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Regulations on the use of mobile devices at work may still be lurking somewhere in the print and virtual archives of many companies. But like so many things these days, the law has been overtaken by events.
Moreover, available statistics and anecdotal evidence show that cell phones and tablets are soon replacing desktop computers and laptops in a world that is now entering the second year of remote work. If 93 percent of surveyed people in a study commissioned by Samsung in 2017 used their mobile phones for work, we can only expect those numbers to have grown up in the post-Covid world. Take our survey.
More to the point, use of mobile phones is leading to longer work hours:
- Also in 2017, the average mobile worker works 240 hours a year longer than the general population, according to iPass.
- The same report shows that 58 percent of mobile workers who sleep with their smartphone within arm’s reach wake, at least occasionally, during the night to check it, and 11 percent wake every night.
Long gone are the days when mobile phones were seen as unwelcome distractions in the workplace. Thus, even in the pre-Covid days, the benefits of BYOD were already evident, according to this roundup of stats provided by Perillon:
- According to a 2017 Google study, 75 percent of people say their smartphones make them more productive.
- Among IT executives, 82 percent said smartphones are highly important to employee productivity. (Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018)
- In 2016, a report by Apperian showed that 53 percent of executives said apps improve business processes and increase productivity.
The unsaid takeaway of these numbers is that the lines between private and professional are blurring. Chances are that in the hybrid workplace that is now becoming the new normal people are as likely to use their cell phones at work for personal reasons as they are to check on work at the dinner table or in bed.
Yet for all the evidence, companies are being slow in catching up with this sea-change in work habits, Perillon’s review shows:
- According to a remote work survey by PwC released in January 2021, only 22 percent of companies are providing mobile experience for work applications and data.
- Companies are also behind in dealing with security concerns over the use of personal devices for work:
67 percent of respondents in a Ponemon Institute/Keeper Security survey conducted last year said it adversely affected company security policies. In the same study, 55 percent of respondents said mobiles were the most vulnerable flank.
This change is now here to stay as Cisco projects 27.1 billion devices connected to the Internet (more than 3 devices for every person in the world). According to a December 2020 Pew Research report, only 20 percent of Americans worked from home before the Covid pandemic; that number rose to 71 percent, with 54 percent indicating they would like to continue working remotely after the pandemic ended.
Desktop computers are not going anywhere. Yet like helpless Goliaths, they can only look on as mobile devices give them a run for their money. Are you on team David? Take our survey to share what you think.


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For a long time, Africa was considered “the poor relation” in terms of the development of new technologies. In recent years, Africa has proven its ability to deploy quality mobile networks to facilitate Internet access. The gradual integration of new information and communication technologies helps encourage economic innovation and improve competitiveness. As for the implementation of e-commerce, it is a real success! Take the example of CoinAfrique to realize it! African states therefore have every interest in investing in new technologies to boost the economy and development of their countries.
The challenge ahead
Current technological advances represent a powerful lever for economic growth. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are attracting many investments in Africa. The tax revenues generated are significant. In addition, they open up new perspectives on the labor market.
ICT can be thought of as a hub offering the possibility of delivering continent-wide public services and increasing the participation of African citizens. ICT therefore represents a real opportunity.
However, States are faced with many challenges: developing the skills of populations to align them with the needs of industries linked to ICTs and the knowledge economy, transforming these new technologies into engines of growth and providing access to these ICTs. most important.
What are the preferred solutions?
Each African country must set up innovative public-private partnerships. The latter must play a catalytic role to encourage investment from the private sector in the field of new technologies.
It is also essential to facilitate the development and competitiveness of companies working in the field of ICT and to support innovation around these new technologies and especially in the technological entrepreneurship sector.
Adopting these measures will transform Africa, which can finally develop. However, this approach is based not only on in-depth knowledge of new technologies but also on building relationships with governments to encourage them to integrate new technologies into the delivery of public services.
The example of Kenya
Kenya is considered to be the most innovative country in terms of adoption and use of new technologies. The proof ? The city of Konza City known as Silicon Savannah.
This project, initiated in 2008 and amounting to more than $ 14 billion, reflects a real anchoring of new technologies on the African continent. This should allow the creation of more than 200,000 jobs by 2030.
Since its launch in 2008, this project has resulted in the emergence of start-ups and incubators and initiated the launch of new initiatives. According to Haweya Mohamed, CEO of Afrobytes, Africa’s inclusive development can only be achieved if a connection is made between African and European tech. Hence the importance of supporting this type of action.
New technologies constitute a real springboard for the economic and social development of Africa. This sector must nevertheless evolve. States must realize the power of ICTs and plan for financial and human investments.

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Drinks brands Pepsi Max, Robinsons, J2O, Lipton, Tango and Mountain Dew and environmental regeneration charity Groundwork have teamed up to support the ‘Transform Your Patch’ campaign, which lets consumers vote for funding to regenerate local community spaces in their regions.
The campaign should provide money to regenerate around 165 outdoor spaces across the UK with the support of the public. For each drink bought, the brands will donate enough to transform one square centimetre.
In addition to the funding generated from each drink bought, which is automatic, consumers can vote for local projects to get extra funds on the campaign’s microsite, www.transformyourpatch.com.
The UK has been divided up into 12 regions and there are four projects from each region which consumers can vote for. The project that wins in each region will get bonus funding of between £13,000 and £20,000.
Plus, four celebrities are championing four different project types, and are competing to win an extra £100,000 for their supported ‘cause’.
The four celebrities are Robbie Savage, Denise van Outen, Emma Wills and Fazer. Robbie Savage is supporting 5-a-side football pitches, supported by Pepsi Max; Denise van Outen is campaigning for playgrounds, supported by Robinsons and Robinsons Fruit Shoot; Emma Wills is pushing for picnic areas and parks supported by J20 and Lipton Ice Tea; and Fazer will be championing skate parks supported by Tango and Mountain Dew.
All four are competing against each other and are calling on the UK public to vote for their ‘team’ online via www.transformyourpatch.com. Voting closes on 31 October 2012.
The campaign was created by marketing agency Arnold KLP.
This press release is presented for your information only.
Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.
This article is for your information only and the GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW does not (necessarily) approve, endorse or recommend the product, service or company mentioned.


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MTN South Africa said on Monday that it has implemented a wide range of measures to tackle fraud, including identity theft, illegal Sim swaps and number ports through which criminals try to get access to customers’ bank accounts.
Criminals, the mobile operator said, are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their efforts to defraud customers.
Identity theft is “often the start of the fraud, with a criminal getting hold of sufficient personal information to pose as a credible ‘network agent'”, it said in a statement.
“Once the ‘agent’ has a customer on the line, they then solicit more details from the customer to then perpetrate the fraud. In other instances, personal data may have been stolen to be able to action the fraud directly,” said Elgiva Sibisi, GM for revenue assurance and fraud management at MTN South Africa, in a statement.
“A recent example of this was in 2018 when MTN warned all its customers to beware of a new scam. In this scam, criminals claiming to be MTN call centre agents would request the customer’s security details under the pretense that they were blocking the processing of a Sim-swap request that was being made on the subscriber’s number without their knowledge or authorisation. The scammers were then using the customer’s responses, obtained during the call, to perform a fraudulent Sim swap,” Sibisi said.
MTN said it will not contact customers from its call centre to block the processing of a Sim-swap request and urged customers not to respond to unsolicited calls and requests for their security details from an unknown number.
“MTN has, for the past year, rolled out in-store biometrics as an additional layer of security to further halt such criminal activity,” Sibisi said. “We have also introduced secure (one-time password) access to systems whereby users who are affected then have a clear tracking and audit log. Our monitoring systems give us a view of all related Sim-swap activities.”
Sibisi said MTN only processes Sim-swap requests between 7am and 8pm as an added fraud-prevention mechanism.
But criminals are pursuing other routes to defraud customers, she said. These include number porting, where thieves use a person’s information to switch their phone number to a new service provider. The thieves can then use the ported number to intercept messages, including one-time passwords used by banks.
“Both porting fraud and illegal Sim swaps start with criminals accessing customer’s personal information, through any number of ways. It is critical that all South Africans strictly protect their personal information and not share any details with unverified and unsolicited calls,” Sibisi said.
“MTN has introduced a solution called Subscriber Identity for Third Parties (Sift), which gives banks real-time alerts on changes in Sim card numbers. This feature is zero-rated and gives customers a 48-hour window period to stop any unauthorised transactions,” she added. “MTN also encourages customers to provide a secondary number or an e-mail address to verify Sim-swap requests.”
Other ways criminals are trying to defraud customers include:
- Data mining: Using seemingly innocuous apps, such as quizzes on Facebook, users can unwittingly sharing personal information with fraudsters, which they can use to build a profile of their victim.
- Click-jacking: Users are fraudulently subscribed to paid-for services. This type of fraud is prevalent on smartphones, where a user may mistakenly click on a banner that is linked to a bot that mimics the behaviour of the customer and approves the opt-in and double opt-in requests without the customer knowing, MTN said. “Click-jacking fraud is a major global issue… We are currently introducing measures to monitor, protect and put an end to these unscrupulous fraudulent subscriptions.”
MTN said it has implemented a “treating customers fairly” (TCF) policy, which is aimed at ensuring clients are protected against fraud.
“Furthermore, MTN has conducted in-depth checks and ensure that all its technology partners and other stakeholders adhere and comply with the Consumer Protection Act. As a result, MTN has put in place measures, through TCF, to remove these fraudulent subscription activities.” — (c) 2019 NewsCentral Media


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Prosecutors say a New York man has admitted smuggling untaxed cigarettes from Kentucky through an upstate Indian reservation to smoke shops on Long Island.
U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. says 62-year-old Joseph Ruda of Rockville Center and his company, Gutlove and Shirvint Inc., pleaded guilty to cigarette smuggling Tuesday in Buffalo.
Hochul says the scheme to move 58,000 cartons ordered by mail cheated New York out of more than $1.4 million in taxes and Kentucky $175,000.
He says Ruda set up the shipments through the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation to the Peace Pipe Smoke Shop on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation, where the cigarettes were bought by bootleggers for sale in New York City.
Ruda faces six months in prison. His company paid the lost taxes to New York.


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Tablet shipments growth disappointed again last quarter.
Here are BI Intelligence's main theories for why the tablet market is collapsing. They are divided by region and use case:
- In the West, every consumer who wants a tablet has one. And those that don't have one are put off by the tablet's high cost. In developed markets like the U.S., U.K., and much of Europe, many consumers who can't live without a phone or a PC can easily dispense with the luxury of owning a tablet.
- In the East — particularly in huge markets like China and India that could drive significant growth — cheap phablets have taken over, suppressing tablet demand. Phablet shipments across Asia-Pacific grew an average 88% per quarter, sequentially, through 2012 and the first half of 2013, according to IDC.
- For business users — who might otherwise drive tablet market growth — tablets still aren't reliable or powerful enough as productivity tools to replace PCs.
In the chart below, you can see quarterly tablet market growth, both year-over-year and sequential. Notice both are trending downward.


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The fourth edition of the East India Travel Awards will be held on July 26, 2017, at Radisson Blu Guwahati. Like every year, these awards too will honour the stalwarts of the tourism industry in the region.
Renowned as India’s first regional awards which honour the achievers of the tourism industry, India Travel Awards has made a mark in the industry to recognise those who have gone above and beyond to make a difference in the travel fraternity.
Gunjan Sabikhi, Convener, India Travel Awards, elaborates that these are the first and only regional awards which recognise and reward the efforts of travel companies from every nook and corner of India. “These awards set a company apart from its competition and differentiate the quality of its achievements from others, thus placing the awardees at the forefront of the industry. It is very heartening to see that every year the number of nominations received for East India Travel Awards keep increasing manifolds, which is a proof of the fact that winning this award is very prestigious and it bestows immense credibility to the winning company or individual. We have seen that being nominated or shortlisted for any category has proven to be helpful for an individual or a company in their business as it places them at the forefront of their genre and industry and is accompanied by increased awareness about the brand,” says Sabikhi.
According to Vikas Ray, General Manager, Radisson Blu Guwahati, the event and meeting space at the property covers more than 4,180 square meters. It provides versatile options, from an outdoor banquet lawn to a classic boardroom, so that the hotel can accommodate a wide range of events with style and ease.
The 196-key hotel offers various facilities to aid all kinds of meetings and events. He says that set in a peaceful section of Assam, the elegant Hotel provides its guests with stellar amenities and a restful location in the bustling city of Guwahati in north-eastern India. Guests can also go for interesting outings to the freshwater lake, Deepor Beel, or to cultural sites like Sankardev Kalakshetra.


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Four Seasons Resort Closed Due To Hurricane Omar
Basseterre, St. Kitts – Nevis
August 26, 2009 (CUOPM)
The reopening date for the Four Seasons Resort Nevis has changed for the fourth time.
According to Gayle Nagle Myers, the new date now is Feb. 5, 2010 pushed back from Nov. 1, 2009 due to construction delays, damage assessments and a change in ownership.
The 196-room resort has been closed since last October due to extensive damage caused by Hurricane Omar.
“Construction did not begin until June, but now we have two shifts working seven days a week,” the resort’s Director of Marketing, Vo Tomulich is quoted in Travel Weekly, the National Newspaper of the Travel Industry in its online edition of August 25.
Most of the work will be completed by December, but the resort is allowing for “extra time to get the staff back on board and give us a cushion in case of weather delays,” he said.
Last week, tropical storms Ana and Claudette as well as Hurricane Bill had no impact except rain.
Reservation lines will open this fall, Tomulich said. “Right now, if someone calls wanting to book, we take their names, quote them the rates but advise them not to book air until our reservations officially open.”
The lead rate for a moutainview room in February is US$595 per room, per night, double. The same room in the off season will start at US$295.
“These rates are not much different than our 2008 rates at the same time of year. Our lead rate dropped a bit, and the off-season rate is about the same,” Tomulich said.
The Nevis resort will offer a number of packages in 2010, including a grand reopening package. The resort’s website will post additional information on rates and packages as it becomes available.


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Redwood City, CA — Only days after the press went bananas over Apple’s lost iPhone prototype, the copycats are out in force. A veritable flood of lost prototypes is hitting the same bar where Apple’s famously forgetful engineer made news on Monday.
The Redwood City beer garden, Gourmet Haus Staudt, has become ground zero for every company hoping to get the same buzz generated by Apple.
Bartender Todd Gretelmann says he’s never seen anything like it. “It’s getting tough to clean up around here at night. I’ve got more secret prototypes than I have empty steins.”
A Google engineer who “forgot” a secret Google tablet prototype last night explains, on condition of anonymity, “Apple makes a boatload of money from the buzz they generate — two can play at this game.”
A lot more than two, actually. Gretelmann says that in the three days since the iPhone prototype was left behind, engineers have abandoned so many prototypes, Gizmodo won’t even return his calls anymore. “We love our customers, but honestly, if this keeps up we’re going to have to enforce a ‘no prototypes allowed’ policy.”
According to Gretelmann, some of the companies are falling over each other, trying to have their prototypes “found” by the regular guests. He tells the story of one Palm engineer, blatantly wearing his Palm ID badge, who kept saying “I hope I remember to take my prototype home!” loudly enough that some actually moved away from his table.
A Dell engineer flew in from Austin, had one quick beer and then quickly left — his top-secret Vostro laptop prototype still running on the bar. “It’s a problem because I can’t get my customers to take the bait on the less popular prototypes. That Dell eyesore is still sitting in my office. I have four Kin prototypes that Microsoft won’t even take back.”
“What I may have to do is just go with the flow, and try to turn it into a positive,” says Gretelmann. “I’m thinking of turning Tuesdays into ‘Prototype Night,’ so all these companies can just get it out of their systems in a single night. I can get the Salvation Army truck here in the morning.”
Until then, at Gourmet Haus Staudt, every night is prototype night.


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NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) — When the topic of bitcoin was raised before the Institute of International Finance (IIF) annual membership meeting in Washington, D.C. today, the world’s banking leaders bristled.
Bitcoin developers “are going to try and eat our lunch,” Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase said, as reported by Institutional Investor. “And that’s fine. That’s called competition, and we’ll be competing.”
Chris Larsen, CEO of Ripple Labs and Barry Silbert, founder of Second Market and CEO of the Bitcoin Investment Trust, are among the bitcoin stalwarts representing the cryptocurrency at the gathering of the heads of global finance.
Larsen made the case for the capability of digital currencies to solve the issues of the time and expense of moving value as a cost-efficient “global wire.”
“I agree with real-time digitization,” Dimon agreed. But that was all of the ground he was willing to give. “The issue I have with Bitcoin is that it’s not about the technology, it’s about governments. When people form nations, one of the first things they do is form a currency. Are regulators and governments really going to foster Bitcoin over a long period of time? I think the answer is no.”
James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley, agreed.
“You have to be respectful in the face of new technologies like Bitcoin, but you don’t capitulate,” he said. “You adjust and take advantage. Consumers feel better putting their money with a brand they recognize. We have capabilities and resources that are very powerful.”
Photo Credit: Yoni Assia via Twitter @yoniassia


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At the end of October, while Americans were losing their minds over the election, Australia was legalizing marijuana on a federal level nationwide. From growing to manufacturing to selling, Australian citizens will now have more job opportunities and a potentially booming cannabis market, but what does “medical marijuana” mean in Australia?
For those interested in growing, a potential grower must not only have a clean record and a cushioned bank account in order to start legally growing, but they must pass the “fit and proper person” test; a test that looks into your associates, family members and friends to make sure you won’t be turning to the black market with your cannabis product. In addition to the test, potential growers also have to have a partnership with a manufacturer as proof of a stable business and none of this is even including the regulations that the actual cannabis has to meet; everything from growing to transporting to the types of strains will each have their own regulations that need to be followed.
For those interested in being medical marijuana consumers, there’s not nearly as much information on that yet. The only found requirements thus far are a medical condition that cannabis can treat and a valid subscription for whichever cannabis product is needed. As time goes on, regulations for medical marijuana patients will become more clear.
As of this point, regulations for growers and cannabis products are the main focus for Australia’s new Medical Marijuana law; creating a solid foundation for cannabis is of the utmost importance for Australia in order to create an efficient and conducive industry. There is no way of telling how it will pan out right now what with the multiple, strict regulations, but tackling it at the federal level first looks more promising than anything.


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Let’s be clear, I’m not against competition in the tablet space — quite the opposite. However, as we’ve watched the approach of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, it’s been abundantly clear there was any way it could be successful and now we have proof.
I’ve said repeatedly that Samsung should delay the Galaxy Tab until next year when Google says its tablet operating system will ready.
Now, Gizmodo (Samsung Galaxy Tab Review: A Pocketable Train Wreck) has reviewed the device and our worst fears about the Samsung Galaxy Tab have been borne out.
Typically, the point of a compromise is to bring together the best of both sides. The Tab is like a compromise’s evil twin, merging the worst of a tablet and the worst of a phone. It has all of the input problems of a tablet, with almost none of the consumption benefits. With more apps geared to its tweener size, it could be a lot better, but it’s not clear they’re coming anytime soon, if ever. The Tab is an awkward first attempt at this kind of tablet — wait for somebody else to do it better.
Thereupon, the iPad is a superb, world changing device. However, the Samsung Galaxy Tab will do nothing to make the iPad or tablets in general better because it fails abysmal to deliver even a modicum of what has been promised.
In fact, I think the Galaxy Tab has hurt the tablet platform. Probably good for Apple in the short term, but not so much for the rest of us…
What’s your take?


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Washington, D.C. — Only about half of online merchants expect their sales to increase by 15 percent or more this holiday season, down from the more than three-quarters of e-tailers who anticipated that level of growth last year, a new survey shows.
The conservative outlook comes courtesy of the 2008 eHoliday Study, conducted by shopping search engine Shopzilla for Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation (NRF) trade association. The study, now in its seventh year, queried 60 large and small e-tailers from Oct. 1-20, many of which have been in business for at least nine years.
“Online retailers are resilient, but not immune, to the challenges of this holiday season,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “Retailers will be heavily promotional to attract shoppers on a budget, but have also invested in new site features to improve the online buying experience.”
New or improved features include:
· social networking, with nearly 25 percent of e-tailers adding a Facebook page this year;
· improved site search, cited by 42.9 percent of e-tailers, to help customers navigate sites more easily;
· product videos (42.6 percent) and customer reviews (32.7 percent) to give shoppers more information to make buying decisions; and
· clearance sale pages (27.1 percent) and featured sale pages (31.3 percent) for price-focused shoppers.
What’s more, the majority of retailers (78 percent) plan to offer conditional free shipping at some point during the holiday season, which is in line with last year’s levels despite an increase in transportation costs. E-tailers are compensating for increased shipping costs by renegotiating terms with shipping providers (40.4 percent), closely managing company headcount (33.3 percent) and reducing other promotions (15.8 percent).
In addition, one-fifth (21.3 percent) of retailers say they will require a higher purchase amount for customers to be eligible for free shipping, and one in 10 (10.6 percent) will cut back on usage of free shipping with no conditions.
Shopzilla also surveyed 2,040 online shoppers from Sept. 29 through Oct. 3. As in previous years, about 59 percent cited 24-hour shopping convenience as a major reason they buy online rather than in stores. Other top reasons include:
· avoiding crowds (41.1 percent);
· easy price comparisons (36.4 percent); and
· free shipping (33.3 percent).
Nearly a quarter of consumers said they plan to spend more online this year due to high gas prices, compared to 9 percent that said the same last year.
Consumers who plan to spend less online seem to be reacting to their economic circumstances rather than previous online experiences. According to the survey, one in five shoppers (20.1 percent) said they simply have less money to spend this year for the holidays, while 10.6 percent cited the poor economy as a factor.
“As budget-focused consumers begin holiday shopping, many are starting on the Web to look for gift ideas and research products,” said Shopzilla spokesperson Helen Malani. “Whether they make those holiday purchases online or in stores, the Internet will have a tremendous influence on holiday sales this year.”
To that end, many multichannel retailers will be using their brick-and-mortar stores to promote their e-commerce sites this holiday season. According to the survey, three-fourths will offer in-store email registration, 71.4 percent will advertise their e-commerce sites in-store, and more than half will let store associates place online orders for cust
- 2019 TWICE Top 100: Watch List - May 23, 2019
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- 2019 TWICE Top 100: Best Buy Keeps The CE Crown, But Barely - May 21, 2019


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I saw your list of dispensaries that sell clones
. Why don’t more places sell them? Are there more rules to selling clones than hash or nugs?
Making that list was a lot harder than we expected. Very few dispensaries sell clones nowadays, and even fewer advertise that they do. Most established growers much prefer growing from seeds or their own clones, because dispensaries can be hit-or-miss with pests and plant health. I’ve heard horror stories about clones from everywhere — and I mean everywhere.
There aren’t any special rules or regulations for dispensaries that want to sell clones in Colorado, but they’re rapidly becoming a lost commodity. Local and state laws aimed at limiting the number of plants in home grows — like the bill that Governor John Hickenlooper signed into law last month that limits plant counts
for medical patients and caregivers — along with a shift from the black market to the legal market have made home-growing less enticing than it used to be. Still, there’s been an increasing demand for seeds from dispensaries, which give growers more control over their plants.
Have a question for our Stoner? E-mail [email protected] or call the potline at 303-293-2222.


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Multistate Vintage Atlantic Wine Region announced
Wineries in Delaware are joining a partnership with Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to launch a cooperative named the Vintage Atlantic Wine Region.
The effort, announced Thursday afternoon at the Harvest Ridge Winery in Marydel, Delaware, will bring a joint marketing effort to support about 55 wineries in the region. The idea is modeled after successful wine regions, such as the Finger Lakes and Napa Valley.
Supporters of it from these states say it is an economic development opportunity, as visitors will stay in hotels, eat at local restaurants as they travel through the region to visit wineries. The marketing effort crosses state borders, bringing a level of coordination that is meant to give a critical mass of wineries needed to sustain this region as a destination for wine-lovers.
"This is going to be huge," said Chuck Nunan, owner of Harvest Ridge.
A new website, www.vintageatlanticwine.com, offers a map and more details about the effort. The states that are working together are Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Vintage Atlantic Wine Region is to include the area surrounding the Delaware Bay, the southern Delaware River area and the Philadelphia metro region.


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Europe expands vitamin D fortification for Canadian company20 Aug 2021
Canadian ingredients producer Lallemand received permission from the European Food Safety Authority to expand the number of compatible food products in which its Lalmin Vitamin D yeast is permitted for use.
Lallemand’s vitamin D yeast has been approved for use in the EU since 2014, but its use has been limited to baked good products and food supplements. However, with this new approval, the company can now provide its fortified yeast to producers across 34 food categories, including protein products, fermented milk, diet foods, cereal, meat analogs and dairy imitations.
Currently, the Canadian company is also pursuing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand the permitted uses of its vitamin D yeast across 18 categories. Approval is expected in 2022.
Vitamin D is a nutrient in which Europeans are chronically deficient. According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical & Translational Endocrinology, vitamin D deficiency occurs in about 20% of the population in Northern Europe and between 30% to 60% of the population in Western, Southern and Eastern Europe.
However, rectifying this deficiency at scale would require an immense amount of resources from animal-sourced foods that would generate a carbon footprint that few consumers would be willing to swallow. A recent Swiss study published in the journal Nutrients, found that it is impossible to obtain adequate vitamin D through dietary shifts alone. The study found that more vitamin D-fortified foods are a necessary part of the diet to achieve optimum nutrient levels.
When examining a baseline Dutch diet, researchers found that the food intake provided about one-fifth of the adequate intake of vitamin D from natural food sources and voluntary vitamin D-fortified foods. To reach optimal Vitamin D consumption levels, carbon emission and calorie intake were increased almost 3-fold and 2-fold, respectively. The majority of vitamin-D-rich foods are animal-derived, such as oily fish, meat, dairy and eggs.
Lallemand’s fortified yeast presents an alternative solution to increasing vitamin D consumption without increasing calorie intake or carbon emissions.
Chobani quietly files for IPO with expected $10B valuation
4 Aug 2021
In early July, Greek yogurt producer Chobani quietly and confidentially filed for an IPO with an anticipated valuation of more than $10 billion, Reuters reported. The company has not yet determined the number of shares it will sell nor the price range ...Read more
Eat Just looks to crack into the market with a $3B IPO
23 Jul 2021
Cultured protein maker Eat Just is targeting a $3 billion initial public offering in Q4 2021 or early in 2022, Forbes reported after receiving information from a leading investor in the plant-based egg producing company.Read more
ReGrained flour is inaugural recipient of Upcycled Food certification
7 Jul 2021
Upcycled food company ReGrained is the first company in the world to receive the new Upcycled Food Certification for its SuperGrain+ flour. This new certification is awarded by the Upcycled Food Association, which finalized its certification standards ...Read more
Europe intends to phase out caged farming by 2027
5 Jul 2021
A June 30 vote from the European Commission will end caged farming in the European Union. This initiative is part of the overarching Farm to Fork Strategy and was brought to the attention of the commission thanks to a citizen petition that was supporte...Read more
UAE looks to become global food tech hub
18 May 2021
The first phase of the United Arab Emirates’ new Food Tech Valley was launched on May 1, Gulf Business reported. This economic zone is focused on four main innovation clusters in the food tech space: agricultural technology, including bioengineering an...Read more
Impossible Foods heads for school cafeterias
17 May 2021
Impossible Foods will be “widely entering” school breakfast and lunch programs in the fall of 2021, the company announced in a release. This foray into the public school system was made possible following Impossible Foods’ acquisition of the Child Nutr...Read more
Brazil sets official definition of ‘whole grain’
10 May 2021
Products must contain at least 30% whole grain ingredients to use a whole grain claim in Brazil, under new rules.Read more
Protein companies to improve human health though tackling animal disease
30 Apr 2021
Cargill, Ausvet, Heifer International and the International Poultry Council (IPC) have formed a consortium sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to improve livestock management and combat the threat of zoonotic dis...Read more
Traffic light labels to become mandatory in UAE in under one year
1 Apr 2021
Packaged food manufacturers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are getting ready for a front-of-pack traffic light nutrition label, which will become mandatory in January next year.Read more
Imperfect Foods plans for net-zero carbon emissions by 2030
25 Mar 2021
Online grocer Imperfect Foods announced that by 2030, it will be a net-zero carbon company that has saved 1 billion pounds of food from waste. Successfully meeting this goal would put Imperfect Foods 10 years ahead of other major retailers striving for...Read more
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- Improve company online presence through Search Engine Optimisation


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ASUS has launched ZenFone Go 5.0 LTE (T500) with 4G LTE support and 8-megapixel primary camera in two different color options i.e. Charcoal Black and Pearl White. Priced at Rs. 7,999, the ASUS Zenfone Go 5.0 is available to buy from Amazon India and Snapdeal.
Asus Zenfone Go 5.0 boasts a 5-inch HD IPS display, which is the same as the previous counterpart. Powered by a 1.2 GHz Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor paired with 2GB RAM, the smartphone offers 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 64GB) in addition to Adreno 306 GPU.
The previously released Asus ZenFone Go featured a quad-core MediaTek MT6580 SoC with Android 5.1 Lollipop instead of Android 4.4. KitKat in the latest edition.
While the primary camera comes with an 8-megapixel sensor with LED flash, the Zenfone Go 5.0 features a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter instead of 2MP in Zenfone Go. In sharp contrast with the previously released version, which shipped with a 2,070mAh battery, the latest ZenFone Go 5.0 houses a 2,500mAh battery.
Talking about connectivity options, the dual-SIM ASUS ZenFone Go 5.0 LTE provides support for 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS/AGPS, GLONASS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, WLAN, Bluetooth 4, USB OTG, and Micro-USB. The company is also offering 5GB of free lifetime ASUS WebStorage for customers.
It remains to be seen how ASUS will be able to sell Zenfone GO 5.0 LTE (T500) especially when there are plenty of smartphones with Android Lollipop and the latest Marshmallow at your disposal. Meanwhile, developers are already testing the upcoming Android N. The device will be useful for senior citizens who doesn’t care which platform is powering the handset.


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The European Commission proposed a new law in November 2021 to regulate online political advertising. The Commission plans to create a harmonized regulatory framework to govern rules around transparency disclosures and audience targeting for ads likely to influence political debates. The proposal is now with the European Parliament, where the Internal Market Committee is currently writing its draft report on the law.
There are three main issues that European policymakers should pay attention to as they negotiate regulations for online political advertising. First, the definition of what counts as a political ad should not encompass purely commercial marketing campaigns, which are already subject to a raft of regulations. Second, lawmakers should properly distribute responsibilities for disclosures and transparency among the different participants involved in online advertising, and not hold advertising platforms responsible for false information provided by their clients. Third, the law should not place excessive constraints on the ability of advertisers or online advertising platforms to target messages to relevant audiences in a cost-effective manner—the very feature that makes targeted online advertising useful.
Online political advertising is a sensitive area given its relationship with the democratic process, and European policymakers are justified in ensuring the rules for fairness and transparency of online political ads are on par with offline political ads. In many cases, industry already exceeds these standards. For example, Google and Facebook provide public repositories of political and issues-based ads. These databases contain all political ads published on their platforms and provide details of who bought them, how much was spent on the campaign, and its reach. The Digital Services Act makes such repositories mandatory for all ads (not just political ads) shown on large online platforms.
The proposed regulation for political ads sets out a host of information that online advertising platforms, like Google’s AdSense and Facebook Ads, would be required to show or make available to an ad’s audience, such as information on ad spending, funding sources, targeting criteria, and the basis for data processing under GDPR. Furthermore, the proposal bans targeting and amplification of political ads using sensitive personal data (as defined by GPDR). The proposed law does provide for exceptions in cases where users provide explicit consent to be shown political ads based on their personal data, or where users regularly interact with political associations or issue-based advocacy groups and non-profit organizations.
Recommendation 1: Draw a Clear Distinction Between Political Advertising and Commercial Advertising
The Commission defines political advertising broadly as the publication or promotion of messages “liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process, or voting behaviour.” This definition creates a wide scope and sweeps up issue-based advertising that may be purely commercial in intent, rather than political. For example, marketing campaigns about diversity and inclusion by commercial actors or retailers that market apparel with political slogans could potentially fall under the scope of the law. The rise of purpose-driven marketing and increasingly conscious consumer behaviour means that growing numbers of brands promote marketing messages with political themes.
Policymakers should maintain a clear distinction between political and commercial advertising and provide guidance on where to draw this line. The new proposed regulation would create extensive disclosure requirements for online political advertising. It would be unnecessarily burdensome to impose these same requirements on purely commercial advertisers. Policymakers should bear in mind that non-political digital ads are already covered by a wide range of laws and regulations. Online ads in the EU must follow rules around accurate information (E-Commerce Directive), target users based on data provided with explicit consent (General Data Protection Regulation, e-Privacy directive), follow rules around unlawful content (Audiovisual Media Services Directive), ensure adverts are accurate and truthful (Consumer Rights Directive, Unfair Commercial Practices Directive), and are not allowed to target minors or sensitive data categories (Digital Services Act).
Recommendation 2: Maintain Intermediary Liability Protection for Online Advertising Platforms Serving Political Ads
Under the proposed regulation, the entities that place a political ad must submit information about how the marketing campaign is funded, the size of its budget and reach, and its targets. As it stands, the draft requires the publishers of the ad to “make reasonable efforts to ensure the information is complete.” But there is no corresponding obligation on clients to provide truthful information. Placing the liability on platforms would allow malicious actors who deliberately submit false information with their ads to avoid facing any sanction. A better approach would be to include a limited “know your business customer” (KYBC) provision that requires online ad platforms to collect certain information about their customers to prevent bad actors from operating under a cloak of anonymity. The purpose of such a provision would be to ensure that regulators could go after bad-faith advertisers that fail to disclose correct information or breach other political advertising rules.
In addition, the regulation foresees only publishers being responsible for deciding whether an ad meets the definition of political advertising, rather than also mandating that advertisers identify whether they consider their ad to be political. This is problematic from a free speech perspective, in that ad platforms should not be alone in policing whether the ads they publish are political. The clients placing the ad should also be required to make good-faith submissions whether they are engaged in political advertising as defined by the law. Such self-declarations will encourage clients to be careful and scrupulous in submitting their campaigns. Concerns around online disinformation by outside actors cannot solely be targeted at the publishers that publish ads: the sponsor of the message, too, must be held to account. Otherwise, the law will fall short of its aim to ensure accountability across the entire political advertising ecosystem.
Recommendation 3: Ensure that the targeting advantages for online political advertisers remain
The draft regulation of political advertising comes in response to widespread concerns around disinformation and manipulation of political ads on the Internet. Yet despite some commentators claiming that online political advertising can subliminally target the innermost reaches of the human mind and thus manipulate unwitting voters, the reality of how online political advertising works is far more mundane. For all the hysteria around Cambridge Analytica’s influence on Brexit, regulators subsequently debunked the notion that it played any role in influencing the outcome of the Brexit referendum. So it is concerning that the law’s preamble refers to the “problematic targeting tactics [of the] Cambridge Analytica scandal,” when the evidence is clear that the firm did not, in fact, have any special mind-targeting tools at its disposal to influence elections. The fact is that Cambridge Analytica’s micro-targeting claims were based on junk science.
The promise of all online advertising, political or not, is that by better targeting the desired audience, an advertiser’s budget is spent more efficiently. It is neither in the interest of advertisers to show, nor their audience to see, irrelevant ads. In the context of politics and elections, this means tailoring messages to likely voters. The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama, for example, made heavy use of digital ‘get out the vote’ strategies, which played a major role in helping a relatively new and inexperienced candidate reach and mobilize swing voters who ended up decisively shaping the election. There is nothing inherently sinister about using technology to fine-tune one’s political messaging or target particular potential voters.
Policymakers should give careful thought as to whether the outright prohibition of targeting audiences based on characteristics like ethnicity, political opinions, religious/philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership is not, ultimately, counter-productive. The purpose of democratic campaigning is to get one’s message out to people that care about it. A total ban on targeting would disadvantage particularly smaller political and advocacy groups that lack the same budgets and resources as large, established parties. For example, candidates that support the labour movement would be limited in their ad effectiveness if they could not target ads—should they want to—to union members.
The proposed regulation for political advertising goes a long way to ensuring that such forms of speech are properly regulated in the EU, with citizens able to discern who is promoting specific ads and why they are seeing them, without undermining the ability to target messages to specific groups. The definition of political advertising needs to be carefully drafted so as to avoid undue overlap with rules around commercial advertising. More work needs to be done in designing the law so that it creates the proper incentives for all actors in the advertising ecosystem to submit truthful and accurate information—otherwise, the law will fall short of its goal of creating fair and transparent rules for all who engage in political ads.


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Municipal leaders don’t like too many pawn shops or payday loan stores because of what it says about their community: Poor economy, bottom-feeding businesses. They often turn to limits as a way to discourage them.
Apparently Belleville is also worried about what too many thrift stores says about the community. Aldermen on Monday voted 12-3 to limit the number to 10, and only two of those can be downtown.
Unless they decide to change the number. Alderman Roger Wigginton said they can boost the number to 20 if they wish.
Which begs the question: Why impose a limit to begin with?
It appears the real problem was that a few shops were leaving their wares outside 24-7. Instead of asking that they stop junking up the neighborhood, Belleville expands a registration and fee system.
Again, we write laws that inconvenience the many because there were problems with a few that we didn’t just address with the old laws.


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Feb. 17, 2012 (China Knowledge) - Acer Inc, a global leading PC maker based in Taiwan
, earned NT$75 million or US$2.54 million in net profit in the fourth quarter of last year, compared with a net loss of NT$3.9 billion in the same quarter of 2010 or NT$1.1 billion in third quarter of 2011.
The profit for the fourth quarter 2011, however, was much less than a forecast of NT$202.24 million from 16 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2011, Acer posted NT$127.7 billion-consolidated revenue, reflecting a sequential increase of 8.3%.
In the whole year of 2011, the Taiwanese company suffered a net loss of NT$6.6 billion, compared with a net profit of NT$15.1 billion in 2010. Acer's consolidated revenue for last year plunged 24.4% year on year to NT$475.5 billion.
Acer also expects it overall shipments in 2012 would be about the same level as 2011 at around 2 million to 2.5 million units, sources reported.


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ALERT: 7 DAYS & COUNTING: COCA-COLA CEO WON’T RESPOND TO JCN REQUEST TO DISCUSS GEORGIA VOTING LAW
On April 22, Job Creators Network (JCN) sent a letter to James Quincey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Coca-Cola Company, regarding his openness to productive conversation regarding Georgia’s voting laws, while also inviting him to discuss further with JCN. Seven days later, Mr. Quincey remains unresponsive. To read JCN’s letter, click here.
“It’s disappointing that Mr. Quincey won’t respond,” said Alfredo Ortiz, JCN President and CEO. “Mr. Quincey’s silence raises concerns that he wasn’t serious about having a good-faith discussion about the Georgia voting law – that it was just a PR stunt after a severe public backlash. However, I remain hopeful that Mr. Quincey will get back to me soon, given the continued public interest in this issue. At the very least, if Mr. Quincey doesn’t want to meet, he should say so. Coca-Cola shareholders and consumers are keeping a close eye on where his company goes from here.”
In his April 22 letter, Mr. Ortiz wrote, “Leaders of major American companies and organizations—you among them—have a responsibility to verify the truth, rather than simply echo unfounded accusations. Let me share with you the facts. Despite urban legend and your previous statement, the Georgia law makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat. It shouldn’t be controversial… Business centers like Atlanta are majority African-American, and ‘protesting’ the whole state only pulls their jobs and small businesses out from under their feet. I would appreciate the opportunity to talk further about this issue with you and discuss how to best help the people of Georgia.”


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Instagram vs TikTok: social media e-Commerce marketing
Instagram’s Reels feature is one of the fastest products Facebook has ever monetized, and it could be an important factor in fending off TikTok
Instagram has become the network of choice for brands to market their products in the last decade. With around 32% of internet users on the app and one billion monthly users worldwide, its influence was briefly unparalleled.
TikTok on the other hand, in just three years has gained a staggering one billion users and continues to grow at an exponential rate. And it made its way into the e-commerce space before Instagram did. What began as a test of new social commerce features, has turned into a go-to for businesses. Retail giant Levi’s was among the first brands to use TikTok’s new “Shop Now” feature to direct users to merchandise.
Instagram made a shift into the e-commerce space as well with its Reels app. So how does it compare to TikTok when it comes to e-commerce functionality?
Instagram’s algorithm shows users what they are likely to buy – based on their previous engagements, posts and brands they follow, and engagements of similar users.
A brand can assume that if a user stumbles upon a shoppable post in the new Instagram Shop feed, their intent to buy is quite high. So there’s a real opportunity to convert followers into customers by posting shoppable posts to a business account feed.
TikTok has experimented with allowing users to add e-commerce links to their bios, launched “Shop Now” buttons for brands’ video ads, and introduced the “Hashtag Challenge Plus” e-commerce feature which allows users to shop for products associated with a sponsored hashtag.
But TikTok’s biggest foray into social shopping was its recent partnership with Shopify. Merchants who get access to the program will be able to connect their TikTok for Business account with their Shopify account and sell products on TikTok via in-feed shoppable video ads.
The new partnership represents TikTok’s biggest leap towards integrating e-commerce into its platform. The deal aims to make it easier for Shopify’s over one million merchants to reach TikTok’s younger audience and drive sales. The partnership will eventually expand to include other in-app shopping features, as well, the companies said.
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Mobile gaming is very popular in Saudi Arabia and yet there are just a handful of game studios in the region (24) compared to Europe (5,000) and the US (3,084). That’s according to research from Nine66, a games ecosystem based in Saudi Arabi, which took a closer look at the state of mobile gaming in the region.
Number of game development studios in Saudi Arabia on the rise
Saudi Arabia has been lagging behind major markets when it comes to mobile game development. That’s despite 83% of local studios finding the process of creating a startup straightforward.
However, the latest report from Nine66 finds that the number of game development studios in the region almost doubled from 13 to 24 within the last year thanks to incubator programs such as GameChangers. The MENA region’s domestic market is one of the fastest growing ones globally with over 377 million estimated players. That’s similar to Europe (386 million). The increase in local studios highlights the region’s readiness to take the next step in the growth journey.
Local developers are creating games spanning many different genres, but there is a noticeable preference towards action/adventure games, narrative-driven games and casual/hypercasual games.
Top game genres in development
Collaboration at the forefront
The study also found that 84% of interviewees had collaborated with other local developers before, either after meeting them at events or connecting on social media.
The majority of respondents consider free-to-play the business model of the future despite the majority of developers building premium games right now.
When asked which platforms developers are focusing on at the moment, two-thirds of said they were targeting PC (66%), twice as much as mobile at 32%. Developers in there region also believe they’re more likely to succeed on PC (51%) than mobile (33%).
Top platforms to succeed on
Funding has been a challenge for developers as investors do not yet fully understand the sector. Financial help and a drive to recruit more talent from outside the region are pressing needs for the sector.
- 83% of local studios find the process of creating a startup straightforward
- Number of game development studios in Saudi Arabia almost doubled from 13 to 24 within the last year
- 84% of interviewees collaborated with other local developers before


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It looks like Goku and company are coming back in a way nobody expected!
Earlier today, new promotional poster was released, which announced that arcade game Dragon Ball Heroes will get an anime adaptation. According to the poster, the series is slated to adapt the game’s Universe Survival and Prison Planet story arcs. The image also notes that the first episode is tentatively scheduled to be previewed at Aeon Lake Town on July 1.
You can check the poster out below:
Dragon Ball Heroes is a Japanese trading arcade card game that launched in 2010. The title received a port to Nintendo’s 3DS handheld, which hit stores on February 28, 2013. The latest incarnation of the title, Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission X, hit stores on April 27, 2017. The game launched at second place on the Media Create sales charts, with 97,093 copies reaching customers.


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Just as they did with Pharrell’s debut NMD colorway, adidas will be celebrating the 5th anniversary of the silhouette with a special Primeknit edition of its linage’s most famous colorway.
Despite only being half a decade old, the adidas NMD has seen the highs and lows of the sneaker world. An explosive start saw it rise almost instantly to the top of popularity — and when we say top, we mean the very top. It, along with the Ultra BOOST, since saw a steep decline in “gram-worthy” shots, but still remained one of adidas’ biggest movers — and that’s something worth celebrating. The OG burst onto the scene with its iconic royal and red plugs popping from a stark black and white base. Its simplicity was unmatched, as was its out-of-this-world comfort. This new NMD boasts those exact two factors in an all-new sock-like Primeknit upper. Taping is gone, instead relying on barely-there stitching for its Three Stripe and vamp detail, while added pulls now appear in leather.
A release date for the adidas NMD R1 Primeknit “OG” has been set by adidas US for March 11th, 2021, with pairs set to arrive here via their official webstorefrom 3 am ET for $180.
If you’re planning on picking up a pair on the day, make sure you head to our dedicated adidas Release Dates Calendar to set yourself a reminder for the drop.
adidas NMD R1 Primeknit “OG”
Release Date: March 11th, 2021
Style Code: GZ0066
Price: $180 USD


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The race for drone deliveries among eCommerce companies is getting tense with Walmart inching closer to its drone ambitions.
The retail giant said it is a mere six to nine months away from deploying drones for superior management of its warehouse inventories in the United States, Reuters reported.
Walmart's announcement comes after it applied for a license to test drones for end-to-end fulfillment of online orders in October last year. Its application to U.S. regulators sought permission for checking warehouse inventories, curbside pickup and home deliveries. While the Arkansas-based company got the go-ahead for using drones in its warehouse, it might still be a while before it gets to use the technology for fulfilling drone-powered home deliveries.
"We are still in early phases of testing and understanding how drones can be better used in different types of business functions," Walmart VP of Last Mile and Emerging Sciences Shekar Natarajan said.
At one of Walmart's regional distribution centers, Natarajan reportedly gave a demonstration on the use of drones and explained how their use could help further drive down labor-intensive processes, such as checking on warehouse stocks, to a one-day job.
The model used in the demonstration could capture video of products stocked in an aisle at 30 frames per second. The relayed video was then used to analyze and alert the person in charge of depleting quantities and improper stocking of any particular product.
Walmart's move to push forward with its drone delivery plans is on the heels 0f Amazon's Prime Air program, which, just like Walmart, is working on getting approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration to use drones for faster delivery. So far, the company has only been able to use drones in a test environment.


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The team at Walt Disney Imagineering have released photos and details of interactive experiences that will be available for guests in the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train attraction, the Disney Parks Blog announced Tuesday.
Disney has previously announced that the new Fantasyland roller coaster will feature an interactive queue to keep guests entertained while they wait to ride the new attraction. Today, it was announced that one of the interactive experiences will be a 15-foot digital "sluice box," where guests can drag gems into trays by matching color and shape.
Adding to the experience on being in the Seven Dwarfs mine will be props of glittering gem buckets that will light the area with an array of colors.
Disney Parks are known for adding interactive activities to attractions as guests wait in sometimes long lines to ride the most popular rides. Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom, for example, has space-themed video games where guests can compete against each other while in line for the roller coaster.
Last week, Disney teased the animatronic characters that can be found in the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. A CGI ride-along of what guests can expect from the new attraction was released in earlier this month.
The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train will tell the story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” from the perspective of the dwarfs, taking riders on an indoor-and-outdoor trip, with side-to-side swaying cars.
The ride has been completed in stages since 2012 and it has previously been announced that the new attraction will open spring 2014, but at this time an official launch date has not been released.


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Kojima Productions announced today they have expanded their studio with a brand new business division effective immediately. This new division will be based in California, and according to the brief amount of info released about it, they will be exploring new opportunities beyond just doing game development as they will be venturing into film, television, and other entertainment platforms. The move is an interesting one, but to be real, one that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Like a lot of gaming companies, when you patch together the cutscenes from Death Stranding, you basically make an animated movie. It wouldn’t take a lot using the technology at their disposal to branch into TV and film to make a series that looks as good as those scenes. We have a couple of quotes from today’s announcement giving more insight into the new venture.
“Today I can finally confirm that Kojima Productions will be opening a new business division in California, USA,” said Riley Russell who leads the new business team at Kojima Productions. “The new division will be tasked with working with creative and talented professionals in television, music and film, as well as the more familiar games industry. The team has as its charter, the goal of expanding the reach and awareness of the properties now under development at Kojima Productions, and to make them even more a part of our popular culture. Although we are a global organization, the new business development team will be centred in Los Angeles, CA. We are truly excited and looking forward to working with the very best entertainment talent we can, across all of the entertainment industries.”
“Finding new ways to entertain, engage and offer value to our fans is essential in a fast-moving, ever changing storytelling world,” said Yoshiko Fukuda, Business Development Manager at Kojima Productions. “Our new division will take the studio into even more areas that present our creative narratives beyond videogames and to open up ways for our fans to communicate and immerse themselves in these spaces.”


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The European Union has made its first ever sizeable investment into an insect farming startup, in a sign that policymakers are finally taking seriously the concept of making insect-based protein at an industrial scale.
The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, on Tuesday said that it had provided €20m in backing for Ynsect, the mealworm farming company, in a boost to the whole sector which is looking for cheaper and more environmentally friendly forms of food.
Ynsect plans to produce 1500 tonnes of mealworm protein a month at its Amiens plant.
Around 50 insect farming companies worldwide have raised a total of $480m to date, but Ynsect, founded in 2011, is among the best-funded of the lot. These companies are convinced that insects should be used far more as a protein source to help feed a world population of 9bn people by 2050.
The EU is known for supporting farmers through its €58bn Common Agricultural Policy, but this Ynsect investment is the first time it has provided support for insect farmers at this scale.
Ynsect makes animal feed and fertiliser from mealworms, or Tenebrio Molitor larvae, and is aiming to produce protein at the rate of 1500 tonnes a month at a fully-automated factory in Amiens, in northern France.
The company uses vertical farming techniques and robots to try to bring down the cost of producing insect protein, which up to now has been too high to be a viable competitor for other proteins such as fishmeal.
Antoine Hubert, founder and chief executive of Ynsect said the project would "lay the foundations for a new protein supply chain to meet the world's immense food challenge".
Insects have been identified by the United Nations as a food source with less environmental impact than conventional farming; mealworms eat food waste products, such as spent grain from the brewing industry, and give off fewer greenhouse gases than other livestock.
To be clear, the €20m backing for the Ynsect plant does not come from the European Commission’s agricultural budget, but from the research budget, part of the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking which invests in factories working in the bioeconomy sector. However, it is a signal that the Commission is prepared to take insect farming seriously.
The Commission has already been helping insect farming grow by removing some of the restrictions on feeding insect protein to farmed fish, with restrictions on chicken and pig feed due to follow.
Ynsect has so far raised more than $175m from investors, making it the best-funded of Europe’s insect farming startups. The company already employs some 110 people at a pilot facility in Dôle, in the Jura region of eastern France, but is expecting to create some 1200 direct and indirect jobs when the Amiens plant opens in 2021.


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But it seems negative remarks didn't stop millions from listening to it.
according to Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services. About 5% of overall Apple users downloaded Songs of Innocence in its entirety; it was downloaded in full 26 million times.
"Previously, 14 million customers had purchased U2's music since the opening of the iTunes Store in 2003, Cue told Billboard.
Of course, 81 million is only about 16% of 500 million users, but Apple's free gift means the music spread to significantly more people than it would have otherwise.
"Apple is a tech company fighting to get musicians paid," U2 said in a statement to Billboard. "The idea that they wanted to make a gift to the very people that actually purchase music is both beautiful and poetic, and for that we are very grateful."


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Here are the highlights from our Facebook coverage this week:
“I want my brother to know that it’s not “wrong” for him to want to be a chef, that it’s okay to go against what society believes to be appropriate. There are, as a matter of fact, a multitude of very talented and successful male culinary geniuses…Unfortunately, Hasbro has made going against the societal norm that girls are the ones in the kitchen even more difficult.”
– 13-year-old McKenna Pope who started a petition to get Hasbro to include boys on its packaging and to offer it in more gender-neutral colors (The Mary Sue)
-“For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.” – New York Times
-Spencer’s launches a line of sexist T-Shirts, and we’re #NotBuyingIt. Full blog here.
-“The Hawkeye Initiative takes one basic premise, that you can fix every “Strong Female Character” pose in comics by replacing that character with Hawkeye doing the same pose, and applies it to actual comic book panels and covers” – Upworthy
-“It’s not that your life has been easy, per se, it’s just that certain hardships have been absent—hardships that affect other groups in ways that are most likely invisible to you. You’re not personally being blamed for anything, nor is anyone asking you to abandon your own interests and concerns. You’re simply being asked to acknowledge and help dismantle a system that is rigged in your favor, because it’s the right thing to do. Opportunity is not a limited resource—other people having stuff does not mean you don’t get to have stuff. It’ll be okay. In fact, it’ll be better.” – Jezebel speaks to white males feeling victimized
-An inspiring Ted Talk from Feminist Frequency‘s Anita Sarkeesian:


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When RBR Melville Contractors’ sales manager left the snow-removal company last year to form his own plow-for-hire business, he took a lot with him.Read More »
Tag Archives: courtFeed Subscription
A pizza maker charged with withholding $800,000 in sales tax revenues from the state is the victim of an “accounting mistake,” according to his attorney.
Tagged with: accounting arrested charges court crime drinks falsified quarterly tax returns Finance food fraud grand larceny illegal Law Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice Papa John’s restaurants pizza police sales tax revenues state taxes tax fraud tax thief underreported sales totalsRead More »
The year’s top verdict was a whopping $716.5 award against a convenience store that made one too many liquor sales to a minor.
Tagged with: a deadly typo ambulance crash case Catalano Gallardo & Petropoulos compensatory damage court death defamation drunk driving falling power lines injuries injury Jacobi Medical Center jury verdicts Kings County Hospital Law money Nassau Academy of Law New York City Health and Hospice Corp. stomach surgery trial verdict awards Wrongful deathRead More »
Jurors were set to begin their second day of deliberations Thursday in a multibillion dollar patent infringement case pitting Apple against Samsung over the design of iPhones and iPads. After a three-week federal trial in San Jose, a jury of ...Read More »


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Chinese limo aims to catch Western brands
Friday 03 December 2010
Chinese automaker Hongqi is finally readying its exclusive HQE limousine for production, according to media reports from China.
The Hongqi HQE, often seen as the Chinese answer to the luxury Maybach 62 or Rolls Royce Phantom, drew considerable attention when Chinese President Hu Jintao was pictured reviewing troops in it in 2009.
Now, the car is set to enter production and is expected to soon be on sale as the most expensive car ever produced by China.
Its 6.0 liter V12 engine will be the first domestically produced ultra-luxury engine and is seen as something of a leap for the Chinese auto industry, which has previously relied on external brands supplying engines for its top-end models.
With a price of 8 million yuan (€906,000) and bullet-proof windows, the HQE is clearly aimed at China's burgeoning elite, although it remains to be seen whether a Chinese vehicle will hold the same cachet as established luxury marques such as Bentley, Maybach or Rolls Royce.
Earlier this year, Rolls Royce announced that its sales in China tripled in the first quarter of 2010, saying that it had a healthy order bank for its Phantom and Ghost models in the country, now its third largest market globally.
How do they compare?
Hongqi HQE Engine: 6.0L V12 300 kW Length: 6395 mm Price: €906,000
Maybach 62 Engine: 6.0L V12, 450 kW Length 6165 mm Price: €492,602
Rolls Royce Phantom (extended wheelbase) Engine: 6.75L V12 338 kW Length 6,084 mm Price €379,000
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Full Details of World’s first lab-grown burger called the ‘Googleburger’.
The world’s first lab-grown burger has been cooked and eaten at a news conference in London.
Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle that they combined to make a patty.
One food expert said it was “close to meat, but not that juicy” and another said it tasted like a real burger.
Researchers say the technology could be a sustainable way of meeting what they say is a growing demand for meat.
The burger was cooked by chef Richard McGeown, from Cornwall, and tasted by food critics Hanni Ruetzler and Josh Schonwald.
The world’s population is continuing to increase and an ever greater proportion want to eat meat. To meet that demand farmers will need to use more energy, water and land – and the consequent increase in greenhouse gas emission will be substantial.
The plan for lab-grown burgers has won support from some animal welfare and vegetarian groups, who feel it addresses their concerns about animal suffering.
But critics say technological fixes, whether it is lab-grown meat or GM crops address the symptoms rather than the causes of world hunger. What is needed, they say, are policies that enable more farmers to produce more food more efficiently and to distribute it more equitably.
And then of course there is the taste. Even those behind the stem cell project agree that the meat grown will never taste as good as that from an animal. But as prices rise, environmental pressures grow and concerns over animal welfare increase, they argue their approach is the only ethical and pragmatic way forward.
Upon tasting the burger, Austrian food researcher Ms Ruetzler said: “I was expecting the texture to be more soft… there is quite some intense taste; it’s close to meat, but it’s not that juicy. The consistency is perfect, but I miss salt and pepper.
“This is meat to me. It’s not falling apart.”
Food writer Mr Schonwald said: “The mouthfeel is like meat. I miss the fat, there’s a leanness to it, but the general bite feels like a hamburger.
“What was consistently different was flavour.”
Prof Mark Post, of Maastricht University, the scientist behind the burger, remarked: “It’s a very good start.”
The professor said the meat was made up of tens of billions of lab-grown cells. Asked when lab-grown burgers would reach the market, he said: “I think it will take a while. This is just to show we can do it.”
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has been revealed as the project’s mystery backer. He funded the £215,000 ($330,000) research.
Prof Tara Garnett, head of the Food Policy Research Network at Oxford University, said decision-makers needed to look beyond technological solutions.
“We have a situation where 1.4 billion people in the world are overweight and obese, and at the same time one billion people worldwide go to bed hungry,” she said.
“That’s just weird and unacceptable. The solutions don’t just lie with producing more food but changing the systems of supply and access and affordability, so not just more food but better food gets to the people who need it.”
Stem cells are the body’s “master cells”, the templates from which specialised tissue such as nerve or skin cells develop.
Most institutes working in this area are trying to grow human tissue for transplantation to replace worn-out or diseased muscle, nerve cells or cartilage.
Prof Post is using similar techniques to grow muscle and fat for food.
He starts with stem cells extracted from cow muscle tissue. In the laboratory, these are cultured with nutrients and growth-promoting chemicals to help them develop and multiply. Three weeks later, there are more than a million stem cells, which are put into smaller dishes where they coalesce into small strips of muscle about a centimetre long and a few millimetres thick.
These strips are collected into small pellets, which are frozen. When there are enough, they are defrosted and compacted into a patty just before being cooked.
Because the meat is initially white in colour, Helen Breewood – who works with Prof Post – is trying to make the lab-grown muscle look red by adding the naturally-occurring compound myoglobin.
“If it doesn’t look like normal meat, if it doesn’t taste like normal meat, it’s not… going to be a viable replacement,” she said.
She added: “A lot of people consider lab-grown meat repulsive at first. But if they consider what goes into producing normal meat in a slaughterhouse, I think they would also find that repulsive.”
Currently, this is a work in progress. The burger revealed on Monday was coloured red with beetroot juice. The researchers have also added breadcrumbs, caramel and saffron, which were intended to add to the taste, although Ms Ruetzler said she could not taste these.
At the moment, scientists can only make small pieces of meat; larger ones would require artificial circulatory systems to distribute nutrients and oxygen.
In a statement, animal welfare campaigners People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) said: “[Lab-grown meat] will spell the end of lorries full of cows and chickens, abattoirs and factory farming. It will reduce carbon emissions, conserve water and make the food supply safer.”
Critics of the technology say that eating less meat would be an easier way to tackle predicted food shortages.
The latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report on the future of agriculture indicates that most of the predicted growth in demand for meat from China and Brazil has already happened and many Indians are wedded to their largely vegetarian diets for cultural and culinary reasons.
‘At least it tastes of meat!’: World’s first test-tube artificial beef ‘Googleburger’ gets GOOD review as it’s eaten for the first time
- The 142g patty cost £250,000 to make and consists of meat grown in a lab
- Total of 20,000 strips of meat were grown in petri dishes in the Netherlands
- The artificial meat was electrically stimulated to bulk up the ‘muscle’ and then blended with 200 pieces of lab-grown animal fat
- Red beetroot juice and saffron added to provide authentic beef colouring
- It has also been revealed that one of the burger’s financial backers is computer entrepreneur, and Google co-founder, Sergey Brin
It may look like something you’d chuck on the barbecue without a second thought, but this round of meat costs a very beefy £250,000 — as the world’s first test-tube burger.
After the patty was lightly fried in a little butter and sunflower oil yesterday, the two volunteers chosen to taste it in front of a live audience were hardly effusive, though.
‘I was expecting the texture to be more soft,’ said Austrian food researcher Hanni Rutzler, taking 27 chews before being able to swallow a mouthful. ‘It’s close to meat — it’s not that juicy.’
The second volunteer, food writer Josh Schonwald added: ‘The absence is the fat. But the bite feels like a conventional hamburger. What was conspicuously different was flavour.’
The world’s first test-tube burger, made from lab-grown meat, (pictured) has been cooked and eaten in London today. The 142g patty was developed by Professor Mark Post (pictured) of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. It cost £250,000 to produce and is made from 20,000 strips of meat grown from cow stem cells
The ‘cultured beef’ takes three months to grow in a laboratory, using cells from a living cow.
Its creator, Dutch scientist Mark Post, claims it could revolutionise the food industry and help save the planet. He believes that artificial meat products could be sold in supermarkets within a decade.
After tasting his invention yesterday, he said: ‘I think it’s a very good start — it proved that we can do this, that we can make it. We are basically catering towards letting beef-eaters eat beef in an environmentally ethical way.’
The man-made patty (pictured) was fried in a pan and sampled by two volunteers – US-based food author Josh Schonwald and Austrian food researcher Hanni Ruetzler. Ms Ruetzler said that it had the ‘perfect consistency’
Video: How world’s first test-tube burger was grown
Video: Tasting the test-tube burger: the verdict
What do you think? Let us know in Comments below or send an email to the author at Contacts


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WASHINGTON— Roy Sekoff, founding editor of The Huffington Post and president and co-creator of HuffPost Live, will give the keynote address at the 2014 NAB Show Disruptive Media Conference on Wednesday, April 9 in Las Vegas.
Sekoff's keynote will address how the rise of online video and viewers’ growing desire to engage with content is impacting programming, distribution and advertising in media and entertainment.
Sekoff oversees all the development, production and programming of HuffPost Live. The network uses HuffPost stories, editors, reporters and bloggers to live-stream eight hours of original live programming, five days a week, available online, on mobile devices and on-demand. Highlights are shown overnight and on weekends.
Before helping to launch HuffPost and HuffPost Live, Sekoff was a writer and on-air correspondent for Michael Moore’s newsmagazine “TV Nation.” His writing has appeared in publications such as The Village Voice and The London Times. Sekoff is often also a guest on TV and radio shows.
The Disruptive Media Conference, produced in partnership with Digital Media Wire, gathers professionals who oversee the digital and interactive divisions within their companies to explore developments in online video, mobile and branded entertainment. Held April 9-10, the program covers the impact of disruptive media and more traditional OTT technologies on business models for distribution and consumer engagement. New programming partners, Parks Associates and Mobile World Congress, will curate sessions around “disruptors” in the mobile and broadband space.
Executives who have spoken previously at the NAB Show Disruptive Media Conference include Avner Ronen, co-founder of Boxee; Ben Silverman, founder and chairman of multimedia studio Electus; Philip DeBevoise, president and co-founder, Machinima; and Chloe Sladden, director of Media Partnerships, Twitter.
NAB Show will be held April 5-10, 2014.
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Instagram controls almost 50% of luxury watch-related mentions, followed by Twitter at 18%. Why is Instagram so important to brands compared with other social media channels?
Articles on the subject:
Faster-paced, more connected and interactive, the new-format SIHH delivered on social media. Two weeks on, we analyze what made its mark online.
Day 1 didn’t disappoint, Day 2 took flight with complications… and what about Day 3. Check out what people on social media were talking about at Day 3 of SIHH 2019.
Day 1 of SIHH 2019 showed that the anticipation for the show was warranted. Check out what people on social media were talking about at Day 2 of the fair.
After a glamorous opening ceremony on Sunday, a much-anticipated edition of SIHH is finally upon us. Check out what people on social media were talking about at Day 1 of SIHH 2019.
At end November, SalonQP celebrated its 10th birthday. Over the three-day event, Britain’s leading watch magazine and its host of exhibitors brought Fine Watchmaking to life… but did it set Instagram on fire?
Following our ‘Only Time Will Tell’ video, in which we look at the Panerai Luminor Due 3 Days Automatic Acciaio 38mm, we went online to see which are the most popular Panerai watches on Instagram.
For the first time in its 108-year history, Chanel has published its financial results. They show it is one of the top-performing luxury brands with almost US$10 billion in annual sales. Focusing on their Fine Watch business, we scoured Instagram to see which of their timepieces are taking the lead online.


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Weekends are a busy time for restaurants, and fitting in the optimal number of reservations is a perennial challenge. So in 2015, the Hotel school’s Center for Hospitality Research created the Restaurant Reservations Optimization Tool. Drawing on research in operations management, it takes into account such factors as party size, arrival time, and expected meal length to help determine the best mix of tables.
The tool is just one of many ways that the center has aided restaurants, hotels, and other hospitality-related businesses since it was founded in 1992 with the aim of facilitating productive links between academia and industry. Some thirty corporate partners—ranging from established brands such as Hyatt and Priceline.com to smaller start-ups—make up its advisory board and largely fund the center’s activities. In a given year, these may include putting out two dozen publications, inviting visiting scholars, hosting the Cornell Hospitality Research Summit, and holding roundtables on such topics as sustainability in the hotel industry and revenue management in restaurants. “We take general academic puzzles we’re working on,” says center director Chris Anderson, an associate professor at the Hotel school, “and weave them into something that’s of value to industry today.”
The benefits go both ways, according to Ben Lawrence ’97, an assistant professor of food and beverage management who has worked with the center since he began teaching at Cornell five years ago. Hoteliers receive impartial, data-driven feedback on their business ideas and initiatives, while academics gain access to a trove of industry data. Lawrence, for example, has worked with data supplied by the center in two published and three ongoing projects, including research on online reviews as a measure of a service company’s reputation and a study of advertising among 3,500 franchised hotel properties in the U.S. Most recently, he used industry-provided data to evaluate the relationship between “checkout charity”—when customers are solicited for small donations as they pay for their orders—and repeat purchases for a national fast food chain. He found that customers experience a “warm glow” when they donate and are more likely to revisit the restaurant in the future. “The business got the answers it was looking for, and we were able to publish research that had implications for both theory and practice,” says Lawrence. “A win-win.”
The center makes its findings available to hoteliers and the public for free online, offering easily digestible reports, roundtable highlights, and how-to documents on subjects ranging from keeping track of wines’ drinkability in a restaurant cellar to strategies for communicating a hotel’s “green” values. Last year saw the one millionth download—a number that Anderson offers up as a measure of the center’s relevance. Regularly rotating industry partners on the advisory board, appointed for three-year terms, help to maintain fresh perspectives and visions, Anderson says. As the center has expanded over the years, it has spun off four others at the Hotel school that focus on labor, entrepreneurship, real estate, and healthcare in relation to the hospitality industry. Partner funding also supports undergraduate and graduate research, and students are invited to network with executives at center events. “Even though the Hotel school is on the endowed side of campus, in some manner we follow the land grant mission of the state side,” Anderson observes. “We actively reach out to industry and engage our students not only in the practice of hospitality but also in applied research—with a goal of improving the business of hospitality, today and into the future.”


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The video shows Atlas, Spot, and Handle – Boston Dynamics’ humanoid, canine, and logistics robots respectively – moving in a coordinated routine to the beat of the music.
The machines step, jump, spin, and run with impressive accuracy, performing moves like the “mashed potato” and the twist in time to the lyrics of the song.
This is not the first time that Boston Dynamics has demonstrated the dance prowess of its machines. In 2018, it uploaded “UpTown Spot”, a video where its mechanical dog achieved a brief performance of Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson.
During the coronavirus pandemic, it has been used in Singapore to patrol parks and encourage local people to continue social distancing.
In New Zealand it has become a sheepdog, able to be controlled remotely and round up the animals across a mountainside.
Among its other robots are Pick, an item-grabbing machine, and the company says it is working on a new version of its Handle robot – a small, bird-like machine which can move items into shipping containers or trucks easier than other robots.
Boston Dynamics was recently purchased by Hyundai, although it is unclear exactly what service the robotics company would provide.
CEO Robert Playter has hypothesised that the company could develop machines in the logistics industry.
“We have big plans in logistics,” Mr Playter said. “We’re going to have some exciting new logistics products coming out in the next two years. We have customers now doing proof of concept tests.”
Boston Dynamics was originally spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before it was purchased by Google in 2013 and again by Softbank in 2017.


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With the maxim that it is devoted to providing users an exchange with the best security, speed, and stability, OKCoin, the Chinese Bitcoin exchange is willing to expand the consumer base. Whereas OKCoin.com is a worldwide digital currency trading platform, OKCoin.cn is a China-focused digital currency trading platform.
Talking about the ambitious projects in pipeline Jack Liu, Head of International at OKCoin says that given the company’s position as the largest Bitcoin company in China, there is not only a responsibility to grow the wider ecosystem of Bitcoin use cases, wallets and payments, but also a great opportunity on this front.’
Moreover, as China has lion’s share in Bitcoin transactions, OKCoin thinks it can cash in on the opportunities available. In a recent report Goldman Sachs says that 80 percent of Bitcoin is exchanged into and out of the Chinese Yuan. However, Jack Liu is of the view that this data may be exaggerated.
Though OKCoin.cn and OKCoin.com are two separate companies, they are owned by the same investors. For all practical reasons, the two companies have two kinds of accounts for their customers. Whereas OKCoin.com is a Singapore registered company, the operations and data center are located outside of China.
Jack Liu says that due to the three largest exchanges of OKCoin, BTC China, and Huobi all trade BTC against CNY on a 0 spot fee basis; the total volume will naturally be higher. However, according to him a majority of the volume does indeed trade in China. Moreover, as China is active in the trading and speculative aspect of Bitcoin, trading is going up further.
OKLink to be launched Soon
Talking about the new responsibility which is linked to expanding consumer and merchant adoption Liu says that there are great synergies to adding a consumer & merchant product to OKCoin, which he calls OKLink. This according to him has been in the works for several months which he is going to unveil in the coming months.
Liu also says that while he wouldn’t say much more, he did say that what the company will be releasing will be different than what users see currently on OKLink. Founded in 2013, OKCoin received a US$1m Angel Investment from Ventures Lab and Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Tim Draper which it is going to utilize for capacity building and expansion of consumer base.
To contact the reporter of this story: Deepak Tiwari at firstname.lastname@example.org
Talking about the ambitious projects in pipeline Jack Liu, Head of International at OKCoin says that given the company’s position as the largest Bitcoin company in […]


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Dark Horse Deluxe, an imprint of Dark Horse Comics, has revealed the latest figure in an ongoing series of characters from the critically acclaimed HBO® series Game of Thrones®: the Night King.
The masterfully sculpted figure finely details the leader of the White Walkers. It measures eight inches in height and is packaged in a collectors’ window box.
The Night King will be the twenty-fourth figure in the series and is slated for in-store release in September of 2016.
“The Night King’s confrontation with Jon Snow in the aftermath of the Hardhome battle is one of the most dramatic moments of Game of Thrones to date. We are very excited to have captured the power of this character in a stunning new figure,” Dark Horse Product Development head David Scroggy remarked.
Response to the Game of Thrones collectible figure line has been overwhelming, and additional characters are in development for release in summer and fall 2016. The Night King figure will be joined by Ygritte, Margaery Tyrell, Oberyn Martell, Grey Worm, and Varys.
Dark Horse also recently announced a limited-edition bust statue of the Night King, which will be released in March 2016.
Game of Thrones figures have a suggested retail price of $24.99 and are packaged in deluxe window box packaging.


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Like everyone else who hasn't been living under a particularly large rock for the last couple weeks, I've become aware of a couple things.
Firstly, Apple has committed to moving its systems from PowerPC chips to chips from Intel over the next two years.
Secondly, the media is terribly excited about this.
I have both PowerPC hardware from Apple and Intel-based hardware from another vendor. It all runs Linux or OS X. I personally don't find this transition to be anything that I have to worry about. But the announcement, and the ensuing media coverage, have left me wondering a few things. Fortunately, I had a flash of realization this morning.
The media has consistently portrayed this as a move away from IBM and toward Intel by Apple. And that's not at all untrue - this does represent a win for Intel, and a vote of no confidence in the future roadmap of the G5 family.
But why, I ask, would Apple announce this now, when Intel's chips don't really offer any performance advantages over the G5? Won't changing from the G5 to the Pentium be a step backward, in fact, from 64-bit to 32-bit? And, says the media, won't this hurt their sales?
The answer, of course, is that it's not about IBM, and not about the G5. Not now. Not next year. Not until 2007.
Remember, Apple is starting at the low end, and won't go Intel on the high end until 2007. The G5 is only used in the Power Mac, Xserve, and iMac. And IBM doesn't make the G4. Freescale (formerly Motorola) does, and Apple's been discontented with Motorola for years - after all, that's why they went with IBM for the G5. G4 speeds haven't kept up with Intel, and memory bus speeds of G4 systems are woefully slow.
So this year, and next year, this isn't about IBM. It's about Freescale getting one last firm kick in the butt from Apple on its way out the door. And that is a huge win for buyers of Apple's low-end systems, even if the media ignores it.
Since IBM only makes the high-end G5, their arrangement with Apple probably won't end until 2007, when those systems go Intel. And that also means the G5 won't be getting replaced with current Pentiums - it will be getting replaced with something Intel's fabbing two years in the future. Something we may very well not even know the details of until 2006.
So... this isn't just about Apple and IBM. It's about Apple and Freescale right now and for at least the next year. Sure, IBM's been told its days as a chip supplier for Apple are numbered, but Freescale is first against the wall.