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Frankfurt, 16/12/2020. Children’s Internet usage has risen substantially as a result of the coronavirus lockdown and home schooling. According to the 2020-II Platform Study of AGF Videoforschung, the percentage of 3 to 13 year-olds who said they used online content in the last four weeks soared to 76.6 percent, as compared to only 68.0 percent in the preceding 2020-I wave conducted in March and April 2020. “Possible reasons for the sharp rise could be the greater use of entertainment offerings, coupled with home schooling and digital instruction in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. We are excited to see the results of the next waves because they will show how sustainable this effect is. We also see this effect in the current AGF Panel”, said Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, Chairperson of the AGF Executive management.
Disney+, among other platforms, seems to have benefitted from the rising Internet usage. This platform’s market launch in Germany coincided with the first coronavirus lockdown. When asked which paid streaming services they have used in the last three months, 1.5 percent of respondents named Disney+ in the 2020-I wave, whereas 7.2 percent named Disney+ in the latest wave. Thus, Disney+ comes in third place, after Netflix with 34.4 percent and Amazon Prime Video with 22.1 percent, and ahead of Dazn with 2.8 percent. Netflix experienced strong growth, increasing by almost 7 percentage points, which translates to a gain of 24.6 percent.
“Google Play Movies & TV“ was among the five most popular paid video-on-demand services for the first time, with 1.4 percent of respondents saying they used the platform in the last 3 months. This is considerably more than in the last wave. On “Google Play Movies & TV”, movies and TV series can be rented or purchased digitally without a subscription.
Total video-on-demand usage increased further in the coronavirus-dominated year 2020. Already 42.0 percent said they watched the content of VoD services in the last three months. That is almost 6 percentage points higher than in the spring wave (36.3 percent). “The selection of movies and TV series, as well as sports, is steadily increasing. This kind of service seems to be attracting more viewers from a broader segment of the population”, said Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf.
Working on behalf of AGF Videoforschung GmbH, Kantar surveys the media usage of German-speaking residents aged 14 and up twice a year in the form of computer-aided personal interviews. In this survey, the respondents are not only questioned about the TV sets in their household, but are also asked to show them and turn on certain TV stations. Due to the restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic, it was necessary to supplement the otherwise customary in-home field interviews with telephone interviews in the 2020-I wave. The 2020-II wave was conducted in the form of face-to-face interviews, as usual.
A modest increase in overall VoD usage across all age groups can be discerned from the responses to the question of which online video offerings respondents have used in the last four weeks. Usage of streaming services overall rose by 4.2 percentage points to 63.7 percent. YouTube leads the field by a wide margin, with 54.1 percent. Usage of the online services of TV broadcasters was stable at 29.5 percent. 23.1 percent of respondents said they have used the services of public broadcasters. Private broadcasters’ services were used by 7.0 percent of respondents. The slight decrease resulted from the fact that JOYN and TV NOW are now presented separately. JOYN was used by 4.4 percent, TV NOW by 5.0 percent of survey respondents.
The entertainment button (“Red Button”) is becoming more visible in households. To find out how widespread the use of the Red Button, which leads viewers of advertising and programming content to additional information, already is, Kantar checked to see whether indications of such usage appear on the respondents’ TV sets. Whereas 40.8 percent of households made use of this service in the first wave of this year, this percentage has since risen to 42.7 percent.
Brief summary of methodology
Name of study: TV Platform
Frequency: Twice a year
Survey method: Computer-aided personal interviews (CAPIs) and visits to households
Wave 2020-I: Computer-aided telephone interviews (CATIs) were additionally conducted by trained, qualified face-to-face interviewers due to the coronavirus pandemic
Sample: Proportional, representative random sample on the basis of the ADM Face-to-Face Sample System / Wave 2020-II: Sample size n=2,451 / Wave 2020-I: Conducted with a reduced sample size of n=1,683 due to the fieldwork pause and longer CATI interviews
Fieldwork period: Wave 2020-I: 02-20/03/2020 and 01-20/04/2020
Wave 2020-II: 25/08-09/10/2020
Population: German-speaking residents aged 14 and up in TV households (private households with a German-speaking main income earner or persons aged 3 and up in these households)


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An increased effort to gain voluntary compliance to Yorba Linda’s business license ordinance that includes a six-month amnesty period for unlicensed businesses has received unanimous approval from Yorba Linda’s City Council.
“Compliance with the business license ordinance should be viewed no differently than compliance with any other local ordinance or state and federal law,” Finance Director Scott Catlett reported to council members.
So the city will be implementing “a more proactive, but still business-friendly, approach to enforcement of the city’s business license ordinance,” Catlett said.
Business license taxes bring in about $400,000 each year, but enforcement efforts could bring in $50,000 more, although “it is likely to be less than this amount,” according to Catlett.
Historically, the city has used “a passive approach to enforcement,” Catlett noted, adding that compliance “while high in retail centers is likely lower, though still good, for other types of businesses.”
He identified these as businesses located in office parks; mobile businesses, such as swimming pool, lawn maintenance and cleaning services and plumbing, electrical and other contractors; home-based businesses; and short-term vacation rentals.
Also, businesses not located in the city, but doing business here, such as lawn maintenance and plumbing services, must have a Yorba Linda business license, Catlett noted. “Compliance for these businesses is also good, but again not to the level seen for retail centers.”
Catlett didn’t recommend changes to tax rates and penalties, which would require a public vote. Rates are minimal and not adjusted annually for inflation and probably haven’t been increased since 1973, he noted.
The “primary benefit of the city’s business license requirement is to ensure that businesses operating within the city are known to the city and located in appropriately zoned/permitted locations,” Catlett stated.
Options to improve enforcement include online research using sources such as sales and property tax databases and lists of business utility accounts, periodic field surveys of businesses cross-referenced with the business license database and sharing information with the state’s Franchise Tax Board.
The latter would include the city and board exchanging names of owners, addresses and types of businesses from each agency’s databases, without providing financial information.
To avoid a perception “the city is simply out to increase revenue,” amnesty and education programs that include “carefully crafted letters to violators” will be conducted, Catlett said.
Collection of unpaid license taxes is limited to the current and three prior years, which could amount to 800 percent of an annual payment when penalties are added. The amnesty would waive back taxes and penalties during a six-month period, with waivers considered on a case-by-case basis after the amnesty period ends.
Jim Drummond is a longtime Yorba Linda resident. He gives his opinion on local issues weekly. Send e-mail to email@example.com.

domain: news


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Police minister Bheki Cele says evidence rooms are full as goods are being confiscated from looters.
On Monday the police recovered thousands of rand worth of items stolen from warehouses and retail stores in Durban during widespread looting in KwaZulu-Natal last week.
“They are going to SP13‚ where police keep anything that might be used in giving evidence. There is a meeting between the police and the NPA to work out what will happen to the goods‚” Cele said.
“Evidence rooms are full. They [looted goods] are in the custody of the police. Right now we are trying to get a warehouse where we can keep them and police take care of them.”
Cele‚ who was scheduled to visit Pietermaritzburg and also malls in Durban‚ was delayed as the police acted on tip-offs from community members on the whereabouts of stolen property in areas in and around the Durban CBD.
WATCH | Police recover looted goods including beds‚ electronic goods and mag wheels
On Monday police recovered thousands of rands worth of items stolen from warehouses and retail stores in Durban during widespread looting last week.
NEWS4 hours ago
Some residents also heeded calls to voluntarily surrender stolen goods.
The police had arrested 3‚407 suspects on different charges by Sunday after a week of violence‚ looting and destruction‚ with only one suspect granted bail and 1‚122 expected to appear in court in KZN and Gauteng.
The remaining dockets are under investigation‚ said police spokesperson Col Brenda Muridili.
“We are not going to give the numbers on goods recovered‚ their value will be determined at the closure of the operations.
“A warning has also been issued to those who were not part of the looting sprees but are buying stolen property from the looters that they too will be arrested for being in possession of the stolen property.”
Source: ARENA Holdings.


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Finally the RIAA is being required to justify why it charges people it catches people pirating $750.00 a single rather than the 70 cents that retailers have to pay.
This is pretty huge in that the RIAA is now going to have to come clean on there fuzzy math, and it will be made part of a public record. It’s about time they were held accountable. [theinquirer.net]
Note: I can understand accesing damages but not to the tune of $749.30 per single that has been pirated. That amount in my opinion is extortion!


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June 22, 2021
Chinese hog farmers urged not to panic over falling pork prices
Hog farmers in China should not panic over falling pork prices, the China Animal Agriculture Association said on June 21.
In a statement, the association told hog farmers to make arrangements according to actual conditions, improve hog reproductive efficiency and lift feed conversion rate in the face of a temporary hog oversupply in the market.
The average hog price has dropped more than 50% to approximately ¥44 (US$6.8) per kilogramme from the start of the year, the lowest since 2019 when prices began to elevate due to the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF), according to data from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Falling pork prices are caused by a recovering hog production since the end of last year and a falling consumption due to seasonal demand, as well as changes in consumption habits, according to the association.
"It is hoped the hog farmers can play more attention to prompt market information issued by the government, don't panic over the temporary drop of prices, and continue to reduce their hog production and increase efficiency," the statement said.
- Global Times


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Reports claim that Samsung will most likely not release its Galaxy S21 until January 2021. Still, the sources suggest that the Company is piling up in its upcoming flagships. The alleged specs and battery capacities of Galaxy S21 are already up online, and these details talk much about the similarities of Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra.
Furthermore, as per OnLeaks’ reports on the Galaxy S21 trio renders, there aren’t particularly noticeable alterations from the Galaxy S20 series.
Nonetheless, we will see a change in the rear-facing camera array. Every year Samsung revamps this with the Galaxy S series. So, according to OnLeaks CAD renders, the Company will be opting for a more minimalistic layout for next year’s Galaxy S21 series.
For this, they also published a picture on Twitter and/LEAKS. But, this photo has been deleted now. It showed the camera housing of Galaxy S21 or Galaxy S21 Plus. According to the picture, the housing had three equally-sized apertures fixed tightly against the device’s back panel’s top left-hand corner.
When you look at the design, you will see it matching with a RAW CAD render of the Galaxy S21 Plus published by MySmartPrice. The renders from the website and OnLeaks look pretty much alike. The website, however, claims that it received them from an anonymous source. Moreover, they show that the camera housing won’t curve with the glass back. It will be a little lifted from the back panel.
To conclude, we are anticipating a flat display in the Galaxy S21 Plus and Galaxy S21. According to MySmartPrice, the Galaxy S21 Plus will come with 161.5 x 75.6 x 7.85 mm. You will see a wider touch compared to its previous model. The website also anticipates a 6.7-inch display in the new Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus.


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Biden 'to announce US troops leaving Afghanistan by September 11'
Pfizer Suspends Covid-19 Vaccines Shipment To Israel Over Payment Issues: Report
US pharma giant Pfizer (PFE) has halted a shipment of 700,000 COVID-19 vaccines to Israel after the country reportedly failed to make payment.
According to the Jerusalem Post, a shipment of 700,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine was due to arrive in Israel last Sunday but was delayed indefinitely, pending payment.
The country has failed to pay for the last 2.5 million doses shipped there, according to reports.
Pfizer told the Jerusalem Post that the company has completed all deliveries to Israel under its initial agreement to provide its COVID-19 vaccine, signed in November 2020.
“The company is currently working with the Israeli government to update the agreement, to supply additional vaccines to the country. While this work continues, shipments may be adjusted,” the company said in a statement.
With the country currently in the midst of elections, Pfizer is concerned that the government-in-transition will not pay for the shipments.
Biden to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by 9/11: Defense official
A U.S. defense official confirmed to ABC News Tuesday that President Joe Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the American involvement in the country’s longest war.
There are roughly 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan now. American troop levels reached a high of 100,000 troops in August 2010 and stayed at that level for much of the next year.
The development was first reported by The Washington Post.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Queen shares new pictures of Prince Philip showing commitment to Commonwealth
Justin Long switches sides in new Mac vs PC commercials
New York (CNN Business)Apple is set to host its first product launch of the year where an updated iPad Pro and AirPods are expected.
The company sent out press invitations for a virtual event — with the tagline “Spring Loaded” — that will take place on Tuesday, April 20, at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Ahead of the announcement, Siri revealed the date when users asked when the company will host its next big product launch.
Apple (AAPL)is expected to introduce a refresh to its iPad lineup: an updated iPad Pro with a super-bright LED display and a redesigned iPad mini with smaller bezels and a larger display, according to Bloomberg. The company is also reportedly readying its next-generation AirPods (AirPods 3), featuring a design more in line with its higher-end AirPods Pro, along with spatial audio support and touch controls.
Apple’s MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are also due for a refresh, but it’s unclear if they’ll get one as early as next week. Apple recently discontinued its iMac Pro line, once the most-powerful computer the company offered, and its original HomePod to focus more on the HomePod mini.
The company is also rumored to be working on smart glasses and an augmented reality/virtual reality headset, but it’s unlikely we’ll learn anything about any of those products this month.
In recent years, Apple has held spring launches for its Apple TV+ service and iPhone SE line.
University students can return to campuses from May 17
LVMH Q1 Revenues Up 32%
Luxury products maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMHF.PK,LVMUY.PK) Tuesday reported first-quarter revenues of 13.96 billion euros, up 32 percent from 10.60 billion euros last year.
On an organic basis, revenues surged 30%.
The company said “the quarter marks a return to growth after several quarters of decline during 2020, a year that was severely disrupted by the global pandemic.”
All business groups, except selective retailing, reported revenue growth, with Wines & Spirits up 29%, Fashion & Leather Goods up 45%, Perfumes & Cosmetics up 12%, Watches & Jewelry surged 138%, while Selective Retailing tanked 11%.
Selective Retailing was impacted by the continued restrictions on international travel.
The United States and Asia enjoyed strong growth, while Europe is still affected by the crisis due to the impact of store closures across several countries and the suspension of tourism.
Palantir could be gearing up for a big push higher. Here's how options traders are playing it
Palantir is currently about 38% off of its highest levels of the year after a rough Monday that saw the stock fall by about 3%, but options traders are betting that the company may finally be gearing up for a turnaround.
Despite the recent pullback, the tech stock has performed well since going public on Sept. 30, 2020, gaining more than 150% to date. Now, speculation is growing among retail traders that it could be about to make a run back toward its highs.
"Palantir saw above-average call activity [Monday], about 90,000 contracts more than it trades on average, and the most action was seen in the 24-, 25- and 26-strike calls that expire this coming Friday. The 24-strike calls, for example, traded about 45,000 contracts. Those were trading for just under 70 cents," Optimize Advisors CIO Michael Khouw said Monday on CNBC's "Fast Money."
Those 24-strike calls break even at an underlying stock price of $24.70, or about 6% higher from where Palantir closed Monday's session. More bullish traders who took a chance on the 26-strike calls would need to see a jump of more than 12% by Friday's close to break even.
Palantir was more than 2% higher in Tuesday's session.


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After the increase in number of measures to ensure that no information is leaked by the cryptocurrency users to scams online, a bitcoin theft in Delhi, the capital of India, took place after woman’s wallet was allegedly ‘hacked’ by scammers to steal away 6.5 bitcoins, approx. $54,000 in current prices.
A major part of investigation is being conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – India’s primary law enforcement and intelligence agency, to find more insights and trace the hackers. The agency is also looking into the victim’s claim of losing just under 7 bitcoins to this bitcoin theft in total last year.
Reportedly, the victim told that she invested around 0.4 bitcoins in an unnamed firm that promised 12% monthly returns on investment over seminars in five-star hotels, in February 2017. The returns started turning up in her bank account, which eventually prompted her to put more money into the scheme.
She told The Times of India, “I invested all my savings in the company along with my friends and family members”.
This was after she invested again in the same company in May 2017 after her funds matured from a mutual fund policy. Those returns, in Indian fiat rupees, stopped in August 2017. In the coming times, the company resorted to issuing returns to investors with its own cryptocurrency. However, the woman asked the firm to return her invested money after a disagreement over getting paid in tokens.
In October 2017, just a few months after this incident, the victim claimed she was contacted by the very same company to process the return of her funds. In order to do so, the firm reportedly required her email ID and password that was registered with the company’s website. The victim shared her credentials impulsively, only to discover that her email and her bitcoin wallet had been accessed maliciously. She also used the same credentials across several platforms. Thus, the bitcoin theft took place in no time
“On November 8, 2017, my blockchain wallet was hacked, which had 6.5 Bitcoins. The hackers also deleted all the data on my email ID.”
India is also amongst the countries who have been showing a growing interest in the cryptocurrencies across several platforms. Thus, on predictable basis, the number of crypto-scams in the countries have also been increasing. Thus, certain articles and ads have been trying their best to help protects the users their cryptocurrencies before their digital assets are exposed to any kind of fraud.
KryptoMoney.com publishes latest news and updates about Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology ,Cryptocurrencies and upcoming ICO’s.


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On this episode of The Laws Style, Fashion Lawyer, Douglas Hand’s guest is storied designer Yeohlee Teng. Yeohlee moved to New York from Malaysia to study fashion at the Parsons School of Design and established her own house, YEOHLEE inc in 1981. Teng discusses the spatial relationship of clothing to its wearer, gender fluid fashion, sustainability, the benefits of having a storefront, and current challenges with the New York City Garment District.
Partner and head of litigation at HBA, Adam Michaels, was recently featured in a Women’s Wear Daily news article, weighing in on Michael Avenatti’s alleged plan to extort Nike for upwards of $20 million.
“Certainly it’s on the radar not only of law enforcement but of enterprising and aggressive attorneys and also the public consciousness,” said Adam Michaels, a partner at Hand Baldachin & Associates LLP, who heads the firm’s litigation practice. “If any other companies have any suspicion that people acting on their behalf are engaging in similar behavior, they have an opportunity to suss out the misconduct before other people do it for them.”
You can access the article online using this link: https://wwd.com/business-news/legal/nike-michael-avenatti-extortion-basketball-lawyer-1203091881/
On this episode of The Laws of Style, Fashion Lawyer Douglas Hand, sits down with Daniel Doguff, the Founder of CFDA Incubator and menswear brand D Dugoff, and the current CEO of the gay friendly men’s swimwear line HOMOCO. Daniel shares his penchant for architecture, experiences with Marc Jacobs, and his thoughts on the current state of fashion, the DTC model, and what’s in store for unisex brands of the future.
Hosted by Cardozo’s FAME Center for Fashion, Arts, Media and Entertainment law, in conjunction with the Fashion Law Society, Cardozo’s Fashion Law Symposium event on February 26, 2019 attracted over 165 attendees and included 18 speakers. Attorneys, fashion industry figures and law students joined the Symposium to discuss several pertinent topics in the fashion industry and determine how to address these topics from a legal perspective.
Following the topic of wearable tech, Douglas Hand moderated the 3rd panel of the day, dedicated to the Retail Revolution and how to utilize real estate in the digital age of shopping. One of the most influential lawyers in the field of fashion, Douglas also sits in the Business Advisory Committee of the CFDA and is an adjunct professor of Fashion Law at NYU School of Law and Cardozo School of Law.Can the stores win back the allegiance of customers by a tech revolution led by smart mirrors and connected dressing rooms? Can online shopping provide an answer to the famous try-before-you-buy weapon?
With leaders of the front lines of fashion law, panelists Scott A. Klion, Of Counsel to HBA in the area of commercial leasing, Maryann Lawrence, Associate General Counsel at Chanel and Rory Tahari, Founder of the State of Mind Partners, discussed how to capture the customer of the future.
The panel began with one of the main concerns of the fashion and retail industry, the closing of stores and malls everywhere across the country and the stores struggling to compete with online retailers. “We don’t look at stores as a profit center but as a marketing expense,” explained Rory Tahari. Her insight as director of Elie Tahari, Ltd. for 20 years, with stores located throughout the world foresees the end of the typical provisions in leases and rental agreements. For most landlords, the 10 year regular lease agreement is now becoming shorter and shorter as only a limited amount of brands are able to commit themselves to these agreements.
However, according to Maryann Lawrence, the success and the visibility of a luxury brand like Chanel benefits from an incredible leverage when negotiating a lease with landlords.
As previous Associate General Counsel for Tiffany & Co., Scott Kilon agreed with Lawrence’s analysis, adding that a landlord needs these brands in order to increase the value of the mall or the shopping area. In sum, retail is not dead. In order to revitalize an area of a city, stores are still installed as a way to attract customer traffic.
In addition, customers will always enjoy the physical experience of shopping. A customer buying at Chanel enjoys the “human touch” given by the sales persons and the luxury service of being able to have a cocktail in the salon whilst shopping. The shopping experience in a luxury brand like Chanel has to be “fluid but thoughtful,” added Lawrence.
In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court held that a lawsuit may not be brought for copyright infringement until the U.S. Copyright Office has acted – either granting or refusing an application for registration. As this blog noted last year, there was a circuit split as to whether a plaintiff could sue once the application was filed. The courts that held that filing an application was sufficient reasoned that the plaintiff would ultimately be entitled to sue after the Copyright Office weighed in, no matter the decision, so there was no reason to wait. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the registration requirement means what it says and that a registration must be granted or refused by the Copyright Office before a lawsuit may be brought.
As we have previously suggested, the Court’s decision will likely make bringing an infringement suit more difficult because applicants will have to wait for the Copyright Office to respond to their application, a process that could take nine months or more. Alternatively, potential copyright owners who want to sue might feel the need to register their works immediately through the Copyright Office’s five-day expedited process, which costs $800, and could get prohibitively expensive when registering multiple works.
Due to this long wait time, we generally encourage potential owners of copyrighted works to register their works promptly to ensure that they hold a copyright in the event an infringement does occur. The relatively small copyright registration fee of $55 allows for copyright owners to register more works and the availability of generous statutory damages and attorneys fees awards also incentivizes the registration of works before infringement begins. Read Supreme Court decision here: Copyright registration decision


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Russians Recover, Sell Meteorite Fragment from Urals, Largest is 1.8 Kg
By Vittorio Hernandez | February 26, 2013 1:23 PM EST
Residents of the Urals region in Russia who were hit by the meteor shower have been converting the disaster into cash by collecting fragments of the meteorite and selling them.
So far, they have recovered more than 100 fragments, the largest of which weighs 1.8 kilogramme.
Besides the physical fragments, which are sold online, the residents also are offering T-shirts (probably with I Survived the Meteorite Crash designs), guided tours and even cookies that would serve as a memorabilia of the meteorite hit.
Local ski enthusiast found the largest fragment on Monday. Viktor Grokhovsky of the Urals University said the fragment needs to be weighed first and then conserved to prevent acidification.
Reports said the fragment found by Masha Plnkova on Monday evening weighs 1.8 kilogrammes.
Mr Grokhovsky expects more fragments to be found, including the possible largest chunk believed to lie at the bottom of Lake Chebarkul and measuring up to 60 centimetres in diameter. The size is based on a 20-foot-wide hole in the ice covering the lake.
Teams are in the lake area to search for more fragments.
However, there is no assurance that the fragments being sold online really came from the meteor shower. Among the sales pitch that the finders use is that the fragments would bring good luck or help treat depression. Price ranges from a few dollars to $16,000.
Candy makers are also cashing in on the meteor shower by applying to license brand names such as Mystery Meteorite, Urals Meteorite and Chebarkul Meteorite for their candies and cookies.
The meteorite hit on Feb 15 had injured about 1,500 residents, but appears to be a blessing in disguise in the celestial event by converting the fragments and other similar items into cash.
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Since the first week of the month, Microsoft has been offering up to $200 off lower-end models in its Surface Book and Pro 4 ranges. Now, the company has cut 10% off the rest of its Surface Books, including those with its new Performance Base, and it's also offering that promotional discount across most of its Surface Pro 4 range.
Nearly every other model in the Surface Pro 4 line that didn't already have a discount available has had its price cut by 10% in this latest offer. It appears that just one model isn't included in either deal: the Intel Core i5 variant with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD remains listed at its regular price of $999.
As with the Surface Book, the 10% discount will remain available on the Surface Pro 4 until February 26, while the earlier discount of up to $200 on certain models will continue until February 25.
Meanwhile, across the pond in the United Kingdom, Microsoft raised its Surface Pro 4 prices by 12% last week, while those of its Surface Book increased by up to £400, due to currency fluctuations following the country's Brexit referendum result in 2016.
Microsoft is expected to launch new versions of its Surface Pro tablet and Surface Book this year, as the current models are now almost 16 months old.
Source: Surface Pro 4 (Microsoft Store)


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business planet Library
In this edition of Business Planet, host Giacomo Segantini visited Dublin to meet a woman at the heart of female entrepreneurship initiatives in
This week, Business Planet has been to the Czech capital, Prague, to find out more about the European Ecolabel system: how it works and how it businesses can benefit from it.
Business Planet producer Serge Rombi explores how young people are learning to become the entrepreneurs of the future. Inspiring and teaching young
This edition of Business Planet looks at how innovative entrepreneurs can have an edge when it comes to securing public contracts.
In this edition of Business Planet, we visit the Onassis Foundation in Athens to find out how we can transform waste into raw materials. This concept
In this edition of Business Planet, we visit the University of Warwick in Coventry which has been helping the industrial SMEs to develop new products
This week Business Planet looks at the concept of social enterprise – sustainable, innovative entrepreneurial answers to society’s challenges. It’s
The Copernicus programme is an EU system providing Earth observation data and information. It delivers operational data on a free, full and open
Lisbon has much to offer the multitudes of tourists who visit every year but it’s now also proving attractive to entrepreneurs. Under a special
Business Planet went to Barcelona, Spain, to see how SMEs can boost their competitiveness by better protecting their innovations.
In the latest edition of Business Planet, we visit Frankfurt to find out how you can obtain financing as this is obviously the question being asked


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French automaker PSA Group revealed an SUV version of its DS3 upscale mini as it develops on a sales rebound underway at the eight-year-old premium DS brand.
The DS3 Crossback brings a long-overdue upgrade to the top-selling DS model, with that the Peugeot maker released the lineup in 2010, at first under the Citroen badge.
By embracing its flagship mini to the hot-selling SUV category, the DS department headed by former McKinsey consultant Yves Bonnefont hopes to speed up a sales recovery now taking root in the following a protracted slump.
Named after the hallowed 1955 Citroen limousine, the DS lineup had hard time because of under-investment during a 2013-14 cash crisis that nearly bankrupted PSA.
Following an additional 39 percent decrease in 2017, however, DS sales increased 14 percent in the first half of this year – assisted by the recently released DS7 Crossback SUV model which was used by French President Emmanuel Macron for riding to his inauguration.
Apart from its higher-riding position, the DS3 Crossback comes with a digital cockpit, retracting door handles and more luxury-car hallmarks to the entry-level DS segment.
Pricing is yet to be revealed for the new vehicle, that makes its public debut at next month’s Paris car show, with initial deliveries due in early next year.


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In real life, relationships are compartmentalized. Life online, on the other hand, can make separating the different aspects of our life tricky. This is one of the shortcomings that Facebook users often complain about and which Google resolves with their own social networking site, Google+.
Google’s SVP for Engineering, Vic Gundotra, stated in a blog post, “Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”
According to Gundotra, Google+ makes it possible for users to create different “Circles” into which they can separate their online friends and family, and effectively control the information they share through each circle. Facebook users have to go through a tedious process of creating separate groups for friends and family and then customizing their privacy settings to control what they share with whom.
Gundotra added, “Not all relationships are created equal. So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss.”
Google+ also offers unique features, including: “Hangouts” for video chatting; “Mobile” for sharing locations; “Huddle” for group text messaging; “Instant Upload” for photo and video uploading and sharing among Circles; and “Sparks” for delivering Web content into a user’s feed.
Google is king among Internet search engines but it has yet to successfully invade and gain a foothold on the social domain. Facebook remains as the leading social networking site, with almost 700 million users worldwide.
Google and Facebook have been aggressively competing for online advertisers and each one is striving to become the dominant engine for internet navigation. As fierce competitors, Google and Facebook do not direct users to each other’s sites.
Currently, Google+ is only available by invitation as it is still undergoing a testing phase. But Google says Google+ will be made available to the public soon. “We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software,” remarked Gundotra. “We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests.”


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This week Apple posted a new job opening for a healthcare privacy lawyer that includes a particular emphasis on HIPAA. The position, titled "Privacy Counsel - HIPAA, Health". Apple declined to comment.
UPDATE: While many publications have indicated that the job opening was a new position at Apple, a quick search of LinkedIn shows a number of privacy-focused counsels and directors currently employed at Apple. Interestingly, Candace Martin held the position "Privacy Counsel" at Apple from January 2015 until April 2016. The job posting went up the first week of May. Martin is now the Global Privacy Director at pharmaceutical distribution and health IT company McKesson. Prior to her time at Apple she spent more than six years at Hogan Lovells as an associate focused on HIPAA compliance with provider, pharma, tech and payer clients. Suffice it to say this job opening is not Apple's first HIPAA-savvy hire.
Here's how Apple describes the job, which will be based in Santa Clara Valley, California: "As Privacy Counsel you will have the opportunity to work with a dynamic and experienced team on privacy issues impacting Apple’s business and products across the globe. You will work directly with business and engineering teams to design innovative privacy solutions for products as well as across the legal department on Apple activities and regulatory issues."
It goes on to explain: "At Apple we are about creating great products. Part of making products great is designing products that respect consumer security and privacy. This role offers the opportunity to work directly with key members of the business, engineering and legal teams on a variety of cutting edge projects including: privacy by design reviews and projects; assist with privacy complaints and breaches; support compliance and auditing frameworks; advise on privacy aspects of licensing and procurement deals and corporate acquisitions; assist with drafting of policies and procedures surrounding privacy laws."
Apple describes CareKit as "a framework for developers to build apps that" let people "better understand and manage [their] medical conditions." At launch the initial few CareKit apps included one for home monitoring of Parkinson's, which is being used by various healthcare providers, and one for post-surgical discharge, which Texas Medical Center is using. The University of Rochester Medical Center, UCSF, Parkinson's Disease Care New York, Stanford Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Emory Healthcare all announced plans to use the CareKit Parkinson's app around the time of Apple's CareKit launch announcement.
Earlier this year Apple and the FBI had a high-profile, legal stand-off when the company refused to provide the FBI with backdoor access to a terrorist's iPhone. At the time, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the protection of consumer privacy is paramount, and that Apple creating a program to unlock an iPhone and turning that program over to the FBI would endanger the security of the data, including personal health information, on every iPhone user’s device.
At the time Lynne A. Dunbrack, vice president at research and consulting firm IDC Health Insights, explained how that scenario could lead to HIPAA violations.
“HIPAA mandates that protected health information created by covered entities be encrypted,” Dunbrack said at the time. “If the FBI succeeds and forces Apple to create a backdoor to unlock the iPhone, then what happens if that backdoor technology falls into the wrong hands? Information stored on the device would be vulnerable to hacking, and if the device was owned by a clinician or healthcare organization, the covered entity responsible for that data could face stiff HIPAA penalties if protected health information is compromised.”
The FBI ended up dropping the case after claiming to find a way to unlock the device themselves.


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The owners of the shoe factory at Navinna, Maharagama which caught fire this morning said that they have not estimated the damage thus far.
A manager of the ill-fated factory, Senath Jayasuriya stated that two modern machines worth over Rs. 40 million have been destroyed in the fire.
The Fire Brigade deployed 7 fire trucks which belong to Kotte and Dehiwala Urban Councils and Colombo Municipal Council to douse the fire which erupted at 11.30 this morning.
The factory manager told our news team that his factory manufactured shoes for the use of Tri-forces personnel.
Pic By - Chamara Herath


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By ALLEN SALKIN
Behold the Annoy-o-tron. The easy-to-hide magnetized device promises to drive a co-worker insane.
"The Annoy-o-tron generates a short (but very annoying, hence the name) beep every few minutes," assures the sales copy from ThinkGeek, its maker, which says it has sold 6,000 of the $10 practical-joke gadgets online since December.
"It is very annoying," confirmed Jennifer Kuropkat, a ThinkGeek spokeswoman, who was a victim of the Annoy-o-tron during its testing phase. After three days of wondering where the brief ear-jangling sound -- bzz-eee-eeep! -- was coming from, she found the device hidden under her desk and managed to switch it off.
Where have you gone, Garden Weasel?
As the popularity of that soil-cultivating device in the 1970s and of the Veg-O-Matic vegetable chopper in the 1960s attest, Americans have long been mad for silly devices promising to solve life's minor problems, even ones we didn't know we had.
And nowadays, from car to kitchen, from office to driving range, there is a profusion of gadgets that harness the latest micro technologies and the wackiest thinking of garage inventors. Whether the problem is how to one-up the office practical joker or brew a hot cup of espresso while driving to work, there's a gadget for it, and a cottage industry furiously bent on delivering more.
"Every day there's something new and weird," said Adam Frucci, a writer for the gadget-chronicling blog Gizmodo. "A radio that floats in your bathtub and makes the water ripple with music, heated slippers that are warmed by USB, sneakers that have GPS built into them so parents can see where their kids are at all times by tracking them via satellite. It's a form of entertainment to see what sort of ridiculous stuff is put out there every day."
Lest you think gadgets are of minor interest to Americans, consider that Gizmodo and its main competitor, Engadget, both of which report news on forthcoming doodads serious, like cell phones and notebook computers, as well as bizarre (a dog-powered scooter), are consistently ranked among the most popular blogs on the Internet. In February, they garnered a combined total of more than 1.6 million unique visitors, nearly double the same month a year earlier, according to comScore Media Metrix. And maintaining the race, there exists other blogs as well viz gadgetsngizmos, techlore and others.
Many factors have come together to make this a golden age for gadgets. On the technological side, there is the increasing ease and decreasing cost of adapting technologies like USB, the low-voltage computer networking connection; the global positioning system; and Bluetooth to almost any use. On the marketing side, the home-shopping cable channels have 24 hours to fill, and, on a smaller scale, niche gadget retailers can easily set up Internet storefronts and pick up traffic from the gadget blogs.
Demographically, the aging baby boom generation, gadget-friendly since the days of the Pocket Fisherman, the foldable fishing rod and reel advertised on television, is discovering new uses for doohickeys that make life easier as boomers age. Meanwhile members of a younger generation are living time-pressed lives in bigger houses with counter space begging to be occupied.
Behind it all may be an impulse to escape. What gadget hounds are buying is a sense of control over their lives, said Ronni Eisenberg, an author of books about how to declutter. Even if they can't control their mortgage rate or the war in Iraq, gadget buyers can at least control a mango, thanks to a splitting and slicing device from Oxo, or unsightly nose hair, using a trimmer shaped like a finger sold by X-treme Geek. "We have a society where more is more, rather than less is more," Eisenberg said. "It's a sense of security, of comfort, of intrigue."
Some new gadgets are high tech, like the T-shirt that plays an animation of the video game Pong; and some are low tech, like the jar spatula from Oxo, which is due in June. "Now you can access every last drop of mayonnaise!" the Oxo catalog promises of the small-headed silicone scraper.
Oxo, a kitchen-tool maker based in New York, is a success of the gadget age. It has thrived by marrying contemporary design with ergonomics and introducing an ever-widening line of gizmos like its Parmesan grater with a storage compartment to eliminate the chore of putting away cheese.
"People have a lot of little pet peeves," said Alex Lee, the company president. "And often they don't know they have them until you point it out to them."
When Brooke Stephens, an amateur chef, sees a new kitchen gadget on QVC, she tries repeating her mantra, "You really don't need this, you really don't need this." But often she caves. The drawers of her recently remodeled kitchen in Brooklyn, are so full she is now stuffing a hall closet with gadgets, among them a shrimp deveining knife and a marinade injector.
"I can always rationalize buying something by saying maybe one day I'll come across a recipe that might need that," she said. "It's nonsense. I know it!"
The success of the home shopping channels with their breathless hosts touting flashing dog tags and mop slippers ("walk your way to clean floors") spawned the ultimate tribute, a parody show, "Home Purchasing Club," broadcast on VH1's broadband network, VSpot. A recent episode featured two hosts extolling the virtues of the Bug Hammer, a rubber mallet with a target painted on one face to make squashing beetles a breeze.
The Internet is especially receptive to those who invent a better, or at least more colorful, mousetrap.
In Carmel, Ind., an urban planner and home baker named Matthew Griffin invented a brownie pan that ingeniously makes every brownie have at least two crispy edges. "When we launched it we thought we had a niche product," Griffin said. "We liked corner brownies and were trying to create a new market, catering to the edge lover."
A few small blogs mentioned the pan last fall, and then Boingboing, a popular blog that often touts gadgets, ran an item last month. Traffic to the Baker's Edge Web site, previously averaging 6,000 hits a month, became as intense as a triple chocolate brownie. "We did 1,000 hits an hour for two weeks," Griffin said. His small company is sold out of the $34 pans for now. Next in the development pipeline: an all-edge lasagna pan.
Not that the big boys have given up on the gadget game. Black & Decker, seller of the DustBuster, a seminal gadget introduced in 1979, is set to release in May the Lids Off automatic jar opener, designed for those whose grip is no longer sure enough to unseal jars of gourmet elderberry jam. The $40 whirring Lids Off, big as a breadbox, is aimed at people, according to the product literature, who are "struggling from hand ailments or just struggling to escape the otherwise monotonous task of opening jars."
Some of the most sublimely ridiculous gadgets are designed to appeal to a younger set who spend hours in front of computers. The Dream Cheeky USB Missile Launcher plugs into a computer's USB port. A few mouse clicks aim and fire soft foam darts capable of clearing cubicle walls. A USB Hamster Wheel uses keystrokes to set a toy rodent scurrying nowhere, "the ultimate parody of modern society," an online retailer notes.
Going gadget ga-ga can lead to problems that no gadget can solve. Sarah Lazarovic, a photographer in Toronto, said she rues the day she bought a trick camera lens from a Russian dealer on the Internet that turned out to be uselessly cumbersome. "I've tried to stop buying useless stuff I'm never going to use, like periscope camera lenses," Lazarovic said. "I'm not proud of the whole box of cords and digital detritus I have."
Eisenberg, the clutter expert, suggested a low-tech solution to gadget overload. "The good thing is you can go through your apartment, gather them up and have a tag sale," she said by cell phone. "Pass them on to someone else."
Not every gadget is useless. The Annoy-o-tron works. An informal test on an unsuspecting newspaper reporter yielded a slow-rising boil of annoyance, starting with the question "What is that annoying sound?" and cresting, about 18 hours later, with cursing, a furious hunt, the device's discovery and a brutal stomping on it.


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1 min read.Updated: 05 Apr 2016, 01:37 AM ISTAmrit Raj
Of the 22,000 units, only 2,000 were four-wheelers
New Delhi: Sales of electric vehicles in India grew by 37.5% to 22,000 units in the year ended 31 March, according to industry lobby group Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV).
Of these, only 2,000 units were four-wheelers. The lobby group said that industry sold 16,000 units in 2014-15.
At these levels, India remains miles away from its objective of selling 6 million electric vehicles by 2020, a vision stated by the government through the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 and FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles).
“It would be tough to achieve (the target) unless ground level infrastructural deficiencies were removed and credit facilities eased for buying green vehicles," SMEV said in a statement.
However, SMEV took solace from increased awareness among commuters about electric vehicles “and the fact that people are seeing a good value proposition in EVs," said Sohinder Gill, director of corporate affairs at SMEV.
“Intentions at policy level abound but government at every level, be it Centre, State or Municipal, now has to go the extra mile to facilitate mass migration to green mobility," he said.
Lack of basic infrastructure facilities like charging stations and difficulties in availing credit from banks for buying such vehicles are impediments to the growth of the sector.


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It just looks like a busy week for beer news. And, with Bush on vacation in Crawford (never a good sign), the Republican Congress offering to let Rumsfeld arrest anyone he wants, unemployment up, and a new war in the Middle East, we could all use some good news, or at least a good beer.
The California beermaker who brought the world He'brew, Miraculous Jewbilation and Genesis Ale has come up with a new brew commemorating the late Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce on the 40th anniversary of his death.
Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. has hit more than 1,000 stores in 25 states in a tribute to Bruce, the ground-breaking comic and social critic who died on August 3, 1966, at age 40.
The beer is made with "obscene amounts of malts and hops," says a statement from Shmaltz Brewing Co., in reference to Bruce's arrests for obscenity in his standup act.
While I can't get the Greenlander beer here, I do think I know of a store that carries Shmaltz Brewing products.


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According to the India Today
, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently introduced a new policy requiring all domestic smartphones to have a software called Do Not Disturb (DND 2.0) to connect to telecom operators. However, Apple’s behaviour of pre-installed software, which may be denied due to privacy risks, prohibits DND 2.0 from entering the App Store, which means that India’s iPhone
may not be able to use 3G, 4G networks or even sell properly.
DND 2.0 is an anti-spam and blocking harassing phone software; the primary purpose is to track and combat Indian telecom harassers, such as frequent calls or spam messages. However, Apple refused to let the software be downloaded from the App Store. Apple believes that the software has captured the user’s call and SMS records, infringing on personal privacy.
“Every Access Provider shall ensure, within six months’ time, that all smart phone devices registered on its network support the permissions required for the functioning of such Apps as prescribed in the regulations 6(2)(e) and regulations 23(2)(d);Provided that where such devices do not permit functioning of such Apps as prescribed in regulations 6(2)(e) and regulations 23(2)(d), Access Providers shall, on the order or direction of the Authority, derecognize such devices from their telecom networks.”
Regarding personal privacy, Apple pays more attention than other technology companies. Earlier, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation asked Apple to crack an iPhone of a dead terrorist to help the police investigate the case, but Apple refused to defend the user’s privacy. The incident sparked controversy in the United States, but it also established Apple’s image of resolutely protecting personal privacy.
Currently, DND 2.0 is not reviewed by the App Store and can only download from the Google Play Store.


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FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): After a weekend robbery, there have been at least seven robberies of Family Dollar and Dollar General stores in the Fort Wayne area, so far this year.
On Sunday, the Family Dollar on S. Anthony Blvd was robbed at gunpoint. According to the Journal Gazette, the suspect went inside the store and demanded money from the register
Police were able to find cellphones of a few customers in the back of the store, and they are still searching for a suspect.
The suspect was described as black, 5 feet, 9 inches tall, with a thin build and wearing a black ski mask, gray hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants.


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following its success with the niche-focused toughbook notebooks that sold more than 100,000 units last year, panasonic pursues its target market with its first handheld device, the toughbook 01. the handheld will be offered to agencies–mostly law enforcement, military, and utility–that will order at least 500 units. “we have no intention of taking on the palms and handsprings of the world,” a panasonic representative said. “our customers were asking for a handheld, and we felt it was better to have one than not.” read more about it at cnet.
user comments 1 comment(s)
|sweet (5:39pm est tue sep 25 2001)
it's still intact!
coooooooool! – by bob


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- June 25, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Economy
This is just one of the stories from our “I’ve Always Wondered” series, where we tackle all of your questions about the world of business, no matter how big or small. Ever wondered if recycling is worth it? Or how store brands stack up against name brands? Check out more from the series here.
Marketplace reader and listener Chantel Jimenez from San Diego asked:
Who is buying houses right now when the prices are so high and the number of people unemployed is high? With trillions of dollars going into the economy to stabilize and make sure we recover — how is it that the housing market is booming?
Jack Kavanaugh, a 31-year-old resident of New York state, and his wife had been house hunting for more than four months, getting text after text from their agent telling them their bids were unsuccessful.
But when the agent called? He had the feeling that ring would be a harbinger of good news. When he picked…


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What Is the Threat: Truth About Cell Phone Security
By: Eric Everson, Founder – MyMobiSafe.com
Practically everyone these days has a cell phone, but with a rise in media attention towards “mobile security” what has happened to the security of cell phones? As the founder of MyMobiSafe.com, I’m going to attempt to shed some light on why cell phone security has become such a hot topic of concern.
One must first begin to understand that what is considered a “basic” cell phone today was considered an advanced computing cell phone just a few years ago. Features such as cameras/MP3/video/banking are now standard with the majority of cell phone handsets. Much like the computer industry, the cell phone handset industry is under constant pressure to produce the next evolution of handset with advanced features of processing speed, connectivity, reception, battery life, memory, etc. This quest for the next great phone has resulted in blinding developments at a handset manufacturer’s level which has unfortunately left a gaping hole in mobile security.
Wireless service providers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars on protecting their networks, but have done little if anything to provide protection at the handset level for their customers. Added to the rapid manufacturer developments and lack of regard for handset security at a provider level is the migration of financial information which has become a driving force behind the rise of mobile threats. As a result of these factors, an increase in mobile threats has taken center stage throughout the global wireless community.
Mobile threats may sound frightening as the media tends to give more attention to “mobile viruses” which in actuality are of less concern than other more serious threats. It’s hard to list the real mobile threats in order of severity as hackers, mobile keyloggers, and snoopware are all competing for top placement. These are the real threats to cell phone users and even those carrying basic cell phones have entered into the line of fire. The greatest points of vulnerability that one faces without a mobile security solution are the text messaging, Bluetooth, and increasingly in a number of newer handsets Wi-Fi.
Our mobile security blogs have more detailed information about all of these and other threats that cell phone users face. The reason for the media surge around the topic is the interconnectivity that the mobile community has. Referring back to the six degrees of separation idea that we’re all connected through the collective mobile network, is a quick look into the media attraction to mobile threats. While a massive attack is more likely to be targeted at the wireless service provider level than the handset level, mobile users must take responsibility for their own handset security.
Many people wonder where they can turn for a mobile security solution as there are a number of them that have emerged depending on one’s handset. At MyMobiSafe.com we’ve taken an encryption-based approach which gives us the greatest handset compatibility in the industry, while many mobile security providers (MSP) have decided to develop their product for a select handset or series of handsets. Regardless of which MSP you choose, the important thing is that you choose one.
If you wouldn’t feel safe running your computer without an antivirus/firewall then you shouldn’t feel safe without a mobile security solution either. There is no debate about “if” there is a threat to mobile phones, so take responsibility for your handset where your wireless provider has left you vulnerable. Please continue to visit our mobile security blogs to learn more about protecting yourself in today’s mobile community.
Your friend in mobile security – Eric Everson


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Does Microsoft chairman Bill Gates really believe his company’s Tablet PC still has the potential to be the world’s dominant computer design?
That’s what he told an audience in Tokyo earlier this week.
Of course, a Tablet PC revival is possible. It wouldn’t be the first time a technology came back from the dead – Apple’s Macintosh did the Lazarus thing.
But the track record for tablet-style computers is not encouraging. And, while he is often on the money elsewhere, in this department, Gates looks like a mug punter.
In 2001, when he demonstrated the first Tablet PC units in Las Vegas, Gates said the pen-based slate-style machines would become America’s dominant computer format within five years.
Four years on, even if we interpret the numbers generously, they don’t appear to account for quite 2% of the market. There are a few specialist niches where Tablets do rather well; mainly medicine and insurance, but they don’t even come remotely close to dominating any notable sector.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has used a Tablet PC.
Although they were physically impressive, with their twisting screens and lightweight formats, the first models were both hideously expensive and grossly under-powered.
The handwriting recognition worked well enough in theory, but in practice was so slow that users had to put up with a frustrating wading-through-treacle experience.
Since then we’ve been through three or four hardware generations and at least one major software refresh. Things are dramatically better today, but Tablets remain unsatisfying. And they are still expensive; you need to part with the thick end of $5000 to buy a Tablet.
That’s not a problem for the world’s richest man, but when Joe Public can buy four entry-level notebooks for the price of a Tablet, the return on investment doesn’t exactly look compelling for non-specialist users.
The Tablet wasn’t Microsoft’s first unsuccessful foray in to pen-based computing. A decade earlier the company developed a product with a removable keyboard that was sometimes known as the Slate. It was also a dog. In fact, it appears to have been painted out of history in much the same way Stalin’s rivals were deleted from Soviet-era official photographs.
You’d think by now the message should have got through to Microsoft’s top brass that consumers and businesses aren’t exactly falling over themselves to buy overpriced handwriting recognition products. Outside of those few vertical markets and the odd geek enclave pen computing remains a failed concept.
All of which is a huge pity for resellers; implementing pen-based computing often requires a fair amount of added value.
While the Tablet PC is unlikely to become a mass-market product, there is still plenty of untapped potential to use them in conjunction with certain applications. ERP and CRM are two obvious candidates, as is anything that is list or form-based. But then, handheld computers like the Palm or iPaq might be a more appropriate way of getting the same functionality.


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Birchbox sets itself a tougher retail challenge
One year after the opening of its first brick and mortar shop in SoHo, New York, US company Birchbox continues its foray into the retail world. The e-retailer and pioneer in subscription beauty kits will in 2016 open two new shops in the USA, one of them dedicated to men.
To select the locations of these future openings, Birchbox is taking a road trip across the country in August with the installation of temporary shops in three American cities. The location of these pop-up stores - to be revealed on August 3rd - follows an online vote. Online customers had until July 17th to choose which city they wished to see these temporary shops set up in. The cities have thus been chosen based on the votes.
In addition, Birchbox signed a partnership agreement with Gap, allowing it to set up Birchbox beauty corners (since June and for three months) in seven of the US brand's stores, in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.
In France too Birchbox is playing the temporary shops card. Last Christmas, the US retailer opened a temporary boutique on Rue Turbigo, Paris, and has more recently installed a temporary display corner at Bon Marché.
Copyright © 2023 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.


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The retailer said 280,000 UK staff will share a payout worth £56 million, down from £110 million a year earlier and worth a maximum of £1,625 per worker.
About 5,000 top managers and its board have also been denied bonuses and long-term shares awards after the retailer's 2012/13 performance "fell short of where we wanted it to be", its annual report revealed.
Tesco endured a "challenging" year in 52 weeks to the end of March, with bottom line pre-tax profits diving 51.5% to £1.96 billion as it was hit by slowing sales growth and a raft of hefty writedowns.
These included an £804 million charge from its decision to scrap more than 100 major store developments in the UK. It also took a £1.2 billion hit from its failed foray in America and is offloading its loss-making Fresh & Easy business. Tesco is instead focusing on reinvesting profits in its existing UK business and expanding online, part of a £1 billion overhaul.
Mr Clarke and Mr McIlwee missed out on long-term shares worth a combined £2.4 million when the awards lapsed because of the missed performance targets. Tesco's top 5,000 bosses earned 16.9% of their bonus potential a year earlier.
Stuart Chambers, chairman of the group's remuneration committee, said: "This demonstrates that our remuneration policy is effective in aligning pay with performance".
The £56 million staff shares award is equivalent to 1.5% of an employee's earnings, and is payable to workers who joined the group before February 25. Shares are held in trust and can be sold after three years.
A spokeswoman said while the staff payout is not tied to specific measures, "it's not been a secret that it's been a challenging year for the business".
- The bankers bonus league table!
- Tesco to unveil food waste strategy
- Tesco voted UK's worst supermarket


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DENVER - Sales of recreational marijuana spiked sharply in March as more licensed marijuana companies came online, according to a new state tax report.
Stores sold $19.6 million worth of pot for recreational use. March sales totaled roughly $4.5 million more than February, representing a 30 percent increase.
The data show an overall increase in marijuana sales driven by out-of-state customers and new in-state purchasers of the drug, with medical marijuana sales holding steady at $34.5 million.
March represents the first month in which recreational pot sales totaled more than half the dollar amount of medical marijuana sales in Colorado.
Medical marijuana patients pay only regular sales tax on their purchases, whereas recreational marijuana customers pay additional "sin taxes" on the drug.
The first quarter of the year brought in $7.3 million in total tax revenue from recreational pot sales.
(KUSA-TV © 2014 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)


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JSocket RAT Adwind is back on the market
JSocket RAT (Remote administration tool) Adwind is back on the market, this time as JSocket, an online marketplace selling malware and a slew of other tools
Nigerian cyber criminals are shifting away from traditional email-based scams and using malware to target bank accounts. One source of that malware comes from Adwind, the largest malware-as-a-service platform currently in operation, according to Kaspersky Lab researchers.
Kaspersky Lab researchers uncovered a website that operates as a malware marketplace, where anyone can create an account and purchase remote administration tools with advanced features, said Vitaly Kamluk, director of Global Research & Analysis Team in APAC at Kaspersky Lab. The website, JSocket, is well-designed and even has an accompanying YouTube channel showing customers how to use the software. Customers can sign up for an account and purchase one of the many subscription plans available to actually get the software.
“It looks like a software company’s website,” Kamluk said.
JSocket is the latest iteration of Adwind, the cross-platform malware that has been around since 2012 under various names, including Frutas, Unrecom, Sockrat, jRat, and AlienSpy. Written entirely in Java, Adwind can infect Windows, OS X, Linux, and Android platforms.
JSocket/Adwind is different from other commercial malware in that it is distributed as a paid malware as a service. Kaspersky Lab researchers estimate the platform currently has approximately 2,100 customers and 150 unique malware samples.
“It’s not just another malware,” Kamluk said, calling it an “all-in-one for criminals” interested in a “one-stop shop” to create and manage their fraudulent campaigns.
One-stop shop for malware campaigns
JSocket provides a malware builder and control panel to manage the campaigns. The malware has a built-in keylogger and can steal VPN certificates as well as passwords from browsers, Outlook, databases, and messaging software. It also provides an impressive array of features, including a VPN anonymizer and add-on modules such as the Downloader module, which automatically installs Java on the victim machine, and a cryptographic tool. It offers chat software to communicate with victims, remote desktop control software, file transfer tools, APK management for Android, and the ability to collect general system and user information, and capture video from the webcam and audio from the microphone. JSocket can also test the generated malware against popular antivirus engines to determine whether the new build would be able to bypass security tools.
Adwind is so basic anyone with elementary computer skills can carry out surveillance campaigns. Kamluk believes Adwind clients are typically scammers interested in using malware for more advanced fraud campaigns to move to the “next level” of cyber crime, unscrupulous competitors sniffing out company secrets, cyber mercenaries, and private individuals interested in spying on people they know.
“The Adwind platform in its current state lowers significantly the minimum amount of professional knowledge required by a potential criminal looking to enter the area of cyber crime,” said Aleksandr Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab.
The fact that customers find it easy to use the platform means Adwind “is not going to go away easily,” and banks should brace themselves for a wave of targeted attacks, Kamluk said. It is already popular among criminals in Nigeria, the United States, Canada, Russia, and Turkey, and cross-platform RATs will soon become standard among criminal groups. Similar multifunction platforms will also be available on the market, Gostev predicted.
Criminals have used Adwind to launch attacks against companies across most major industries, including manufacturing, finance, engineering, design, retail, government, shipping, telecommunications, software, education, food production, health care, media, and energy. Victims are infected when they open the malicious JAR file attached to spear phishing emails.
Kaspersky Lab said Adwind was being used globally, although nearly half the victims were concentrated in United Arab Emirates, Germany, India, the United States, Italy, Russia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Turkey, and Taiwan. Researchers observed 200 examples of spear phishing attacks delivering Adwind malware to more than 68,000 users between August 2015 to January 2016.
Keep in mind that people using Adwind software are not working together, nor are they members of the same attack group. Criminals buy a subscription and craft their own campaigns, Kamluk said. Plans range from a 15-day plan for $35 to a yearlong plan for $300. Customers pay using the AdvCash payment system, where buyers can fund accounts from various sources including traditional wire transfers or bank transfers, bitcoin, Yandux, Paxum, and Perfect Money.
While some of the attacks were targeted, Kasperksy Lab researchers have also seen Adwind being used in opportunistic attacks, Kamluk said.
Putting puzzle pieces together
There have been hints over the years suggesting that Frutas, Unrecom, and AlienSpy were all variants of the same Adwind malware. JSocket and the recent activity on underground forums provide stronger evidence that the tools are all related, Gostev said.
Back in 2012, when Kaspersky Lab was studying Duqu, researchers came across a posting on a Spanish-language underground forum from a developer looking for testers for a new remote administration tool. That tool eventually was released as Frutas, and as the product evolved, it became more sophisticated, Gostev said. Adwind 2.0 was released in January 2013, with a nice interface and plug-in-based architecture. By the time AlienSpy came along, Adwind had added Android support and become a true cross-platform RAT.
JSocket 1.0 launched in June 2015, two months after a report from Fidelis Cyber security shut down AlienSpy. Kaspersky Lab researchers were able to link the previous versions with JSocket thanks to a forum posting from the same developer claiming someone was trying to ruin his or her reputation by spreading malware to Adwind customers.
Kamluk said there were clues suggesting the developer had been working on Adwind as far back as 2005.
“Despite multiple reports about different generations of this tool, published by security vendors in recent years, the platform is still active,” Kamluk said, noting the JSocket website is still active. The fact that Jsocket was live two months after Fidelis shut down AlienSpy showed that current methods aimed at disrupting criminal operations are ineffective. New approaches are needed to disrupt this platform completely, he said.
The brains behind the operation
Gostev and Kamluk worked up a profile of the individual they believe is behind Adwind. Based on forum postings and coding patterns, they believe the individual is between 22 and 30 years old and lives in central Mexico or at least works hours corresponding to Mexico’s workday. The hours of operation appear to be from a little after 9 in the morning and working through the evening, seven days a week. The Adwind mastermind is estimated to earn an estimated $200,000 a year from JSocket, they said.
“This is the story of a Mexican businessman with a successful software startup,” Kamluk said. “He has a fantastic website called JSocket.”


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Alarm.com Opens on NASDAQ at $14 Per Share
Alarm.com has gone public, offering of 7,000,000 shares of common stock at $14.00 per share. The company is one of only a handful of home automation IPOs, the most recent being Control4, which went public in 2013.
Meanwhile, underwriters have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 525,000 shares from Alarm.com and up to 525,000 shares of common stock from selling stockholders at the IPO price to cover over-allotments.
Alarm.com will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders.♦


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An earlier version of Stocks to Watch for Jan. 22 included incorrect figures for Verizon’s net loss and adjusted profit for the fourth quarter of 2012. The article has been corrected.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — As four Dow Jones Industrial Average components reported their fourth-quarter financial results Tuesday, shares of Travelers Cos. stood out from the pack in the early going.
Travelers added more than 3% in New York Stock Exchange action, while shares of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
After the closing bell, a handful of tech-sector heavyweights — Google Inc.
Beset by a big jump in catastrophe losses, Travelers saw its net profit halved in the fourth quarter, to $304 million, or 78 cents a share.
Operating earnings, which exclude net realized investment gains, showed a similar drop, to 72 cents a share, for the New York-based insurance company.
Quarterly revenue generated by Travelers reached $6.48 billion, up 2%. The same growth rate was seen i new written premiums.
Verizon turned in a quarterly net loss of $4.23 billion, or $1.48 a share, reflecting the inclusion of various non-operational items that the company detailed earlier this month.
Adjusted profit would have been 38 cents a share, including a 7-cent reduction for Hurricane Sandy, for the latest quarter. The consensus in a survey of analyst estimates by FactSet had been that Verizon would post earnings of 51 cents a share.
The company highlighted broad-based top-line growth that yielded operating revenue of $30.05 billion for the latest quarter, up from the prior year’s $28.44 billion. It was a company record for quarterly revenue, reflecting 9.5% growth in wireless.
Johnson & Johnson posted a net profit of $2.57 billion, or 91 cents a share, up from $218 million, or 8 cents, earned in the year-earlier fourth quarter, as the health-care mainstay’s sales reached $17.56 billion from $16.23 billion. Sales growth came in part from the company’s recently completed Synthes Inc. acquisition.
On an adjusted basis, J&J pegged quarterly earnings at $1.19 a share, up from the prior year’s $1.13 a share. Analysts’ consensus was $1.17 a share for the latest quarter.
The New Brunswick, N.J.-based company also projected that it would earn $5.35 to $5.45 a share, excluding the impact of special items, for 2013. Adjusted profit for 2012 amounted to $5.10 a share, J&J’s results showed.
Fellow blue chip DuPont had fourth-quarter net income of $112 million, or 12 cents a share, including a 10-cent contribution from discontinued operations.
On an adjusted basis and from continuing operations, the Wilmington, Del.-based chemicals giant pegged its quarterly profit at 11 cents a share. The consensus as derived by FactSet had been for 7 cents a share.
DuPont said quarterly net sales came in essentially flat at $7.33 billion.
The company also forecast bottom-line growth of 2% to 7% for 2013, based on operating earnings and on an adjusted basis, with management forecasting the growth coming over the latter half of the year.
Other Tuesday notables
As with Travelers, the impact of Sandy was there to be found in results for Delta Air Lines
The Atlanta-based carrier’s revenue rose 2% to $8.6 billion, as adjusted profit for the latest quarter totaled 28 cents a share. Analysts had expected Delta to earn 27 cents a share on revenue of $8.59 billion, according to the consensus in a FactSet poll.
Delta pegged the negative impact from Sandy on airline and refinery operations at $100 million.
Regions Financial Corp.
Intuitive Surgical Inc.
Google, IBM and TI: what to expect
Google’s expected to report fourth-quarter earnings of $10.57 a share, according to the FactSet-derived consensus. On Friday, the company said analysts’ estimates for quarterly results may be off because they have not taken into consideration the impact of the sale of Motorola Home, which makes set-top boxes.
IBM is projected to post fourth-quarter earnings of $5.25 a share.
Bug Blue’s fourth quarter will be “a particularly interesting one after the uncharacteristic in-line September earnings. Investors have held to the notion that IBM can protect earnings through sluggish times, which was somewhat called into question based on last quarter’s in-line earnings,” said analysts at Janney Montgomery Scott.
“IBM will have the opportunity to return to form with solid upcoming results and guidance. We expect a level of stability given recent acquisition activity and hardware pickup,” they wrote in a preview.
Texas Instruments is forecast to report fourth-quarter earnings of 7 cents a share.
“We expect TI to print a slight beat as industry checks indicate orders improved towards the latter part of December and, excluding the impact from wireless restructuring, we look for Q1 revenue guidance largely in line with historical 10-year seasonality as semiconductor cycle troughs,” said analysts at Wedbush Securities.


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West European new car registrations fell 15.5% year-on-year (YoY) in August 2020, according to data released by LMC Automotive – although underlying demand was strong, helped by government incentives designed to boost sales in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
LMC also noted that the annual comparison is against a high base; August of last year was a strong month, inflated by new European emission testing rules (WLTP). The annualised selling rate maintained its upward trajectory in recent months, climbing to 15.1 million units a year, as the market continues to recover from the effects of COVID-19 coronavirus.
The positive effect of incentive measures and reopening economies helped to boost markets, although there remains a backdrop of the still-present threat of future containment measures.
Italy experienced an exceptionally strong selling rate of 2.3 million units a year with the help of government incentives. In Germany, meanwhile, sales fell by 20.0% YoY, although the selling rate remained a solid 3.6 million units a year. The French and Spanish markets both saw a double-digit percentage fall YoY, though annualised selling rates were more encouraging at 2.2 million units a year and 1.3 million units a year respectively. In the UK, sales fell 5.8% YoY, coupled with a strong 2.9 million units a year monthly selling rate.
The region continues to steadily recover from the April nadir, although monthly registrations are still well down across the region. In year-to-date (YTD) terms, the West European car market is down by a third, with the 2020 forecast only slightly improved on last month, to just under 11 million units for the full year.
LMC analyst Jonathon Poskitt noted that consumer confidence, while improved from earlier in the year, remains low. “We are still at a fragile phase in the recovery,” he said. “Government incentive schemes will continue to be a key factor in shaping recovery across the region in the remainder of 2020. Risks remain while the virus is present.”


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Deep-discount retailer Big Lots (NYSE:BIG) reported quarterly revenue that topped expectations as the company seeks to revamp its corporate structure following the complete shutdown of its Canadian operations.
Big Lots said the loss from its Canada exit was lower than expected, but the quarter was negatively impacted by the severe weather in parts of the United States and Canada following a highly competitive holiday season. Big Lots closed its final Canadian store at the end of February after announcing that it would shutter the unit in December. The closures resulted in the loss of about 1,600 jobs.
Big Lots said total revenue fell 6 percent to $1.64 billion, but still beat Wall Street's estimate of $1.61 billion. Net income fell 30 percent to $84.4 million from $120.3 million a year earlier. Same-store sales also declined by 3 percent.
Looking ahead, the company has promoted Timothy Johnson to exec-VP and CFO to guide the company through its continued cost-savings and turnaround efforts. Johnson has served as CFO since 2012, and is also a member of the executive leadership team which guides the company's strategic direction.
Big Lots to close all stores in Canada
Blockbuster to close all 300 remaining stores
J.C. Penney quietly closes outlet stores
Caribou Coffee to close 80, rebrand some stores to Peet's Coffee
Kroger buys Harris Teeter for $2.5 billion, no name change for the stores


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South Yorkshire Police issue warning about text message scam as fraudsters pretend to be delivery companies
A police warning has been issued about fraudsters sending text messages claiming to be from delivery companies to victims in South Yorkshire.
Known as a parcel delivery scam, fraudsters claiming to be from firms including Hermes send text messages claiming an outstanding fee needs to be paid before an item can be delivered.
The text messages usually contain a link which, when clicked, asks for payment information.
This then gives scammers access to their victim’s bank account.
PC Gavin Johnson, from South Yorkshire Police’s fraud co-ordination team, said: "We know that thankfully, many people will treat text messages like this with suspicion, but with many of us doing more shopping online these days and therefore expecting more deliveries it can be easy to fall for a scam like this. The scammers are professionals so the messages can be quite convincing.
“I’d really encourage everyone to spread the word about scams like this, and ensure their loved ones know to be vigilant.”


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Miller Electric Mfg., a manufacturer of arc welding, has partnered up with IPG Photonics Corporations, a leader in fiber laser technology, to further promote laser solutions for handheld welding applications.
"We are excited to enter this partnership with Miller, as it allows us to pioneer new frontiers in handheld welding technology," said Trevor Ness, SVP of worldwide sales and strategic business development at IPG Photonics. "Our combined expertise will empower welders with next-generation laser solutions that redefine what's possible in precision welding."
The alliance between Miller and IPG Photonics aims to reshape the landscape of welding tools to provide welders with powerful, efficient, and precise solutions that meet the demands of modern welding applications. The partnership is set to deliver dependable solutions that welders can rely on for their critical tasks.
"Miller has a rich history of driving advancements in welding technology," said Dave Lambert, group president of sales and marketing at Miller. "Teaming up with IPG Photonics represents a significant step toward providing welders with state-of-the-art tools that enhance their capabilities."


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- Blame Heartbleed: HealthCare.gov requires users to change their passwords
- Major security flaws threaten satellite communications
- Satellite communication systems rife with security flaws, vulnerable to remote hacks
- Chrome OS may kill the password with Easy Unlock smartphone option
- Hackers try to blackmail plastic surgeon after stealing 500,000 patient records
- Galaxy S5 deep-dive review: Long on hype, short on delivery
- NBN Co hits 105Mbps in limited FTTN trial
- Telcos seek to strengthen NBN Co wholesale restrictions
- UPDATED: 4G in Australia: The state of the nation
- TPG should pay rural levy for each FTTB service: NBN Co
Windows Phone in pictures
Microsoft released Windows Phone 8.1 today, and contrary to its label of "Windows Phone Preview for Developers," anyone can upgrade their current Windows Phone 8-powered handset.
Nokia is giving developers the tools to write Windows Phone apps that lets users do more with their photos, like combine shots taken with the front and back cameras.
Microsoft's App Studio beta test has been expanded to allow novice developers to build applications for Windows tablets and PCs, in addition to Windows Phone.
Game developers can prepare to create apps for Windows Phone 8.1 with a beta program from Unity Technologies.
The options are increasing for people who want an LTE smartphone, but don't want to spend a fortune or sign an expensive contract. Two new alternatives that won't drain wallets are Nokia's Lumia 635 and the Huawei-made Kestrel.
Microsoft's announcement of universal Windows apps demonstrates the company's commitment to improving its share of the tablet and smartphone markets.
Microsoft is expected to launch an update to its Windows Phone platform to version 8.1 at its annual Build developer conference on Wednesday, followed by a separate Nokia event later in the day, reportedly to announce two phones running the new OS.
Analysts were uncertain today whether the recent stretch of "go-low" moves by Microsoft means that the company has tweaked its strategy to emphasize services at the expense of devices.
Nokia's disclosure today of weak Lumia sales last quarter has put Microsoft's devices strategy in the hole even before it finalizes the acquisition of the Finnish firm, analysts said today.
Analysts are pondering just what Microsoft might do with the Android-variant smartphone Nokia has under development: Keep it or kill it.
Are your business leaders demanding a migration plan from BlackBerry? Let the mobile experts at Good help you migrate without migraines. Our Professional Services team has deep experience supporting Fortune 500 organizations through the transition; read this sample planning chart and see our trusted method.
Why do we continue to pay the earth for global roaming? With Telstra increasing global roaming charges by 100-500% in over 180 countries, bill shock can only get worse. This paper investigates why, what and how your company can address the need for global coverage.
- In pictures: Customer 360 Symposium hits the Hunter Valley
- Why CMOs must embrace the seven principles of agile marketing
- Google opens the floodgates for new 'social' ads
- Telefónica starts exchange for targeted mobile ads
- Crowdsource guide ranks marketing automation platforms by user recommendations and company size


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Will stock market Grinch steal holiday spending?
Bottom line Buoyed by a healthy labor market, elevated confidence and a sharp decline in gas prices, consumers have largely shrugged off double-digit stock market declines over the past three months, generating a solid start to the holiday shopping season. The Commerce Department reported this morning that nominal retail sales in November rose a slightly higher-than-expected 0.2% on a month-over-month (m/m) basis, led by November’s powerful 2.3% m/m surge in internet sales, the most in a year. It also reported a sizable upward revision in October from a preliminary 0.8% gain to a strong 1.1% increase. The big story, in our view, is that so-called control results leapt a much stronger-than-expected 0.9% in November (consensus estimate at 0.4%), with October revised significantly higher from a preliminary 0.3% m/m gain to a strong 0.7% increase. Because consumer spending accounts for 70% of GDP, this gives us greater confidence in our above-consensus forecast for fourth-quarter GDP growth of 2.8%.
Strong labor market is contributing to robust holiday spending:
- Unemployment rate (U-3) was unchanged at 3.7% in November, a 49-year low.
- Wage growth was unchanged on a year-over-year (y/y) basis in November at 3.1%, matching its strongest gain since a 3.4% increase in April 2009.
- Initial weekly unemployment claims (a leading economic and employment indicator) for the week ended Dec. 8 fell to 206,000, just off September’s 49-year low of 202,000.
Consumer confidence remains strong:
- Leading Economic Indicator (LEI) has now risen for 26 consecutive months, up a modest 0.1% in October 2018 on a m/m basis to 112.1, a new 58-year cycle high.
- Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index surged to a new 18-year high of 137.9 in October 2018, up from 100.8 in October 2016, although it slipped to 135.7 last month.
- Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index rose to a 13-year high of 101.4 in March 2018, up from 87.2 in October 2016, although it has since declined to 97.5 last month.
Gas prices have fallen sharply by 18% over the past three months Thanks to a 34% collapse in crude oil (WTI) prices over the same period, from $76 per barrel to a recent low of $50, prices have declined from a peak of $2.92 per gallon in early October to $2.39 today. The rule of thumb is that every 1 cent decline at the pumps adds $1.2 billion in consumer discretionary spending, which could translate into 30 basis points of stronger GDP growth annually.
Back-to-School (BTS) sales are usually a good touchstone for holiday spending Christmas historically tends to be 80-90% positively correlated with BTS results, excluding any weather-related issues. In 2018, BTS spending rose 5.7% in July, August and September on a y/y basis, the strongest results since 2011’s robust gain of 7.8%. For this Christmas, the National Retail Federation (NRF) is forecasting a 4.3-4.8% y/y gain for November and December, and our friends at the Telsey Advisory Group are forecasting 5.2%. At Federated, we’ve been thinking that holiday retail sales growth will approximate 5%. So far, fourth-quarter retail sales for October and November combined have risen by 4.5% y/y, which is spot-on with the average gain since 2010. By comparison, last year’s retail sales during October and November rose a stronger 5.7%, a 6-year high (since 2011’s 6.7% gain.)
Importantly, we typically include January in our analysis of Christmas sales, because of post-holiday gift-card redemptions. Gift cards only count as a retail sale when they’re redeemed, not when they’re purchased. About 15% of gift cards are typically redeemed the week after Christmas, and 60-65% are usually redeemed during the first half of January. So January gift-card redemptions will help determine the overall strength or weakness of the holiday season.
Will ongoing stock market volatility harm the balance of holiday sales? Over the past three months, the S&P 500 has fallen 12%, the technology-laden NASDAQ Composite has dropped by 16%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 Index has plunged 18%, with so-called technical “death crosses” forming in each over the past month. The top socio-economic half of America owns stocks in their retirement and college-savings plans. Moreover, the top two-thirds of Americans own their own homes, and real estate has been under pressure for most of this year.
Over the past 20 years, our research friends at Evercore ISI note that there has been an 86% correlation between the fourth-quarter performance of the S&P and holiday sales. So with the S&P down about 10% so far in the fourth quarter, that suggests that retail sales could be negative. While we don’t believe there’s any chance of that happening, we will concede that holiday spending in December and January may be less robust than expected, in part due to pressure from extreme equity market volatility and a negative wealth effect.
What do weak Christmas tree sales mean? Since 2002, ISI has also gathered data from 24 regional Christmas tree associations, farmers and retailers in the U.S. and Canada during each of the four (or five) weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to gauge the relative strength or weakness of the sale of Christmas trees, wreaths and garlands. They believe if consumer confidence is high and the economy is strong, people likely will spend more money on holiday decorations in addition to gifts, food and beverages and travel. With three weeks now complete, ISI’s annual Christmas tree unit sales survey has posted a weaker-than-expected average y/y sales gain of 4% in 2018, versus 7% in 2017 and 10% in 2016’s first three weeks, which were the strongest results in the history of their survey. The average annual sales gain over the 16-year life of the survey approximates 6%.
True, we have a five-week gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, versus only four weeks in each of the past two years, and there have been some weather issues both out west and in the southeast this year. In addition, there is still a shortage of mature Christmas trees available to be harvested this year (due to planting issues a decade ago during the Great Recession), so prices are higher. That may be driving some buyers to purchase artificial trees instead, which ISI’s survey does not capture. But softer Christmas tree sales so far this season may be a proverbial canary in the coal mine, suggesting that extreme equity market volatility and declining stock prices may be weighing on investor sentiment and holiday cheer.
Connect with Phil on LinkedIn
Editor's note: This will be the last regular weekly installment from Phil this year. Happy holidays!
Views are as of the date above and are subject to change based on market conditions and other factors. These views should not be construed as a recommendation for any specific security or sector.


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Latest News From ETTelecom.com
India’s telecom tower companies are at the cusp of transforming themselves into infrastructure providers, opening potential revenue streams and offsetting the traditional ‘rental’ income which is drying up due to consolidation of telecom companies, according to a report by consultancy firm EY.
Indian Railways is linking its trains to an ISRO satellite. How will it use 1.4 crore daily updates?
Apart from knowing exact location and speed of trains, this ISRO-aided system will help in future planning.
Fair trade regulator CCI will conduct a study about the Indian telecom sector to assess various competition aspects as the market dynamics have undergone significant changes in the recent past, according to its Chairman Ashok Kumar Gupta.
The Chinese high-tech companies blacklisted by Washington over alleged ties to rights abuses are rising stars in China's ambitious drive to overtake the United States in the technology sector.
Google might finally launch a Pixel Watch alongside the Pixel 4 at the company's hardware event scheduled on October 15.
The device is rumoured to feature 45W fast charging and Snapdargon 855 chipset.
Huawei has asserted that keeping the company out of the 5G play in India will be a "loss" to telecom operators
Govt claims over 99 per cent J-K free from movement restrictions, mobile services to restore from Monday
Postpaid mobile services in Jammu and Kashmir will be functional from Monday
However, in order to catch up with the revenue potential the sector will need investment in the range of Rs 66,000- 93,000 crore, the study said.
Apple is a company, however, that at times is not Apple when it comes to China. Events of the last few days have once again reasserted that.
The 7T Pro is available in 8GB + 256 GB variant, and the McLaren Edition will come with 12GB + 256GB storage option.
At present, BSNL has a marketshare of about 6 per cent in the Bengal circle, which he expects to increase to 10 per cent. It enjoys a marketshare of 12 per cent nationally


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According to Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will begin production of the white iPhone 4 this month, with shipping to begin sometime in April. Kuo states that Apple made a change to the “film material” used on the inside of the outer-casing that had been causing a “lamination” issue on white models. If true, the timing is a bit peculiar. Apple is expect to unveil its next-generation iPhone — being called the iPhone 5 for now — in June of this year, giving the albino iPhone 4 a mere two months at the top of the iThing totem pole. Are any of you Apple fans crazy enough to buy a white iPhone 4 in April or May?
If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.


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What compels us as consumers to choose one brand over another? According to Forbes, it's not products and services so much as a brand's reputation. Reputation Institute, a private consulting firm, conducted an online survey of consumers to find the U.S. companies with the best reputations. Here are the Top 25:
These 25 U.S. companies have the best reputations among consumers.
With the Israel-Gaza crisis, an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa and an investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 dominating the headlines, you may have missed other big stories unfolding around the globe.