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Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Guyu Laboratory – Tencent News” (ID: guyulab), Author: Yuan Si, the Editors: Kim Hyok 36 Krypton release authorized.repost is not allowed without consent.
In the past, the stories that attracted us were capital-led big mergers and acquisitions, the rise and counterattack of unicorns, and the hot and hot roadshow of startup cafes.But now, the news that occupies the top of the major technology media includes: the extreme privacy of the “Qing Yu Nian” couple, the breakup of Luo Zhixiang and Zhou Yangqing in the entertainment circle, and the “time management technique” of the male host.
Especially for some waist companies, the news has become less and less.Perhaps there will be a new wave, based on new and unknown technology, there will also be new areas of coverage that will generate new great reports.But now, the industry is getting calmer, at least for a technology reporter.
Written by Yuan Slai
Produced by Tencent News Gu Yu Studio
I don’t know when it started, the Internet industry is becoming more and more calm, at least for a technology reporter.
It is difficult to find a clear node, suggesting when to start, and the reports that make science and technology reporters sympathize less and less. In addition to talking about money, this industry is also skilled at starting gossip.Since last year, the “Qing Yu Nian” couple has become a hot spot: the tears in the circle of friends, the extreme privacy of the husband and wife, the high-profile snatch of the official seal, and the wave of advancement in an orderly manner; Tmall President Jiang Fan’s wife Weibo shouted Zhang Dayi,The gossip about the senior executive and the predecessor of the Internet celebrity has swept the hotspot of the technology circle for a few days; the entertainment circle Luo Zhixiang and Zhou Yangqing broke up, and the “time management technique” of the male host, even occupying the top of the major technology media.And those touching reports, such as the destruction of Luo Yonghao’s idealism, the loss of Wei Lai’s car, or the tender past of Douban, are really as rare as Morningstar.
The big companies in the head still have a lot of “big” news: Meituan’s market value exceeds 100 billion US dollars, fulfilling Wang Xing’s aspirations in 2015; the stock price of Pinduoduo, which went online in 2015, doubled in two months, and the market value reached 83.8 billion.US dollar; Didi spent 7 years to burn 50 billion yuan and declared himself profitable, Liu Qing said very low-key: small profits.
But some waist companies, even former stars, can only appear on the fringes of the media: Kuaishou and JD.com cooperate to sell goods, Ctrip acquires Dutch OTA group Travix.Sanitary ware retail and furniture retail companies; Vipshop will be mentioned because of the release of the first quarter financial report that is not surprising.
Slightly stripping the name and data, you will find that these messages are related to the same thing-money, of course, is a lot of money.But these former technology reporters Yu Ningkun, who is already in the consulting industry, are “boring” in their eyes. This is nothing new and is not the “news” in his mind.It’s even a bit boring to the point that there is only money left.
Yu Ningkun had already made a personal judgment about this before he changed his career: the Internet is more and more like a traditional industry, that is, more and more like the way it wanted to be subverted.When did all this happen?How did it happen?
I once started to make scientific reports with the mentality of recording the most spectacular business revolution of this era.I believed at the time, and now I also try to believe that the greatness of Internet technology can profoundly change human life, not only at the daily level: unbounded imagination, new technologies that have never been seen before, subversion of products, and subversion of organizational structures.Of course, there are fascinating capital battles and games behind it.When I entered this industry, the editor teacher told me: “We want to find Google in China”, which will excite and excite me.
He Yuansheng, who came to Beijing in 2015, also told himself: “You are a participant of the times and a witness.” He recalled that voice to me, which was a bit “I come, I see, I conquer”.
We are attracted by the ups and downs of the story: 4 big mergers and acquisitions starting in 2015-Didi Kuaidi, Qunar Ctrip, 58 Tongcheng and Ganji, Dazhong Comment and Meituan; Zhongguancun Cafe’s small blackboard is hot and hotEntrepreneurship roadshow; two bicycles reached tens of billions of yuan in two years, and finally buried them; Jia Yueting changed from the ecstasy of ecology to the bankrupt of “to return to tomorrow”; when the blockchain claims to subvert the “classical Internet”,The price of bitcoin reached 20,000 US dollars, and in 2011, a junior student asked about it: there is 6,000 yuan, what are the good financial investment suggestions?A “great god” called blockchain answered: buy bitcoin, save the wallet file, and forget that you have 6000 yuan, and look at it in five years.The price of bitcoin at the time was $1.
Pinduoduo found users on the 4th and 5th lines outside Taobao. They took Huang Zheng to Nasdaq in three years to ring the bell.
My colleagues and predecessors have contributed dazzling fresh and professional reports: the Central Bureau of the Shared Bicycle Capital Bureau, 100 days after Sun Hongbin entered LeTV, China’s VC battle for Southeast Asia, and the entrepreneurial wave of sudden cooling down, these are destined to be at that stageMiniatures or footnotes, the participants also reap the greatest professional achievements and pride.
Yu Ningkun said when chatting here: “The story of the journey and the voyage ends here, the era of idealism and heroism has passed.” These words are “large”, but “the sea of stars” was the most optimistic era.Eye-catching logo.
But the river in this story suddenly dried up.He Yuansheng mentioned that in 2017, they went to dinner together.Suddenly it was suggested that you look at the APP on your phone, how many were installed within 5 years?Everyone took out their phones, and someone unexpectedly discovered that this number was 0.They think that the company is still very young, no matter whether it is station B or knowing it, it is actually an “old man” who is almost 10 years old.
Here may reveal a part of the answer: without the update of the underlying technology, the innovation of technology companies is gradually exhausted, some companies have completed their missions, and the capital-led merger finally ends the story.This is why the Internet is beginning to calm down.The basic power to change society and life comes from innovation, from the inherent openness and avant-garde, but now we have to admit that we are in the second half, this wave has ended, we can only wait for the nextA wave.
In the role of an industry observer, it is difficult for a technology reporter to thoroughly clarify the whole picture and the ins and outs of these forces: Is there a good and evil nature of capital for profit?Are there fear and cruelty to survive?Any collusion in front of the screen?
This may not be a sad story, but an inevitable trend of the times.I think maybe I can get a deeper understanding from the experience and feelings of science and technology journalists in this smaller incision to understand and understand this force and the industries that have been changed by it.
It is normal to change jobs and change careers when young, but Yu Ningkun and He Yuansheng are out of love rather than trying water technology media. Their departure has some deeper meaning.Yu Ningkun has been a TMT reporter for 4 years, and he became a consultant in 2018.He is an atypical TMT reporter.Unlike many active colleagues, Yu Ningkun has been indifferent except for his work. He can’t imagine that he can go directly to the big brother and call him brother in the offline event. If he can choose a meal, he would rather stay at home and playSwitch, or chat with an acquaintance.
Yu Ningkun’s speech is not fast, but the words are professional and accurate.He reported great love for the industry and was extremely harsh on aesthetics and “fun”. If he met good products, he would not hesitate to express his heartfelt admiration.When he graduated from a foreign school, he returned to China and transferred through Hong Kong. He specifically borrowed a local mobile phone number from a friend, spent a long time online, made an appointment for an iPhone 6, and queued up for half an hour offline to get his own.The first iPhone.
In 2014, Apple released the Apple Watch. Yu Ningkun was excited about Apple’s new future. Google soon changed its name to Alphabet. Yu Ningkun was in a high spirit.
He is passionate about this industry.I used to go with him to visit a miraculously transformed old foreign company, and interviewed for 10 hours from morning to night.At dusk, my eyes were straight and my head was swollen. He was still holding on and asked some straightforward questions.
The year he left tech media, he set foot on the land of Las Vegas for the first time for CES.Even if he wants to leave, he still has some expectations. After all, he used to sit in front of the computer and watch the live broadcast.
The casino in the desert is also warm in winter.Thousands of manufacturers are bustling in the 250,000 square meters venue.Yu Ningkun wandered around, but he was more and more disappointed in his heart. “Either it is particularly silly, or it is particularly boring.” As a TMT reporter, he saw through the lively scene that his mature products were supporting: mobile phones, OLEDTVs, smart speakers, or VR devices with minor repairs are not revolutionary or subversive, and there are few innovations at the application level.He walked around boringly and began to have a headache about how to make a mistake.Finally, after spending a full three days in the venue, Guan stayed up at the hotel and worked out a cover article.
The boredom of CES is actually the bottleneck of the technology behind TMT.When CES was brilliant, it happened to be the so-called third wave, which is the era of information.Nintendo’s game consoles, Xbox, and Sony’s first video cassette recorder VCR were all released at CES.Bill Gates also personally represented the Microsoft booth in 2001. He demonstrated the Windows media player in full view. Suddenly the software stuck at the blue screen, which was awkward for a while.
Two years before Yu Ningkun’s trip, VR equipment seemed to have broken a certain singularity and became the focus of the industry. In a dim hotel suite outside the CES exhibition, Digital Trends reporters experienced it on Samsung Gear VRVirtual pornography is said to be difficult to describe in a “dissonant” experience.
In 2017, even though CES has been somewhat declining, Jia Yueting, who brought traffic and is good at speeches, brought Faraday Future cars to the stage, and still made a lot of headlines in Chinese technology media.
Faraday Future announces the first mass-produced electric vehicle FF91 at CES
After the boring trip to CES, Yu Ningkun left the media and switched completely.He said that he has no positive feedback in this industry.
He Yuansheng usually prefers to think about the meaning behind a technology product.He is also the kind of “media teacher” who doesn’t like to catch up with the crowds and co-prepared with various people.
In 2015, He Yuansheng was not yet a reporter. He was at the bottom of the Internet company’s operations and simply played the role of a user.
In terms of knowledge, he is a little-known big V. In the late winter and early spring, he went to Wangjing to participate in the offline activities of the salt club party in Zhihu-this is also a sign of knowing to put down the shelf and embrace business.Walking out of the venue at night, He Yuansheng was surprised to see that almost everyone around him turned on his mobile phone, used Didi to call the car, and walked away.He could only wander around Wangjing and found a black car before returning home.That was the first time he experienced the change of life on the mobile Internet.
He was lucky to catch the tail of the golden age when he entered the media industry.2016 is the final climax of the hustle and bustle.LeTV and bike sharing contributed the most news. Internet giants began to spend money on the entertainment industry. “One hundred million small target” became the hot word of the year.
During that time, He Yuansheng was writing manuscripts almost every day, and sometimes he had to write two articles a day.By the weekend, he will get used to working overtime as usual.Sometimes I see a piece of news in the morning, and in the afternoon I can get an article of four or five thousand words in one go.Originally, he planned to resign in the second half due to personnel reasons, but the year before him was really exciting. He was reluctant to give up.
Even in 2017, he had a short vacation, but he was in trouble during that time, staying in a rental house and pondering the Internet entertainment industry he once followed: “White Night Chasing the Murder” set a record number of hits,why?The video platform seems to have new actions, what is it?
Almost immediately after Mobike appeared, He Yuansheng realized the significance of this bicycle.He likes to ride a bike and knew Mobike early.After attending the press conference once, he walked 2 kilometers specifically and found a Mobike ride for a while. The car was too heavy to ride. He felt that there were loopholes in the business logic, but he believed that it was “really able to change lives.””
In a sense, Yu Ningkun and He Yuansheng left with some loss.When they mention technology reports, their biggest expectation is not money, but “First, our world will be better changed by business. Second, business will be scientifically configured by technology and the Internet.”
He Yuansheng and I mentioned a detail. When fun headlines are the most popular, a rural grandmother can swipe the app until 1 or 2 in the morning.He grew up in the countryside and knows how powerful it is that the old man in the village will be completely disrupted by his daily life at sunrise.
He Yuansheng did not know whether this change was good or bad.”They lost their original lives, what compensation did they get?” he asked.He may already have the answer in his heart. He mentioned an American drama “Silicon Valley”. In the play, the villain Gavin Belson, who merged the figures of the Silicon Valley gangsters, said a line: We want to change the world, but I can’t tolerate others to change the world.
When he said this, he had gone to a public relations company as an account manager and soon saw the first “Party A” in his career.
The fact is, when I first started writing a report on startups, although I didn’t find “Future Google”, it was not difficult to find some interesting C-end startup projects. They often have the personal characteristics of the founders.These founders are often young enough and often interesting. Many of their ambitions will be so big as to “change the world.” Their enthusiasm will infect people. Some projects will grow into unicorns a few years later.
The media where Yu Ningkun is working has a column dedicated to entrepreneurship. When Pinduoduo is still called Pingoods, they already chatted with Huang Zheng a lot.Many of the projects written in this column died, but they also recorded the stories of VIPKID and Neo-Oxygen who later became stars.By the time he left, there were fewer and fewer companies worth writing.
One figure is that there are only 1,427 new startups in 2019, and in 2014 and 2015, this number exceeded 9,000. Even in 2016 when the boom retreated, 2053 innovative companies were established.
Another data on traffic can confirm the above data is roughly true: the growth rate of domestic mobile phone shipments in 2015 is still 2.5%, and by 2019, the growth rate of smartphone shipments has become negative.The direct result is that traffic has become very expensive. In terms of e-commerce, Jingdong’s cost of acquiring customers increased from 142 yuan in 2016 to 1503 yuan in 2018.Flat TV money.
Traffic has become a luxury product, and the chances of a startup company growing into a small tadpole are slim. Even if it is a fluke for a while, in the shadow of time and again, nine deaths may not be a lifetime.
Another reason why Yu Ningkun left the media was that he found that the winners all laid down the country with very traditional strategies and tactics, although they packed a futuristic story.Perhaps the more typical case is the story of Uber, a young Silicon Valley company that broke the curse of foreign companies’ unacceptability and persisted in China for 30 months.But the ultimate winner belongs to Didi.
At that point in time, Uber may have symbolized the imagination of a typical technology company by a technology reporter, fashionable, flexible, and upright and lively in a Silicon Valley style.Its three-person urban team and decentralized management were once the targets of domestic entrepreneurs eager to learn.From the person in charge of the city to the employees, almost all have the background of studying abroad. Usually, they use the foreign communication software Telegram to communicate, and often speak English words.
There are beautifying ingredients.But Yu Ningkun said frankly that he didn’t like the actions represented by the powerful words “executive power” and “iron army”, and when he talked about “efficiency” and “massive group warfare”, he didn’t take it seriously.Perhaps, Yu Ningkun’s good company is not simply measured by winning or losing.But in capital-led stories, these things happen more and more frequently.
The little restaurant of Qingdao boy Zhao Xiao died in that kind of war.
Zhao Xiao came to Beijing in 2014, just in time to catch up with the entrepreneurial tide of 2015.At that time, the entire industry had policies, popularity, flow, and capital.As described in the American novel “The Trail of Silas Rafam” more than 100 years ago, “There is no doubt that money is everywhere, he is the legend of our time, the psalm of our time.”
I still remember that there were almost two books in the entrepreneurial circle that year: “From 0 to 1: The Secret of Opening Business and the Future” and “Difficult Entrepreneurship”. The former was listed in the top ten of Amazon’s annual book sales rankings.It is crowded into light readings or best-selling novels such as “Good, Touching the Head”, “Secret Garden”, and the cool-color cover is suddenly inserted into a fresh and elegant little cute.
Zhao Xiao worked at Yilong and was the first batch of users with ease. He also paid by credit card.In 2014, the rent of a single room in the new community near Jiuxianqiao was 1600 yuan.
Living in an internet company, his life was uncomfortable and unreal. He rode a 50-minute bike to work and left when he arrived.Although Yilong and Ctrip and Qunar are fighting each other, tens of millions of tens of millions of dollars are burned, but they did not pick up the lights every night, nor did the leaders justly mention the “996” blessing.
Zhao Xiao is even more optimistic than Ning Kun. They feel that “new events happen every day in the whole society”, and he “thinks about business issues almost every moment.”Until today, Zhao Xiao talked to me about the kind of self-confidence and pride: “All pride comes from opportunity and wealth, and your ideas will be verified.” He explained that it is like an exam in school, a testBefore one, you must be an ordinary student like everyone. Once you have some chance to take the first place, you will often take the first place because you have the confidence that the first place has verified: I can,I can do it.
Zhao Xiao returned to his hometown of Qingdao to start a business, opened a restaurant specializing in takeout, and several peers happily wanted to complete the most important “verification” in life.
Zhao Xiao joined the takeaway platform and started the restaurant with two or three hundred orders a day. The business in 2016 was particularly good. He stayed in the store and didn’t feel hard working from morning to night.
In 2017, both Meituan and Hungry are small giants with backers, but the two are desperate to occupy the head position earlier, the purpose is to completely crush each other, smash money, subsidies, huge BD ground promotion, this isTraditional business has long used overkill.
Are you hungry in Sanlitun, Beijing? Meituan’s takeaway electric car
Zhao Xiao soon began to lose money. The business manager told him that the store was too busy, too many people poured into the takeaway platform and had to get involved in the price war.”No one subsidizes ordering. You have to lose money for subsidized ordering. You have to lose money for everything you do.”
Later, Zhao Xiao turned around several companies, and finally entered the big factory as a bottom-level employee.Now, he has to go to see a psychiatrist from time to time, watching his peers who haven’t started a business have become leaders, Zhao Xiao can’t help but feel depressed, “starting a business failed, emotional failure.” He summarized 8 words to himself.
After the capital-led merger, there are fewer exciting new discoveries.Investors can’t find projects that surprise them. Bao Fan, the founder of Huaxing Capital, said in an interview with 36 krypton in 2018: “Moving various services to the mobile Internet, there are still many things that big and small companies can do, butFrom an investment perspective, I think this is almost the same.”
On the other side of the ocean, the story follows almost the same script, the technical dividend comes to an end, and Silicon Valley is no longer refreshing.Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft dominate the headlines-although it is all turbulent news: either Google canceled 2,000 offers, or Facebook was audited, Amazon and Apple turned off themselves in the recent situationShop.
There are a few holders in various fields, and they have been rolling out new features without any hassle, making minor fixes on old products, Netflix has launched new dramas, and Spotify has launched multiplayer features.Of course, if you consider Uber to lay off 6,700 people during the epidemic and Airbnb lay off 1,900 people as news, the waist company is not a dead pool.
There are also some new players who have suddenly risen, and as a result, it will be found that this is just the old domestic model that is reappearing in Silicon Valley: behind it is the new application of quick hands Zynn that drove vibrato out of the first place.
Surprisingly similar to the domestic market, in 2019, Silicon Valley also ushered in a wave of listings.Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, Zoom, these fast-growing emerging companies of the previous generation, have completed their adult gifts.In addition to Zoom, they are all To C companies, which means that they have completed large-scale expansion with novel ideas.However, similar to the companies that bleed into the train domestically, the WeWork IPO failed and the valuation fell to one-twentieth of its peak period, ending the last climax in Silicon Valley.
Pitchbook summarizes the 2019 unicorn list. Of the 70 companies, 7 are self-driving companies, 9 are financial services companies, and 9 do business software-either hard-core technology or B-end business, they are integrated.There is enough money, but either progress is slow, or service providers in traditional industries.A company I have never heard of Flexport ranked first with a valuation of US$3.2 billion. Later, I learned that it is a freight forwarding company, mainly providing air, sea, rail and truck transportation services for major brands. SF Express is also an investor.one.Of course, this is a very stable company, and it is also a logistics industry that has enough thresholds. It has little to do with ordinary people. The valuation is closely followed by Horizon Robot and 360 Enterprise Security.
But these people who have experienced the hot scenes of previous years are obviously no longer as sexy as Uber or Snapchat, at least for a consumer who always has a mobile phone in his hand.
The use of “waist company” to refer to medium-sized companies is a blasphemy against the beauty of Chinese.But it is enough image to describe a portrait of a company during a certain period of growth with a wonderful metaphor: start with full of emotions, get several rounds of investment, have enough users, and walk to the place where you can see the head.At this time, the founder had to face a new problem: how to make enough money?How to make capital exit with satisfaction?
Yu Ningkun felt such a pain in his waist when he was 10 years old.It is difficult for him to find a story worth mentioning here.He once made a long report on Zhihu.At that time, he and his colleagues spent a whole day knowing about it, and they interviewed Zhou Yuan, Zhang Liang, and finance in a wheel-fighting style. After seven or eight hours, Yu Ning Kun was exhausted.
He used to be the earliest batch of internal testing users.In his mind, the founders Zhou Yuan and Zhang Liang were the ones who had really seen “good things”.In 2011, Yu Ningkun enjoyed the community atmosphere of Zhihu very much. The “Xie Xie” and “non-stakeholder” Zhihu styles are not ridicule, nor are there any pretending expressions like “People are in the United States, just got off the plane”.Everyone seems to be in an open square, seriously discussing the problem.
The knowledge that Yu Ningkun missed seemed to be a utopia, with very few restrictions. The rules were all negotiated by the users themselves, and the Zhihu-style language of “ask first, then ask why” was born.The earlier sentence was not a paragraph, but a conventional speaking rule. Everyone communicated under a consensus, and there was a rare “harmony and difference”.
When the Wei Zexi incident in 2016 made Zhihu break the circle, Zhihu became a “waist.”For a few years, Zhihu contributed some headlines and became a star company.In 2016 and 2017, the media discussed the fierce knowledge payment trend, which was caused by the knowledge and the nutshell.Both companies are “small and beautiful” companies in the past.
Zhihu began to show visible anxiety.They expect to maintain the quality of the community after the influx of massive users.Knowing the predicament is actually the hidden pain of countless “waist”.The Internet industry is a jungle of full competition from the beginning. If it does not run quickly, occupying the top position of the ecological chain, waiting for their destiny is either a lonely person with cold and anxious capital, or it is swallowed up by opponents.
After going through the listing tide of the head company and waist company in 2018, it seems that overnight, everyone’s topic has become “optimization” and “996”.By 2020, technology reporter Zhu Qing is too lazy to write such stories again.Even if there is a flow assessment, she does not want to sell emotions.It was about two or three years ago, when she first joined the industry, the content that people talked about was “windows”, “opportunities”, then “success” and “financial freedom”, which is very inspirational, but unreliable, nowShe felt the same: the years are indeed no longer quiet.
Zhu Qing also resigned recently. She took a vacation in a small town and wanted to free herself up, and at the same time realized the long-lost peace of mind.
I chatted with Jiang Yufei, who works on the head video site, and she told me that the stagnant life seemed unable to see the head.The aura of the Internet industry no longer has the magic that attracted her in the past.When Jiang Yufei first entered the Internet industry, he saw “live broadcast”, “big acquisition of copyrights”, and “the market value of the demon stock company skyrocketed dozens of times.”
She does things neatly, often works overtime until late at night, and rarely complains that she will share the company’s new products with her friends at parties even at the dinner table.
In the past two years, Jiang Yufei’s enthusiasm has faded away.The science and technology media she followed began to frequently publish articles about “Middle-aged crisis”.Two articles she handed over to me, one theme: desperately working overtime, middle-aged Banpo.The way out is: selling insurance, opening Didi, and doing business.
In the Internet industry, the scale of “middle-aged” is 35 years old, and Jiang Yufei, who is almost 30, feels that this scale is “like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head.”The conversation that day, with Jiang Yufei continuing to work overtime, came to an abrupt halt. It was already 8 o’clock in the evening, and I felt her boredom.
At 4 o’clock in the morning, a girl who just got off work from an Internet company picture丨Visual China
Each wave has its own climax and end.The rise of new companies is always accompanied by what Peter Peter calls “creative destruction.”100 years ago, Bell Telephone Company started at the end of the world. It only took 10 years to defeat the Western Union, which monopolized the telegraph industry, and finally became a giant enterprise AT&T.In the last century, AT&T, which has been a comfortable life for nearly 100 years, was hit by external dimensionality reduction. With instant messaging, no one would pay for long-distance calls.
Only at the node of the replacement of old and new technologies can we discover the rich mine of the story.
In 2000, the .com bubble burst, but it couldn’t stop people’s Internet dreams, which is the most exciting picture that humankind has shown again since the last power revolution.In that year, there were more than 6,000 companies in Zhongguancun, the weekly tax was 60 million yuan, the annual salary for employees was 10 billion yuan, and 300,000 “new immigrants” worked here.At that time, Yang Yuanqing and Liu Chuanzhi were absolute leaders and heroes. The book sought after by the people in Zhongguancun was the regional advantage of American scholar Saxon Nian: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and the 128 Highway Area.
With the development of the Internet today, it is becoming more and more difficult for essential revolutions in technology.In 2018, the number of Internet users worldwide exceeded 50% of the total population. Mary Mikel, known as the “Queen of the Internet”, believes that beyond this watershed, market penetration will no longer grow.Whether admitted or not, the exciting wave of information technology revolution has reached its burnout middle age.
Assuming 10 years as a cycle, the mobile Internet, which was opened in 2010, has arrived at the moment of answering papers.After the traffic dividend was eroded by all parties, the waist Internet company also touched the final ceiling.On the same track, in addition to facing higher and higher barriers, it may also face the rolling expansion of giants.Next, the most important thing is conservative stability and non-risk development, which is a natural move in line with the logic of capital.Any innovation that may hurt the bones will make these companies hesitate.After all, not every elephant can dance and can dance.
If we go back to the beginning of the story, the founder of the World Wide Web (World Wide Web), Tim Berners Lee, is shy, gentle, and unspoken, but this programmer has a rare childish innocence and curiosity.”I wanted to build a creative space at the time,” he recalled after a long time, “like a bunker where everyone can play at the same time.” This is a decentralized world, equality and tolerance are the background.
In 1995, Zhang Shuxin, a graduate of the Chinese University of Science and Technology who had written a poem and worked as a science and technology reporter, erected a piece of “How far is the Chinese from the information highway?”billboard.Twenty-five years have passed since the Beijing taxi driver wondered if he could not find the “information superhighway” intersection. The Internet irresistibly stepped out of the world of fairy tales by Tim Berners-Lee.
Maybe we will have a new fairy tale world, a new report area, and a new and greater business report.There will be new waves, based on new and unknown technology, but not now.I think, can I use the words that Jobs said in an interview with Wired magazine in February 1996 to comfort myself: things do not necessarily have to change the world to become important.
Internet companies are brightly lit at night in Beijing’s northwest Wanghouchang Village Picture丨Visual China
*According to the interviewee’s request, they all use pseudonyms.


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Despite facing intense competition from the likes of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S3 and Apple's iPhone, South Korean electronics firm LG has announced a third quarter profit after shipping a record amount of smartphones.
LG posted a net profit of $138 million for the three months ended in September. The figure represents a jump of 59 percent when compared to the same period last year, when it reported a loss of $366 million.
LG's mobile division in particular has experienced the most growth, with it posting a $19 million profit compared to a $126 million loss in 2011. Cumulatively, LG has managed to ship more than 14 million handsets.
"Today's results show that it doesn't have to be Apple or Samsung to make profits in smartphones", said Hong Sung-ho, an analyst at I'm Investment & Securities. "LG won't be able to earn double digit profit margin in handsets as Apple and Samsung do. Still, LG proved it has the potential to stand out among its second-tier peers of Huawei, ZTE, Motorola etc, with its manufacturing competitiveness."
LG will reportedly unveil Google's next Nexus smartphone on October 29.
um... I thought HTC also made profits.
Motorola and Sony are going through transitions, I'm sure they'll make profits too after they're completed.
We need more stronger players in this market, more competition means better choice for everyone.
But only Motorola does that!
Never in Android history have companies said a phone would get new Android versions and never get it until Motorola!

domain: news


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Check out - and help, too.
Making it easier for customers to contribute to Japanese disaster relief, all Nugget Markets and several Food 4 Less stores will accept donations right at the check-out counter, the companies announced Monday. This fund-raising assistance will continue through April 1.
In addition, Nugget Market Inc. will donate a matching contribution up to $5,000 to the American Red Cross, which partnered with the supermarkets in this effort.
"The Nugget Market and Food 4 Less family of associates and our guests have come alongside the American Red Cross to help alleviate the effects of this disaster," said Nugget CEO Eric Stille. "We're committed to helping and to bringing hope and aid to those in need."
These tax-deductible donations will be recorded on sales receipts. All funds will directly support those affected by the Japan earthquake and tsunami, according to American Red Cross officials.


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Sauber most likely partner
Audi has formally confirmed that it will enter Formula One from 2026, developing its own power unit in-house, but has not divulged which team or teams with which it will be partnering.
The announcement came ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, with the company saying that it will develop a powertrain at its Audi Sport facility in Neuberg near its home base in Bavaria, hinting that chassis work would be left to its partner team.
From 2026, F1 will see the introduction of new rules with all-new powertrains running with not just increased hybrid assistance, but also sustainably produced synthetic e-fuels, thought to be a key motivation for Audi’s involvement.
“Motorsport is an integral part of Audi’s DNA,” said Audi CEO, Markus Duesmann.
“Formula 1 is both a global stage for our brand and a highly challenging development laboratory. The combination of high performance and competition is always a driver of innovation and technology transfer in our industry. With the new rules, now is the right time for us to get involved.
“After all, Formula 1 and Audi both pursue clear sustainability goals.”
As well as that, Audi said that it sees the increasing popularity of F1 in places such as the United States and China, in part thanks to social media and Netflix’s Drive to Survive series, as a way by which it can reach younger demographics with its marketing.
The facility at Neuberg, the company said, is already set up for the testing of F1 engines and electric motor technology, but the formal announcement marks a ramping up of the pace of the project, with all essential personnel, buildings and technical infrastructure due to be in place by the end of the year.
Heading the F1 project will be Australian Adam Baker, safety director at the FIA for the last three years and formerly a motorsport engineer working with BMW and Cosworth, among others.
The programme represents a realignment for Audi’s motorsport ambitions, with the firm also announcing that it will axe development of its LMDh endurance racing project, meaning that it won’t be contesting events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the likes of Porsche and BMW in the coming years. It did say, however, that it would continue development of its RS Q e-tron desert racer and is aiming for outright victory in next year’s Dakar Rally.
As to the team with which Audi will partner, that’s not quite certain at present. It was expected in 2021 that a deal with McLaren was imminent, with Audi even offering a reported figure of £422m to buy the Woking firm — a deal which, for undisclosed reasons, fell through. With it being one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets that Audi was looking for an F1 partner, other teams too were mentioned including Williams and Aston Martin. The latest and most likely candidate appears to be the Swiss team Sauber, currently racing under the Alfa Romeo banner and using Ferrari engines.
“I am delighted to welcome Audi to Formula One, an iconic automotive brand, pioneer and technological innovator,” said F1 president Stefano Domenicali in response to Audi’s announcement.
“This is a major moment for our sport that highlights the huge strength we have as a global platform that continues to grow.
“It is also a big recognition that our move to sustainably fuelled hybrid engines in 2026 is a future solution for the automotive sector. We are all looking forward to seeing the Audi logo on the grid and will be hearing further details from them on their plans in due course.”
Audi’s entry to the sport comes on the back of the announcement by fellow Volkswagen Group brand, Porsche, that it too will enter F1 from 2026.
Documents released in July by Morocco’s Conseil de la Concurrence as part of a multi-national approval process revealed that Porsche and F1 team Red Bull Racing were in the process of finalising a deal that would see the establishment of a joint venture between both firms and Porsche developing an F1 racing engine for Red Bull for the 2026 season. Porsche has been investing in the area of synthetic e-fuels, a major element of the new F1 rules, for some time.
While the tie-up between Porsche and Red Bull had been expected to be announced over the weekend of the Austrian Grand Prix in July, thus far, a formal announcement has not been forthcoming.
- After reading about Audi entering Formula One, you might like to catch up on this season’s results, standings and race start times
- Did you hear that a Robert de Niro and John Boyega Formula One film is in the works for Netflix?
- Is Porsche set to take a 50% stake in Red Bull F1?


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Law students have once again proven that they have more than just brains after would-be lawyer Laura Zielinski joined the likes of 1960s supermodel Twiggy to become the new face of Marks & Spencer (M&S).
The 20-year-old Sunderland University student (pictured) will model the store’s DD+ lingerie range after beating off competition from nearly 2,000 applicants in a modeling competition organised by the high street chain.
Zielinski is due to shoot her first campaign for M&S next month (October) and her image will appear on in-store adverts nationwide.
Speaking about her win, Zielinski said: “M&S is an amazing brand to represent. It celebrates real women with real curves like mine. I’m over the moon!”
But M&S is not the first store to snap up a law student for an advertising campaign.
BPP Law School Legal Practice Course student Shannon Murray became the first disabled model to be used by Debenhams to feature in its advertising campaigns (read more).
Meanwhile, Nottingham University law student Jessica Linley now faces a showdown with the world’s most beautiful women after being crowned Miss England 2010. Linley, who wants to be a solicitor, fought off the charms of nearly 60 other English hopefuls at the annual beauty pageant in Birmingham and will now represent her country at the Miss World contest in China next month (October).


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IQVIA Report Predicts the "Next Large Wave of Biosimilars"
The IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science (formerly the IMS institute) has released a new report making predictions for the healthcare landscape in 2018 and beyond, and the report’s authors see biosimilars as having a key role in developed markets in the years ahead. IQVIA predicts that, in 2018, $19 billion of current spending on biologics will become exposed to competition from biosimilars for the first time, in 1 or more developed markets. Compared to $3 billion that became exposed in 2017, and adding to the $26 billion already facing competition, the 2018 numbers are striking. “The new exposure to competition in 2018 is the largest single-year change to date,” say the authors, “and signals the start of the next large wave of biosimilars.” In the period from 2019 to 2022, an additional $52 billion is expected to face biosimilar competition for the first time in developed countries, with the US market comprising $37 billion of that amount. According to the report, 77% of current spending on biologics will be subject to competition by 2027. Between 2018 and 2022, competition from biosimilars could bring down spending on biologics by 10% to 30%, the report estimates, or by $50 billion to $78 billion. However, spending on biosimilars versus reference products will depend on factors such as the number of competitors, the speed with which competition enters the market, and the extent to which biosimilars compete on price. The timing of biosimilar competition, too, depends on a variety of factors, including patent litigation. Interestingly, the report notes that adalimumab could face competition in the US market from biosimilars in 2019; thus far, Amgen has announced that its Amjevita will launch in 2023 after the company resolved a dispute with drug maker AbbVie over patents covering Humira. Boehringer Ingelheim, maker of the FDA-approved Cyltezo, has not announced a launch date for its biosimilar. No other adalimumab biosimilars are approved by the FDA. Despite the promise of biosimilars to reduce healthcare spending, the report notes that 9% of spending on biologics comprises spending on products that have no prospect of biosimilar competition in the next decade, perhaps because the complexities of developing and manufacturing these drugs poses too high a challenge for the potential return. According to IQVIA, the top biologics (not all of which are currently regulated as biologics in the United States, as insulins are treated as drugs by the FDA) that will face new or expanded competition in the territories of Japan, the Republic of Korea, Canada, the European Union, and the United States are, in order of spending form high to low: adalimumab (Humira), insulin glargine (Lantus), etanercept (Enbrel), infliximab (Remicade), rituximab (Rituxan, MabThera), bevacizumab (Avastin), insulin aspart (Novolog), insulin lispro (Humalog), pegfilgrastim (Neulasta), and trastuzumab (Herceptin). Other predictions in the IQVIA report include the prospective 2018 approval of 5 to 8 new cell-based, gene, or regenerative therapies. However, as most of these therapies will have costs of $100,000 or more, “As next-generation treatments become more common, health system budget pressures will increase, and payers will likely limit or reject access to these drugs as they impact budgets.” Despite the entry of new, brand-name medicines, spending on branded drugs is expected to fall by 1% to 3% in developed markets, reducing overall spending on brands by $5 billion in 2018. IQVIA says that this slowdown will be due in part to patent expiry of key biologics and small-molecule drugs, and that the growth of new medicines will also slow down; from 2018 to 2022, only 40 to 45 new active substances will be launched each year, driving 2.5% to 3.5% of brand spending. Specialty medicines, led by oncology drugs, will drive all spending growth in the developed markets, but will be somewhat constrained by cost and access controls in a shift toward value. However, specialty drugs are expected to reach 48% of spending in developed markets by 2022. By comparison, specialty drugs represented 39% of spending in 2017.


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Aussie businesses take $128m hit from payment redirection scams
Payment redirection scams were the most financially damaging scams for Australian businesses in 2020, with combined losses reported to Scamwatch, other government agencies, banks and payment platforms totalling $128 million in 2020. Scamwatch data also showed that Australian businesses lost $18 million to scams in 2020, a 260% increase on losses reported in 2019.
Scamwatch data revealed that false billing scams were the most commonly reported scan by businesses, accounting for three-quarters of total losses to businesses. Small and micro businesses accounted for almost 60% of these false billing reports. While a range of false billing scams exists, the most common type identified by the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report was payment redirection scams, also known as business email compromise (BEC) scams, with 1300 reports and $14 million in losses. This is a marked increase from the 900 reports and $5 million in losses reported in 2019. In payment redirection scams, scammers impersonate a business or its employees via email and request an upcoming payment be redirected to a fraudulent account.
“Small and micro businesses made most of the reports to Scamwatch and experienced an increase in losses in 2020, although larger businesses reported the highest losses,” said Mick Keogh, ACCC Deputy Chair.
Scamwatch also observed a new type of scam in 2020 that targeted farmers looking for a good deal on tractors and farm equipment. Scammers advertised equipment at prices below market value and told farmers they couldn’t view the tractors prior to purchase due to COVID-19 restrictions. Farmers made payments to secure these deals, when in reality the equipment never existed. Farmers were conned out of $1.1 million in these scams.
Businesses were also targeted by health and medical scams in 2020, with half of the $3.9 million in total losses reported to health and medical scams from businesses, as they attempted to procure personal protective equipment for their staff to comply with government guidelines during the pandemic. Other scams that impacted businesses in 2020 include phishing, identity theft and hacking scams.
“It is so important for businesses to stay informed about scams so they can protect themselves. The ACCC provides a range of resources for businesses on how to avoid scams on the Scamwatch website and in our media releases throughout the year,” Keogh said.
Businesses that have been scammed should contact their bank as soon as possible. Businesses can also report a scam to ReportCyber, which is run by the Australian Cyber Security Centre and passes reports to law enforcement agencies for assessment and intelligence purposes. Businesses can also make a report on the Scamwatch website.
The ACSC's Annual Cyber Threat Report found that cyber threats reported to the agency grew...
Two-thirds of IT security professionals in Australia reported an increase in both their...
Automated bots now account for nearly two-thirds of internet traffic, and are used for a variety...


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There are a lot of different football video games out their but this one has a local connection.
A Peterborough company has just launched Canadian Football 2017 on Xbox One and PC.
Canuck Play (a video game studio in Peterborough) put a lot of work into this game. In fact they say it took over 18 months.
The thing I really like about this game (besides the fact that it was created in Peterborough) is that it’s different from the other football video games available now. This one has all the rules that are unique to Canadian football…like three downs and teams playing in Canadian cities.
Our friends at CHEX Peterborough were at the release party
Check out the trailer for Canadian Football 2017 here.


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Somewhere, someone is finally getting around to putting their Christmas decorations away (guilty)! For car lovers, however; the real gifts ar …
Somewhere, someone is finally getting around to putting their Christmas decorations away (guilty)! For car lovers, however; the real gifts are found within the automotive flea market of Spring Carlisle (April 20-24). Presented by eBay Motors in 2022, this event hosts a treasure-trove of car themed items, be they parts, merchandise, collectibles, signage, collector cars, and more. The “more,” really could be anything and that is one of the biggest draws for the nearly 100,000 like-minded enthusiasts.
In addition to the items available within the automotive flea market, the Manufactures Midway welcomes many of the top suppliers in the automotive industry. Their displays and merchandise, mixed with the ARMO Hot Products Showcase tent, act to spotlight the latest and best new products. ARMO, which is a member of the SEMA council continues its mission at Spring Carlisle and beyond to preserve and promote the automotive restoration hobby.
Speaking of Carlisle Auctions, the crew from America’s Automotive Hometown auction house will move 400+ classic and collector cars across the block on April 21-22 at the neighboring Carlisle Expo Center. The Spring Carlisle Collector Car Auction features an all-truck hour on April 21, a planned charity consignment, and of course cars and trucks that span every era of automotive production.
If X marks the spot for those who enjoy the thrill of the hunt, then this event is a must! Getting involved is very easy too, in fact a phone call or a few clicks on the web can assure your inclusion in Spring Carlisle and/or the Spring Carlisle Collector Car Auction. Those looking to sell merchandise or a car within the car corral, attend as a buyer or simply purchase an admission ticket to be on grounds and walk about should call 717-243-7855 or visit CarlisleEvents.com.
Admission tickets are discounted online in advance of the event and kids 12 and under are free. Auction enthusiasts looking to buy or sell as part of the two-day event should call 717-960-6400 or visit CarlisleAuctions.com. The auction starts at 12 p.m. each day, while the gates open for Spring Carlisle at 7 a.m. daily.
One of the best parts about a Carlisle Auctions event is the fact that at least once per offering, a sale will take place that ben …
One of the best parts about a Carlisle Auctions event is the fact that at least once per offering, a sale will take place that benefits charity. For those attending the Lakeland Winter Collector Car Auction, Saturday February 26 will spotlight once more, the generosity of the collector car community.
The auction itself spans two days, February 25-26, at the SUN ‘n FUN Expo Campus in Lakeland, but the charity portion of the event is at 12 p.m. on the 26th. At that point, the fast-paced nature of the auction slows as team members yield the floor to Steve Muschlitz and Wheels from the Heart. Steve has secured a trio of lots that will run, with 100% of the sales and any additional donations offered, to Wheels from the Heart. These lots include a 1996 Porsche themed bicycle, a 2006 Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle, and a 2005 Ford F150. The F150 runs at no reserve, while the Porsche bike and Harley Davidson will carry one in advance of a potential sale.
Wheels from the Heart is a Jensen Beach, Florida based organization whose mission is to give the gift of a reliable vehicle to single moms with children and help them drive to a better life. While there’s an obvious play on words there, the fact remains that owning a reliable means of transportation makes nearly every aspect of life better. It helps you get groceries, go to and from work, social activities, school drop offs and pickups, and more. Since being nominated in 2016 for the Men with Caring Hearts Award, Steve and his team have donated hundreds of cars to moms in need.
“I’m excited to once again work with Carlisle Auctions at their upcoming event in Lakeland,” said Muschlitz. They put on a great event and their bidder/buyer base has always been generous when we offer a lot for charity. Of course, these sales wouldn’t be possible without the gracious donations of them in the first place by their previous owners. Together, we can all change the lives of someone in need.”
Complete details on the auction are available at CarlisleAuctions.com. In addition, the auction offers THREE great ways to bid on desired lots; in person, on the phone, or online! Best of all, once registered as a bidder, online bidding commences the Monday of auction week (February 21). Consignments are being added daily to the Carlisle Auctions web page. Spectator admission is $10 with FREE parking, plus the event offers onsite RV parking for those looking to make the event a multi-day adventure. For auction details, call 717-960-6400 and for details on RV parking, call 717-243-7855. Get involved today and don’t miss out!
2021 gave central Pennsylvania car lovers a “bonus show” as the long-standing event in Allentown made a one-time transition to the Carlisle Expo Ce …
2021 gave central Pennsylvania car lovers a “bonus show” as the long-standing event in Allentown made a one-time transition to the Carlisle Expo Center. That event yielded a bevvy of feedback and enthusiasm that eventually led to the creation and execution of the Winter Carlisle Auto Expo. Held January 28-29, the event was exactly what everyone hoped it would be, another successful automotive event promoted by Carlisle Events.
When the doors opened at 12 p.m. on the 28th, an eager line awaited the vendors positioned within the Carlisle Expo Center. Once indoors, the buying and selling frenzy was up and running. Each vendor brought a little something to the table, figuratively and literally. For every vendor who had something available suited for an automotive project, there was another who had a practical/retail item that could be used around the home or the shop.
Winter Carlisle Auto Expo even offered a handful of cars for sale, two of which sold to buyers who weren’t even at the event. The fact that two non-attendees purchased cars, a Mustang and Corvette respectively, isn’t unique to an event like this, though it does make for a cool story. In the case of the 1970 Mustang Convertible, Carlisle Events co-owner Bill Miller, Jr. happened to be walking the aisles and snapped a photo of it. Its factory shaker hood and 351 Cleveland powerplant, combined with power top and 82,000 original miles caught his eye. He shared the photo with his son, Bill Miller, III who in turn, shared it with a friend who was in Scottsdale, Arizona attending the Barrett-Jackson auction. After a few conversations between all parties involved, the new owner wired the money the next day. The same vendor also sold a Wurlitzer 1050 Jukebox for an impressive $5,000. Only 2,000 were made and it was recently delivered to its new home in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania…just a short 30-minute drive from Carlisle.
In an almost similar manner, the aforementioned Corvette also sold thanks to modern technology and an eagle-eyed observer. The seller, who attends multiple events at Carlisle, gave the Winter Auto Expo a try and in doing so, brought a clean, one owner 1999 Corvette with him. Not long after the doors opened, a friend of a friend spotted it, shared some photos and after a FaceTime call, a verbal handshake agreement was made. Less than 48 hours later, the car was picked up in Maryland and taken to its new home at the beach.
Between the parts and merchandise heading home with eager buyers and the cars that sold, the first-ever Winter Carlisle Auto Expo was deemed a success. In fact, the event returns January 27-28, 2023. In the meanwhile, opportunities exist for more great stories and camaraderie like what happened at the Winter Carlisle Auto Expo by way of upcoming events beginning with Spring Carlisle (April 20-24) at the Carlisle PA Fairgrounds. Complete details on this event and all others are available at CarlisleEvents.com or by calling 717-243-7855.
When you have the muscle, it’s only fitting you showoff your power, right? The annual Carlisle Ford Nationals presented by Meguiar’s …
When you have the muscle, it’s only fitting you showoff your power, right? The annual Carlisle Ford Nationals presented by Meguiar’s runs June 3-5 at the Carlisle PA Fairgrounds and history tell us that the event brings the best of the Ford branded muscle from across the country to Carlisle. This includes more than 40 states represented, over 55,000 guests, and more than 3,200 cars. In 2022, power flanks muscle as guests can check out a nice mix of Electric Fords.
EV aren’t new in automotive circles but have seen a renewed push with nearly every major manufacturer touting EVs as the future. Ford has ties to EVs dating back to the early 1900s, but in modern times, the Ford Ranger EV was their first in 2011. Not long after, consumers were introduced to the Ford Focus EV. While Ford has offered Hybrids for more nearly 20 years, their big splash full-on EV was revealed in 2019 with the introduction of a new kind of Mustang, known as the Mach-E. This new addition to the Ford portfolio has proved to be a popular one and paved the way for even more EV production options from the Blue Oval brand, including the F-150 Lightning and coming soon, the Maverick.
For 2022, the surge of EVs will be a focal part as the Carlisle Ford Nationals host an EV display. This showcase brings together the Mustang Mach-E, 2022 Ford Lightning truck, as well as modified Ford EVs from owners who apply for display consideration. Plus, when showgoers cruise down Electric Avenue, they can also check out a dedicated Mach-E Showfield, located right beside the EV showcase.
More power comes from Ford, as its popular corporate display not only brings the latest gas powered rides to town, but also will have a handful of their amazing Mach-E’s, trucks, and even their all-new, state-of-the-art Eluminator crate motor.
The future is now as the Carlisle Ford Nationals welcome Ford to town, their amazing displays, product walkarounds, and industry experts help guide and educate a loyal and enthusiastic group of participants. Registration for both the Showfield itself and this very special invitational display are now open. Details on both are available at CarlisleEvents.com or by calling 717-243-7855.
Not showing but still want to attend? Spectator admission tickets are discounted online in advance of the event and kids 12 and under are free. The gates open at 7 a.m. daily and though the fun concludes on Sunday, June 4 with an on-site awards parade, the crescendo is Saturday night as the Fords cruise into the streets of downtown Carlisle for the annual Ford Parade and Street party.
For more than 25 years, Auto Mania has taken place at the Allentown Fairgrounds in eastern Pennsylvania. After a one-year CO …
For more than 25 years, Auto Mania has taken place at the Allentown Fairgrounds in eastern Pennsylvania. After a one-year COVID related hiatus, Pennsylvania’s largest indoor/heated automotive flea market returned for three great days of buying and selling all things automotive. Mother nature even cooperated during show hours as January 14-16 became more than just a three-day weekend for some, it became an escape from being indoors and a reconnect of sorts for car enthusiasts who haven’t seen each other in quite some time. That enthusiasm showed, as guests were lined up more than an hour in advance of the doors opening at 12 p.m. on day one.
Temps were cool outside, but that didn’t stop those at the event from enjoying the weekend and an event that has three footprints, including two halls indoors and an outdoor vendor area too. With guests shopping indoors and out, the first date on the 2022 Carlisle Events season schedule was a great starting point for those looking to pick up automotive pieces and parts, restoration items, collectibles, merchandise, memorabilia, and more.
For anyone at the event that thought Friday was busy, they had not seen anything yet. When the doors opened Saturday, there were again lines to gain access to the show. Once inside, the guests were shoulder to shoulder and aisles were packed with enthusiasts. Saturday’s turnout, combined with the one from Friday, reminded everyone that Auto Mania was indeed back!
With guests onsite from New York, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other neighboring states, the energy was palpable. Not only was the main floor footprint hopping, the adjacent hall with body kits, classic cars for sale, shirts, banners and other automotive themed pieces and parts further powered the weekend.
Sunday helped wrap the weekend and although it was an active show day, it ultimately was the day for vendors to pack up and load out. Guests that came had one final shot at deals within the swap meet and one last chance to connect with old friends before saying goodbye until “the next time.”
Speaking of the next time, Carlisle Events' next offering is at its home base, Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the all-new Winter Carlisle Auto Expo (January 28-29) at the Carlisle Expo Center. The event is similar to Auto Mania, while also offering central Pennsylvania locals a chance to further winter projects and prepare for the spring car show season. Parking is free for buyers and sellers and attended admission is $10 (cheaper if purchased in advance online). A complete rundown of this event and others that follow it are available online via the Carlisle Events’ web page; www.CarlisleEvents.com.
Book online or call (800) 216-1876


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French-outdoor signage giant JCDecaux is buying APN for $1.2bn, a cash price of $6.70 per share.
It follows from oOh!media yesterday purchasing the market’s third biggest player by revenue, Adshel, the outdoor division of Here There & Everywhere (HT&E), for $570m, with APN having a similar bid for the company rejected.
JCDecaux’s purchase of APN was contingent on APN not acquiring Adshel, freeing up the deal to be completed following the announcement from oOh! on its successful bid yesterday.
Doug Flynn, chairman, APN, says, “The JCDecaux scheme is an attractive, all-cash transaction. The APN Outdoor board has unanimously concluded that it represents a compelling transaction for shareholders.
James Warburton, CEO, managing director, APN, says, “The recommended acquisition of APN by JCDecaux represents an excellent outcome for our shareholders, staff and partners.
“The proposal is testament to the position the APN holds in the Australian and New Zealand media sectors and our recent strong performance, winning and retaining key new contracts.”
Jean-François Decaux, Co-Chief Executive Officer, JCDecaux, said: “This acquisition is a significant milestone in JCDecaux’s history in Australia, which is the 7th largest advertising market worldwide, where we have been growing organically since 2000.
“APN Outdoor is very complementary to our existing street furniture assets and through this acquisition, JCDecaux will be attractively positioned to provide a compelling proposition to compete more effectively in the Australian media market where Out of Home accounts for 6 per cent of advertising spend, of which almost 50 per cent is digital. Finally, we are delighted to enter New Zealand, a fast-growing market.”
In November, JCDecaux Australia won both the seven-year exclusive contract for Melbourne’s Yarra Trams portfolio of outdoor advertising assets, and a 15 year renewal with Telstra.
JCDecaux Australia also wrapped up its acquisition of Adbooth in December, acquiring the remaining 50 per cent of shares in the company.
The deal needs to be cleared by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board, and potentially the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office, with the transaction expected to be completed by end 2018.
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Microsoft held a big debut for its refreshed Xbox One console,
the Xbox One X, at E3
yesterday, but there was one piece of the puzzle missing: VR
support. We know the console will support VR at some point in
2018, so why not mention it at the show?
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer addressed that question in an
interview with the BBC
following yesterday’s conference.
“This show right here was about consoles, it was about great
games, that’s what’s important to us,” Spencer said. “But we
are believers in mixed reality, and mixed reality on the PC is
something we’re focused on and building first-party games. Our
mixed reality platform with our OEM partners continues to roll
out and we’ll have more to talk about in the future.”
Mixed reality is the term Microsoft is using the refer to
devices like the VR headsets its making in partnership with the
likes of DELL and Acer all the way up to its own devices like
HoloLens. The former are coming to PCs this year, but there’s
no word on Xbox One X support just yet. In fact, Microsoft
recently suggest that a VR headset for its new console would be
wireless, and Spencer seemed to back that up.
“I don’t get many questions about console mixed reality in the
living room, there are just issues with my TVs across the room,
cables hanging out,” he said. “When I do this on my PC I’m


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The Himalaya Drug Company, an Indian firm, is looking at generating revenues of Rs 2,500 crore during the next fiscal. The company, which plans to expand its business and distribution network, will also hire around 1,000 people.
The Bengaluru-based firm had posted an annual turnover of Rs 1,800 crore during the last fiscal and it expects sales worth Rs 2,100 crore during the financial year, which will end on March 30, 2017. "We are expecting revenues of upto Rs 2,500 crore in the next fiscal FY18 maintaining a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20 percent year-on-year," Philipe Haydon, CEO of Himalaya Drug company was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
The company's personal care vertical (which is the biggest) contributes 42 percent to the company's total sales. That is followed by pharmaceutical 32 percent, babycare at 15 percent, animal health 5 percent and wellness 5 percent. According to its CEO, the company is aiming to expand presence in all the verticals.
"We have just launched Mothercare products with the launch of 4 products followed by at least 8 products in next one and one-and-half years. We expect this segment to contribute to 5 to 6 per cent to our revenues in next two years," Haydon told PTI.
The company, which is popularly known for its herbal products aims to increase its workforce to 10,000 employees in the near future. At present, the company has 9,000 people on its payroll.
"We plan to add atleast a 1,000 people during the next fiscal in all verticals as we increase our verticals and distribution network that we are in," Haydon told the agency.
The Himalaya brand offers a range of 300 healthcare and personal care products including popular brands like Liv 52, Cystone and Bonnisan. The company operates across 90 countries.


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Hours after street artist Banksy posted an Instagram video of him tagging a London Underground train with his latest artwork urging people to wear masks, Transport for London confirmed that it had been removed.
The work was removed “some days ago” because it was in violation of TfL’s “strict anti-graffiti policy,” a spokesperson for the transportation agency said in a statement.
Even though it was erased, the spokesperson said that TfL appreciated “the sentiment of encouraging people to wear face coverings” and that it would like to “offer Banksy the chance to do a new version of his message for our customers in a suitable location.
“Earlier on Tuesday, the reclusive artist uploaded a video of himself dressed as a cleaner spraying graffiti on the London Underground.
The caption in the post reads, “If you don’t mask – you don’t get.”In the clip, Banksy paints rats — one sneezing, another using a mask as a parachute and yet another holding a bottle of sanitizer — before tagging the train with his moniker.
The video ends with music from the 1997 hit “Tubthumping” by British rock band Chumbawamba. The opening lyrics — “I get knocked down, but I get up again” — play as the Tube doors close.
Banksy spray-painted, “I get lockdown, but I get up again” in the station and inside the train’s doors.
This wasn’t the first time the British artist had posted about coronavirus.
In April, Banksy posted a photo of his work-from-home life, with drawings of rats scampering around his bathroom.
In May, Banksy unveiled an artwork titled “Game Changer,” featuring a child playing with a nurse doll wearing a mask and cape, to honor health care workers.
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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced some big changes in the firm's leadership. So reports Venture Beat.
Vice president of human resources Brian “Skip” Schipper, senior vice president of engineering, Alex Roetter, global media head, Katie Stanton and senior vice president of product, Kevin Weil voluntarily stepped down, according to Dorsey.
“The company has enacted a temporary transition plan in which chief operating officer Adam Bain will oversee not only the revenue-related product teams, but also the media and human resource departments,” according to the article. Adam Messinger, the chief technology officer, will combine the “engineering, consumer product, design and research, user services, and fabric teams” into one entity.


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On-the-spot fine option for travellers who err with Customs declarations
Travellers who make incorrect declarations on their Customs forms will no longer have their purchases confiscated until after Christmas.
The Department of Customs announced this evening that such people can now take their items home with them once the import duty and an on-the-spot fine are paid.
The change in policy went into effect yesterday, a Customs spokeswoman said.
This means that those who are found to have false or incomplete Customs declarations during the Christmas season will no longer have to wait until after the holiday to get their purchases back.
Currently, offenders are subjected to a formal and often lengthy investigative process that can take months.
The Collector of Customs has decided to streamline penalties for arriving air travellers, not just to reduce delays, but also to lower the volume of goods under Customs control, and to permit Customs investigators to focus limited resources on more important commercial fraud cases.
In the new system, if a passenger contravenes policy, then the Customs Officer will issue that person with a Civil Penalty Notice right away.
This Notice simply states the amount of the on-the-spot penalty and the amount of any outstanding duty due. Official Government receipts will be issued by Customs whenever any duty or penalties are paid.
No penalty will be imposed where the Customs officer is satisfied a traveller has made an honest mistake, the spokeswoman added.
Travellers without the money to pay the duty and fine immediately, can leave their goods with Customs for 30 days.
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Electric cars 'may be costlier than petrol vehicles'
Motorists considering buying an electric car are being warned that they can be more expensive to run than conventional petrol vehicles.
Nissan is due to start taking UK orders for what it says will be the world's first mass-produced electric car.
It says running costs for the Nissan Leaf will be as low as 1p a mile.
But figures given to the BBC by a rival car firm suggest that over three years, electric cars could be more expensive to run than their petrol equivalents.
The figures come from the Japanese car-maker Mitsubishi, which also produces an electric car.
Brian Milligan reports.
28 Aug 2010


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When Curious launched this spring, its focus was offering lifelong learners a marketplace of bite-sized lessons on everything from beer brewing and salsa dancing to calculus and coding. Now, it’s upping its attention on the other side of the learning equation: teachers.
For the past few months, in an effort to ensure quality classes, the site has recruited its teachers and given them in-house support to create their classes. On Friday, the company said it had opened up its service so that teachers anywhere can create classes of their own.
“We think there are thousands of things to teach and ways to teach and you’ll never be able to build all the content yourself,” said CEO and founder Justin Kitch. “This is all in the name of helping teachers become entrepreneurs.”
Kitch is hardly a stranger to web services. In the late-1990s he launched Homestead, a web hosting company for small businesses that later sold to Intuit (s INTU). Just as his earlier company enabled small business owners to a set up shop online, his vision for Curious is to provide “teachers of all stripes” with the tools to build their own online classrooms and reach a wider audience of students.
The site’s lesson-builder software enables teachers to easily create interactive lessons that blend video, text and images, and include multiple choice questions, hints and other engagement features. And the site includes a “teacher’s lounge,” where teachers can access resources on how to shoot and edit video, market and monetize their lessons, and effectively communicate with students.
Curious isn’t the only startup courting lifelong learners with online lessons on topics that tend to run more creative and practical than academic. Companies like CreativeLIVE, Craftsy and Betterfly have popped up in the last few years to target hobbyists and enthusiasts. And some of Curious’ more business-oriented content is similar to that found on lynda.com and other sites with professional development content.
Even its interest in helping teachers elevate their profiles (and beef up their bank accounts) isn’t so unlike that of Udemy and Pluralsight, which say teachers on their platforms have earned six figures or more.
But Curious is trying to carve out a niche for itself as a place for more casual, digestible learning on a broader range of topics, with classes that are between five and 15 minutes long, instead of an hour or more each. Also, Kitch’s background makes it a particularly interesting startup to watch.
The company, which has raised $7.5 million, is currently free but plans to rollout a micropayment system in the future. It currently includes more than 3,000 online lessons in 100 categories.


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PayPal Burnishes Brand Image as Mobile Use Surges
May 1, 2014 4:30 PM EST
The online payment company PayPal is getting a shiny new look and its first-ever global marketing push as parent eBay Inc tries to wrest attention away from the growing number of rivals piling into the mobile payments market.
A PayPal Here device affixed to a mobile phone is demonstrated in a handout photo.
The brand overhaul unveiled on Wednesday includes a more vibrant, simple logo designed to suit mobile phones and wearable devices like wristbands and PayPal's first-ever television ads in the U.S. market. The campaign will last throughout the summer and into fall 2014.
The move comes as PayPal, the dominant online payment processor, shifts its focus toward mobile phones and the fast-growing market to enable consumers to pay for physical goods and services with their smartphones.
"If you look at us visually online, we look very similar to financial service companies," said Christina Smedley, vice president of global brand and communications at PayPal.
"Our brands and the ways consumers are going to experience them, the way people are going to touch us, is going to change hugely in coming years," she said.
The company declined to specify the total cost of the marketing campaign, but said it was the largest ever planned for PayPal, which accounts for a large chunk of eBay's overall stock market value and its growth outpaces the rest of the company.
The U.S. mobile payment market will reach $90 billion by 2017, up from $12.8 billion in 2012, according to Forrester Research. Research firm Gartner expects the global market will see a more than threefold rise by 2017 to $721 billion.
That potential has attracted the likes of Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc and Square Inc. Between 3 percent and 7 percent of consumers worldwide use in-store mobile payments, but up to 27 percent are willing to try, according to Bain & Company.
With 143 million active users at the end of 2013, PayPal is the dominant online payment provider, but it is not used widely for in-store payments in the United States, Bain said.
"Our research showed that people needed to be reminded of some of the core benefits that we have and this felt like a way we could bring it together," Smedley said.
This is the first makeover for PayPal since 2007. The logo was developed by the firm led by designer Yves Behar, who is also chief creative officer for Jawbone, a maker of headsets and a fitness-tracker product.
The marketing efforts come a few weeks after activist investor Carl Icahn dropped his efforts to force eBay to hive off PayPal, eBay's most attractive and fastest-growing unit.
During a call on Tuesday to discuss first-quarter earnings, Chief Executive John Donahoe said eBay was focused on extending PayPal's scope and its marketing spending for PayPal will ramp up in coming quarters.
"Our focus at this stage is extend the reach and if we extend the reach over time, we will have plenty of opportunity to monetize," Donahoe said
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Family-owned Burghardt Sporting Goods traces its roots to 1881
Burghardt Sporting Goods was founded in 1881 by Charles Burghardt in downtown Milwaukee. Originally, it sold stationery and books, but an influx of immigrants created an opportunity for Burghardt to meet the demand for gym and sports equipment.
Burghardt's, now located in Brookfield — and one of the oldest family-owned sporting goods companies in the country — has been the go-to supplier for many Wisconsin school and club teams throughout the decades.
More recently, its online presence has allowed it to make a national impact. On occasion, professional athletes have been known to stop in, too.
For generations, Burghardt's has maintained a strong reputation among those seeking sports equipment, but this year it is being formally recognized — and for the first time — as a Top Workplace by its employees.
Burghardt's staff remains loyal because of the input they have. Brian Burghardt, a fifth-generation co-owner along with his brother, Carl, and sister, Lynn, said the entire team got together to enshrine their values in the "BSG Constitution." It lists service, teamwork, passion and respect as the company's watchwords, and the document can be found posted throughout the store.
"We pull together on a regular basis to discuss kind of how (the constitution is) working and getting everybody on the same page in terms of who we are as a company," said Burghardt.
Their ethic is put on display whenever someone comes in to pick up customized uniforms or jerseys, have beat-up lacrosse sticks re-restrung or get worn-out gloves re-laced.
The values they hold, although committed to paper only recently, explains why the business has been able to withstand the surge of big box stores and online retailers.
"I think the consistent thing that stretches all the way back to 1881, through the generations really, is service," said Burghardt. "That's the human touch that is not easily replicable online or oftentimes in national companies."
Burghardt said that because the price of equipment is more or less dictated by manufacturers — which sets the company on equal footing with Dick's Sporting Goods or Amazon — it's service that has kept customers shopping for more than a century.
A glimpse at the store's Facebook page reveals testimonials about its customer service, and the same can be said for its Google reviews. Some of them are long and detail how employees went out their way to give the best service possible. Other customers mention how they were willing to make a long drive to the store, up to 90 minutes in one case.
Burghardt employees are able to draw meaning not only from their interactions with customers but also from being a part of and affecting their surrounding community.
And the support they have shown to others is being returned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I think people now are feeling the importance of supporting their local community, maybe more so than ever," Burghardt said.
In addition to their customers and community, Burghardt employees gain a sense of worth by helping one another.
"Being part of an organization that truly is values driven. I mean, it feels like a family. We celebrate together, we mourn together, we go through all kinds of stuff like any big family would, and it's just a great support system," said Burghardt.
That system is made up of about 90 employees between the two locations, the second one in Fox Point. And at times it has included part-time help from the sixth generation of Burghardts, 12 in total with the oldest in college. Whether any number of them will continue the legacy, Burghardt said it is too early to say.
What he is certain of, however, is this:
"The commitment to customer service, honesty and being a community member — that's passed on from generation to generation for sure."
Reach the reporter at firstname.lastname@example.org or follow him on Twitter @agyakaning


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Cuphead may be coming very soon to the PlayStation 4 is a listing on the UK PSN is to believed; PS4 store photos reveal a possible leak.
Despite all odds, Cuphead and Mugman may be making their way to PS4 if screenshots from the international PSN store is to be believed. You heard me right — the once Xbox One killer indie title is going fully multiplatform, after previously making the jump to Nintendo Switch.
Screenshots of PSN began circulating twitter this evening showing Cuphead under the “New Games” section of the UK store, after being discovered by a user over on ResetEra going by Alchemist and shared by Gematsu. Currently, clicking on the icon won’t load or take you to any page, but the fact that it is on there is a pretty strong hint that it will be soon.
When can we expect to hear news if this is official? No one knows… but there is a good lead. Earlier in the day, Geoff Keighley tweeted out that tomorrow morning there was going to be a special update from “one of our favorite indie game studios:”
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) July 27, 2020
The timing of both of these occurring sure seems suspect, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a Keighley reveal gets leaked ahead of his big announcement. I feel bad for him sometimes that leaks seem always to steal his thunder. In any case, this is still just speculation, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if tomorrow at 11 am eastern that Sony fans that have been chomping at the bit to play as an anthropomorphic cup-person will get their wishes granted.
Cuphead has exploded in popularity and expanded its brand since initially releasing on the Xbox One back in September of 2017. Last year the mug brothers came to the Nintendo Switch, was seen riding around in Tesla’s, signed a deal with Netflix, became fashion icons in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, and even got some handy accessibility features added earlier this year!
Fingers crossed that when and if this does get announced, though, we get an update on the DLC “The Delicious Last Course” that people are waiting to get their hands on!