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amnesty consumernoun, a former illegal alien who has resided in the United States for five years or more, has been granted legal resident status under the provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and has accumulated enough capital by working to obtain the credit needed to buy durable goods and real estate: “One group of Hispanics that should be watched closely . . . are amnesty consumers" (American Demographics).
BACKGROUND: This term was coined last June by Carlos Arce, the president of NuStats, Inc., a market-research firm in Austin, Texas. In an interview Arce pointed out that 2.5 million people will have become amnesty consumers by May of 1988. Arce said that amnesty consumers‚ free at last to lay the paper trails that heretofore could have resulted in their detection and deportation, are now “ready to buy.”He characterized amnesty consumers as determined, industrious, conservative, and clever.
Cassingletrademark, a prerecorded magnetic cassette containing only one musical selection: “Prince’s ‘Sign of the Times’ and Bryan Adams’ ‘Heat of the Night’ are the beginnings of what retailers concede is another ripple in the new wave—the ‘cassette single’. . . . Industry pressure is pushing for the ‘cassette single’ moniker, but look for it to be shortened to ‘cassingle’ by consumers who don’t care that IRS Records has copyrighted that name” (Washington Post).
BACKGROUND: Cassingle, a blend of cassette and single, dates back to the early 1980s, when the cassette boom was still in its initial stages. The popularity of cassettes was increased by the proliferation of the Sony Walkman and similar compact cassette players. At the same time, sales of 45 rpm records and LPs began what has turned into a dramatic downward spiral. Today the 45 seems “destined to expire,” according to a June 11, 1987, article in the Poston Globe. Cassingle has been a proprietary mark of International Records Syndicate, Inc., since June of 1982, according to the U.S. Trademark Association.
ICabbreviation, innocent civilian: “It was standard Vietnam cover-up. Whenever a few Ics—innocent civilians—were killed by mistake—or in less blameless waiys—you came up with a hair-raising story of a firefight. No one questioned you” (Nelson DeMille, Word of Honor).
BACKGROUND: Nelson DeMiile glosses IC, a term whose precise origin is unknown, for the benefit of readers who never were in-country, and well he might: the Vietnam conflict spawned an entirely new jargon, as is reflected in the great number of books on that war which contain glossaries. Other terms in the jargon include BC, for “body count”; mighty mite, a commercial air blower used for injecting tear gas or poisonous gas into tunnels; crispie critter, a soldier who has been burned to death; beehive, an artillery round filled with hundreds of tiny metal darts; cut a chogie, to move out quickly from a position, an expression that goes back to the Korean War; and MOOSE, for “wove out of Saigon expeditiously.”
tract mansionnoun, a new luxury home measuring no less than 12,000 square feet and situated in an exclusive development: “The number of luxury-housing developments, subdivisions of 20 to 100 or more so-called tract mansions with prices approaching the $1 million mark, has sharply increased in the past several years” (Washington Post). Also called megahouse.
BACKGROUND: According to an article in the May 20, 1987, Wall Street Journal, construction of tract mansions began in the early 1980s. Tract mansions, built by developers before buyers have been found, reflect the taste and expectations of wealthy people who believe that colossal means arrival. A typical tract mansion is not contemporary in design; the style may vary from brick Colonial to Tudor, Mediterranean to Gothic. The mansions can have as many as five floors, connected by elevators and grandiose staircases. Other popular features are dining rooms equipped for banquet serving, living rooms the size of basketball courts, master bedrooms with his and her bathrooms and dressing rooms—perhaps each equipped with a fireplace and a wine rack—and poolside spas with wet bars and waterfalls.
universal reactornoun, a person who is allergic to a majority of the components of the environment — for example, air, water, food, housing, and drugs: “Known medically as a universal reactor, [she] is allergic to practically everything. Her doctor prescribed living on the beach as the best thing for her health” (Los Angeles Times).
BACKGROUND: According to Dr. William Rhea, the director of the Environmental Health Center, in Dallas, terms related to universal reactor include environmentally ill (often shortened to El), total-allergy syndrome, 20th-century disease, and chemmie (which denotes a person who is especially sensitive to manmade chemical products). The branch of the health-care profession concerned with such matters is called clinical ecology or environmental medicine. Some specialists in clinical ecology subscribe to the controversial theory that “man-made pollution is the cause of systemic allergic illness” (American Journal of Medicine).


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Samsung has finally released their latest Galaxy S4. One of the great features that it has is the front and rear camera which can be used simultaneously.
The South Korea-based company launched the smartphone in an event in Thursday at the Radio City Music Hall in New York. It was broadcasted live in the New York Times Square so people could watch the event.
One of the key features that they focused on is the front and rear facing cameras that Samsung said can be used at the same time. While a user is in a video call, the person that he or she is calling can also see where the caller is looking at. It will remove the hassle of pressing a button to switch to the back camera and then pressing it again to use the front camera. This feature is not present in other devices with front and rear cameras.
Another feature is that it can take two photos at the same time as well as combine the two taken photos in various ways.
According to Samsung, the S4 will be available in 155 countries and 327 operators at the end of April. It will be available in the US in the second quarter with carriers AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange and Deutsche Telecom. No details were released regarding shipping and pricing.
The Samsung S4 will come in black and white which Samsung calls Black Mist and White Frost. Other colors will be available, too.
Samsung Galaxy S4 features include:
Super AMOLED display with 441 ppi
5-inch screen with 1920×1080 resolution
weighs 130 grams
1.9GHz quad-core processor
2gb DDR memory
2mp front camera
13mp rear camera
Available in 64gb, 32gb, and 16gb
Micro SD slot expandable tp 64gb
4G LTE (supports 6 band sets)
Dual mode TDD/FDD LTE
Allows 100 megabits per second download speed
50 megabits per second upload speed

domain: news


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free io game, fun io game, best io game
Horizon Zero Dawn joins Death Stranding in coming to PC this summer
The previously PS4 exclusive title Horizon Zero Dawn is coming to PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on August 7.
Horizon Zero Dawn will include ultra-widescreen support as well as the ability to fine-tune the graphical experience to personal preference. An unlocked framerate, dynamic foliage, deep graphics customization settings, improved reflections, and expanded controller options are all available when the game his PC next month (August). You can see the game running on PC and check out all the features in the trailer below.
News of a PC version came to light earlier this year from Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios. In an interview with PlayStation Blog, Hulst revealed of Horizon Zero Dawn‘s PC port.
“I think it’s important that we stay open to new ideas of how to introduce more people to PlayStation, and show people maybe what they’ve been missing out on,” Hulst said. “And to maybe put a few minds at ease, releasing one first-party AAA title to PC doesn’t necessarily mean that every game now will come to PC. In my mind, Horizon Zero Dawn was just a great fit in this particular instance.”
Horizon Zero Dawn‘s release comes this Summer alongside Death Stranding, another PS4 exclusive which is coming to PC on July 14.
Sony showcased a PlayStation 5 reveal event last month with a host of upcoming titles coming to the next-gen system. Amongst the catalogue was a sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn titled Horizon Forbidden West and is set to release sometime in 2021.


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THAILAND EYES 10% INCREMENT IN INDIAN VISITORS IN 2018
SVS VISA SERVICES
Focusing as regards the creation of postscript happenings, shopping malls and long stays for Indian travellers, touristry Authority of Thailand (TAT) is eyeing 10% rise from the Indian promote in 2018. Thailand recorded 18% result in Indian landings splendid on the summit of 1.4 million voyagers in 2017. Santi Chudintra, Deputy Governor for International advancing (Asia and furthermore the South Pacific), touristry Authority of Thailand, stated, India positions inside the prime five rundowns of the most noteworthy assortment of holidaymakers to Thailand after China, Malaysia, Korea and Laos.
Thailand proclaimed on prime of 35.3 million global guests in 2017, demonstrating a supplement of 8.77% well ahead than 2016 along these lines gaining income of TBH 1.82 trillion through tourism.
Tourism Authority of Thailand is moreover arranging roadshows which can be controlled in Chennai, Indore, Kolkata, and Jaipur in June this year amid which very thirty Thai providers can take part, educated Chudintra.
Talking regarding touristry Authority of Thailand's initiative to focus going as regards for tapping the rising segments from the Indian market, Soraya Homchuen, Director, touristry Authority of Thailand - urban center aforementioned, touristry Authority of Thailand is initiating several distinctive happenings and projects this year which will focus upon promoting ladies, family and 1st time traveler segments for the Indian create public around.
Chudintra moreover targeted upon ladies travellers to be a vital phase and said, TATs women Journey Thailand distress signal in 2017 offered an enormous variety of undertakings, special deals, discounts and privileges in Thailand for the ladies travellers from regarding the world. For women, Thailand offers shopping centres and women-journey application to examine touristry destinations.
Speaking regarding Thailands exhibition and convention centres to cater the MICE phase, Chudintra aforementioned, Thailand has recently seen huge incentive appendix. massive outfit meetings are often hosted by the BITEC Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre. we tend to even have relationship widespread cities behind MICE services amid that of Chiang Mai International Exhibition and Convention Centre and far more considering pleasing DMCs to handle the packages.
To succeed in the travel trade and trade media, touristry Authority of Thailand Mumbai organises frequent acquaintance journeys to Thailand.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Mumbai participated within the recently over OTM 2018, wherever it displayed its association campaigns alongside a myriad of twenty-two Thailand agents as participants that enclosed Hotels, DMCs, amusement firms, and its regional carriers along afterwards its flag carrier, Thai Airways.


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ASB joins 2008 Export Awards
ASB joins Export New Zealand Hawke’s Bay for 2008 Export Awards
Export New Zealand Hawke’s Bay Region welcomes ASB as naming sponsor of the ASB Hawke’s Bay Export Awards. The awards celebrate and acknowledge Hawke’s Bay exporters and their successes as they export New Zealand goods around the globe.
“We’re delighted that ASB has joined us for the second year of the Awards,” said Bruce Robertson, Regional Manager for Export NZ Hawke’s Bay. “Their ongoing support of exporters dovetails nicely with Export New Zealand’s goals to help exporters grow their business in the international market.”
Hawke’s Bay is the newest Export NZ region and started the Export Awards just last year. Mr Robertson is looking forward to duplicating last year’s fun and successful event when more than 220 exporters, export service providers, friends and neighbours gathered to celebrate exporting excellence at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House.
Three awards for exporting excellence will be presented this year at a Gala Dinner at Hawke’s Bay Opera House in Hastings on 29 August with Masters of Ceremony Paul Holmes. They are:
- Hawke’s Bay Today Exporter of the
- Go Group NZ Limited Emerging Exporter of the Year
- Port of Napier Outstanding Service to the Hawke’s Bay Export Industry Award
As a full-service bank and financial services provider, ASB serves companies from the largest to the smallest. It provides advice and expertise for exporters from their first tentative steps to those who are long-time exporters. ASB has been backing New Zealanders and exporters for more than 160 years.
Entry to the awards is easy, but judging is rigorous. You don’t need to be a member of Export New Zealand to participate. To enter the awards contact Mr Robertson on 877 9530 or email email@example.com or visit www.exportnewzealand.org.nz and click on the Hawke’s Bay region.


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On Thursday 08/06/2017 until 4pm on Saturday 10/06/2017, Lyons of Limerick customers and guests are invited to see Volvo's long-awaited new SUV ahead of anyone else in Ireland. Customers will be able to experience first-hand the look and feel of Volvo's latest premium offering.
Lyons of Limerick Volvo General Manager, Philip Madigan said: "The new XC60 is the latest product in Volvo's transformation, and introduces to our best-selling SUV the premium design, advanced connectivity and pioneering safety technology already seen on the successful S90, V90 and XC90.
"We're delighted to give our customers an exclusive preview of our new XC60. Customers will also be able to place orders on the day and those who order will be placed in a draw to win a 5 star weekend away in Stockholm.”
Revealed at this year's Geneva Motor Show earlier in March, the new car replaces Volvo's highly successful original XC60, which in the nine years since its launch became the best-selling premium mid-sized SUV in Europe, with nearly a million units sold globally.
The new XC60 starts at €53,950 and is loaded with advanced safety technology, including Steer Assist – a feature added to the ground-breaking City Safety system – and Oncoming Lane Mitigation, which uses Steer Assist to help mitigate head-on collisions, while Volvo's Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) now uses Steer Assist functionality to reduce the risk of lane-changing collisions.
For more information on the new Volvo XC60, you can contact Lyons of Limerick Volvo General Manager Philip Madigan on 061 439555 or any of his sales team. Or alternatively, please visit www.volvocarslimerick.ie


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Nine start-ups have secured the services of marketing agencies for a year following a Dragon’s Den-style event held by the Marketing Agencies Association (MAA).
The scheme, part of Marketing 4 Startup Britain, was founded by a group of entrepreneurs last year, with the backing of David Cameron, to accelerate business in the UK.
Last year, just two businesses won backing. Safetray secured the services of Iris for a year after impressing the panel with its simple and effective problem solving concept for the catering industry, beating 88 other entries. Runner-up Rocktail’s, a brand of frozen vodka cocktails, was given the opportunity to work with Pulse.
Last week’s event saw a selection of new businesses given four minutes each to pitch to a panel of MMA member agency chiefs, including WDMP, Arc, Pulse Group and Ogilvy Action.
Some proved so popular that the agencies were forced to give a 60-second pitch on why they were best suited to help the entrepreneurs.
The full list of agency and start-up matches is:
• 5 Point Plus, an innovative safety car seatbelt for children, taken on by Initials
• Able Journey’s, a travel company for the disabled, taken on by Saatchi & Saatchi X
• Vanitea – a product design innovation offering high-quality and fresh teas from China and Japan, looking to roll out a unique tea-bar concept, taken on Cheil Worldwide
• PleaseCycle – combining cycling, digital technology and gamification to help organisations encourage and reward employee cycling, taken on by WDMP
• The Cambridge Raincoat Company, stylish and innovative raincoats designed for cycling, taken on Arc
• LimeCo –sustainable alternative to cement for construction, taken on by HH&S
• Bertie and Jack – contemporary artwork using unique cut-out process, taken on Pulse Group
• Mary Elizabeth Cosmetics – skin-care products using natural plant oils, created by an aromatherapist after her brush with skin cancer, taken on by RPM
• Falvrbox, a tasting box allowing people to discover new products made by the best independent food and drink producers around, taken on by Ogilvy Action.
WDMP chief executive Gavin Wheeler (pictured) said: “We had targeted PleaseCycle as a business we wanted to work with. Their proposition combines digital innovation, gamification, and consumer engagement with one of our agency passions – cycling. They, like us, work across B2B and B2C. The synergies across our businesses are huge. We look forward to working with them to drive their business to the next level.”
Start-ups to get free agency advice


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India’s industrial output shrinks 1.9% in February
India's industrial sector suffered a contraction of around 2 per cent in February, dampening down hopes of economic revival and underlining the need for the more government measures to boost the economic activity.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), a measure of industrial output, slipped 1.9 per cent year-on-year in the month of February, against a growth of 0.8 per cent in January this year.
Manufacturing activity contracted 3.7 per cent year-on-year in the month under review. However, electricity output and mining production jumped 11.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively.
In terms of industries, a total of thirteen out of the 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector of the economy suffered negative growth in the month under review.
As per data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), factory output in the first 11 months of the financial year ended March 31 stands at just 0.1 per cent.
FICCI Director General Arbind Prasad said, "Such a steep fall in manufacturing disproves that growth has bottomed out. Both consumer demand and investment conditions seem to be weakening thereby further dampening the outlook for manufacturing."
Mr. Prasad added that the government should implement some bold reforms to revive the manufacturing activity. He suggested that focusing on big ticket projects in the short-run would help revive growth.


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Amazon to Bring New Facility, 1,000 Jobs to SE Michigan
Amazon plans to open a new fulfillment facility in Shelby Township and bring about 1,000 jobs to Southeast Michigan.
The one million square foot facility is expected to open in 2018.
"Michigan has been a great place to do business for Amazon and we look forward to adding a new fulfillment center to better serve our customers in the region," Amazon VP of North American Operations Sanjay Shah said in a press release.
"Amazon's announcement to open another new fulfillment center in Michigan once again shows the company's commitment to our state and the great people who live here," Gov. Rick Snyder tells WXYZ. "As we continue to see an increasing convergence between the tech and manufacturing sectors, Amazon's continued investment here proves the value of Michigan's diverse, hard-working talent pool and reformed business climate."


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Sears Plans $1 Billion Debt Facility to Help Replace Credit LineTom Freke
Sears Holding Corp., the unprofitable retailer controlled by Edward Lampert, plans to borrow as much as $1 billion to refinance existing debt.
The term loan will replace part of the company’s existing $3.275 billion asset-based credit line, according to a statement posted on its website. The company said it expects the loan to be secured by the same collateral as the revolving credit facility and mature in June 2018.
The revolver, a type of debt where money repaid can be borrowed again, is due to mature in April 2016 and the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company has drawn about $2.2 billion of the facility, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Sears last month posted a $194 million second-quarter loss and the 26th consecutive quarter of sales declines as loyalty program members used more discounts and appliance sales fell.


text: Senseonics announced today that it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Roche to launch the Eversense implantable CGM, body-worn transmitter, and mobile app in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. No launch timing was given, but on the heels of the CE Mark (earlier this month), and planned Eversense launches in Sweden (June) and Norway/Denmark (2H16), commercialization with Roche seems possible in the next few quarters – at minimum, we assume the companies will take time to learn from the initial marketing and positioning in Scandinavia. In a clear victory for Senseonics, Roche is responsible for sales, marketing, support, and distribution, off-loading a number of activities that Senseonics cannot do on its own. Senseonics retains ownership of product development, regulatory, quality, and manufacturing. The deal stands as an early vote of confidence in Senseonics, who will benefit greatly from an established diabetes player to drive Eversense adoption in a highly competitive and reimbursement-constrained EU glucose monitoring market. We wonder how this agreement impacts Roche’s own CGM, which is expected to launch in Europe this year, per the 1Q16 call. On one hand, this deal suggests Roche is all-in on CGM and desires a portfolio of different sensor designs – e.g., its Accu-Chek Insight CGM could talk to an Accu-Chek pump, while Eversense would work for standalone users on MDI. On the other hand, this could speak to continued challenges in developing its own CGM, or perhaps a change in priorities, risk, or timing. The agreement may be expanded with additional products and territories in the future, leaving a lot of possibilities open for both companies. The news is consistent with Senseonics’ 1Q16 expectation to complete an agreement with an additional EU distributor “very soon.” Its current partner in Scandinavia is Rubin Medical, a deal that was signed one year ago. We’ll see Senseonics 180-day data at ADA (892-P), and for more details, see our coverage of the 1Q16 update.


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The Cyber Administration of China (CAC) regulator of digital services, is reported to be investigated Chinese media giant Baidu regarding the advertising of illegal gambling sites on its search engine listings.
Chinese governmental concerns have arisen following numerous cases of illegal online gambling and betting operators being promoted on Baidu listings, breaching national gambling laws.
Baidu, China’s largest search engine has stated that its advertising standards had been breached by gambling advertisers who created ‘fake advertising accounts’ which would promote betting services at night targeting Chinese sports consumers.
Baidu management stated that it had immediately contacted authorities regarding the illegal advertising and that the company would continue to improve its ‘anti-cheating’ system monitoring advertising on its network.
Although unconfirmed, various Chinese news sources have reported that a number of Baidu employees have been questioned by police with regards to aiding the advertising of gambling websites.
This is the latest advertising scandal to hit the NASDAQ-listed search operator, who in May had to face intense media scrutiny for its advertising of fake private hospitals and clinics, following the death of a 21-year old student.
CAC officials have stated that Baidu and its advertising breaches will be investigated thoroughly with its findings expected to be published in due course.


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Iowa has an opportunity to level the playing field for local businesses by closing corporate tax loopholes and generating up to $100 million annually. This can be achieved by adopting “combined reporting,” a corporate-tax accountability tool already adopted by four neighboring states and 20 overall. This tool would prevent multistate companies from using tax avoidance schemes to avoid paying Iowa taxes, and make it harder for them to hide their taxable Iowa profits.
The change in law would not allow states to tax a company’s income from out-of-state business, but it would prevent companies from hiding their income by using tax avoidance schemes to shift their profits to a no-tax state. Iowa businesses would still be taxed based on income from sales within the state, and combined reporting would only ensure that profit from all Iowa sales is accurately determined for tax purposes. This would eliminate the unfair advantage that multistate companies currently have, as they use tax avoidance schemes to shelter profits from Iowa taxes.
Big multistate companies, such as Wal-Mart, have avoided about $350 million in tax payments to various states by creating a so-called Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in Delaware. With a REIT, Wal-Mart effectively charges itself rent for its own stores in local communities. The rental charge reduces the income for each store, and the profits go to the REIT but are exempt from tax in Delaware. Eventually, the profits reach Wal-Mart headquarters as dividends that are free of state taxes in its home state of Arkansas. Such tax avoidance profit-shifting strategies could be blocked by combined reporting.
States such as Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Kansas have already adopted combined reporting. Closing tax loopholes for multistate firms would be beneficial for businesses that want to see businesses locate or expand in Iowa. Iowa-focused firms selling the same products or services as the big multistate firms would no longer be at a competitive disadvantage. The Iowa Department of Revenue found that this change would boost revenues and not harm Iowa-based businesses. In tax year 2002, combined reporting would have generated an additional $99 million in corporate income tax revenue, and $62 million in tax year 2003. In both years, 99 percent of the increased revenue would have come from firms headquartered outside the state.
Overall, adopting combined reporting in Iowa would ensure that multistate companies are unable to use tax avoidance schemes to avoid paying Iowa taxes, and prevent them from hiding their taxable Iowa profits. It would benefit Iowa-based businesses and the state’s treasury, generating up to $100 million annually. This change would level the playing field for local businesses and encourage business growth in the state, as well as ensure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes.


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CHICAGO — The bicoastal creative studio Carbon (www.carbonvfx.com) has opened a new Chicago studio that will serve the Midwest market. The VFX, post production and design studio is located on the fifth floor of the Courthouse Building where editing house Whitehouse Post is also located.
Leading Carbon’s Windy City operations are executive producer Phil Linturn and creative director Liam Chapple, a pair of European production experts who reflect the new office’s emphasis on conveying fresh, global perspectives to the Chicago market. Linturn joins Carbon after spending over a decade visual effects company Glassworks. There, he moved up EP to COO of its European network, which includes offices in London, Barcelona and Amsterdam.
(L-R) Carbon Chicago's Chapple and Linturn
Chapple’s work at London design and animation studio Mainframe caught Carbon’s eye. During his tenure at Mainframe, he led design and direction on notable projects, including a campaign for iconic British department store Harrod’s and a Promax BDA-winning BBC promo for the Wimbledon tennis championships.
According to Linturn, Carbon Chicago will launch with a core creative and production team able to brandish their talents with tools and offerings including several Flame suites with 5.1 surround sound, the latest DaVinci Resolve color-grading suite, and a fully-equipped CGI and motion design studio.
“For me, the most appealing aspect of the new studio is that it’s an amazing opportunity to help mold the future of a dynamic brand,” Chapple explains. “We plan to continue to deliver the high standards of VFX and color that Carbon is known for, while broadening our horizons to encompass creative direction and design lead projects. The range of skills we’re bringing together will allow us to offer a complete start-to-finish service, guiding clients through the whole process from design through post production to color and finishing.”


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Tesla AI Day 2022: Details on Tesla Bot, Dojo and more2 min read 01 Oct 2022, 04:29 PM IST
The working version of the Optimus was unveiled after a loft delay. It weighs 73kg, packs a 2.3kWh battery and uses a third-party actuators to walk around and wave under its own power.
Tesla AI Day 2022 was celebrated on Friday to demonstrate how far the company’s autonomous robot and vehicle research has come. The event gave us a first look at the Optimus robot strolling around the stage, updates on self-driving software and a first look at the Dojo hardware powering Tesla’s AI research.
Select your Category


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Hotelier Michael Depatie and his Eventi
Developers are on track this year to open the largest number of hotels
in New York City in several decades, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A total of 44 hotels with 7,561 rooms are scheduled to open this year,
an 8.5 percent expansion of the city’s room supply, according to hotel research company Lodging Econometrics. While an onslaught of hotels often leads to falling
rates, New York hoteliers believe the new supply will keep rates from
rising. “About six months ago, every hotelier in New York was very worried about all of the new supply coming,” said Michael Depatie, president and CEO of Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, which owns four hotels in New York, including the Eventi, which opened in Chelsea in June. “But there has been such a resurgence of business travel that, even with all of the supply coming, we haven’t had any troubles absorbing it,” he told the Journal.
New York still has a
long way to go to reach its 2008 heights, but the hotel industry in New
York City is growing at a much faster rate than in the rest of the
country, where the number of rooms grew only 1.6 percent. Lodging
predicts that the city’s growth rate will slow to 2.3 percent in 2011,
though that’s still higher than the anticipated national growth rate
of 1.3 percent. [WSJ]


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After speculations that went on for months, Facebook finally announced its long-awaited cryptocurrency Libra’s details. According to Facebook’s Libra whitepaper detail and our detailed article, Libra will be integrated into famous social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram which are being used by millions. Facebook intends to launch Libra by the end of 2020 but it can be delayed due to the regulator’s pressure.
Libra arose lots of risks for the central banks and financial system. The reason behind that is the structure of Libra and its aim. Libra Association wants to create a currency that can be used for cross-border money transfers via WhatsApp or its Calibra wallet. Especially when we think that most of the population in Africa or such continents still can’t access to basic banking services, Libra can change a lot and reach millions. Moreover, Libra can be used for e-commerce and other big web sites too.
Libra can be the cure that the global financial systems have been seeking. It can offer custody or transfer solutions without high fees.
Libra transactions will be recorded on a blockchain just like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. So it has some common features with Bitcoin. But still, Libra differs from Bitcoin as it is a stablecoin. Moreover, Bitcoin has an open-sourced structure while Libra cannot be developed by anybody else without Facebook’s or Libra Association’s consent.
Moreover, the company answers the concerns about sensitive private information secrecy too. Facebook has built its Calibra Wallet under another company brand the new company won’t share customer’s details with Facebook and Instagram. So, Calibra or Libra data won’t be shared with social media channels.
Facebook and its associates back every Libra with a basket of fiat currencies such as USD Dollar, Pound, Euro, and Swiss Frank. So the stablecoin won’t get affected by the cryptocurrency sector’s high volatility.
Libra hasn’t been introduced yet and it is not certain whether it will or not.


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Alibaba Cloud has announced its latest contribution to the open-source community by open-sourcing its seven billion parameter Large Language Models (LLM), Qwen-7B and Qwen-7B-Chat, through its AI model community, ModelScope, and the collaborative AI platform, Hugging Face.
The company has introduced its proprietary LLM, Tongyi Qianwen, earlier this year in April. This model, capable of generating human-like content in both Chinese and English, has different model sizes, including seven billion and above parameters.
In an effort to democratise AI technologies, the models’ code, model weights, and documentation will be freely accessible to academics, researchers and commercial institutions worldwide. For commercial uses, the models will be free to use for companies with fewer than 100 million monthly active users. Programs with more users can request for a license.
“By open-sourcing our proprietary large language models, we aim to promote inclusive technologies and enable more developers and SMEs to reap the benefits of generative AI,” says Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “As a determined long-term champion of open-source initiatives, we hope that this open approach can also bring collective wisdom to further help open-source communities thrive.”
The Qwen-7B was pre-trained on over two trillion tokens, including Chinese, English and other multilingual materials, code and mathematics, covering general and professional fields. Its context length reaches 8K. In training, this model was aligned with human instructions. Both models can be deployed on cloud and on-premises infrastructures. This enables users to fine-tune the models and build their own high quality generative models effectively and cost efficiently.
The pre-trained Qwen-7B model distinguished itself in the Massive Multi-task Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark, scoring a notable 56.7, outperforming other major models with similar scales or even some larger size models. This benchmark assesses a text model’s multitask accuracy across 57 varied tasks, encompassing fields such as elementary mathematics, computer science and law. Moreover, it achieved the highest score among models with equivalent parameters in the leader board of C-Eval, a comprehensive Chinese evaluation suite for foundational models. It covers 52 subjects in four major specialities including humanities, social sciences, STEM and others. Additionally, it reached outstanding performance on benchmarks of mathematics and code generation, such as GSM8K and HumanEval.
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WASHINGTON — Regulated tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels, governmental policies, agricultural effects, consumer safety and medical purposes were among the topics discussed at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) first public hearing regarding cannabidiol (CBD)—the nonpsychoactive component of cannabis—on May 31. FDA holds its first hearing on CBD - JustCBD Store The FDA is now accepting comments on cannabis-derived products as it heads further towards regulation. Here’s more on FDA’s CBD hearing and what to expect. FDA holds its first hearing on CBD. Since hemp-based CBD products became legal, the market has had an enormous boom. FDA Warns of CBD Use and Marketing, Companies Respond - Hemp
FDA has little in the way of good information it can list on its CBD policy agenda so far, says Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy. At recent regulatory conference, she said, "Like it or not, there is a massive human experiment going on right now.
Federal Register :: Schedules of Controlled Substances: Placement With the issuance of this final order, the Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration places certain drug products that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and which contain cannabidiol (CBD) in schedule V of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). FDA Regulation of Cannabis and Cannabis-Derived Products,
The FDA is now accepting comments on cannabis-derived products as it heads further towards regulation. Here’s more on FDA’s CBD hearing and what to expect. FDA holds its first hearing on CBD. Since hemp-based CBD products became legal, the market has had an enormous boom.
CBD products are illegal and everywhere -- and could force FDA 24.06.2019 · When asked which instances of CBD sale might prompt legal action, the FDA said it had no additional comments but that the agency had opened a docket for the public to submit comments through July FDA: .1% CBD OK | The Blunt Truth This is Washington, and we do like to speak in initials. A plain English translation of the title of this piece would read “FDA ‘places FDA-approved drugs that contain CBD derived from cannabis and no more than 0.1 percent tetrahydrocannabinols in Schedule V.’” DEA Final Order, Docket No. DEA-486 Schedule V drugs include cough medicine with codeine and many pain relievers that still FDA Cracks Down On CBD: Cautions 15 Companies For Making Illegal 25.11.2019 · FDA details CBD safety concerns. Violations include marketing unapproved new human and animal drugs, selling CBD products as dietary supplements, and adding CBD to human and animal foods. New Deeming menace as FDA loses court docket case to extremists ⋆
FDA Promotes CBD Liver Damage Scare, Though Advocates Remain Skeptical. With industry waiting on the FDA to issue regulations for CBD products, the agency instead released a statement explaining why it has not yet done so — including fears that the trendy cannabinoid may cause liver damage. But advocates charge that the claim is based on
3 Jan 2020 Lawful CBD Sales In US Might Swing On Closing Door To Private Safety $2m For CBD Policy In FDA Budget, But No Directive On Setting Safe Level FDA's CBD Docket Comments: Harm Reduction To Churches, 'More Help Secure Co-Sponsors on HR 5587 that Would Prod FDA to Act on CBD: (CBD). FDA is establishing a docket for public comment on this hearing. 11 Dec 2019 FDA clarifies position on CBD, cracks down on 15 online stores the public hearing and the public docket, and evaluating our policy options. 19 Sep 2019 “However, FDA's current regulatory posture on CBD has created FDA received over 4,000 public comments on the docket regarding CBD, 2 Dec 2019 FDA Publishes New Consumer Update Warning of CBD's Potential hearing and information and data gathering through a public docket," it CRN comments on 2020 Dietary Guidelines to Advisory Committee (Docket CRN's Mister, Olsen deliver oral comments on CBD at FDA public hearing 26 Nov 2019 The FDA is warning people to be cautious when buying foods or supplements that claim to contain CBD oil. The agency says many of the flood


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Brokerage houses across the board have downgraded their view on Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), India’s largest packaged consumer goods maker, following its poor showing in the three months ended December 31.
HUL reported a 16 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 871 crore (Rs 8.71 billion) on net sales of Rs 6,655 crore (Rs 66.55 billion). Both were below street estimates of nearly Rs 900 crore (Rs 9 billion) net profit on sales of Rs 6,800 crore (Rs 68 billion).
Volume growth, a key metric for most consumer companies, was down to five per cent for HUL in the third quarter from almost 9-10 per cent a year ago. This was the lowest in three years for the company, said Angel Broking’s fast-moving consumer goods analyst V Srinivasan, adding he maintained a neutral view on the stock.
But foreign brokerages CLSA and Credit Suisse were not so kind, downgrading HUL to ‘sell’ and ‘neutral’ from ‘outperform’, with a target price of Rs 430 and Rs 485 from Rs 585 and Rs 573 earlier. J P Morgan and UBS maintained a neutral stance on the stock, with a target price of Rs 550 from Rs 465 and Rs 620, respectively, while Bank of America and Jefferies had an under-perform tag to the stock, with a target price of Rs 441 and Rs 434 from Rs 477 and Rs 473 earlier. Goldman Sachs and Citi, meanwhile, had a ‘sell’ tag on the stock, while Deutsche Bank maintained hold. Morgan Stanley went from equal-weight to under-weight and Nomura downgraded the stock to reduce from neutral.
Among local players, Mumbai-based Edelweiss was quick to downgrade HUL from hold to reduce, saying its target price was Rs 458. HUL, in the interim, continued to underperform on the bourses.
Besides the slowdown in discretionary, which impacted sales in personal products and packaged foods, analysts remained apprehensive about the hike in royalty and its impact on earnings, going forward.
HUL signed a new royalty agreement, which would see it pay a higher amount to the extent of 3.15 per cent of sales from 1.4 per cent now by March 2018. The agreement, effective next month, will see royalty shoot up by 0.5 per cent between February 2013 and March 2014. It will then go up by 0.3 to 0.7 per cent per annum for the next four years.
HUL's chief financial officer R Sridhar said during announcement of the company's results yesterday the increase in royalty was a fair price to the company for greater access to its brands and technology. "You cannot say an increase in royalty will result in an impact on margins," he told Business Standard.
But analysts think otherwise. Edelweiss, in a results update released on Wednesday, said: "The increase in royalty comes at a time when HUL has seen its slowest volume growth as well as when an increase in tax by an estimated 200 basis points in FY14 and 250 basis points in FY15 is round the corner. The increase in both royalty and tax will result in an estimated annual earnings growth of 9.8 per cent between FY13 and FY15 versus 24.9 per cent between FY11 and FY13."
Parent reports strong growth
Anglo-Dutch major Unilever reported a seven per cent and ten per cent rise in net profit and sales, respectively, for the full year ended December. Turnover was $68 billion, while net profit was $6.5 billion for the full-year ended 2012.


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Sai Flavours, a major food-ingredient manufacturing company based in Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone (RAKEZ), has announced its plans to expand further with an investment of nearly $1 million (AED4 million).
The move will boost its production capacity to meet growing demand from the snack and meat processing companies in Middle Eastern and African countries. After leasing additional warehouse space, its facility now spreads to almost 5,000 m2.
The company said that it has grown 10-fold since their set up in 2012 in Al Hamra Industrial Zone, supplying seasoning spices and food flavors to the large local and regional food-processing industries in the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Senegal, and Nigeria.
“Sai Flavours’ expansion is a reflection of the larger Ras Al Khaimah food-sector growth story. Our food cluster at RAKEZ consists of an ecosystem of hundreds of F&B companies that are working to meet regional and international demand, creating a more sustainable and localized food value chain in the UAE. RAKEZ continually supports the organic growth of producers in the F&B sector, which constitutes one of our strong core industries.”
Some of the major local companies that source Sai Flavour’s products include, Al Kabeer Group, Seara Middle East, National Food Industry, and Global Food Industries, among others. This move firmly aligns the company goals with that of the UAE’s Food Security priorities.
Director of Sai Flavours, Ms. Mamta Khatri said that, “Along with the expansion, we are also increasing our workforce and launching some exciting products, such as meat blends and flavors for the meat processing segment. We will also be introducing retail packets for the FMCG sector and add these products to our online stores.”


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In my latest Guardian
column, "News Corp Kremlinology: what do the Times paywall numbers mean?" I have a good rummage around the mysterious figures released by The Times
earlier this month on the performance of its vaunted pay-for-news scheme. The Times
released the numbers with a lot of triumphant accompaniment, but I'm not clear on whether their figures can be taken of indication of anything, except, perhaps, a reluctance to report in full on their experiment's performance.
Here's what the Times will say: about 50,000 of the current paid users are on a monthly subscription of some sort: £8.66, £1, or free with a TalkTalk subscription. They will not disclose how many £1 trial users turn into £8.66 users, or how many sustain their £8.66 subscription into the second or third month. However, the anonymous official spokesperson did say that whichever users are remaining after three months are more than 90% likely to stump up for a fourth month. From this, I think we can safely assume that lots less than 90% of paid users stick around for a second month, and of those, less than 90% sustain themselves for a fourth month.
News Corp Kremlinology: what do the Times paywall numbers mean?
But the Times isn't saying.
The remaining 50,000, of course, are people who paid £1 for a single day's access. Some number of these converted to monthly subscribers.
Some number bought a second article. How many? The Times isn't saying.
So, best case: there are 50,000 paid subscribers, all of whom got there by paying £1 for an article, converted immediately to £1 monthly subscriptions and now pay £8.66 every month (or £9.99 in the case of iPad users who want to pay extra for the privilege of not being allowed to access the website).
Worst case: 50,000 people tried a day pass and left. 20,000 TalkTalk subscribers got a free subscription with their phone which they may or may not know or care about. 5,000 people use it with an iPad.
75,000 people tried a £1 month trial. 40,000 of them signed up for a second month, 30,000 of them for a third, and 25,000 stayed on for a fourth month.
Uganda is so poor that few can afford medical care, giving it one of the lowest life-expectancies on the planet — this toxic combination made the country ripe for infiltration by Tiens, a Chinese Multi-Level-Marketing “nutritional supplements” cult whose members set up fake medical clinics that diagnose fake ailments and proscribe fake medicines, then rope […]
Yahoo’s sale to Verizon means that Yahoo’s sub-companies — Flickr, Tumblr and a host of others — are now divisions of a phone company, and as you might expect, being on the payroll of a notorious neutracidal maniac with a long history of sleazy, invasive, privacy-destroying, monopolistic, deceptive, anti-competitive, scumbag shakedowns has changed the public […]
What was last week posed as an indefinite leave of absence is now for good: Travis Kalanick, CEO of scandal-wracked rideshare company Uber, announced that he is leaving the company. “I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to […]
If you struggle to get a good night’s rest, consider replacing your pillows before dropping hundreds on a new mattress. You can give your tired neck a break with a 2-pack of memory foam pillows, available now in the Boing Boing Store.Each of these pillows is stuffed with cooling polyurethane foam that molds to your […]
Although flagship smartphones are unlikely to adopt heavy-duty outer casing anytime soon, you can always prepare your device for the outdoors with a beefy case and and an external battery like this Nomad Tile Trackable PowerPack, available in the Boing Boing Store for $119.95.The Nomad Tile can fully recharge an iPhone 7 over three times […]
Even though credit cards now feature an EMV chip for securing transactions, they still have to include the magnetic strip for compatibility with older point of sale systems. Because of this, there’s no way for the chip’s new security capabilities to protect against card skimmers in the wild.How do you protect yourself from legacy-technology-induced fraud? […]


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The Big News: Rascal Flatts' Unstoppable proved to be just that, crushing the week's competition on its way to Number One and 351,000 copies sold. The country group almost doubled the sales of the week's runner-up, the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack, which jumped from Five last week to Two thanks in part to its dominance at the box office. A pair of debuts occupied the third and fourth positions, with Jadakiss' The Last Kiss and Jason Aldean's Wide Open both surpassing 100K copies in their first weeks. The Now! 30 comp bookends the Top Five. Also, somehow, Taylor Swift's Fearless nearly doubled its sales from the previous week, placing at Number Six while selling another 82,000 copies and officially crossing the triple platinum mark.
Debuts: 28,000 people drove on down to Neil Young's Fork in the Road, helping the Canadian rocker grab Number 19. Further down, Doves' fourth album Kingdom of Rust claimed 88, the Hold Steady's A Positive Rage and Bat For Lashes' Two Suns neighbored at 139 and 140, and roughly 4,000 Deadheads scrounged enough cash to purchase the band's massive live collection To Terrapin: Hartford '77, good for 168.
Last Week's Heroes: Last week's champ Keith Urban's Defying Gravity fell quickly from the top spot to Number Seven. Prince's LOtUSFLOW3R/MPLSoUND/Elixer stumbled as well, dropping from Number Two to Number Nine. In fact, this week wasn't a good time to be an album last week, as three other albums that debuted in the Top 10 seven days ago — Diana Krall's Quiet Nights, Flo Rida's R.O.O.T.S. and UGK's UGK 4 Life — now find themselves on the outside looking in. With no major releases hitting shelves this week, expect the positioning to look similar but with a lot less copies sold next week.


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photo credit: Getty Images
Ever get caught shopping on-line at work?
It’s something most of us want to keep a secret but almost everyone does it… shopping on-line while we're at work. It’s not just Cyber Monday. According to a new survey by finder.com during the holiday season the average worker will spend 102 minutes a day online shopping while on the clock. That's almost two hours. Before all the managers out there get angry about this, listen up: researchers at Michigan State found workers taking breaks improves productivity, improves job satisfaction, increases creativity, and restores their focus on long-term goals. Of course, the key is balance. A quick break to do some shopping is one thing…but two hours a day? Maybe not a good idea.


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Gun stores all over Colorado are getting around or simply ignoring the state’s six-year-old magazine capacity limit law.
Gee, it’s almost as if legislators who don’t know the first thing about the items they’re seeking to regulate create laws that don’t do what they intended.
Denver’s KUSA TV sent a reporter with a hidden camera around to gun stores around Colorado and found that so-called high capacity magazines are still widely available in the state. Some are sold as kits to take advantage of the law’s vague wording. And some are sold complete, in clear violation of the law.
What’s more, local law enforcement seems to have no interest in pressing the issue. Virtually the only time individuals are charged under the law is in combination with other, more serious offenses.
In the mean time, Coloradans who want 30-round (or more) magazines don’t seem have any problem getting them. That must make legislators like former Senate President John Morse, former Senator Angela Giron and former Senator Evie Hudak wonder why they risked (and lost) their jobs over the useless legislation.
As Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams put it . . .
That’s proof that you don’t need the law, and that’s been the proof since it was passed in 2013. This law, while it made some people feel like, ‘Hey, we’ve addressed the situation in Colorado,’ it’s wholly ineffective, which your video shows.


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Plug-in car sales in the Netherlands are growing this year so quickly that it's hard to find a faster-expanding market.
Jaguar is finally increasing the deliveries of the I-PACE to the Netherlands where the importer waits for 3,500 units in 2018.
A Tesla Model S taxi driver in the Netherlands won a court case to continue use of local Supercharging station for free, despite Tesla wanting to limit his access.
Good news coming from the Netherlands where Fastned reports very high growth rate of its business and operational break even.
In September 2018, sales of plug-in electric cars in the Netherlands reached 2,796, which is some 150% more than a year ago.
Netherlands could become the first member of the European Union where the diesel car market share will be lower than Alternative Fuelled Vehicles.
The Netherlands isnow a very important for Tesla in Europe, as the country accounted for 40% of S and X sold in Western Europe last month.
Take that Norway. The Netherlands just became the #1 market for Tesla Model S in all of Europe.
Importer of Jaguar in the Netherlands decided to increase the number of assigned I-PACE from 2,000 to 3,500 to avoid the higher BiK tax rate next year.
Rotterdam, Netherlands turns towards electric buses in general trend to stop purchases of diesel buses from 2025 and get rid of diesel by 2030.
Two countries seems to be in the game to secure European Tesla battery Gigafactory - Netherlands and Germany, recently hinted at by Elon Musk.
The appetite for Tesla will heat up big time later this year, but next year a crash will occur, as the Netherlands aims to tax the heck out of expensive electric...
The Netherlands closes first half of the year at high gains of plug-in electric car sales - 131% year-over-year at average market share of 3.6%.
Australian company Tritium seems to take European fast charging market like the storm. New EU headquarters was launched in the Netherlands.
With more than 2,000 sales, Tesla Model S was the top selling plug-in model in the Netherlands in 2017, and so far this year maintains the lead.
In the Netherlands sales of plug-in electric car sales had its golden era in 2015 when some 43,000 were delivered with peak of nearly 16,000 in the month of...
Fastned, Dutch fast charging network, released results for year 2017 - revenues increased by 133% to €530,667 as company dispensed 1,006,126 kWh.
BIOS-groep switches its Tesla Model S taxi fleet at the Amsterdam Schiphol airport to the Tesla Model X after nearly four years of service.
Plug-in electric car sales in the Netherlands is growing fast this year, achieving average market share of 3.3% in the first quarter.
This summer Port-Liner is expected to launch its first battery-electric barges that will run between Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Rotterdam ports in Europe.
The Dutch company Fastned is covering the Netherlands and other European countries with fast chargers, but what Fastned's doing really fast is selling bonds


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A brand new Burger King branch has opened in Ruislip High Street today to the delight of burger-lovers across Hillingdon.
To celebrate the new opening, the store has announced that they will be giving away 1,000 of their famous ‘Whopper’ burger or the plant-based version. All people will have to do is claim a code from the new branch in Ruislip that they can use with the Burger King app. The promotion is part of the chain’s ‘Whopper-Wednesday’ deal.
The deal is first-come-first-served, and available exclusively to Burger King app users on 16th November 2022 only at 115 High Street, Ruislip, HA4 8JN. To get in on a bite of the action, guests will need to head to https://burgerkinguk.app.
Alasdair Murdoch, CEO of Burger King UK, commented: “We know the people of Ruislip love the great-tasting food of Burger King, so we’ve listened to their requests and are very excited to bring all their favourites to their neighbourhood. Our home – of the Whopper! – is their home.”


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Celebrities from the world of sport, media and food worked with a trio of talented customizers to create three unique versions of the all-new 2018 Jeep® Wrangler in the first ever “Jeep Wrangler Celebrity Customs” web series competition.
Over the course of six webisodes, Alex Rodriguez, Maria Menounos, and The Infatuation’s Andrew Steinthal and Chris Stang guided customizers as they personalized each Jeep Wrangler and had their work chronicled in the Jeep brand’s first-ever web series competition “Jeep Wrangler Celebrity Customs,” hosted by former NBA standout Jalen Rose.
After six webisodes, and weeks of hard work and collaboration, the teams of celebrities and customizers gathered in Los Angeles for the reveal and judging of their Wranglers. Each Jeep Wrangler was judged in three categories: “Stoplight Quality,” “Captivating Interiors” and “Authentically Wrangler.”
Following a tight competition, Menounos and DCD Customs won the contest and was awarded the Wrangler Golden Grille Award.
“It was a close contest, coming down to the final vote,” said Menounos. “Alex definitely brought his A-game with West Coast Customs, as did Andrew and Chris with AutoCraft NYC, but I knew from the beginning that David Tonapetyan and DCD Customs had what it takes to help me build my perfect Jeep Wrangler. I’m beyond excited to be the first-ever Wrangler Golden Grille winner!”
Her two-door 2018 Jeep Wrangler has an old-school vibe with a custom light blue paint job and a retro-white interior. There’s also a dog bed and treat holder in the vehicle along with a makeup compact on the steering wheel. The team DCD Customs also added Menounos’ signature to the dashboard for further personalization.
Stang and Steinthal teamed up with AutoCraft NYC to create a distinct Wrangler that would represent The Infatuation, a social and digital discovery platform designed to find a restaurant for the perfect situation.
Their Jeep Wrangler has The Infatuation’s logo on the hood, 35-inch tires and iPads in the visors. The feature that set this Wrangler apart from the others is a soft-serve ice cream machine built into the back of the vehicle.
With a push of a button on a key fob, the tailgate opens and the ice cream machine automatically comes out to serve a cold treat. As a bonus, there is a cutting board on top of the ice cream machine.
Major League All-Star Alex Rodriguez shared his vision for his Jeep Wrangler with West Coast Customs to create an aggressive-looking vehicle. Rodriguez’s Wrangler received a satin black wrap, 26-inch wheels, a Grumper over the front grille and a ViCrowl over the front windshield.
The inside of the Jeep Wrangler was further personalized with a humidor for Rodriguez’s cigars, LED lighting, an iPad Pro embedded on the dash and a sound system that rivals a nightclub.
These customizations are the latest examples of how customers can personalize the iconic Jeep Wrangler. For the “Jeep Wrangler Celebrity Customs” competition, professional customizers utilized Jeep Performance Parts for their showcase vehicles.


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CityClothes you can’t wear
Garment factories produce thousands of shirts hoping netas would place orders for LS polls. But EC ban on garments with party symbols has upset their calculations
Posted On Friday, March 20, 2009 at 12:08:59 AM
Election Commission’s ban on shirts and T-shirts with party symbols and slogans for campaigning in the coming Lok Sabha polls has come as a blow to the garment industry in Bangalore.
The EC’s ban came into force in the assembly elections in Karnataka last year. The recession-hit garment factories have now decided to write to the EC requesting it to withdraw the ban in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Karnataka Hosiery and Garment Association President Sajjan Raj Mehta says, “During elections many political parties and even independent candidates order shirts and T-shirts on which their party slogans and symbols are printed. Garments factories produced a large amount of plain shirts and T-shirts expecting huge orders. If plain shirts and T-shirts are ready it takes less time to print party slogans, symbols and photos of candidates on them.”
In the last Lok Sabha elections each candidate reportedly purchased between 15,000 and 20,000 shirts and T-shirts. These garments doubled as cheap mode of publicity as well as inexpensive gifts for middle class and lower income group voters.
Garment supplier Vikas says, “Due to recession many companies have stopped ordering shirts and T-shirts. We had great hope that political parties will give huge orders during elections but the decision of Election Commission has shattered all hopes.”
During elections garment factories in the city produce three qualities of shirts and T-shirts to suit the budgets of political parties. Low quality T-shirts cost Rs 35, average quality Rs 45 and high quality Rs 150-175. High quality T-shirts are used by a party’s executive members and volunteers when they go on door-to-door campaign.
“Last year, JD(S) ordered 8,000 T-shirts and BJP 15,000. Congress approached us to manufacture 10,000 T-shirts but we could not as we had enough orders. This year there are no signs of getting orders. We manufactured plain T-shirts thinking that we will get last-minute orders,” Vikas says.
“Distributing T-shirts is not as offensive as distributing liquor. These garments are used by party workers for campaigning. By banning T-shirts the Election Commission is forcing political parties to resort to steps like distributing liquor,” says a garment maker, who does not wish to be named.


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Technology company losses hit US indexes; dollar tumbles.
Hobbled Toys R Us will shutter stores. Kushners drop much-criticized effort to raise Chinese cash. Trump applies tariffs to solar panels, washing machines. Actress talks being female in Hollywood. Tax law makes small businesses rethink ideas. Latest Business Video 0: Amazon opens store with no cashiers.
Inside the first Amazon Go store. Amazon opens its first check-out free convenience store.
AboutUGG comforters recalled due to risk of mold exposure. Amazon announces final cities for new headquarters. Want to work for Apple? Test-driving Tesla Model 3 as waitlist and anticipation build.
Post-holiday financial hacks to help with leftover debt. Mega Millions, Powerball jackpots continue to grow. Latest Business Headlines 7m ago. Hyundai recalls nearly 88K older cars due to fire risk Hyundai is recalling nearly 88, cars in the U. Ford Online Gambling Business Plan jump inbut pain ahead this year Ford net income jumped inbut cost of steel and softer US sales will hurt in Tech losses weigh on US stock indexes Stocks are mostly lower as losses for Texas Instruments and other chipmakers, as well as Apple, pull technology companies lower.
Dollar tumbles click US treasury chief welcomes weaker value The U.
The Worlds Largest Online Gaming Company - David Baazov
Technology company losses hit US indexes; dollar tumbles Losses for chipmakers like Texas Instruments pull technology companies lower as US indexes give up an early gain. Airline rivals caught in United's turbulence Shares of United Airlines tumble and the carrier's aggressive plan for growth triggers a broad sell-off of US airline stocks.
Tax law makes small businesses rethink ideas Some small business owners are rethinking their plans because of tax law changes.
US home sales tumbled 3. Global stocks slip on renewed jitters over trade friction Global stocks are mostly lower and the dollar is down on concerns about conflict over trade after the U. Starbucks gives workers raises, stock grants due to tax law Starbucks is giving its U. Pacific Rim trade pact makes step toward new deal without US Leaders of countries in a Pacific Rim trade pact rejected by President Donald Trump welcome progress toward signing a final agreement to press ahead Japan exports up 12 percent in in tailwind for growth Japan reports its exports rose 12 percent in in a strong tailwind for the economy, while imports jumped 14 percent.
Powell taking over as Fed chairman at time of economic calm Powell taking over as Fed chairman at time of economic calm but with potential risks. China tries to quell protests over failed investment scheme Police in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing police say they have detained 11 people for setting up social media accounts to organize protests over United's 4Q Online Gambling Business Plan rises 46 percent, beats Street forecasts United Airlines is reversing a long slide in average prices and increasing its profit.
Asian shares mixed on renewed jitters over trade friction Asian shares mixed as trading overshadowed by prospect of more trade friction following Trump tariffs decision.
Senate approves Powell to follow Yellen as Fed chair in Feb.
Senate approves Jerome Powell as next chairman of Federal Reserve. Business Highlights Business Highlights. Uber acts on ex AG's guidance, hires chief diversity officer Uber has hired a new chief diversity officer, creating a senior position recommended by former Attorney General Eric Holder, who investigated sexual Tech stocks send indexes mostly higher Stocks are closing mostly higher as gains in technology click to see more and retailers are partly offset by losses in consumer goods makers.
Trump move to tax some imports creates its own risks for US Trump's Online Gambling Business Plan to tax imported solar cells and washing machines creates its own risks for US. As US birthrates drop, Kimberly-Clark feels the pinch Kimberly-Clark says it plans to cut 5, to 5, jobs as part of a restructuring plan.
Fed nominee Goodfriend grilled by Democrats Fed nominee Goodfriend faces tough questioning from Democrats during confirmation hearing. Unemployment rates hit record lows in 3 US states last month Unemployment rates hit record lows in 3 US states in December amid steady hiring. JPMorgan raising wages, hiring, opening more branches JPMorgan will boost hourly wages and open new branches following earnings, tax cuts.
World shares rise on global growth hopes, US shutdown's end World stock markets are rising Tuesday, led by strong gains in Asia as an upbeat forecast for global economic growth and the end of the U. French retailer Carrefour details investment plan, job cuts French retailer Carrefour says it will invest 2.
For Elon Musk, a year, all-or-nothing pay package that demands massive growth at Tesla For Elon Musk, a year, all-or-nothing pay package that demands massive growth at Tesla.
Carrefour, Chinese tech giant Tencent form alliance Carrefour and Chinese technology giant Tencent have announced a cooperation agreement in China and a possible investment to develop online retailing Easing stance, South Korea to adopt real-name crypto trading Softening its tough stance on crypto trading for now, South Korea adopts system to make up-to-now anonymous transactions of crypto currencies Japan central bank keeps lax monetary policy click The Bank of Japan has opted to keep intact its unprecedented monetary stimulus Online Gambling Business Plan signs the economy is gaining steam.
Deputy head of China's energy agency fired in graft probe China's anti-corruption agency says the deputy head of the Cabinet agency in charge of energy policy for the world's second-largest economy has been Trump applies tariffs to solar panels, washing machines President Donald Trump approves tariffs on imported solar panels, washing machines; says move will protect US industry, jobs.
What are the online gambling basics? Introduction. If you have never gambled online you are probably bewildered by how to get started. Online gambling is still a. No state has legalized online gambling since , but Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Hampshire and Michigan all have active bills that could move forward. Calvin Ayre gained vast riches and notoriety as a gambling mogul, but ended up a fugitive from U.S. law. Now he's made a big bet on bitcoin, the world's most. Financial Literacy PowerPoint Resources. Banking & Financial Services Bankruptcy Budgeting Business Plan Buying a House Careers. Online Gaming And Gambling Laws And Regulations In India E-Sports And E-Gaming Laws And Regulations In India, Internet Games Laws And Regulations In India And Online.
China criticizes Trump tariffs on solar, washing machines China is criticizing U. President Donald Trump's decision to approve higher tariffs on solar power components and washing machines as an abuse of When life gives you a lemon car, do this Feb Americans buy American-made goods from around the country Dec Americans share their best Christmas gift ideas Americans across the country share their holiday baking traditions.


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It’s got the seductive good looks everyone has come to expect from Apple Inc., combined with all of the functionality of its prior hit, the iPhone/iPod Touch.
Despite weeks of speculating on everything from its appearance, functions and price, CEO Steve Jobs still managed to wow the crowd when he introduced the iPad to the world Jan. 27.
In introducing the iPad at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at an invitation-only event, Jobs said the new device had to be better than a laptop, netbook or smartphone. The tablet, the Wi-Fi version of which will begin shipping in March, followed by a 3G version in April, looks and functions like an iPod on steroids, with the capability to browse the Web, e-mail photos, watch video, play music or games and read e-books and magazine content. It plays a user’s iTunes collection and allows all of the same apps to be used.
Observers and players in the app space found the introduction impressive.
“I think it’s going to disrupt games, books and movies, and I’m excited that it’s backwards compatible, because it means all of the games and apps already available will work on the iPad,” said Shervin Pishevar, CEO of Social Gaming Network, the Palo Alto-based game maker that has games on one of every three iPhones and iPod Touch devices. “It’s going to turn laptops and PCs into the rotary phones of our generation.”
For Pishevar, the quality of the screen and the high-powered graphics will make social gaming that much more social.
“It will bring people together in a way that’s hard to do with any other device,” he said.
Apple is also seeking to top the success of Amazon.com’s Kindle device with what it calls the iBookstore. Initial offerings there will come from The Penguin Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan Publishers and Hachette Book Group.
Eric Openshaw, vice chairman and U.S. technology leader at Deloitte, said the iPad is going to raise the stakes in the burgeoning e-reader marketplace.
“I think this legitimizes the market and will create competitive responses from people moving forward,” said Openshaw. “I haven’t touched one yet but I assume it will have capabilities of moving documents around and cutting and pasting. It has to be attractive to the education market in terms of textbook delivery.”
Noticeably absent from the slide that showed the publishers backing the launch was the name of the McGraw-Hill Cos. No explanation was offered, but it led some pundits to speculate that it could be retaliation because McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw talked about the iPad in detail on CNBC — the night before Jobs took the stage.
The company launched the iPad Web site immediately following Wednesday’s event.
The iPad is about a half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, has a 9.7-inch multitouch screen and comes in three versions with 16GB of flash storage for $499, 32GB for $599 or 64 GB for $699 with Wi-Fi. It will also come with 3G at $629 for 16GB, 32GB for $629 and $829 for 64GB.
AT&T Inc. will be the service provider, offering two wireless plans: up to 250 MB per month for $14.99 and $29.99 for unlimited data. A 3G plan with AT&T will cost $130 more than a standard Wi-Fi plan.
The new device will play iPhone apps at their original size or double the resolution, but developers will need to update their apps if they want them to show full screen.
One of the first apps designed for the iPad is from The New York Times. It provides an experience more like reading a physical newspaper than previous mobile devices offered, with the addition of video and changeable type sizes. There are a range of accessories planned for the iPad, including a case that doubles as a small stand and a stand that comes with a keyboard. Because the device is Bluetooth-enabled it will also work with Apple’s wireless keyboards.


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Bonlook launched a new contest, enter for a chance to Win a $1,000 BonLook gift card + a $1,000 Girl Crush gift card + a $1,000 BKind gift card.
The contest is open to all legal residents of Canada who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory of residence.
To enter you just have to visit the official contest website (located at this link) and fill out the registration form with the required contact information including your email address, name and last name, agree to the rules and submit it.
The contest will end on August 4, 2022 at 11:59 pm ET. Winner will be selected at random.
There are 6 prizes available to be won.
Grand Prize: a $1,000 BonLook gift card, a $1,000 Girl Crush gift card and a $1,000 BKind gift card.
Secondary prizes (5x): a $150 BonLook gift card, a $150 Girl Crush gift card and a $150 BKind gift card.
The contest begins on July 4, 2022 and ends on August 4, 2022.
Winners and contest results
The draw will be conducted on August 5, 2022. Winners will be contacted by email.


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Vlambeer's Luftrausers soars into profit in just three days
Vlambeer has revealed that their new release Luftrausers has already become profitable since its release last week.
Luftrausers began its life as the result of a 48-hour game jam and after two years of development it finally hit the PC, PS3 and PS Vita last week.
Vlambeer said on Twitter, “Luftrausers just became profitable. It had a two and a half year development cycle. We are super overwhelmed and thankful.”
- And here's the goodies that Games With Gold will get you in December
- Nival announces beta access and a massive gun for pre-ordering Blitzkrieg 3
- Evolve developers promise that all map DLC will be free
- Sony gets all generous with Decembers PS Plus Instant Game Collection line-up
- New Destiny trailer teases interesting new stuff coming with The Dark Below
- Geometry Wars 3 hits PC today, consoles tomorrow
- Retail listing for ZombiU 2 spotted
- 343 admits last week's Halo: The Master Chief Collection patch didn't work as well as they'd hoped, promises to keep working
- Dark Souls II is heading to PS4, Xbox One and DirectX 11 PC next year


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Want to join the conversation?
$OHI said it plans to offer for sale in underwritten public offering senior notes in aggregate principal amount to be determined. $OHI plans to use net proceeds from offering to repay outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit facility. The remainder, if any, will be used for general corporate purposes, including future acquisitions.
$NFLX a monster move, going up. Expect making some money on Monday.
$AMD down more than 6% even after posting above consensus third quarter results.
$MCD stock rose more than 2% after it posted better than expected 3Q16 results, driven by global same-store sales growth. Meanwhile, earnings and revenue were lower than last year, hurt by refranchising efforts.


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MINNEAPOLIS -- Target Stores here said last week it will open six additional stores on Oct. 14.
es in October, including 11 SuperTarget stores.
The openings account for a total of 5.3 million square feet of new retail space, according to the company.
Two SuperTargets have been added to October's roster of openings, one in Huntsville, Ala., and the other in Orlando, Fla. The Orlando store had previously been scheduled to open July 29.
Target also announce


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Criticism, commentary and conversations on Outland reflect some of the debates that dominated the world of NFTs in 2022
Droves of gallerists, artists, collectors, celebrities, critics, connoisseurs, and party chasers returned to Miami en masse for the city’s Art Week after a pandemic hiatus in 2020. They were joined by an energized new group of the NFT-adjacent, who planned a packed week of exhibitions and activations. Miami mayor Francis Suarez, who has become a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency to draw tech money to the city, made an appearance at NFT BZL, a one-day industry convention at the Miami Heat’s FTX Arena, and gave remarks at the SuperRare monolith, which showcased works by some four dozen artists on a prism of giant screens downtown.
“The Digital,” an exhibition organized by ARTXCODE with support from Art Blocks and MoonPay, included works by several prominent generative artists, such as Dmitri Cherniak, Casey Reas, and IX Shells. The art was presented in several mediums: on monitors, as prints, and as projections. There was even a hologram. The undulating rainbow of Chromie Squiggle #4100 by Snowfro (Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon) rotated inside a glass pyramid. The variety of formats reminded visitors of the possibilities for NFT exhibitions beyond installing a row of screens. A participatory homage to Manfred Mohr’s Wall Panel (1971) encouraged visitors to write their thoughts on NFTs on a canvas mural. The auction kicks off at thedigital.auction Wednesday and continues through Friday.
NFT marketplace Foundation hosted two events midweek. FWB token holders were invited to an outdoor concert at Space Park with performances by Erykah Badu and Azaelia Banks, who made waves earlier in the week with a comment on an Instagram post promoting the event that crypto “might be the last way for millennials to amass wealth.” The second celebrated the launch of Collections, a new feature on the platform that allows artists to mint NFTs with their own smart contracts, and offers an alternative interface that favors series rather than unique works. The five hundred already available collections on the platform include Amrit Pal Singh’s Toy Rooms and Alejandro Cartagena’s Suburbia Mexicana Pt. 1 & Pt. 2.
Tezos partnered with Art Basel to bring an NFT art showcase to the Miami Beach Convention Center, with screens displaying work by Helena Sarin, Kevin Abosch, and other artists. Representatives of the Tezos Foundation were on hand to answer questions; most of them sat at a counter with their laptops, like technicians at the Genius Bar, ready to help attendees set up wallets and start collecting art on the Tezos blockchain. To incentivize onboarding, an interactive installation by Mario Klingemann asked viewers to capture a moment from a live animation of mutating faces (like the ones in his 2018 work Memories of Passersby) and mint the still as an NFT. The trick cleverly introduced the audience to the process of making generative art by inviting them to apply a human eye to the selection of images from the neural network’s fluid output. The Tezos show was the busiest part of the fair, with lines to gain entry to an inner lounge where Simon Denny had organized a series of conversations.


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Mullen Automotive Receives EPA Certification for Commercial Class 3 Electric Vehicles
SEP 26, 2023 - 6:59 am
Mullen Automotive, a Southern California-based electric vehicle manufacturer, received full approval and certification from the Environmental Protection Agency for commercial Class 3 electric vehicles on Sept. 22. The company began vehicle production in August, with the first vehicles rolling off the assembly line on Aug. 21.
In addition to receiving EPFA certification, Mullen’s Class 3 EV cab chassis truck has completed all required testing requirements for Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and compliance. With EPA certification in-hand and FMVSS compliance, Mullen can now begin shipments of Class 3 EVs for customer deliveries.
In May, Mullen announced a Class 3 vehicle order with Randy Marion Automotive for 1,000 all-electric cab chassis trucks valued at $63 million. In the same month, MGT Lease Company, a fleet leasing provider, announced it would purchase 250 Class 3 EV cab chassis trucks under a contract valued at $15.7 million. At the end of August, Mullen also received an order for Class 3 EV trucks from NRTC Automation Group.
“I am extremely proud of this important milestone and, now with EPA certification and FMVSS in-hand, we are planning to begin Class 3 deliveries this week. Mullen is fully committed to our vision and plan and is focusing in now on deliveries to our customers,” David Michery, CEO and chairman of Mullen Automotive, said.
In 2022, Monitor launched W, a podcast featuring prominent women in equipment finance. The episodes cover how to make the industry more inviting for women, how to make leadership roles more accessible for women, how to navigate work and life... read more
I wanted to personally thank the equipment finance industry for its continued support of the association. The board of directors and my team work tremendously hard to serve the needs of our members. First and foremost, the National Equipment Finance... read more


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Made in China 2025 places the automobile reinvention agenda at the top. China began the journey of building the automobile industry by adding value out of labor and locally available natural resources. It was assembling and manufacturing automobiles. Consequentially, annual vehicle output increased from less than 2 million vehicles in the late 1990s to 9.5 million in 2008. The number of units placed China ahead of Korea, France, Germany, and the United States. Only 2nd to Japan.
But China detected bleak future prospects in this apparent huge success. China felt that this success would not lead to meeting its aspiration of developing globally competitive automobile industry. Hence, it changed the strategy from a less risky path of manufacturing foreign products to a highly risky reinvention–creating an entry out of disruption. Why is China desperate for this risky adventure intriguing indeed. What has China been doing in creating success in its self-adopted risk journey of automobile reinvention?
Failed Attempts Demanded China’s Automobile Reinvention Strategy:
Unlike Japan, Germany, and the USA, China’s success in automobile production started due to foreign direct investment. China also succeeded in materializing alliances and joint ventures between international automobile manufacturers and Chinese partners. But they were busy manufacturing the design of foreign brands for local consumption. On the one hand, local value addition was very low out of labor. Besides, those partnerships were unlikely to promote Chinese exports that compete with the products of international automobile companies in other markets.
Hence, companies like Geely, having a strong interest in export, did not have strong ties to foreign car producers. As a result, they were facing an apparently insurmountable barrier to meeting industrialized countries’ safety and emission standards. Furthermore, mechanical components like internal combustion engines reached saturation in their life cycles; China could not have much headway to develop competitive advantage through R&D. Even the acquisition of foreign brands like Volvo by local firm Geely did not create much headroom.
Hence, China was desperate to pursue an alternate strategy. As opposed to replication and incremental innovation of matured products, China adopted the journey of pursuing automobile reinvention. This is about creating the higher value addition scope out of ideas in the automobile reinvention by changing the matured as well as polluting internal combustion engine with battery, electric motors, power electronics, and software. This strategy also poses threat to cause the disruptive effect to the dominance of incumbent automobile makers.
Growing Air Pollution Complemented China’s Automobile Reinvention Aspiration:
At the dawn of the 21st century, the motor vehicle population in China started to increase at an annual rate of ~15%. Hence, air pollution-related vehicular emissions also kept growing more or less at the same rate. Since the serious PM2.5 pollution incidents in Beijing in 2013, China’s air quality, especially in many cities, has received unprecedented attention. Among all other sources of pollutants, researchers and the public started increasingly perceiving vehicle emissions to be a significant factor in deteriorating air quality. Hence, China found the reinvention of the automobile as an electric vehicle as the solution to this growing health problem.
Acquiring Battery Technology Advancement Capability:
Unfortunately, electric vehicles at the dawn of the 21st century were not an economically better alternative to gasoline ones. Hence, instead of just manufacturing electric vehicles to create economic value out of labor and dealing with growing air pollution, China eyed EV as a possibility to enter into idea economy. China found that the success of electric vehicles hinged on the performance and cost of the battery module. Furthermore, the battery was at the early stage of development in the 2010s and was amenable to progression by the addition of flow of ideas. Hence, China embarked on acquiring the capability of keep improving the battery technology through local production of ideas out of R&D.
To kick start the journey of creating a flow of ideas and adding them to batteries, China acquired a battery-making unit of Japanese TDK. From this acquisition, China’s CATL started producing increasingly better batteries at a decreasing cost. To accelerate this process, China linked the EV incentives to the battery module’s performance improvement and cost reduction out of ideas. This strategy has been a key for China’s progress in creating economic value out of ideas in automobile reinvention.
China’s Mission Demanded Accruing Mineral Resources and Developing Refining Capacity:
China’s also focused on accruing the deposits of minerals for building battery packs. It went further for setting up the refining capacity of those minerals. Some studies suggest that “China today controls 70-80 percent of the global trade of most critical minerals.” For example, eight of the 14 large cobalt mining firms in Congo are now Chinese-owned. They account for half of Congo’s output.
Rise of CATL and BYD as Automobile Idea Exporter:
Among the top 10 global battery manufacturers, China’s CATL and BYD have a strong position. CATL had a 25.8 percent market share in 2020, while BYD had 6.8 percent. With businesses covering R&D, manufacturing, and sales in battery systems for new energy vehicles and energy storage systems, CATL has emerged as the global leader. BYD owns the integrated value chain from mineral, battery cells to battery packs.
Unlike other Chinese manufacturers, CATL has developed a strong R&D base for creating value from ideas in automobile reinvention. According to a Chinese Securities Journal, as of 2021, CATL’s main R&Dpossesses 6,405 patent applications. Furthermore, the patent portfolio has been rapidly growing, leading to a growth rate of 245.46 percent over the last three years. Besides, these patents are not related to appearance design. Instead, they are the outputs of basic R&D for advancing the performance and lowering material needs. So far, according to Researchers at PatSnap, CATL has filed PCT applications for 814 intellectual property items in 13 countries and regions.
America’s Tesla and Europe’s Automakers are Powered by China’s Battery:
Tesla is America’s upstart leading electric vehicle invention. But its battery module is supplied by CATL, Panasonic, and others. In 2021, CATL struck a deal to supply 45 GWh of lithium-iron-phosphate batteries to Tesla. That is enough to power about 800,000 vehicles, likely to be produced in 2022. Such a reality also raises a vital question–will Tesla succeed to grow as a disruptive force?
Furthermore, BMW announced in 2018 that it would buy €4 billion worth of batteries from CATL for use in the reinvented Mini and iNext vehicles. Such development indicates that China’s automobile reinvention has already succeeded in exporting ideas in the form of battery modules to top global automobile makers. As opposed to China remaining an importer and assembler of critical parts, China has emerged as the exporter of major parts of an electric vehicle.
Subsidies and Regulatory Measures to Create Demand for Automobile Reinvention Ideas:
Like many other reinventions, the electric vehicle also debuted in primitive form. Electric vehicles emerged as a far poorer alternative to gasoline automobiles with respect to charging time and range. Hence, China took several measures to create demand for rolling out this automobile reinvention. Among others, through regulatory measures, China started discouraging gasoline vehicles. Furthermore, it began offering subsidies to electric vehicle. China-linked subsidies with the performance improvement of the battery pack. Besides, it kept lowering subsidies to push battery makers to accelerate idea production. For example, according to updated policy in 2021, “the subsidy for pure electric vehicles (PEVs) with a driving range of 300-400km will be lowered to 13,000 yuan ($2,013) per vehicle, from 16,200 yuan in 2020.”
Automobile Reinvention Paving the Way for China’s uplifting from automobile idea importer to exporter:
China’s failure to create a path of exporting automobiles ideas led to embarking on automobile reinvention. This is due to the maturity of gasoline vehicles and reliance on manufacturing products of foreign brands. Hence, despite the early success of production volume, China embarked on automobile reinvention. Indeed, it was a risky adventure. China has taken a list of strategic measures for creating a market of ideas for the electric vehicle. In addition to developing R&D-based battery producers (like CATL and BYD), China has also acquired mineral deposits and developed refining capacity.
Its policy of linking subsidies to performance improvement has already uplifted its local firms as the exporter of battery ideas. They are exporting them to global brands like Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes. Hence, the desperate move of automobile reinvention has uplifted China to creating economic value out of ideas. As opposed to remaining manufacturers or assemblers of the designs of the global brands, China has emerged as a designer and exporter of critical components to global brands. However, to make this uplifting, China had to take a smart move. It had to envision technology possibilities for powering automobile reinvention. Besides, it took a long-term strategy and ensured a synchronized response for its implementation. In retrospect, Japan’s innovation-centric industrial economy grew out of the reinvention of many major products. This strategy is also contributing to the growing diffusion of electric vehicles as progressive waves.


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Why should Congress pass China currency legislation?
An opinion from Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Media Director Steven Capozzola...
The U.S. must address China’s deliberately undervalued currency.
What few seem to understand is that we are already in a trade war with China. It’s not one that we launched, nor one that we wanted. But China’s undervaluation of its currency, which violates world trade rules, is part of a deliberate, well-coordinated strategy to undercut U.S. manufacturers.
Currency manipulation has helped fuel China’s massive rise as a manufacturing powerhouse. And it’s also helped drive our massive trade deficit with Beijing, which reached a record $273 billion in 2010. This huge trade gap has cost 2.8 million U.S. jobs over the past decade—jobs in every state and congressional district, jobs in manufacturing, jobs in high-tech sectors… It’s a terribly one-sided trade relationship.
How did this happen? China intervenes in the currency market to buy dollars and set its own currency at an artificially low exchange rate. This makes Chinese goods 40% cheaper when entering the U.S. market while making our goods significantly more costly when exported to China.
The Senate is right to tackle this currency peg because it is probably one of the best, most immediate steps we can take to create U.S. jobs right now. Ending China's currency manipulation could create as many as 2.25 million American jobs and reduce our budget deficit by up to $71.4 billion per year, according to a recent study.
This is a bipartisan issue, one that marks a clear chance for Congress to stand up to a very protectionist, predatory campaign. China can purchase dollars, which are freely traded, in order to set its currency peg. But conversely, it is illegal to buy China’s closely held currency.
It’s therefore impossible for Congress to interfere with China’s currency. But it can say “No more” by acting to stop an aggressive campaign that hurts U.S. manufacturers, distorts the global economy, and violates the principles of an open, free market.
Related recent Blogs
- ITC Finds South Korean Dumping of OCTG Pipe: Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Statement. • by scapozzola • 08/22/2014
- Trade Data Pours Cold Water on "Rising Star" Outlook for American Manufacturing • by mmcmullan • 08/21/2014
- U.S. Named Among “Rising Global Stars” in Manufacturing • by elizabethbb • 08/20/2014
- If America Won’t Invest in America’s Infrastructure, China Will • by elizabethbb • 08/19/2014
- Yes, Manufacturing Jobs Are Coming Back. But Will Progress Happen Fast Enough? • by elizabethbb • 08/18/2014
- Improving Our Railways: A Key Part of Rebuilding America • by elizabethbb • 08/14/2014
- Five Tests Walmart Must Pass to Show its 'Made In America' Street Cred • by spaul • 08/13/2014
- More Evidence the "Jobs Recovery" Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be • by elizabethbb • 08/12/2014
- More Work to Do, Indeed • by elizabethbb • 08/11/2014
- August 8, 2014: Maury is a close second to trade data in our book • by mmcmullan • 08/08/2014


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Apple Supports Right to Repair Bill in California
Apple has made headlines for lobbying against right to repair laws in recent years, but this week the company decided to express support for California's Right to Repair Act, SB 244.
As noted by repair site iFixit, Apple yesterday sent a letter to California senator Susan Talamantes Eggman urging the California legislature to adopt the bill.
SB 244 would require companies to provide customers with the tools to diagnose and repair consumer electronics and appliances. Apple has already launched a Self Service Repair program for iPhones and Macs, with this program offering customers repair kits, repair manuals, and components for repairs.
Apple likely meets the requirements of SB 244 with the Self Service Repair program and with the repair programs that it has for repair shops, including options to become Apple Authorized Service Providers and to receive parts through the Independent Repair Provider Program.
California's bill also says that service and repair facilities that are not authorized repair providers for a company must disclose if they're using replacement parts that are used or not from the manufacturer. That means an independent iPhone repair shop in California would be required to source parts from Apple or to inform customers that device repairs are done with counterfeit components or used parts.
Further, the bill has a component that prevents manufacturers from being required to make tools, parts, and documentation available for any component that would disable or override antitheft security measures, which would encompass features like Face ID.
Independent repair shops already have the option of purchasing components from Apple, but have complained that Apple forces them to sign invasive contracts. As for the Self Service Repair Program, the kits and components that Apple sells are not much more affordable than simply getting a repair from an Apple Store.
In its letter, Apple said that it would continue to support the bill so long as it provides "protections for customers and innovators." Apple highlights specific components of the bill that encompass the protections that it prefers.
Assurances that the bill would not threaten consumer safety and data security by requiring that manufacturers allow repair providers to disable device security features, many of which have been requested by law enforcement agencies and required by law to thwart theft,
Focus on requiring manufacturers obligations to provide the documentation, tools, and parts to enable the repairs performed by authorized repair channels, as opposed to a broader undefined scope of repairs which may compromise consumer physical safety, repair reliability, and device integrity,
Requirements that repair providers disclose the use of non-genuine or used parts, and
Prospective application that would allow manufacturers to focus on building new products that comply with the proposal.
Apple has not in the past supported Right to Repair legislation, but SB 244 is not as open-ended as some of the past repair bills that states have promoted, and is not a free pass for repair shops as it includes consumer protections that prevent repair facilities from surreptitiously using substandard repair components. The bill would require components, repair manuals, and other necessary repair information to be made available for seven years for any product that costs more than $99.99, a move that would also undoubtedly benefit California customers. The full letter that Apple sent in support of the bill is available to read on Scribd.