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Mobilk - VIVA Bahrain, in partnership with Asian entertainment content Hungama, gave prizes to ten lucky winners as it concluded the two draws of the Bollywood ringback tone competition for the months of November and December 2011.
Mohammed Khan and Jashimm Uddin, the winners of the mega prize, each received an extravagant trip to Mumbai, including business class return airfare, one night’s accommodation, a half-day city tour, a ticket to see the latest Bollywood movie and airport pick up and drop off. KM Lubair, Tahir Iqdal, Billal Hossan, Jorji Oommen, Zakir Rahman, Roderick Cantos, Muhammed Ali and Hanif Miah also won big, each receiving a Bollywood gift package with 10 original music CDs.
“We are delighted to make the dreams of the big Bollywood fan base in Bahrain come true,” said Andrew Hanna, VIVA CCO. “The chance to fly to Mumbai to attend the latest Bollywood movie and get gift packages is a brilliant opportunity for our customers and gives them more reasons to enjoy their ringback tones with their favourite Bollywood songs.”
Customers interested in the latest Bollywood and Hindi ringback tones can call 122 (for free) and select from the Hindi category on the IVR. The monthly fee is only 500 Fils per tone.
VIVA, Kuwait’s fastest-growing telecom operator, announced today the launch of a special promotion for its prepaid and postpaid customers in..
VIVA Bahrain, the Kingdoms most innovative telecom provider, has been ranked 2nd place in Bahrains top brands on Facebook leadership by Social..
VIVA Bahrain is offering its customers the chance to have it all by showcasing a new range of sleek, fast and easy-to-use Smartphones featuring the truly amazing Windows-Phone Nokia Lumia 800, launched exclusively by VIVA for the first time in Bahrain market in addition to the Nokia N9 and..


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Foot Locker Inc.'s
The sporting-goods retailer said net income was $172 million, or $1.52 a share, compared with $165 million, or $1.38 share, a year ago.
The New York-based company reported adjusted earnings of $1.53 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of $1.61 a share.
Revenue rose 2.6% to $2.08 billion from a year earlier, below analysts' estimates of $2.12 billion. Same-store sales rose 4.6%. Analysts had expected 5.6%.
Write to Kimberly Chin at email@example.com

domain: news


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- YouTube is quietly paying some creators to test out new social-shopping tools.
- These payments are for creators who are a part of YouTube's "tag products" pilot program.
- Here's what the pilot program looks like and how much YouTube is paying.
As the social-shopping race heats up among platforms, YouTube is quietly inviting select creators to get paid to test out a new product-tagging shopping tool as part of a pilot program.
Insider first reported on the program in April. At the time, YouTube told Insider that it was hoping to allow more creators to tag third-party products in their videos — a feature that the company began testing in late 2021 — and that this could lead to a full-fledged affiliate program.
Since May, YouTube started inviting more creators to join the program —and paying them to use it.
Insider spoke with four creators and one talent manager who, in the last few weeks, received an email inviting them to test out the new product-tagging feature, which is still in beta and not available to most creators.
The feature is similar to the in-app shopping tools both TikTok and Instagram have developed, and it lets creators tag shoppable products within a video. To get started, eligible creators select products in their channel dashboard, triggering a "View products" pop-up onscreen. From there, viewers can browse the products on the video page and then check out on retailers' websites.
While the creators do not get affiliate commissions from those sales, three of the creators and the talent manager said YouTube pays a monthly rate to use the feature. The fourth creator shared that while they have access to the product-tagging tool, they have not earned any money to test it.
The first creator was offered a minimum of $50 each month for using the feature, plus they could earn up to $0.08 each time a viewer clicked on a product tag and visited the product page. The cost-per-click rate YouTube is offering varies by creator and product based on a "number of factors," the company told Insider, but declined to share more on the exact payment structure.
"One of the greatest advantages of product tagging is that creators get paid for number-of-clicks," a second creator, based in India, wrote to Insider. "Even if someone just clicks the tag, not necessary if that person buys the product."
The third creator Insider spoke with earned $100 in May, June, and July for using the product tagging tool, according to documentation viewed by Insider.
YouTube told the fourth creator that product tagging increases the potential for a video to show up in other places across YouTube — which could impact a creator's reach and engagement, according to an email viewed by Insider.
Eventually, the company hopes brands will pay out commissions, YouTube told Insider in April. For now, it is currently fronting the costs itself as part of the test, a spokesperson said.
"We've been testing this program with creators for a few months now and getting positive feedback," a YouTube spokesperson said. "Our goal with this program is to help inform what we ultimately introduce for creators to monetize on Shopping long-term."
Recently, TikTok has been testing a dedicated "Shop" tab in select markets, but not the US. And Instagram has been testing its own affiliate tools which allow creators to tag products in posts, Stories, livestreams, and Reels.
"While shoppable social content is not new, what is new, and of note, is the addition of this functionally to a creator ecosystem as robust as YouTube's," said Kyle Kuhns, founder and CEO of marketing agency XX Artists. "Video, short form, social, stories, live, and podcasts all converge on YouTube. To think about the long-term integration of shoppable commerce into a content product ecosystem that robust is really what differentiates YouTube's long term ability to win and provide for creators and brands in this space."
Yet the platform's tool — and consumer behavior — is still in early stages.
"So far, I think it's good," the third creator said. "I think it may still take a bit of audience training to get people to click the embedded product links since we are so conditioned to referencing links in the description box, but I'm excited to see YouTube incorporating this and curious to see how creators use it — especially with live video."


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From June 25th to 30th, Chris Hipkins, New Zealand Prime Minister, visited China, as part of an official visit.
Witnessed by New Zealand Prime Minister and Bruce Cameron, Chairman of the Board of Zespri International Group, Zhang Jian, Chairman and CEO of Joy Wing Mau Fruit Technology Group, and Jiang Shijie, President of Zespri Greater China, the parties signed a "Strategic Sustainable Development Agreement" to strengthen green environmental protection and sustainable development.
The group makes strong representatives of the fruit industry in China and New Zealand,
This development strategy is a new chapter for upgrading the fruit industry cooperation between China and New Zealand.
Witnessed by Chris Hipkins, New Zealand Prime Minister (fourth from left), representatives of the fruit industries of China and New Zealand signed the "Strategic Sustainable Development Agreement"
On the New Zealand-themed partnership and product launch event held in Shanghai on the 30th of June, Zhang Jian, Chairman and CEO of Joy Wing Mau Group, and Jiang Shijie, President of Zespri Greater China, signed the "Strategic Sustainable Development Agreement".
This strategic cooperation upgrades to green environmental protection and sustainable development on the basis of China-New Zealand economic and trade cooperation after the two parties signed a five-year strategic partnership agreement in 2021.
Zespri is one of the most representative export companies in New Zealand. Since Zespri entered the Chinese market, Joy Wing Mau and Zespri have established a long-term friendly strategic partnership of mutual trust, mutual benefit, and win-win results, and have become Zespri Kiwifruit’s largest single customer in the world.
At the "Sustainable Development and Climate Change Forum" held in Beijing on the 28th, Joy Wing Mau and Zespri signed the "Zespri Strategic Sustainable Collaboration Agreement". As a core strategic partner of the Zespri ecosystem, Joy Wing Mau will work with Zespri to promote environmentally friendly packaging and gradually make its packaging sustainable within three years. At the same time, Joy Wing Mau will combine its own earth-friendly strategy that has been practiced for many years to create a greener fruit industry chain from the field to the dining table in the four major links of ecological planting, environmentally friendly packaging, green storage, and energy-saving transportation, as well as driving upstream and downstream partners to work together and fulfill the responsibility of ecological environment protection.
Small fruits make great friends. China is a crucial overseas market for New Zealand's agricultural products. Since the upgrading of the China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, new policies such as tariff reductions, easy customs clearance measures, and more cooperation fields have brought more convenience and benefits to the trade between the two countries.
Next year will usher in the 10th anniversary of the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership between China and New Zealand. Joy Wing Mau, as a leading enterprise in China's fruit industry and the largest distributor of New Zealand fruits in the Chinese market, will further strengthen the economic and trade cooperation with New Zealand partners represented by Zespri and Rockit.
Source: Joy Wing Mau


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The unknown ‘Apple TV 3,2’ device caused a lot of commotion when it was first discovered in iOS 6.1 earlier this week. It has a faster processor than the current model, and a lot of folks figured it was the next-gen Apple TV.
Apple, however, crushed the hype when they announced yesterday that the 3,2 ATV was nothing more than a component change. But according to some recent chatter, there may be more to the device than meets the eye…
First, let’s take a look at what we know. We know that, thanks to the smart folks over at AnandTech, this new Apple TV features an A5X chip. That’s the same one Apple used in its third generation iPad with Retina display.
But the A5X chip in the iPad 3 was big, and ran hot. So why would Apple be using it in its tiny set-top box? Well according to reports, the A5X used in the new Apple TV is likely a process-shrunken version of the original.
From Brian Klug at AnandTech:
“Update: I should note that S5L8945 is the original 45nm Samsung produced A5X, S5L8947 is the A5XR2 that is in this unannounced Apple TV. Note that previously the A5 underwent a similar plus 2 offset, from S5L8940 (A5) to S5L8942 (A5R2) which changed process geometry from 45nm to 32nm HK-MG at Samsung. It’s possible we’re also looking at a process node change with the A5X to A5XR2 here.”
He’s referring to the smaller, more efficient 32-nm (die shrunk) A5 chip that Apple uses in its third-gen Apple TV. It appeared, almost, as if the company was using the ATV3 to test the chip before using it in its retooled iPad 2.
So the theory that’s making its way around the blogosphere this week is that Apple is doing the same thing here: testing a smaller, more efficient version of the A5X in its 3,2 ATV, before using it in a new product. But what is it?
A new iPad mini with Retina display is a pretty good guess (first suggested by MacRumors). The A5X has the necessary power to drive a Retina display. And a smaller, more efficient version of it would fit nicely in the next-gen mini.
Sure, this is all supposition at this point. But it makes a good case for an A5X iPad mini 2 with Retina display appearing later this year. Recent reports say that the tablet is expected to hit in October, alongside a redesigned iPad 5.


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DESPITE A FABLED BRAND NAME AND AN AFFLUENT, free- spending clientele that is the envy of the charge- and credit-card business, American Express axp -0.3814852492370295% American Express Co. U.S.: NYSE USD78.34 -0.3 -0.3814852492370295% /Date(1490818362762-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2098474 P/E Ratio 13.91651865008881 Market Cap 70875950582.7203 Dividend Yield 1.633694958519464% Rev. per Employee 599787 More quote details and news » has gotten caught in the same downward vortex as the rest of global financial industry.
Indeed, its once-highflying stock crashed to under 10 in early March from more than 50 last spring, before rebounding to 18.83 late last week. Negatives seem to abound. A poor economy caused card usage, both business and personal, to slow, and in some categories, to drop. Amex credit-card delinquencies and charge-offs hurtled to higher levels both in the second half of 2008 and the first two months of this year. And an ill-fated company decision to push credit cards on folks with multiple mortgages (this had long been deemed a positive factor in creditworthiness) resulted in Amex dramatically increasing its exposure to customers in the epicenter of the home-price collapse in California and Florida.
Not even American Express (ticker: AXP) thinks things will improve much for at least the next three quarters, or so Amex Chairman and CEO Kenneth Chenault said in recent shareholder communications; company officials were unavailable to comment to Barron's, since Amex is in a "quiet period" before releasing first-quarter earnings.
Yet American Express' outlook isn't nearly as hopeless as is commonly thought on Wall Street. For one thing, unlike its peers, the company gets the bulk of its revenue and earnings from fee income generated by transaction volume, not the extension of credit. This is because charge cards, which are supposed to be paid off monthly, make up a substantial share of American Express' volume. AmEx therefore has substantially less credit risk.
Likewise, the company has addressed its credit-card mistakes with some vigor since the fall, and should be able to stem the surge in defaults in the next couple of quarters. Not least, with the help of various government bailout programs, AmEx seems to have ample liquidity to ride out the current economic downturn without having to dilute shareholders by selling stock.
To be sure, plenty of uncertainties remain for the New York-based company. The outlook for home prices and unemployment levels weighs heavily on any credit-card lender like AmEx, and remains a wild card in a weakening economy. As a result, analysts' estimates for AmEx are all over the place. Consensus forecasts for this year vary from a profit of $1.65 a share to a loss of $1.11, with the average of 19 estimates coming in at 55 cents. Next year has spawned even wilder inconsistencies in earnings forecasts. The average forecast of $1.16 includes high and low estimates of $2.79 and negative 27 cents.
Yet William Ryan of the financial-industry research boutique Portales Partners recently issued a Buy on the stock at 15, after rating AmEx a Hold since it traded above 60 in July 2007. He reasoned that even with higher credit-card charge-offs coming in the near term, the stock is a great buy in the longer term. "Look, we never know until after the fact when the inflection point comes, as low valuation finally trumps near-term fundamentals," Ryan says. "Most people are going to miss the party if they wait for the turn in credit losses."
Ryan and Portales refrain from giving out target prices. But an analyst at a large, low-profile hedge fund that has been loading up on American Express wasn't so constrained. "I think AmEx is at least a double over the next year or two," he avers.
MUCH OF AMEX'S RESILIENCE to tough times comes from a business model that emphasizes lower-risk transaction-fee volume rather than lending, according to Fox-Pitt Kelton analyst Bill Carcache. Last year, for example, AmEx cardholders used their charge and credit cards to buy $683 billion worth of goods and services, a volume that dwarfed that of their competitors. Chief among the transaction fees generated by this prodigious volume is the industry-high 2.5% fee that AmEx typically charges merchants for access to AmEx's big-spending cardholder population.
AmEx gets to keep the bulk of this fee income, since unlike most card sponsors, the company runs a closed-loop network in which it issues and markets cards, handles all transaction processing and even "acquires" and directly pays off all its merchants around the globe. Most bank issuers have to share their merchant fees with the likes of Visa v 0.19636445242369838% VISA Inc. Cl A U.S.: NYSE USD89.295 0.175 0.19636445242369838% /Date(1490818382214-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 3390858 P/E Ratio 36.06299212598425 Market Cap 207280159080.025 Dividend Yield 0.7389989922741015% Rev. per Employee N/A More quote details and news » (V), MasterCard ma -0.20449897750511248% Mastercard Inc. U.S.: NYSE USD112.24 -0.23 -0.20449897750511248% /Date(1490818381355-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1189719 P/E Ratio 30.426829268292682 Market Cap 121197670569.58 Dividend Yield 0.783789801825874% Rev. per Employee 905546 More quote details and news » (MA) and First Data.
Credit risk from customers stiffing credit-card companies looms smaller at AmEx. It had extended $72 billion to cardholders as of year-end 2008, less than half the total in cardholder receivables carried by competitors Citigroup c 0.18512285425782565% Citigroup Inc. U.S.: NYSE USD59.53 0.11 0.18512285425782565% /Date(1490818376028-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 10042871 P/E Ratio 12.606358210218854 Market Cap 164288272657.108 Dividend Yield 1.0745466756212223% Rev. per Employee 383699 More quote details and news » (C), Bank of America bac -0.2755536626916525% Bank of America Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD23.4153 -0.0647 -0.2755536626916525% /Date(1490818392430-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 51950378 P/E Ratio 16.971014492753625 Market Cap 235080356705.96 Dividend Yield 1.2809564474807857% Rev. per Employee 447813 More quote details and news » (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase jpm -0.28216704288939054% JPMorgan Chase & Co. U.S.: NYSE USD88.35 -0.25 -0.28216704288939054% /Date(1490818392942-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 7630891 P/E Ratio 14.279483037156705 Market Cap 316475906658.992 Dividend Yield 2.2626994003846588% Rev. per Employee 421060 More quote details and news » (JPM).
Much of the investor concern over AmEx arises from the sudden surge in delinquencies and, even more damaging, loan charge-offs in excess of the company's competitors. This wasn't supposed to happen at American Express, given the company's more affluent customer base. Yet after lagging behind industry averages for most of 2008, charge-offs at AmEx began to skyrocket in the fourth quarter, according to closely watched monthly performance data taken from the company's major credit-card-receivables securitization. By February of this year, charge-offs in the AmEx trust had vaulted to 9.31%, far above the industry's monthly average of 7.76%.
The jump in AmEx loan defaults, however, may not be as telling as it first appears. The rates of late have been pushed higher by a wicked denominator effect, as management began reducing outstanding credit to U.S. consumers in the second half of last year by cutting credit lines and raising interest rates and fees on accounts. The company even offered some account holders with outstanding balances a $300 gift card in exchange for closing the accounts.
The efforts earned AmEx some bad press for its hard-nosed tactics but enabled the company to reduce its U.S. credit-card receivables total (the denominator of the charge-off data) to $57.8 billion at the end of February from $65.9 billion at year-end 2007. This also magnifies the default rate vis-á-vis peers who were less aggressive in paring back their credit exposures.
OTHER FACTORS ALSO MAY WORK to blunt the recent vertiginous rise in AmEx's U.S. charge-offs. After closely examining the February trust data, Portales' Bill Ryan sees some favorable developments. While charge-offs surged in the month, loan delinquencies (the raw material for future charge-offs or defaults) were far better-behaved. Total delinquencies in the trust rose just 12 basis points (12 hundredths of a percentage point) to 5.40% of total U.S. credit-card receivables or borrowing, compared with a sequential monthly jump of 42 basis points in January. But even more telling, according to Ryan, was the fact that in February, early-stage (31-to-60-day) delinquencies actually dropped from the month before by nine basis points, to 1.38%, while mid-stage (61-to-90-day) delinquencies rose but five basis points, to 1.23%.
Early-stage delinquencies normally drop some in February, for the simple reason that many cardholders labor hard to pay down swollen balances quickly from the holiday season. But the drop this February was larger than usual.
As a student of the credit cycle, Ryan thinks that yet another factor may soon steady AmEx's fortunes. AmEx currently is paying the price for its promiscuous extension of credit and bad underwriting practices of recent years that saw its U.S. card-lending jump from $39.9 billion at the end of 2004 to the aforementioned peak of $65.9 billion at the end of 2007. AmEx was looking for love in all the wrong places, oblivious as were most Americans of the approaching financial and economic tsunami.
Yet, says Ryan, the losses AmEx is now suffering from bad underwriting decisions tend to be short-lived and violent, compared with losses that creditors suffer from economic weakness, with its attendant rise in unemployment and drop in consumer spending. "I'm not saying that credit losses at AmEx won't continue to rise some in the months ahead, but the deterioration in charge-offs compared to that of its peers will be tempered somewhat as the underwriting mistakes are quickly washed through AmEx's system," says Ryan.
Liquidity has been yet another concern of investors, about AmEx specifically and the financial industry in general. Beaten-up stock prices in the sector make stock offerings punishingly dilutive to current stockholders. Even more damaging has been the freezing-up of the all-important asset-backed securitization market, which allowed lenders like AmEx to bundle vast hunks of their credit-card receivables and sell them off to investors in the form of bonds. At the end of last year, such securitizations accounted for some $29 billion of the $72 billion in credit that AmEx had extended to cardholders in both the U.S. and abroad.
AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF GLOBAL credit markets following the Lehman bankruptcy last September, AmEx, like other U.S. financial institutions, has made ample use of the panoply of U.S. government liquidity and credit facilities to fill in the financing breach. It received an injection of $3.4 billion under the now somewhat notorious Troubled Asset Relief Program.
AmEx also availed itself of $5.9 billion in borrowings under the government-guaranteed Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. In addition, AmEx has plenty of unused credit capacity, including $7.4 billion under the TLGP, $8.7 billion under its bank facilities and a $5 billion credit conduit that won't expire for several months, according to a recent report by JPMorgan analyst Andrew Wessel.
All of this has left AmEx with about $25 billion in cash and readily marketable securities, which more than covers its liquidity needs for the next 12 months. They include some $20 billion in long-term debt and asset-based-securitization maturities.
American Express seems to have ample capacity to weather the current financial storm and survive comfortably until charge-offs abate and the all-clear sign is posted for the economy. Among other things, the company recently exhibited its confidence by affirming its current dividend-payout level, which costs it some $200 million a quarter. And as AmEx recently observed on its Website, its ratio of tangible common equity to risk-weighted assets was 8.5% at year end, "higher than that of most bank holding companies, and all our regulatory ratios are comfortably above the 'well-capitalized' thresholds."
THE GOVERNMENT FACILITIES eventually will expire. Yet AmEx is hard at work developing other funding sources should its access to traditional capital markets remain difficult. It is now availing itself of retail certificates of deposit pushed by traditional brokerage houses like Merrill Lynch as an investment alternative to high-net worth customers. This program has yielded some $8.8 billion in funding since last fall.
The company also plans to roll out a new program this quarter designed to attract direct deposits to American Express using direct mail, the Internet and other forms of advertising. With the cachet of the American Express name, the company should have no trouble using these channels to replace the securitization market as a source of cheap funding.
Given the necessity of carrying a larger capital base even after the economy improves, AmEx said in its annual report that in the future it expects to deliver a return on equity of more than 20%, instead of meeting its old goal of better-than-33% ROE. Of course, 20% is a return that most companies would die for.
Investors could do a lot worse than shares of American Express, especially at current price levels, even if it no longer aspires to be the fastest car on the track.


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PUNE: Dairies in the state have increased the price of cow milk by Re 1 per litre. Starting January 11, cow milk will cost Rs 26 a litre. The price of buffalo milk and the milk procurement rates, however, will remain the same.
The decisions were finalised at a state-level meeting of co-operative and private dairies on Monday held on the premises of city-based Katraj dairy.
Addressing a news conference after the meeting, Vinayak Patil, chairman of Maharashtra State Co-operative Milk Producers Federation said, "The milk procurement rate has not increased because of the increased input costs and processing charges of dairies. The federation has sought an appointment with the state chief minister to look into the matter. If the state government issues an order to increase milk procurement prices, then it will be mandatory for all the dairies to increase the purchase prices."
There was a demand to increase retail milk prices by Rs 2 per litre, which was not feasible, hence the price was increased by just Re 1 per litre, he said.
At present, the price of buffalo milk in the retail market is Rs 34 per litre. The dairies buy buffalo milk from farmers at Rs 21 per litre. Patil said, "The buffalo milk purchase rate was revised by dairies in the state in January 2010, when milk sale prices remained unchanged. Of the daily milk production of 60 lakh litres in the state, merely 20 per cent is buffalo milk, the rest is cow milk."
The dairies claim that their distribution expenses are going up, which has forced them to increase the sale prices. The current expenses are around Rs 3.25 per litre which is the second highest after the cumulative expenses on chilling centres, processing cost and administration expenditures of around Rs 4.75 per litre.


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Three businesses on Route 50 in Burnt Hills that were gutted by fire last summer will begin reopening their doors in the coming weeks.
Reflections Hair Salon, Hott Tropics Tanning Salon and a Dunkin Donuts branch located near the intersection of Lakehill Road were all destroyed by a late-night blaze on July 10. The fire started in a back room of the tanning salon and burned for about an hour before a passerby noticed smoke and contacted the fire department.
According to a representative of Dunkin Donuts corporation Dunkin Brands, a grand reopening for the coffee store is planned for mid-May.
The next closest Dunkin Donuts store is also on Route 50, 3.4 miles away in Glenville.
Reflections owner Jennifer Rowe has been seeing her clients in a temporary office in Burnt Hills since the fire, but said she is eager to move back into her old digs. The fire was a big setback for her, however, as she had just made updates to her equipment.
I had just redone the shop the month before and hadn't updated my insurance, so I lost around $25,000, said Rowe.
She expects to be practicing in her former location by the end of May.
Hott Tropics was also destroyed in the fire. The owner could not be reached for comment, but after July's fire, she told The Spotlight that she plans to rebuild in the same location. A Hott Tropics sign is up in the complex.""


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The company, which has around £15mln in the bank, believes the strategic ‘pivot’ will see the business break even at the EBITDA level in the second half.
Argo was set up as a mining-as-as-service company, which allowed the general public to create virtual currencies such as Bitcoin Gold and Ethereum.
And in its latest update, it said it had seen better-than-expected growth in consumer accounts.
However, price pressure, as digital currencies have crashed, and market volatility have forced Argo to refocus.
It has now stopped accepting new subscriptions and is ending all mining-as-a-service (MaaS) contracts by April 1.
“The company is temporarily moving away from MaaS to mining directly for its own account,” investors were told.
Argo plans to cut overheads by 35%. So, with the redeployment of the mining infrastructure and capital and a “material reduction of input costs” from suppliers, the underlying business should be profitable.
Co-founder Mike Edwards said: "We are being proactive and strategic in light of the tough industry market conditions by taking swift action to cut costs and refocus our strategy.
"While it is disappointing to make this shift after delivering better-than-expected growth during our first six months as a consumer business, we need to be prudent and act decisively in order to ride out the downturn and be in a strong position when industry fundamentals improve."


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Apple has listed all first-generation Apple Watch models, including the $17,000 solid-gold Edition, as "obsolete." All first-gen Apple Watch models released in 2015 were added to the list of obsolete products on September 30, according to a report by MacRumors.
Now, these "Series 0" watches are no longer eligible for repairs or services at Apple Stores and Apple Authorised Service Provider locations. If you own one, you might have a tough time finding its spare parts too, as Apple won’t no longer provide parts.
The software support ended in 2018, with the watchOS 4.3.2 being the last update shipped to the first-gen watches.
The list of discontinued models includes all versions of the original Apple Watch in both 38mm and 42mm sizes made of aluminium and stainless steel, including Hermès variants, which are now considered obsolete.
The 18-karat gold casing, which was available for up to $17,000 in the US is also now obsolete. When it was released, it was seen on the wrists of influential celebrities. There also was a gold link bracelet that was never made available to the public. This was Apple's first attempt at competing with the luxury watch market. However, the solid-gold version was discontinued after only a year in favour of comparably less expensive ceramic and titanium versions.
When Apple stops distributing a product for more than seven years, it becomes technologically obsolete according to Apple's classification. The first-generation Apple Watch was discontinued in September 2016, and since it's been seven years, the first-ever Apple Watch is now considered obsolete.
In 2015, Apple launched the Apple Watch, positioning it as the company's "most personal device ever." The watch boasted a Retina display with Force Touch and a Taptic Engine. It included 11 watch faces, as well as an Activity app and a Workout app, making it easy to track your daily activity and metrics during workouts.


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Ionocom has been featured in the trade press on several occasions. Below is a selection of articles.
Feature article on Ionocom in microSolutions
Vancouver, BC, Aug 2009 -- Ionocom is the featured Microchip authorized design partner in the August 2009 editions of microSolutions. Microchip is one of the world's leading suppliers of microcontroller chips and publishes the monthly microSolutions newsletter to an audience of engineers worldwide.
The article in the August 2009 issue of microSolutions features authorized design partner Ionocom and outlines a recent project where Ionocom used a Microchip microcontroller in an Ethernet connected, web enabled product.
The article also highlighted Ionocom's broad experience designing wireless products.
Feature article on Ionocom in EP&T
Vancouver, BC, Nov 2008 -- Ionocom is featured in a profile by EP&T's Peter Caulfield. Electronic Products & Technology EP&T is Canada's leading and largest professional electronics magazine. Published eight times a year, EP&T reaches more than 24,000 electronics designers, engineers, technologists, technicians, purchasers, researchers and technical managers.
The article in the November 2008 issue of EP&T features a chat with Nick Massey of Ionocom, a profile of some typical projects and comments from some of Ionocom's clients.
Ionocom featured by WINBC
Vancouver, BC, May 31, 2006 -- Ionocom is featured by WINBC with a profile in the May 2006 newsletter. The Wireless Innovation Network of BC represents more than 150 companies in the BC wireless industry, and the newsletter is delivered to top decision makers in the BC high-tech scene.
In the feature article Nick Massey from Ionocom provides the company's version of what they do, the opportunity they saw and what gets them out of bed every day.


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Faced with one of the most difficult situations that Spain has faced in recent decades and that has led the Government to proclaim the State of Alarm to try to stop the advance of Covid19, Flight Level expresses its full commitment to the measures adopted.
Consequently, Flight Level, Spanish manufacturer of simulators for cabin crew training, has implemented a crisis plan that guarantees the remote and face-to-face operation of its different departments, to give the best service to customers, suppliers, the media, etc.
Once again Spain is setting an example of sacrifice and, with everyone’s effort, we will soon emerge from this unexpected crisis. Although in the short term the situation may seem catastrophic, at Flight Level we are convinced that in the medium and long term this will mean a relaunch of the economy, an abrupt transformation to digital productivity and economic growth in line with the forecasts that have been announced in the sector.
Aviation has been, is and will be the main catalyst vehicle for personal and professional relationships of this century and Flight Level will be present to provide the best product and service to increase passenger safety.
We appeal to everyone’s responsibility, convinced that the present sacrifice will be the key to shorten the terms of the economic slowdown.


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Uber, Zipcar Announce Partnership for Car-Sharing Deal
【Summary】Ride-hailing app Uber and car-sharing service Zipcar announced a partnership where Zipcar would offer its vehicles Uber drivers. The deal is currently only available to drivers in Boston, MA, but could expand to other cities in the United States.
Car-sharing services are expected to grow rapidly in the upcoming future as urban residents look for a way to keep vehicle ownership costs down. As a previous report documented earlier, some urban residents can save money by utilizing a ride-sharing service instead of going down the traditional route of owning a vehicle. Would the same idea help individuals that want to make money by driving for ride-hailing apps?
In the hopes of getting ahead of the pack, Zipcar and Uber recently announced a partnership to get more drivers interested in the idea of utilizing a ride-sharing service.
Ride-Sharing For Everyone
Zipcar, a car-sharing service, will join forces with Uber, a ride-hailing app, to supply its branded sedans to drivers in Boston, MA, reports USA Today. The deal is starting off in Massachusetts' capital, but could spread to other cities in the United States. As of right now, Zipcar will provide Uber with 20 of its sedans for drivers to utilize.
Zipcar currently provides users with the ability to rent a vehicle by the hour, as a means of getting around vehicle ownership. With the new deal, Zipcar expands its services to Uber drivers. Drivers working for the ride-hailing app will be able to use one of Zipcar's sedans to serve their passengers.
After being approved, Uber drivers will be required to pay a $7 membership fee for month to obtain privileges to Zipcar's vehicles, as well as $12 per hour. Zipcar's rates differ by state with membership fees ranging from $7 per month or $70 per year and $8 to $10 per hour for drivers looking to borrow a vehicle.
As USA Today points out, Uber and Zipcar both did not provide any financial details behind the deal. But Zipcar spokesperson Lindsay Wester told the outlet that the deal is "a mutually beneficial partnership" in an email.
Partnerships Are The Way Forward
"As the automotive landscape evolves, technology is playing an ever-increasing role in transportation services, and we are well-positioned to meet new and evolving customer needs and demands, as evidenced by this new partnership," said Andrew Kupiec, Vice President for Avis Budget in a statement. "Our quality, well-maintained vehicles, coupled with Zipcar's technology, will give Uber's driver partners wheels when they want them."
This isn't the first time Uber has entered a deal like this to make cars more accessible. The company recently announced a partnership with Daimler for autonomous vehicles from Mercedes-Benz. That deal will see the company add self-driving cars from the German automaker to its fleet.
Lyft, another ride-hailing app, has a similar program with Hertz, as well. According to Hertz's website, Lyft drivers can rent a mid-size sedan for $180 a week or a compact sedan for $165 a week. Uber's new deal with Zipcar gives its drivers more flexibility, since drivers can choose to rent a vehicle at an hourly rate and not a weekly one.
Vineeth Joel Patel
Joel Patel has been covering all aspects of the automotive industry for four years as an editor and freelance writer for various websites. When it comes to cars, he enjoys covering the merger between technology and cars. In his spare time, Joel likes to watch baseball, work on his car, and try new foods
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Almost every taxpayer who isn’t a New York Mets fan is outraged by Citi’s $400 million, 20-year deal for naming rights to the new Mets stadium, known as Citi Field. It’s true that shelling out that kind of money at a time when taxpayers are bankrolling the company and backstopping hundreds of billions of dollars worth of its assets may seem tone-deaf and stupid, even for a bank. And, historically, naming rights have been a classic vanity move. Corporations tend to make grandiose civic/corporate statements right when they are about to implode. If you had shorted Citi’s stock when it announced the sponsorship deal in November 2006, you would have made a lot of money.
But there’s a reasonable case to be made for preserving the deal, especially if Citi could get the Mets to extend the deal to 30 or 40 years. In order for Citi to weather the storm, recover, and pay back taxpayers (and insulate them from further losses), the company must invest for both the short- and long-term. For companies in highly competitive consumer markets, marketing and advertising are essential, entirely justifiable expenses. Companies—even companies getting bailed out by the feds—need to attract customers and to build their brand image. It’s difficult to measure the value of any specific campaign or ad. But there’s reason to think that for this company, at this stadium, in this location, a naming-rights deal might not be such a bad long-term move.
The cost is high—$400 million over 20 years. But the present-day cost isn’t quite as high as you think, especially if, as Darren Rovell of CNBC suggests, it is paid out in annual installments. In 2029, $20 million will be worth a lot less than $20 million is today. And any type of advertising that reaches a lot of people is expensive. In this economy, NBC was able to charge $3 million for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. Though the audience size for Mets games won’t approach that of the Super Bowl, the location of the stadium guarantees that the Citi logo will be visible to hundreds of millions of people each year. Citi Field is a giant billboard that will be visible not just to the 4 million-plus people who attend Mets games each year but to the tens of millions of people who drive past it on the Grand Central Parkway, the Van Wyck Expressway, and other roadways and the 25 million or so passengers who fly into and out of LaGuardia Airport each year.
And stadium naming deals generate a huge amount of free advertising. On the broadcasts of the team’s 81 home games (and, sponsors hope, post-season games), announcers will repeatedly refer to the company’s name in a nonadvertising context: “Welcome back to Citi Field.” Likewise, newspaper, Internet, and television coverage will produce hundreds of millions of impressions of the company’s name per year.
Naming-rights deals are most justifiable when the product or company doing the naming has an intuitive connection to the people who visit the stadium. The Montreal Canadiens used to play in the Molson Center, which made sense since hockey fans drink a lot of beer. Ditto for the Colorado Rockies, who play in Coors Field. (When Internet company PSInet planted its name on the Baltimore Ravens’ stadium, it didn’t make quite as much sense.) Citi would seem to be something of a natural for the New York Mets. It’s a New York-based bank. The Mets are based in New York City. Baseball stadiums tend to attract a prosperous, heavily male clientele, including professionals, small-business owners, and corporate executives. Many companies use Mets games to entertain and schmooze prospective clients. In short, a lot of the sorts of people who are likely to utilize Citi’s services will be attending games at Citi Field.
Of course, people who read about games at Citi Field on ESPN.com won’t be learning much about Citi’s mortgage rates. But naming rights, especially if they endure, can perform another vital function for brands. It can help make them part of the vernacular. The greatest desire of any marketer is for her product’s name to work its way into conversations. When I was growing up, it was common to say, “I want a Coke” when you were referring to any kind of soda. People ask for a Kleenex when they mean a tissue, say they’re going to Xerox a document even if they’re using a Ricoh copier, and speak of Googling when they refer to an Internet search. Stadium naming rights can help products and brands gain that sort of status. Since 1926, baseball fans on the north side of Chicago have spoken about going to games at Wrigley Field. Does that make fans more likely to buy Wrigley’s gum products? It can’t hurt. “Meet me at Citi,” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Meet me at Shea.” But after 20 or 30 years, it might.


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Mumbai: Indian mobile network operator Idea Cellular today has slashed internet rates on their 4G, 3G, 2G data packs to attract more customers.
The GSM operator, an Aditya Birla group company, offers a range of 4G, 3G AND 2G sachet data packs priced between Rs 8 and Rs 225, the company said in a statement.
Chief Marketing Officer Sashi Shankar, said, “We want to ensure that benefits of internet are repeated conveniently by every individual through our innovative, customized and affordable products. This will enable the internet revolution and its impact be felt in every party of the country.”
Shankar, further added that now Idea users can get up to 45 per cent more data benefits on sachet packs below 1 GB.


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Pebble pioneered the smartwatch market, but time is running out for its online services, which are necessary for some features. A ragtag band of coders has devised a solution, but you must act before 30 June 2018.
AgileBits has released 1Password 7, the company’s first paid upgrade in many years. Are the changes to 1Password mini and the many visual improvements worth the cost of admission?
Smartwatches like the Apple Watch are saving lives, but they’re not quite legitimate medical devices yet.
Planning a trip to the UK? After a family vacation there, Adam Engst has some advice for international travellers looking for an inexpensive way to get cellular data for their iPhones. He also suggests using Apple Pay for public transportation in London and recommends an inexpensive power adapter for charging devices.
Financier David Rubenstein interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook, and now the entire 24-minute conversation is available at Bloomberg. Or, if you’re short on time, you can read the highlights at 9to5Mac.
In news that won’t surprise attentive TidBITS readers, Apple has announced that the upcoming macOS 10.14 Mojave will be the last to support 32-bit apps. If you rely on older 32-bit apps, you probably have at least 15 months before it becomes a problem in macOS 10.15.
Buying something from the Mac App Store is so easy, it’s as if Apple planned it that way. But there are things you should know, and things you can do, to keep the experience effortless and handle any glitches that might appear.
iOS updates download automatically if there’s sufficient space on your device, but if you want to use that space for photos, videos, or whatnot before you’re ready to install the update, here’s how you can recover hundreds of megabytes (or even gigabytes!) of storage.
Wired has published an entertaining profile of Sal Soghoian, the AppleScript and Automator guru who championed automation technology at Apple across three decades.
During a CNN interview, Tim Cook made a surprising confession: the Screen Time feature in iOS 12 made him realize that he uses his iPhone too much.
iOS apps are coming to the Mac. Apple’s Craig Federighi sat down with Wired to offer some specifics about how that will work.
Apple has announced the winners of 2018’s Apple Design Awards, including some interesting games, an app for surgeons, and a productivity app reviewed by TidBITS.
Dark Mode leads the list of new features in the evolutionary macOS 14 Mojave. But, while most of the changes are small, many of them will be welcome.
Apple TV 4K will rock your ears and eyes a little bit more starting this fall, alongside a collection of either nice-to-have or essential new features, depending on your living room.
The Apple Watch, with a focus on fitness, communication, and info-snippet consumption, looks to become far more capable in all these areas courtesy of the just-announced watchOS 5. The updated will let other models work as walkie-talkies, play podcasts, spawn more-interactive alerts, aid hikers and yoga fans, and more.


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KUALA LUMPUR, 8 APRIL 2021: Innov8tif emerged the winner for its OkayDoc platform today in Huawei Technologies (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd’s Huawei Spark competition, with DoctorOnCall placing second and MHub coming in third.
OkayDoc is a set of computer vision algorithm that automates ID authentication and prevents fraud in e-KYC (electronic know your customer) through visual zone inspections, security feature detection and content tampering checks.
DoctorOnCall delivers healthcare services like online doctors, specialists, pharmacists, screenings and vaccines directly to users. They have Artificial Intelligence (AI) doctors and 5G Internet of Things (IoT) Pods that aim to improve healthcare for at least 700 million people in Southeast Asia.
MHUB is the leading end-to-end property sales transaction platform that speeds up and simplifies the property sales cycle by connecting developers, agents, banks, lawyers and buyers.
The companies were among the 10 finalists shortlisted from more than 140 entries in the Huawei Spark competition.
The competition is part of the Huawei Spark programme, which aims to incubate and accelerate company growth and build an ecosystem for businesses in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
Huawei Spark is held in collaboration with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), TusStar (Malaysia) as incubator partner, and powered by TM ONE – the enterprise and public sector business solutions arm of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) – through its α Edge (pronounced as Alpha Edge) Cloud platform.
The 10 companies that made it to the top were:
A five member panel of judges comprising representatives from MDEC, TM ONE, TusStar and Huawei decided on the winners after a pitching session by the finalists.
Launched virtually in Malaysia in November last year, the Huawei Spark programme is a hybrid accelerator programme to support deep tech companies in Asia Pacific , with a focus on firms that use 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning & Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Edge Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, leveraging Huawei’s technological and innovation leadership.
The programme aims to drive output in the areas of e-commerce, Fintech, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Smart Cities.
“MDEC remains steadfast in our laser-focus drive to develop and grow the digital economy, in line with MyDIGITAL. Effective collaboration will improve innovation as we look to continuously grow our capacities, facilities and capabilities and the Huawei Spark programme will help shape our digital tech ecosystem and reinforces Malaysia’s goal to be the regional powerhouse for global tech champions,” said Mr. Gopi Ganesalingam, Vice President, Tech Ecosystems & Globalisation (TEG), MDEC.
"As part of China's largest innovation network, TusStar Malaysia is committed to be the bridge for innovation between China and Malaysia. We support the entrepreneurial environment in Malaysia through enabling more technological innovation and social development in the region,” said TusStar’s General Manager and Partner, Ms. Liu Bo.
"TusStar can also be a support pillar for Huawei Malaysia participants to land in China by providing training programmes and China market insights from industrial experts,” Ms. Liu said.
“TM ONE would like to congratulate all winners as well as the participants of the Huawei Spark competition. It is refreshing to observe all these talented entrepreneurs, showcasing impressive capabilities and determination. These start-ups have a lot to offer and we believe they will become the blazing trails in their respective markets in the future. The winners can utilise the seamless, secured TM ONE Cloud α Edge that they receive to further propel their business and fully realise their digital potentials. We will continue to empower enterprises and the public sector with the latest digital technologies and solutions across cloud, connectivity, cybersecurity and smart services to accelerate Digital Malaysia,” said Mr. Mohamad Rejab Sulaiman, General Manager Data Centre, Cloud and Internet for TM ONE.
Mr. Lim Chee Siong, Huawei Malaysia’s Vice President of Cloud & AI said as a global technology leader, it was Huawei’s responsibility to support local businesses and help grow their contribution to the country’s digital economy.
“In doing so, we will help grow the digital ecosystem. Through this programme, we are providing conducive space for companies to grow, and giving them the tools and other resources that they need to have that competitive edge,” he said.
“A healthy and thriving digital business ecosystem will drive innovation and bring great value to the country’s digital economy as a whole. This will in turn, firmly position Malaysia as the Heart of Digital ASEAN,” Mr. Lim commented, adding that this was also in line with the government’s Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint, or MyDIGITAL, which aims to accelerate the country’s digital economy by boosting local business competitiveness, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), through digitalisation.
The company that ranks first in Huawei Spark will receive the top prize in the form of a participation in a six-month long Accelerator Programme which includes:
The companies ranked second and third will get to participate in a six-month long Accelerator Programme, which includes:
The Huawei Spark programme was first launched in 2020 by Huawei’s Cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) business group and in view of its beneficial value, it has now been brought for the first time to Malaysian shores.
MDEC Vice President, Tech Ecosystems & Globalisation (TEG), Mr. Gopi Ganesalingam, and Huawei Malaysia VP of Cloud and AI, Mr. Lim Chee Siong were special guests at the Huawei Spark Malaysia Pitching Day event.
The five judges were Mr. Mohamed Rejab Sulaiman, General Manager of Data Centre, Cloud and Internet, TM ONE; Mr. Ryan Chan, Head of Business Development, MDEC; Mr. Low Wei Chung, Head of Partner Ecosystem, Cloud & AI, Huawei Malaysia; Mr. Nuo Jiang, Chief Digital Officer, Cloud & AI, Huawei APAC; and Ms. Liu Bo, General Manager and Partner, TusStar.


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MEXICO CITY — In certain parts of Mexico City, especially the chic, wealthier neighborhoods, phone numbers are quietly passed around for unnamed weed clubs. Once you’re on the radar of one such group, a text message arrives every few weeks with the new menu.
In a mix of Spanish and English, the menu contains a list of various strains along with their THC, sativa, and indica percentages, followed by the effects, from creative and energizing, to relaxing and inducing sleep. Depending on the month, they also sell stuff like hash, extracts, vape pens, and cartridges.
After placing an order, a hip twenty-something usually on a road bike shows up and drops off the contraband, anonymous among the other cool kids that roam neighborhoods like Roma, Condesa, or Polanco in central Mexico City.
But while the weed clubs are a far cry from typical Mexican drug dealing and vicious cartels, it's members are still working outside the law—for now.
Mexico cleared a major hurdle towards legal cannabis in November when the Senate passed a proposed bill ahead of a December 15 deadline mandated by the country's supreme court. While the lower house of Congress must also vote on the bill prior to the upcoming deadline, the country of roughly 130 million inhabitants has never been closer to becoming the world's largest legal weed market.
But many cannabis connoisseurs across Mexico, interested in both buying and selling the highest quality bud, are unsure how they will fit into the new legal industry.
"I don't feel like it’s going to really take down the black market unless they create incentives for people to invest in large scale cultivation," a prominent grower in one of these clandestine clubs told VICE World News. The grower specifically worried that the law’s requirement for paid permits to become commercial growers would most likely be inaccessible price-wise for smaller operations focused on quality over quantity like theirs.
The grower explained that most of these underground clubs currently work in a co-op model, where they share resources and cultivation, to be able to provide a diverse menu to their growing client base who expect a certain quality product. And while the current law does include a cannabis club option with up to 20 members who designate their right to grow four plants to a communal grow operation, the product can only be bought by the members. The grower doubted the club fees or marijuana prices within the group would be sufficient to sustain themselves as a business, shutting them out of the legal industry.
The "government doesn't care" about the quality of the marijuana, and under the current form of the law, it would only benefit wealthy producers who can pay for permits and finance large-scale grow-ops who don't care about quality either, according to the grower.
"We have the knowledge and skill to make the highest quality, to know the percentage of indica, sativa," said the grower. "What helps you for a headache, what's going to help you sleep, to wake up."
They compared the club’s product to the artisanal beer industry, and said that if cannabis enthusiasts aren't given the resources and opportunity to be involved in the industry, it will turn out like Mexico's national cervezas: "Trash, they're not even beer."
Lawmakers have proposed the creation of the Mexican Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis (Imerecca for its Spanish acronym), however, it reportedly will not open until 2022, causing further concern about how exactly a legal cannabis industry will unroll in Mexico. And who stands to gain.
"I think there are a lot of people that are currently existing in the illegal market who are very much looking forward to the possibility of being able to transition to a legal market," said Zara Snapp, a legalization activist and co-founder of the Mexican research and advocacy organization Instituto RIA.
However, Snapp explained that the legalization bill has been continually altered by politicians as it’s passed through the Mexican legal system, and the most recent version removed much of the affirmative action possibilities for communities that have been affected by prohibition that she and other activists have lobbied for. Now, the same opportunities are available for big businesses as they are for small entrepreneurs.
In the meantime, Snapp said, a lot of U.S. and Canadian marijuana companies are interested in moving into the massive new market that could be open by mid-December, and that "Mexico is going to have a huge rush."
But not all Mexicans think that's necessarily a bad thing in terms of allowing for high-quality marijuana to be accessible to the masses.
In the border city of Tijuana, a young marijuana aficionado named Pedro Gastelum co-founded the Tijuana High Club, or THC for short—an upscale smoke shop that's now expanded to three locations across the city since 2018. Although THC doesn't sell weed, it imports hard-to-get and curated U.S. smoke paraphernalia, sells stylish THC branded gear and aims to give off a more of a classy dispensary vibe in order to "be ahead of the curve with the legalization."
He and his associates have aimed to make connections with foreign cannabis companies, mostly in the U.S., with the hope that they'll be able to import the highest quality bud into Mexico, because in his opinion, even the best herb produced in the country isn't that great compared to the California weed that is smuggled into the city and widely available.
"We shouldn't be closed to (importing), because here in Tijuana, we already smoke American (weed).”
Gastelum said he'd traveled across Mexico smoking weed with whoever had the best stuff in several different states, as well as visiting clandestine weed clubs in Mexico City, but "when I saw the prices, it's more expensive than the dispensaries in the United States. And it's not the best quality."
It's still unclear if, when, and how Mexico would allow the legal importation of weed, essentially uncharted territory in the global marijuana market, but Gastelum doesn't believe that Mexico should limit itself. He suggested creating a marketplace where you could buy local Mexican products, along with imports like other industries.
What exactly the world’s largest legal weed market will look like if it comes into existence in the coming weeks remains vague. Many of the country’s cannabis connoisseurs who want to invest in this promising new industry will have to wait for clarity as factors such as structure and regulations are laid out in the months after legalization. For them, making sure customers can still find that good shit is crucial. Only now, it will be legal.


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The EU securities markets’ regulator ESMA has announced earlier today that it will not renew the temporary restriction on the marketing, distribution or sale of contracts for differences (CFDs) to retail clients in the European Union (EU).
LeapRate reminds that last year ESMA has taken product intervention measures relating to CFDs, imposing a temporary restriction on their marketing, distribution or sale.
Germany’s supervisor BaFin, on the other hand, has notified few days ago that the restrictions on the marketing, distribution and sale of financial CFDs to German retail clients will continue to apply in future.
NCAs have taken permanent national product intervention measures relating to CFDs that are at least as stringent as ESMA’s measures, ESMA will not renew its temporary restriction. Because of this, the current ESMA Decision (EU) 2019/679 measures will automatically expire at the end of the day on 31 July 2019.


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The government has no intent to bar the use of blockchain technologies for functions other than those related to payments and the creation of crypto assets, a top Finance Ministry official said on Monday, allaying industry players’ fears stemming from the Centre’s ambiguous stance on the legitimacy of crypto assets.
“I want to make it clear that the government policy towards blockchain has nothing to do with its policy on crypto assets. There needs to be no apprehension whatsoever about anyone using blockchain in an area that has nothing to do with payments or currency,” Finance Secretary T.V. Somanathan said at a post-Budget interaction in Mumbai.
He was responding to concerns articulated about the government’s regulatory approach to crypto assets spilling over to the deployment of blockchain technologies in general.
“The government itself, the Coffee Board under the Commerce Ministry has an initiative – using blockchain system for identifying specific varieties of coffee from specific fields so that they derive a higher price when sold in export markets as it has a proof of origin. So government has nothing against blockchain tech and there’s no connection between the two… ,” Mr. Somanathan said.
Acknowledging that blockchain is an important technology, the Finance Secretary pointed out that the Budget referred to the central bank digital currency which will be based on a version of blockchain technology.
“It [the concern] is about a particular use case in the area of so-called crypto or virtual digital assets. The government is in no way discouraging blockchain technology,” he concluded.


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On August 24, 2022, the California Attorney General (AG) announced a first-of-its-kind settlement with Sephora, Inc. (Sephora) over Sephora’s alleged violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The settlement imposed a $1.2 million fine and injunctive measures—as well as a two-year monitorship—to ensure Sephora’s compliance with certain parts of the CCPA related to consumer opt-outs from the sale of information, including through recognition of the Global Privacy Control (GPC).
The CCPA includes provisions that require businesses subject to the CCPA to allow consumers to opt out of the “sale” of their personal information by the business. The definition of “sale” under the CCPA is very broad, as highlighted by the AG’s complaint against and settlement with Sephora. In the Sephora matter, the AG’s complaint describes how a business’ use of “widely-used” advertising and analytics technologies can, in the AG’s view, constitute a “sale” of information for which consumers must be given the right to opt out of, including through the GPC.
Pursuant to the settlement, in addition to a $1.2 million payment, Sephora was ordered to provide notice of its “sale” of personal information practices, provide a “Do Not Sell” mechanism on its website and implement the capability to process GPC signals. Sephora was also given 180 days to develop the following:
A program to assess whether it is effectively processing consumer opt-out requests and requests submitted via GPC, including annual reports submitted to the AG for two years after the 180-day implementation period, detailing its implementation of the opt-out mechanisms and an analysis of any errors or technical problems encountered and remediated; and
A program to conduct an annual review of its website and mobile applications to determine the entities to which it makes personal information available as well as annual reports submitted to the AG for two years after the 180-day implementation period, detailing the names of the entities to which Sephora makes personal information available, its purpose for making that information available, whether Sephora characterizes such entities as service providers and to ensure proper categorization of its service providers.
Sephora did not admit any wrongdoing in connection with the settlement.
Aside from being the first public CCPA settlement, there are several noteworthy aspects of the AG’s announcement:
First, the timing is significant. The California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)—the new regulatory agency tasked with enforcing the CCPA—just closed the window for public comment to its proposed CCPA regulations, which include a controversial set of regulations related to opt-out browser signals. The AG’s focus on GPC in its complaint against Sephora is hard to see as a coincidence.
Second, and related, the AG’s focus on GPC should be a wake-up call to companies that may have not previously focused on that requirement in the existing regulations.
Third, the settlement should be a reminder to companies that the 30-day cure period is an opportunity to act to avoid this same outcome.
Fourth, the inclusion of a monitorship, while not surprising, highlights what many companies will consider among the highest costs of CCPA noncompliance.
Finally, the AG’s announcement takes a clear stance on the contested debate over the meaning of “sale” under the CCPA. Like Sephora, many other companies had taken the position that the use of web advertising and analytics technologies does not amount to a “sale” under the CCPA. This issue will largely become moot when the CCPA amendments, which take effect next year, introduce a new right to opt out of “sharing” that is specifically drafted to cover targeted advertising technologies. Still, through the Sephora settlement, the AG is making clear its view that the CCPA’s “sale” provisions already cover these technologies, and that companies that do not currently provide an opt-out of targeted advertising are out of compliance with the CCPA. Companies should assess their compliance posture—and the timeline for implementing any new opt-out rights—accordingly.


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A new 4x game is on the horizon. You can never have enough space games in my book. Got some cool looing screenshots to boot. The game looks like its coming along nicely along with some rather interesting features.
N4G is a community of gamers posting and discussing the latest game news. It’s part of NewsBoiler, a network of social news sites covering today’s pop culture.


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HAPIfork is the invention of Jacques Lepine, an engineer by trade who was told he ate too quickly when he was young. Once, after being rushed to the hospital when he though he was having a heart attack, his doctor diagnosed gastric reflux and warned him to slow down when eating. Over the next seven years, Lepine developed a tool to help pace his intake. The HAPIfork vibrates and lights up if a user takes a bite less than 10 seconds after the last mouthful.
“Your hormones are offset when you eat too quickly,” says Lepine. “It’s bad for satiation and bad for the transformation of nutrients.” In fact, according to recent studies, it takes anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes to release the hormone cholecystokinin, which signals your brain that you are full.
Touted as a weight loss product, this smartFork is dishwasher safe, includes LED warning lights, a USB connector and software for computers and smartphones so that users may monitor their overall progress towards a healthier pace of eating. The prototype featured on Kickstarter is 95 percent final according to its Hong Kong-based production company, HAPILABS Ltd. The vision of the company’s CEO, Fabrice Boutain, is to help individuals and groups improve their health, fitness and well-being through the company’s “connected solutions.” The HAPIfork, the flagship product, is expected to ship to backers in Q3 and hit unspecified retail locations in the US and EU in Q4 this year.
Setting $100,000 as its goal, HAPIfork’s first 2,500 Kickstart backers will receive the HAPIfork for just $89, while subsequent backers will pay $99 each. At $300 a pop, backers will be granted the opportunity to become part of the beta program. One more product in the booming field of electronic health devices that monitor health habits, heart rate, or blood pressure, the HAPIFork is more importantly another entry into the arena of crowd-sourced products.
In 2006, Jeff Howe wrote an article for Wired magazine about harnessing the power of large numbers of people outside the auspices of corporations or other big institutions. Uniting business-speak with the common parlance, Howe referred to this barely observable (at the time) trend as ‘crowdsourcing.’ Barely three years later, Kickstarter — its website boasts the tag line ‘Bringing Creativity to Life’ — launched and so, too, did Howe’s reality. On the Kickstarter website, project creators set a funding goal and deadline; if visitors to the site like a project, they can pledge money to make it happen. Kickstarter has one basic caveat: funding is all-or-nothing. Unless projects reach their funding goals, they do not receive any money. “Since its launch in 2009, more than 3.8 million people have pledged over $570 million, funding more than 39,000 creative projects.”
We picked linked items based on the quality of products, and list the pros and cons of each to help you determine which will work best for you. We partner with some of the companies that sell these products, which means we and our partners may receive a portion of revenues if you make a purchase using a link(s) above.


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He then joked, "We'll fix it in post."
They're finally here.
The company is doing so in order as part of its strategy around what it calls its “well-being policies.”
The junior college administrator says he's sorry for the unusual anti-cheating technique.
The lawsuit accuses Epic Games of intentionally designing the game to be "as addictive as possible."
Facebook Dating is designed to compete with popular dating apps like Tinder and Bumble.
Apple has been widely expected to roll out a 5G-compatible phone in 2020.
Uber is reportedly testing a new subscription service that includes 5% off of every ride, free Uber Eats delivery, as well as bike and...


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Peter Huber Kältemaschinenbau AG continues its international expansion.
In early August, Huber opened a new sales office based in Guangzhou, China. The new subsidiary will serve end users and dealers in China under the name "Huber China".
On Wednesday, August 1, 2018, the opening ceremony of the new corporate building in Guangzhou took place. Numerous business partners and customers accepted the invitation and congratulated the newly founded company.
Kevin Xie, CEO of Huber China, is looking forward to the challenges ahead. He proudly unveiled the logo at the entrance together with Daniel Huber (CEO of Peter Huber Kältemaschinenbau AG). Located in a modern industrial park in Guangzhou, Huber China's corporate building includes office and training rooms, as well as product exhibition area and a service and storage rooms. The guests were able to visit the premises on the opening day and gain an insight into the 50-year history of the parent company.
Daniel Huber reviewed positively on the successful opening event: "We look forward to serving our Chinese customers even better in the future. For this, Kevin Xie has put together a competent and experienced team for consulting, sales and service." In cooperation with long-term business and service partners, the temperature control technology specialist guarantees nationwide customer service in China. The new premises will also be used as a training center to train customers and dealers in the Chinese area even more easily and efficiently.


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Group hopes to open local food cooperative in downtown Fond du Lac
A group of healthy food advocates hopes to open a member-owned grocery store in downtown Fond du Lac.
Organized under what the group hopes to be the city’s first food cooperative, Farm2Table Co-op & Cafe will feature local, organic, sustainable and responsibly produced food items.
Farm2Table Co-op & Cafe President Nancy Goranson said the mission of the cooperative is not only to provide a place to promote healthy food and lifestyles but to enhance the sense of community in Fond du Lac.
“We see this as a place where people can connect and get information,” Goranson said during a community presentation at the Stayer Center on March 16. “We envision classes for gardening and cooking, and other activities to promote a healthy, vital community as well as providing our growers a place to sell their products year round.”
Board member Michael Ketterhagen said the group has made contact with many local growers.
“Our definition of local is within a 100-mile radius of Fond du Lac, with potential producers coming from the Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay area,” Ketterhagen said.
Without a grocery store in the downtown area, many Fond du Lac residents without reliable transportation often rely on local convenience stores for their food shopping, said one of the group’s organizers Mary McCutcheon.
“There has been a lot of housing built by Commonwealth at St. Peter’s Place on Marr Street and Riverside Senior apartments on Macy Street. We know a lot of people are living in the downtown area and they need a place to buy groceries,” McCutcheon said. “Unfortunately, people are treating the convenience stores ... as their neighborhood grocery store.”
According to the USDA, a lack of healthy and varied food choices labels the area as a “food desert.” Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, these areas within a community may have no food access or are served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy, affordable food options.
“It’s the job of the co-op to educate the community on where to buy that local, organic product that’s so much healthier than the highly processed foods that are out there,” McCutcheon said. “It’s our goal to set up a food co-op that’s centrally located, where people can walk there safely or have a place to park and get those groceries and take them back to their car safely.”
Because North Main Street and parts of South Main Street fall under the USDA’s definition of a food desert, McCutcheon hopes the group can obtain grant money to help launch the Farm2Table Co-op & Cafe.
“When we opened the winter farmers market, we were able to get a grant for $60,000,” McCutcheon said.
Ketterhagen said the group helps to accumulate start-up funds from memberships, grant monies and donations from the community. A yearly membership is $25 and a lifetime membership is $200.
“Although those purchasing a membership would be entitled to food discounts and specials along with being eligible to vote, the store would also be open to the general public regardless if they have a membership or not,” Ketterhagen said.
“According to our business plan, we would need about 2,000 members which would net about $400,000 — enough to be able to have a nice store,” Ketterhagen said. “We were hoping to be able to open a store by the end of 2014, but we’ve pushed that deadline back a year.”
While getting a store up and running is the top priority, Ketterhagen said the final phase of the project would include a small cafe inside the store that would feature soups, salads and sandwiches.
“This would be available to anyone wishing to have a nutritious and tasty meal while on lunch break or out shopping with friends,” Ketterhagen said.
Keynote speaker Pamela Mehnert, executive director of Outpost Natural Foods Cooperative of Milwaukee, said cooperatives began appearing on the landscape in the 1970s as people began searching for alternatives to highly processed foods available in national chain grocery stores.
“They didn’t want to support big organizations, but instead wanted to put their own values into action by starting up their own member-owned and locally controlled stores,” Mehnert said. “Your job as a co-op is to reach out to the Fond du Lac community and let them know how you can make a difference here and introduce the people to the products available here.”
Lisa Malmakowski, director of bran and store development for Outpost, said the momentum behind local cooperatives is swelling.
“Cooperatives work but it takes a lot of sweat equity at the beginning. But like a garden, it becomes self-sustaining and becomes this process that happens year after year with a little input and care,” Malmakowski said.
Lynda Bacon Lawlis said she has shopped food cooperatives in other cities.
“I always wished we had one here and I think it’s time for Fond du Lac to have something like this,” Bacon Lawlis said. “Eating healthy is the best thing anyone can do for themselves and their families.”
Contact Colleen Kottke at (920) 907-7968 or email@example.com; Twitter: @ColleenKottke.
Interested in learning more or becoming a member, visit firstname.lastname@example.org


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Data is cheaper to transmit, so why is Verizon more expensive?
0. phoneArena 23 Jan 2013, 15:39 posted on
To be fair, this isn't an issue specifically with Verizon, but Verizon does have the easiest numbers to parse right now. According to some research done by The New York Times' Brian X. Chen, the trouble starts with the feature that we had been hoping for since the tablet boom started a couple years ago: shared data plans. Those plans make it so while data is now cheaper for carriers to transmit, carriers like Verizon are also able to charge more for that data...
This is a discussion for a news. To read the whole news, click here


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This article is more than 1 year old
SGI tax bennies push bigger profit in Q1
Wraps up LMDs of profit destruction, shows decent sales growth
Jorge Titinger, the CEO who was brought into Silicon Graphics last year to clean up the mess made by $87m in low-margin deals that wrecked the company's bottom line for a few quarters, is probably breathing a little easier now that the most recent quarter has ended. Not just because revenues were up, but because the remaining $50m in those LMDs of profit destruction have been booked.
In the quarter ended in March, which is SGI's third quarter of its fiscal 2013, the company had $232.6m in revenues, an increase of 16.7 per cent over the year-ago period. SGI had $1.1m in income before taxes, and wheeled out some $8.1m in tax benefits that pushed its net income to $9.2m, significantly better than the $1.2m loss it had a year ago.
Now, SGI is once again turning its eyes towards the future, where in theory things will get easier – but in the supercomputer and hyperscale server rackets, it never really does because of the turbulent nature of both businesses. It's a good thing that companies such as SGI are willing to cope with the choppiness and still do some engineering.
In a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Tuesday, CFO Bob Nikl said that compute products made up 89 per cent of SGI's revenues in the quarter, which works out to $207m. Storage products – mainly its InfiniteStorage but also including software – comprised the other 11 per cent slice of the pie, which works out to $25.6m. That's considerably larger than the $15m in storage sales that SGI booked in the second quarter of their fiscal year.
Nikl said that the public sector accounted for 55 percent of total revenues, which is $127.9m, while hyperscale data center operators made up 14 per cent of the pie, or $32.6m. Other commercial customers made up the remaining $72.1m in sales. SGI had three customers who represented more than 10 per cent of sales in the quarter, but Nikl did not want to elaborate; presumably the names of those customers will be in the forthcoming 10-Q report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and presumably one of those customers is Amazon snapping up its Rackable high-density machines, as it usually is.
In the call, Titinger didn't provide a revenue breakdown by system product line, but he did talk a bit about the sales pipelines for various products. For the "UltraViolet" UV 2 shared-memory system, which is built using the NUMAlink 5 interconnect and Intel's Xeon E5 processors, he said the pipeline was up 9 per cent quarter-on-quarter, and more than double what it was last year thanks to a push into supporting large Windows databases. The goal, said Titinger, was to have UV 2 make up somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of product revenue, which is double what it currently is.
As for the ICE X Xeon-based clusters, the sales pipeline was up 30 per cent year-on-year (compared to 16 per cent growth in the second fiscal quarter) and was now above $400m. A significant number of the deals that are in the pipeline will be decided in the next three to six months, and of course SGI doesn't win all of its deals – just like other HPC players.
Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 ending in June, SGI said to expect sales in the range of $170m to $185m, and that it would be booking $12m in restructuring charges and another $4m in other costs (such as stock-based compensation) that would push the company to a net loss of between 29 cents and 34 cents per share. If you ignore those charges, then SGI will have a non-GAAP net income of between 12 cents and 17 cents per share. But of course, you can't ignore them.
SGI was not in a mood to do any projections for fiscal 2014, and given the state of the global economy and government budgets – as if the two could be separated – you can't blame Titinger and Nikl from shying away. ®


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JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE brought the South to the North on Wednesday night as he opened his brand-new barbeque restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
“If you can’t make it to Memphis, we’ll bring Memphis to you!” Justin says.
Tennessee native Justin and his business partner, TRACE AYALA, celebrated the opening of Southern Hospitality by noshing on menu items like crab and corn fritters, fried green tomatoes and Memphis spare ribs. And they didn’t skimp on the desserts!
“They’re straight from my grandmother so they’re guaranteed to be good!” Justin says of some of the sweet treats.
The tasty event brought out A-listers like SETH GREEN, LANCE BASS and JAMIE-LYNN SIGLER.
The 135-seat, 3,0000-square-foot Memphis-style BBQ restaurant will open to the public on July 19.
The multi-talented singer, actor and entrepreneur recently launched a record label, Tennman Records, and also has a clothing line, William Rast.


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By Mary DeTurris Poust
As the mother of a 13-year-old boy who is fascinated by rare, old (and expensive) baseball cards, I am acquainted with Honus Wagner, the "Flying Dutchman" of baseball fame whose cards now sell for ridiculous amounts of money. I've even been to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown to pay homage to Honus, among many other baseball greats.
So this story about Honus coming to the rescue of the the Baltimore-based School Sisters of Notre Dame caught my eye. Turns out the congregation was bequeathed a rare -- although not mint -- Honus Wagner card by the brother of one of their sisters, and now they've put it up for auction in hopes that Honus can go to bat for their ministries.
From the AP story:
The Roman Catholic nuns are auctioning off the card, which despite its poor condition is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $200,000. The proceeds will go to their ministries in 35 countries around the world.
The card is part of the T206 series, produced between 1909 and 1911. About 60 Wagner cards are known to exist.
A near-mint-condition T206 Wagner card sold in 2007 for $2.8 million, the highest price ever for a baseball card. Muller remains aghast that the 1¼-inch-by-2½-inch piece of cardboard could sell for even a fraction of that.
"It just boggles your mind," Muller told The Associated Press. "I can't remember a time when we have received anything like this."
At last report, the bidding was up to $60,000, but the sisters (who'd never heard of Honus Wagner before this) are hoping the price will continue to climb before the auction ends on November 4.
"Muller is making frequent checks to the Heritage Auction Galleries website -- an unusual practice for someone who's taken a vow of poverty. But potential bidders should know that the sale of the card will help people worldwide.Read the full story HERE.
"The money that we receive from this card will be used for the many School Sisters of Notre Dame who are around the world, who need support for their ministries for the poor," Muller said.


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LG G3 – the hottest smartphone of 2014?
28 May 2014|
LG has finally launched its latest flagship smartphone - the LG G3 - which boasts a super-sharp screen, laser-assisted camera and overhauled security features. But does it live up to the hype?
Stuff have given it 5 Stars and dubbed it 'the best smartphone in the world', so we picked out the phone's three biggest features and asked Will Findlater, editor in chief of Stuff magazine, for his opinion...
When asked for his favourite feature on the G3 Will F said "it's
really got to be about that screen".
"That screen" has been dubbed Quad HD by LG.
It offers resolution four times sharper than HD and twice as sharp as full HD. It was described as "sharper, crisper and clearer" at the launch event in west London.
It boasts 538 pixels per inch, and an impressive 2560 x 1440 resolution.
Will said: "You have this big expanse of screen and what still seems to be a relatively small device and my first impressions suggest it's probably the best smartphone screen I've seen so far."
However, he warned that the size of the phone could put off some
He said: "For some people it's going to be a bit of a stretch to go to a device that is basically a phablet - it's not just a smartphone."
The other main headline-grabbing G3 feature is the camera: Or more specifically, the camera's use of laser technology - the first of its kind in a smartphone.
The camera uses laser-assisted autofocus to shoot shaper pictures in less time. LG says it creates "stunningly sharp images in a fraction of the time required by conventional phone cameras".
Will at Stuff said: "The camera, from what I've tried, focuses very, very quickly and the technology seems to be there to provide quality snaps.
Based on previous experience with LG smartphones like the G2 we know that LG can do cameras extremely well so I'm hoping the G3 is going to build on the achievements of its predecessors."
Favouring practical features over gimmicks
It seems these days every smartphone worth its salt has a cool-but-not-particularly-useful feature to separate it from the pack.
However, with the G3 LG may actually gain more attention for its lack of gimmicky features.
Will offered the example of the phone's security features as being useful rather than gimmicky.
The security features include the Knock-Code log-in system and KnockOn wake up facility as well as the ability to disable and wipe your phone in the event it's lost or stolen.
Will explained: "My experience with KnockOn so far is that it's a genuinely useful change. It's that bit less fiddly than typing out a pin code, possibly not quite as futuristic feeling as a thumbprint scanner but it still feels like a meaningful innovation."
He praised LG for favouring practical, useful features over futuristic faddy ones, but nevertheless said the firm was brave.
He explained: "What we've learned is that the most part gimmicks
don't change people's minds. When it comes to actually buying
devices they're not things people are looking for.
"The buying public are much more concerned about practical features and it looks like LG has focused on advancing those as opposed to focusing on other less useful but more headline-grabbing features."
The LG G3 in brief
- Follows up LG's G2 smartphone, which was praised by Stuff magazine
- Feature a 5.5-inch 'Quad HD' display that LG says offers four times the resolution of HD and nearly twice the resolution of full HD
- Screen features ultra-thin bezels helping it achieve boasts a screen ratio of 76.4% (more screen, less edge)
- Camera with laser-assisted focus - a world-first in a smartphone. The laser is designed to make the camera focus at a faster rate
- Front camera redesigned to take 'the perfect selfie'. Clenching your fist sets off three-second timer: time to get your pose on
- Smart Keyboard designed to reduce typos by learning how you type and the words you commonly use
- Longer-life battery to offset effect of high-resolution screen. Graphite replaces metal in battery
- Keyboard height can be adjusted to better fit the size and shape of your hands and how you position your thumbs
- Use Knock Code's pattern of taps to get into your phone
- Kill Switch feature means you can disable and remote wipe your phone in the event it's lost or stolen
What do you think about the LG G3? Will it beat the likes of Samsung's S5 or Apple's iPhone 5S? Tell us in the comments below...
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Friday, September 13, 2013
But Port Isaac has changed – and who has changed it? A grumpy, fictional character called Doc Martin, who arrived in 2004.
Today instead of Barclays Bank which opened once a week, there is a shop selling Doc Martin merchandise and memorabilia.
During filming of the series Port Isaac transforms into Port Wenn, where the surly doctor can be seen striding back and forth, insulting everyone.
When filming was halted on Fore Street because of rain, a couple, sheltering beneath an umbrella, explained how they had travelled from New Zealand to see ‘Port Wenn’, never dreaming they would be watching the filming of a new episode. ‘Oh look’ squealed the woman ‘There’s the Doc!’ Actor Martin Clune, beneath a massive umbrella, was yawning widely, unaware that he was being watched, videoed and photographed by awe-struck fans.
Despite not all being happy about the filming, mostly they agree the popular Doc Martin series has cheered up the appearance of the ancient village. Cottages have been refreshed – and prices quadrupled. The small house used as Doc Martin’s surgery recently sold for more than £600.000! Now a signpost directs tourists who wish to photograph the house! Doc Martin has introduced the world to one of the most beautiful Cornish locales, convincing tourists to spend their money there.
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE: http://www.cornwalllife.co.uk/out-about/places/the_doc_martin_effect_1_2463522


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The provincial government will draft new rules for the Agricultural Land reserve that should allow breweries and distilleries to open and operate legally, according to Agriculture Minister Lana Popham.
“We have been seriously looking at that legislation and considering levelling that playing field with wineries,” she said. “I’m a big supporter of agritourism, agri has to come first. Anything that increases production to me is exciting.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
The rules as written allow wineries to operate on ALR land — typically with on-site sales and tasting rooms — as long as the farm or vineyard is more than two hectares (five acres) and at least 50 per cent of the farm product used to make wine comes from the farm or another farm in B.C. under a minimum three-year contract.
In practice, that means nearly all of the grapes needed for wine production can come from other farms and vineyards.
Changes to the Agricultural Land Commission Act introduced by the previous Liberal government largely failed to attract brewers by requiring at least 50 per cent of the raw material used for brewing to be grown on the farm where the brewery is located.


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We sort of guessed that Copenhagen Fashion Week would be an epicentre of Scandi-cool fashion, what with bloggers like Pernille Teisbaek and Trine Kjær being some of the land’s finest natives. And we were right: Denmark’s most stylish ladies have delivered, which is especially impressive given the weather factor (it’s raining a lot in Copenhagen right now), which has seen them battle rain-soaked streets and inside-out umbrellas. But it seems the fashion girls checked the forecast before planning their looks, which on the whole seem weather-appropriate: Think wipe-clean vinyl, oversized outerwear and TONS of checks. Click through the gallery for the best street style looks of Copenhagen so far.
Style blogger Pernille Teisbaek’s huge fluffy coat cheered up the damp scenes in Copenhagen.
These two ladies brought a much-needed hit of colour to the wet pavements. Note Burberry’s Tartan Laminated Trench, which was keeping Thora Valdimars, fashion director of Costume, nice and dry.


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Posts: 1,288 +43
Why it matters: Apple's refusal to make iMessage compatible with non-Apple devices has long frustrated Google, Meta, telecom providers, and many users. Nothing claims to have found a solution, making its latest phone the first non-Apple product that sends encrypted messages to iPhone users. It doesn't support all iMessages features yet, but the company is working on that.
Nothing Phone (2) owners in the US, Canada, UK, and the EU can now try a new service that enables the Android phone to send messages with encryption and other advanced features to iMessage users on Apple devices. Nothing seems to have overcome a barrier that Google, Meta, and other companies are trying to fight in court.
Users in participating regions can access the new service, called Nothing Chat, by signing up for the beta and logging in with an Apple ID. Messages sent from the app appear as blue bubbles on Apple devices and support end-to-end encryption, group chats, indicators to show when someone is typing, high-resolution media sharing, and voice notes, with read receipts and reactions coming soon. Nothing Chat will also eventually become available in other regions.
Android and web chat company Sunbird provided the backend for the project. Nothing assures users that its partner's servers never store messages or Apple credentials and that messages are only recoverable on end devices. Furthermore, Sunbird accounts are deleted after two weeks of inactivity.
The controversy Nothing is addressing stems from how texts from Android phones appear on Apple devices as green bubbles and lack advanced functionality like encryption, read receipts, group chats, and more. This is because Apple restricts its messaging service, iMessage, to iPhones, iPads, and Macs, while messages from other devices revert to SMS or MMS.
Meanwhile, Google Messages, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger employ a feature set similar to iMessage across Android, Apple, and Windows devices. Google, Meta, and numerous telecom companies have demanded that Apple include RCS support in iMessage or otherwise make the service compatible with Android.
The Cupertino giant previously admitted that keeping its messaging service exclusive to its hardware locks users into its ecosystem, but Google and several European telecom providers want the European Union to apply its new Digital Markets Act to force Apple to open up. EU regulators are considering whether to apply the new interoperability stipulations to iMessages.
It's unclear how Apple will react to an outside company providing fully-featured interaction between Android and iOS phones. Nothing CEO Carl Pei anticipates a response from Apple but didn't specify his concerns.


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Asad Jamal has recently been appointed as chief operating officer, media, by the Delhi-based Span Communications India. His last assignment was with Group M's MEC where he served as business director.
At Span, Jamal will be based in the Delhi office, and will report to the agency's chief executive officer, Naresh Kheterpal.
Commenting on the appointment, Kheterpal says that Jamal has rich experience in media management and planning as he has worked across several high budget brands and corporates. The agency thus plans to utilise his brand and advertising experience to lead operations.
In the past, Jamal has worked with brands such as LG India, Samsung and Sony Electronics, which rate amongst the highest spending advertisers of the country. He has also handled lifestyle and consumer brands such as Mother Dairy, TAG Heuer watches and Benetton.
Jamal, who has been involved with media planning all through his career, entered the industry with a job at Chaitra Leo Burnett and has been associated with Triton Communications, DraftFCB Ulka, Starcom Worldwide and MPG.
Commenting on his appointment, Jamal says, "I am excited to take on this role. Span is a fast growing agency which handles creative and media duties, both under a single roof." Regarding his role at the agency, he says, "My current responsibility will be to expand the business and work in sync with the creative department."
Span Communications, active in the social sector advertising space, recently bagged the Indiabulls and the G'FIVE mobile handset accounts.First Published : September 25, 2014 04:04 PM