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Agriculture remains a key frontier industry for Sarawak, as examplified by two major events — the Sarawak Agrofest 2018 and International Conference on Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Sarawak 2018 (ICAAS 2018), which are related to the development of agriculture in the state — being held last month.
The Sarawak Agrofest 2018 wase held from Oct 20 to 28, while the ICAAS 2018 was held from Oct 23 and 24 at Penview Convention Centre (PCC) in Demak.
“While the Sarawak Agrofest aims to actively promote agriculture agro-based industry in the state, the ICAAS 2018 will be a fitting platform to share knowledge and experience on new approaches and mechanisms that have been proven to be successful in other parts of Malaysia and other countries, which can be adopted in the state,” said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, who is also the Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development of Sarawak.
A key theme for both events was smart farming, which involves the integration of advanced technologies into farming practices in order to increase production efficiency and the quality of produce.
According to Uggah, the state government strongly believes that industry players must be willing to open their minds, shift their paradigm to adopt and adapt to new, modern and more effective processes and practces.
“The government is committed to equip our players with the latest technology and creating new competitive edges to ensure Sarawak can become the preferred destination for investors and venture capitalists.
“Towards this, ICAAS 2018 emphasises on presenting and deliberating on the field of knowledge areas in modern technology related to agriculture in line with the rapid changes that is happening around the world today,” he said in his welcoming remarks of the ICAAS 2018 opening.
Smart farming involves the integration of advanced technologies into farming practices in order to increase production efficiency and the quality of produce. Every aspect of farming can benefit from technological advancements.
Therefore, the Deputy Chief Minister said it was timely for players to embrace digital technology in order to reap the benefits of modern technology.
Generating more sales
The inaugural Sarawak Agrofest succeeded in generating more than RM1 million worth of sales, having attracted more than 20,000 visitors when it was held from Oct 20 to 28.
Assistant Minister of Native Land Development Datuk Roland Sagah Wee Inn said that while the total sales volume was officially recorded at RM939,554.25, the amount could be more than RM1 million if ‘outside-the-counter’ deals are also included.
“This does not include sales made outside the counter. There are other deals being made with other entrepreneurs through other arrangements.
“I believe the sales itself will be more than RM1 million. That is good business, isn’t it only for one week (duration of the Agrofest),” he said at the Sarawak Agrofest 2018 appreciation dinner in representing Deputy Chief Minister Uggah.
According to Sagah, the average sales per participant based on the total sales volume was RM8,388.88. There were 71 participants for the agro sales and 41 for the agro kitchen.
Sagah also urged the staff and officers of the Ministry of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development to take up the challenge to ensure Agrofest 2019 next year is a bigger success with more sales and more participants.
He said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg agreed to make Agrofest an annual event, and to organise it in other regions in Sarawak.
“While Agrofest 2018 has proven to be success, there is room for improvement. we need to bring together key players throughout the state to exhibit and educate our farmers.
“Only through working together we can make uplift Sarawak agriculture industry and achieve the government’s mission to be a net food exporter by the year 2030,” he said.
Sarawak allocates RM50 million for agriculture development
In its aim to further develop the agriculture sector, the Sarawak government had said it would allocate RM50 million to implement its agriculture development plans in efforts to become a net exporter of food products by 2030.
Uggah said this was necessary to enable Sarawak to compete with countries in this region, as well as to ensure that the quality of food products is of international market requirements.
“At the moment, we are a net importer of food products by RM3.6 million each year and we want to reverse that and the way to reverse that is by using advanced technologies because we need to increase our productivity,” said Uggah to reporters after officiating the International Society for Southeast Asian
Agricultural Science (ISSAAS) Congress 2018.
“We hope that by using the latest technologies, we will increase our productivity, make ourselves more competitive and enable us to reach the target we have set,” he added.
What is smart farming?
Smart Farming represents the application of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into agriculture.
Following the plant breeding and genetics revolutions, smart farming is taking over the agricultural world based upon the combined application of ICT solutions such as precision equipment, the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors and actuators, geo-positioning systems, Big Data and drones.
Smart Farming has a real potential to deliver a more productive and sustainable agricultural production, based on a more precise and resource-efficient approach. Some key segments of smart farming include:
1. Management Information Systems: Planned systems for collecting, processing, storing, and disseminating data in the form needed to carry out a farm’s operations and functions.
2. Precision Agriculture: Management of spatial and temporal variability to improve economic returns following the use of inputs and reduce environmental impact. It includes Decision Support Systems (DSS) for whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources, enabled by the widespread use of GPS, GNSS, aerial images by drones and the latest generation of hyperspectral images provided by Sentinel satellites, allowing the creation of maps of the spatial variability of as many variables as can be measured (e.g. crop yield, terrain features/topography, organic matter content, moisture levels, nitrogen levels, etc).
3. Agricultural automation and robotics: The process of applying robotics, automatic control and artificial intelligence techniques at all levels of agricultural production, including farmbots and farmdrones.
Smart Farming applications do not target only large, conventional farming exploitations, but could also be new levers to boost other common or growing trends in agricultural exploitations, such as family farming.
Smart Farming can also provide great benefits in terms of environmental issues, for example, through more efficient use of water, or optimisation of treatments and inputs.
Youthful potential from HackWknd ICAAS 2018
Meanwhile, youths of today are not left out in the race to uniquely combine technology and agriculture.
A shining example is the Internet of Things (IoT) Based Honey Harvesting Stingless Bee Farm Monitoring System which won the fifth edition of HackWknd held in conjunction with the ICAAS, held together with Sarawak Agro Festival 2018.
Team XBeta with their IoT Based Honey Harvesting Stingless Bee Farm Monitoring System garnered the grand prize of RM1,500, followed by Team Redemption with Farming Monitoring System, and eFarmers with Solar Powered Smart Irrigation Control.
The runner-ups won RM1,000 and RM700 respectively. Team Redemption was also awarded with the People’s Choice Award for the most voted project at Sarawak Agro Festival.
Organised by Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) and supported by Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), HackWknd ICAAS saw over 30 participations from universities and industry competing for prize pool of RM6,000.
“HackWknd ICAAS aims to produce the best technological enabling solution in the agriculture sector by addressing key challenges from Ministry of Modernization of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development (MANRED), and in line with Sarawak Digital Economy Initiatives,” MaGIC said in a statement.
HackWknd is a community driven hackathon aiming to gather the bright mind of people in engaging addressed issue with technological enablement for creative and innovative solution.
The hackathon usually runs from 48 to 52 hours whereas the participants will develop a minimal viable product (MVP) for the given problem statements.
HackWknd ICAAS was mentored by Daniel Vong (BAWA Smart Cane) and Johnson Chong from the Department of Agriculture Sarawak, and judged by Mohd Azhar Rashid (ILoveMedia), Tan Chee Kan (SMA) and Nigel Sim (Chumbaka). The hackathon ran from October 19 to 21, 2018 at MaGIC Sarawak Co-working Space as the satellite venue.
Lintramax: Digitalising the plantation industry
Historically, the plantation or palm oil industry has been one of the key economic drivers for Malaysia, and this is still clearly the case as 2016 figures still indicates that the industry accounts for 13 per cent of our GDP.
Despite its importance, the industry has been rather slow on the uptake of integrating digital tech into their operations as some analysts point out that many companies are unmotivated to upgrade themselves due to an abundance of labour and foreign labour resources in the country.
However, with increased foreign worker levies and minimum wages, it is getting costlier for these companies to avoid going digital and so, there has been increasing interest in the digital solutions available out there for planters.
While there still isn’t any tech out there that can automate palm oil harvesting and eliminate the need for physical labour all together, Khor Kheng Khoon the founder and managing director of plantation management solutions provider LintraMax Sdn Bhd (LintraMax) believes that the next step for planters will be to digitalise a lot of their administrative operations.
“As the world population grows, the demand for edible oil will only increase so there is no doubt that the plantation industry is very resilient,” Khor told BizHive Weekly in an interview recently.
“However, companies still need to adopt technology into their operations as human resources are getting harder to find, lands are getting scarce even in Sarawak, and the cost of quality land is only rising higher.
“Because of this, planters need to make their operations more efficiency and digital tech is one way for them to gain efficiency while being able to control their cost better,” Khor asserts.
‘Many still manually driven’
He went on to detail that many plantation companies in Malaysia, especially smaller companies, are often still manually driven.
“A lot of them are (Microsoft) Excel-based, they incorporate manual book keeping, manual systems, manual data entry and so on,” he said.
“What we (LintraMax) do is to bring forth these plantation companies from being manual intensive to becoming a digital plantation so to speak, using IT software and other technologies to manage it efficiently.
“We provide digital management products and services that help plantations become more efficient by being less dependent on manual labour and easier to supervise.”
Khor explained that this is easily achieved just by incorporating some of LintraMax’s core products.
“For example, with our Quarto product which is an integrated cloud-based plantation management system tailored specifically for palm oil businesses, companies can utilise this all-in-one solution and easily manage their operations on a single system that supports various key operation functions.
“These key features include functions such as accounting, staff payroll, general worker and harvester check-roll, procurement, inventory management, nursery management and vehicle management,” he said.
He explained that the system can easily simplify some of the administrative processes in a plantation company, saving valuable labour and time resources as a company would no longer need to rely heavily on large teams of administrative staff to ensure that all operational data is keyed in and kept up to date.
Being a cloud-based system, Khor commented that data from a company’s plantations can easily be seen by its management or headquarters whenever and wherever they might be in the world, as long as they have access to a working internet connection.
“With their data so easily accessible online, management workflows are streamlined as managerial staff can easily supervise and control operations through the system all while making quicker and better business decisions,” he said.
Adding to that, Khor detailed that the Quarto system also included several analytical tools that could help interpret historical data from plantations to visualise trends and make forecasts.
“Things like how much yield they can expect can be forecasted and besides that, they can also see if there are any areas where they can improve on. For example, companies can easily view the average time taken to transport fresh fruit bunches (FFB) to the oil palm mill or their worker’s efficiency in harvesting.”
Digital moves to enhance processes
Taking the digitalisation of plantations one more step further, LintraMax has also just launched their newest product, a mobile application that complements to their Quarto system, earlier this year.
According to Khor, their new QuartoConnect is an application that is to be used on site as it functions as a tool for planters to digitally record data of their activities on the field which will then be stored in a cloud-based system.
“We saw that there was still an information gap between field operations and monitoring, and that is why we have come up with QuartoConnect. This is our approach to extend the digitisation of plantations to include work at the field level as well, not just at the main office.
“A lot of planters are still very manual with their recording and reporting of field data. This is not only labour intensive but also very time consuming as it may take a long time to report the data back to the main office,” Khor lamented.
To ease this process, the main features that LintraMax’s mobile application boasts is a biometric worker attendance record, a crop harvesting log and a crop evacuation log.
Khor explained that these three main features were developed as they (LintraMax) had discovered that a lack of workers, poor crop harvesting quality and crop losses were among the biggest operation challenges faced by planters.
“The mobile application can be launched on any android device that has a biometric device to read finger prints and a scanner to scan QR codes.
“With worker attendance, workers just have to scan their fingerprints on any device with the application launched and it will automatically record their attendance. By scanning their finger prints, we reduce to possibility of false attendance records and the number of ‘ghost workers’ in a plantation.
“For the crop harvesting and crop evacuation function, when a worker brings over their harvested FFB’s, you just need to key in the amount they have brought and the data is automatically saved while the app directs for a QR code to be printed.
“The QR code can then be scanned at the oil palm mill and the time taken to transport the fruit to the mill will be automatically recorded while any unscanned QR codes can show the amount of lost crops,” he explained.
By digitalising these processes, Khor believes that the traceability and the monitoring of field operations can be drastically improved and the issues of ‘ghost workers’, missing crops and inefficiencies in transporting corps be significantly minimised – causing plantations to see potential yield increases.
“Many of our customers have been increases in their palm oil yields as a result of their increases in operational efficiency. While some increases might seem small, you need to remember that for large companies, even a 0.1 per cent increase in yield from their plantations can easily translate to millions.”
While Khor’s products have demonstrated their value through their LintraMax’s extensive client list throughout the ASEAN region, he guides that this is only the beginning for the digitalisation of the plantation industry.
“There are a lot of other solutions that we plan to tackle once the technology comes about, these include tech such as IoT and better analytics.
“Ten years ago, many companies would be reluctant to consider such solutions but nowadays tech is so readily available around us that it is changing the way we operate at an alarming rate.
Industrial hemp a possibility in Sarawak?
Over the years, the hemp plant has gotten a pretty bad rep worldwide as it is closely associated with the illicit drug marijuana.
However, the truth is, while both hemp and marijuana are from the cannabis plant family, hemp is completely different from marijuana in its function, cultivation and application.
Explaining this difference, Philip Warner, managing director of Ecolife Science Industries told BizHive Weekly that the main differentiating characteristic is that hemp has no illicit drug value.
“What makes marijuana intoxicating is it’s high content of a chemical substance called THC, but hemp plants are different in the sense as that they don’t have high THC levels so they cannot get an individual high or intoxicated.
“The threshold for how low THC levels have to be in order to be considered hemp differs from country to country, but the general consensus is that a less than one per cent THC makeup will not have any illicit drug value to anyone,” he explained.
So with no illicit drug value, what exactly is hemp and how can it benefit us?
According to Warner, hemp is an extremely useful plant that can be cultivated to produce a variety of products, from textiles and building materials to food and medicine, the application of hemp to our daily lives seem to be limitless.
“Almost every part of the plant can be used, its flowers can be used to create valuable medicine, its seeds to produce food and oil, and its leaves and stems to produce textiles and building materials.
“If you were to catch the next spaceship to mars, and they said you could only take on thing with you, what would you take?
“You’d take hemp seed because not only will it grow, propagate and reproduce itself, you can eat it, you can sue it to build your house, you can use it as medicine, you can use it as clothes, you can write with it, you can use it as fuel.
“There so many different applications for it so you’d be much better taking hemp with you than say, wheat or bananas,” he said.
Plenty of health benefits as well
Adding to this, Dr Kylie O’Brien who is the associate professor at National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM) Australia states that the food component from hemp seeds is also extremely nutritious and has much promise as a functional food for the prevention and treatment of many health conditions.
“I think there is a huge number of potential health benefits in consuming hemp oil or seeds as a functional food because the research has shown very clearly that some of the main components (polyphenols, flavonols and flavonoids) of hemp seed and oil have tremendous amount of health benefits.
“For example it is antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and research suggests that it has anti-cancer properties, is good against heart disease, protective against diabetes, neuro degenerative disease, skin disorders and any disorder underpinned by inflammation.
“And it’s not just preventative for diseases, the hemp seeds and oil itself is extremely nutritious as it is full essential fatty acids, high in protein, and rich in vitamins and minerals,” said Dr O’Brien.
Both Wagner and Dr O’Brien were in Sarawak recently giving talks at the International Scientific Conference on INdigenous Crops 2018.
Possible industry in Sarawak?
Hemp’s high nutritional and medicinal value has turned hemp seed and oil products to high value commodities and because of this, Warner believes that this is something that Sarawak should latch onto given the abundant landscape here.
“If you were to ask me how this region can start capitalising on hemp in their agriculture industry, I would suggest starting on food production from hemp.
“Hemp seed foods like big seeds for hemp oil that is rich in essential fatty acids like omega 3, protein, vitamins and minerals, and antioxidants.
“And after extracting the oil from the hemp seeds, the protein left in the seed can be processed to make meal, flour, breads and protein powder. All this are what is possible right now for this region,” he guided while adding that our tropical climate would very suited to growing variants of the plants whose seeds are much larger than the ones we see on the market.
“If you grow hemp for food, you can either export it to other countries as superfoods or you could use it to supplement to local diets and make the state a little more self-sufficient.
“All nations will face crises of health of their people, and it will send them broke if they use conventional foods and medicine. So, we have to change now to better foods and more complimentary medicines which are not owned by multinational giants that are only interested in making profit.
“By doing so, we can help boost the economy while saving on some hefty healthcare costs as the local population will be healthier with their enriched diets.”


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Together with a new batch of emojis, the latest macOS update comes with security, stability, and reliability improvements. As usual, Apple recommends that Mac users update to macOS 10.13.1 High Sierra, and with good reason: It includes an essential patch to the recently discovered WiFi security vulnerability, KRACK.
Why you should update now
Foremost on Apple’s list of macOS updates is the addition of 70 new emojis. Although this is exciting to some, the most compelling reason to update to the latest OS is the security patch for the KRACK WiFi security flaw.
For those who are unfamiliar, KRACK or “Key Reinstallation AttaCK” was discovered in October by researchers who found a serious vulnerability in almost any device that can connect to WiFi (not just Macs). It compromises WPA2, a standard security protocol that protects most WiFi networks, and intercepts data that passes between a wireless device and the router. This exposes private messages, login credentials, and other sensitive data to attackers.
Aside from compromising your data, a successful KRACK attack could also infect your systems with ransomware and other malware. Updating to the latest OS ensures your device gets the latest security patch needed to shield it from KRACK.
Other relevant macOS updates
Aside from important security updates, the new macOS also fixes a bug that makes Bluetooth unavailable when performing Apple Pay transactions, improves the syncing of Microsoft Exchange messages in the Mail app, solves a keyboard bug with the search feature Spotlight, and improves Touch ID accessibility settings.
The macOS 10.13.1 High Sierra update coincides with updates for Apple’s other line of products, including iPhones (iOS 11.1), Apple watch (watchOS 4.1), and Apple TV (tvOS 11.1), all of which get security and performance improvements in their latest operating systems.
To install the update, launch the App Store, then click the Updates tab. Available updates will appear in the topmost section of the app.
Updating to the latest operating system as soon as it becomes available lets you enjoy a better-performing system and stay safe from the exploits of emerging vulnerabilities like KRACK.
Whether you need assistance with automating your devices’ updates or improving your systems’ overall security, our technicians can provide professional advice. Get in touch with us.

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Mark Hurd Videos
Computer Giant Hewlett-Packard to Split In 2
HP to spin off PC and printer division into its own company while main firm will focus on corporate services.
Stocks Looking Up
new acts are non executive chairman rather it. Over at over at HP is actually a former executive at Oracle remember that's Mark Hurd the former chairman CEO of. HP once he is now an executive at Oracle so. Again there's a lot of kind of like this this
Watching Wall Street
Anderson news that he's been hearing about former HP CEO Mark Hurd and his new position can you update us. On what's going ..... now of course this is the latest in the up from former HP CEO Mark Hurd . Q last HP in early August after the company said he violated
Tech Fight: Oracle Calls HP Vindictive
HP sues former CEO Mark Hurd to stop him from taking a job at Oracle.
Stock Market Movers
tell us about the resignation HP's CEO Mark Hurd . You know that was a shocking resignation ..... out on Friday right after the bell. Mark Hurd has been seen as one of the successful ..... ousted because of a pre texting scandal Mark Hurd went in front of congress. Apologize
HP: From Boardroom to Courtroom
filed felony charges. Against former HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn. A senior HP lawyer and three men also face charges HP CEO Mark Hurd will not be charged. launch an investigation in 2005. To find out which HP board member was leaking secrets to the press


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COVID-19 or Coronavirus has impacted people throughout the United States and all over the world. Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, there has been a shortage of protective masks for healthcare workers and communities. Innovative employees at Autoscribe (Parent Company of PaymentVision) are making protective masks using a 3D printer.
The protective masks are being printed using 3D printing plans shared by Billings Clinic Foundation. To help prevent the further spread of COVID-19, masks are being distributed to PaymentVision employees and their family members. Extra protective masks will be donated to local hospitals in need. Keeping the community, employees and their families safe is important to our company.
Thanks to Billings Clinic Neurosurgeon and a local dentist; they developed the plans for printing these reusable masks. To learn more about the masks visit https://www.billingsclinic.com/foundation/.


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There has been an explosion of startups and investment interest in the digital procurement space over the last few years. As companies with new and diverse perspectives tackle shared problems in unique ways, the type and variety of ‘best of breed’ options available in the ecosystem broadens as well.
In this week’s episode, we bring you a session from our recent AOP Digital Outcomes 2022 virtual event. Philip Ideson was joined by Jack Freeman, a Partner at PeakSpan Capital, to talk about the tech trends he is seeing - and how lasting he thinks they will be.
Key takeaways from the interview include:


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The number of people going hungry in the U.S. is at its lowest level since 2007, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
According to the report, 41.2 million people said they were “food insecure” in 2016, meaning that their ability to access adequate food was uncertain for at least a portion of the year.
That number was a 2.4 percent decrease from 2015 when 42.1 million individuals reported that they were food insecure.
The state that reported the most hunger was Mississippi, with 19 percent of households reporting food insecurity. Hawaii, on the other hand, has the lowest rate of residents going hungry, with only 8.7 percent of households reporting food insecurity.
The USDA report says much of the drop is attributed to a decreasing unemployment rate and less inflation of food prices, meaning people can afford to buy more food. full story


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Fiat considers electrifying the Panda
Fiat may bring back the Panda as a model family as part of its plan to become an all-electric car brand by 2030. According to a British media report, a subcompact, an SUV and possibly other variants are planned for the next five years, which will also be offered with electric drive.
The models are to be based on the Centoventi concept, which Fiat had unveiled in 2019 as a preview of a low-cost electric vehicle. In 2020, it was revealed that Fiat plans to put the Centoventi Concept into production.
As Olivier Francois, CEO of the Fiat brand, tells Auto Express, the Italian companys’ future electric model range will be based on two pillars: A model family based around the electric 500, which will be placed as a “style-oriented” offering. The second model family based on the Centoventi, on the other hand, is to forgo curved styling with a consistent focus on practicality.
The Fiat boss did not confirm details of the planned models. According to Auto Express, the models are to be “reasonably priced with a similarly ruthless focus on production costs and the same robust character as the original Panda from the 1980s”. So far, a B-segment “supermini” and a small SUV are planned, with more models on the way.
The Stellantis manager became a little more talkative when it came to possible model names. “What is certain is that I now have the option of inventing a new name or going back to a storied name of the past,” Francois said. “I’m leaning more towards the second because we really have these favourable templates, with a lot of satisfied customers.” The Fiat boss left open whether a practical electric vehicle model in the B-segment could become a new Punto or a “Super Panda”.
According to Auto Express, the new models are to come onto the market as early as 2023 and will be built at the Tichy plant in Poland. Therefore, the Fiat models will “probably use the same Stellantis CMP architecture” as a Peugeot e-208 – and not be based on the upcoming small car platform STLA Small.
Fiat wants to become an all-electric brand by 2030 at the latest. There is no exact year yet, the target is a changeover between 2025 and 2030 – at the EV Day by Stellantis in the summer, it was still said that Fiat would go electric as soon as the electric cars were cheaper across the board than internal combustion engines – because by then, at the latest, there would no longer be a rational reason to buy a petrol car.


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It seems that NIS America and Sega’s sour relationship has finally boiled over.
In an announcement this weekend made by NIS head Takura Yamashita, the company will no longer publish games from Japanese developer Atlus.
No ad to show here.
Atlus was bought out by Sega back in 2013, so one could say that this move was a long-time coming.
“Atlus became very picky about selecting the European publishing partner after it was bought by Sega. It always cherry picked its EU publishing partner based on who offered the highest minimum guarantee on a title by title basis. I noticed that it was very difficult for NIS America to establish an equal-partnership with Atlus,” Yamashita explained to MCV.
He also noted that the contract was terminated around 10 days ago.
While we’re not sure what this ultimately means for the JRPG fans in the EMEA regions, it definitely ends an era for both companies, and indeed fans of games like Persona Q and Persona 4 Golden.
Catch the full interview on MCV here.


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Shares of Hospira (UNKNOWN:HSP.DL) have rallied nicely over the past 12 months, handily outperforming the broader market and closing in on all-time highs.
Last quarter, the maker of specialty injectable pharmaceuticals (SIP) and medical devices reported that its revenue rose 11% year-over-year to $1.1 billion, while its adjusted earnings per share rose 31% to $0.72 per share. 69% of Hospira's top line comes from its SIP segment, 19% comes from medication management devices, and the rest comes from other pharmaceutical products. It topped off those robust earnings by raising its top and bottom line guidance for the full year.
The key question now is whether or not Hospira's stock can keep climbing, so let's study the three most bullish cases for Hospira's continued growth. But before we get started, investors should remember that although these points highlight Hospira's greatest strengths, they do not guarantee that the stock will soar to new highs.
1. A growing footprint in biosimilars
The global market for biosimilars, or generic versions of biologic drugs, is expected to grow from $1.3 billion in 2013 to $35 billion in 2020, according to Allied Market Research. The reason is simple -- more than ten blockbuster biologic drugs with combined annual sales of $60 billion will lose patent protection in the U.S. and Europe over the next four years.
Hospira has a strong pipeline of 11 biosimilars, some shared with Celltrion and Novaquest.
Hospira's Inflectra, which is a biosimilar version of Johnson & Johnson and Merck's rheumatoid arthritis drug Remicade, was approved in Europe last year and launched in several countries in Eastern Europe. Remicade's patents are protected throughout most of Europe until February 2015 and in the U.S. until September 2018. Remicade respectively generated $6.67 billion and $2.27 billion in revenue for Johnson & Johnson and Merck in 2013.
Therefore, Hospira's portfolio of biosimilar versions of blockbuster drugs is expected to fuel stronger top line growth as additional patents expire in the U.S. over the next few years.
2. All clear in North Carolina
One of Hospira's biggest problems in the past was its plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, which has been scrutinized by the FDA since 2011. The company has reportedly spent $487.5 million over the past three years on product and quality charges, mostly related to upgrading the plant.
Besides being a weight on its bottom line, the plant was also bad PR for the company, which has suffered similar manufacturing issues in India and Costa Rica. The embargo of pumps made at its Costa Rica plant, issued by federal regulators last February, has further weighed on growth.
In late July, CEO F. Michael Ball announced that the FDA finally cleared its Rocky Mount plant with no observations -- down from over 20 observations that the plant was originally slapped with. That's a highly positive development which indicates that Hospira's efforts are paying off, and hopefully provides a roadmap for Hospira to solve similar issues in India and Costa Rica.
3. A possible tax inversion
Many U.S. companies have recently lowered their corporate taxes by buying smaller companies in lower-tax nations like Ireland, then moving their headquarters overseas. Companies like Actavis, AbbVie, and Medtronic have all recently adopted that controversial strategy, known as tax inversion. A move from the U.S. to Ireland, for example, could theoretically drop a company's corporate tax rate from as high as 40% to 12.5%.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in late July, Hospira was in talks to purchase Danone's medical nutrition unit for $5 billion to move its headquarters from Illinois to France, which has a 33% corporate tax rate. If Hospira makes the move, it would not only boost its bottom line in the long run, but also diversify its portfolio away from injectables and pumps. Danone's medical nutrition unit generated €1.3 billion in revenue ($1.7 billion) last year -- which would make it a huge new division for Hospira, which reported $4 billion in revenues in 2013.
The Foolish final word
In conclusion, Hospira could certainly climb higher in the future. Its biosimilars portfolio has strong growth potential, it has taken steps to help its plants meet regulatory standards, and it could grow its bottom line and diversify its top line by acquiring Danone's medical nutrition business.


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The Minister of Trade & Industry, Mr. Alan Kyerematen, has closed a deal for a Turkish company to establish a One-District-One Factory project in the Shai Hills area.
This came up when the Minister led a Ghanaian delegation to the Turkey-Africa Economic and Business Forum. Mr. Kyerematen also used the opportunity to have series of meetings with investors from Turkey, including the Executives of Turkish Garment and Textiles Chamber.
This is because under the Industrial Transformation Plan being implemented by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, garment and textiles are strategic sectors selected with special focus to create massive jobs for Ghanaians and to generate foreign exchange through export.
In this regard, a delegation from the Chamber will be visiting Ghana to prospect for partnerships in the sector.
The two-day forum which commenced on Wednesday, October 10 and expected to end on October 11, 2018, is dubbed, “Invest in a Sustainable Future Together: Turkey and Africa”. The forum provides a platform for the business circles from African countries to develop new partnerships which envisions to build together, produce together, sell what’s produced together and share the profit.
Mr. Kyerematen was accompanied by Ambassador Salma Frances Mancell Egala and Dr John Asiedu, an official of Ghana’s Embassy in Turkey.


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The Galaxy S8's facial recognition feature is a security blunder
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider
Out of the slew of new features in the device, the Galaxy S8's facial recognition software is the biggest cause for concern.
Samsung pitches facial recognition as a convenient way to unlock your device, but it also says it's less secure than the other methods for keeping all your stuff safe - in fact, as you set up the phone, you'll see a pop-up that says facial recognition is not as secure as the other means of protection, like the fingerprint sensor, iris scanner, and a passcode.
A few weeks ago, in fact, someone was able to fool the S8's facial recognition with a photo of themselves. (Samsung says it has since updated the S8's software to add more security, and I wasn't able to trick my review unit with a photo of myself.)
Still, the S8 will still warn you that facial recognition isn't secure and could be tricked when you set it up. That's a good move in theory, but in practice it could confuse users.
For example, when you first set up your S8, facial recognition is the first option given to "protect your phone" when you set it up for the first time.
Steve Kovach/Business Insider
The fact that Samsung says facial recognition on the Galaxy S8 isn't secure and still encourages you to set it up is the biggest preventable security snafu I've seen in a major tech product.
This is not a technical achievement. It's an ill-advised attempt to add a wow-factor to the Galaxy S8. My advice: If you get the S8, do not enable facial recognition. Use your fingerprint or a passcode instead. And Samsung should either find a way to make facial recognition equally as secure as those methods or remove it from the phone altogether in a software update.
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There’s been an increased call for producers to get the recognition they deserve for creating the popular tracks of today, coupled with a high amount of critique that popular artists have been getting from naysayers for not prioritizing substantive lyricism. Veteran producer Sonny Digital took to Twitter to rant about this issue and expressed his desire for a “producers union.”
Metro Boomin, on the other hand, took a different route by launching his own label called Boominati Worldwide. His first piece of work under the label, “No Complaints” featuring Drake and Offset, debuted on Friday (June 23) on OVO Sound Radio.
The label will function in partnership with Republic Records and Universal Music Group. The 23-year-old producer and businessman hopes to take his career to the next level with this label, while also giving the appropriate credit to the talented people he takes on who impact the world through their work.
Boomin is responsible for some of the biggest hits of the year, namely “Bad and Boujee,” “Mask Off,” “Tunnel Vision,” and “Bounce Back.” Thus, it shouldn’t be long before he assembles an A-List group of artists and producers. We should especially be on the lookout for what surprises he has in store for us in August, as he will join Bryson Tiller on the Set It Off Tour.


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People will be able to swap household energy supplier within three days after regulator Ofgem approved new plans today.
Switching time is being scythed down from the five weeks it takes at the moment.
There will still be a two-week “cooling off period” in case a customer changes their mind. Within 14 days they can ditch a new contract and go back to their original supplier.
The changes are due to kick in at the end of 2014.
Dermot Nolan, Ofgem’s CEO, said: “Consumers can change their bank in seven days, their mobile phone in just a couple but have to wait significantly longer to switch their energy supplier.
“Following the steps we have taken steps to make the market simpler, clearer, fairer, we are now leading a programme which will deliver faster, more reliable switching.”
In another four years, next-day switching will be possible according to Ofgem which also published new proposals to replace the IT systems used in the switching process. These were originally developed in the 1990s.
Part of this 2018 change is a centralised service to manage duel fuel tariff switching.
Consumer group Which? wanted 24 hour switching “as quickly as possible”.
Fast switching wasn’t the only thing which would help energy users, said Executive Director Richard Lloyd: “It will also be essential that suppliers do more to introduce simple pricing so consumers can easily see the best deal for them before they switch.”


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Fairfax Media Ltd's New Zealand Media business, comprising 97 newspapers and 19 websites, has reported lower revenue and lower earnings.
Advertising revenue of the New Zealand Media business fell 5.7 per cent to $A247.9 million in the year to June from a year ago, according to the result published by the Australian parent.
Circulation revenue fell 6.6 per cent to $A105 million. Total revenue fell 5.7 per cent to $A361.4 million.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 11.1 per cent to $A67.6 million and earnings before interest and tax fell 12 per cent to $A58.5 million.
The company said that in local currency terms, the New Zealand publishing business recorded a 2 per cent decline in revenue and an 8 per cent decline in earnings.
TVNZ on Friday reported a 6.5 per cent rise in advertising revenue in local currency terms and nearly tripled its dividend to government.
Fairfax's New Zealand Media business increased revenue from online and mobile platforms by 41 per cent to $NZ10 million ($A7.98 million).
The company said it has launched a programme to reduced costs in its entire business in Australia and New Zealand by $A85 million.
Rationalisation of its printing business may deliver up to $A30 million of this. The company was also planning to rationalise distribution.
The company employs 2,117 full-time and 378 part-time and casual employees in New Zealand, according to its accounts.
There was a $A77.3 million writedown of the value of mastheads, customer relationships and goodwill for the New Zealand Media business.


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Figures out today show the UK’s using more plastic bags, but usage in Ireland, where they charge for bags, is dropping. Meanwhile, our poll of over 3,000 shows huge support for free bags. Will our cynics be swayed?
Back in November I reported on plans to ban free plastic bags in Wales and asked whether paying 5p per bag would help make us greener.
Your comments rolled in – many agreed that paying for bags was the way forward, but others were firmly against the idea – creating a healthy, balanced debate.
Let’s pay for bags
‘[The charge] definitely changed things in Ireland when they introduced it in 2002,’ enthused Mhanley. ‘It has cut down the number of plastic bags that were often seen flying about as litter, I think it’s a great thing to have introduced this. I don’t know why the UK has taken so long to get there.’
Sophie Gilbert agreed, but went one step further, asking, ‘I wonder if just 5p is going to be that big a deterrent. Maybe 20p would be better.’
And, for Fat Sam, ‘it shouldn’t cost us anything other than a change in attitude – we remember to take the strong bags as much as we remember to take [our] wallet. It’s a no brainer. No excuse. Do not pass Go until you re-use your bags.’
Then we watched as the poll votes rocketed through the roof. With nearly 3,500 votes, this is easily our most popular poll to date – and the results paint quite a different picture to the comments.
Bags should be free
Over 80% of you (2,480 people) insisted that plastic bags should be free. A further 12% thought paying 5p per bag was about right, and only 7% thought they should cost more.
So what were the arguments against the scheme? Peter Robinson raised the issue of reusing them as bin bags. ‘We have a kitchen waste bucket and we line it with supermarket bags. If bags are abolished I will have to purchase rolls of bin liners,’ he argued, with many others backing him up.
Meanwhile, Mal admitted that charging for carriers has changed their attitude in the opposite way: ‘I did the majority of my food shopping at Marks & Spencer for the best part of twenty years until they started charging for bags. I haven’t shopped there since.’
UK plastic bag use on the rise
So, who’s right? Obviously, I’m biased, but I spotted some new figures about plastic bag use today, and they seem to point firmly in favour of charging for bags.
While plastic bag use in Britain rises, usage in Ireland (which imposed a tax on plastic bags in 2002) has fallen dramatically. Figures by the New Statesman from official government sources show that the monthly number of bags used by each person in the UK dropped from 11 in 2002 to 7.2 in 2009 and then rose to 7.7 last year. In Ireland, figures compiled from plastic bag tax receipts show usage has dropped from 27 in 2002 to just two in 2009.
With those numbers, it’s hard to argue that the tax isn’t having a strong impact on consumer behaviour in Ireland. So if you were one of those 81% who said bags should be free, has it changed your mind – or will you wait and see how Wales fares when it introduces its ban in October?
What do you think about paying for plastic bags?
They should be free (81%, 2,841 Votes)
5p per bag is about right (12%, 418 Votes)
We should pay more than 5p (7%, 238 Votes)
Total Voters: 3,497


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Cruisers will be able to save thousands on their next cruise and be in the running to win one of more than $100,000 worth of cruises during Cruise Week 2014.
Running from 1-8 September, Cruise Week is one of the biggest promotions in the industry with major deals across all Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) member cruise lines.
The week will launch with a 32-page cruise magazine called Discover, produced by the Cruise Passenger team that create this newsletter and the glossy magazine. It will be inserted in News Limited papers around the country on Sunday, 31 August. On this date, you can choose which one of the ten cruises below you want to win:
- APT: a 13-day Bali to Manila cruise on MS Caledonian Sky – valued at $24,980
- Evergreen Tours: a 15-day Amsterdam to Budapest river cruise on the new “Star Ships” with flights included – valued at $20,000
- Scenic Tours: a 13-day South of France river cruise in a Scenic Tours “Space Ship” – valued at $19,240
- Avalon Waterways: a 13-day Mekong river cruise through Vietnam and Cambodia with flights included – valued at $15,000
- Compagnie du Ponant: eight-night cruise to Japan and South Korea – valued at $10,500
- Celebrity Cruises: an eight-night cruise on Celebrity Century from Sydney to Adelaide – valued at $3360
- Carnival Cruise Lines: an eight-day South Pacific cruise on Carnival Spirit – valued at $2958
- Cunard Line: two nights in a balcony stateroom on Queen Mary 2 from Brisbane to Sydney – valued at $1900
- P&O Cruises: a four-night cruise for two on Pacific Pearl from Melbourne to Sydney – valued at $1798
- P&O Cruises World Cruising: a three-night cruise for two on Arcadia from Sydney to Brisbane – valued at $1400
Entries open on 31 August via your state’s News Limited newspaper website.
Find a copy of Discover in your state newspaper:
New South Wales – The Sunday Telegraph
Victoria – The Sunday Herald Sun
Queensland – The Sunday Mail
South Australia – The Sunday Mail
Western Australia – The Sunday Times
Tasmania – The Sunday Tasmanian
Discover is a produced by Cruise Passenger and Cruise Lines International Association Australasia.


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What to expect from the Engadget Experience, our immersive art + tech event
The brightest minds in entertainment, art and technology converge on LA for one day only.
Nonny de la Peña, Eugene Chung illuminate the Engadget Experience
The future of creativity is coming to the Ace Hotel theatre in Los Angeles this November.
The Hero 6 and 'GP1' is GoPro's chance to grow again
Facial recognition is the next frontier for the action-cam company.
Climbkhana: Ken Block explains Pikes Peak assault in latest Gymkhana video
An exclusive look behind the scenes.
'Arktika.1' shooter arrives on Oculus Rift October 10th
'Arktika.1' is from the 'Metro: 2033' and 'Metro: Last Light' team.
Insta360's next camera may shoot orbiting video while stationary
It's as if you're swinging the camera around you.
NYC is getting a huge new VR conference this fall
The NYVR Expo will run alongside PhotoPlus Expo in October.
Intel’s 18-core chip was a risk. It will probably pay off.
The company's most powerful CPU ever was built for superfans.
Amazon's next Echo will be more like Apple's HomePod
It'll be an improved smart speaker in just about every way.


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Small business confidence remained steady in February, with a half point increase to 51.7 on the long-term optimism index, but still at its historical lowest outside of recessions, according to the latest Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) Business Barometer.
“While confidence levels have improved slightly, they’re still below pre-pandemic levels. In fact, even during the pandemic, we’ve seen better times,” said Simon Gaudreault, the CFIB’s Chief Economist and Vice-President of Research. “The confidence levels didn’t get worse this month but didn’t improve significantly either, suggesting a slow recovery and uncertainty around the economy. Many businesses continue to feel the burden of years of subpar business conditions, which are now compounded by all sorts of rising costs.
“For small business owners, the past few years were like running a marathon uphill. Now they realize it’s not over yet. They don’t know whether interest rates will continue increasing, how to lure customers back amid high inflation, or where to find qualified staff.
“All this makes them question the viability of their business and whether they should just drop out of the race and close their doors for good. With budget season fast approaching, it is urgent governments consider all options to relieve them of some financial pressure, including extended repayment and debt forgiveness for COVID-related loans like CEBA (Canada Emergency Business Account).”
In a separate February CFIB survey, the national organization said one in two business owners reported revenues were below normal for this time of year, with only one third of businesses making normal profits. A share of 58 per cent are still holding some pandemic-related debt, at an average of $106,000, showing no meaningful improvement since November readings of 58 per cent and $114,000. Expenditures are also under pressure, with close to six in10 businesses reporting they are above normal, said the CFIB
The shares of businesses struggling with energy (69 per cent), wage (63 per cent), insurance (59 per cent) and product input (45 per cent) costs are all above their historical averages, according to the February Business Barometer. And 38 per cent of businesses are now citing borrowing costs as a challenge, a new historical high and double the share from 12 months ago, it added.
“While the Bank of Canada has a core mandate to fight inflation and keep it reasonably close to the 2% target, our February data shows that a large part of the small business sector is currently under great financial pressure due to subpar revenues, accumulated pandemic debt and a rapid and significant rise in interest rates,” said Gaudreault. “The next few months will be critical to the future of many of them, and any fiscal or monetary policy decisions should be evaluated with that reality in mind.”
Marc Ercolao, Economist with TD Economics, said headwinds impacting the growth outlook for the Canadian economy are creating a mixed picture for small businesses. The uptick in confidence in recent months is welcome, but overall optimism is relatively blunted compared to historical levels.
“Small businesses are under greater financial pressure as the significant rise in interest rates continues to weigh on borrowing costs and debt servicing. The data suggests that businesses remain increasingly uncertain around the outlook over the next year–over 70 per cent have performance expectations of at least the same or worse over the next year. The consumer is also likely to be put under increased financial stress over 2023, which will weigh on both consumer spending and growth, ultimately affecting business’ bottom lines,” he said.
Canada’s Podcast is the number one podcast in Canada for entrepreneurs and business owners. Established in 2016, the podcast network has interviewed over 600 Canadian entrepreneurs from coast-to-coast.
With hosts in each province, entrepreneurs have a local and national format to tell their stories, talk about their journey and provide inspiration for anyone starting their entrepreneurial journey and well- established founders.
The commitment to a grass roots approach has built a loyal audience with over 120,000 downloads and thousands of subscribers on all our social channels and YouTube. Canada’s Podcast is proud to provide a local, national and international presence for Canadian entrepreneurs to build their brand and tell their story.


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Terrace will host the fifth ThriveNorth Business Challenge award ceremony that will take place on May 7 at the REM Lee Theatre.
The annual competition gives new and aspiring business owners between the ages of 18 and 39 from across northern B.C. the opportunity to showcase their business idea for a chance to win up to $10,000 to make their dream a reality.
Hosted by Futurpreneur Canada, the ThriveNorth Business Challenge supports applicants by providing online pitch training for both semi-finalists and finalists, as well as exclusive resources and one-on-one coaching to prepare for the live pitching competition in front of a panel of judges and a live audience.
“We’re excited to be able to bring back the ThriveNorth Business Challenge for the fifth year,” said ThriveNorth project manager Joanne Norris. “We encourage all young entrepreneurs living in northern B.C. communities of 25,000 people or less to apply. Even as a semi-finalist you get an incredible amount of support to help you with your business idea.”
ThriveNorth Business Challenge categories are:
Best New Business (18-28): a business at any stage prior to launch or within their first 12 months in business, by an entrepreneur between the ages of 18 and 28 – $10,000
Best New Business (29-39): a business at any stage prior to launch, or within their first 12 months in business, by an entrepreneur between the ages of 29 and 39 – $10,000
Best Growth Opportunity (18-39): a business currently in operations looking to expand through increased staff, new locations or new products and services – $10,000
Participants will also be given the opportunity to cast their vote for a People’s Choice Award worth $5,000. People will be able to cast their vote via Facebook prior to the final event and at the event itself.
To apply for the ThriveNorth Business Challenge visit www.thrivenorth.ca to apply – the deadline for applications is March 20.
“Last year we received nearly 100 applications and we expect the competition to be just as fierce this year,” added Norris.
Kitimat entrepreneurs that have received assistance from the Futurpreneur program since it was launched include YA Films, a production company run by creative director Gilda Diaz and production member Andrew Stewart, and Reltek Installation and Solutions, an installation and maintenance company launched in 2017 by Lorne Kethler.


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By Brian Bradley / www.americanshipper.com / April 9th, 2019
The USTR has listed for retaliation about 315 items, including agricultural products, apparel, ceramics, metals and kitchen goods.
As the U.S. awaits a World Trade Organization arbitrator’s determination of any countermeasures the U.S. may impose on the EU in connection with a dispute over aircraft subsidies, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Tuesday released a preliminary listof EU products marked for tariffs.
USTR is undertaking a statutory process to identify EU products to which additional duties may be applied until the EU removes subsidies to aircraft manufacturer Airbus that the WTO has found to be unfair, USTR said.
The agency is releasing the preliminary list for public comment and estimating the harm from EU subsidies as $11 billion in trade every year.
“Once the WTO arbitrator issues its report on the value of countermeasures, USTR will announce a final product list covering a level of trade commensurate with the adverse effects determined to exist,” the announcement says.
USTR is proposing for retaliation about 315 products from the entire EU and nine products from France, Germany, Spain or the United Kingdom, specifically. Among the products included in the EU-wide proposed retaliation list are agricultural products, apparel, ceramics, metals and kitchen goods.
The WTO in May 2018 issued an appellate report stating the EU must end certain ongoing financial support for Airbus’ biggest passenger planes.
The U.S. requested authorization from the WTO to impose countermeasures worth $11.2 billion per year, commensurate with adverse effects caused by EU subsidies. A WTO arbitrator is evaluating those claims after the EU challenged the estimate, and is expected to issue a decision this summer.
“This case has been in litigation for 14 years, and the time has come for action. The [Trump] administration is preparing to respond immediately when the WTO issues its finding on the value of U.S. countermeasures,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement. “Our ultimate goal is to reach an agreement with the EU to end all WTO-inconsistent subsidies to large civil aircraft. When the EU ends these harmful subsidies, the additional U.S. duties imposed in response can be lifted.”
Terry Stewart, international trade attorney and managing partner of Stewart and Stewart law firm, said there's nothing surprising or unusual about USTR's release of the proposed retaliation list, as it is common for countries to issue such a notice at this stage of a WTO case.
"This both lets them handle any internal domestic procedures and serves to alert its trading partner(s) of what retaliation could look like. That is all that the U.S. has done," Stewart said via email. "While arbitrators usually find less retaliation is justified than what was sought, the U.S. will simply modify its list once the value of retaliation has been confirmed by the arbitrator."
An EU spokesperson on Tuesday noted the United States’ $11 billion retaliation list is based on U.S. internal estimates that the WTO hasn’t awarded.
The spokesperson added that the EU will seek WTO authorization to retaliate against the U.S. in connection with the EU’s case against U.S. subsidies to Boeing. The WTO Appellate Body issued its decision on the case in March.
“The [European] Commission is starting preparations so that the EU can promptly take action based on the arbitrator’s decision on retaliation rights in this case,” the EU spokesperson said. “The European Union remains open for discussion with the United States, provided these are without preconditions and aimed at a fair outcome.”
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In an effort to collaborate with more outside talent, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on Friday announced the formation of an incubator that will provide PARC research expertise to technology startups.
The venture, dubbed [email protected], will bring in selected companies to partner with PARC researchers, with the intent that the teams fully develop their products and connect then with venture capitalists for additional funding, said Mark Bernstein, president and center director of PARC.
PARC was founded in 1970 as part of Xerox Research and was incorporated as an independent research business in 2002. Its work has led to the development of technologies like laser printing, Ethernet and the graphical user interface (GUI).
PARC has traditionally developed its products in-house, but recent work with two successful startups prompted inquiries from other interested parties.
"We thought the best thing to do would be to create a formal program to invite entrepreneurs to talk with us and see if there is a good fit between competencies and whether we can accelerate what it is they're trying to bring to market," Bernstein said.
Starting Friday, interested startups can go to the PARC Web site and fill out a submission page for consideration, according to Bernstein. PARC will be looking for companies on which PARC can "have a significant impact," he said.
The effort is "not looking for people with widgets or 'me-too' ideas," Bernstein said. "We're looking for people who really have unique ideas [that] match the competencies that we have here. It's actually looking at bringing entrepreneurs in at a fairly pre-investment stage to develop their ideas."
Fifty- or hundred-employee companies who are looking for their B round of financing need not apply, Bernstein said. Ideally, participants would be "startups with a few folks who have an idea, who have grounded first principles that are feasible and really need the horsepower" that PARC can provide, he said.
One such venture is SolFocus, a solar technology company that was incubated at PARC and has thus far raised $84 million in capital. It will enable solar energy to be cost-competitive with conventional energy sources via photovoltaic technology.
PARC got involved with SolFocus quite by accident when two of its researchers sat with SolFocus employees during a lunch break at a California conference. They started talking about the venture, and SolFocus was invited to the PARC facility, where researchers have developed the product over the last eighteen months, Bernstein said. SolFocus recently finished its second round of financing and has opened its own offices near PARC headquarters.
PARC also provided assistance to San Francisco-based Powerset, which developed an adaptive search engine that is not bound to the traditional keyword model. "We contributed our patents, our code and our research talent to help get them started," Bernstein said.
The success of SolFocus and Powerset led to the creation of [email protected], Bernstein said. PARC's expertise can help startups with "everything from having a place to be, connecting with [venture capitalists], angel investors and tech competencies," he said.
The venture does not have set deadlines by which participants must produce concrete results. "We expect each engagement to be unique [and] to have a fair amount of customization on this," Bernstein said. "It is not a cookie cutter process."
In terms of financing, PARC is "putting our own funds in terms of research talent" and the intellectual property that PARC is investing, he said. "We can get them in front of venture funding and help support the business as it goes forward. It is not as if once they're funded, we don't have anything more to offer."
PARC is "not extraordinarily adept at being able to sell in the market" but it is "very good at getting the technology to where it's engaging with customers and responding to needs," Bernstein said.


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Filed under: Hybrid, Plants/Manufacturing, Hatchback, Toyota
California Toyota dealers may or may not be running out of Priuses, but the hybrid is most certainly still popular. How else to explain the news that one million of the iconic fuel-mizers have been sold in the U.S., as Toyota just announced.
Back in mid-2008, the company said it had sold one million Priuses around the world, which was a big enough deal. To reach that landmark, it took around five years; the first Prius was introduced over a decade ago, but it was the second-generation Prius, introduced in 2003, that really sparked sales. It took Toyota only two more years to sell another million Priuses, and Toyota has sold over three million total hybrids as of October 2010. That sounds impressive, but Charlie Sheen got 3.4 million followers on Twitter in, like, a minute, so let’s keep things in perspective.
Gallery: 2011 Toyota Prius
Photos copyright (C)2011 Drew Phillips / AOL
Continue reading Milestone Accomplished: Toyota sells one million Prius hybrids in U.S.
Milestone Accomplished: Toyota sells one million Prius hybrids in U.S. originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ePHOTOzine brings you a daily round up of all the latest photography news including camera news, exhibitions, events, special offers, industry news, digital photography news, announcements and launches.
Olympus are bolstering their E-System with new Zuiko Digital lens featuring the Supersonic Wave Drive AF system.
The Toploader Zoom AW Series of camera bags is coming soon from Lowepro.
World's first professional digital SLR system with interchangeable lenses based on the Four Thirds Standard.
Offer to get up to £150 cashback runs until mid April
Canon have announced their 20th anniversary cashback consumer promotion.
Canon have announced their Spring series of cashback promotions on the EOS range.
Three exciting offers for the Olympus E-30, E-620 and Zuiko Digital Lenses.
The latest Olympus four thirds series digital SLR is currently the world’s smallest
Attractive cash back promotion for selected Zuiko Digital lenses.
Between 2 and 5 March, Olympus will unveil, for the first time ever, prototypes of the new Four Thirds system digital SLR camera, lenses and accessories.
HTC has announced a new smartphone with a camera designed for optimum image quality with an UltraPixel sensor.
Nikon today introduces Nikon 1, a revolutionary digital camera system built from scratch to offer still image and movie recording without compromise.
Following Jessops' plans to axe 81 of its shops as announced last Thursday, the photographic retail giant have unveiled exactly which stores it plans to close down.
Sony introduce a series of small cameras which they say will give a 'big performance'.
A clever photo of a family inside small boxes has helped a Nottingham photographer pick up his first national award.
Lee Filters holder for Nikon's 14-24mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens
Corel add 75 new features to the latest version of their PaintShop Pro software.
Red Digital Cinema turn their attentions to the photography market.
Apple are currently offering Apple Macs bundled with Adobe Creative Suite 3.
The Bureau of Freelance Photographers has launched a new website.
Nikon announces development of F-Mount 800mm super-telephoto lens.
Canon Japan has announced the Canon EOS M2 - the update to the Canon EOS M.
Retro designed, SLR-shaped digital compact with a host of advanced features in a compact, lightweight body.
The winners of the MPA Kodak Wedding and Portrait Awards 2010 have been announced.
The winners of the Harman UK Student 2012 Competition 'Beauty and the Beast' have been announced.
Nikon has announced the new Nikon Df Digital SLR, with retro styling and manual controls.
You can vote for ePHOTOzine this week in the Pixel Trade Awards. Hurry - voting closes on Friday 25!
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After some anticipation, Longmont residents have a new neighborhood pizzeria. Planning began last year for Rosalee's Pizzeria, which opened up last week at 461 Main Street. Pizza fans were updated on the progress via Facebook. James and Amy Ross own the restaurant, located in the former Abbondonza Pizzeria space.
Though initial plans indicated the pizzeria would open in Summer 2014, the date kept getting pushed back. The couple turned to an online crowd-funding campaign website, asking for a bit of financial support for a final push.
Rosalee's opened on October 30, and so far, the response has been overwhelming. After opening day, the couple posted on Facebook thanking the community for their support, and that "dreams can come true!" The response has been so popular that they're having a bit of trouble keeping up with demand.
The husband and wife duo call their concept, "an old world East Coast style neighborhood pizzeria." Their pizza is modeled after some of the earliest pizzerias in the United States. While the pizza isn't gourmet, the couple takes pride that their food isn't "engineered in a food laboratory." Instead, they focus on providing a homemade, rustic pie, in a friendly neighborhood environment where guests can socialize with friends and family. The menu offers both pizza "rounds" and "squares." There is a gluten-free pie, too. And customers are raving about the house-made dough knots, which are available in garlic or sausage.


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Stainless steel tripod casting worlds first
Gitzo has launched a tripod with a world’s first technology – the Ocean Traveler.
The Ocean Traveler incorporates the world’s first stainless steel tripod casting in the latest model of the ‘Traveler’ series.
The Ocean Traveler also features Gitzo’s unique Carbon 6x material, resulting in both sturdiness and light weight, while the combination of materials mean the tripod can even be used in salt water.
The stainless steel castings are made using Metal Injection Moulding, and then treated in a way to completely close the material for porosity, even at microscopic levels.
The Ocean Traveler boasts ‘Ocean-Lock’ mechanisms on the tripod’s legs that boast special inserts at each in of the sections to minimise water and debris in the tubes and mechanisms.
The Ocean Traveler tripod is available now with an RRP of £799.95. Visit Gitzo’s website for more information


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As far as media attention goes, April 11, 2014, was a banner day for Greg Finch. As the lone supplier of antibiotic-free, pastured Vermont pork to the highly acclaimed 5-Knives, a specialized supplier of local pork, Finch was offered what amounted to subsidized advertising space in the Burlington Free Press. The paper’s staff reporter, Sally Pollak—who told me she met Finch at a coffeehouse—served as stenographer for Finch, who delivered his talking points:
To [raise pigs] without the modern crutches of medicine, it’s management that makes you successful.... Doing things the right way all the time.... I take the best information I can find and adapt it to what I do.
This time around, with local foods, the farmer is a big part of the market, which is the exciting part of it.... It’s more of a collaboration. It’s much better for the farmer, and more vibrant for the farm.
I’m very, very careful about bio-security.
Experienced observers will recognize these remarks as boilerplate rhetoric, the kind that characterizes much of today’s food writing. A year later, though, Finch finds himself mired in media muck rather than admiration.
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture recently revealed that much of Finch’s “Vermont” pork came from Pennsylvania pigs. Twice a month Finch headed south to an auction house in New Holland, purchased 50 or so conventionally raised pigs, and hauled them back to the Green Mountain State, where he had them processed into “local” bellies, hams, and other choice cuts.
It was a profitable move while it lasted. Finch paid 60 cents a pound for the pigs in Pennsylvania. Sally Pollak, for one, admitted spending about $13 a pound for Finch’s ham at City Market, a Burlington co-op. It was price she deemed well justified. “It was a delicious piece of meat,” she wrote.
The more a food system fragments to serve localized markets the harder it becomes to regulate, at least in the way that we currently understand regulation.
The fact that such culinary chicanery can happen is distressing enough, especially for anyone who values locally sourced meat or, for that matter, honesty. And while it appears the punishment for Finch’s duplicity will be harsh—he faces tens of thousands of dollars in fines for 94 counts of violating the state’s importation laws— there’s another, even more disturbing, dot to which this story connects.
Consumers paying top dollar for falsely advertised boutique pork won’t be happy to learn that, two days before the Finch allegations broke, the New Holland auction house he frequented was cited for animal welfare violations.
Workers at New Holland Sales Stables tossed an injured goat and sheep onto a carcass pile, whereupon the animals “remained overnight in freezing weather,” according to Lancaster Online. Both animals were eventually euthanized because “of the severity of their condition.” “Misleading advertising about animal welfare is rampant in the meat industry, and this may be yet another case of it,” says Paul Shapiro, vice president for farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States.
In an agricultural landscape populated with more and more non-industrial animal farms—which are increasingly favored by conscientious consumers—it’s tempting to dismiss the Finch incident as a one off. But his case all too accurately reflects two of the most entrenched problems faced by downsized farms in a decentralizing food system: regulation and scale.
The more a food system fragments to serve localized markets the harder it becomes to regulate, at least in the way that we currently understand regulation (which, although far from perfect, is federally mandated and executed through standardized United States Department of Agriculture procedures). Sure, Finch got caught. But the only reason for that is the USDA inspection procedure that Finch’s pigs went through at the slaughterhouse. It was there that a federal inspector noticed “NH”—New Holland—tattoos on the pigs.
When it comes to scale, farmers choosing to raise animals in a non-industrial manner must—unless they are farming as a hobby—seek wider markets to survive. Connecting with a commercially successful retailer—think Niman and Whole Foods—means scaling up to meet orders. Given the growing popularity of boutique meat, the pressure intensifies quickly for small producers to do the near impossible: generate high volume output through low-volume techniques.
With 5-Knives and Finch, this pressure became acute. One purchaser of Finch’s pork told VtDigger: “My feeling ... is that [Finch] was trying to make the volume, he cut some corners and he made a really, really, really careless mistake.” Chris Bailey, CEO of Vermont Smoke and Cure, which oversaw the 5-Knives label, is perhaps now more aware of this problem than ever. “We’ll never again let any producers tell us that we can’t come onto their farm,” he says.
As I’ve noted before, a powerful libertarian impulse drives the Food Movement. The deregulatory approach that made Finch’s move possible suits many in the movement just fine. Even those in the movement who advocate for stronger regulatory oversight limit their proposals to industrial operations, working under the impression that small farmers plugged into local economies are somehow ipso facto honest farmers. Vermonters eating abused factory-raised pigs while thinking they’re eating pastured local pork are the latest example of how foolish this idea is.
The Things We Eat is a regular Pacific Standard column from James McWilliams on food, agriculture, and the American diet.


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On Friday, the online retail store Bitcoin Movement (BTCMVMNT) launched a limited edition streetwear line with a blockchain-based “authentication” system.
The 300-item collection, designed with the support of British entrepreneur and rapper Zuby, consists of 50 hoodies, 125 hats and 125 t-shirts, all of which bear the “21 million” logo and represent the maximum number of Bitcoins that ever forgiven will be degraded.
Each piece in the collection entitled “Take the Power Back” contains a near-field communication chip that is connected to the VeChain blockchain. Using a mobile application provided by the Bitcoin movement, customers can scan a sticker attached to the garment and the application pulls real-time product information from VeChain.
If the product is authentic, the application will display the message “100% authentically verified”. In addition, the app shows the specific version number of the garment and the unique transaction ID that connects it to the blockchain.
Daryl Kelly, founder of the Bitcoin movement, commented, “I wanted our first limited edition blockchain collection to be truly representative of the philosophy of Bitcoin. Embodiment of the attributes that made it so disruptive, successful, and attractive to those seeking truth and transparency. VeChain’s industry leading public blockchain technology is a perfect fit for our movement. “
This collaboration isn’t the only instance of Limited Release Mode that relies on blockchain technology to prevent counterfeiting. Recently, fashion manufacturers all over the world have started using blockchain technology in the field of supply chains or in the field of checking product authenticity.
On September 3, the Alexander McQueen fashion house launched a new blockchain label that allows both designers and consumers to securely register and trade clothes.


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Gorilla Glass wrapped Galaxy S8 Active
Gorilla Glass wrapped Galaxy S8 Active ditches the Infinity Display for ruggedness
No more imagination is left behind with the arrival of Samsung Galaxy S8 Active. As we have been going through several leaks about the device, months ago, making us view the phone virtually every angle and we get a sneak peak, of a prematurely launched carrier page, in July 2017. There was nothing left behind but the official launch of the phone.
The Galaxy S8 Active, that hit the AT&T stores on 11th of August, is a rugged handset, that had been a pre ordered a couple of weeks ahead of the launch date.
Samsung has ditched the most iconic feature of the S8, the Infinity Display, to make the Active rugged, sufficiently. What’s the thing making the flagship extremely vulnerable? It the Gorilla Glass on both sides, wrapping the device edge-to-edge makes it extremely vulnerable to drops. Plenty of YouTube videos is attesting the feature.
The rugged improvements furnish the phone basically unrecognizable as an S8, despite the company’s strong commitment to aesthetic consistency towards product lines. A bumper is encasing the sides of the device completely, that considerably monopolizes the bezel space on the front.
According to the fine print, the phone can survive a five-foot drop onto a flat surface. However, the scratches and other damages to screen or body of the flagship are not guaranteed. But the device can resist the water in five feet for up to 30 minutes making the same rating as the standard S8.
You can’t escape the attractive flagship as it’s not a bad looking phone, unlike the other rugged phones. Differentiating the ordinary everyday phones and those the military grade, like the CAT S50, it’s like an Otterbox case, that you can never take off.
Hopefully, a range of you people will not disagree the point that the phone is best kept in cases to protect from ruin we do to it. So the best phone is Samsung Galaxy S8 Active with edge-to-edge Glass casing, which doesn’t compel us to wrap another case around and hide the beauty of the phone.
Surprisingly, a 4,000mAh battery puts the device over the S8’s 3000mAh capacity. This feature makes the device cool one because the kind of capacity it owns is considered the best over the other devices that company offered.
The smartest way to use Galaxy S8 Active with Bixby. Bixby is an intelligent interface that learns from you to help you get more done. Bixby includes intelligent vision, a personalised home page, voice and smart reminders.
You can just enjoy it with a personal and intelligent voice assistant.


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L.A. City Council Approves Vaccine Mandate for Indoor Restaurants, Bars, & More
6 Oct 2021451
The Democrat-run Los Angeles city council approved restrictions to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours to enter indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, malls, and other businesses, ABC News reports.
The ordinance scored 11 votes and will be effective November 4th. Grocery stores and pharmacies were excluded from the mandate.


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Jan 23rd, 2019
PUMA Golf signs with Gary Woodland
In multi-year partnership
Today, PUMA Golf announced a multi-year partnership with celebrated PGA Tour professional Gary Woodland that will see him wearing PUMA Golf apparel, footwear and accessories on the course,
Woodland will wear pieces from the brand’s Volition America Collection, a patriotic ensemble of products, to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Volition America supports the families of our military heroes through the Folds of Honor Foundation.
“PUMA prides itself in not only aligning with stellar golfers and athletes, but great people as well. To that end, Gary is a wonderful addition to our Tour Team, and the perfect ambassador to lead our Volition America Collection on course,” said Dan Ladd, Sr. Vice President of Sales & Marketing, COBRA PUMA GOLF. “We’re excited to have him on the team and are looking forward to seeing him continue to play great in patriotic style.”
Woodland attended the University of Kansas on a golf scholarship, winning four tournaments as an amateur. Since he turned professional in 2007, Woodland has captured three PGA Tour wins, first one at the Transitions Championship in 2011, the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2013 and most recently, the Waste Management Open in 2018. He kicked off the 2019 season with a runner up finish at The Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course in Hawaii, and is currently the #24 ranked player in the world.
“My grandfather was in the military, and I’ve been part of the Folds of Honor Foundation since 2009, so having the opportunity to wear PUMA’s Volition America collection is the perfect fit for me. I’m proud to support the Folds of Honor and the brave men and women who serve,” said Woodland. “I’m excited to partner with PUMA, such a great athletic brand, helping me look and feel good on and off course.”
The Volition America Golf Collection, which first launched in 2017, marries the best of PUMA Golf’s cutting-edge apparel and footwear technologies and styles with Volition America’s focus on patriotism and all things, red, white and blue. The collection supports Folds of Honor, helping to fund educational scholarships for families of fallen and critically-injured military men and women.
Woodland will also be wearing PUMA’s celebrated IGNITE PWRADAPT Leather footwear, with Tour proven style, comfort and stability. The shoes offer sophisticated style thanks to a premium leather upper, an excellent fit with a mesh hybrid bootie lining, and extreme comfort thanks to IGNITE foam. Revolutionary and proprietary PWRADAPT Technology provides extreme traction, support and comfort.
And whilst we're at it:


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Paym will allow consumers to send and receive payments directly to a current account with a mobile number at the same speeds as other money transfer methods.
The Payments Council claims the industry-wide project is the first service capable of linking every current account in the UK with a mobile number.
Paym will be integrated into customers’ mobile banking and payment applications. Nine banks and building societies have signed up to offer the service, including Halifax Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Cumberland Building Society, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Santander and TSB Bank.
Customers of these brands will soon have the opportunity to register their mobile numbers and select the current account they want payments made into, before the service goes live.
Adrian Kamellard, chief executive of the Payments Council, said: “We’re all used to the idea of a ‘mobile update’ to improve our apps - Paym is a mobile update for payments that means you can pay securely using just a mobile number.”
Read more about mobile payments
- Payments Council to make mobile payments mainstream in 2014
- Facebook tests mobile payments tool
- Mobile retail payments to hit $707bn by 2018
- Barclays extends mobile money platform for easier payments
- Barclays expands Pingit to attract businesses
- Mobile payments set to take Europe by storm
- Banks hold the key to mobile payments
- Worldwide mobile payment value to jump 44% but NFC plunges
- Mobile payments a growing fraud concern
- Consumers want stronger mobile payment security
“Paym is a great example of industry-wide collaboration that delivers tangible benefits for customers.
"The service has the potential to link up every bank account in the country with a mobile number - millions of people will be able to use it this year and we look forward to expanding Paym even further, so everyone can benefit from this easy, secure new way to pay.”
Later in 2014 Clydesdale Bank, first direct, Isle of Man Bank, NatWest, RBS International trading as NatWest, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Yorkshire Bank will also begin to offer the service, adding up to 90% of current accounts.
The Nationwide Building Society has confirmed its intention to join in early 2015, while Metro Bank and Ulster Bank are also considering the proposition.
The Payments Council said users will no longer need to ask for other people’s sort code or account number to transfer money.
“Paym will make it easier to repay a friend for cinema tickets, split a restaurant bill or settle up for a colleague’s birthday collection,” said Kamellard.
Paym is going through a final testing phase, the launch date to be announced in April 2014.


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Lucharitos, with its fabulous dishes and drinks, continues to sizzle.
In 2021, Lucharitos grew as a brand and even began to expand beyond the East End, with the promise of more to come in 2022.
Marc LaMaina’s popular Latino cuisine, which already had several different iterations in Greenport, Mattituck, Aquebogue and Center Moriches (which hit the airwaves on Alex Guarnaschelli’s Food Network show Fix Me A Plate in 2020), opened the Lucha Express concession stand at Mattituck Cinemas in June and started serving cocktails there in November.
LaMaina plans to continue his partnership with the cinema into the new year. “We’ve been working on this since we started the [Lucha Express] project,” said LaMaina of the boozy offerings. “The direction we’re headed is a full movie-dining experience.” The businessman is also looking to add other family oriented features, such as games, to the theater in the future.
“I have three kids,” LaMaina said. “So everything that we do is kind of kid-oriented — designed for them to say, ‘hey, I want to go see Dad at work.’ ”
In addition to an off-the-fork opening in Melville, LaMaina is bringing Luchacubano to Riverhead. The latest Lucha offering will feature Cuban sandwiches and a new canned beer brewed by übergeek and is set to open in the new year.


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A shopping centre will be going to the "extreme" this month.
Throughout August the Centre in Feltham will be running activities, which will round off with a series of freestyle sports displays.
A 24ft climbing wall, which was a hit with shoppers last summer, is to return.
Visitors will be able to attempt to scale the wall tomorrow and every Saturday this month. It will also be at the shopping centre on August 11, 18 and 25.
Team Extreme will round off the month's activities showcasing their breakdancing and football skills as well as with daredevil displays on BMX bikes and skateboards over the bank holiday weekend.
Shoppers will also have a chance to win family days out, including dinner vouchers, cinema tickets, family tickets to Thorpe Park and vouchers to spend at stores.
To find out more about visit thecentrefeltham.co.uk


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Rumors have buzzed through the industry for a couple years that Apple might open iTunes for free downloads. Meanwhile, Apple's rivals are experimenting with new ways to distribute music online -- including giving it away.
The newspaper cited unnamed music industry sources in reporting that Apple is negotiating with record labels over a deal to offer a monthly music subscription for the iPhone, as well as an unlimited music bundle for both the iPod and iPhone.
The cheapest iPods -- the Shuffle model -- currently start at $49, and the cheapest iPhones start at $399.
The Financial Times didn't say how much the prices of those devices would jump if the proposal were to go through. But it said the sticking point in the discussions how much Apple will pay the labels for access to their music libraries, with Apple currently offering to pay just $20 per device.
Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
Some analysts said the iTunes store is too valuable to Apple for it to give away the music in it.
"I think it's a little far-fetched at this stage," said Tim Bajarin, president of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies in Campbell, Calif. "The studios still want to be compensated. And the artists, especially the independent artists, still want to be compensated. I'm skeptical that carte blanche, free access to any music may be in the works."
Only about 10 percent of Apple's revenues come through iTunes -- about $2.5 billion in 2007. But the store has been a critical tool for driving the more-lucrative iPod sales and helping musicians get paid for their work.
Apple sold $8.3 billion in iPods last year, an 8 percent increase over the year before.
The success of iTunes has helped Apple become one of the world's biggest music retailers -- it's currently the No. 2 music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
But it's also exposed Apple to criticism over how the company protects its content and prompted Apple to campaign for new ways to distribute music legally online.
The criticisms center on the inability to play songs bought on iTunes on rival products to the iPod, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Zune player.
To free up online music, Apple CEO Steve Jobs says the major record labels should strip protections known as Digital Rights Management, or DRM, technology, which prevents unauthorized copying, from their songs sold online. Apple, meanwhile, has refused to abandon its own copying protections.
Some of Apple's rivals are already trying out new approaches.
Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile phone maker, announced a deal with Universal Music Group in December that gives buyers of certain Nokia phones unlimited free downloads of songs from the Universal catalog.
Seattle-based RealNetworks Inc. and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft both offer music subscriptions that cost $14.99 per month that the companies believe will appeal to customers who are more interested in discovering new music than owning old favorites.
Neil Smith, a vice president of marketing for Rhapsody, said its subscribers delve deeper into back catalogs and check out more independent artists than typical in-person music store shoppers. Subscribers also buy more MP3s than non-subscribers.
"We believe that this kind of approach, where unlimited content can flow seamlessly across different devices and media, is the best thing for the consumer and the industry," said Microsoft spokesman Jason Reindorp. "It brings the focus back to where it should be -- the music."
AP Technology Writer Jessica Mintz in Seattle contributed to this report.


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- Last month was the strongest January for sales activity in three years.
- January and February home sales figures aren't predictive of what's to come in the Bay Area.
- Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties contributed the most January sales.
Spanning December to January there was a 38.3 percent drop in new and existing single-family home and condo sales within the San Francisco Bay Area. However, CoreLogic cautions not to read too much into this.
According to its data, a total of 4,845 homes sold last month in the nine counties that comprise the Bay Area – Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma. This sales total compared to 7,849 sales in December 2015.
A noticeable drop in sales between December and January is normal for the region, as activity historically dips by an average of 28.6 percent.
“January and February tend to be relatively weak months for closings and, as such, they’re not especially predictive of what’s to come for the rest of the year,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic.
In each Bay Area county month-to-month home sales activity was down anywhere from 29 percent to 42 percent last month.
These declines in sales can be contributed to the tight inventory of homes for sale, affordability constraints and the extra boost that December sales got from the impact of recently implemented TRID rules.
Year-over-year stats paint a different picture
While down in comparison to December, last month was the strongest January for home sales in three years. On a year-over-year basis sales activity was up in all Bay Area counties, with Alameda experiencing the largest uptick of 14 percent.
Last month, Santa Clara (1,054 sales), Alameda (979 sales) and Contra Costa (978 sales) counties contributed the most overall sales to the Bay Area’s total.
Notable Bay Area stats
According to CoreLogic, home sales priced at $500,000 or more accounted for 64.5 percent of all January sales, up from 54.7 percent in January 2015. Entering February the median price paid for a Bay Area home was $625,500.
Investor activity and the frequency of cash deals appear on the decline, as absentee buyers, mostly investors, bought 19 percent of all Bay Area homes sold in January 2016. This figure represents a year-over-year dip in investor activity of nearly 5 percent.
Additionally, roughly one out of every five home sales (20.5 percent) was a cash transaction last month. The volume of cash sales in January 2015 was 24.3 percent.


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Iprova has launched the ‘COVID19 Invention Initiative’ (‘C19II’). Iprova’s data-driven invention platform is identifying the inventive possibilities as the ripples of change from the current crisis disrupt the product and service ecosystems that we as consumers rely on.
Iprova launches initiative to identify essential inventions for post-pandemic world
Lausanne, Switzerland, April 2020:
Necessity is the mother of invention and, with the 2020s just beginning, this old adage is never more relevant. Today it may mean ventilators, face masks and COVID-19 testing, but what will it mean in the post-pandemic world? Will ride sharing, entertainment, dating, healthcare or even shopping ever be the same as they were just weeks ago?
Will the ripples that extend from today’s crises change the nature of the products and services that customers want to buy?
To navigate these questions, Iprova has today launched the ‘COVID19 Invention Initiative’ (‘C19II’). Iprova’s data-driven invention platform is identifying the inventive possibilities as the ripples of change from the current crisis disrupt the product and service ecosystems that we as consumers rely on. Right now, all of us are looking for ways to adapt to the disruption that is changing our world. Iprova is stepping up to help society ready itself for these changes.
The company says: By scoping out ‘smart spaces’ and delivering useful and relevant inventions for these, we enable companies to bring new products and services to market that fit with the likely experience journeys and consumer preferences of the post-pandemic world.
Iprova’s data-driven invention platform tracks day-day market, societal, scientific and technological advances, and enables us to identify inventive signals which can trigger and help create inventions. The unmatched speed, diversity and agility of this process allow us to identify, on demand, emerging points of disruption and create unexpected, valuable and targeted inventions that will help define the next generation of innovative, useful and valuable products and services in the changing world that lies ahead.
“Recent developments have demonstrated the importance and urgency of identifying incoming disruption in real-time and with a wide-angle lens. Therefore, we are launching an invention initiative to help generate the ideas which are needed to tune the next – post pandemic – generation of products and services to the reflect the on-going societal and market change.” Said Julian Nolan, CEO of Iprova. “We are ready to help organisations to identify the most challenging opportunities for invention in the post pandemic world and populate these ‘smart spaces’ with strategically valuable inventions and practical solutions”.
Iprova invites interested organisations to contact us at email@example.com to discuss how we can work together to manage and invent for disruption now and in future. We also welcome any media enquiries through firstname.lastname@example.org.
Iprova has reinvented invention, enabling users of its invention platform to invent with unmatched speed, disruption and efficiency. Come and join our fast expanding, fun loving and tech-savvy team in either London or Cambridge. We are actively recruiting.