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After over 10 years, OnGuard Online is moving to a new home. Like any move, it’s bittersweet. But don’t worry, this isn’t goodbye.
OnGuardOnline.gov is moving to the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer information site. At FTC.gov/OnGuardOnline, you’ll find the same great articles, blog posts, videos, games, and toolkits — to help you stay safe, secure, and responsible online.
There’s a new twist on tech-support scams — you know, the one where crooks try to get access to your computer or sensitive information by offering to “fix” a computer problem that doesn’t actually exist. Lately, we’ve heard reports that people are getting calls from someone claiming to be from the Global Privacy Enforcement Network. Their claim? That your email account has been hacked and is sending fraudulent messages. They say they’ll have to take legal action against you, unless you let them fix the problem right away.
Millions of people are affected by identity theft each year. It might start with a mysterious credit card charge, a bill you don’t recognize, or a letter from the IRS that says you already got your refund — even though you didn’t.
If someone uses your information to make purchases, open new accounts, or get a tax refund, that’s identity theft. Recovering from identity theft often takes time and persistence. That’s why today’s announcement from the FTC is a big deal: New features at IdentityTheft.gov make it easier to report and recover from identity theft.
Does your internet browser ever display ads that just seem wrong — for example, an inappropriate ad on a kid’s website, an ad that blocks content on the page, or an ad on a government site? It might look something like this:
Attorney, FTC's Division of Consumer & Business Education
Have you already decked your halls in lights, timed to blink to the strains of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Even if you haven’t reached that level of early enthusiasm, the holiday spirit is starting to spread already. If you spend any time on social media, you may have seen posts about the Secret Sister Gift Exchange.
SSGE encourages you to mail a gift worth $10 dollars to a stranger at the top of the list. Supposedly, in return, you’ll get a pile of presents from other participants. SSGE and come-ons like it encourage you to hop on board an enticing cash- or gift-giving experience. Sounds like a good time, right? Sorry, Blitzen, stop that sleigh!
Did you ever get an email that seemed legit, but it asked you to click a link or give up some personal information? Well, if you play massive multiplayer online games, be warned: phishers are looking for ways to get those emails into your inbox.
Senior Attorney, Bureau of Consumer Protection, FTC
Are you a nanny or caregiver who lists your services on sites like care.com, sittercity.com, or craigslist.com? A few months ago, we warned about a scam that targets caregivers like you. Here’s a reminder: a con artist emails or texts an offer to hire you. The scammer also sends you a check and asks you to depofakesit it, keep some money for your services, and send the rest to someone else to — supposedly — pay for special items or medical equipment. But the check is fake, and it can take weeks for a bank to discover the forgery. If you deposit the check and withdraw the funds, you’ll wind up owing the bank all that money.
Attorney, Division of Consumer & Business Education, FTC
The scam is called card cracking and it may start off innocently enough. You see a post on a social media site announcing a contest. Or maybe a webpage that claims to have a celebrity affiliation is offering a gift card giveaway.
The variations are endless, but here’s the tip-off that fraud is afoot. At some point, you’re asked for your bank account information, PIN number, or online banking credential. That’s when you can bank on the fact that those “innocent” offers aren’t what they’re cracked up to be.
Associate Director, Division of Marketing Practices, FTC
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced the extradition of six Nigerian nationals from South Africa to Mississippi to face a nine-count federal indictment for various Internet frauds. These six people join 15 others who were previously charged with, among other things, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, identity theft, and money laundering.
What were the scams? According to the indictment, the defendants found and reached out to their potential victims through online dating websites and work-at-home opportunities.
Not everyone using online dating sites is looking for love. Scammers create fake online profiles using photos of other people — even stolen pictures of real military personnel. They profess their love quickly. And they tug at your heartstrings with made-up stories about how they need money — for emergencies, hospital bills, or travel. Why all of the tricks? They’re looking to steal your money.


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Monthly Ocean Port Report – June 2022
Are world’s biggest ports set for an avalanche of cargo after Chinese factories in Shanghai / Ningbo / Yantian hinterland come back on line? Flood of containers repositioned in Chinese ports, ready and waiting for possible cargo whiplash when factories open. Port congestion on the US West Coast on the decline following production pause in China. Vessel and deployed cargo capacity edging back up towards levels last seen in.

domain: news


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Spirit Airlines Announces New Route Between Myrtle Beach and Cleveland
Golfers and visitors from Cleveland, OH and surrounding areas will now have the opportunity to visit Myrtle Beach, SC with the addition of air service between the two cities. Spirit Airlines recently announced the new direct route between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and Myrtle Beach International Airport will begin April 16, 2015 with tickets going on sale Thursday, September 25, 2014.
A short two-hour flight, golfers can be on the golf course the same day of travel or fly home after a last round of golf in Myrtle Beach. Plus, April is the perfect time to visit Myrtle Beach. Yes, it’s one of the busiest golf times of the year, but the weather is warm (certainty warmer than Cleveland) and the golf package prices are very reasonable. Bring your family or your golfing buddies, either way a good time will be had by all!
What are you waiting for? Tickets are on sale now so start preparing for your next golf trip to Myrtle Beach this spring!
Call 888-999-9520 for your golf vacation quote.
Posted on September 25, 2014


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Are you looking to upgrade your PC? Here's a look at what you can expect from MSI's next-generation motherboards.
MSI has announced the Z170A Gaming M6 motherboard, a stealthy-looking board that will offer next generation Killer Networking technology and ASMedia's new and faster USB 3.1 Gen 2 controller.
If your workstation needs some serious processing power with 10G LAN connection, ASUS has the X99-E- 10G WS motherboard that comes with all the latest connectivity options.
MSI has announced the X99A SLI and 970A Gaming Pro Carbon motherboards at Gamescom 2016. The X99A SLI features an all-black design much like the older X99A SLI Plus, while the 970A Gaming Pro Carbon marks MSI's introduction of its signature carbon fiber finish to its line of AMD boards.
MSI has announced that its upcoming MSI X99A Workstation motherboard has passed the NVIDIA Quadro SLI certification. More Intel X99 and Z170 boards are expected to be certified in the coming weeks as well.
MSI has announced the B150M Mortar Arctic and Bazooka Plus motherboards, two new micro-ATX boards that come with new features like support for USB Type-C.
Bristol Ridge may have dropped at Computex 2016, but that's far from the last we're going to see of AMD this year. AMD's upcoming AM4 socket will support both Bristol Ridge APUs and Zen CPUs, and as luck would have it, an AM4 motherboard has just been spotted on the internet.
You need customized hardware configuration to connect to the latest Singtel 10Gbps fiber network if you want to take full advantage of the speed it has to offer. But not with this new MSI motherboard. It comes with the required networking component integrated into the board right out of the box.
MSI has announced the X99A XPower Gaming Titanium and Z170A MPower Gaming Titanium, two new Titanium edition boards tricked out with a new look and a ton of overclocking features.


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The official YouTube channel of actor Masaki Suda (Kamen Rider W, Mr. Hiiragi's Homeroom) posted his first live tour concert on said channel.
Actor Takeru Satoh (Kamen Rider Den-O, Rurouni Kenshin) launched his own YouTube channel last March 10th and part of his channel's content is TAKERU NO PLAN DRIVE and it is the only content in his channel that has English subs!
Blue Bustamante, a Filipino film about an overseas worker who ended up becoming the suit actor of a Blue hero in a Super Sentai show is now streaming in full on YouTube!
In the latest episode of Hiro Mizushima's cooking show, Hiro-Meshi, the Kamen Rider Kabuto star reunite with co-star Yuki Sato.
Actor Yosuke Kishi, best known to most fans as Uchu Sentai Kyuranger's Stinger/Sasori Orange recently surprised voice actress Miku Ito (BanG Dream!) by forming a Super Sentai team with her.
The official Tsuburaya YouTube channel posted a new trailer for the Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes YouTube series, which features Ultraman Zero. Just like the previous ten character trailers, it is narrated in English with Japanese subtitles.
The official Tsuburaya website announced that the currently on-going Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generations Heroes web series will get a Director's Cut release.
The official Tsuburaya YouTube channel posted a new trailer for the Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes YouTube series, which features the Ultra Siblings of Ultraman R/B, namely Ultraman Rosso, Ultraman Blu, and Ultrawoman Grigio.


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The Van Cleef & Arpels ceo will take over the ceo post at Compagnie Financière Richemont's largest and most profitable brand at end of the year.
— Mar 26, 2012
A new organizational structure focuses more on growing its Calvin Klein businesses.
— Mar 22, 2012
A federal grand jury on Tuesday charged the former president of the children’s apparel firm with securities fraud and other accounting irregularities.
— Mar 21, 2012
Size of group expands to eight from seven with an additional independent director.
— Mar 19, 2012
Actively involved in the contemporary Chinese art scene, Sachs was planning to open the first Fashion Group chapter in Shanghai.
— Mar 13, 2012
Reports of Aureliana De Sanctis’ departure were confirmed.
— Mar 9, 2012
He remained honorary chairman of the firm.
— Feb 28, 2012
Executive says he's more positive about the business outlook this year, but economic turbulence took its toll last year.
— Feb 24, 2012
The chairman and ceo of Donna Karan gave a talk Wednesday to the NYU Stern M.B.A. Luxury and Retail Club on the strategy behind managing a global brand.
— Feb 23, 2012
He succeeds Carlo Tunioli, who will now become senior vice president of communications for North America.
— Feb 15, 2012
Firm's executive vice president and chief financial officer will assume responsibilities of chief operating officer in June when Allen Sirkin retires.
— Feb 14, 2012
Former Vogue publishing director will oversee the various MAGIC men’s and women's shows.
— Feb 13, 2012


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Deidre Stammers, a Baldwin resident and the owner of Glory Beezzz thrift store on Merrick Road, was so outraged by comments by Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries that she decided to take a stand: She is turning all the Abercrombie merchandise in her collection into pet beds.
A Business Insider article that recycled 2006 comments from Jeffries in a profile has sparked an imbroglio. In the interview, Jeffries seemed to celebrate his company’s clique-y perception of its core clientele. “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes],” he said. “They can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
Jeffries seemed to make it clear that the type of people Abercrombie & Fitch targets is reflected in its models and the posters that adorn its stores. “We hire good-looking people in our stores,” he said, “because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people.” He added that this is why the company does not carry clothing larger than size L.
Glory Beezzz all abuzzz
When Stammers heard about Jeffries’s comments, she said, she was shocked. “I have little kids, preteens and younger, who own a lot of Abercrombie,” she said. “But I don’t want to encourage them to feel those comments are acceptable. I saw it and thought, how horrible!’”
Disgusted, Stammers decided to purge the thrift shop of all Abercrombie merchandise. “I started throwing it all out,” she said, “but then I realized that’s what he wanted people to do. I decided that there was a way I could reverse all of this bad energy.”
Sleep on it
Stammers’s children pointed her to a YouTube video featuring a man who gathered Abercrombie merchandise from Los Angeles thrift stores and distributed it to the
homeless. Then she came up with her own idea: She would turn all her merchandise from the company into dog beds.
After collecting all of the Abercrombie clothing from her store — and their own closets — Stammers and her kids sought donations from friends and neighbors. “The community gave tons of support,” she reported.


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MOBILE, Ala. - Yahoo! has officially debuted its new logo.
You can see the look is cleaner and thinner, but its famous exclamation point is still there. The company has been rotating different logos for the past month while trying to rebrand itself "cool again". This is officially Yahoo's first major logo change since 2009.
Could your picture show up in an advertisement on Facebook? Six public interest groups have asked the Federal Trade Commission to block upcoming changes to Facebooks privacy policies. They claim the privacy changes will make it easier for Facebook to use your personal information in ads.
The new language makes it clear you are granting Facebook permission to use your name, profile picture and content in advertisements.
Smart phones and tablets could soon be so 2012. Samsung sure hopes so. The tech giant unveiled its new smart watch, the Galaxy Gear, this week. This smart watch is not a phone!
Instead, it links up wirelessly with Samsung's Galaxy smart phones and tablets to send alerts to your wrist "secret-agent style" when you receive a call, text or e-mail.
It runs on Google's Android operating system, with a 1.63 inch screen. After a full day's use, you'll need to recharge the battery.
Wild orange, oatmeal beige and black are 3 out of the six colors.
The Galaxy Gear smart watch will be available September 25th and cost you about $300.
That's your Daily Tech.
Tre Mason rushed for 304 yards and four touchdowns, leading No. 3 Auburn to a wild 59-42 victory over No. 5 Missouri in the Southeastern Conference championship game Saturday.
Airbus Americas Chairman Allan McArtor is high on Alabama, and his opinion of its Capital City is on the rise. McArtor toured Montgomery during a recent visit before being applauded by local leaders for his role in bringing a new airplane assembly plant to Mobile.
Wildlife officials are ceasing efforts to rescue a pod of whales that was stranded in the Everglades after losing sight of the marine mammals. The National Park Service says aerial and boat survey teams could not locate the whales Saturday, a potentially encouraging sign that they have moved farther offshore.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As you decorate your home for Christmas, the Consumer Product Safety commission has several tips to help you avoid accidents.
Nearly seven years ago, an Orange Beach man was tortured and robbed in his own home. As of Friday night, Shaun Cassidy, 65, is behind bars for a number of charges involving minors.


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Their business cards say “Nice to meat you” on one side. Flip a card over and read: “Everything should taste like bacon.”
That pretty much sums up the philosophy that spawned J&D’s Foods, a Seattle company that might be giving Starbucks and Amazon.com a run for its money as the city’s most-publicized company.
OK, not quite. But co-founders Dave Lefkow and Justin Esch have a knack for drawing attention to their company, something that’s bound to be a bit easier when your flagship products are Bacon Salt and “Baconnaise.”
Comedian Jon Stewart proved last year that those products are conducive to comedy, and the company’s profile has only soared higher since.
Publicity on the Oprah Show and hundreds of other media outlets cemented J&D’s Foods products as icons of their time — the kind of brand that might one day pop up on a VH1 decade round-up show — if such shows are still being made. (“Remember Baconnaise? Dude, I ate that stuff on toast!”)
Lefkow and Esch made another big publicity splash last week when they started the clock on an eBay auction to sell a sculpture of Kevin Bacon — made out of bacon.
Proceeds from the sale of “Bacon Kevin Bacon” will benefit Ashley’s Team, a non-profit named for Lefkow’s daughter, who was was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia last year. The organization helps local hospitals make families and patients more comfortable during treatment.
The eBay action ends Friday. As of Wednesday evening, the bidding price exceeded $4,000.
I talked with the J&D’s Foods founders earlier this week at their small company headquarters, a South Seattle office park space both said they’re quickly outgrowing.
Lefkow was eating a bag of J&D’s BaconPop when I arrived, one of the company’s newest products.
I tried some of his impromptu lunch — all in the line of duty, of course.
It tasted like bacon.
Lefkow and Esch met while working at Seattle-based Jobster.com. During a business trip, Esch told Lefkow about an idea he’d been kicking around — a seasoning that would make any food taste like bacon.
“I said, ‘Tell me more,'” Lefkow said. “I’m from Chicago, and I think everything should taste like bacon.”
Several years later, the duo has a growing business with products in thousands of grocery stores in 11 countries.
“Space. We want our product on the space shuttle,” Esch said.
“And we want to start our own religion,” Lefkow added.
Seriously. What’s next?
Incorporating the company’s flagship products onto menus at restaurants is the next step, the founders said. They’re negotiating contracts with two nationwide restaurants — establishments vaguely referred to as a pizza chain and a group of diners.
The “idea board” in Lefkow’s office is still full. Bacon gravy is a yes. Bacon-flavored latte mix is a no — even as a novelty item.
“It was terrible, that’s what it was,” said Esch.
The company recently released a malt salt that doesn’t taste like, contain or even resemble bacon, and Lefkow said fans should expect more products like that in the future.
“We have some more tricks up our sleeves that aren’t related to bacon,” he said.
But there’s one thing he and Esch aren’t interested in developing: No “me-too products.”
“We want to do something that nobody’s ever done,” Lefkow said.


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Official Press release by Toyota
Toyota announced that the much awaited Etios Liva will be launched on the 27th of June in Delhi. The company had earlier deferred the launch of the Etios Liva from April to June. The decision was taken to reduce the long waiting period resulting from the overwhelming response received for the Etios.
The Etios Liva will be Toyota’s foray into the highly popular premium hatchback segment. Stylishly designed for today’s youth, Etios Liva will be competitively priced and will offer functionality and value for money. Keeping the target customer in mind a slew of youthful and fun filled activities have been lined up as a part of the marketing campaign. The show stopper is the TV ad campaign, which will feature music composed by the music maestro A.R.Rahman.
The concept vehicles of the Etios and Etios Liva were first unveiled at the Auto Expo last year in Delhi , creating a lot of buzz, and later travelled across the country with the ‘Toyota Q-World’ reaching out to more than 1 lakh prospective customers.
Sandeep Singh, DMD Marketing, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said: “We are very happy to announce our entry into the popular premium hatchback segment with the Etios Liva. The Etios has been very well received by our customers across the market. We have delivered more than 20,000 cars as on date. We have successfully reduced the waiting period to less than 1 month by undertaking necessary steps to increase the production. We look forward to a good response for the Etios Liva. Details will be announced at the time of the launch.”


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Google is developing a way for Microsoft Office users to edit documents collaboratively without using Microsoft's Sharepoint collaboration server. It also has plans to extend the ability to edit Google Docs documents to mobile phones and iPads too.
Apple has done enough security-wise with its iPhone and iPad to make many CSOs comfortable with the mobile devices connecting to corporate networks, but Google's Android still has a ways to go.
Apple is reportedly working on a new application for the iPad that will allow users to download electronic versions of newspapers. It could be ready within a couple of months, but will likely be held until the release of the next-generation iPad.
Adobe Systems and Apple released security updates Monday, including a critical Adobe Flash Player fix for a flaw that had been used in cyberattacks.
Apple is launching its iPhone 4 in China this Saturday, 25 September, in what is part of the company's latest push to expand its presence in the Chinese market.
The U.S. Department of Justice is nearing a settlement with technology vendors including Apple, Google and others over an investigation of their hiring practices, according to a report.
You can learn a lot about the target markets of Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Apple's <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/389929/review/apple_ipad_with_wifi_32g...
Samsung USA's introduction of its Android-based Galaxy Tab tablets at an event in New York City Thursday put both Apple on notice that the iPad has a new competitor and laptop makers in general on notice that a new alternative will soon be in town.
The death of the PC industry at the hands of Apple's iPad has been greatly exaggerated, analysts said today.
This week's unveiling of Samsung's Galaxy Tab stoked the already formidable fire lit around tablet devices by Apple's iPad. And with several other contenders coming to market in the coming months, tablets should be a common sight in the coming year, ...
You can jailbreak your iPhone, your iPod Touch, and your iPad, but what about your brand new Apple TV?
Despite denials and contrary rumors, it seems that Apple is on schedule to release a new version of the wildly successful iPad just about a year after it unveiled the first version of the tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the first tablet to come along that offers a serious alternative, or poses any notable challenge to the Apple iPad. As formidable as the Samsung tablet seems, though, there are still a number of reasons to forego the Android...
When Data Robotics launched its first Drobo storage device three years ago, the company made a splash in the normally staid and stodgy storage market.
Research In Motion reported revenue gains of nine per cent in its latest financial quarter, driven by Blackberry subscriber gains and record device sales, the company said Thursday.
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For the first time in 15 years, Volkswagen’s quarterly accounts have landed in the red. Results published by the German car giant on Wednesday showed a loss of €3.5bn (£2.5bn) for the three months until 30 September – the month when the emissions scandal erupted. VW set aside €6.7bn to deal with the fallout from the 11m vehicles worldwide whose diesel engines were secretly programmed to cheat tests and mask the pollution they caused, although the final bill could run into tens of billions.
Yet VW’s underlying sales are reportedly robust – and while the company has apologised and spoken of its mission to regain trust, it still expects to ride out the storm. Six weeks after one of the world’s biggest ever corporate scandals broke, how has the world changed for the other players in the story?
Brussels-based thinktank Transport and Environment had warned for years about rigged tests but few listened before September. Jos Dings, its director, laughs: “I could say it changed everything overnight, but in the first vote two days ago on real driving emissions, some of our dearest member states – including Britain and Germany – stuck, in an inexplicable way, to short-term measures.” The European commission has delayed more stringent tests by a year, allowing engines to emit more than twice the legal limit of nitrogen oxides until 2021.
Dings says: “That was the first concrete test and a very disappointing one.” But, he says: “We have more friends than we used to – people recognise that we got this right. We are a very small outfit, and there are hundreds of lobbyists from the car manufacturers running round here, so it’s bloody hard work.”
Andrew Pendleton, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, says the crisis changed things “for a short time”, but the story never quite got to the issue of air pollution. “For me, what sums it up is the statement of [VW chief executive Matthias] Müller in his first conference: ‘No one died’. But knowingly putting vehicles on the road that issued more toxic pollutants than they should have will have led to many more deaths. People have died because of VW’s actions, but also because of the negligence and intransigence of the regulator and the politicians.” He hopes the scandal will give new opportunity to campaigners: “We can ally with motorists who’ve been done – a lot of them bought vehicles they thought were cleaner – and all air-breathing citizens. People are waking up to the risks.”
Richard Lloyd, executive director of Consumer group Which?, says almost 70,000 people have now signed up to their Come Clean on Fuels campaign for rapidly overhauled, independent testing. “This scandal has rocked trust in the motoring industry, with over three-quarters of drivers saying they want new testing brought in as soon as possible to restore confidence in manufacturers’ claims.”
The motor industry
British demand for diesel cars appeared to remain strong in the immediate aftermath, according to September registration figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), but there is not enough data yet to be sure, says David Bailey, professor of industrial strategy at Aston University. “The big issue is whether it heralds a shift away from diesel – and that’s going to take a while to play out. It’s a seismic moment for the industry and particularly the big European manufacturers who have done a lot of work on diesel: technologically, they have they made the wrong bet.”
Some analysts believe fears of brand damage in Europe are overstated but Bailey says: “In the US it’s very different: VW have killed their diesel market and it has left them in a very difficult position.”
For British manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, the timing of VW’s woes was ominous, as it unveiled two new diesels in America. However, a spokesman said: “We did launch the Range Rover Td6 and Range Rover Sport Td6 in late September as planned and while it is too early to tell what, if any, long-term impact there will be on the US market, we are pleased with the early sales.”
In the UK, one major car dealership, Lookers, reported continuing profit growth on Friday, leading the City analysts at Peel Hunt to conclude: “While some suggested that the VW crisis would have a major impact on the motor trade, [this] suggests that its progress remains strong ... the VW nerves are now soothed.”
VW shares lost around one-third of their value in the first two days of trading after news of the scandal broke, and remain at roughly the same level now. Simon Dluzniak, of lawyers Bentham Europe, says his firm is one of several close to finalising claims on behalf of global investors for damages from VW for non-disclosure of critical information. Some reports have suggested that the damages could reach €30bn; Dluzniak is more cautious but says it could “run into billions of euros”. Some shareholders on Bentham’s books – institutions not individuals – have lost millions.
Meanwhile, ShareAction, a pressure group that co-ordinated letters from major investors requesting greater clarity on lobbying, says VW’s actions has prompted other shareholders to scrutinise companies. Chief executive Catherine Howarth said: “The scandal has drawn attention to the need for investors to practice active stewardship over the companies they invest in, to avoid plummeting share prices as a result of reputational risk.”
London-based Leigh Day has now registered around 6,500 potential clients who drive affected vehicles with a view to a class action for compensation. An official said: “It’s hugely interesting for us, and we’ve brought in more people to deal with the workload. But we remain frustrated: we’d have expected VW to have told their customers exactly how they’d solve this issue by now. When you strip everything away, there’s very little information. People are worried.”
The VW drivers
Owners of affected vehicles should be compensated for the reduction in value, the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, said this week. But British drivers remain a long way from reassured.
Simon Jacobs, 53, an employee engagement consultant from Hammersmith, London, bought his first new car, a Golf Cabriolet VW, in April 2014 for £25,000. “It was sold to me as the greener choice. I’m bothered that it’s many times more toxic than they’d said. The letter from VW that came to me and 1.2m others about two weeks ago made me furious. I wanted them to say sorry, we lied to you – but we’re a long way off that. It doesn’t offer to change your engine or your car, which is worth a fraction of what I paid for it and is poisoning people.”
While motor industry estimates of the drop in value for affected VW brands have been in the region of 2% to 5%, others believe their prices have plummeted. Another driver of an affected Seat vehicle, who has been trying to sell his car and did not want to be named, said: “It’s blighted. The valuation services are wildly inaccurate and don’t have a bearing on the reality of resale.”
Meanwhile, drivers are taking action to clean up their own engines: Halfords said that sales of fuel additives to tackle diesel dirt have trebled in the last month.


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Save the date - Early Bird Tickets for #shakykneesfest 2018 go on sale this Wednesday, 12/6 at 10am EST! Join us for another great year of Shaky fun! Quantities are limited, so don't miss out on your chance to get tickets at the lowest price. https://t.co/OpAYmRGGWV pic.twitter.com/CwH8RnB4ke— Shaky Knees Festival (@ShakyKneesFest) December 4, 2017
Shaky Knees just announced some holiday cheer - the 2018 presale will be occuring on Wednesday, December 6th at 10 a.m. EST. There will be limited tickets on sale and in the past Shaky Knees presale has sold out rather quickly. If you are committed to going to Shaky Knees 2018 this is the time to snag them as it is the cheapest you will find tickets. Here's the price breakdown for 2018 Shaky Knees passes:
The platinum passes are new this year, and no surprise to anyone who has seen any other Live Nation festival - pretty much every other festival had them in years past. Stay tuned for more Shaky Knees 2018 info!


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For those looking to travel by train across the country, this rail pass is just what you need.
Amtrak has relaunched its USA Rail pass, a 30-day rail pass that allows passengers to take up to 10 trips anywhere in the country within a month. The company is currently running an offer giving with a discount of $200 on the rail pass.
Using this 30-day rail pass, travellers are allowed to book a whole bunch of trips under a fixed rate. They can buy the pass for $299 and book up to 10 trips anywhere in the country at no additional cost. That’s an average of $30 a trip.
Travellers will have 120 days to book their first trip after purchasing the rail pass. Once the first trip commences, the 30-day time limit will begin for them to take the rest of the journeys.
The sale of this rail pass to take a multi-segment train journey across America will end on June 22.
Roger Harris, the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer at Amtrak said in a statement: “We want to offer customers a truly unique way to travel this summer.”
Amtrak said the “travel segment occurs when a customer boards and disembarks one of Amtrak’s scheduled services. If the trip involves making a connection, customers will use two segments of the USA Rail Pass.”
These passes can be bought on Amtrak.com, and travellers can begin building their itinerary on the website or through the Amtrak app.
Amtrak says that through the app, customers will be able to access their ticket, check train statuses and receive boarding information before departure.
There are around 500 destinations available with the pass. One needs to bear in mind that the pass is not available for Acela service, for the route between Virginia and Florida, as well as the Canada stops on the Maple Leaf line. The pass will not allow you to book more than two roundtrips between the same two stations. This is to encourage travellers to go out and explore and prevent owners of the pass from using it as a glorified commuter pass.
Amtrak is currently not offering seat upgrades to Business Class or a private room to USA Rail Pass holders.
For more information about the Amtrak rail pass and additional restrictions, visit Amtrak.com/USARailPass.


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Posted by Elena del Valle on December 4, 2007
A scene from the new ComEd Spanish-language ad
Photos: The San Jose Group
ComEd recently launched a new Spanish-language advertising campaign to promote its compact fluorescent energy-saving light bulbs (CFL). The television and radio campaign, created by ComEd’s Hispanic advertising agency of record, the San Jose Group (SJG), highlights a company program that discounts compact fluorescent light bulbs.
According to information provided by The San Jose Group, the 30-second spots focus on a hairdresser and will air in Chicago and Rockford from October to December 2007. The agency’s team members believe the stylist character provides the right mix for a creative and simple execution, humor, credibility and a memorable medium. They hope a humorous approach to the serious topic of energy conservation will be well received by Spanish speaking Latino audiences.
Antonio Lovera, creative director at SJG
“Humor is a common cultural thread that transcends borders and nationalities,” said Antonio Lovera, creative director at SJG. “With the variety of Latin American cultures represented in ComEd’s marketplace, we used humor as an element to engage all Hispanics in a meaningful way.”
Taking advantage of the gossip stereotype of beauty shops, the 30 second ads focus on a hairdresser gossiping to a client about how a man left “her” for something younger, that lasts longer and even saves money. In fact, she’s referring to the new CFL bulb instead of her personal life.
A compact fluorescent energy-saving light bulb
According to promotional materials, CFL bulbs use 75 percent less energy than traditional light bulbs and last up to 10 times as long. Promoters say that replacing one standard bulb with a CFL can save customers up to $30 in electricity costs on their bill over the lifetime of the bulb.
The San Jose Group was recently reappointed as the Hispanic advertising agency of record for Exelon and its operating companies, ComEd and PECO, allowing the agency to continue to develop branding strategies and advertising executions for the company; and marking the continuation of a 12-year relationship between Exelon and The San Jose Group.
Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd), a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation, provides service to 3.7 million customers across northern Illinois, 70 percent of the state’s population. Incorporated in 1981 and headquartered in Chicago, The San Jose Group is a consortium of marketing communications companies specializing in reaching the Hispanic and non-Hispanic markets in the U.S. and Latin America.
“Best in Class Hispanic Strategies” audio recording
Presenters Carlos Santiago and Derene Allen
Find out what makes 25 percent of the top 500 Hispanic market advertisers out perform the remaining companies
Discover what questions to ask, steps to take to be a Best in Class company
Click here for details on “Best in Class Hispanic Strategies” audio recording


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PayPal Coming to the Market Soon
A lot of people were asking themselves and Google why the Android Market didn’t have an option for PayPal payments. Don’t worry pals, PayPal is coming to the Market soon. Google has already set up the framework, I assume we’ll just have to wait for Google to release the whole package. It might even stimulate the number of apps available in the Market, as more people start to download paid apps with their PayPal-account.
To be continued…
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New evidence has arisen that Dear Esther and Amnesia developer The Chinese Room's critically acclaimed PlayStation 4 game Everybody's Gone to the Rapture will be coming to PC. This time, it's promotional material from AMD that's given away the existence of the upcoming port.
According to thefor the Radeon Software Crimson Edition Graphics Driver Installer for Windows 10 64-Bit, the update includes new support for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Hitman and... Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was firstway back in 2012 as a PC game to be released in 2013, but since then, it became a PlayStation 4 exclusive.
If the game was listed on patch notes for a graphic driver update, that seems to indicate an announcement will be coming soon, so stay tuned as GameWatcher keeps an eye on the situation.


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South Carolina Trying to Crack Down on Young ATV Riders
South Carolina is trying to make it illegal for parents to allow a child to operate an adult-sized ATV.
According to the WISTV.com, a South Carolina House Agricultural Subcommittee is trying to beef up legislation to make stricter laws regarding children operating ATVs.
“The new bill makes it illegal for a parent or legal guardian to let a child operate a recreational off-highway vehicle that is in violation of the manufacturer warning label,” WISTV.com says in a report. “It also says ATV passengers must wear eye protection, a helmet and seatbelt.”
We assume lawmakers are talking about using seatbelts in a UTV rather than an ATV. But the bottom line is that if you let your young child operate an ATV which a manufacturer recommends for riders 16 years old and older, you will be in violation of the law if the bill is approved.


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Another American mega-retailer has jumped on the workers pay wagon. Reuters reports that Target has raised its minimum wage to $9 an hour, a move that will affect all of its 1,800 U.S. stores, citing a source within the company. The pay increase will reportedly go into effect next month and help Target be competitive with rivals such as Walmart and T.J. Maxx.
Companies are vying to attract and retain low-wage workers as consumer confidence returns and unemployment drops. In February, America's largest private employer Walmart said it would raise its minimum worker wage to $9 an hour and $10 an hour next year. A week after Walmart's announcement, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods owner TJX said it also would raise its minimum wage to $9 an hour. Gap and Ikea made similar promises last year.
Target, which employs nearly 350,000 people in the United States, has historically said it pays more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 but would not share specific worker rates. Spokeswoman Dustee Jenkins declined to tell The Wall Street Journal how many employees would see a pay bump. “Our goal is to always be competitive with the marketplace,” she said.
The Target news comes as a small surprise considering where the company stood earlier this month. Target Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan said during a March 4 investor conference by Bank of America Merrill Lynch that U.S. workers receiving a blanket minimum wage increase was "just not reasonable."
Fixating on some single number, to us, an average number, is unimportant. It’s about being competitive locally at a store level within a marketplace. That is important and we’re going to be competitive and we’re going to pay.
Women's advocacy group UltraViolet took Mulligan's comments to heart. BuzzFeed highlights the group's role in effecting changes in Target's pay policy. UltraViolet said it took on the low-pay workers cause because women make up two-thirds of the minimum wage workforce. Earlier this month, UltraViolet released a web ad campaign that included banners that said, "Did you know there's a Walmart near you that pays higher minimum wage than Target?" UltraViolet's online petition to raise Target's minimum wage garnered 25,000 signatures.
The group took to Twitter to applaud Target's decision to raise its pay floor but indicated that more needed to be done for all minimum wage workers.
Image: Getty Images (1)


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The 21.5-inch iMac now features 8th Gen quad-core i5 processors, and it can be configured with up to six-core processors and AMD’s Radeon Pro Vega 20 GPU (with 4GB of memory). The 27-inch iMac can now be configured with up to Intel’s latest 9th Gen 6-core and 8-core i7 processors and AMD’s Radeon Pro Vega 48 GPU (with 8GB of memory).
While the new CPU and GPU options are welcome, they are all that is really new about these machines. They use the same case design, which harkens back to the Late 2012 iMacs. This includes the same cooling system, which worries me.
Then there’s the matter of the T2 chip which is noticeably absent from these machines. That means that all the security benefits it brings are not available on Apple’s most popular desktop models. The iMac doesn’t have the secure boot capabilities and fast (and encrypted!) data access that something like the MacBook Air boasts.
Upgrading to 256GB of 2,666MHz DDR4 ECC memory will set you back a steep $5,200, more than the price of the base model iMac Pro itself.
The New York Times has recently cut the number of stories it’s giving to Apple Inc.’s news app, the newspaper publisher’s chief executive officer said, as the iPhone maker prepares to unveil a subscription service for news outlets next week.
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Oct 6, 2010
Prada mulls possible Hong Kong IPO in 2011
Oct 6, 2010
MILAN | Wed Oct 6, 2010 - (Reuters) - Italian fashion power house Prada is mulling a Hong Kong flotation next year, markets conditions allowing, which would help it speed expansion in China, expected to be the world's biggest luxury market in the next five years.
The move would also free Prada from the shackles of a debt estimated at around 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion), partly the result of an ill-fated acquisition spree in the 1990s.
"Hong Kong is among the markets we are considering, but it is not the only one," Prada's spokesman told Reuters.
Prada prepared itself several times to float in the past decade. Its most high-profile attempt in 2001 was torpedoed by the September 11 attacks as markets remained muted in the aftermath.
Some analysts believe the company could be valued at 10-15 times earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), which reached 225.2 million euros in the first half. If extended to the full year, the company would then be valued at between 4.5-6.7 billion euros.
If successful, Prada's initial public offering might encourage other Italian luxury companies to float, such as fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo and the ski jacket maker Moncler.
Prada's flotation in Hong Kong would offer good exposure of its Chinese growth story to investors and cash in on recovery in the United States and Europe.
Prada's sales in Asia grew 47 percent in the first half while global revenue rose 29.3 percent to 936.5 million euros.
Prada, which has not yet hired advisors for its IPO, sees 2011 as a possible deadline, but no decision has been taken.
"2011 is a possible timeframe for listing, but it is still open. A decision will be made depending on market conditions," the company's spokesman said.
The family of the company's designer Miuccia Prada and Chief Executive Patrizio Bertelli controls 95 percent of Prada Spa's capital, with Italy's bank Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI) owning the remaining 5 percent.
But many Italian luxury companies, often family-owned, prefer to deal with banks and steer clear of the market's rigorous disclosure requirements.
CHANGES TO COME
If Prada floated, analysts say the company would have to make changes to its executive and supervisory boards as decision-making is now concentrated in the hands of Bertelli.
Bertelli has helped Miuccia Prada build the brand into a global fashion icon over the past 30 years, with sales of more than 2 billion euros.
© Thomson Reuters 2023 All rights reserved.


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Four key holiday paid search trends to keep an eye on
Columnist Andy Taylor shares data that can help predict trends in the e-commerce and retail space this holiday season. Advertisers, take note!
During the holidays, there are a million different data points advertisers can look at to see how paid search is performing throughout this crucial shopping period. Depending on business goals and the type of products sold, which of those data points are most important for a particular site can vary widely from one brand to the next.
That said, there are a few overarching trends that apply to many advertisers and which help to set the stage for performance expectations over the coming weeks. Here I’ll outline four interesting paid search trends I’ll be keeping an eye on.
Will Black Friday continue to close the paid search sales gap on Cyber Monday?
Black Friday is for doorbusters. Cyber Monday is for online deals. That’s the way this thing is supposed to go, right?
The lines are blurring on those distinctions, with Black Friday Google paid search sales growth far outpacing that of Cyber Monday last year.
Although Black Friday sales nearly equaled Cyber Monday’s in 2016 in aggregate, many smaller/individual sites still see the latter deliver much larger sales due to how they run their promotions. As a result, the median Merkle advertiser saw Google paid search sales 102 percent higher on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday in 2015, a gap that narrowed to 69 percent higher in 2016.
With so many early shoppers searching online rather than/in addition to in-store on Black Friday, paid search marketers must likewise expect to spend big on this historically brick-and-mortar sales holiday. It doesn’t appear that Black Friday will be able to knock off Cyber Monday as biggest paid search sales day of the holiday season for the median brand just yet, but it will be interesting to see just how close it gets.
Does Google Shopping have the juice to keep growing faster?
Online retailers are already well aware of the importance of Google Shopping, but did you also know that Product Listing Ad (PLA) sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas have grown faster year over year for two straight years?
There have been a lot of changes over the years to help spur on this growth, including:
- Google roughly doubling the size of PLAs on mobile devices in Q3 2015.
- Rapid impression growth beginning in early 2016.
- Yahoo’s move to begin showing Google PLAs on its domain in Q1 2016.
- The official rollout of PLAs to Google image search in Q2 2016 after months of low-volume testing.
Even with year-over-year growth numbers recently running up against stronger year-ago comparisons created by the early 2016 changes, Shopping has continued to grow impressively. Q3 PLA spend was up 37 percent, according to the latest Merkle Digital Marketing Report.
With Google’s recent release of Showcase Shopping Ads out of beta testing and the steady rise of Local Inventory Ads for brick-and-mortar advertisers, it’s not out of the question that advertisers could once again see holiday sales from these ads grow even faster.
One factor that’s likely to assist in that growth is that the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year is the longest it’s been since 2012 at 32 days. The number of days in this stretch has steadily increased since 2013, when there were just 26 days, and 2017 will be longer than 2016 by two days.
Will phones and tablets top 60% paid search traffic share?
Over the past few years, we’ve consistently seen the share of paid search clicks coming from phones and tablets rise in Q4 relative to Q3.
Most years, this increase is fairly modest, such as last year, when share went from 57.3 percent to 57.6 percent. Our data shows that 2015 had the largest growth in phone and tablet click share from Q3 to Q4. We believe this is because Google made several changes in the latter half of 2015 that significantly increased phone ad traffic, including adding a third text ad above organic links where there used to be only two and doubling the size of PLAs.
There haven’t been any major updates along the lines of what occurred in 2015 to suggest a big jump this year, but there are subtle trends that might help to increase mobile share nonetheless.
As I outlined last month, Google Local Inventory Ads and Maps ads play a bigger role during the holidays, and they are particularly important on mobile. With these ad units now accounting for much more traffic than last year, seasonal Q4 growth might help to boost overall mobile traffic share.
Could we see phones and tablets account for more than 60 percent of all paid search clicks in Q4? Perhaps. Google is already well over 60 percent, with Bing and Yahoo bringing overall mobile share down.
How big will Maps ads get on key days?
Last holiday season, brick-and-mortar brands saw a steady increase in traffic coming from the “Get location details” click type leading up to Christmas Day. This click type is attributed to text ads featured in Google Maps for any brand with active location extensions added to AdWords campaigns, and it accounts for the highest traffic share for brand text ads on phones.
In 2016, the highest share of brand phone text ad traffic coming from these ads all year was 8 percent on Christmas Eve, as shoppers were looking to head in-store for last-minute purchases. Since then, “Get location details” click share has, on average, risen significantly.
As such, it’s fair to expect that we may see a significant increase this Christmas Eve from the 8 percent figure observed last year. I think there’s a chance that up to 15 percent of all phone brand traffic for brick-and-mortar brands will come from “Get location details” clicks on Christmas Eve — a pretty big chunk of clicks on an important day for a format that was only announced in mid-2016.
These predictions fall into four key themes that have played a huge role in the evolution of paid search over the past couple of years:
- The rise of online shopping in general has blurred the role of Black Friday, a historically brick-and-mortar sales holiday that’s now closing the gap on Cyber Monday in terms of paid search sales volume.
- Google Shopping has long outpaced text ads in terms of year-over-year growth (clicks, spend, sales, orders and so on) for online retailers, with holiday PLA sales growth accelerating relative to the year prior in both 2015 and 2016.
- Phones and tablets now account for more paid search traffic than desktop, and the click share of these devices will likely continue to grow this Q4, when we typically see a quarter-over-quarter lift in share.
- Lastly, users are increasingly turning to navigational tools like Google Maps for both brand and non-brand searches, and Google’s monetization of this traffic has likewise grown over the past year. These ads stand to be even more important for brick-and-mortar brands during the final days of the holiday shopping season.
So, those are four data points I’ll be keeping an eye on this coming shopping season and the broader themes each relates to. We’ll have to wait and see if my predictions come true, as well as to find out if any new and unexpected developments unfold.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


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AKIT is able to create such an online aggregator. This can be done on the basis of “cyber Monday”. He has already accumulated the majority of Russian goods.
MOSCOW, 8 APR. Association of Internet Commerce (AKITA) proposes to create an Internet platform for the export of Russian goods abroad on the basis of its own website “cyber Monday,” said Association President Alexey Fedorov.
Previously, the newspaper Kommersant reported that the Ministry of economic development has developed the project “Russian Alibaba” web — site for the export of Russian goods abroad, to create which in December instructed Vladimir Putin. The government chooses a Russian company-aggregator, which should promote domestic products, both independently and resources on Chinese AliExpress, JD and American eBay and Amazon. As an example of such Russian companies are given in the document “Yandex.Market”, “Hardware” and Wikimart.
“AKIT is able to create such an online aggregator. We can create such a player on the basis of “cyber Monday”, because he’s already accumulated the majority of Russian goods. Just have to translate all these cards in English and Chinese languages and get help and support from the state from the point of view of returns and reverse charge VAT, because it is the main stumbling block in Russian exports,” — said Fedorov.
In addition, he said, to facilitate the export of parcels, because now you need to collect a huge amount of documents and spend a lot of time. “It is unclear who will take payments. Union Pay, Alipay, WeChat? Not everyone has these Chinese payment system”, — added the President of AKITA, and also mentioned the attractiveness of the promoting goods from Russia to the Indian market.
The expert believes that in order to promote domestic products it is necessary to choose more than one platform, but several. To earn such a platform may until September 2016, believes Fedorov.
“Cyber Monday” is one of the most ambitious online sales Runet, organized by the AKITA. Official website sale – cmonday.ru.


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Kissimmee is about to get a new addition to its Tex-Mex offerings when Chuy’s opens March 19, 2013.
The Austin, Texas-based restaurant chain will open its first Central Florida location at 7913 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway in Kissimmee (west of the World Drive entrance to Walt Disney World). It will be a part of the Black Lake Village retail center.
Chuy’s was founded in 1982, and features “made-from-scratch” menu items like Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom Enchiladas and Big As Yo’ Face Burritos. The company has restaurants in eight states.
Plans are to open a second Central Florida location on I-Drive in Orlando as part of the renovation of the Wyndham Orlando Resort in 2014.
For more information, visit Chuy’s Kissimmee Facebook page.
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HP made its desire to introduce a Windows-based slate device public back in January, and after its acquisition of Palm this spring, we learned that the company is also planning some WebOS slates. That's not all, though. DigiTimes caught a glimpse of the Zeen, an Android-based slate that will reportedly be sold together with HP printers, at an event in Taiwan today.
DigiTimes says the Zeen has a seven-inch display and "HP's TouchSmart interface for operating the printer." The Android operating system is tweaked—the photo in the article makes that much obvious—and HP has reportedly scrapped GMail, Android Market, and "multimedia playback" apps, narrowing the device's focus somewhat compared to the iPad.
I wouldn't necessarily expect HP to maintain three different lines of slates running three different operating systems for too long, though. TechCrunch recently heard straight from Todd Bradley, HP's freshly minted Personal Systems Group Executive VP (and Palm's former CEO), that HP plans to sell "15 million printers that use WebOS." That makes it sound as though the Zeen's successors might just ditch Android for WebOS.


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Metering.com March 14, 2016
Huawei is reported to be launching an operating system for the Internet of Things that will be used to power smart home devices, connected vehicles and wearable tech.
This move marks Huawei’s entry into the Internet of Things. The Chinese networking and telecommunications giant predicts that in less than ten years, a total of 100 billion internet connected devices will be generated globally and 2 million new sensors will be deployed every hour.
Huawei notes that the networks today can’t provide the necessary connectivity to support this growth. In a bid to address this challenge and alleviate some of the connectivity pressures, it has developed an IoT operating system (LiteOS).
William Xu, chief strategy and marketing officer at Huawei, said: “Huawei believes that standardizing ICT infrastructure will foster the development of Internet applications, including IoT applications. To address this, Huawei is launching our IoT OS, LiteOS.”
The Chinese-based company claims that the LiteOS supports zero configuration, auto-discovery and auto-networking of smart devices. It added that the operating system would be “opened to all developers to enable them to quickly develop their own Internet of Things products”.
Xu anticipates that the operating system can be independent and operate in any platform. He added that the LiteOs will be fully open sourced, a characteristic that differentiates Huawei’s entry into the Internet of Things.
Interoperable operating system
Huawei states that the LiteOS can be installed on devices running Google-s Android OS and has the ability to connect with other third party devices.
The company aims to boost Internet of Things standardization throughout the industry, with the launch of the LiteOS.
Through the deployment of LiteOS, Huawei also aims to lower the smart hardware development threshold and enable more developers to innovate at a greater pace.
LiteOS software features open application programming interfaces (API’s), to attract developers to “co-build” a software ecosystem, says Tech Financials.
To this end, Huawei has created an open source community, www.oiotc.cc, for which chipset, module, open source hardware, and software developers can make use of.
Tech Financials adds that there is also talk around Google preparing to launch its own Internet of Things operating system. Fortune states that the tech company wants to develop its own lightweight operating system, Brillo.


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Konami has this morning announced it will release a free playable demo of its forthcoming PES 11 on PlayStation Network and PC.
Subscribers to the PS+ service will be able to access the demo from September 8th, while it will become widely available on PSN and online from September 15th.
The PES 11 download will enable fans to play against the computer or offline multi-player matches with a choice of four clubs: either FC Barcelona and FC Bayern Munich or Copa Libertadores pair Chivas Guadalajara and Internacional. A video presentation is also included outlining the full game’s content in readiness of the game’s UK launch on October 8th 2010.
To visit the PC download site, click here.
An Xbox 360 playable demo is also planned and Konami said it will release more details of this in the near future.
Founder and Editor of PC Invasion. Veteran PC gamer of over 22 years.


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Products from the company's newest brand, ONLY Healthy Source, will be offered as samples at the international dog trainers’ event.
The Manchester-based manufacturing company redesigned its website.
The big-box pet retailer's new structured play program format is called The Ultimate Experience.
The crate is expected to begin shipping in Dec.
The company more than tripled the size of its headquarters.
CIPS will host a number of activities during its November show.
The new event will be hosted annually, and awarded its first-ever winners.
The survey revealed insights about premium pet food shoppers.
The social media campaign aims to raise awareness of a resource gap for domestic abuse survivors.
The award honors businesses raising the bar for professionalism and success in the pet care services industry.
The company's new business partner focuses on providing meaningful jobs for people with disabilities.
The bone-shaped toy has a spiky texture and a squeaker inside.
Dr. James Carpenter received the award from Oxbow.
The company's product line received the NASC's approval.
The latest Packaged Facts market research report finds that the sales of pet treats in the U.S. will increase from the 2018.
Several retailers across America now offer Boo Boo's Best's SuperFood Nuggets.
The Seasons Shampoos come in three scents.
A Bolivian entrepreneur is turning this cuddly creature into a creamy custard.
Volunteer handlers can learn basic disaster concepts and best practices in crisis support to assist individuals in the wake of local tragedies.
The supplement contains only three ingredients, and aims to enhance the joint and flexibility support for dogs and cats.


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Leave it to Desiigner to find a way to bring his brand of high-energy rap to Vogue’s longtime Editor-in-Chief and ultimate fashion legend Anna Wintour.
The G.O.O.D. Music rapper scored an invite to the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund panel lead by Wintour alongside fashion brand Stampd who was there to present a wearable tech piece the company had been asked to create. The panel invited finalists who combined futuristic fashion pieces with phones and the internet and asked each label to bring a special guest with them. Most finalists brought social influencers, but Stampd stepped it up by inviting Desiigner as guest and model.
Desiigner quickly took center stage, modeling the suit he was wearing and explaining his tattoo about chasing dreams. “Chase your dreams. It’s a movement, baby,” he told Wintour and the panel. “Chasing every last one of them and catching them.” Fortunately, the rapper didn’t leave the room before dropping an a cappella verse of his single “Tiimmy Turner.” It’s no surprise that Desiigner was able to nail the delivery considering the song originated as an a cappella freestyle.


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Europe’s Fastest Growing Plant-Based Meat Company Launches “Veggie Quarter Pounder”
According to Food Ingredient First, Vivera is Europe’s fastest-growing vegan meat company. Its range is extensive – from plant-based fish to mince – but the brand made headlines in May after introducing its vegan steak at Tesco. The supermarket reported a sale of over 40,000 Vivera steaks within the first week of the launch. The product’s popularity continued well past this initial success, and now the company is working on increasing its output to 100,00 units a week to keep up with demand.


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On Mary 15, 2017 - nearly exactly a year ago — rue21 Inc. became the latest in what was a string of specialty fashion retailers to file for bankruptcy; it sought to pursue both an operational and a financial restructuring. The company had 1179 brick-and-mortar locations in various strip centers, regional malls and outlet centers. It also had a capital structure that looked like this:
Much of the leverage emanated out of an Apax Partners LLP-sponsored take-private transaction in 2013. We recently discussed Apax Partners in the context of FullBeauty here, in our recent Members’-only briefing.
Without any real contest, it was clear that the term loan holders constituted the “fulcrum” security and would end up swapping said loans for equity in the reorganized company. And that is precisely what happened. The ABL was covered, the term lenders funded a roll-up DIP credit facility along with new money to finance the pendency of the cases and then converted that DIP into an exit facility. The post-emergence capital structure consists of:
$125 million ABL; and
$50 million term loan (plus accrued interest on the DIP term loan as of the effective date).
General unsecured claimants were provided an equity “kiss” on the petition date and then, after the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors’ (“UCC”) formed, it extricated additional value in the form of, among other things, (i) a put option to sell its post-reorg equity to one of the reorganized debtors, and (ii) a waiver by the prepetition term lenders of their $200 million deficiency claim. While the UCC did try and go after third-party releases for Apax, Apax ultimately succeeded in obtaining the release pursuant to the bankruptcy court’s September 9 confirmation order on the basis that it…
“…agreed to (i) support the Plan, including by promptly facilitating and participating in prepetition Plan discussions that culminated in the Restructuring Support Agreement and the Plan, notwithstanding that their equity position would likely be eliminated thereunder; and (ii) participate in the financing of the DIP Term Loan Credit Facility.”
In other words, Apax bought its release for $2 million in DIP allocation.
All told, this was a solid deleveraging of roughly $700 million. Moreover, the company closed roughly 400 stores. The company was seemingly well-positioned to effectuate the rest of its proposed restructuring, including (i) revamping its e-commerce strategy, (ii) improving the in-store experience, and (iii) pursuing a long-term business plan under relatively new management in a highly competitive retail atmosphere.
“Seemingly” being the operative word. In January, The Wall Street Journal reported (paywall) that the retailer experienced lackluster sales and tightening trade terms. Then, in February, Reuters reported that the company “is seeking financing after lackluster holiday sales failed to generate the cash it had hoped for….” It noted, further, that the company had engaged Piper Jaffray Companies ($PJC) to raise the funds. Notably, there has been nothing new on this front since. No news is probably not good news when it comes to this situation. Start the sewing machines: a Scarlet 22 tag may be in order and a liquidation on the horizon.
In the meantime, if the company is looking for ways to preserve liquidity, it might want to consider a far less generous return policy:
With clothes like this and a customer like that, what could go wrong?


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To head media operations at Asia Pacific region (except China) Will continue to support Volvo Car India operations till end of 2022
Johan Ekdahl as Chief Financial Officer, effective September 1, 2022
Our C40 Recharge Life Cycle Assessment report is out – how are electric car benefits affected by access to clean energy?
Today we’re listing our company on the Nasdaq stock exchange in Stockholm – a historical moment for Volvo Cars.
We’re soon rolling out a new over-the-air software update for our fully electric Volvos. The software package also contains a new, in-house developed in-car app: the Range Assistant.
We’ve reached an agreement with Geely to take full ownership of our Luqiao manufacturing plant in China – which means that in a few years, we’ll own all plants producing our cars.
First in the Indian Auto Industry to use sunrise technology for launching a car Launch on July 26 with price announcement
The new prices will be effective from November 25, 2022 Price hike on Models XC90, XC60 and XC40 Recharge


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Tag: UST Global
UST Global said that its current CEO Sajan Pillai is retiring and he is being replaced by comapny's CFO and President Krishna Sudheendra as new CEO.
D3 (Dream Develop Disrupt) is UST Global’s developer conference where the brightest minds in the company can meet, learn, and develop their digital skills.
UST Global has acquired Bangalore based SeviTech Systems, a chip design (VLSI) services company which has emerged as one of the top ASIC design solutions firm in India.
UST Global announced its partnership with pCloudy, a California based Mobile App testing platform with more than 50,000 users across the globe
UST Global has signed a MoU with the University of Oklahoma by and through the Gallogly College of Engineering, Data Science and Analytics MS program.
The MoU will allow Infinity Labs, an innovation center of UST Global, and CET students to jointly collaborate in technologies like Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The Infinity Labs are a core ingredient of UST Global’s Innovation-as-a-Service offering. It creates a confluence of Digital Technologies, Human Centered Design, Artificial Intelligence, the company’s ecosystem of partners and cutting edge R&D from the academia.
UST Global will offer OpsHub’s flagship integration solution, OpsHub Integration Manager, to its customers looking for business integration solution
UST Global (Singapore) Pte Ltd said that the Hong Kong government has awarded the company with the standing offer agreement for quality professional services for the supply of Information Technology services to all of its over 80 bureaus and departments


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It’s no secret that ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft have significantly disrupted the transportation industry — in more ways than one. By making use of customer-centric technology and aggregating supply, these apps have raised the bar for the taxi industry as a whole, and increased competition tenfold.
But contrary to popular belief, ridesharing apps didn’t completely decimate the industry. By carving out a unique niche within the taxi landscape, companies like Curb are reimagining urban mobility altogether.
Transform It Forward with Jason Gross: Moving the meter in the taxi industry
In the latest episode of Transform It Forward, I sat down with Jason Gross, the Vice President of Mobile at Curb.
With a driver-first approach to ride-hailing, Curb is bringing upfront pricing to the largest nationwide network of taxis and licensed for-hire vehicles.
The company provides unparalleled transparency to riders and drivers alike, facilitating billions of dollars in payment transactions annually through its open mobility platform.
During our discussion, Jason and I covered innovation in the taxi industry, the benefits of using taxis over services like Uber or Lyft, and how Curb is working to meet its profitability goals.
Tech and the taxi industry
Historically, the taxi industry was relatively behind in terms of technology, prior to ridesharing apps like Uber coming on the scene. Although the technology was beginning to evolve with new dispatch software and credit card processing tools, Jason noted that the missing piece for the industry was a way to aggregate supply.
Ridesharing apps fulfilled this need, ultimately providing people with an alternative option that was much more customer-centric. This blindsided the taxi industry, forcing them to reevaluate the technologies they had been using up until that point.
“I think what the industry failed to foresee was that there would ostensibly be other options. There would be something that would provide users with an ability to book from a much larger pool of vehicles and actually track where the vehicle was, rather than having to call that phone number back and say, ‘hey, my vehicle’s late, when’s it going to be here?’ I think there were a couple of things that caught the industry off-guard.”
In addition to making use of more innovative technology than the taxi industry, ridesharing apps gave themselves a competitive edge early on by finding ways to circumvent the regulations. As Jason mentioned, ridesharing apps were going “wild west” in the market, not only by taking an aggressive approach to building the business, but essentially by not taking no for an answer.
How were the ridesharing companies able to do this? To start, they used the power of social media, engaged in intensive lobbying, and leveraged large amounts of venture capital to gain an economic advantage over the taxi companies.
“At the end of the day, they could unleash this force of massive social media-enabled lobbying in effect to cow the regulators and the city administrators. And if the city didn’t bow to that sort of new way of doing business, they would go to the state. And if it wasn’t the state, they would go somewhere else. And so, they were very, not just aggressive, but unwilling to stop. It was really a take-no-prisoners approach to building a business.”
Ridesharing apps were offering customers lower prices, more accountability, and greater transparency since users could track where their ride was on the app’s interactive map. Jason noted that being able to see the car on the map created a level of comfort and control that users simply didn’t have with taxis.
All of this combined meant that the apps had the customer on their side, which was an essential component of overtaking the taxi industry completely.
“They really created enough differentiation in what the customer experience was to make people wake up and say, ‘hey, why wouldn’t I want a taxi ride for half the price and have it here in five minutes and see where it is the whole way to and from?’ I think some of that capability of seeing it on a map created some level of comfort that you were in control of that experience. “
The drive to change
When ridesharing companies came onto the scene, the taxi industry was essentially forced into giving it a facelift. Instead of being decimated completely, the taxi industry needed to come to grips with sharing the pie with major competitors, which ultimately caused them to change in positive ways.
Jason noted that the advent of ridesharing companies caused the taxi industry to change in a few different ways.
- For one, they raised the standard level of service, which meant drivers and fleets needed to invest more capital into ensuring the customer experience was up to par.
- Second, taxis were forced to upgrade their technology to aggregate all cabs in the city under a single, consumer-facing platform.
- And third, the taxi companies needed to find a way to ensure users knew they were an option, and that it was offered to them at a competitive price.
Jason says that for Curb, success became a matter of identifying the niche areas where taxis could dominate, like government or healthcare sector rides.
“What we were able to do was look at the areas of the market where taxis were an under-leveraged piece of the transportation infrastructure, make those connections, and really just give drivers rides, which they completed with all the other technology that we had long been giving them. But we took this quantum leap into saying we have a role to play in creating demand for the industry, and that was a hole that no one was filling or not filling successfully.”
These niche areas that Curb zeroed in on also included transporting people with disabilities, as wheelchair-accessible vehicles are generally not as common among rideshare drivers.
Overall, there’s room for both ridesharing apps and taxis within the transportation landscape. According to Jason, it’s simply a matter of finding the appropriate use cases for both and ensuring all options are available to the consumer.
- Previously, technology use was very limited in the taxi space. Curb created one of the first services that made paying for a taxi ride via credit card easy, but what was missing was the aggregation of supply. The industry failed to foresee that eventually, there would be a service that enabled users to book a ride using a much larger pool of drivers and track their driver’s location on an interactive map.
- The taxi industry was caught off guard by the advent of ridesharing companies for a few different reasons. For one, companies suddenly had the ability to completely overhaul the regulations and throw caution to the wind, creating the wild, wild west of ridesharing. Two, companies also now have the ability to organize themselves through social media, lobbying, and high amounts of venture capital to get a leg up on the taxi companies. These new services empowered people through transparency and accountability, which ultimately created a sense of control and comfort among users, despite the inherent under-regulation of the companies.
- Ridesharing companies have raised the standards for the industry overall. Suddenly, taxi companies needed to compete by upgrading their technology and creating an improved customer experience. The changes in the landscape forced taxi companies to create an integrated platform that would function across consumer-facing apps, putting control back into the user’s hands and improving ETAs. Curb has been able to provide this layer of technology that aggregates supply.
- Curb has always been conscious of its role in improving the functions of the entire ecosystem. The company has made it its mission to build a brand that’s synonymous with taxis and everything they represent, while also exposing themselves as an option to stakeholders. By identifying the niche areas of the market where taxis were under-leveraged, Curb has carved out its own unique piece of the pie, while reminding people that there are alternative options to the average ridesharing company.
- From a driver’s perspective, many taxi drivers have been in the community for a long time, and helping the city stay on its feet during times of crisis such as the pandemic is an important part of their role. While there were fewer active drivers in the thick of COVID-19, the number of taxi drivers on the road has rebounded relatively quickly. Unlike rideshare drivers, who often drive as a part-time job or hobby, taxi drivers, conversely, pride themselves on being a key part of city infrastructure.
Listen to the full podcast episode here.
If you missed previous episodes, click here.


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Walmart U.S. CEO delivers encouraging message
February 02, 2012 | Liberty University News Service
Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., challenged Liberty University students during Monday’s convocation to “be exceptional to make a difference” in the world.
Simon shared the story of his humble beginnings as a third-shift supervisor at a tobacco company to moving up the corporate ladder of success. Today Simon oversees more than 3,700 Walmart stores and 1.3 million associates across the country.
Employees and managers of local Walmart stores also attended the service.
Read the full story from the Liberty News Office.


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Toys and trailer worth more than £50,000 stolen in Royston burglary
- Credit: Archant
A lorry trailer and toy shop stock worth more than £50,000 combined were stolen from a Royston warehouse last month, and police have now launched an appeal to trace what was taken.
Officers investigating the commercial burglary at Hamleys Warehouse in Greenfield have released images of some of the stolen toys in a bid to find them.
The warehouse was broken into on Thursday, July 2, sometime between 9.30pm and 3.15am the following morning – and if you have since been offered the stolen items to buy, police want to hear from you.
Det Con Dave Quinn said: “Perhaps you have seen these stolen items offered for resale online, or someone has asked if you’re interested in purchasing them? If you have, please get in touch as soon as you can.”
Anyone with information can contact DC Quinn directly via email, at email@example.com. Report information online at herts.police.uk/report, speak to an operator in the force communications room via our online web chat at herts.police.uk/contact or call 101, quoting crime reference 41/51707/20.
You may also want to watch:
Alternatively, you can stay 100 per cent anonymous by contacting Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or use the charity’s untraceable online form at crimestoppers-uk.org.
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- 9 Two lorry crash blocks part of A14 in Cambridgeshire
- 10 Yellow weather warning of thunderstorms in Herts


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Cassava is a multi-useful crop that is grown by millions of farmers in the country. Nigeria alone produces over 45 million metric tons of cassava every year, but unfortunately most of our farmers, businessmen, investors and industrialists are unaware of the investment opportunities which the cassava industry offer.
Despite being consistently ranked the world’s greatest producer of cassava, Nigeria still depends on oil as an alternative means of income, whereas cassava is gradually being transformed from a famine-reserve commodity and staple food to a cash crop for urban consumption.
Farmers in the country do not usually add value to this crop as a result; the country has the challenge of excess production of cassava, which most times results in farmers getting little value for their efforts as supply is higher than demand.
New Policy on Cassava
But going forward, the federal government recently awarded contract for the construction of 18 high grade cassava flour processors capable of processing 1.3 million metric tons of cassava flour for local use to mix with wheat to bake bread and other confectioneries. The 18 plants would make Nigeria the biggest cassava processor in the world when they are completed in the next 24 months.
Also with the various intervention of President Good luck Jonathan, it has been estimated that Nigeria’s cassava production would rise to over 51 million metric tons by 2015. The Jonathan government is also introducing policies to encourage the substitution of high quality cassava flour for wheat flour in bread-baking.
The government promised that bakeries that are able to transit to using cassava flour in the next 18 months will enjoy a corporate tax incentive of 12 per cent rebate if they attain 40 per cent blending.
Most Nigerians are now aware of the commitment of President Jonathan to promoting the eating of bread partly made from cassava. Similarly, the president stated that from July 1, 2012, wheat flour will attract a levy of 65 per cent to bring the effective duty to 100 per cent, while wheat grain will attract a 15 per cent levy which will bring the effective duty to 20 per cent.
It is estimated that over N60 billion in wheat import bills will be saved from the substitution of 40 per cent of bread wheat flour with cassava flour annually by the country from the policy.
The minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, decried the current situation whereby Nigeria imports N635 billion worth of wheat annually, whereas she is the largest cassava producer, further stressing the need to give adequate attention to cassava production, noting that the produce is in high demand globally, as it is used in the manufacture of glucose, ethanol, starch, animal feeds, among others.
Reacting on the issue of cassava flour bread, Adesina, stated that there are those who make a lot of money doing this importation of wheat flour who do not want any effort of government to do partial substitution of wheat flour with cassava flour to work.
Although, the private sector is already successfully substituting cassava flour for wheat flour in bread and confectioneries, two of the largest bakers in the country are commercialising healthy cassava based bread and confectioneries. UTC Plc and Food Concepts have gone ahead to train more bakers who are ready to adopt the new technology.
The issue of use of cassava in bread is also an economic decision. While Nigeria spends 635 billion importing wheat and keeping farmers of wheat exporting countries employed, its displacement of jobs at home is not good for a nation.
Benefits of cassava over wheatflour
Recently, a statement in the media that cassava consumption was not good for those with diabetes has been discredited. In an interview with LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, the President of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Prof. Ignatius Onimawo, disclosed that glycemic index of wheat flour is higher than that of cassava adding that the statement giving percentages of those that are diabetics as between 20 and 30 per cent is misleading.
According to him, Nigerians eat eba, fufu, amala all made from cassava and no health problems have ever been reported from the consumption of these foods. Our local foods are much healthier than imported over-processed foods that cause cancer and aggravate diabetes, such as white wheat flour, he said.
The minister has noted that cassava flour is good for health. “White wheat bread is actually bad for health. By including cassava flour in bread, we will be improving the health benefit of the bread we eat since the lower level of glycemic index in cassava flour will help to reduce the high level of glycemic index in wheat flour,” Adeshina stated.
Also, commenting, a large-scale farmer, Mallam Salisu Ahmed, revealed to LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that research institutes have assisted in no small measure by developing improved cassava varieties that would boost farmer’s production and keep the country in the lead as the world’s largest producer of the root crop.
Post-harvest losses which occur largely due to the absence of viable storage and processing facilities are some of these challenges which have impoverished farmers and dampened their enthusiasm for farming.
Global dependence on cassava
Over 800 million people world-wide depend on cassava as a regular source of energy. Per capital consumption in West Africa is more than 120kg per annum, while that of Central Africa is more than 300kg per annum. Food and beverage industries use cassava by- products in the production of jelly, caramel and chewing gum, pharmaceutical and chemical industries also use cassava alcohol (ethanol) in the production of cosmetics and drugs.
The products also find ready use in the manufacture of dry cell battery, textiles, school chalk, etc. Cassava cubes are used mainly in the compounding of livestock feeds. Thus, there is a very high demand for cassava products in both the local and international markets. Also, cassava tubers may be processed into a variety of products such as chips, flakes, cubes, peelers, starch, flour, pellets, etc.
Many European and American countries, including Germany, United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands among others demand huge quantities of processed cassava products annually. In fact, the use of cassava for compounding livestock feeds has gained wide acceptance in Latin America and Asia.
There is booming export market and the European Economic Community (EEC Countries) import over 10 million metric tons per annum.
Poultry usage of cassava
Recently, the minister of agriculture met with the Poultry Association of Nigeria were the issue of rising costs for poultry feed and the need to find solutions was discussed. While all the members went to work to find domestic solution, at the end substitution of 10 per cent of maize with cassava grits was proposed as a relatively new product from cassava.
Adesina added that the quantity of cassava grits required annually is about 480,00 metric tons and stakeholders have been assured that 10 per cent is just the starting point since it has been proved that 50 per cent inclusion is possible, while the Poultry Association of Nigeria is offering 50 per cent of the cost of maize for cassava grits and has promised to patronise the producers since they are looking for a cheaper alternative to maize.
The Federal Government recently released four improved cassava varieties, products of about a decade-old conventional breeding research.
They include: NR 01/0004, CR 41-10, TMS 00/0203 and TMS 01/0040. TMS 00/0203 and TMS 01/0040 were bred by scientists at the Ibadan-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), while NR 01/0004 and CR 41-10 were bred by Umudike-based National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) and the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) respectively.
Although cassava is hardy and can survive where most other crops cannot, it responds to good environments when it finds one.
The new varieties seek to strengthen Nigeria’s leadership in cassava production, increase farmers’ incomes and guarantee food security.
Researchers say the key to mitigating changes in environmental conditions and pest and diseases among many others depends on the deployment of suitable varieties that would not suffer from sudden changes in the environment.
Cassava is typically grown by small-scale farmers using traditional methods, and often on land that is not suitable for other crops. Cassava is propagated by cutting a mature stem into sections of approximately 15 centimetres and planting these prior to the wet season. These plantings require adequate moisture during the first two to three months, but are subsequently drought resistant.
The roots are harvestable after six to 12 months and can be harvested any time in the following two years, thus providing farmers with a remarkable amount of flexibility.
It is believed that the global demand for cassava would spur rural industrialisation, contribute to the economic development of producing, processing and trading communities, as well as the well-being of numerous disadvantaged people in the world whose lifestyles would be enhanced by improved production of cassava in Nigeria.


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A unique pair of sports shoes designed by sports equipment company “Adidas” and German porcelain maker “Meissen” may become the first shoe of its kind to sell for a million dollars, according to the expectations of the house “Sotheby’s” which is offering it at auction.
In recent years, auction houses have begun to sell sneakers to collectors, but until now, they have offered only examples of collections, even if some of them are limited collections.
From Monday to December 16, the model offered for sale is unique, and Sotheby’s estimated its value at between “one dollar and one million” dollars.
The Meissen ZX8000 shoes inspired the design of this shoe that Adidas offered for sale and was very popular.
Artisans from Meissen painted the shoe and then attached decorated ceramics to the shoe as well.
This athletic shoe is not intended for actual use and therefore cannot be worn.
The design, rarity, and price of this shoe could push the collector’s athletic shoe market to a new stage.
The price record for a sports shoe was broken several times this year, the most recent of which was the sale of the Air Jordan 1 shoe from Nike for $ 615,000 during an auction organized by Christie’s in mid-August.
Sotheby’s, Sotheby’s, online sales development manager Braham Wachter noted, “There is an evolution in the market that sneakers like this are seen as art.”
Nike was the most popular with collectors through its affiliate brand, “Jordan Brand”, which is associated with historic former NBA star Michael Jordan.
As for the vice president of the “Stokes” e-commerce platform, he believed that the auction houses benefit from the emergence of the culture of “sports shoes” and “use it to attract a new audience to its system.”
“These scarce products offered by auction houses only receive the attention of the richest 0.01 percent of collectors,” he asserted, while specialized platforms such as Stokes provide “access to the rest.”
It’s all in the details 😍 https://t.co/hl6bmvXvGw
— Sneaker Freaker (@snkrfrkrmag) December 6, 2020
Wachter predicts that displaying other unique shoes at auctions will cause a change in the market. It will push new collections of enthusiasts to enter the market and lead to a different “dynamic” of prices.
And he considered that the auction, which begins on Monday, “constitutes a test”, and the proceeds of this auction will be allocated to the Brooklyn Museum in New York and for its programs directed to the city’s youth.
Source: French press