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Sam Holzschuh, Staff Reporter, @ocolly Feb 28, 2017 Updated 6 hrs ago
Stillwater city officials will celebrate a spike in revenue when Amazon starts collecting sales taxes Wednesday.
Amazon.com Inc. made a deal with Gov. Mary Fallin on Feb. 2 to begin collecting state sales tax. The company and Fallin agreed to add Oklahoma to the 39 other states where Amazon collects sales tax.
Stillwater citizens pay an 8.813 percent sales tax per dollar at businesses physically located in the city. Amazon will collect the same tax rate. The online retailer is expected to remit the collection in May, Fallin said.
Stillwater City Manager Norman McNickle is a proponent of taxing online retailers. He said Amazon, along with about 350 other internet retailers, has not been required to participate in Oklahoma taxes. Retailers in Stillwater need to adapt to the digital age but leveling the playing field between them and internet retailers is overdue, McNickle said.
“To a degree, it’s kind of complicated,” he said. “It’s just collect what we’re already due. That’s all I want.”
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According to reports, Samsung is preparing the first demonstration of the new "smart" watch Galaxy Watch 3 as part of Galaxy Unpacked 5
Interestingly, I published enough videoa large YouTube channel TechTalkTV, to which, at the time of this writing, more than 500 thousand people have already subscribed. In the video itself, the author shows and tells exactly what features the device will have.
So, apparently, the Galaxy Watch 3 reallywill receive a 1.2-inch screen in the 41 mm version, while the bezel will be rotatable and very thin. By redesigning the buttons, the new Samsung smartwatch has become more like a traditional watch, but it still has support for ECG recording, as well as IP68 water and dust resistance.

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Photo of the Week: Milking a Profit
April 01, 2011
Workers at the Nyala Dairy cooling plant process milk sourced from smallholder dairy farmers.
Workers at the Nyala Dairy cooling plant process milk sourced from smallholder dairy farmers. TechnoServe helped open the cooling plant in 2002, and the new activity has created jobs and revitalized the local economy in the town of Ndaragwa. Today, Nyala employs nearly 50 people, buys milk from 6,000 small-scale producers and has average annual sales of $2.5 million.
Related Blog Posts
TechnoServe is partnering with major coffee companies to clean polluted rivers in Ethiopia’s Sidama region. Find out how you can get involved!
The authors of the new book From Silicon Valley to Swaziland discuss their encore career in development work, and why they are donating the royalties from their book to TechnoServe.


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Highlights from TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco from PitchBook’s venture capital team: Dana Olsen and Kate Clark.
This is a live page, refresh for updates.
5:15 p.m. — Over and out. Now all we need to do is figure out what to wear to the TechCrunch Disrupt party tonight…
4:10 p.m. — Thought I saw a Winklevii. False alarm. -KC
4:00 p.m. — We’re sitting here wondering if the dog from earlier today is going to make a return appearance. Read more about the adorable animal in a post from TechCrunch, aptly titled “Let’s talk about Sebastian Thrun’s puppy.”
3:50 p.m. — “People say YC is too big. My worry is that we’re not nearly big enough,” says Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, one of the original tech accelerators. He thinks there’s room for many, many more startups in the world. “Maybe everyone else is right, but I don’t think so. [Y Combinator] has already been able to scale much more than I thought.” -DO
3:15 p.m. — Maureen Fan of VR animation company Baobab Studios talks AR, VR and gaming—and she comments on how to get more women into the tech industry: “I think it comes from the top down, from investors.” -DO
2:50 p.m. — Tiffani Ashley Bell, executive director of The Human Utility, is one of the participants in the “tech as a force for good” panel. Her company’s platform pays water bills & helps eliminate disconnections for low-income and elderly people. -DO
2:20 p.m. — Fashion-tech, marketing-tech, the blockchain, music-tech. There are dozens of companies from every sector in startup alley ready to tell you just how they will “disrupt” an industry. I chatted with Tommy Marquez, the founder of Chasyr, a ridehailing company that will soon operate on Ethereum, and sure enough, he’s ready to disrupt the ridehailing and payments industry. Here’s a glimpse of some of the other companies in startup alley today. -KC
2:00 p.m. — One of the only places I’ve ever been where the line for the men’s restroom is longer than it is for the women’s restroom. -DO
12:30 p.m. — It’s been a packed morning. Just before lunch, 23andMe co-founder & CEO Anne Wojcicki discusses her direct-to-consumer genetics testing startup. She focuses on business and glosses over the company’s recent $250 million fundraise: “Fundraising is important, but it’s kind of like the fuel in your car. It’s not that exciting. OK, we filled the tank.” -DO
11:45 a.m. — Awkward moment alert. Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen, the married co-founders of Houzz, take the stage. Moderator opens with: “Congratulations to you guys for staying together.” -DO
11:25 a.m. — KEVIN DURANT IS HERE! To be honest, I was a lot more excited to see Zach Woods of Silicon Valley yesterday, but this is pretty cool too. Wondering what the basketball star is doing here? We were too. Turns out his venture capital firm, the Durant Company, has been quite successful. It backs companies including delivery company Postmates and the investment app Acorns. -KC
11:00 a.m. — Lisa Jackson, VP of environment, policy and social initiatives at Apple, takes the stage. From her perspective as the former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama, she discusses how businesses can do well by doing good. “We can show that decisions that are sustainable and responsible are actually good business decisions.” -DO
10:05 a.m. — THE BEST THING THAT’S HAPPENED TODAY: Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun brought his dog. -DO
9:50 a.m. — “Technology should augment the human intellect, not replace it,” said John Giannandrea, senior VP of engineering at Google, on AI and machine learning. -DO
9:35 a.m. — GGV Capital managing partner Jenny Lee has come a long way since 2005, when she helped set up the VC in China and made her first investment with “a suitcase full of cash.” Today, she’s known as one of the top tech investors in the world. She talked on stage about the global intersection of tech companies: “The US and Chinese economies are not distinct.” -DO
9:20 a.m. — “Our first panel has to do with robotics, but it’s more yummy than you might think.” That’s how TechCrunch’s Jordan Crook introduced the first panel of the day: “Rise of the robo chefs” with Zume Pizza’s Julia Collins and Miso Robotics’ Dave Zito. The pair of developers of robotic kitchen assistants explained that their robots won’t replace jobs, as many worry. Rather, they’ll make kitchens more efficient. Oh, and Zume compared itself to Amazon. -KC
8:50 a.m. — We walk past AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, and check out the view of the harbor before settling into Day 2.
Follow PitchBook or Kate Clark on Twitter for live updates from TechCrunch Disrupt.
Article by PitchBook


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TOKYO • Japan's exports rose in April to mark its fifth straight month of gains, as shipments of semiconductors and steel expanded, signalling that more robust overseas demand could underpin a steady economic recovery.
Exports rose 7.5 per cent in April from a year ago, below the median estimate of 7.8 per cent annual growth, Japan's Finance Ministry data showed yesterday. It followed a 12 per cent rise in March.
The data also showed that Japan's trade surplus with the United States had narrowed.
Exports to the US increased 2.6 per cent in April from a year ago, gaining for the third straight month due to larger shipments of cars and auto parts.
But Japan's trade surplus with the US fell 4.2 per cent in April from a year ago to 586.7 billion yen (S$7.31 billion).
Japan's exports are expected to continue rising as global economic growth gains momentum, but concerns about US President Donald Trump's pledges to adopt protectionist trade policies cloud the outlook for export-reliant Japan.
"Japan's exports will continue growing, and imports will probably also rise as domestic production picks up," said Mr Norio Miyagawa, senior economist at Mizuho Securities.
Rise in exports in April, from a year ago.
Rise in exports to Asia in April, from a year ago.
The drop in Japan's trade surplus with the US, however, could take some pressure off Japan as it makes it more difficult for Mr Trump to justify criticising Japan for its trade practices.
Japan's economy grew in the first quarter at the fastest rate in a year to mark the longest period of expansion in a decade, thanks to solid exports and a helpful boost from private consumption.
In terms of volume, exports rose 4.1 per cent in April from a year ago, the third consecutive month of gains, another sign of overseas demand picking up. Exports to China rose 14.8 per cent year on year in April, the sixth straight month of gains, boosted by shipments of optical equipment, auto parts and steel.
Japan's exports to Asia rose 12.2 per cent year on year in April, also posting the sixth straight month of gains on increased shipments of semiconductors.
Imports surged 15.1 per cent versus the median estimate for a 14.8 per cent increase, rising for the fourth straight month on rising energy costs.
The overall trade balance came to a surplus of 481.7 billion yen, versus the median estimate for a 521 billion yen surplus.


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Fort Bend County Down Payment Assistance Anheuser-Busch sends canned water to flood-stricken Nebraska communities – Two truckloads of the canned water will be sent from the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, to Eagle Distributing in Fremont. The distributor will work with Omaha’s Quality Brands to.
In addition to eliminating the need for PMI, a 20% down payment on a house will qualify you for a slightly lower interest rate than a borrower who makes a smaller down payment. Another benefit is.
If you put 10% down, your down payment is 10% of that amount, or $30,000. A 20% down payment on that house would be $60,000. Some loan programs don’t require a down payment, but in most cases.
Statistics from the National Association of Realtors find that 87% of first-time home buyers believe they need a 10% minimum.
Many people believe they need a 20 percent down payment to buy a house, but it’s possible to purchase even a brand-new house with as little as 3.5 percent down – or even nothing down at all. A 2016 survey conducted for Wells Fargo found that 40 percent of U.S. adults held the mistaken belief that a 20 percent down payment was required to buy a home, even though many types of loans allow.
One important decision when buying a home is how big of a down payment you should make. We look at the required down payment for.
Additionally, the home buying institute estimates the range for an average down payment to be anywhere from 0 to 20 percent. A down payment of 20% or more reducing the need for expensive Private.
The Average Down Payment on a House Is Now Below 10% – For these reasons, the average down payment for a house is now about half what it was a generation ago. The median down payment in 2017 was 10 percent of the purchase price, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Down Payment Requirement For Fha Loan Another edition of mortgage match-ups: “fha vs. conventional loan.” Our latest bout pits FHA loans against conventional loans, both of which are popular home loan options for home buyers these days.. In recent years, fha loans surged in popularity, largely because subprime (and Alt-A) lending was all but extinguished as a result of the ongoing mortgage crisis.
If you are able to put this much down, you are not required by most lenders to pay private mortgage insurance (pmi – more below). In actuality, the average down payment on a house in 2016 was 11 percent. For borrowers under the age of 35, the average down payment was even smaller: 8 percent.
· At our company, we have worked out a new construction/permanent financing arrangement where buyers are able to put as little as 25% of the lot price as a down payment, plus $5000 for project start up, as opposed to 5% – 20% of the entire project cost.


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While mobile devices will be getting the new Angry Birds Star Wars II this fall, consoles will finally be getting the original Angry Birds Star Wars as well.
Rovio, the developer behind the Angry Birds series, today announced that Angry Birds Star Wars will be coming to consoles on October 29 (November 1 for Europe). The game will be released on all current consoles, including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. Retail boxed copies will be available in stores.
“Downloaded more than 100 million times since its release last year, Angry Birds Star Wars melds together two of the biggest names in pop-culture entertainment for an out of this galaxy gaming experience,” said Jami Laes, EVP of Games at Rovio Entertainment. “Angry Birds and Star Wars are franchises with millions of fans around the world and we’re excited to partner with Activision to bring the marriage of these beloved properties to gamers everywhere this holiday season.”
Rovio stated that Angry Birds Star Wars has been “remastered” for consoles. It now includes a 2-player cooperative multiplayer mode and a 2- to 4-player competitive multiplayer mode. The console version will also have 20 new exclusive levels and some unnamed “bonus content.”


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Amazon will host a free, live virtual event aimed at Alexa skill builders, device makers, startups, and business leaders on July 21. It’s called Alexa Live.
“Alexa Live is an event for Alexa skill builders, device makers, startups, and business leaders eager to learn about the power of ambient computing and the latest advancements in voice technology,” Amazon’s Jeff Blankenburg announced. “It’s my favorite time of the year because we not only get to showcase the latest product advancements, but also celebrate our diverse developer community—all of you who are innovating every day on behalf of customers.”
Alexa Live will include a keynote address plus dozens of breakout sessions, demos, and panels, Amazon says, all of it aimed at expanding the reach of what Amazon calls ambient computing.
“We believe ambient computing technology should always be available to make life easier and better for customers, without getting in their way,” Blankenburg continues. “Our vision is for Alexa to be an ambient assistant that is proactive, personal, and predictable—and it’s our mission to make Alexa available to delight customers everywhere they want her to be. The Alexa developer community is critical to helping us achieve our mission, and we’re focused on helping you create great customer experiences, drive growth for your skills and devices, and making it easier to develop for Alexa.”


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The International Exhibition on Products and Supplies for Medical, Pharmaceutical, Hospital and Rehabilitation will be held in HCM City in September with exhibitors from countries and territories that have advanced medical industries taking part.
Pharmed and Healthcare Vietnam 2020 will attract over 500 exhibitors from 25 countries and territories, including Germany, Belgium, the US, South Korea, Turkey, mainland China, Pakistan, India, Iran, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan.
To be held at the Sài Gòn Exhibition and Convention Centre from September 16 to 19, it will showcase the latest pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and devices, hospital and clinical facilities, beauty care equipment, drug manufacturing and packaging technologies, and others.
The 2019 Pharmed and Healthcare Vietnam held in HCM City. This year the expo will be held from September 16 to 19 at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre and is expected to attract over 500 exhibitors. — VNS Photo
According to the organisers, the exhibition will also seek to foster exchanges in those fields between Việt Nam and other countries. It would showcase Việt Nam’s latest achievements in those areas and help local companies market their products, seek investment and expand their market, they said.
As usual, it would include conferences and seminars addressed by leading experts in the medical and pharmaceutical, they said. A B2B business matching programme will be held to connect exhibitors and visitors.
Organised by Adpex Joint Stock Company, the Việt Nam Pharmaceutical Companies Association, and others, the annual exhibition is expected to welcome 15,000 visitors this year.


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Amazon is increasingly defining what entry-level labor now looks like in America.
“During the past year alone, Amazon has added about four hundred thousand employees in the U.S.”
When Amazon opened its second fulfillment center in the Baltimore region, in 2018, most anyone driving to it from the city arrived via Dundalk Avenue, which took them past a yellow brick building that was constructed in 1952 to house Local 2609 and 2610 of the United Steelworkers and an adjacent building that opened after Local 2610 moved into its own space.
By then, the buildings were mostly vacant, because the steel mill whose workers the union had represented had closed, in 2012, after a long, steady decline. The Bethlehem Steel works were once the largest in the world, an industrial sprawl on the Sparrows Point peninsula that employed some thirty thousand people, several thousand of whom lived in an adjoining company town. The work had been gruelling and frequently treacherous since the mill’s founding, in the eighteen-nineties: “Always More Production” was the slogan of Eugene Grace, Bethlehem Steel’s president from 1916 to 1945. And, in the early decades of the twentieth century, a disproportionate share of the fruits of the workers’ labor flowed to the top: Grace’s predecessor split his time between a mansion on Riverside Drive, in New York, which with seventy-five rooms and a dining salon that could seat two-hundred and fifty was the largest residence in the city, and a thousand-acre, eighteen-building estate in Pennsylvania, which required a staff of seventy and included a replica of a farming village in Normandy.
“In the early decades of the twentieth century, a disproportionate share of the fruits of the workers’ labor flowed to the top:”
But the work had become safer and far better paid by the nineteen-fifties, for one basic reason: in 1941, employees had voted to join the union. The unionization effort took half a century and had been met with fierce resistance from mill management, which had armed company police with several boxcars’ worth of submachine guns, rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, and deployed an endless stream of anti-union messaging. “Outsiders have not been necessary in the past,” read one company manifesto. “Nothing has happened to make them necessary now.”
What allowed a free union election at Sparrows Point to finally go forward was the Second World War and the company’s fear of losing out on military contracts from the labor-friendly Roosevelt Administration. Nearly seventy per cent of workers voted for the union. “We got more money, that was important, sure,” one of them told the journalist Mark Reutter. “But we got respect more, that was number one.”
Today, eighty years later, the mill and the company town have been wiped almost entirely off of Sparrows Point. In their place stands a thirty-one-hundred-acre business park, which includes the Amazon fulfillment center. Workers there have, in a sense, returned to the point in the economic cycle where the steelworkers of the early twentieth century had been. In the fall of 2018, the wage for Amazon workers started at about fourteen dollars an hour, about a third of what rank-and-file workers had been making at the steel mill in its final years. They would be working for a company that was synonymous with extreme inequality. Its C.E.O. had just become the richest man in the world, and he, too, had a taste for luxury real estate, with holdings that included the most expensive residence in Washington, D.C., on which he had spent thirty-five million dollars, and which contained twenty-five bathrooms. They would be at far less risk of serious injury, but they would face extraordinarily high demands from a company that had, essentially, adopted “Always More Production” as its own mantra, except that production, in this case, was not making steel for bridges, tunnels, and skyscrapers, but rather stowing and picking and packing products made elsewhere.
“The unionization effort took half a century and had been met with fierce resistance from mill management.”
And these workers would, like those initial generations at the Point, lack union representation. That, too, had been swept off the peninsula.
These were the stakes, then, for the union election held over the past two months at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama (a town named for the British inventor who devised the modern steelmaking process): Would it be the first step in giving the cycle of economic history a new turn, and bringing today’s logistics work closer to the compensation and respect commanded by the manufacturing work that had preceded it? Work in an Amazon warehouse has not only replaced manufacturing at Sparrows Point but has also replaced it, more generally, as a new mass-employment option for Americans without a college degree or specialized training. During the past year alone, Amazon has added about four hundred thousand employees in the U.S., to handle the great pandemic e-commerce surge, bringing the company’s total U.S. workforce to more than eight hundred thousand, second only to Walmart—and that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of drivers, who, despite delivering Amazon packages in Amazon trucks and wearing Amazon jerseys, are technically employed as contractors.
Amazon is increasingly defining what entry-level labor now looks like in America, not least because the company’s dominance across so many sectors of the economy is leading rivals to adopt its ways. This new form of work has replaced countless brick-and-mortar retail jobs, but it is more physically taxing than those jobs; it is also less remunerative and purposeful than much of the assembly-line work it more closely resembles. The jobs are highly repetitive and relentless, and have become only more so as the warehouses have become further automated, with more robots for workers to keep pace with and more surveillance tools to track their performance. The jobs are also highly isolating, a situation made worse by the pandemic, when people who had once worked together were spaced out to deter contagion. In addition to raising pay, which now starts at slightly above fifteen dollars an hour, one of the chief goals of union activism at the company has been to ratchet back the relentlessness and make the jobs more sustainable; as it now stands, many warehouses experience a-hundred-per-cent turnover per year. “They feel like they’re robots being managed by other robots, where every motion they make is monitored, where they’re expected to maintain an unbearable pace, where Amazon seems to dehumanize them,” Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said.
“This new form of work has replaced countless brick-and-mortar retail jobs.”
Workers at the Bessemer warehouse contacted the R.W.D.S.U. in late summer of last year about wanting to hold a union vote. In November, the union announced that it had collected enough cards of support to hold an election. This was a major breakthrough at Amazon, where unions had previously mustered only one election, a failed effort, in 2014, to organize a small group of technicians at a warehouse in Delaware. Amid widespread amazement that the first election at a full Amazon warehouse would be taking place in the Deep South, there were also skeptical rumblings from many veterans of organized labor about the R.W.D.S.U.’s decision to forge ahead. The skeptics noted the ominous signs, most notably the fact that the company had succeeded in defining the size of the warehouse unit more broadly than the union had expected, including supervisory types and temporary workers in the group, which would make it harder for the union to achieve a majority.
It was also inauspicious that so few workers were willing to go public with their support for the union, by signing petitions or wearing buttons or otherwise, which many organizers consider essential for exuding confidence and momentum, but which R.W.D.S.U. organizers had judged too risky, given Amazon’s reputation for retaliating against activist workers. “If you cannot create a credible internal organization that is willing to be out front with the boss, you lose,” Peter Olney, the former organizing director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, who, in 2008, led a successful fight to organize workers at a large Rite Aid warehouse in Los Angeles County, said. He wondered whether a better approach than union elections at warehouses was, for now, to focus on strikes and other work disruptions at key points in the Amazon supply chain, not unlike what autoworkers had pulled off in sit-down strikes in Atlanta, Cleveland, and Flint, in 1936 and 1937, which led to the United Auto Workers’ first contracts with General Motors.
“Few workers were willing to go public with their support for the union, by signing petitions or wearing buttons or otherwise.”
Meanwhile, Amazon was pulling out the stops: pressing the Postal Service to install a mailbox outside the warehouse for workers to drop off ballots, which the union said gave the impression that the company was monitoring votes; changing the timing of stoplights near the facility, to make it harder for organizers to approach workers as they left work; and, above all, delivering a stream of anti-union messages in mandatory workplace meetings. “They were cool. They were just telling us what the union did,” Jeremiah Okai, a nineteen-year-old Amazon worker, told the labor reporter Mike Elk. As for “what the union did,” workers’ comments suggested that the company’s version elided that, in a so-called “right-to-work” state like Alabama, workers could choose whether or not to pay dues to the union. “They’re going to take money away from me,” Okai said. “And I don’t want no money taken away from me.”
“Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here,” an 1891 headline in Baltimore’s labor newspaper about the new steel mill at Sparrows Point read. Workers had to sign a “Conditions of Employment” slip that listed “agitation” and “insubordination” as grounds for firing, and those living in the company town risked losing their home if they were seen as being too restive. For years, Bethlehem Steel staved off worker and government pressure for more workplace representation by trumpeting its in-house “employee representation plan,” claiming that as many as ninety-seven per cent of workers had voted in its favor.
As word came in last week of the R.W.D.S.U.’s decisive loss in Bessemer—1,798 to 738, with another five hundred or so ballots still under challenge by Amazon—there was this consolation for organizers and their allies: these things took time, all the more so when the employer was as enormous as this one. Still, the numbers were stark, especially when one considered that barely half of the 5,876 workers who were eligible had even bothered to take part in the election.
Amazon seized on the results as evidence that employees were not nearly as unhappy with work conditions as organizers made out. “The union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true,” the company said. “Amazon didn’t win—our employees made the choice to vote against joining a union.” And there were instant critiques of the union’s performance, growing out of those earlier rumbles: that it had forged on even after the pool of eligible voters included so many supervisors, that it had inadequately rebutted Amazon’s claims about paying dues, that it had failed to make house calls to workers out of excessive caution about covid-19.
Appelbaum rejected these critiques when I spoke with him by phone on Sunday night. “There are a lot of armchair quarterbacks who were nowhere to be found in providing advice during the campaign,” he said. “To say, ‘We should have backed away,’ can you imagine what message that would have sent to the workers that desperately wanted us to come?” He was resolute that the effort had paid off. “I’m proud of the fact that we put the ball farther down the field than anyone has before,” he said. “We have shined a spotlight on working conditions at Amazon. The scrutiny of its labor practices is not going to go away.”
“I’m proud of the fact that we put the ball farther down the field than anyone has before.”
He was not alone in finding a bright side. Dania Rajendra, the director of the anti-Amazon coalition Athena, said that “phones had been ringing off the hook” as a result of the Bessemer push. “It’s a very helpful thing for more people to understand what collectively we’re all up against,” she said. One such major obstacle, she noted, was the group of existing laws around labor organizing, which tilted the field toward employers, helping explain why fewer than seven per cent of private-sector workers now belong to a union. (The House passed a bill last month to protect organizing, but it’s not expected to survive the Senate.)
Even Olney, despite his earlier critiques of the organizing effort in Bessemer, was reluctant to declare the election a total loss. “There were obviously a lot of problems,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s important to salute the effort and impact that this had.” He told me that he was suddenly hearing far more interest from young labor activists about taking on Amazon than he had before. “It’s having reverberations.”
Still, it’s hard not to recall again the example of Sparrows Point, and what it was that had allowed workers there finally to succeed in joining the union: the Second World War and the company’s desire to profit from it. President Joe Biden took a major step ahead of the Bessemer vote by releasing a video affirming the right to free union elections, but he lacks the sweeping influence commanded by Roosevelt during wartime. One can’t help but wonder what sort of transformational event or outside force it would take to have a similar effect on Amazon and its workers, after this cataclysmic year that served to make the company only that much larger and more dominant.
This article is a collaboration between The New Yorker and ProPublica.
This article previously appeared in The New Yorker.
[Alec MacGillis, a reporter for ProPublica, is the author of “Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America.”]
Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport
Or, you can comment by emailing us at [email protected]


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Yes, we can be very proud of our Flemish Games Industry. Revenue is growing year after year. More and more people are working in our industry, more and more games are being released. But let’s not forget we still have a long way to go. Wanna know how are colleagues in Sweden are doing? Check out their games industry report 2014 containing 2013 figures and facts.
Some key highlights:
- Revenues of Swedish game developers increased by 76 percent to EUR 752 million in 2013.
- The majority of the companies are profitable and the industry has reported a total profit for five years running.
- Employment increased by 29 per cent, or 567 full time positions, to a total of 2,534 employees.
- The proportion of women increased by 38 percent, compared with 27 percent for men.
- The average annual growth rate (CAGR) 2006-2013 is 39 percent.
- 30 new companies have been added, which, after deducting the companies that have dissolved, amounts to 170 active companies – an increase of 17 percent.
Congrats to our Swedish colleagues!


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A monthly measure of confidence among small business owners has retreated on less upbeat expectations for capital spending, sales and a host of other factors.
The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index retreated 4.2 points to 94.1 in June. With the decline, the index has slipped back below the long-term average of 98.
“June terminated a promising string of improvements in owner optimism during the first months of the year,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist of the NFIB. “While it is not a disaster or a signal of a looming recession, it is a disappointing sign that economic growth on Main Street is not set for a strong second half of growth. The weakness was substantial across the board, showing no signs of a growth spurt in the near future.”
The NFIB bases the index on the results of monthly surveys of members of the small business advocacy group. For June, nine out of 10 components of the index declined. Expected declines in capital spending, sales, business conditions and earnings accounted for 75 percent of the overall drop in the index.
The proportion of small business owners responding to the survey upon which the June index was based who expect the economy to improve dropped six points to a net negative 9 percent. The means more owners anticipate worsening than improving conditions.
The share of owners planning capital outlays over the next three to six months slipped two points to 23 percent. The portion of owners who consider now a good time to expand fell five points to 9 percent.
A net 9 percent of owners reported plans to increase staffing, down three points from May and the lowest reading since September. A net 24 percent of owners reported hard-to-fill job openings in June, down five points.
The net percentage of owners planning to add to inventories fell eight points to a negative 4 percent in response to expectations for weaker sales. The share of owners who said existing inventories were too low declined four points to a net negative 4 percent.
The portion of owners who expect higher sales retreated three points to a net 4 percent. A net 10 percent of owners cited poor sales as the single most important problem facing their businesses, fourth behind taxes, government regulations and quality of labor.
The share of owners reporting higher earnings tumbled 10 points to a net negative 17 percent.


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Decrypt’s Art, Fashion, and Entertainment Hub.
Square CEO Jack Dorsey today confirmed via Twitter (the other company at which he is CEO) that the payments company plans to build ahardware wallet.
Square's head of product development Jesse Dorogusker first tweeted that the company has "decided to build a hardware wallet and service to make bitcoin custody more mainstream." Dorsey retweeted it and added, "We're doing it."
Dorsey had said last month that the firm was merely "considering" building a Bitcoin wallet "entirely in the open, from software to hardware design."
Bitcoin hardware wallets, also known as "cold" wallets (because they're not connected to the Web, i.e. "hot"), work like a flash drive exclusively for cryptocurrencies. They maintain security by allowing people to store their private keys offline. Ledger and Trezor are two of the top hardware wallet makers, so Square already has serious competition.
But the product would not necessarily be a departure for the company. Although it's known for its payment processing software for small businesses, Square has also produced its own sleekly designed terminals and chip readers for point-of-sale payments. Moreover, its person-to-person Venmo competitor, Cash App, already allows Bitcoin purchases and sales.
Dorsey, and by extension Square, have several times stated their commitment to Bitcoin. The CEO appeared at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, for example, and the company has purchased over 8,000 BTC ($262 million) for its balance sheet.
In its Q4 2020 earnings statement in February, it said the company "believes that cryptocurrency is an instrument of economic empowerment, providing a way for individuals to participate in a global monetary system and secure their own financial future."
Dorsey clearly hopes Square customers will help secure that future by using Square's hardware wallet.


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Last week took the stock market by storm. The fundamentals went for a toss, as Redditors assembled and targeted unpopular stocks that hedge funds mostly short. These retail investors forced hedge funds to cover their losses through a short squeeze. Before January, there was the Bitcoin frenzy, as hedge funds poured in millions of dollars on this cryptocurrency. These short-term frenzies were not running on fundamentals but speculation. If you are lucky enough, you made a huge profit or suffered a huge loss.
Why am I pessimistic about the short squeeze?
BlackBerry (TSX:BB)(NYSE:BB) stock more than tripled between January 1 and 27 to a 10-year high of over $30. Looking at BlackBerry’s fundamentals, it will take the stock another six to 10 years to cross the $30 mark and maintain it.
If you’d bought the stock during this rally, which no news or business contract could justify, then you might have lost, as the stock fell 40% by January 29 to $18.8. This is what a short squeeze does. It’s a pure gamble. Those who bought the stock at its fundamentally right valuation of $10 were in the money during this entire frenzy. Don’t get swayed by these short-term tricks.
Amid this short squeeze, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke tweeted, “Reminder that short-and-distort sellers don’t build anything. Companies build things. The people in them build things.” Shopify has built its stock price to what it is today. Just like Shopify, there is another high-growth stock that has surged more than seven-fold in less than a year and has even justified its rally with revenue growth.
A high-growth stock that justifies a seven-fold rally
Lightspeed POS (TSX:LSPD)(NYSE:LSPD) stock surged 625% from its March 2020 low, as the pandemic accelerate its growth. The company provides omnichannel commerce solutions like order, delivery, marketing, payment, and inventory. Its target audience is small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the retail and hospitality sectors.
Before the pandemic, the stores didn’t feel the need to have a digital presence. Those who did have a digital presence had a legacy on-premise software. But the pandemic created the need for a cloud-based omnichannel presence, wherein retailers could run multiple stores from one location, given the lockdown rules. Customers wanted services that maintain social distancing like curbside pickup, online shopping and payments, and order ahead.
Lightspeed accelerated its development cycle and introduced a platform that caters to these needs. It introduced eCom for restaurants, Order Ahead, Lightspeed Subscription, and pushed Lightspeed Payments. The company saw a reversal in its churn rates, as stores and restaurants reopened in the COVID-19 economy.
Lightspeed also accelerated its push into the United States. The company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and acquired ShopKeep and Upserve. All this happened in nine months, during which its revenue surged 60% compared to last year. The two acquisitions will add about US$90 million in annual revenue. Add the organic revenue to it, and Lightspeed revenue more than doubled in 2020.
Does Lightspeed stock has more growth potential?
Lightspeed is a high-growth software-as-a-service (SaaS) stock, and the apt way to value such stocks is through their revenue growth. The stock is trading at 68 times its sales per share. This is a high valuation, but wait till the company releases its fiscal third-quarter earnings on February 4. These earnings will include the revenue from ShopKeep and Upserve.
Lightspeed guided revenue of up to $47 million for the fiscal third quarter, representing a year-over-year growth of 45.5%. But the company has a history of outperforming, and there is a high possibility that its revenue will surge 50% to $48.5 million or more. Moreover, the two new acquisitions will increase its revenue by another 50% or above. The high sales per share will correct the high valuation.
The biggest challenge for Lightspeed is to increase its revenue this year as the pandemic impact fades. One question that all e-commerce stocks face is, how does the growth look in the post-pandemic economy? Lightspeed is looking to face this challenge with its new Suppliers Network.
Lightspeed stock may not be able to replicate its 600% rally, but it will grow through innovation and acquisition.
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Fool contributor Puja Tayal has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Shopify and Shopify. The Motley Fool owns shares of Lightspeed POS Inc. The Motley Fool recommends BlackBerry and BlackBerry.


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LG hardly plays a significant role in the telecom market these days. Nevertheless, we are always looking forward to new models, because every now and then the South Koreans knows how to surprise us in a positive way. Moreover, LG often tackles things in a slightly different way than the rest. Equipping a flagship with a headphone port, for example.
These are four microphones for multidirectional sound, a large 5000 mAh battery and a headphone port. With this, LG is clearly committed to high-quality audio qualities. We also see four cameras on the back. Bad news for those who like transparent phones; that color option will not be available soon. The pictures shown here are for illustrative purposes only.
V60 ThinQ announcement
LG has yet to officially announce the V60 ThinQ. Earlier it was thought that the launch would take place in September 2019 around the IFA. That date came and went but a V60 ThinQ launch failed. LG already announced that there will be another 2nd screen cover. It is still uncertain whether LG has plans to bring the V60 to the Netherlands. The V50 ThinQ never came out of this.


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The UK SME specialist bank enjoyed impressive gains in ‘The Banker’s Top 500 Banking Brands’ report for 2020.
Shawbrook Bank has been named as one of the world’s top climbers by Brand Value in a report that assesses the global banking industry.
Shawbrook, a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) specialist lender with operations across the UK, performed favourably in ‘Top 500 Banking Brands’ report.
Published by ‘The Banker’ – a Financial Times-owned publication – the report looks at the global banking industry and the brand performance of the institutions within it each year.
Shawbrook was placed second globally in the table of top 20 climbers by rank, moving up 133 places to 366th. It also added 73% to its brand value, which earns it a spot in the top 20 global climbers by brand value table.
The report states that the Bank, which was launched in 2011, had reaped the benefits of a brand refresh in 2018.
Richard Armstrong, Group Head of Marketing at Shawbrook Bank, says success can be attributed to a return to the bank’s roots. “We are a specialist bank for SMEs. We decided to shrink our product portfolio and move out of the more vanilla markets,” he adds.
Shawbrook’s best brand campaign started off as an internal campaign, according to Mr Armstrong, featuring quotes from staff, talking about who they are and what they do. “We did a bit of word play with imagery of what they do in their spare time,” he explains. One example is 'specialists dive deeper', with an image of a technical cave diver. “We are illustrating that deep relationships, sector knowledge and attention to detail is what enables us to deal with complex scenarios,” adds Mr Armstrong.
The bank’s marketing plan for 2020 is to be “much louder” with more brand promotion activity, both digitally and in trade publications. It will also continue producing reports for specific industries, such as buy-to-let and commercial property. “We are using our insights to position ourselves as industry experts,” says Mr Armstrong.
For the first time since the aftermath of global financial crisis, the aggregate value of The Banker’s Top 500 Banking Brands ranking – which stands at $1327bn this year – has contracted, albeit by just over 2%. However, this is quite a reversal in fortune compared with the double-digit growth seen in recent years.
You can read the report in full by visiting The Banker’s website.


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Your Master List of 100+ Black-Owned Fashion Brands and Businesses to Shop
To support today and every day.
On June 1, Brother Vellies founder Aurora James called on major retailers — including Sephora, Whole Foods and Walmart — to commit to purchasing 15 percent of their products from Black-owned businesses. In conjunction with her statement, the Brooklyn-based designer launched the 15 Percent Pledge, a petition and initiative raising awareness of the importance, and mainstream omission, of Black entrepreneurs.
The official 15 Percent Pledge Instagram highlights often-overlooked statistics regarding the effect of COVID-19 on Black-owned businesses, as well as wage disparities between White and Black workers — all the result of deeply entrenched systemic racism. For example, 21 percent of Black-owned businesses don’t think they will survive the coronavirus pandemic, while only 5 percent of White businesses said the same of themselves.
James’ proposed pledge has the potential to effect change from the top down. By actively increasing Black representation at their stores, retailers could set off several important chain reactions — first, banks would take Black-owned businesses seriously, leading to increased investment. Small Black-owned businesses would grow into big ones, inspiring other Black businesspeople to found their own companies. Black businesses owners could then reinvest their profit back into the Black community, creating a full circle ecosystem.
As major corporations issue statements on the killing of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter protests take place across the United States, and the larger fight for racial equality continues, companies must take action in addition to paying lip service. James told Forbes, “It is not just about looking at your friend group and saying, ‘Ok, I only have this many friends out of 100 who are Black’ and then focusing on making more Black friends. It is more about asking what kind of culture you’ve created in your own life that has been so singular that you don’t have people of color in your life.”
To help consumers commit to purchasing from Black-owned businesses small and large, HYPEBAE has compiled a master list of over 100 Black-owned fashion brands and stores. Keep scrolling for the roundup.
From unisex streetwear to womenswear to suiting, Black designers are aplenty yet still largely written out of mainstream fashion. In addition to recognizable labels such as Christopher John Rogers, Heron Preston and Pyer Moss, emerging talent such as No Sesso, Bianca Saunders and Muehleder are worth keeping your eye on and even better, purchasing from.
ALL CAPS STUDIO
Brett Johnson Co.
Christopher John Rogers
Fear of God
House of Aama
Joe Fresh Goods
No Vacancy Inn
Onyii & Co.
Places + Faces
Royal Jelly Harlem
The Brooklyn Circus
The Good Company
The Marathon Clothing
Total Luxury Spa
X Of Pentacles
Bags, shoes and sunglasses — look to the below brands for all your accessory needs. For those in the market for a new handbag, ASHYA and Vavvoune specialize in high-quality leather purses accented with gold hardware. Brother Vellies, helmed by the aforementioned 15 Percent Pledge founder Aurora James, boasts playful footwear including shearling stiletto boots and feathered heels.
Coco and Breezy Eyewear
Ranging from budget-friendly to seriously luxurious, the below Black-owned jewelry brands cater to a variety of tastes and styles. New York-based designer Martine Ali has made a name for herself with edgy chain-based chokers and bracelets while Mateo takes a more delicate approach with diamond-encrusted earrings and pearl pendants.
Lingerie and Swim
Savage X Fenty isn’t the only Black-owned lingerie brand out there. Love, Vera also specializes in size-inclusive bras, underwear and bodysuits in lace colorways. As for swimwear, look to Andrea Iyamah’s bikinis and Jade Swim‘s minimalist one-pieces and more.
For curated selections of vintage, streetwear and more, check out the below stockists. Kym Chambers of Chambers Vintage sources women’s vintage and donates a portion of proceeds to The Southern Poverty Law Center while UNION LOS ANGELES founders Chris Gibbs and Beth Birkett have been dubbed “the first family of streetwear” by GQ.


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US fashion and lifestyle brand Anthropologie will open its first store in Spain on 1 February, at 27 Pasea de Gracia in Barcelona.
The 1,800 sq ft store will span across two floors and offer womenswear, accessories and homeware.
The brand, owned by retail group URBN, currently has 200 stores worldwide. URBN’s other brands include Urban Outfitters and Free People.
Peter Ruis, international executive director of Anthroplogie said: “To come to such an innovative and dynamic city feels very natural to us. We know from our website and stores in London that our style attracts a lot of Spanish consumers, so opening a dedicated store seemed like a logical step.”
Anthropologie contributed $385m (£297m) in sales to the parent company’s £974m (£751m) revenues for the third quarter of 2018 to 31 October.


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AES will conduct a series of sessions with We Make Events North America, AudioNowCast, Carl Tatz Design and The Recording Academy.
Zoom has sold more than 1 million Zoom Phone seats after just under two years of the product being generally available.
Logitech’s new Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini can natively support videoconferencing applications, or they can connect via USB to endpoints.
Recent survey of high-tech employees shows that, while many are less productive outside the office, some have thrived.
To support the increasingly remote and hybrid workforce, organizations need to invest more in endpoint hardware, IDC and Poly study says.
Dell next month is releasing new monitors that it says are the world’s first video conferencing monitors certified for Microsoft Teams.
Venues such as theme parks and houses of worship can create password-protected audio channels in updated Listen EVERYWHERE platform.
Emerging trends in pro AV like AV-as-a-Service and AV-over-IP can take some of the security burden off of your customers’ shoulders.
Some of the most prominent people in AV and IT share their AV industry predictions & thoughts on where integrators should concentrate.
CI Summit panelists say 5G, 8K and 16K, augmented and virtual reality and a continued push for service models will carry AV integrators.
Organizations are seeing a boon when implementing AV over IP technology, and integrators are finding happy customers when installing AV over IP. In this webinar, you’ll learn exactly why you need AV over IP.
The one-hour webinar will discuss the basics of fiber cable, as well as how its bandwidth capabilities support today’s and tomorrow’s AV formats, and guidelines for specifying and installing fiber products.


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TUSTIN, Calif. (KABC) — Nail salons are among the businesses hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, and while thousands of salons across Southern California are closed, many owners have come together to try to give back in another way.
From hand-washing to wearing masks, here’s how to protect yourself
“That’s the only time I’ve felt this much hurt. This much sorrow, this much pain,” said Nguyen.
Nguyen is now working with nail salon owners and their suppliers to turn a negative into a positive for others.
“You have no business, you don’t know how to make rent, you’re out of money and you look at your stockpile and because you have something of value to the hospitals, you go and you give it,” Nguyen said. “They’re giving it.”
“We’re all just kind of collaborating to get the word out. We have lot of family members who are on the front lines as well as friends,” said Christie Nguyen, owner of Studio 18 Nail Bar.


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Rep. Chu Introduces Bill to Drive Economic Opportunity for Entrepreneurs
WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, Rep. Judy Chu (CA-32) introduced a bill to provide low-income start-up companies with financial and business assistance. The Entrepreneur Startup Growth Act provides self-employed individuals with tax support and business development.
"Economists point to young developing businesses as the key drivers of economic growth. On average each year about one third of the jobs created in this country are a result of new startup businesses. These entrepreneurs take risks and make it on their own," Rep. Chu said. "The most critical time of the year for these new owners is tax season, as they learn how to comply with the different tax standards for businesses. The Entrepreneur Startup Growth Act turns this tough time into an opportunity by offering affordable business tax assistance in conjunction with business development services so these companies can continue to grow and create jobs."
The Entrepreneur Startup Growth Act builds on the Self-Employment Tax Initiative launched by CFED, a nonprofit economic opportunity organization. The legislation creates a grant program that would offer free business tax preparation services to low-income, self-employed individuals who file a schedule C tax return. This will help their businesses grow and promote asset-building for low-income households.
"This program will help entrepreneurs save money and ensure that they access all the tax credits for which they are eligible,” continued Rep. Chu. “By building their economic security and helping them grow their business we drive American job growth.”
9.8 million self-employed individuals – nearly two-thirds of all self-employed people – operate business startups; unincorporated businesses less than five years old that are still in their developing stages and feature just one employee, the business owner himself. Startups, in their first year of existence, create an average of 3 million jobs per year. Nearly all net job creation since 1980 occurred in small business startups less than five years old.


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Amazon to add 500 full-time jobs at Lexington County fulfillment center
More jobs are coming to Lexington County, this time at an existing industry.
Amazon announced the addition of 500 full-time jobs at its fulfillment center in Cayce. The center has brought more than 1,500 jobs since it opened in 2011 and is hiring now to meet growing customer demand.
“For a company like Amazon to make the decision to expand its operations in South Carolina, it is a special source of pride and a reason to celebrate because it proves what we already know – that we have a world class work force and competitive business environment,” said Gov. Nikki Haley.
New hires will pick, pack and ship customer orders.
“Like the rest of the country, the Midlands community was also impacted by the recession, so it is wonderful to see major employers expanding their job force. Having Amazon in our backyard is a signal of great things for our local and national economy. It’s a win-win for everyone,” said Lexington Mayor Steve MacDougall.
“Putting 500 more people to work is a benefit to the city of Cayce and all of the Midlands,” Cayce Mayor Elise Parton said. “We are excited for this continued growth in jobs and economic development.”
Employees will receive competitive wages and immediately will be eligible for comprehensive benefits that include health insurance, 401(k) with 50 percent match, bonuses and company stock awards. Amazon also offers full-time employees programs like Career Choice, in which the company will pre-pay up to 95 percent of tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.
Interested candidates can apply at here.


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September 18, 2020
After much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth, NBCUniversal and Roku have signed a deal that will bring Peacock, NBCU's new streaming service, to Roku's platform. The deal will ensure that dozens of other NBCU apps remain on the platform, too.
Update: NBCU and Roku announced Monday (September 21) that the Peacock app is now available nationwide on the Roku platform.
Financial terms and length of the new deal were not disclosed, but Roku noted that the new pact paves the way for NBC content to be offered on The Roku Channel, Roku's free, ad-supported content aggregation service. The new deal resolved an advertising-related standoff amid Roku's desire for NBCU and Peacock to supply content to The Roku Channel and to secure some ad inventory on the new Peacock service itself. It's not yet clear if Roku got everything it wanted.
"We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Comcast that will bring Peacock to Roku customers and maintains access to NBCU's TV Everywhere apps," a Roku spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "We look forward to offering these new options to consumers under an expanded, mutually beneficial relationship between our companies that includes adding NBC content to The Roku Channel and a meaningful partnership around advertising."
"We are pleased Roku recognizes the value in making NBCUniversal's incredible family of apps and programming, including Peacock, available to all of their users across the country," NBCU said in a statement. "More than 15 million people signed up for Peacock since its national launch in July and we are thrilled millions more will now be able to access and enjoy Peacock along with other NBCUniversal apps on their favorite Roku devices. Roku's incredible reach will not only help us ensure Peacock is available to our fans wherever they consume video but continue to expand NBCUniversal's unrivaled digital presence across platforms."
The deal comes together as NBCU was close to pulling down 46 of its apps, including those delivering content from NBC stations, NBCU-owned cable networks and Telemundo stations. NBCU's distribution deal for the programmer's TV Everywhere apps with Roku expired at the end of August.
That prior deal, which centered on dozens of authenticated TV Everywhere apps that require pay-TV subscriptions, was being extended on an ad hoc basis while Roku and NBCU continued negotiations on Peacock.
The deal gives Peacock entry to a major streaming platform that's been missing from the list. Peacock launched nationally on July 15 and has 15 million-plus sign-ups. The Peacock streaming app has three service tiers: an ad-free, premium offer for $9.99 per month; an ad-supported, premium tier for $4.99 per month (both with 20,000 hours of programming); and a completely free, ad-based version featuring 13,000 hours of content.
Peacock is also offered on several other major streaming platforms, including Google (Chromecast, Android and Android TV), Amazon (Fire TV) and Apple (tvOS and iOS), as well as on certain Cox set-tops and Comcast's X1 and Xfinity Flex boxes.
— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading
Senior Editor, Light Reading
Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.
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The birth of the iPhone 7 saw the introduction of a few new innovations by Apple such as the removal of the 3.5mm audio jack which it replaced with the lightning connector, doubling as the iPhone’s charging port. There is also the inclusion of a virtual home button replacing the physical home button that previous iPhones had featured. Now, early details have emerged that Apple is planning even more innovations on the iPhone 8 which would launch next year when Apple marks the 10th anniversary of its iPhone’s debut.
The new details which had earlier featured in rumors were contained inside a review of the new iPhone 7 done by a writer at New York Times. According to the reviewer, Apple is very much likely to continue manufacturing iPhones without the 3.5mm headphone jacks. The writer also disclosed in the article that next year’s iPhone 8 will have a full-screen face with the virtual button built directly into the display. This leaked information was attributed to two insiders at Apple, who declined to be quoted because the information about the product are supposed to still be private. Apple also refused to comment on the leaked info.
Even before the release of the iPhone 7, rumors about the iPhone 8 having an edge-to-edge display had been in the open but coming from inside sources, this may likely be a confirmation that the iPhone 8 might take a leap from its predecessors in design and features. The iPhone 8 is also earlier rumored to see a transition by Apple from LCD to OLED displays said to be supplied by Samsung. The front camera and fingerprint sensor / home button will be embedded on the display, and a more faster A11 chip which would bolt faster than the blazing A10 chipset is also touted.
The iPhone 8 will likely be launched in the fall of 2017 and that’s a long time away from now. Enough time for more detailsand rumors about the next Apple flagship to surface.


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Macau’s tourist price index recorded a year-on-year increase of 0.7 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to data released on Monday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
The index reflects price changes in goods and services typically purchased by visitors but excludes gaming. The majority of gamblers in Macau’s casinos are tourists.
The statistics bureau said the slight year-on-year increase in the index for the first three months was partly related to “higher charges for hotel accommodation and restaurant services”.
Price indicators for hotel accommodation increased by 3.7 percent year-on-year in the three months to March 31, while those for food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco were up nearly 3.3 percent, stated the Statistics and Census Service.
A separate set of data released recently by the Macao Government Tourism Office – citing figures from the Macau Hotel Association – showed that the average room rate of the city’s three-star to five-star hotels stood at MOP1,379.70 (US$170.8) for the first two months this year, representing a 1.9 percent year-on-year increase.
Compared with the previous quarter, Macau’s tourist price index for the first three months of 2019 went down nearly 1.4 percent.
Judged on an annualised basis – i.e., measured across the 12 months to March 31 this year compared to the equivalent prior period – the index was up by 0.6 percent.
Sep 13, 2019The Macau government says it collected MOP76.47 billion (US$9.49 billion) in tax revenue from the city’s gaming industry in the first eight months this year. The tax revenue collected from the...
Sep 13, 2019
”After concluding 20 years of experience in gaming development, we can retain the good parts. Meanwhile, we have to face up to the problems that arose, study them and plug the loopholes”
Ho Iat Seng
Macau’s Chief Executive-designate


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DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA BATMAN! Baby boomers all remember the great 1966 Batman TV program with Adam West and Burt Ward as the Dynamic Duo. Now they have a chance to get their own Batmobile.
KOOL 103.9 will be auctioning off an original painting of the 1960s classic Batmobile by Jonathan Ribera at this year’s Cache Valley Cruise-In. Silent bids will be accepted on the painting Friday and Saturday at the Cache County Fairgrounds and 100% the money is going to Options for Independence. Cruise-In attendees will also have the opportunity to purchase 11×14 prints of the painting.
Dave Denton, program director of KOOL 103.9, says, “the great thing about this is that it is all tax deductible and all the money raised will go to Options for Independence. The station will be broadcasting from the Cruise-In on Friday and Saturday on the concourse next to J.C. Hackett’s oldies booth. The original painting will be on display for you to look at and purchase a print.”
Denton adds that Ribera’s art work is done with spray cans and is called RATTLE CAN ART.
“I am a huge fan of his work and own several prints that he sold at last years Comic-Con in Salt Lake City,” Denton explains. “Johathan Ribera is well know in Cache Valley and has taught art at several schools. I think he found a great niche to fill with the Super Hero art he does.”
The art piece is an original, one-of-a-kind work with a limited amount of 11×14 prints on sale this Friday and Saturday.


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Koei Tecmo announced that their action RPG Nioh will get a batch of new content on May 2 with an update that adds a free PvP mode as well as the new “Dragon of the North” DLC that’ll go for 1,300 yen.
The new Dragon of the North DLC adds new weapon categories, new scenarios, new characters, new Guardian Spirits, new yokai, new stages, and other new content that will come included in the 1,300 yen DLC when it launches on May 2.
Additionally, the online versus mode will also be available on the same day, but no further details were shared on that for now.
Again, those with the Season Pass will get the Dragon of the North expansion as well as two more upcoming expansions in “Defiant Honor” and “Bloodshed’s End.”
Nioh is available on PlayStation 4.


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Not Even John Roberts Can Escape Credit-Card Fraud
It's possible that someone in Kentucky has been buying stuff with John Roberts's credit card.
The Supreme Court's chief justice has been traipsing around Washington, D.C., bemoaning to metro-area counter-workers that his credit-card info has been stolen, and that he now has to use cash.
First, it was a Starbucks barista, where Roberts stopped for coffee in suburban Maryland on Tuesday, before he heard arguments on California's Prop. 8 gay-marriage ban. Roberts typically uses a card, but a Starbucks employee told The Washington Post that Roberts, this time mentioned the apparent identity theft, after paying cash
Then it was a barbershop in D.C., where The Huffington Post overheard Roberts noting that the culprit evidently hailed from Kentucky.
A Supreme Court spokesperson confirmed to ABC's Ariane de Vogue that Roberts's credit-card numbers were used but did not supply any additional details.
While the Justice Department would not say whether it's looking into the apparent ID theft, stealing the credit-card info of the Supreme Court's chief justice is sort of like picking a fight with Suge Knight at a nightclub. Most would be wise to avoid it.
Credit-card and identity theft aren't so rare. In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission fielded 28,332 consumer complaints about credit-card fraud. Identity-theft was the FTC's number-one complaint last year, with 369,132 reports accounting for 18 percent of the FTC's consumer complaints.


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During the Day 2 keynote presentation at Build 2017, Microsoft formally announced the official name given to the next major Windows 10 update which will be called the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. “Today, at Build 2017 we announced the next wave of Windows 10 innovations built to empower the creator in all of us–the […]
The original Xbox was released exactly 15 years ago today, and to celebrate this, a couple of Microsoft employees are having fun on Twitter, talking about the console and revealing some interesting stuff from the past. According to a tweet from Aaron Greenberg, the head of the Xbox Games marketing division, the original Xbox was […]
The Minecraft team is releasing Oculus rift support for Minecraft via a free update in the next few weeks.


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After two decades, Sony Corporation has registered historically high consolidated operating income of US$6.6 billion (¥734.9 billion) in fiscal year 2017, a 2.5-fold increase compared to the previous year.
The company’s consolidated sales and operating revenue was US$77.04 billion (¥8.54 trillion), registering a 12 per cent rise compared to FY16. Sony also reported net income of US$4.4 billion (¥490.8 billion), which was 6.7 times higher than that recorded in the previous fiscal year.
Sony has been through a process of re-invigoration and is firmly back on the path of growth and profitability. Sony Middle East and Africa is also experiencing a strong growth momentum and has recorded a 15% increase in sales (in FY 2017) over previous fiscal year. This steady gain combined with the growing popularity of our high value-added products such as 4K BRAVIA OLED TV, truly wireless Noise Cancelling headphones, wireless speakers, high power home audio systems and full frame mirrorless range of Alpha cameras positions us well for FY2018,” said Fumiatsu Hirai, Managing Director, Sony Middle East and Africa.
The overall profit was spurred by sales increases across various segments, with the exception of the mobile division. The impressive performance in the Game and Network Services (G&NS) segment was evident, as it witnessed an 18 per cent year-on-year rise in sales to US$17.5 billion (¥1.943 trillion), largely driven by an increase in PlayStation 4 software sales. The gaming division’s operating income also increased to US$1.6 billion (¥177.5 billion) as compared to last year’s US$378 million (¥41.9 billion).
For the Pictures Segment, the commercial successes of ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ and ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ contributed to a year-on-year sales rise of 12 per cent and operating income improved to US$371 million (¥41.1 billion).
Meanwhile, the Home Entertainment & Sound segment posted an 18 per cent year-on-year sales increase from US$246.2 million (¥27.3 billion) to US$773.6 million (¥85.8 billion). Sales and operating income rose due to a shift to high value-added models such as 4K BRAVIA OLED TVs and the positive impact of foreign exchange rates.
The Imaging Products & Solutions segment also witnessed a 13 per cent year-on-year climb in its operating income, at US$675.4 million (¥74.9 billion) compared to the previous year’s US$250 million (¥27.7 billion). The enhancement in the Alpha series mirrorless cameras and interchangeable lens line-up also contributed to the expansion in sales and operating income. Sony MEA expects its television, audio and digital imaging segments to grow further in the coming months following the scheduled launch of new products in 2018.


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Valentine’s Day is coming up Monday but according to a new poll, it doesn’t look like people think of it as a special occasion.
A new YouGov survey finds:
- 58% of American’s don’t think Valentine’s Day is a real special occasion.
- Only 30% of folks think it is.
- And the feelings are relatively the same across genders.
- 60% of women believe it’s not a real special occasion, while 30% do.
- 56% of men believe it’s not a real special occasion, while 31% do.
As compared to other holidays, Valentine’s Day is certainly lacking in support.
- In fact, most Americans prefer almost any other holiday to Valentine’s Day.
- Most notably…
- 79% of Americans prefer Christmas to Valentine’s, with only 10% preferring the romantic holiday.
- 79% of Americans prefer Thanksgiving to Valentine’s, with only 11% preferring V-day.
- Even Labor Day gets more love than Valentine’s Day with 43% liking it more than Valentine’s, and 35% liking Valentine’s more.
- Other Hallmark-type holidays also get more love
- 53% of Americans prefer Father’s Day to Valentine’s, with only 25% preferring the romantic holiday.
- 65% of Americans prefer Mother’s Day to Valentine’s, with only 17% preferring V-day.
But it seems partners could be the reason for all this Valentine’s hate.
- 34% of people say they’ve been disappointed by a partner on Valentine’s Day.
- Women are twice as likely to have been disappointed than men (46% vs. 21%).
Do you consider Valentine’s Day to be a special Holiday?


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Eleven retail units in the Ramada Albany, Auckland's new major hotel development on the North Shore, are for sale or lease exclusively by private treaty through JLL.
"This will be a boutique four star hotel development that will be managed by the international Ramada chain," says Chris Beasleigh, national director of JLL's retail team who, with colleague Ranesh Parmar, associate director of retail, is seeking a diverse range of operators to occupy the retail space.
Construction on the Ramada development on Lot C4, Cornerstone Drive, is due to begin next month and scheduled for completion by the end of 2016.
The accommodation component of the hotel comprises 66 furnished units, 14 of which have already sold; and 18 residential apartments, all of which have been sold.
The retail units on offer range in size from 86 sq m to 370 sq m.
The Ramada Albany development will also have 85 underground car parks and 67 ground level parks along with an extension to the Park and Ride bus service and the Oteha Valley off ramp to State Highway One.
Beasleigh says prospective tenants have the option of combining several smaller units. "A larger northwest unit is ideal for a restaurant or bar operator as the space includes large outdoor deck areas. A northeast unit would suit a cafe operator."
Parmar says the retail units could be leased to convenience service offerings like food and beverage operators or service providers like gym operators.
"The Ramada Albany will be built in a thriving precinct that has seen huge residential growth, including the addition of 800 apartments in an adjacent block," Parmar says. "We therefore expect demand to be high for the 11 retail units that will cater to surrounding residents as well as hotel clients."
Beasleigh says there is already strong demand in the Albany area for retail and commercial outlets. "The Ramada development will complement the range of retailers already established in the surrounding areas like Westfield, Mega Mitre10 and local supermarkets," he says.
"Albany is predicted to be one of the fastest growing areas within Auckland over the next 30 years.
"Statistics New Zealand has projected an increase of 18,300 residents from 2013 to 2043. There has also been a significant increase in the Albany's employee count which is currently at 6630 - a 78 per cent increase since the 2005.
"Albany is situated just 15 km from Auckland's CBD and has easy access to motorway connections and main arterial routes which has added to its appeal," Beasleigh says.


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(Businesswire)–A recent survey of California pear farmers has found that when it comes to sustainable farming practices such as employing Integrated Pest Management methods to reduce the use of pesticides, the California pear industry has a very high level of adoption. The survey, conducted by SureHarvest Inc. a leading agricultural sustainability program design firm, shows […]
Archives for August 2010
The San Diego Film Commission is struggling financially.
San Diego Association of Black Students is putting together the hottest event in San Diego this weekend at Anthology, Hot Chocolate Soul.


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What is needed now is for the sector to continue to innovate
There is no doubt that, over the past few decades, the RMG sector of Bangladesh has been the unprecedented champion of our growth and the definitive factor in propelling the nation towards significant economic milestones.
Therefore, it is fantastic news that Bangladesh has emerged as the top exporter of denim to the EU and in the top three in the US in 2018, a testament to the effort and dedication shown by the sector in continuing to grow and improve.
According to the European Statistical Office, Bangladesh exported denim products worth $1.65 billion in 2018, up by 11.46% from $1.47bn in 2017, and holding over 29% denim export market share in Europe, occupying the top spot among all exporting countries.
In the US, Bangladesh had $566.39m worth of denim exports in 2018, up by 11.72% from $506.94m in 2017 as per the US Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA), putting Bangladesh third in export market share after China and Mexico.
This unprecedented growth in denim exports is a result of local manufacturers not resting on their laurels, tackling the issues at hand, and finding solutions.
In addition to the focus on safer working conditions and sustainable work practices, manufacturers have also introduced the latest technology in washing and fabrics manufacturing to improve the quality of the final product being exported. Additionally, events like the Bangladesh Denim Expo provide the right platform to highlight the products on offer.
Despite the success, what is needed now is for the sector to continue to innovate and invest in a more skilled workforce so that our economy continues to reap the benefits for decades to come.


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TTT NEWS NETWORK
KOLKATA, 3 JANUARY 2023:
IHG® Hotels & Resorts, one of the world’s leading hotel companies, has recently announced the signing of a management agreement with Abu Estate Private Limited to open Holiday Inn Chennai Egmore. Set to open in Q1 of 2025, the 92-keys conversion hotel reaffirms IHG’s commitment to growing presence in prime destinations across the country.
Centrally located in Chennai, Egmore is an upcoming industrial area with convenient proximity to government offices, high-end residential complexes, railway station and landmark buildings. Once opened, Holiday Inn Chennai Egmore will capitalize on the footfall of business and leisure travellers seeking a world class hospitality experience in the capital city. Chennai, a culturally-rich city and known to be the gateway to South India, ranks among the most sought-after Indian destinations for tourists from around the world. It is also a thriving hub for key industries such as automobiles, technology, and healthcare.
True to the Holiday Inn brand, Holiday Inn Chennai Egmore will feature modern and well-appointed guest rooms, a health club, an all-day dining restaurant, a bar and an inviting lobby lounge, catering to a wide range of guest preferences. The hotel will also feature banqueting spaces, including a grand ballroom and versatile breakaway rooms, ideal for both large and intimate social gatherings.
Commenting on the announcement, Sudeep Jain, Managing Director, South West Asia, IHG Hotels & Resorts said, “We are delighted to expand our mainstream brand from IHG’s essential portfolio, Holiday Inn in the key market of Chennai in partnership with Abu Estate Private Limited. Chennai stands among the most frequented Indian cities by domestic and international travelers, generating a strong demand for high-quality accommodations. The city also benefits from demands generated by various technology and industrial parks in the vicinity, and we are confident to capitalize on the same and offer world class IHG hospitality to our leisure and business travellers.
He further added, “Recognizing the growing potential of diverse markets across India, we are strategically expanding our presence to offer quality branded accommodations and unparalleled service in line with the rising demand. We look forward to delivering exceptional hospitality and creating memorable experiences for our guests at Holiday Inn Egmore Chennai upon its opening in 2025.”
Mr. Abu Akil, Chief Executive Officer, Abu Estate Private Limited, added, “We are pleased to join the IHG Hotels & Resorts family and expand the presence of Holiday Inn brand in Chennai. Holiday Inn is one of the most recognized brands across the world offering a consistently comfortable and welcoming experience. With the hotel’s prime location, coupled with IHG’s global strength, technological prowess, and esteemed loyalty program, we are confident the hotel will be a preferred choice once it opens it doors to guests.”
IHG® currently has 45 hotels operating across five brands in India, including Six Senses, InterContinental Hotels and Resorts®, Crowne Plaza®, Holiday Inn Resort® and Holiday Inn Express®, and a strong pipeline of 45 hotels due to open in the next 3-5 years.


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Apple iPhone 5? Nope. It’s the 4S
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Apple has announced its next iPhone and it won’t be called the iPhone 5, but rather the iPhone 4S.
From the outside, the iPhone 4S looks just like the iPhone 4 -- which may disappoint some hoping for a new form factor.
On the inside however, the iPhone 4S is a new device, said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
Most notably, perhaps, is the addition of Apple’s dual-core A5 chip, which is built by Samsung.
The A5 in the iPhone 4S will offer seven-times faster graphics for better mobile gameplay and is ‘up to’ twice as fast overall as the A4 chip in the iPhone 4, Schiller said.
The iPhone 4S battery life will also be the best of any iPhone thus far, with eight hours of talk time and 40 hours of music listening capability.
The iPhone 4S has a new wireless system that can ‘intelligently switch’ between its two antennas to ‘make even better call quality,’ Schiller said.
So what does that mean exactly? Apple is promising that users will be able to download data much faster than before using HSDPA cellular technology. The iPhone 4S won’t be a 4G phone, but it will have 4G-like download speeds and send and receive data a lot faster.
As expected, the iPhone 4S will also have an upgraded camera -- 8-megapixels -- capable of shooting images at a resolution of 3,264x2,448 pixels. That’s 60% more pixels than the iPhone 4’s 5-megapixel camera.
Apple said the 4S’ sensor is much better too with a ‘five element lens.’ Schiller said: ‘Here we’ve really gone overboard,’ with an f/2.4 aperture which will improve photo quality in low light situations.
Schiller even said the iPhone 4S takes photos a lot faster than its rivals too. The Droid Bionic takes 3.7 seconds to take a pic, Schiller said, while the iPhone 4S takes just 1.1 seconds.
The camera will shoot better video too -- at a high-definition resolution of 1080p.
Apple has yet to say just how much the iPhone 4S will cost, on what carriers it will be available or when it will be released. [Updated 4:10 p.m.: We’ve got release and pricing info here and carrier info (yes, Sprint is getting the iPhone) here.]
So, what do you think so far? Are you excited for the iPhone 4S? Bummed it’s not a proper iPhone 5 with a new look and a bigger screen? Sticking with Android or Windows Phone? Sound off in the comments.
-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles and David Sarno


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>> Europe's low cost airlines used to mock air miles programs as expensive relics of a bygone era. But as personalized customer data emerges as the next frontier for the industry, they're scrambling to catch up. Reuters Ireland correspondent Conor Humphries says budget airlines have missed a trick.>> While they were slashing costs over the last couple of decades, they managed to close down whatever customer loyalties schemes they had.
What's become clear since the rise of Google and Amazon is that this customer data that you can get through these kind of schemes is massively valuable.>> Airline chiefs now in a race to ape the success of retail giants like Amazon, budget carriers are moving away from treating the travel experience as a commodity.
Instead, they want to use data to create a more personalized experience, including highly targeted adverts for all those optional extras>> Baggage allowance, window seats, fast track security will provide far higher margins than regular ticket sales.>> What they've realized is that they're just not selling very well because they don't know their customers.
They're offering at maybe somebody who maybe doesn't know how to drive or somebody who's traveling to the center of London, they're offering them car hire which they're never gonna want.>> Ryanair, Europe's largest carrier, has hired hundreds of IT staff to rebuild its online offering. It's promising a major push to get its tens of millions of customers to register their data.
Number two carrier, Easy Jet, says it plans to one click sales based on deep personalization. Flyers can hope that travel will stay cheap but get a little more cheerful.


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Have a look at the prices paid or quoted for cattle this week at factories around the country.
IFA National Livestock Chairman Angus Woods said farmers should not take lower quoted prices for cattle as factories are paying more to get stock.
Take a look at the prices for steers, heifers and cows quoted or paid this week.
Cattle prices increased again this week with strong factory demand and prices paid above quotes.
IFA National Livestock Chairman Angus Woods said the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed will have to get tough with the meat factories at the Beef Forum later this week.


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Ford is currently heating up the competition among the leading mid-size sedan models in the US automobile market by introducing the 2013 Ford Fusion. Based on the information provided by Ford, the latest version of the Fusion is flaunting a European-inspired look and equipped with a lot of standard features that most of its predecessors have failed to provide.
Aside from that, Ford has also stressed out that the 2013 Fusion will also be challenging some of the mid-size sedan segment’s heavyweight such as Toyota and Honda. This simply means that the latest version of the Fusion is set to compete with the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.
When asked about this particular issue, model’s Chief Designer Chris Hamilton has openly said that the company’s current strategy was to “attack these cars and raise the game” by providing the buyers with “a car that’s affordable, but elegant and sophisticated.”
Hamilton has also expressed in his statements that Ford is quite confident that the Fusion would be able to emerge as one of the dominant midsize sedan models for this year since the vehicle currently flaunts with an athletic, coupe-like, and sleek design that many car buyers would surely like.
Hamilton’s statement regarding the Fusion’s exterior design has also received a few nods from car experts in the US since the exterior appearance of the Toyota Camry which is considered as one of the segment’s leaders still projects the “two-box sedan design” that younger buyers don’t usually like.
In order to keep the company’s strategy going, Hamilton revealed that Ford has already increased the production of the Ford Fusion a few months ago. The increase was partly caused by the sudden increase in the demand for the outgoing version of the Fusion.
But aside from that, the increase in the number of 2013 Ford Fusion that the car maker’s plants have produced was also part of the company’s move to prepare for the possible increase in demand for the current model in the event that the company’s assumptions and forecasts would be realized.
Finally a lot of car experts believe that Ford’s move to heighten the competition that the current model of the Fusion would be placing against the latest version of the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord was probably triggered by the impressive sales output that the outgoing version of the Fusion has achieved in the last few months. Ford might have seen this as an indication that the upcoming demand for the 2013 Ford Fusion would turn out as impressive as the outgoing model.


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The two InnoVEX Saloons was held on October 31 to discuss the applications of Blockchain and AI for startups and more. The Blockchain Saloon hosted four distinguished speakers: Mr. James Liu, the General Manager of the SYSCOM Group and member of DIGI+ Committee; Mr. Cheng Tsang-kuang, the President of Unicom System Eng. Corp.; Mr. Stephen Ho, Managing Director of DBS Taiwan; and Mr. Bryan Huang of Taiwan Start-Up Hub and Principle Lawyer of TaipeiLaw. Immediately after, the next Saloon “Heading to the Future with AI” began where 3 esteemed speakers: Ms. Joanna Fong, Head of Marketing of DHL Express Taiwan; Mr. Bob Hung, General Manager of Trend Micro; and Mr. Peter Wu, CEO of ASUS Cloud shared their insights on AI.
As the date of the saloons coincides with Halloween, the venue was decorated with matching ornaments such as candy filled pumpkins, banners, etc. To set up the festive mood further, our speakers also donned masks of their choosing during the saloons; making this one of the more relaxed, yet still insightful InnoVEX Saloons.
From Blockchain to Everything
With an exceptionally high turnout, the Saloon discusses the legal & financial aspects of blockchain and its applications for system integrators & industry 4.0. As an emerging & somewhat controversial technology, there are many perspectives on blockchain. Even within a company, differing perspectives are inevitable.
These contrasting thoughts on blockchain are easily seen in how countries regulate ICO and cryptocurrency. Mr. Ho of DBS also pointed out how the coins issued in ICO can be utility tokens or equity tokens which can attract a different group of investors. He pointed out that many ICO participants are more interested in equity tokens which make ICOs and the tokens generated more speculative. Mr. Huang of TaipeiLaw said that even if companies issue utility tokens, consumers generally want to buy it as a security because then the value can increase in a greater margin; which means it will inevitably turn into equity tokens and the purchase of it will be an investment.
Mr. James Liu of SYSCOM Group pointed out that despite the current trends in cryptocurrency; it is still an application of blockchain, not the only one. Blockchain is suitable for cross-organizational, full trust, and mixed processes. This opinion is shared by Mr. Cheng of Unicom who sees blockchain as a way to support manufacturing and industry 4.0 especially for automation and quality assurance. Blockchain also gives an opportunity for SMEs and startups to compete with SAP due to decentralization it offers.
Heading to the Future with AI
As another exciting emerging technology, AI has been proposed to improve, change, or revolutionize businesses or even entire industries. Mr. Hung of Trend Micro shared how his company hosted an AI competition open for all members of the company instead of only engineers. The reason is because enterprise AI can serve different purposes through different methods. Datasets often start as disconnected silos, but in reality every data is correlated which is why he proposed for a more connected form of dataset he called Data Lake.
Ms. Fong, Head of Marketing from DHL Express Taiwan, said that the success of logistic industry is all about the connectivity of its network; therefore, there is a lot of potential for AI to step in to find ways to improve operational efficiency and productivity. One of most crucial applications is in routing optimization; how delivery vehicles determine or change their routes in real-time based on customer needs and traffic situations. DHL has published a joint report with IBM on how AI applications improve logistics. Aside from route optimization, AI is currently be used in predictive risk management for ensuring supply chain continuity. This in turn allows supply chain managers to take corrective action earlier, and avoid disruption.
According to Mr. Wu of ASUS Cloud who was also a speaker at the InnoVEX 2018 Forum, current AI systems are predictive in nature; meaning they are better at predicting outcomes based on the data fed to it. AI also excels in processing a large number of data and at the same time improves itself as more data is fed to it. However, current regulations may restrict the data extraction and usage for AI systems. Especially for Taiwan, certain regulatory changes might be necessary to truly improve AI development.
To know more about DHL and their innovations, visit their website at: https://www.dhltaiwanconnects.com/
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Register to Exhibit at InnoVEX 2019
InnoVEX 2019 will be held in TWTC Hall 1 from May 29 to 31. The registration for exhibitors has already started and all ICT startups are welcome to join. For the first time ever, InnoVEX 2019 will also have dedicated Theme Pavilions on the topic of: AI, Blockchain, Circular Economy, 5G, and Health & Biotech. Startups interested in joining can register to exhibit here.