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The popular East Grand Rapids restaurant Ramona's Table
has begun renovations on a century-old building next to the White Pine Trail
in Rockford with plans to convert it into the eatery's second location.
The former nail salon at 17 Squires St. will soon feature a second-story loft that wraps around three walls with views to the outdoors and the main dining area below. After opening the drop ceiling, equipment from the building's days as a grain mill was discovered hanging from the ceiling, where it will stay as a conversation piece and a link to the building's beginnings.
"We like that juxtaposition of new and old," says Jackie Ziehm, a partner in the business with her husband Charlie Palm. "There's a lot of antique beams and the space will have a very warm feeling with contemporary twists. We've been working with the Rockford Area Historical Society
to add photos of the building and the town from that period."
While Ramona's Table flagship location doesn't offer beer and wine, the Rockford location will, Ziehm says. A patio area will provide respite for customers who want to visit after a walk or bike ride on the White Pine trail just outside the back door. But Ziehm says the restaurant's signature food offerings, like its kitchen-roasted meats and scratch-made soups and desserts, will be the main attractions.
Flavorful sandwiches like The Loafer -- smoked meatloaf topped with chipotle tomato chutney on a pretzel bun -- and four daily soups that always feature White Bean Chicken Chili and French Onion, are high on the list of customer favorites.
Ziehm hopes to open sometime in May.
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Ramona's Table


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At a glance.
- Black market doing a brisk trade in compromised Zoom credentials.
- Malvertising campaign spoofs security company site.
- Mobile data breach reported in Pakistan.
- xHelper affects 55,000 devices.
- Medical devices potential targets of hackers.
Compromised Zoom credentials for sale.
The underground souks are seeing a brisk trade in compromised Zoom credentials. Threatpost reports that thousands of them are being actively sold in the black market. The stolen credentials appear to come from various sources, and not from any single breach, nor even from any small set of breaches or data exposures.
Malvertising distributes the Raccoon information stealer.
A malicious domain, hosted in Russia and apparently controlled by criminals, is spoofing a Malwarebytes site in a malvertising campaign designed to infect visitors to the bogus site with the Raccoon information stealer. SC Magazine quotes Malwarebytes' suspicions that the campaign is at least in part criminal payback for the company's efforts against cybercrime. The malvertising is thought to appear to a significant extent on adult websites, not venues in which Malwarebytes would normally be expected to place ads.
Raccoon is installed by the Fallout exploit kit, Threatpost reports, and it finds "credit card information, cryptocurrency wallets, passwords, emails, cookies, system information and data from popular browsers (including saved credit-card info, URLs, usernames and passwords)" which it reports back to its controllers.
Report: data breach affects Pakistani mobile users.
According to Business Recorder the personal information of some 115 million Pakistani mobile users is for sale in the dark web. The criminals are asking $2.1 million for the data, which include full names, addresses, mobile numbers, NIC numbers, and Tax numbers. “Database is freshly hacked this week," the hoods are quoted as saying in their come-on.
xHelper Trojan spreads to more than 55 thousand devices worldwide.
Kaspersky has been warning of the xHelper Trojan, a persistent strain of Android malware that Dark Reading and others have been calling "unkillable." More than 55 thousand devices worldwide are believed to have been infected so far. xHelper typically achieves root access and persists even through factory resets. The malware collects and reports device information that appears particularly well adapted to use in targeted (and unwelcome) advertising campaigns.
Medical devices may become targets of opportunity during the pandemic.
One of the security problems the COVID-19 pandemic presents is the sheer volume of noise it introduces, especially for healthcare organizations already stretched by high volumes of demand for medical services. Under such conditions, MedTechDive reports, medical devices themselves might become attractive targets for attack. They share in some of the laggard security that one sees in the Internet-of-things generally, and as targets of opportunity they'll prove irresistible to some criminal hackers whose consciences impose few restraints on their behavior.

domain: news


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Oracle Shares Taking Off After a Strong Quarter
Shares in the software giant Oracle rose this morning, after a quarterly earnings report yesterday that displayed its resilience amid a sputtering economy that has caused persistent worries that companies might slash their spending on technology.
At least when it comes to Oracle software, they’re not cutting back at all, says Brian Schwartz of ThinkEquity research, in a note to clients out today. Sales of application licenses at Oracle saw their fastest growth rate during an Oracle Q1 since before the recession, making for a “sign of healthy Enterprise IT demand,” Schwartz wrote.
Overall, Oracle beat the consensus view of analysts on several metrics, including revenue ($8.4 billion, or $50 million ahead of the street) and per-share earnings (48 cents a share, two cents above consensus). On top of that, Oracle issued guidance that license revenue would continue to grow at a rate of six to 16 percent, which was also above consensus. Also: Free cash flow grew 42 percent to $5.3 billion in the quarter, a big improvement over the year-ago quarter when Oracle’s free cash flow was flat.
All good news, right? Not quite, Schwartz writes. Oracle’s hardware business is still on the comeback trail. Hardware systems product revenue declined five percent year over year, because of a shift toward higher-margin products and away from higher-volume, less profitable ones. Oracle’s plan is to essentially phase out the higher-volume servers that came with its Sun Microsystems acquisition from last year. The plan is to focus on higher-end hardware that commands a higher profit margin at sale and to phase out the less-profitable stuff. As CEO Larry Ellison said during a conference call with analysts last night: “I don’t care if our commodity x86 business goes to zero,” he said. “We don’t make any money selling those things. We have no interest in selling other people’s [intellectual property]. … We have interest in selling systems that include our IP.” By systems with “other people’s IP,” he’s referring to mainstream servers that use chips from Intel — hence the reference to x86, Intel’s DNA — and operating systems from Microsoft.
The end result, Schwartz says, is that hardware sales came in $200 million short of the consensus expectation, while the profitability of hardware sales was, at 54 percent, much better than a year ago. Clearly it’s taking awhile to turn the battleship. Oracle said that unit sales of Exadata and Exalogic hardware almost tripled; the company added 100 new customers and promised to triple the number of deployments yet again in 2012.
All that leads Schwartz to rate Oracle a Buy, with a price target of $36. As of this morning, the shares were already headed in that direction: Oracle rose by more than $2 a share — or more than seven percent, to $30.38 a share — after about a half hour of trading.


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Walmart, Sam’s Club Have Handed Out Almost a Billion in Bonuses
The Walmart employee in the above photo is wearing a mask for safety, but you can still tell she’s smiling.
Actually, plenty of Walmart and Sam’s Club employees were smiling June 25 — from hourly associates in stores, clubs, supply chain and offices to truck drivers to assistant managers in stores and clubs — after receiving another bonus in their pay. Assistant managers in Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs received a $400 bonus, and other full-time employees received $300. Part-time hourly and temporary associates received $150.
“Walmart and Sam’s Club associates continue to do remarkable work, and it’s important we reward and appreciate them,” said John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “All across the country, they’re providing Americans with the food, medicine and supplies they need, while going above and beyond the normal scope of their jobs — diligently sanitizing their facilities, making customers and members feel safe and welcome, and handling difficult situations with professionalism and grace.”
Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart and Sam’s Club shelled out $390 million for the bonuses “to recognize them for their many contributions to communities across the country during this unprecedented time,” the retailer said in a press release.
Walmart and Sam’s Club have committed more than $935 million in bonuses for associates so far this year.
The first cash bonus was made on April 2 to U.S. hourly associates in stores, clubs, supply chain and offices. The cash bonuses amounted to $365 million. Walmart and Sam’s Club also issued a first-quarter bonus to employees on April 30 that added up to $180 million.
“We are so grateful to our associates for being there for customers and members during this difficult time, serving communities across the country,” said Kathryn McLay, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, in a statement. “Our associates’ efforts have been exactly what the country needed during this historic and uncertain time. They’ve made a real difference.”
Walmart and Sam’s Club said they will continue to look for ways to reward and recognize associates, while staying focused on their overall well-being and safety.
To learn more about what Walmart and Sam’s Club are doing to combat the pandemic, visit the company’s COVID-19 information hub.
Walmart and Sam’s Club employ about 1.5 million in the U.S.


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Opinionated, sceptical, angry, impoverished – consumers in crisis-hit Greece are one of the toughest crowds in the world. How are companies and agencies changing the way they talk to them?
Given the economic and political turmoil Greece has been through in recent years, it is not surprising that the touchpaper of public outrage is never far from being lit.
A recent example of this was a successful social media charity campaign by the National Bank of Greece, run alongside the Athens Marathon, in which it offered to donate 50 euro cents to a children’s hospital for every post using the #irunmarathon hashtag. However glory soon turned to disaster, when it turned out the bank had capped the amount it would donate at €5,000, irrespective of how many times the hashtag was used. Amazingly, a Greek bank had made itself even more unpopular.
“What happened then was mayhem,” explains Vassiliki Kotzia, events organiser and contributor to Marketing Week in Greece. “Everyone got a chance to attack the bank: ‘they’ve taken our money’. It was a very clear example of how social media can explode in your hands rather than doing good for you.”
Social media is very popular in Greece, with an estimated 4.7 million Facebook users out of a population of 11 million, 700,000 Twitter users and 300,000 people on Instagram, according to Kotzia. Brands therefore have a great opportunity to reach a large audience using social media to promote their own content. But as the National Bank of Greece learned, it is a medium that must be handled with care.
“People love social media but Greeks are very judgemental,” says Kotzia. “They’re really ruthless when it comes to criticising.”
Addressing a public in this frame of mind, dealing with drastic wage cuts and high unemployment, means trying to promote products without mentioning money. The result has been many brands playing it safe, retreating from social media and avoiding risks in their marketing and advertising.
“Agencies don’t want to lose clients and clients are nervous of taking a step which won’t be approved of, either by the public or by their management,” says Kotzia.
However content marketing is a cost-effective way for a brand to tell its story, far cheaper than TV advertising spots, and some companies are taking the plunge, accepting they will never make everyone on social media happy. Agencies such as 4 Wise Monkeys (profiled here [LINK]) and The Newtons Laboratory are running campaigns which let brands showcase their content online, offline at events and in traditional print and broadcast media.
“If you’re daring enough then there is room for achievement,” says Kotzia. She points out that while many Greeks can no longer afford a weekly portion of meat, the iPhone 6 sold out in the country.
“There are two ways companies can deal with this environment: one is to say ‘what the hell’ and get on with it, to trust creativity; the other is to be as safe as possible,” she says. “At the moment, most companies in Greece have chosen the second option.”
However visible content marketing successes from the brave minority may help to turn this around.


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The Gibraltar-based football team, Premier Division Gibraltar United, is in news these days. This team will become the world’s first football team to introduce cryptocurrency. The Gibraltar football team has decided to pay its players in cryptocurrency, and this decision comes at a time when football is delving into an innovative mode in the financial sector.
While Gibraltar United’s owner, Pablo Dana, is an investor in the cryptocurrency Quantocoin, the club has started a sponsorship partnership. Dana mentioned that all player contracts will have payment agreements in cryptos by the next season.
Some people may view this initiative as a random entry point for cryptocurrency in football. However, by taking a closer look though, it seems to make perfect sense as Gibraltar’s finance sector is leading the charge in Fintech and Blockchain technologies.
Gibraltar introduced regulations for businesses using the blockchain technology in January this year. The government is also all set to launch the world’s first legal framework for ICOs. However, as it is said, with great rises also comes great falls! Due to the government bodies’ reluctance to legitimize the crypto industry, cryptocurrencies have witnessed stark drops in its value in 2018. Also, Twitter and Facebook banned forms of cryptocurrency advertising.
As reported in The Guardian, by regulating the cryptocurrency industry, Gibraltar is trying to bring legitimacy and transparency to crypto trading. Dana also mentioned that a similar preoccupation with transparency prompted this initiative of introducing cryptocurrency to Gibraltar United. He further added that blockchain’s open-access nature may reduce corruption scandals that have otherwise plagued football. This step has given his Gibraltar United club a solution to pay foreign players who are not able to easily set up bank accounts in Gibraltar.
According to Dana, Gibraltar offers the perfect setting. It was, in fact, the first place to regulate betting companies 20 years ago when people used to consider them as horrible. He said that Gibraltar’s anti-money laundering regulations and compliance have helped to create a platform for cryptocurrencies.[The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or the official policy of the website. ]


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Retailers warn of challenging orderbooks amid continued high inventory
Confidence in the freight market that retailers are approaching satisfactory inventory levels may be too ...
With the twentieth and final delivery of its Triple-E series of 18,270 teu ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs) due to take place this month, Maersk Line yesterday announced the next phase of its fleet expansion with an order for what will become the largest ships in its fleet.
A public signing ceremony at the DSME shipyard in South Korea yesterday saw Maersk Line chief executive Soren Skou place a new order for 11 Triple-E next generation 19,630 teu vessels for delivery in 2017 and 2018.
The ships represent a capacity increase of 1,360 teu on the original Triple-Es, or 7.4%, while in terms of physical dimensions – with a length of 400 metres, beam of 58.6 metres and a draught of 16.5 metres – they are virtually identical to the first generation, which just goes to show how container vessel design has changed in terms of squeezing out more slots from current dimensions since the Triple-E was first conceived.
A spokesman said that the new units would have 1,000 reefer plugs, compared with the 600 on today’s Triple-Es. He added that although the final specifications of the vessels were still under discussion, it is expected that the engines will also be of the twin-screw type. Maersk executives had previously indicated to The Loadstar that it might look for smaller engines since slow-steaming became commonplace.
“While the contract is for a twin skeg [the projecting after section of a vessel’s keel, where the propeller is sited], we may yet opt for a single skeg. We expect the output to be +60 KW, equivalent to 550 VW Golf cars,” the spokesman added.
The new vessels are also considerably cheaper than the $185m per unit that Maersk forked out for the original Triple-Es in 2011. The company said yesterday the order was worth $1.8bn, representing a per ship price of $163.6m. This puts it on a par with its carrier rivals, which have been paying in the $150-160m for more recently delivered UKCVs, such as the CSCL Globe and MSC Oscar. There is also an option for six additional units.
Maersk said the new vessels will operate its Asia-Europe service, replacing smaller, less-efficient ships.
Maersk Line chief operating officer Søren Toft said: “I am very happy with this order. These vessels will help us stay competitive in the Asia-Europe trade and will be key in our strategy to grow with the market. It is the second order this year and we expect to order more vessels, which we can add to our fleet from 2017 and onwards.”
Earlier this year, the company placed an order for seven 3,600 teu ice-class feeder vessels, which are due to enter its intra-Europe subsidiary Seago Line’s fleet, and it said yesterday that over the next five years it planned to invest a further $15bn in “newbuildings, retrofitting, containers and other equipment”.
At the group capital markets day in September, Mr Skou forecast that the line would require an extra 425,000 teu of capacity by 2017, some of which could be covered by short-term charters. Over the medium term period, of 2017-2019, Mr Skou said it would need about 30 newbuilds.
As from yesterday, the Maersk orderbook stands at total of around 370,000 teu – comprising a final Triple-E; seven Baltic feeder vessels; eleven 9,500-10,00 vessels, which it will take on long-term charter over the course of this year and the next; and the eleven 19,630 teu vessels ordered yesterday – which would rise to 485,000 teu if the six options are exercised.
Its current fleet capacity totals 3m teu, of which 1.7m teu is on 255 owned vessels, with the remaining 1.3m teu on 346 chartered vessels.
The 11 new ULCVs will sail under the Danish flag.
WestJet will 'disrupt' Canada with three 737Fs, but rivals aren't scared
West coast ports suffering as US container imports plunge by 37%
Cost-cutting FedEx Express to retire MD-11s for B767s and 777s
The 'mother of all BAFs' looms for shippers as green targets advance
Carriers turn their gaze back to scrubbers as voyage results tumble
First shipper uses new land-air corridor ex-India for Bangladesh exports
Maersk idles more ships while NOOs see a rebound in demand
Billund sees launch of Maersk Air China link – 'a start-up on steroids'
CMA CGM eyes car-carrier market boom as liners are ready to invest
DSV buys in Arizona to boost services and cross-border LatAm trade
Shippers advised to give strike-hit port of Hamburg a miss
The parcel empires strike back as smaller players take stock
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Nov 13, 2009
Neos Air, neosair.it part of the Alpitour Group, has chosen Maxxcom's internet booking engine Topw@re for the launch of their new website for the online sale of their flights
Nov 05, 2009
Wind Jet’s booking engine Topw@re has been integrated with Travelport through Maxxcom’s API.
Aug 05, 2009
the CRS used by important airlines such as Windjet and Belle Air release APIS messaging funcionalities


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Tue, Mar 4
Mon, Feb 24
HERE Published by Adam Fraser on Fri, Sep 28
When it comes to mobile navigation, Nokia is king. That’s why six of the world’s top automotive brands have signed up to use Nokia’s Location...
HERE Published by Pino Bonetti on Fri, Nov 18
GLOBAL – Have you heard that Nokia Maps now has the world’s largest coverage of maps? Did you know that Nokia Maps have seamless access to maps in over...
Features Published by the Team on Fri, Feb 11
GLOBAL – Today in London, our two companies announced plans for a broad strategic partnership that combines the respective strengths of our companies and builds...
Features Published by James on Sun, Jan 9
LAS VEGAS, USA – Our intrepid audio reporters swerve the worst Las Vegas has to offer and instead catch up with another business exhibiting at...
Features Published by Carita Koskinen on Wed, Feb 17
Features Published by Carita Koskinen on Fri, Jan 22
Published by Joel Willans on Tue, Mar 4
As regular readers will know, we love to feature the best of the new Windows Phone apps here on Nokia Conversations.
However, we can’t always fit...
Published by Ian Delaney on Mon, Feb 24
Today Nokia introduces a brand new family of smartphones, the Nokia X family, a range of handsets that combines Nokia design, build quality and services...
Published by luke on Mon, Feb 24
Everything’s but a swipe away with Nokia’s most affordable Asha touch phone.
Announced today, the quad-band Nokia Asha 230 is rewriting the mobile rulebook. Packed with...


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In the first month of 2014, sales of the two most popular plug-in electric cars were lower than they've been in many months.
Sales levels likely fell victim both to the predictable winter slowdown in electric-car sales (which we saw in 2012 and 2013 too) and to particularly bad weather last month throughout much of the U.S.
The Nissan Leaf logged 1,252 deliveries--its highest-ever January, although its lowest single-month total since February 2013.
Nissan sold 22,610 Leafs in the U.S. last year, more than double its 2012 total of 9,819, and is expected to exceed that number by a significant margin this year.
Based on January sales, however, it would appear that the production boost expected early this year from the Smyrna, Tennessee, assembly plant hasn't yet reached dealers or buyers.
2014 Chevrolet Volt
The Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, which entered 2014 largely unchanged except for a $5,000 price cut, racked up deliveries of 918.
That's lower than its January 2013 sales of 1,140, and the lowest monthly number since January 2012--two full years.
For 2013, Volt sales in the U.S. were flat at 23,094--incrementally lower than the 23,461 sold in 2012.
January sales of the third highest-selling plug-in electric car in the U.S., the Tesla Model S battery-electric luxury sedan, are not known. They will not be made public until Tesla Motors releases its first-quarter financial results in April or May.
The Volt's luxury counterpart, the 2014 Cadillac ELR luxury coupe, logged its first 6 deliveries in December, and added 41 more sales last month as well.
2013 Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, Marin County, CA, Nov 2012
Analysts continue to watch the Ford's deliveries of its two Energi plug-in hybrids, the C-Max compact hatchback and the Fusion mid-size sedan.
Last month, it delivered 827 C-Max Energi and 791 Fusion Energi vehicles--both fewer than the preceding month and considerably down on the November highs for both vehicles.
Between those two models, Ford has recently beaten monthly sales for the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid--that company's sole high-volume plug-in.
After starting strong, sales of the Prius Plug-In--which has the lowest electric range of any plug-in car sold in the U.S., at a mere 11 miles--have tapered off.
It actually sold more in 2012 (12,750 units) than it did last year (12,088), as more plug-in hybrid alternatives came onto the market.
The plug-in Prius nonetheless remains the fourth most-popular plug-in cars in the U.S., with sales last year of 12,088 and lifetime sales of more than twice that number.
Its sales last month were 803 units, its lowest since June of 2013, and a number that Ford easily surpassed--though each of its individual models didn't quite reach that level.
2013 Honda Fit EV drive event, Pasadena, CA, June 2012
Low-volume and compliance cars
Meanwhile, the Honda Accord Plug-In Hybrid logged deliveries of just 27 units, its lowest since March 2013. A total of 553 of the cars have been sold over 13 months.
But the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid, the plug-in hybrid version of Porsche's expensive large luxury sedan, logged a remarkable 141 deliveries--or one in four of the 546 Panameras sold in January.
That beats the Cadillac ELR, as well as other models from Chevrolet, Fiat, Honda, Toyota, and perhaps even Ford and Smart. Most don't compete at all with Porsche, but it's still a remarkable number.
Several additional plug-in electric models sell in quite small volumes--in all cases, less than 200 units a month, and in most, less than 100 deliveries each month.
That's either because they're in more specialized or lower-volume segments, or because they're compliance cars deliberately built in limited volumes that allow carmakers to meet California's requirements for sales of zero-emission vehicles.
Finally, among the low-volume battery-electric models, the Ford Focus Electric saw exactly 100 deliveries--its lowest monthly total since the previous January.
Smart delivered 97 of its battery-powered ForTwo Electric Drive last month, meaning it's now sold or leased more than 1,000 of the electric two-seaters.
Chevrolet sold 93 of its Spark EV minicar in January, its best month since last August, bringing the total number delivered since last June to 632 altogether.
Toyota logged 63 RAV4 EVs delivered in January, its highest monthly sales since last October. A total of 1,351 of the Tesla-powered compact crossovers have now been sold.
The Honda Fit EV sold 30 units last month, its lowest total since May 2013. Altogether, Honda has now sold 692 Fit EV models since July 2012.
Mitsubishi moved exactly one i-MiEV battery-electric minicar. Yep, that's right: one. Poor little thing; it must feel terribly lonely.
Fiat refuses to release a sales breakout for its plug-in Fiat 500; the company is thought to have sold about 400 Fiat 500e models last year.


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Chicago and Denver have one, though Kansas City does not. Now, for the first time, Omaha has a week dedicated to the craft of beer.
For generations, Americans' taste buds for beer in general weren't real complicated. "I'm a big beer geek." Ian Eppenbaugh doesn't hide from the fact that the most popular beers aren't high on his list. "A lot of us just enjoy good, complex beers. A lot of us aren't satisfied with the generic American macro-beer.”
So you can imagine what the Ian's of the metro are thinking when they heard about Omaha Beer Week, a celebration of the little guys, the underdogs and craft beers.
"The palate in this city has been changing quite a bit,” says Dustin Bushon of Krug Park. “I remember what people were drinking in this city five years ago and now it's completely different."
Krug Park in Benson is one of the newest craft beer havens in Omaha with 59 beers on tap, the stuff you usually don't find in a store.
"People are drinking better,” says Zac Triemert of Lucky Bucket Brewery in La Vista. “They're realizing that beer is more than just one thing." Lucky Bucket Brewery has done its share of marketing craft beer. "We're proud of that,” says Triemert. “Two million bottles in almost exactly three years." Lucky Bucket will be unveiling a wheat beer in March.
Omaha Beer Week isn't just about craft beers, it's really about the love of beer. "Craft beer people really get along,” says Chris Bettini of Crescent Moon at the corner of 36th and Farnam, aptly dubbed "beer corner USA” for the four beer establishments under one roof.
It has many beer festivals every year, but Omaha Beer Week incorporates 12 different places around town. "There's a lot to the craft, not just market share," says Bettini. Think of it this way, it's a week's worth of beer education without the degree.
Omaha Beer Week started on Friday night. Click here for a list of businesses participating in Omaha Beer Week through February 12th.


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Inside Artos, the Brussels bakery helping young adults with disabilities
Artos, in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, is an extraordinary combination of popular neighbourhood bakery and day centre for 25 young adults with intellectual and physical disabilities.
Greeting us at the sales counter is Augustine, a charming young man who speaks French, English and a bit of Chinese he learned living with his family in China for five years.
“My favourite bread is the one with seeds,” he says. Of all the jobs at the bakery, 23-year-old Augustine most enjoys working behind the counter and meeting customers.
Next to the sales counter is the large, woodburning oven, the heart of the bakery. Loaves are being taken from the oven by a young man in a wheelchair, armed with a long-handled, wooden implement called a peel.
In the prep room behind the oven, apprentice bakers, under the watchful eye of 33-year-old head baker Sylvain are making a log out of molasses-coloured, apricot and walnut cookie dough, ready to be cut into pieces and baked.
“You have to have a lot of patience to be an educator,” says Sylvain. “I love it.”
Artos opened to the public in September 2018 in a beautifully renovated former chapel leased from les Fraternités du Bon Pasteur, the former 19th-century Manoir d’Anjou with a fascinating history, tucked away behind the Rue au Bois, near Stockel.
“The goal is to welcome these young adults into a safe and caring space, with maximum autonomy through a variety of activities, such as work in the bakery, sports, cooking, artistic and creative activities, wellness and meetings with other, similar centres,” says Artos’s director, Hélène d’Huart.
The former chapel is an enormous, sunlit building that houses not only the bakery, but offices for staff and a visiting doctor, a laundry room, disabled toilets, showers, a kitchen/dining area and a common room for the young adults to play board games and relax.
Upstairs in the large, airy dining room, the sous-chefs were cutting carrots and peeling potatoes for the Artos “family” lunch that day. Brightly coloured paintings made by the young adults to celebrate the bakery’s inauguration hung on the back wall. Augustine had painted a baguette, suspended in space against a vivid, orange background.
Artos is a hub of creativity, opportunity and community. Firewood for the baking oven is supplied by nearby Timber ASBL. “Timber is our big brother,” says d’Huart.
The idea for Artos came from Pierre Fourneau, former director of Timber, a day centre for disabled young adults who work at every stage of firewood production: from cutting logs in the Sonian, to delivering wood to homes and organisations such as Artos.
The young adults at Artos, in turn, deliver bread to Timber, on foot. The bread is eaten by the Timber “lumberjacks” as part of their forest picnics.
The Artos bakery shop will eventually sell handmade, colourful bread bags, as well as baguette bags sewn from the sleeves of recycled men’s shirts, just one of many future projects planned for the young adults.
Loaves sell quickly, and customers often comment on how good the bakery products are, says d’Huart. But it’s more than that, it’s about human relations, she adds. “We are a meeting place, we create contacts and discussions.”
You can even watch, and smell, the popular waffles being made right in the shop. From waffles, to bread, to eclairs and cookies - everything baked in the wood-burning oven is made with love and tastes like home.


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BUSINESS IN VANCOUVER –The group, which consists of unions Unifor and the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), as well as mills-sector firm San Group Inc. and non-profits such as the Wilderness Committee and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), sent a letter to federal international trade minister Mary Ng on Thursday, officials announced.
The letter highlights the groups’ concern that raw log exporters like Mosaic have been asking Ottawa to remove the requirement for companies to have to advertise the logs slated for export to domestic buyers first. The existing rules were created to keep wood-product manufacturing using B.C. lumber within the province, the letter said.
“If you can’t manufacture trees you cut down into lumber products here in B.C., you shouldn’t be logging them,” said Wilderness Committee national campaign director Torrance Coste in a statement. “We do not want the log export rules weakened, even temporarily. In fact, we believe they’re too weak to begin with.”
This was not the first instance of those in the B.C. wood-products sector pushing back at the plans of Mosaic, which manages TimberWest – B.C.’s largest private timberland company. Mosaic also manages Island Timberlands, another major private timberland firm in the province.
On May 12, Mosaic and the United Steelworkers Union said they reached an agreement to “improve job opportunities and long-term security” for USW members working at Mosaic’s shipping facilities at South Island and Northwest Bay. At the same time, Mosaic has pushed for new regulations that would allow the company to more freely export its B.C. raw logs.
Those announcements were met with a rebuttal on May 21, written by companies such as CIPA Lumber, Coastland Wood Industries, Ledcor Forest Products Partnership and Paper Excellence Group. That letter – similar to the one announced today – said the lifting of export requirements on B.C. raw logs would be disastrous for a local sector already struggling with monumental challenges.
“The majority of license holders are harvesting their licenses, many at full capacity,” the May letter from the B.C. coastal forestry companies said. “A portion of these logs are being exported internationally while the balance is being processed into finished wood products and wood chips for the pulp and paper industry. Domestic log demand and pricing are strong and international log demand is on a path of recovery regardless of the impact of COVID-19.”
In today’s letter, San Group CEO Kamal Sanghera said his company – as one of the few firms investing in new mills in B.C., with $150 million being spent to build new facilities at Port Alberni – is not opposed to all raw log exports, but domestic demand should be satisfied first for the health of the entire provincial industry’s ecosystem.
“Changing the rules cannot be at the expense of domestic producers and our forests,” Sanghera said in the letter. “If we want jobs in B.C. mills, then domestic producers need access to resources.”
See more HERE.


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Nvidia has established a reputation of championing Graphics Cards manufacture industry in the past years. It has spent a considerable amount of time and money to convince their customers that are getting their money’s worth for its newest Graphic Card, the expensive GeForce RTX line of GPUs. This latest model incorporates a powerful new feature known as Real-time ray tracing, which is in gaming world, long considered the “Holy Grail” of the graphics rendering technology. It is a pretty smart move by Nvidia when it announced this new feature in Nvidia RTX – a year ago during the Game Developers Conference, Nvidia proclaimed that this new feature would only be compatible with it RTX GPUs, which wouldn’t be accessible for gamers until September this year.
Nvidia has announced today that at GDC that this new Graphic card will support DXR ray tracing feature this April via a driver download. Gamers soon are able to enjoy some basic DirectX ray tracing with older versions of Nvidia GeForce GTX 108 GPUs. There are Many Graphic Cards and chips that can take some benefits with Driver Updates from this April.
Graphic Card like the RTX 2080 use that naming convention as they were designed to support RTX. However, with Driver updates that are scheduled to launch in April, will bring its RTX technology to a whole bunch of older Graphic Cards that are available in the market. Some Graphic Cards RTX are about three years old. The lists of Graphic card that will be affected with Driver updates are ranging from 6 GB GTX 1660 to the GTX 1050 Ti. It also enlists some brand new GPUs including the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti along with two less expensive cards that the company introduced last Winter. The few features and the driver updates will be applicable to the laptops and Max Q equivalent of these GPUs, too.
Smith Julian an expert in technical writing, he has been studying and writing on all the latest technologies. Covering major topics like Outlook, Internet security services, Microsoft Office setup and Antivirus, he strives to grab knowledge of even minor updates or changes occurring in the current technological world. Many publishers have published a number of articles written by him.


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DotTV, Pasadena, Calif., a company with exclusive control over the Web sites that will end in ".tv," named TBWA/Chiat/Day
, Playa del Rey, as first agency for its anticipated $15 million to $20 million account. Print, breaking globally this week, will target both business and consumers. Ads running globally in the Financial Times
and The Wall Street Journal
, and in the U.S. in Business Week
and USA Today
, are tagged "Are your ready for the new Internet?" Among the marketers signing up for the dotTV name are Columbia TriStar International Television, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sega of America.Pampers kidswear planned: Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati, will license its Pampers disposable diaper brand name to Dana Undies Inc. for a new line of infant and children's wear in sizes up to 4T. The clothing will be launched late this year, backed by as yet unspecified ads, direct mail and consumer promotion. Pampers Children's Wear will be sold in North America in the same food, drug and mass-merchandise channels as Pampers diapers. D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, New York, handles. The move follows an announcement last week that P&G will license its Physique haircare brand for hair dryers, curling irons, combs and brushes from American Design Group and Goody Products. The Physique products will ship to food, drug and mass retailers in early fall and will be merchandised in-store at displays including all Physique items.
Copyright June 2000, Crain Communications Inc.


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Google Meet video conferencing is rolling out fuller support for Google Glass with an open beta of Meet on Glass Enterprise Edition 2.
Google has been running a closed beta of Google Meet on Glass Enterprise Edition 2 since last year. After gathering feedback from global participants, Google is now opening up the beta to all Workspace users.
With Meet on Glass, as opposed to other online video conferencing tools, participants on a call get to see what the Google Glass wearer sees via their headset camera. This feature, according to Google, makes Meet on Glass a collaborative remote troubleshooting tool for the business-focused Glass Enterprise Edition.
Furthermore, it enhances sharing, teamwork, and presentation, among coworkers, employees, suppliers, and partners by eliminating the need to hold a videocamera, gifting it a hands-free experience.
“Ease of use—both for Google Meet and for Glass—and speed to join a video meeting are top priorities,” the announcement reads. Users aren’t required to do anything complicated to use Glass during a meeting. All they have to do is choose their meeting from the Calendar on Glass to join a meeting instantly.
Meet’s immersive experience can be accessed from any compatible device; however, the possibilities for real-time connection and problem-solving are even greater when combined with Google Meet hardware and peripherals.
The technology development is part of Google’s ongoing venture toward creating “innovative and immersive meeting experiences that help people feel like they’re working together, not just meeting together.”
Glass is Google’s often overlooked consumer product. The enterprise headset currently sells for $999, similar to Microsoft HoloLens and Magic Leap headsets.
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Google is making more information available about the results it presents, in an effort to help users refine their queries.
Google is promoting the Stadia Controller with a 2020 Chromecast dongle in a packaged bundle called “Play and Watch.”
Chrome 92 on iOS devices now allows for biometric authorization on incognito tabs, full website screenshots, and more.


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A region of northern China that began growing grapes for fine wine just a decade ago has beaten the French wine-producing region of Bordeaux in a blind tasting.
A group of wine experts ranked the bottles from the remote and sparsely populated Ningxia region above those from Bordeaux at the tasting, held in Beijing.
The jury sampled five wines from each region, selecting a cabernet sauvignon from the Grace Vineyard in Ningxia as the top-scoring bottle.
A shopper has broken the record for duty-free purchases at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport by splurging nearly 50,000 euros on six bottles of exclusive wine.
The shopper, who was identified only as “an Asian”, bought a bottle of Romanee Conti 1995, a Chateau Margaux 2003, two bottles of Chateau Lafitte 1982 and two bottles of Petrus 1980, worth a total of 49,905 euros ($66,000).
The airport did not say when the purchases had been made, but noted that high-quality wines “sell better at the end of the year”.
To help mark the 350th anniversary of the Château Rauzan-Ségla vineyard, Karl Lagerfeld has designed the label for the 2009 vintage.
The 2009 vintage wine will feature a special colorful label highlighting the castle found in the Margaux appellation of Bordeaux, France.
Clothing company Banana Republic has teamed up with a California winery to create limited-edition holiday bottles that target the female wine sipper with hand-sketched labels of the little black dress and fancy, sweeping red frocks.
It’s the latest winery to court the female tippler with images of pretty party dresses and promises of chic, sophisticated nights out.
Banana Republic’s party dresses, rendered by the company’s creative director Simon Kneen, will be embellished on Clos du Bois’s most popular wines.
The booming Chinese mainland is now the largest importer of Bordeaux by volume, driving a jump in exports of the French wine, an industry body said.
Exports from the French winegrowing region rose 34 percent in value and 23 percent in volume between July 2010 and June 2011.
The boom was driven in part by iconic great estates, but the bulk came from little chateaux selling wines for less than 4.50 euros.
A 200-year-old vintage from Bordeaux set a new world record for the most valuable bottle of white wine Tuesday when it was sold in Britain for £75,000 ($117,000).
The bottle of 1811 Chateau dYquem was bought by French private collector Christian Vanneque, for his new restaurant in Bali, Indonesia.
The standard-sized, 75 centilitre bottle of wine was sold at London’s Ritz hotel by rare wine specialists The Antique Wine Company.
A designer has reinterpreted the concept of wine-in-a-bag for the sophisticated, female oenophile in the form of luxurious French goatskin and Swiss workmanship.
Claudia Eicke’s Weekender bag is for the wine-loving female who routinely carries a bottle of vino in addition to her lip gloss, smartphone and day planner.
Made from natural grain goatskin from France, bottles can be tucked securely in the “tunnel” portion at the bottom of the bag which were specificaly designed to be stiff to prevent the wine from budging out of place.
Robert Parker – one of the world’s most influential wine critics – is alarmed by the high price of Bordeaux wine, saying the region risks hurting itself by focusing so much on the East Asian market.
“Bordeaux is the epicenter of the greatest wines,” he said. “I hate to see the image damaged by the fact people tend to think it’s too expensive.”
“Bordeaux is focused too much on the wealthy Asian market,” Parker said. “Despite the fact that China has so many wealthy people, it’s a very dangerous game if they raise prices, because the world economy is very, very fragile.”
One of 600 bottles of Romanée-Conti Wine from 1945 that were produced during the end of World War II, set a new world record price for a 750ml bottle of red burgundy at Christie’s auction sale in Geneva on May 17.
The legendary vintage of the bottle was estimated between $56,000 to $78,000, and was sold to a private U.S. collector for a whopping $123,919.
Want to wine and dine like Donald Trump? Sip on a glass of Trump Wine.
After ongoing negotiations, the real estate tycoon finalized the deal to buy the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard outside Charlottesville in Virginia last week.
He paid the bargain price of $6.2 million for 800 acres in a bank auction, reported the Washington Post.
Mouton-Rothschild has asked a Beijing artist, Xu Lei, to design the label for its 2008 vintage, in the footsteps of Georges Braque, Salvador Dali or Joan Miro.
Kept under wraps until the last moment, the predominantly blue painting features a ram standing on a rock and was chosen by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, owner of the French chateau and a patron of the arts.
The Baroness’ father Philippe first enlisted an artist to design Mouton’s label in 1924, and every label since 1945 has featured a new work of art.
Wine experts Wednesday popped the corks of two bottles of champagne recently salvaged from the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
They had lain in a sunken ship for nearly 200 years, 50 meters below the surface in the waters south of Aaland, a Finnish-controlled archipelago of 6,500 islands.
On stage, they eased the fragile corks from the dark brown bottles — one from the house of Veuve-Clicquot and the other from the now extinct house of Juglar.
Three bottles of Chateau Lafiteâ€™s 1869 vintage each sold for a record price of HK$1.8 million ($230,000) at a sale in Hong Kong last saturday.
All three were bought by the same Asian telephone bidder, said Sothebyâ€™s, which offered almost 2,000 bottles of Lafite shipped directly from the cellars of the chateau in Pauillac, near Bordeaux.
The 1869s – the oldest bottles in a range of vintages that spanned 139 years – were each estimated to sell for between HK$40,000 and HK$60,000.
George Lee’s “A Date with Wine” is a wine stopper with twist-able date rings to help you remember when you opened a bottle.
Researchers in India say they have developed a wine made from mangoes that they hope might one day compete with the traditional grape-based variety.
Scientists at the Central Institute of Subtropical Horticultural Research in Lucknow have produced wines using three types of mango native to the local state of Uttar Pradesh — the Dussehri, Langra, and Chausa.
India is the world’s largest mango producer and is home to nearly 1,000 varieties of the succulent and juicy fruit — something the researchers hope could be harnessed into a new drinks industry.
Austrian Airlines has topped a list of the best business class in-flight wines from US-based Global Traveler magazine.
It beat Qatar Airways by only 0.28 of a point to take the award, which the magazine said “was not dependent on one or two high-scoring blockbusters pulling the rest of its wines into the winnerâ€™s corner.”
Instead, the wines selected by Austrian’s 55 sommeliers scored consistantly highly across all categories, with its Champagne, both its white wines and one red wine all placed in the top ten lists for their respective categories.
Follow sailing ship the Bessie-Ellen online, as it transports 20,000 bottles of ChÃ¢teau Smith Lafite and ChÃ¢teau de Cayx Bordeaux to Montreal on July 21.
ChÃ¢teau Smith Lafite and ChÃ¢teau de Cayx are using a classic sailing ship to transport their vintages to North America.
The sailing ship being used, the 120-foot (36.5 meter) Bessie-Ellen was built in 1904 in Portsmouth, England, and is one of the last remaining vessels of its kind.
The Boucheron Reflet XL Chateau Latour Millesime 2005 is a new watch made by Boucheron in partnership with Chateau Latour.
The dial is made of wood from barrels made of two hundread year old French oak in which ChÃ¢teau Latour’s Grand Millesime 2005 vintage was aged.
The model has an automatic movement for Girard-Perregaux (caliber GP4000) with a power reserve of 40 hours.
Italian design collective Acquacalda have designed a range of kitchen gadgets based on the laws of physics, including this device for pouring exactly equal amounts of wine into four glasses.
Concerns are growing in some wine industry circles that a few rogue Chinese wine traders may be mounting a wine scam, just as the 2009 Bordeaux futures sales are poised to begin, experts fear.
Fine wine merchant Bordeaux Index alleged that unscrupulous traders in Shanghai had hoodwinked private customers into ordering and paying for the 2009 vintage of legendary wines.


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AT&T Offers Settlement to Some Customers
AT&T has published details about its settlement of a class action lawsuit in the state of New Jersey over early termination fees. Customers who were charged an ETF or had an account with a flat ETF rate between January 1, 1998 and November 4, 2009 can choose to become a part of the class or excluded from the settlement. Terms weren't disclosed.
Feb 20, 2019
The tenth edition of Samsung's Galaxy S series of flagship phones includes, for the first time, four different models spanning a range of sizes and price points. Samsung announced the Galaxy S10 series today at an event in San Francisco.
Oct 1, 2020
New York State has launched COVID Alert NY, its official app enabling the COVID-19 Exposure Notification system developed by Apple and Google. New York is the largest US state to date to launch an app using the system, and joins ten other states that have already launched similar apps: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming.
May 27, 2020
This summer, Samsung will launch Samsung Money by SoFi, a new financial product integrated with Samsung Pay. Like Apple Card, Samsung Money can be used as a payment method with the wallet app (Samsung Pay), the account is managed within the wallet app, and the product also includes a physical payment card.
Oct 1, 2018
California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation on Sunday that made net neutrality the law, but the state was quickly sued by the U.S. Department of Justice.
This is retarded...
It's because customers are binded by contracts that these big corporations that you suppor aren't motivated to keep customer...
Even more retarded


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A senior Israeli official denied reports a ceasefire deal has been reached between Israel and militant groups in Gaza. Reports in Arab media spoke of a ceasefire agreement mediated by Egypt and due to come into force at midnight.
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Palestinian boat intercepted
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Funding boost for small businesses thanks to Enterprise Investment Scheme changes allowing a 30% tax break on up to £1m
Revenue and Customs is approving more than 90 per cent of applications by small businesses looking to raise funding through the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).
The EIS is a tax relief scheme that was introduced in 1994 to try and boost investment into small unquoted companies. Investors benefit from different tax reliefs while early stage businesses benefit from investment.
A year ago Chancellor George Osborne widened the scheme to make it more attractive to investors. They can now benefit from a tax break of 30 per cent, when making investments of up to £1 million into qualifying companies, providing they hold the shares for three years.
George Osborne: Widened the Enterprise Investment Scheme last year
The scheme is also now open to firms with assets of up to £15 million, while the maximum that can be invested in a business over a 12 month period has risen fivefold to £10 million.
Since then the number of firms applying to the Revenue for qualification under the EIS scheme has soared by 47 per cent, rising from 1,457 in 2010-2011 to 2,147 in 2011-2012.
The number of applications approved by the taxman has also risen, from 89 per cent to 91 per cent, over the same period.
Investment specialists Rockpool Investments believe the figures show that the widening of the scheme has had the intended benefit of increasingly enabling UK businesses to take advantage of EIS.
Growth has also been fuelled by the difficulties smaller firms face in accessing finance from the high street banks, with recent figures showing that lending to small and medium-sized businesses fell by £4.8 billion in the first quarter of this year alone.
Gary Robbins, a partner at Rockpool, says: ‘Access to funding from banks to small businesses remains very difficult. This means that funds raised from private investors under EIS are becoming an increasingly attractive and substantial source of finance.
‘This kind of investment is essential if we are going to witness a dynamic and expanding small business sector.’
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Update news VNNIC
The Vietnamese national ".vn" domain achieved a new milestone, reaching over half a million users by the end of March.
Sales of ‘.shop’ domain name surge
VietNamNet Bridge - As the ‘.shop’ domain name becomes more popular, e-commerce experts believe a record number of registrations will occur.
Finance Ministry lowers ‘.vn’ domain prices
VietNamNet Bridge - The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has lowered the fee for registering and using the national domain name ‘.vn’ in order to become more competitive with international domain name ‘.com’.
New regulation expected to activate domain name market
VietNamNet Bridge - Circular 24, which took effect on October 10, has made it easier to register ‘.vn’ domain names.
VN tops ASEAN with number of new domains
Viet Nam ranked first among the ASEAN countries for the number of country code top-level domains registered, with 318,812 domain names added by June 30.
Domain name traders still cannot do their trade
VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam has abrogated the regulation on prohibiting the domain name trade and transfer. However, domain name trade activities still cannot be carried out because of the lack of a legal framework.
Vietnam considers legalizing domain name trading
VietNamNet Bridge – Domain name traders have leaped for joy when the Ministry of Information and Communication made public the draft circular on the “.vn” domain name transfer.
Compatibility shortage hindering IPv6 usage
VietNamNet Bridge – The number of IPv6 users in Viet Nam is limited by the lack of IPv6 supported devices, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.
Local firms fail to register domain names
VietNamNet Bridge – Many Vietnamese businesses do not bother to register the country's national domain name ".vn", according to the country's Internet Network Information Centre (VNNIC).
Businesses keep indifferent to domain name registration
Instead of spending several hundreds of thousands of dong to register and maintain domain names every year, enterprises have to spend hundreds of millions of dong to buy back domain names from others.


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Hand Picked by Robots – The Beginning of the End for Humans in the Food Sector?
Rohit Talwar – Futurist Speaker
Published on August 13, 2019
By Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, and Alexandra Whittington
How might smart technologies impact food and beverage industry jobs in the next 10 years?
The so called Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing with it successive waves of ever-smarter technologies that could redefine our most basic notions of business, work, employment, wages, government, society, human purpose, and the daily lives of people on this planet. This article explores how such developments could impact the workplace—using the food industry as an example of how deep the applications could go and how wide-ranging the impacts might be.
We’re already used to seeing armies of shiny robots undertaking repetitive manufacturing tasks in the food industry—now they are spreading to a variety of roles previously considered the exclusive domain of humans. For example, smart robots and drones are in growing use on farms for a range of tasks from ploughing and planting, to inspection, pruning, and harvesting. El Dulze, a Spanish food processor, now uses robotics to pick up heads of lettuce from a conveyor belt, rejecting those that do not comply with company standards.
In Germany, BratwurstBot takes your order, cooks the sausage to your requirements, and serves it. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in planning delivery routes and predicting what goods are likely to be in high demand and therefore need to be ordered. In the UK, Honest launched a totally unmanned, AI-powered coffee kiosk. We are also seeing robots and AI being used in recipe creation, food preparation, bar tending, and table service. New applications in the sector are literally being announced daily.
However, this is just the start; the next waves of development will see the combinatorial effect of AI, robotics, big data, and cloud services working together, creating the opportunity for machines to interact with humans through the provision of services rather than simply delivering us data, analysis, and decision support. Some recent examples of AI in food production include the Hands-Free Hectare project from Harper Adams University, which is farming a plot of land with zero human intervention whatsoever; and Arable, a start-up that hopes to revolutionize the food supply chain with AI-enabled predictive farming.
As the cost of manufacturing robots declines and technological capabilities expand, it’s ever more likely that robots will gradually be substituted for labor in a wide range of low-wage service occupations. Imagine a restaurant with humans, augmented humans, robots, holo- grams, and smart AI table top displays all working in the same space. As a human, do you trust your robot server, chef, and bartender? What happens when the robot is smarter than you, or knows what you want before you do through the use of predictive analytics? Will the AI chef interact directly with the AI-based intelligent agent on your phone to ascertain allergies and intolerances before preparing your meal? Could the bartender and your intelligent agent work together to surprise you with a new cocktail prepared specifically to your taste preferences?
As business leaders and managers, the advent of these new technologies working alongside or in place of humans creates as whole new set of requirements for how we supervise, mentor, motivate, and reward such a blended workforce. The issue of the rights and protections of robots also starts to emerge—many films depict humans trying to sabotage or harm their robot counterparts. Should we try to protect robots and give them similar workplace protections as those who they may be replacing? Furthermore, should we be concerned about the potential risks that could arise from the total automation of our food supply and food chain?
The much cited 2013 study on the Future of Employment by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of the Oxford Martin School found that in the food and beverage industry food scientists were the least likely to lose out to computerization whereas fast food workers and coffee shops were among the most likely. It is entirely possible that, in the next 20 years, 80% or more of current jobs in the food and beverage industry could become obsolete, fully or partially auto- mated, or redesigned to eliminate the human component. For those who believe that employment is the preferred future for humanity, the challenge is to ensure that we are doing enough today by encouraging the industries of tomorrow, supporting entrepreneurship and enabling start-ups, preparing the workforce of tomorrow, and re-motivating and reskilling those whose jobs are displaced by automation. Clearly there will still be a demand for humans in a range of roles that require creativity, innovation, problem-solving, collaboration, and customer engagement. So, we might accept a robo-chef at a fast food outlet where consistency and speed are key; however, when going for more upmarket dining options where talent, inspiration, creativity, and service are the attraction, we think many people would likely prefer a human chef and waiting staff.
Forward-looking industry leaders are already investing the time to understand what’s coming over the horizon, experimenting with the technologies, and preparing their staff for change. This includes equipping managers with the skills to help and motivate employees to learn new roles quickly, take up new opportunities, and even start their own business. Helping individuals take control of their own destiny is an increasingly common trait of the enlightened organization.
- How will the food and beverage industry reinvent itself for the Fourth Revolution?
- How might AI change our food routines and indirectly the supply chain and logistics of the industry?
- How might AI be used to help address employee learning needs?


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Ottawa-based technology development and intellectual property company Wi-LAN (TSX:WIN) has reached a licensing deal with French telecommunications equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent.
WiLAN CEO Jim Skippen. (Photo by Mark Holleron)
By Jacob Serebrin
The agreement will see Alcatel-Lucent pay WiLAN to license several patents for a multi-year term. In exchange, WiLAN will drop pending lawsuits against Alcatel-Lucent in Texas and Florida.
As part of a separate deal, WiLAN will acquire a portfolio of wireless technology patents from Alcatel-Lucent.
Details of the deals, including their dollar value, were not released.
“We are very pleased to have reached a business resolution to our licensing discussions with Alcatel-Lucent, and to add them to our list of licensees," said Jim Skippen, president and CEO of WiLAN, in a company release.
"The addition of Alcatel-Lucent patents and applications to our wireless portfolio continues to expand the value we are able to offer to our existing and future licensees."
A separate legal dispute between the two companies ended in July, with a Texas judge ruling against WiLAN, and in favour of Alcatel-Lucent and its co-defendants, Ericsson, HTC and Sony Mobile. WiLAN has filed documents in that case asking for a retrial.
That’s not the end of WiLAN’s legal battles.
The company still has a pending lawsuit in Texas against Apple, Hewlett-Packard, HTC America, Novatel Wireless, Sierra Wireless America and several of their associates. That trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 7.
Dell computers was previously named as one of the defendants in that case but it settled with WiLAN in May after Dell agreed to license several patents.
Another lawsuit, against BlackBerry, is also pending. That trial is scheduled to start next March.
This all comes as the company attempts to reduce its litigation costs after posting a jump in those expenses during the second quarter.
WiLAN share prices rose after news of the agreement Monday morning. It was up 29 cents to $3.68 by mid-afternoon.


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So many people know and love Crumbl Cookies that, when the nationwide sensation opened its newest store in Chantilly, customers flocked there eagerly. And even those experiencing the huge, thick, freshly baked cookies for the first time were quickly won over.
“We are so excited,” said Centreville Farms resident Karen Johnson, who went there with her children. “We’ve been waiting – and counting down the days on our calendar until this store opened – because we’ve been going to the one in Vienna.”
The new Crumbl is in the Field at Commonwealth shopping center, off Westfields Boulevard, at 14337 Newbrook Drive, between Cava and Pueblos Tex Mex Grill. It’s open Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m., and Friday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-midnight. And its grand opening – complete with a deejay and pink balloons to match Crumbl’s cookie boxes – was March 18.
There are more than 350 Crumbl Cookies locations throughout the country, with about 15 in Virginia. The Chantilly and Bristow stores are owned by Cami Fairbanks and Alli Bohls.
“We’re both full-time moms, and this is our side job,” joked Fairbanks. Happy to have a shop in Chantilly, she said, “We were just so drawn to this area because of the modern vibe and the community support. Several schools and other places have already reached out and want to get involved with fundraisers and partnerships.”
“We’ve received a wonderful reception,” she continued. “Everyone has been so warm and welcoming. People are excited we’re here, and so are we. It’s so much fun, and we’re grateful for everyone’s support.”
What sets Crumbl apart from other snack spots, said Fairbanks, is that “We have gourmet cookies baked on site daily with high-quality ingredients, such as real butter and chocolate chips. And Crumbl rotates its flavors every week, so there’s always something for everyone.”
The new lineup is posted on the Crumbl Cookies app, Sundays at 8 p.m., and may also be seen on Facebook videos. During opening week, the flavors were:
Lucky Charms, with white chocolate chips and vanilla marshmallow frosting topped with colorful, Lucky Charms marshmallows; Peanut Butter Cookies & Cream, a combo of both flavors; Sea Salt Toffee, featuring both toffee and chocolate chips; Mint Brownie, a chocolate-chip brownie cookie topped with green, minty frosting and chocolate ganache; Sugar, adorned with vanilla frosting and a gold chocolate coin; and classic Milk Chocolate Chip. Some flavors, like Mint Brownie, were served chilled, while others, including Chocolate Chip, were served warm from the oven.
Fairbanks said the most popular flavor – and the only one offered every week – is chocolate chip. “We bake our cookies fresh daily, so whatever we have left at the end of the day goes to the local fire and police stations, as well as to hospitals and other nonprofits,” she said. “That way, we can give back to the community.”
On opening day, the customers kept coming in a steady flow, and they enjoyed choosing which cookies, and how many, to get. But, of course, the best part was the eating.
“My favorite flavor so far is milk chocolate chip,” said Karen Johnson’s son Asher, 7-1/2. “The cookies have a sweet taste.” His sister Ellie, 5, said she liked the Lucky Charms cookies best.
“There are so many different flavors, so we always get to try something different,” said Johnson. “Today we got sea salt toffee, Oreo peanut butter, Lucky Charms and mint brownie. We love the taste and the warm cookies, and they hold up well at home for a few days.”
Sitting outside the store, munching on a cookie and chatting with two girlfriends was Westfield High senior Deepika Reddy. “I’d heard about Crumbl, but never went to one before, so this is my first time to have their cookies,” she said. “A lot of my friends at Westfield said they’re either working here or had been here, so I wanted to check it out.”
So how did Reddy like the Mint Brownie cookie she chose? “I love it,” she said. “It’s really good and is definitely something new. I’ll come back again because of the cookies. And it’s a nice place to hang out outside with friends, and it’s close to school.”
Meanwhile, Kait Roddy drove from Fairfax Corner for the grand opening and bought six cookies, including one of each flavor. “I’ve had Crumbl before and they’re good,” she said. “I’ve been going to Vienna, and this is closer. I like how big the cookies are and that they change the flavors every week. My favorites are the S’Mores, Key Lime Pie and Sugar Cookie. I also like that some are chilled, some are warm and some have toppings – and that’s fun.”
Crumbl Cookies does delivery and catering, too, and it sells half pints of ice cream, also in rotating flavors. On opening week, they were Brownie Fudge, Cookie Dough Crunch, Peanut Butter Brittle, Raspberry Cheesecake, Snickerdoodle and Vanilla Bean.


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It’s not just the sugar talking when we say that we’re so fired up about our new client: iconic candy brand and childhood favorite, SweeTARTS. Check out our Be Both launch work designed to speak to Gen Z’s embrace of duality and fluid identity.
The manifesto video above will live on the brand’s homepage and act as a kind of north star for all the Be Both work. New bite-size TV and digital spots begin playing this week on E!, Comedy Central, MTV and others. And the media spend will be fortified with a robust social presence as well as influencer activity.
Said DC ECD, John Kovacevich: “The Be Both idea is such a rich creative territory — the collision of colors and styles is a fresh new look for an old favorite. We’re excited by the first batch of work and the ways the campaign will come to life in the years ahead.”
We even got a little launch-day love from Ad Age.
Work + News
The spots are animated. The struggle is real. True tales of former smokers on the perilous path to quitting.
This way to health insurance
Today marks the launch of our first campaign for Covered California as part of a five-year, $400-million effort to help all Californians get the health insurance they need.
e.l.f. 2020 Halloween activation
Duncan Channon’s LA team kept the halloween spirit alive by bringing a spooky holiday pop-up straight to beauty influencers’ homes.
Covered CA on Adweek’s cover
DC is thrilled to announce that we were awarded the five-year, $400-million Covered CA account. We are resolute in helping at this crucial time when more Californians need coverage than ever.
“They can’t take your ballot”
At a time of unprecedented voter suppression, the mission of Vote From Home 2020 is more essential than ever. Our new “Suppress This” campaign helps them get ballots into the hands of disenfranchised voters of color. You can help, too.
CBS x Alfred Coffee · Emmy Awards
DCLA partnered CBS Studios with Alfred Coffee to reach Emmy voters and garner support for Star Trek: Picard. The timely work tapped into the diversity and inclusion central to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision.
Beautyscape influencers launch e.l.f. collection
It’s a beautiful day at DCLA with the launch of the e.l.f. Cosmetics Retro Paradise collection — the new collection from e.l.f.’s Beautyscape winners Alissa Holmes, Diana Curmei, Elicia Aragon, Jessa Green and Valeria Loren.
SweeTARTS' Be Both is back
After the sweet success of last year’s 'Be Both' launch, SweeTARTS is doubling down on the campaign to Gen Z with brand new work in market now — and more to come in 2021.
Nicotine = Brain Poison = Clio
Our work for CTCP has awakened parents to the teen vaping epidemic and won a slew of awards in the process (not nearly as important, but nice). The latest is that most venerable of ad accolades: the Clio.
SGX NYC · #hairgoals
SGX NYC wanted to increase awareness around winning two Allure Best of Beauty Awards and reinforce the brand’s positioning with cost-conscious consumers looking for premium products. We hit the bullseye with three well-known #hairgoals influencers.
Citi · Citigrammers
Citi wanted to increase awareness and favorability on social media, particularly within the music and dining categories. We assembled a team of influential visual artists to create the sort of shareable content the brand couldn't.
Million-dollar talent from Upwork
To support COVID-19 projects, Upwork is donating a million dollars of time from their network of independent professionals. And who better to tell us about it than the pros themselves?


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Smart homes on the rise in Australia
One in four Australian houses are considered ‘smart homes’, according to a study by ServiceSeeking.com.au.
Heating, air conditioning, lighting, audio systems, surveillance cameras and computers are controlled remotely via the internet in these smart homes.
“Advancing technology means Australians are becoming increasingly connected — even in the home. Smart homes save time and money and are even good for the environment,” said ServiceSeeking.com.au CEO Jeremy Levitt.
“Not only do you cut costs by being in control of your house at all times, but you also cut down on your energy usage, something that’s really important to many environmentally conscious Australians.”
According to a report by the Energy Supply Association of Australia, Australians are using smart home technology to move into the future and are also the world leaders in household solar panels.
ServiceSeeking.com.au’s survey showed that 29% of households have solar panels. In addition, 60% of customers found their solar panels reduced their energy bills by 20–40%.
“Solar panels, like smart homes, are a worthwhile investment — not only will your bills go down and the environment benefit, but your home will increase in value too,” said Levitt.
The data is from a survey of more than 2200 ServiceSeeking.com.au customers.
A new Zendesk AI suite aims to help organisations transform the customer experience with the...
Technology distributor Ingram Micro has opened registrations for its annual Ingram Micro...
Salesforce has announced the availability in Australia of a range of its most popular products...


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DJ Khaled teased an announcement over the weekend and revealed that a deal with Epic Records for We The Best Music Group.
The Miami DJ reunites with Epic Records CEO L.A. Reid who he worked previously at Def Jam. The first order of business will be his next album titled Major Key that hasn’t had a release date yet.
“We the Best Music/Epic. Those two brands are synonymous with quality music. Iconic music,” Khaled said in a statement. “L.A. Reid was the first executive to give We the Best Music an opportunity to distribute my music on a grand scale. It is a very satisfying feeling to realign myself with someone who shares my vision of bringing fans the best music possible.”


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(Updates prices after consumer sentiment data)
NEW YORK, Feb 11 (Reuters) - U.S. government debt prices touched session highs on Friday after a private index on U.S. consumer sentiment rose to an eight-month high, signaling an improved outlook for consumer spending.
U.S. consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.
Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan said its index on consumer sentiment rose to 75.1 in early February from January’s 74.2. Analysts predicted a reading of 75.0. For details, see [ID:nDYE7DA00G]
The price on benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR rose as much as 21/32 to a session high of 100-1/32. Their yield touched a session low of 3.62 percent, down from Thursday’s close of 3.70 percent.
Reporting by Richard Leong


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Washington recreational cannabis sales and diversion rates took a dip when neighboring Oregon enacted recreational legalization. This is according to a University of Oregon study that was published in the working paper series of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Examining recreational sales two months before and two months after Oregon legalized recreational cannabis, researchers found that approximately 11.9% of recreational sales were being diverted to Oregon before legalization. After legalization, that number dropped to 7.5%—Oregonians didn’t need Washington recreational cannabis anymore, they had their own state-grown products.
Areas most affected by legalization were counties situated along the Columbia River, which experienced a 41% drop in sales in the three days following the opening of Oregon’s recreational market.
Although state officials would ideally like to see illegal diversion drop to zero, Benjamin Hansen, a University of Oregon W.E. Miner Professor of Economics and one of the researchers that wrote the study, said in a release that there is little cause of concern.
“Our study says that 93 percent of marijuana sold in Washington is probably staying there now,” Hansen said. “There’s probably not a lot you can do about the remaining share that is being diverted at this point. This is just the likely consequence of partial prohibition.”
Hansen went on to say that people seem to prefer purchasing cannabis from retail stores as opposed to the black market.


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A dozen bottles of rum that were found hidden away under layers of cobwebs and dirt have sold for almost £80,000.
The drink, which dates back to 1780, was discovered in the cellar of Harewood House in Leeds, in 2011.
They sold for a total of £78,255 - over six times the pre-sale estimate - at Christie’s wine and spirits auction.
Five bottle of dark rum fetched the top price selling for £8,225 each with the proceeds going to the Geraldine Connor Foundation which helps disadvantaged young people train in the performing arts.
David Elswood, international director of Christie’s Wine in Europe and Asia, said: “We are thrilled with the results for today’s sale of The 1780 Harewood Rum.
The 12 bottles of dark and light rum sold for a total of £78,255, making it both the oldest and most valuable rum ever sold at auction by Christie's.
"It is wonderful that all proceeds will benefit The Geraldine Connor Foundation.”
The sale continues tomorrow.


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Feast on the Summer of '72
Feast on the Summer of '72 as the Rusty Pelican says goodbye (for now)
The Rusty Pelican
3201 Rickenbacker Cswy, Key Biscayne
Feast on the summer of '72 as the Rusty Pelican celebrates its final days before closing for a multi-month renovation. The Key Biscayne classic is launching a $19.72 three-course prixe fixe feast from June 20-Juy 3, 2011. The menu is "of another era" - Nixon’s “Perfectly Clear” chicken onsomme, Waldorf salad, chicken Kona Kai and cherries jubilee. Celebrate the restaurant's final swan song (as it currently stands) on Monday, July 4 with a VIP bash toasting City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and others. Order from the continental, seafood friendly a la carte menu or indulge in a special BBQ buffet in the upstairs grand ballroom featuring ribs, chicken and fish, sushi stations, oysters, unlimited wine, champagne and draft beer. $40 per person for the brunch.
- Miami Beach's Macchialina to open in Asheville
- Fresh American Bistro debuts in Sunny Isles
- The List: Seagrape's Michelle Bernstein
- Pubbelly and Wynwood Brewing Co. to open restaurant, beer bar on cruise ship
- Are these the best restaurants in South Florida?
- La Nuit en Rosé wine festival coming to Miami Beach Edition
- Miami's 15 most anticipated restaurants of 2015
- The List: 50 Eggs' John Kunkel
- The Burgies: Who will be South Florida's 2015 comfort-food champions?
- Southern Italian restaurant Campania opens Wednesday in Miami


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The new store at Silvercord, Tsim Sha Tsui, also sets a milestone for Rue Madame as its first outlet in Kowloon. Its two other stores, at Lee Gardens in Causeway Bay and the IFC Mall in Central, opened in 2010.
Rue Madame is a fashion concept boutique chain for women, retailing well-known Parisian brands including Maje, Sandro, Claudie Pierlot, American Vintage, Majestic, Toupy, Sessun, Dress Gallery, Gat Rimon and more.
When founder Ariane Zagury first came to Hong Kong, Rue Madame looked towards the city’s diverse clientelle to support its latest expansion. Ms Zagury noted that the company’s Hong Kong patrons have a strong desire for fashionable brands and a Parisian label is a big attraction.
“Two years ago we saw a niche for fashionable brands between the luxury brands and mass retailers and we moved quickly. Today, our strategy is working just fine,” Ms Zagury said.
“Looking ahead, we see even more room for growth in this particular market segment, and hence our third store is set to cater to this demand. The Kowloon store is the biggest of the three outlets, measuring over 1,600 square feet.”
Ms Zagury said that Hong Kong will remain a regional headquarters for the company, managing Rue Madame’s Asian marketing activities. She added that a key attraction for her was the ease of doing business in Hong Kong.
Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion, Mr Andrew Davis, agreed, saying that Hong Kong has earned its reputation among overseas investors for its simple business procedures. Mr Davis added that Invest Hong Kong would continue to offer assistance to Rue Madame in its future expansion.


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Pudding, the luxury lingerie salon based in The Walk (Reading, UK), got the Christmas party season off to a sensational start with a burlesque themed fashion show and cabaret evening last Saturday, December 5th.
Since Pudding opened just over two years ago, its winter fashion show has been increasingly popular – so much so, that this year’s event was moved to a bigger venue and the Pudding team joined forces with top London cabaret legend The Marquis of Gray, to provide their customers with a glamorous evening of music, magic, cocktails and, of course, gorgeous lingerie!
Owner Helen Masters said, “Last year’s fashion show was so popular that we had to turn people away, so this year we decided to go bigger and better than ever before. We sponsored the Bohemia Cabaret in the summer and our customers loved it, so it was a great opportunity to join forces with the Marquis of Gray again for a really fun night’s entertainment”
The 100+ guests were encouraged to dress to impress, with burlesque style corsets being de rigeur – luckily Pudding provides a fabulous selection of customisable corsets (you choose the colour and the fabric) so the audience had no excuse not to be well dressed!
The fashion show, featuring four Reading based models, showed a range of styles from top designers such as Pleasure State, La Perla and Lise Charmel on display, as well as the corsets themselves, by premium corsetiers Vollers. The timing was also ideal for anyone hoping to get some Christmas Present ideas . The models sported a stunning Dita Von Teese inspired look, courtesy of local hair and make-up artists Natalie Parratt and Steve and Ellie from Essensuals in Guildford.
As Helen said, “Our gift list service is very popular and people in the past have used the fashion show as an opportunity to spot their favourite styles and give someone a hint for Christmas. As we keep our customers sizes and preferences on record, all anyone interested in buying a gift needs to do is pop in, say their partner’s name and we can do the rest! We can even drop a hint on behalf of our female customers so they make sure they get their favourite wish list item as we also offer a Christmas Gift Hint service by text message!”
Anyone who didn’t make the show, can see the stunning Pudding range online at www.puddinglingerie.com or in the salon which is open Mon-Sat 10- 6 pm with an early opening of 9.30 on Saturday and a late closing of 8pm on Thursday – plus to help shoppers beat the Christmas rush, Pudding will be open every Sunday in December in the run up to Christmas from 11am-5pm and will be offering bubbly and mince pies every Thursday night until 8pm to relieve Christmas shopping stresses!


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Brunswick County sees first increase in homes sold in 2023
Market characterized by strong demand, low supply
Demand remained strong in Brunswick County’s residential real estate market during March, with total sales volume and the number of homes sold increasing for the first time this year. Meanwhile, new listings were down and the market netted almost no new inventory.
“Home sales are picking up again as we shake off the winter cobwebs,” said Cynthia Walsh, BCAR CEO. “Demand for new homes typically increases as we move into Spring, and our market saw 3% more homes sold in March compared to 2022. This increase may seem small compared to 2021’s record-breaking numbers, but the number of homes sold in March 2023 was 21% higher than 2020, 20% higher than 2019, and 16% higher than 2018. With strong demand remaining and low inventory, our market is positioned to remain highly competitive as we move into Summer.”
Brunswick County saw $237,490,000 in total sales volume in March, an 8% increase from last year’s $219,840,000. The average sales price increased 2.8%, from $432,764 to $445,038. New listings were down 2.6%, from 615 to 599, while the number of units sold increased 3%, from 508 to 523. Homes spent an average of 55 days on the market. The absorption rate, which is the amount of time it would take to sell all available inventory, held steady at 2.5 months, which is still in seller’s market territory. Sellers received 97% of the original list price on average. Brunswick County’s luxury market remains strong with 25 sales in excess of $1 million, the largest coming in at $2.6 million on Holden Beach.
Year-to-date sales volume through March totaled $500,790,000, down 10.1% from last year’s $556,820,000. The average sales price for the year is up 0.2% from 2022, increasing from $436,083 to $436,794. The number of units sold through March is down 12.1%, from 1278 to 1123, and the number of new listings is up 8.3%, from 1450 to 1570.
Brunswick County Residential Real Estate Market Update - March 2023
March 2023: 599
March 2022: 615
March 2023: 523
March 2022: 508
Average Sales Price
March 2023: $445,083
March 2022: $432,764
Median Sales Price
March 2023: $364,995
March 2022: $351,068
Total Sales Volume
March 2023: $237,490,000
March 2022: $219,840,000