in Luton by PSA, and a deserving tribute to a dedicated workforce. It will steady nerves at the plant after years of uncertainty.
“The investment into Luton is very welcome, but we do expect to hear of similar plans for Ellesmere Port, where the workforce has been just as loyal and is just as deserving of a secure future but continues to live with a cloud hanging over it.
“I look forward to sitting down with Mr Tavares very soon to bring good news to Ellesmere Port.”


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SWEDEN: Volvo Group's truck deliveries down 8% in October
Volvo Group has reported truck deliveries down 8% year-on-year for the month of October.
Total Volvo Group truck sales for the first ten month of the year stand at 185,644 units, 3% down on last year.
Deliveries of Volvo branded trucks in October decreased by 10% to 10,051 vehicles compared with the same month last year. In Europe, deliveries of Volvo brand trucks decreased by 6% to 4,350 units compared to October last year. Volvo said that the current slowdown in economic activity and uncertainty about the future business climate in the region is clearly having a negative impact on demand for trucks. Decisions have been made to lower production of Volvo trucks in Europe by removing shifts and using stop days for the remainder of the year to meet the lower demand seen in the third quarter.
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Steve and Devon Aoki, children of the late Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, are frustrated with how their stepmother is spending their inheritance.» Read More
As fair season kicks into high gear, doughnut burgers and sandwiches are hot. The latest is the Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joe, which made its debut at the San Diego County Fair.
Apple's cutting-edge product development has lacked in recent quarters, and Jim Cramer said that one company outside the tech sector is putting the one-time leader to shame.
McDonald's said sales at its established restaurants around the world rose 2.6 percent in May as it expanded late-night breakfasts and tweaked other menus items.
More marrying couples are also choosing to say "I Brew," carefully choosing the beer offered at their wedding reception and in many cases brewing it themselves.
In this weeks' beer news roundup: Budweiser gets bigger, Simpson's fans can now enjoy a Duff brew and a report shows the craft beer scene may be growing too fast.
Michael Wu, Chairman & MD of Maxim's Group says he's not worried about a slowdown in China and sees huge demand for Maxim's food products. He expects huge opportunities especially with new malls coming up every year.
McDonald's wants its customers to eat more—day or night, home or abroad. If you're a night owl, you can now get pancakes or hash browns to go with your Big Mac.
J. Michael Chu, Catterton Partners, provides his picks on the best places to park your money as the economy regains some footing.
Despite the high revenue, the profit margins in the grocery business traditionally have been low, but that hasn't stopped retail giants Amazon and Wal-Mart from escalating the national food fight. What gives?
Canned beer was once frowned upon, now it's here to stay as consumers and brewers alike become more comfortable with the idea of beer in a can.
The online retailer is reportedly planning a major roll out of a grocery delivery business, reports CNBC's Courtney Reagan. And Kate Wendt, Wells Fargo Securities, weighs in on the impact this new service could have on grocers.
Howard Stern was right: Wet wipes may be the next big thing in male grooming. Dollar Shave Club introduces a toilet paper alternative.
Rob Sands, president & CEO, Constellation Brands, says his company's deal for Corona is nearing completion. The deal should double the top and bottom lines, he says.
A Taco Bell employee shown on Facebook licking a stack of taco shells will no longer work for the franchise, according to a company statement. His photographer is also gone.
Start-up GreenCupboards wants to turn eco-friendly buzz words like "sustainable," "organic" and "fair trade" into a booming business.
MELVILLE, N.Y., June 4, 2013-- Full-service integrated advertising, marketing and digital agency The EGC Group announced today the launch of its Craft Beverage Division. "Launching our craft beverage consulting division is a perfect next step for the agency," said Ernie Canadeo, founder and president of The EGC Group. "
Napa, Calif., June 4, 2013-- Those still searching for the perfect Father's Day gift for their wine-loving dad can choose from three great Napa cabernets, each with an interesting story behind it. The story: Yannick Rousseau, the creator of Y Rousseau Wines, grew up in Gascony in the Southwest of France.
Combining two hot alcohol trends, the casual chain is offering beer cocktails made with MillerCoors products and served in a reusable can.
As Coca-Cola unveiled its first processing plant in Myanmar, one analyst warned that the move into frontier markets could mean emerging markets are not as attractive to multi-nationals as they once were.
Despite experiencing the coldest spring in 50 years, U.K. consumers beat the weather by posting a rise in retail sales, according to a new survey released Tuesday.
Jason Moser, Senior Analyst at the Motley Fool, is impressed with the retailer's growth. He believes investors with a longer time horizon in mind should consider the stock.
Children of the late Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, are frustrated with how their stepmother is spending their inheritance.
Century 21 co-owner Eddie Gindi, discusses expectations for Black Friday and what kind of boost the retailer may get from its diverse shoppers.


text: The Gorillaz announced the lineup for their Demon Dayz festival taking place in Los Angeles on October 20th today. It will be the first Los Angeles edition of the show that has Erykah Badu, The Internet, Tony Allen and more. The event will take place at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena & Grounds and tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM. There will be exclusive merchandise and two stages for all of the performances. The Demon Dayz festival is the Gorillaz last 2018 North American show.


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The UK secondary ticket market, the subject of a government inquiry, is steadily growing and recently received a spot of welcomed news with word that national officials will leave the industry alone in favor of the market policing itself.
For viagogo, the UK-based secondary ticket company founded by StubHub co-founder Eric Baker, the decision by the British government further validated what Baker always believed: that the secondary market should be allowed to thrive in the country.
“We’re thrilled that Culture, Media and Sport Committee Select Committee made clear that it doesn’t want to legislate the industry, and neither does the British government as a whole nor do the fans,” Baker told TicketNews. “At viagogo we work for the fan so we applaud any efforts to make events more accessible to fans on the primary market. By the government supporting the Select Committee’s findings, fans can continue to exchange their tickets through viagogo in a safe and secure environment.”
In just a few short years, Baker has grown viagogo into the dominant secondary ticket reseller in the UK and Europe, so government interference in the industry could have put a crimp in the business. But, as Bakers and others argued, the secondary ticket market in the UK, as is the case with its U.S. counterpart, is simply a platform where property (a ticket) is resold, just like in any other industry.
Backing up the argument was a recent New Music Express survey in the U.K. that said 84 percent of British concertgoers believe that tickets are personal property that people should be allowed to buy and sell without restriction. Baker also pointed out that more than 50 percent of the tickets resold on viagogo in 2007 went for face value or below, and that in another study 72 percent of British citizens believe individuals should be allowed to freely decide how much they’re willing to pay for resold tickets.
Baker will be speaking on the subject this summer during the “The Blurring Line” panel at Ticket Summit 2008, the third annual ticket industry conference scheduled for July 23-25 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. The panel will address “the different ways the primary and secondary ticket markets are coming together and the potential shifts on the horizon,” and look at “the ways the primary market is attempting to extract more revenue from consumers, how the secondary market continues to provide value, ways the two markets are already working together, and how the line between them is expected to blur even more in the coming year.”
In addition to Baker’s participation in Ticket Summit, viagogo is also a sponsor of the event. Both Ticket Summit and TicketNews are owned by TicketNetwork. “We’re really looking forward to it,” Baker said. “It’s amazing to see how far the event, and the industry, has come in just a few years.”
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T-Mobile has confirmed to Android Police it has shut down a data breach operation that may have harvested a small group of customers' phone numbers, number of lines per account, and call diagnostic metrics. Customers who may have been affected were alerted via text message yesterday and told that the event took place in November.
Passwords are an integral part of the internet, but also, they're terrible. From your parents forgetting them every time they try to log in, to getting compromised in the latest data breach, authenticating with a bunch of random text just isn't that great of an option. Luckily, Dashlane has announced two new plans to help families manage their personal security and privacy online.
Website hacks are nothing new, and it's all but certain that everybody has had at least at least a couple login credentials and other details exposed at some point. Unfortunately, another incident has occurred, this time with the Aptoide app store. Minimal personal information and zero payment details were exposed, but login credentials are exposed.
Slickwraps, maker of customizable skins for phones, tablets, computers, and other devices, was breached last month by a security researcher. In the researcher's attempts to notify the company about its security issues, a database of Slickwraps customer information became public, and now Slickwraps is facing a class action lawsuit for security negligence.
In what sadly seems to be a yearlytrend for the company, T-Mobile is announcing that it has suffered another data breach. The company was able to shut down the attack, seemingly while it was in process, and it is sending notifications to customers whose data may have been affected. Unfortunately, it isn't clear what customer information may have been leaked. One notice states that financial information wasn't affected, while another claims that it was.
Samsung customers around the world were perplexed recently when a mysterious "1" notification appeared on phones. Within a day, The Register reported about a data breach involving a small group of account holders and linked it to the ‘1’ notification that almost all Galaxy device owners received. Samsung has now admitted to a "small" data breach but says the two events are unrelated.
Slickwraps is one of the most well-known sellers of vinyl skins for computers, phones, tablets, game consoles, and other product categories. If you've ever bought something from Slickwraps (without PayPal or another similar service), now is the time to replace your credit card, because the company has suffered multiple data breaches impacting all customer data.
Smart home appliance maker Wyze has responded to what it calls an "alleged" data breach against its production databases by logging all users out of their accounts and has strengthened security for its servers. Customers endured a lengthy reauthentication process as the company responded to a series of reports claiming that the company stored sensitive information about people's security cameras, local networks, and email addresses in exposed databases.
In one of the biggest breaches in recent history, data from more than 1.2 billion individuals has been leaked online. It stems from a publicly available server which pulled its data from a pair of so-called data enrichment companies — People Data Labs and oxydata — that aggregate personal information on millions of individuals and sell it to customers. The firms in question can't explain how the data got there.


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On Monday, Apple revealed its newest version of Mac OS X – Yosemite. It’s available to developers now, and will be available for everyone in the fall. You can also sign up for an upcoming beta program.
Netflix announced on Tuesday that it is offering HTML5 streaming in Safari on Yosemite.
“We’ve been working closely with Apple to implement the Premium Video Extensions in Safari, which allow playback of premium video content in the browser without the use of plugins,” Netflix’s Anthony Park and Mark Watson write in a blog post. “If you’re in Apple’s Mac Developer Program, or soon the OS X Beta Program, you can install the beta version of OS X Yosemite. With the OS X Yosemite Beta on a modern Mac, you can visit Netflix.com today in Safari and watch your favorite movies and TV shows using HTML5 video without the need to install any plugins.”
“We’re especially excited that Apple implemented the Media Source Extensions (MSE) using their highly optimized video pipeline on OS X,” they add. “This lets you watch Netflix in buttery smooth 1080p without hogging your CPU or draining your battery. In fact, this allows you to get up to 2 hours longer battery life on a MacBook Air streaming Netflix in 1080p – that’s enough time for one more movie!”
Netflix also streams in HTML5 in Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1, as it announced nearly a year ago, when it said it expects premium video on the web to continue to shift away from using proprietary plugin technologies to using newer video extensions.
Netflix also announced on Tuesday the release date for its upcoming animated comedy series BoJack Horseman.
Image via Twitter


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Bitcoin is expanding to a lot of sectors of the economic life and every day we see more and more companies willing to accept Bitcoin or using its technology. Now, it seems that the Non-Prescription Meds industry is turning its interest to digital currencies. While some online businesses are created because of Bitcoin, others just adapt to the new possibilities that digital currencies can offer, and Non-Prescription Meds industry is not an exception.
Yesterday a thread posted on Bitcointalk Forum by a representative of one of the oldest Canadian no prescription pharmacies online saying that the company was thinking in integration with cryptocurrency: In fact, they are already accepting Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin as part of their primary test to check the market response:
I represent one of the oldest Canadian no prescription pharmacies online. We have 100s of shops under many domains and we deliver goods to customers since over 6 years. Currently, we are considering adding BTC as payment solution but we have to check markets response to that.
For the testing we have opened 2 shops on new domains:
Where you can use coupon code “bitcoin” to get 10% discount.
If you are interested to get drugs in future using BTC please


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Which? is calling on the European Commission to scrap plans that could needlessly cost the NHS millions.
Next month, the commission will consider plans to relax rules which stop companies marketing prescription drugs to the public.
The change would allow pharmaceutical firms to push ‘information’ about their branded drugs directly to consumers through TV, radio, newspapers and other media.
Which? fears the change would lead to the NHS being saddled with higher drug costs, as patients may well demand more expensive, branded drugs from their GP – despite equally effective generic versions being available.
In a survey of 200 GPs we carried out last year, almost a third said patient requests helped them decide whether to prescribe a new drug.
In the US, where the ban on direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) was lifted in 1997, 80% of the $279bn spent on prescription drugs each year is on brand-name products.
Which? is spearheading an alliance of nine groups representing consumers, patients and medical professionals urging the European Commission to ditch the plans, which could add millions of pounds to the NHS drugs bill.
Pete Moorey, public affairs manager at Which?, said: ‘We need to draw a clear line between information and advertising, otherwise DTCA will be like letting advertising in through the back door.
‘We don’t want to end up in the same boat as the US, where people demand specific branded drugs from their doctor when cheaper equally effective generic drugs are available. The huge and unnecessary increase in cost that this could bring would divert much needed funds away from other areas of the NHS.’


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The decision was announced at ANA's annual meeting in Naples, Fla. American Association of Advertising Agencies President-CEO O. Burtch Drake, present at the ANA meeting, said he and Four A's Chairman Patrick McGrath had not been informed of the ANA policy change until moments before it was announced. In presenting the ANA's decision, however, ANA officials cited an endorsement of the move by Ogilivy & Mather Chairman-CEO Shelly Lazarus, the Four A's vice chairman. ANA qouted Ms. Lazarus, in line to eventually succeed Mr. McGrath as Four A's chairman, as saying, "the ANA's decision to invite advertising agencies to join the association begins an important dialogue."
Mr. Drake said he was "not at all opposed to synergies among the trade associations," but added there was some concern Four A's members would feel pressure to join ANA.
ANA Chairman Costello said the Four A's was not formally consulted earlier to allow ANA members to vote on the measure first. ANA President-CEO John J. Sarsen Jr. said ANA will invite new members from among "major agencies," although he said that doesn't necessarily mean large agencies. Mr. Sarsen said ad agency members of ANA would pay dues calculated on a sliding scale likely to be based on billings.
Copyright October 1998, Crain Communications Inc.


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As a GfK analysis underlines, people now working or studying from home have created a unique opportunity for tech and durables (T&D) companies to bring products to market that meet the demands of this remote/hybrid work culture.
According to GfK data, globally, 16% of companies are fully remote, approximately 62% of employees aged 22 to 65 say they currently work remotely at least occasionally, and 99% would choose to work remotely for the rest of their life, even if it was just part-time. The industries with the highest numbers of remote workers are healthcare 15%, technology (10%) and financial services (9%).
The remote working consumer will see seismic shifts over the next five to ten years. Experts predict that 73% of all global departments will have remote workers by 2028. And with global sales of T&D up 18.1% to 646 billions between January and September 2021 (compared to the same period in 2020), the rising demand for home office equipment provides a strong opportunity for T&D brands.
Virtual reality (VR) has a part to play too and GfK data shows that 22.5% of global consumers plan to buy a standalone VR headset ‘in the next year or two, suggesting that this way of working could soon become a reality. As demand increases and more suppliers enter the VR space, manufacturing costs will drop. In turn, we will see more applications appearing as brands latch onto the trend. 61% of consumers say they prefer retailers with augmented reality (AR) experiences.


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Professor Elaine Rush from the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand claims to have found that an energy drink containing sugar, added caffeine and guarana causes the body to convert sugar into fat more rapidly than lemonade.
"These results could have huge implications when you think about how much sugar and caffeine people consume these days, and the high rates of inactivity," Professor Rush said.
Lemonade and other sodas are already being blamed by consumer groups for their role in increasing childhood obesity as many have a high sugar content.
But energy drinks have previously been exempted from such attention as their caffeine content was thought to increase metabolism.
The new study is small and will need to be confirmed by further research. However it will need a close look by energy drinks makers, set to make sales of more than £1 billion (€1.46bn) in the UK this year, according to Mintel data.
For the study, the New Zealand team recruited 10 healthy women aged 18 to 22 from a range of ethnicities. The subjects fasted overnight and were randomly given either 250ml of an energy drink or lemonade on the first day and the alternative on the second day of testing.
Lemonade contains around the same amount of sugar as energy drinks and is also carbonated but it contains no caffeine unlike cola drinks.
The sugar in both drinks was absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream - within a minute, according to Professor Rush - but she warned that when caffeine is also present the sugar is more quickly converted to fat.
"Sugar is a simple carbohydrate and evidence from this study shows that, coupled with a large amount of caffeine, the body rapidly turns it into stored fat," said the researcher.
Coffee's impact on sugar metabolism is currently unclear. The beverage has been linked to a reduced risk of diabetes but it is not yet known whether this is down to the caffeine content or other compounds in coffee. Earlier research has shown that caffeine could upset the body's ability to metabolise sugar.
The energy drink tested by Rush's team contained 28g sucrose and 81mg caffeine per 250ml can, which is similar to the amount of sugar in soft drinks and caffeine in a brewed cup of coffee.
"Simple carbohydrates and caffeine were not such a large parts of our diet in the past. Inactive people have trouble burning off excess energy and this leads to weight gain."
The findings are supported by a recent UK study, which found that caffeine increased cyclists' absorption of carbohydrates from a sports drink. But for those consumers not doing much exercise, these carbohydrates will be turned into fat.
"These drinks are often marketed as energy-boosters and may be perceived as helpful for weight loss. This is misleading - they are a calorie-booster and may actually cause weight gain," added Professor Rush.
She noted that the study is limited by its small sample size and the fact that the subjects were all young women. But the results are important as this area has not been explored before, she said.
"There has been a great deal of research about sugar and obesity, but not the synergy between drinks and fat stores."
The study also raises questions about the effects of consuming high-sugar foods and highly caffeinated drinks together in a short period of time. Caffeine lasts in the body for four to six hours, so people who have caffeinated drinks, including sugar-free energy drinks or coffee, and then eat sugary food within this time frame, may experience similar effects.
"This area needs further research, as well as the long term effects of combined caffeine and sugar on sedentary people's health," added Professor Rush.


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NEW DELHI, India (BHN) - An effort to create the world's largest toaster failed in India Monday, when the device mysteriously stopped working only 30 seconds into its first test.
The giant toaster was designed to brown over four million loaves of bread at a time, in an attempt to meet the demands of one of the world's most populated countries.
"Instead of having to manufacture millions of individual toasters, it seemed smarter to produce one really large one," said project head Puhlma Fingha. "We are still working out the details."
My comments: Wow, that's a shame.


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Rodeo Houston announced "FREE" admission and huge discounts for 1-day event. This is the first time this has happened in Houston Livestock show and Rodeo history. It's called Community Day and everyone will get in free on March 8th. Take advantage of the buy one, get one rides and games. Plus discounted food and drinks. Free admission for all guests until noon.
For more details click link: ktrk
photo: getty image


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Expansion for restaurant group
Bar and butchery opening in Leith
The Chop House in Constitution Street is the latest addition to the area’s growing reputation as a food and drink destination.
This new venture is by the company behind Edinburgh bar and restaurants Sygn, The West Room and Monteiths.
Murray Ainslie, operations and development manager, said their main focus would be on using quality British beef.
“We have imported unique dry-ageing fridges and will be using Himalayan salt to maximise the dry-ageing process,” he said.
“The dry-ageing breaks down the enzymes in the beef and makes for a much more flavoursome and tender piece of meat.
“We are going to be cooking over an open-flame charcoal grill. So the meat will be infused with a subtle smoky flavour.”
The company has also team up with Glasgow brewery Drygate to serve a for the launch.
“This is our first move outside the city centre and we are really excited about moving to Leith,” Murray said.


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Competition is also driven by customers who demand high-level and exible nancial services which are easily accessible
by NURUL SUHAIDI / Pic by MUHD AMIN NAHARUL
MALAYSIA’S retail banking sector is now innovating a better digital feature amid future competition by digital banks.
A recent Backbase commissioned study, conducted by Forrester Consulting found that 64% of Malaysian retail banking decisionmakers said their company is increasing spending on digital and engagement financial wellness initiatives as the result of a digital banking licence by the central bank.
The highest figure shown is in the AsiaPacific region more than Singapore, Japan or Australia.
Backbase Regional VP in Asia Pacific Iman Ghodosi said the recent report revealed Malaysians have an insatiable appetite for digital offerings.
“67% of consumers surveyed said they used their institution’s existing mobile app, 87% believe an excellent mobile app is an attribute they value from financial services providers, and 82% conduct their day-to-day banking via their smartphone.”
He added that the retail banking sector in Malaysia is addressing this demand and ensuring banks can still compete in the digital space against the impending newcomers.
Correspondingly, business players interviewed in the survey said 90% of them are planning to or actively expanding their digital money management tools while 88% revealed they were planning to or actively expanding their financial wellness and digital money management tools, with almost half of them saying it was critical.
Ghodosi also believes that the next six months are a critical inflection point in the digital banking space.
“The urgency and focus behind this are clear — Malaysia has five of the hottest digital banks waiting to explode into the banking scene and take market share next year, and the traditional banks are worried,” he said.
Additionally, he highlighted that competition in the digital space is also driven by customers now demand high-level and flexible financial services which are easily accessible with the tools that can manage them that traditional banking is lacking.
“Now more than ever, it’s important to own the relationship with your customer. We’ve entered the Engagement Banking Era, an evolution that stresses a unified platform approach for banking. The No 1 priority in this new era is to completely re-architect the bank around the customer, moving away from siloed technology investments,” he added.
However, in adopting this digital shift, businesses especially in the Asia-Pacific region are facing various obstacles such as 74% said a lack of understanding of customer needs and outcomes is a barrier to their company implementing or further developing digital money management tools, 66% said outdated legacy technology challenges their plans while 64% said organisational silos make things difficult.
“Banking sectors in all countries face challenges, but it was surprising that Malaysia’s challenges were higher than average,” said Ghodosi.
Apart from that, there is also a lack of understanding at legacy institutions in Malaysia on who owns the budget for these types of initiatives.
Trust in traditional banks in Malaysia is far higher than digital banks and initiatives such as these will aim to increase their reputation.
“Through these new channels of customer interaction, banks can now meet needs they previously couldn’t, by leveraging data analytics, artificial intelligence and mobile technology to make financial recommendations and improve engagement for users.”
For example, 64% of retail banking business decision-makers interviewed noted that preventing exploitation of vulnerable and older customers was in their company’s plans when developing such digital tools.
Whereas 62% revealed they planned to assist customers to build better financial habits and 66% are going to offer financial literacy tools.
This is because additional features that these digital and engagement apps will offer include spending analysis, scheduling bill payments, advanced pay and income smoothing, automated savings and retirement planning tools.
“Banks can offer so much value through these engaging digital services, while at the same time collecting valuable data from users,” Ghodosi added.
“The competition is going to get fierce in Malaysia and that means the most important party, the consumer, will benefit long term. Time and market forces will tell which players will be the winners in the war for engagement in banking,” he concluded.
Kula Segaran: Unprofessional for 2 ministries represent Indonesian maid MoU
KPMG: Trust and innovation should be anchors for Malaysia’s 1st digital banks


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Software startups have grown in number intensively for the past few years compared to hardware startups. There’s no easy way to scale a SaaS company. It takes time, patience, some mistakes and resolve.
Alex and Hacker, CEO and CTO respectively of 25sprout, built the company in
6th April 2019, Ahmedabad: AppJetty is a software plugin and extension store for leading e-commerce platforms and CRM including Sugar, SuiteCRM, Magento, Odoo, etc. to name a few. They released a mobile app for Sugar/SuiteCRM called TapCRM less than two years ago and since then