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Warning against Melbourne Building Works24/10/2016 13:28
Fresh alert is issued to all consumers against Melbourne Building Works (MBW), now operating under a new name, Melbourne Works Limited (MWL). MWL is in the business of providing construction services, kitchen remodeling and office upgrade works.
More complaints have surfaced against this rogue construction company since the ‘Consumer Alert’ by the Consumer Council of Fiji in the media, cautioning Fijians against Melbourne Building Works in August this year.
The Council is concerned that consumers are being further misled and deceived as Melbourne Building Works has ceased to operate despite owing thousands of dollars to many aggrieved consumers.
Our findings with the Office of Registrar of Companies shows that Melbourne Building Works ceased to operate on 27 October 2015 and from 30 October 2015, a new company was registered under the name of Melbourne Works Limited. Both Companies have the same Director by the name of ‘Manoj Kumar Parekh’. The new company (MWL) has another Director along with Manoj Kumar Parekh.
The Council so far received 23 complaints against Melbourne Building Works with monetary value of $127,505.
In the latest case, the complainant had paid $11,850 to the company on 5 February 2016 and a receipt was issued under Melbourne Building Works. This is under the company, which has ceased its operation. The services were hired for the construction of Australian standard kitchen.
The work started after 17 weeks from the payment date and on completion, the complainant found the work to be unsatisfactory. This was due to the fact that the construction was not up to the Australian standard as initially agreed. The matter was raised with the company director and the complainant sought a refund of $4,000. However, the company refused to provide the refund.
In another case, a couple also paid $11,000 to the same company hiring their services for mega kitchen works. The payment was made by the complainants on 11 July 2016, nonetheless, the work is incomplete although the complainants were assured by the company to have the kitchen completed by 18 October 2016. This did not materialise, leaving the complainants in a difficult situation as they expected visitors for Diwali. This is a matter of embarrassment as the family will not have a proper kitchen to entertain their visitors.
The third case concerns a Regional Organisation. They paid around $12,556 to Melbourne Building Works in December 2015 to facilitate office furniture such as workstations, office shelves, boardroom tables and boardroom chairs and remaining amount was to be made on the date of receipt of the furniture. To date, they have not received all the items paid for.
In the three cases, the Director of the company issued receipts under the name of Melbourne Building Works- a company that ceased operation in 2015. Our investigations confirm that this company is in breach of the Commerce Commission Decree 2010 – (Section 88(1) (a)1.
Our concern is that consumers are being taken for a ride by the Director’s false promises and his conniving ways. This is a daylight robbery, a fraud. We are urging the relevant enforcement authorities to take prompt action against this company.
It is not late yet before he swindles more consumers. Our approach is to address this before more people are affected. We don’t want another scam similar to the land developer, Mukesh Naidu who is now facing the full brunt of the law for misleading consumers. Mukesh Naidu is alleged to have obtained $3 million dollars from consumers, promising them land lots in Tacirua. In some cases, he sold the same piece of land twice or thrice.
We also request the Media outlets to join us in exposing such companies that are out to hoodwink unsuspecting consumers. Media must stand up for consumer-justice and not be gagged by such dishonest businessmen who threaten to file civil law suits against the press. He used his lawyer to threaten the Media and Consumer Council for defamation. The Council stands by its statement against this rogue service provider whose ulterior motive is to make money at the consumers’ expense. The Council will not sit back and allow consumers to be duped due to legal threats by the company.
Consumers who are facing similar situation with Melbourne Building Works are urged to lodge their complaints. Call us on the toll-free National Consumer Helpline No: 155.
1 Section 88(1) states that: “A person shall not, in trade or commerce, accept payment or other consideration for goods or services where, at the time of the acceptance – (a) the person intends (i) not to supply the goods or services; or (ii) to supply goods or services materially different from the goods or services in respect of which the payment or other consideration is accepted.”.


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POCO X3 GT is the international version of the Redmi Note 10 Pro 5G smartphone, but it is only sold in India for now. The model runs on MIUI 12.5 firmware out of the box, but after one of the updates, it started having problems with cooling.
POCO X3 GT owners report that the smartphone heats up quickly even in the absence of heavy loads on the single-chip system. The problem occurred after updating the MIUI 12.5 software to version v12. 5.4.0 RKJNX.
The company has already officially confirmed the problem and is now preparing a firmware update. The update is expected to be released within a few weeks.
Do you know that
The most popular Xiaomi products on Aliexpress are:

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- Apr 12, 2001
PCMag has posted a review, hands on video and unboxing slideshow of the new Apple TV which should be arriving in customer's hands this week.
Their hands on video shows the new Apple TV's interface which looks much like the existing previous model. It shows the speed of renting movies and TV shows, flickr, as well as the Netflix interface:
In the end they describe the new Apple TV as an "excellent option" for iTunes and Netflix users.
Article Link: Apple TV Unboxing and Hands on Video with Streaming and Netflix


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What a game! It’s always exciting to see the game, but even more exciting to filter through all of the post game viewing details.
Who watched it on TV?
This years game was well viewed, but came in second place (in history) in comparison to last years game. Last year’s airing was seen by 9.2 million Canadians, this year was viewed by 8.3 million Canadians, with 7.3 million viewers on CTV and 1 million on RDS. Nearly ¾ of all households tuned into the tv during the game, were tuned into the game. Tuning throughout the game was relatively consistent, though it peaked in the last 15 minutes, and really started to grow starting at the half time show.
How did it play out digitally?
On the digital front, we’re extremely interested in seeing the growth in online viewers as well as “dual screeners” and of course all of the social chatter around the game. It looks like some advertisers really capitalized on their digital placements around the game. While these examples are somewhat US focused, we certainly can see similar trends north of the border. Turbo Tax focused their efforts on YouTube, where the focused heavily on serving pre-roll and banner ads to YouTube users searching for Super Bowl content. Mercedes-Benz opted out of television ads during the big game this year, but owned the leaderboard spot on the NFL’s website from kickoff until the final whistle, while Subway had a roadblock on the CBSSports.com website. The Pandora marketing team was thinking ahead with just one week until Valentine’s day. They had many prominent placements on NBCSports.com for anyone who just happened to be in the market for some jewelry.
We were surprised to hear that Facebook and Twitter reported a 25% drop in Super Bowl social activity in this article. 2015 saw 36 million Super Bowl related tweets with 2016 coming in closer to 27 million. Facebook saw 200 million interactions this year which is down from the 265 million Super Bowl related interactions in 2015.
The commercials certainly seemed to be more focused on humor than in passed years, with a heavy reliance on big name celebrities. Top spots came from Hyundai, Snickers, Colgate, and it’s safe to say that we’ll be hearing more about the lack of love for Mountain Dew’s #puppetmonkeybaby. That hashtag may be the winner with 65,000 mentions during the televised airing.
As self professed media geeks, we’re interested in hearing about how the conversations between Bell and the CRTC go with regards to airing the US commercials in the Canadian Super Bowl broadcast next year. This will certainly be a game changer for any advertiser wanting a piece of that pie and will likely result in pricing sky rocketing.
Checkout Hyundai’s launch of the 2017 Elantra:
Or Snickers commercial featuring Willem Dafoe as Marilyn Munroe:
Or the infamous Puppymonkeybaby spot from Mountain Dew:


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Brand of the Month – March 2022
We’re happy to announce that M&K Sound
/ Miller & Kreisel are our featured Brand of the Month for March 2022! Featuring the best in-wall or bookshelf loudspeakers, or a complete and compact surround sound set-up!
Get yourself an audio set-up using the same patented technology that has produced sound for even more Oscar nominated films at this upcoming academy awards!
These guys continually lead the industry in sound quality, and have their tech featured in multiple Oscar nominated films, at this year’s Academy Awards right around the corner.
That’s a guarantee that you’re getting the very best, and their brand new V+ series packs all that sound quality into lifestyle-friendly, compact subwoofers!
The V+ series can, of course, be found in our shop so click the link
and sort out your loudspeaker set-up for summer!
It’s been a big month for M&K in March, as their tech helped numerous films notch awards at this years #oscars2022
Now, their tech works behind the scenes on some of the greatest films of the past year, but by following the link you can get that amazing sound quality in your living room with their 5.1 Surround sound set-up!


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There has been a lot of buzz as of late around online behavioral advertising. Mounting concerns around consumer privacy and threat of legislation has forced advertising industry bodies to implement self-regulatory programs to ensure they are compliant.
I’m in Canada, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in Canada has recently announced a framework for a “Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising” (OBA).
While this has been in play in the U.S. since this past fall (October 2010), it is exciting to hear that Canada is adopting the same principles with support of various industry associations.
What Is OBA?
Online behavioral advertising is defined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as “the practice of tracking consumers’ activities online to target advertising.”
The ability to serve ads to a user based on their observed online behaviors and interests is an approach that has proven successful for advertisers trying to reach the most appropriate audience for their products or services. In fact, ads targeted in this manner are usually three to five times more effective in terms of conversion and brand awareness.
Why Has Guidance Been Issued?
There has been threat of legislation to severely restrict the use of OBA, such that it could greatly reduce its impact for advertisers. To avoid the need for formal legislation, industry associations have decided to take it upon themselves to “regulate” the industry. There has been a call to standardize an approach to “self-regulation” so that concerns over consumer privacy would be mitigated.
What Does It Mean?
All advertisers are required to operate within the framework laid out by the IAB (in both the U.S. and Canada). The key elements are as follows:
- Transparency. Providing notice to consumers when they are being served OBA.
- Education. Facilitating one-click access to all relevant information about OBA.
- Choice. Enabling consumers to opt out of this type of behaviorally-targeted ads.
- Accountability. A program that ensures consumers’ preferences are maintained and respected.
Do I Need to Implement the Program?
While there is no legislation explicitly regulating the use of OBA, there is a strong push by leading industry organizations to adopt these principles. Many publishers and advertising agencies have already implemented the program and are encouraging individual advertisers to move ahead. It is recommended that companies participate to ensure their advertising is compliant with consumer privacy guidelines.
Will It Negatively Impact My Advertising Program?
Many advertisers are concerned if they implement this program, that they will lose the ability to target their desired audience. In reality, the percentage of users who opt out of this targeting is so small it’s almost negligible. According to a study by Millward Brown’s Dynamic Logic, “Consumer Interactions with In-Ad Notice,” opt-out rates only average about 0.0001 percent (which translates into about one person for every 1 million impressions)! And even if users do opt out, it isn’t necessarily bad for your brand. Many studies, including the just-reference study by Millward Brown, found that increasing transparency actually improves consumers’ perceptions of a brand and their likelihood to purchase.
New Top-Level Domains (TLDs) have become more popular in the last couple of years, so here’s everything you need to know about them.
Amazon Prime was launched in 2005 as an express shipping membership program and more than a decade later it has tens of millions of subscribers who enjoy a lot more than just free, fast shipping on millions of products Amazon sells.
Sure, some apps are doing personalized push notifications, but what happens when your users are in the app?
Since cloud computing first gained mainstream attention around 2009, its popularity has exploded. Promising increased efficiency, flexibility and cost-effectiveness, it was hailed as the ultimate business solution. But are users seeing the benefits?


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ZTE Corporation has joined Avanci, the industry’s first platform for licensing patented wireless technology to the Internet of Things (IoT).
The Avanci marketplace allows for faster time to market for IoT companies and will drive the adoption of connectivity around the globe.
Avanci offers IoT companies “one-stop” licensing: a single license to standard-essential patents from the joining patent holders on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
Using the Avanci marketplace, IoT companies don’t have to sign a licensing agreement with each patent holder one by one, reducing their internal cost and avoiding potential overlapped licensing. Avanci will focus initial licensing efforts on 2G, 3G and 4G cellular technologies for connected cars and smart meters with plans to quickly expand to other IoT product areas.
“The one-stop licensing model of this platform will significantly increase the cost predictability and transparency of IPR licensing to meet the rapidly growing demand of connection service providers,” said Spencer Shen, CIPO, ZTE. He continued, “Avanci will enable IoT manufacturers to conveniently get the world’s most advanced wireless technologies, so they can scale quickly, shift more focus to marketing new IoT products, and, finally to accelerate the development of IoT globally.”
“Since we began in April, we have received an overwhelmingly positive response from both IoT device manufacturers and patent owners to our streamlined licensing solution, and Avanci will quickly add more of these companies to our marketplace in the months ahead,” said Kasim Alfalahi, founder and chief executive officer of Avanci.
ZTE, the only Avanci member from China to date, is known for their future-oriented development efforts. In 4G/5G and IoT patents, ZTE is now one of the industry’s leaders. ZTE owns more than 815 standard-essential 4G LTE patents, accounting for more than 13 percent of the global total, as well as nearly one thousand patent applications involving key 5G technologies.
An IOT patent report released by consulting firm LexInnova shows that in 2016 ZTE was one of e top three companies. A report from the Intellectual Property Office of the UK shows that ZTE topped the list of IoT patent holders from 2004-2013.
ZTE believes that IoT, with diverse, extensive applications, will trigger the fourth Industrial Revolution, and outlined its predictions more broadly in their recently released M-ICT 2.0 whitepaper. Today, ZTE is providing and developing sophisticated solutions and applications in four vertical areas–Industrial Internet, Connected Vehicles, Smart Home, and Smart City.
In the next few years, the number of sensors, appliances and machines connected to the IoT will exceed that of phones to become the biggest category of connected devices. By 2021, nearly 16 billion devices among the 28 billion connected devices globally will be IoT devices, including smart-city devices, smart cars, smart home devices, as well as mobile devices for health care and diagnosis.


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Amazon is currently experimenting with a pilot program that turns warehouse jobs into a sort of video game, a system the company claims is meant to break up the monotony of the day-to-day tasks required of its workers but has, conveniently, led to competition among employees to outperform their colleagues, according to reports.
The Washington Post reported on the games in detail on Tuesday, writing that Amazon has implemented these quasi-video games at five of its warehouses after the program first launched at a single facility in 2017.
In short, these games work by rewarding employees for the speed with which they’re able to complete their actual job tasks.
Names of these games include MissionRacer, PicksInSpace, CastleCrafter, and Dragon Duel, according to the Post. A photo of the dragon game was shared on Tuesday by Fast Company, which reported that Amazon workers can opt to play either by themselves or compete against other workers. An Amazon spokesperson told Gizmodo by phone that employees at warehouses with the pilot program can choose whether or not to opt-in.
The Post reported that these games—played on screens at the work stations to which Amazon’s warehouse robots deliver items to be sorted—reward workers “with points, virtual badges, and other goodies throughout a shift.” In at least one warehouse, rewards also include an internal currency called Swag Bucks, which can be exchanged for Amazon-branded gear, according to the Post.
If you’re curious, Fast Company has an actual screenshot of one of the Amazon warehouse games I reported on today @washingtonposthttps://t.co/hB4huzD0hNhttps://t.co/Yht1ERtXjA pic.twitter.com/LWO2zaiorx
— Greg Bensinger (@GregBensinger) May 21, 2019
Fast Company reported that in the dragon game, which it witnessed first hand, employees playing the game “are rewarded 16 points for each product they pick,” and players can see how they rank among others playing the game, though the company told Gizmodo the leaderboard displays players anonymously.
“‘Gamification’ is a big focus for us in making jobs more interesting,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s SVP of Worldwide Operations, tweeted Tuesday. “We have a variety of games single and multi player. The objective is simple – take something that can be pretty boring and make it more interesting and hopefully fun.”
The company strongly disputed the characterisation of the games as intended to boost productivity or pit workers against one another—even if by design and through incentives like prizes and points that is quite literally what the pilot program does—insisting instead that they were created to make its increasingly tedious warehouse environments more “fun,” engaging, and collaborative.
Whether the company chooses to regard this Black Mirror-like operation as one that boosts its bottom line, it certainly doesn’t seem to be hurting it.
One employee who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity claimed that she had picked nearly 500 items off Amazon’s robot shelves in an hour, whereas the standard at some fulfilment centres is already 400 at the speed of one item every 7 seconds.
This person also told the Post that the game had created a competitive environment among workers at her facility, though the employees who the paper spoke with did seem to find the game broke up some of the monotony of their work.
Despite the fact that the pilot program has reportedly been around for some time, reports on its use in Amazon’s facilities also come as the company shifts from a two-day to closely monitors.
A spokesperson did say in a statement, however, that Amazon has “performance expectations for every Amazon associate and we measure actual performance against those expectations.”
“Associate performance is measured and evaluated over a long period of time as we know that a variety of things could impact the ability to meet expectations in any given day or hour,” the spokesperson said. “We support people who are not performing to the levels expected with dedicated coaching to help them improve.”
Listen, if a company wants to wring its employees of all the labour it can possibly squeeze out of them for the same measly pay, turning its workplace into a giant video game sure appears to be one creative if not ethically questionable way to do it.
The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans
It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.


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Google's Nexus 7 tablet is already selling out at major US retailers like Gamestop, Staples and Sam's Club. GameStop told Reuters that it ran "through its first two allocations of the tablet" on Friday, and the device is currently out of stock on the Sam's Club and Staples' websites.
Google unveiled the 7-inch tablet at its 2012 keynote in San Francisco, California at the end of June. The search engine giant hopes that the new tablet will help it better compete against Apple and Amazon.com by boosting sales of its online content. Even though recent rumors have suggested Apple is also working on their own 7-inch slate, some proponents claim they will never release the rumored "iPad mini" since there is a lack of demand for smaller tablets. However, early sales of the Nexus 7 seem to suggest otherwise.
The big test for Google will be the Nexus 7's staying power. Don't forget, Amazon’s Kindle Fire also got off to an encouraging start last fall, but sales have since dropped off.


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A Poway bike shop has been burglarized four times in the last year, despite the owners doubling down on security and safety improvements meant to stall the capers.
Burglars used crowbars to open doors and smash glass at Fly Rides Bike Shop. Then when metal bars were installed, they came back with a reciprocating saw to cut them down. The most recent incident, though, has left investigators and shop operators more baffled than ever before.
“Hugely infuriating,” COO Max Shenk said, describing his predicament.
With each burglary, Shenk ends up spending more time and money to protect the shop.
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“Really, the biggest cost has been all the added security we’ve had to put in. $40,000 in all the added security,” Shenk said.
That $40,000 paid for cameras, metal roll-down doors and metal mesh over each window. He hired an overnight security guard for six weeks and now has a 24-hour security company monitoring the business.
What has he learned from all this?
“That they will find a way, and that’s our biggest concern,” he said.
On Wednesday morning, someone turned off the main breaker to the complex and his alarms and surveillance equipment went dark for about 90 minutes. In that time, according to Shenk, someone or a group broke the window in the back of the store and sawed through the metal mesh, but gave up after realizing there was still a metal door to get through. Unfortunately, his security team was blinded by the outage.
“They don’t know what happened, they just lost signal. Nothing they could see, nothing on camera. There is a solid hour and a half where the camera just skipped,” he explained.
When the cameras came back on there was an SDG&E bucket truck leaving the parking lot. An agency spokesperson said a troubleshooter responded to the complex to investigate a power outage notification.
While the popularity of electric bikes seemed to grow overnight, Shenk does not accept the idea that these break-ins at his shop are the price of doing business.
“Our worry is if they figured out how to get through those steps, what’s the next stage in them trying to trick our system and break in here?” he wondered.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department told NBC 7 deputies are investigating all four cases.


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Control networking technology becomes ISO/IEC standard
LonWorks networking technology—from LonMark International, an non-profit industry association—has been approved as a standard.
San Jose, Calif.-based LonMark International —a non-profit standards development and industry trade association—has announced that members of the Joint Technical Committee (JTC
First introduced 18 years ago, the control networking technology has been used worldwide. The ratification stands to enhance the adoption and usage in the controls market, specifically in vertical construction.
The four parts of the standard set comprise the core protocol; the twisted-pair, free-topology-wiring transfer medium; the powerline transfer medium, and the use of the Internet protocol (IP) as a tunneling transfer medium.
LONMARK International is hosting a seminar and press conference on the topic on Jan. 27, 2009, during the AHR Expo in Chicago.


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Retailers Laud Marketplace Fairness Act
The National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) have applauded the introduction of the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bipartisan bill that seeks to close the sales tax disparity by granting states the authority to require remote and online sellers to collect sales and use tax at the point of purchase.
“For far too long local retailers and small business owners have been saddled with a competitive disadvantage with online retailers - sales taxes,” said David French, NRF’s SVP for Government Relations. “While store owners collect and remit state and local sales taxes their digital competitors are off the hook – and benefiting because of it.”
The bill specifies that states would need to simplify and streamline their sales and use tax definitions and obligations before implementation, and provide sellers with free software to help them comply.
“This bill grants states the ability to collect taxes that are already owed,” French continued. “The Marketplace Fairness Act reinforces free and fair competition in the marketplace, protects states’ rights, and brings much-needed simplification to the nation’s complex sales tax system.”
“The retail industry has always been fiercely competitive with merchants competing every day for consumer dollars based on price, value, services and other factors," RILA EVP for Public Affairs Katherine Lugar wrote in a letter to Senate and House sponsors of the Marketplace Fairness Act. "But today, Main Street merchants compete on a playing field that has been skewed against them due to a loophole that allows online-only retailers to evade collecting state sales taxes."
Lugar continued: “This state’s rights approach has the blessing of governors and state legislators throughout the country, in addition to the Main Street merchants who invest locally by hiring employees, paying property taxes and contributing to their communities."
To advance this retail priority, NRF and RILA have joined with other stakeholders, including the International Council of Shopping Centers, National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, and National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, to form the Marketplace Fairness Coalition, which is dedicated to advancing the Marketplace Fairness Act.


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UK's growth agenda includes tax relief for innovation and IP
by Ian Williams, Chairman, Campbell Dallas LLP, Scotland
Ian Williams has over 25 years' experience
in the energy sector, working with renewable
energy businesses and advising global oil
service companies on their UK and international
operations. He is Chairman of Campbell Dallas
LLP, one of Scotland's leading independent
chartered accountants with cross-cultural oil
industry expertise and a strong presence in the
renewable energy industry.
(Photo: Campbell Dallas LLP)
As part of its 2012 budget announcement, the UK government stated it would introduce a new corporation tax rate for companies that generate profit from a product they have actively developed and patented. This preferential tax regime known as Patent Box will come into effect on April 1, 2013. What are the benefits of this new tax regime, and what could it mean for the UK economy?
Historically, the UK has had an unsympathetic tax system in terms of research and development (R&D) with tax relief offered on capital expenditure rather than for company incentives to develop new technologies and processes. As a result, many companies registered their intellectual property (IP) in jurisdictions outside the UK to have the resulting income taxed at more favorable rates. For instance Ireland offers up to 25 percent tax relief on R&D revenue and capital expenditure and has a corporation tax rate of 12.5 percent for trading income derived from R&D.
In 2010, the UK government announced plans to invest over £200 million to create a network of Technology and Innovation Centres to stem this migration. The UK is home to less than one percent of the world's population, but its scientific community produces eight percent of the world's scientific papers, has a citation share of 12 percent (second only to the US) and over 80 Nobel prizes for scientific achievement. The introduction of these tax changes is a bold move by the government to motivate UK companies to utilize the talent that exists in the country and to further the work already being done.
The UK is in a prime position to maintain and build on its reputation as a market leader in R&D. The infrastructure needed is already in place, and these new government incentives should help convince companies to remain in the UK. Aberdeen, for example, with its thriving oil and gas industry stands to benefit greatly from Patent Box. Companies involved in meeting the many challenges of deepwater production in the North Sea are regularly developing new technologies.
The UK is the leading G8 industrialized country in research productivity, with 45 research papers per billion pounds of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 25 in the US and 15 in Japan. It is also home to four of the world's top 10 universities.
The government's tax incentives will enable greater collaboration and increasing numbers of joint ventures between companies and universities, to push the UK's knowledge base a few more rungs up the innovation ladder.
In addition to a tangible increase in R&D activity is the possibility of additional monetary opportunities to fund it. With banks increasingly taking a step back from gap funding, there is a greater need for investment from private equity sources. Patent Box allows investors to see that, in addition to a tax relief on their initial investment, once a product or process is marketable, there will be a cash flow to repay them.
(Photo: iStockphoto / @ Yuriy Kirsanov)
From next April, companies in the UK will, in one year, effectively get tax relief to the tune of 225 percent, or £2.25 for every pound invested in patents. This is great news for global companies as they will be able to combine the internationalization of their operations with their intellectual property (IP) strategies. The benefit of these new tax structures can therefore extend well beyond the UK.
Currently the main rate of corporation tax in the UK is 24 percent. Patent Box will allow companies to apply for a rate of 10 percent on all profits attributable to qualifying patents, whether they are paid separately as royalties or embedded in the sales price of products. For companies selling patented products or licensing their patents, the calculation begins with the total profit derived from the sale of the patented product/process or with the licensing of the product/process.
Patent Box forms part of the government's growth agenda. The aim of the regime is to provide an additional incentive for companies to retain and commercialize existing patents and to develop new, innovative patented products. It is designed to encourage companies to locate the high-value jobs associated with the development, manufacture and exploitation of products patented in the UK, cementing the country's position as a world leader in patented technologies. It promises to further enhance the competitiveness of the UK tax system for high-tech companies that make a profit from patents.
Any patent is eligible as long as it has profit-generating potential and the company holds an exclusive right to license it. The new Patent Box incentive is open to any UK company that innovates and sells products stemming from work carried out within the UK, and that has patents initially commercialized after November 29, 2010. Companies will need to comply with certain conditions, however, before they can qualify for the new incentives.
The patent must have been granted by the UK's Intellectual Property Office under the Patent Act 1977 or recognized by the European Patent Office, and must have significant profit-generating potential. For example, a component that makes up part of another product, such as a handle on a drill, will not qualify for the scheme because it will not drive the profit of the product, even if the product is the first of its kind.
The scheme also specifies that the patented invention is to be developed in the UK. Should a company based outside the UK begin development of a patented product before taking it to the UK for completion, the company must re-register it in the UK. Also, in order to be eligible for the 10 percent corporation tax rate, the company must be actively involved in developing and exploiting the product – simply owning the patent right is not enough.
This new scheme will help make the UK's tax system one of the most competitive in the world. This is good news for companies already operating in the UK and an interesting business opportunity for newcomers.
The WIPO Magazine is intended to help broaden public understanding of intellectual property and of WIPO’s work, and is not an official document of WIPO. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WIPO concerning the legal status of any country, territory or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This publication is not intended to reflect the views of the Member States or the WIPO Secretariat. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by WIPO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.


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OneTouch pens agreement with Bitcasino
5 August 2020
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Mobile-first games developer OneTouch has announced a deal with specialist cryptocurrency casino operator, Bitcasino.
The agreement will see an engaging selection of the studio’s renowned table games go live with the popular online casino later this year, including live dealer Baccarat, Roulette and Blackjack.
Founded in 2014, Bitcasino is the world’s first licensed Bitcoin-focused operator, with OneTouch’s latest commercial partnership boosting its appeal amongst a wide range of audiences.
The provider’s engaging portfolio of slot and table games, which is known for its innovative mobile-first designs and intuitive single-touch interactivity, will be enjoyed by a rapidly growing fanbase thanks to the recent string of deals it has signed with the likes of Slotegrator and Revolver Gaming.
Ollie Castleman, Head of Marketing at OneTouch, said: “Bitcasino is the industry’s foremost cryptocurrency specialist, and this partnership allows our offering to continue expanding across a diverse set of product verticals.
“Our unique mobile-first gaming suite has continued to go from strength to strength this year, and we’ve lined up an additional range of exciting product launches and operator deals for the coming period.”
Tauri Tiitsaar, Director of Casino at Bitcasino, said: “OneTouch is among the industry’s fastest-growing suppliers, so we are thrilled to be integrating its world class collection of slot and table games.
“The company’s impressive product offering fits well with our track-record of providing fun, fast and fair immersive gaming experiences, so we can’t wait to introduce it to our players. We are certain that these games are going to be a big hit.”


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Operators looking to penetrate the huge Los Angeles market need to understand that small chains and independents rule the terrain, as do consumers with a fondness for healthful food choices and Mexican fare, say officials with market research firm The NPD Group. With slightly more than 34,000 restaurants, or 6 percent of all U.S. restaurants, Los Angeles is the country’s second-largest restaurant market in terms of number of units, according to NPD’s Spring 2007 ReCount database. ...
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Accommodation feeling the pinch
SOUTHERN Grampians accommodation providers are feeling the pinch after Melbourne went back into lockdown this week, with many seeing mass cancelations.
Hamilton Townhouse Motel owner, Andrea Paine said when the State Government announced the measures to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) on Tuesday, all her July bookings cancelled.
“We’re essentially back to square one, like we were when the restrictions first came in March,” she said.
“When the announcement was made, straight away all my July bookings cancelled – they were mostly workers from Melbourne, and their employers didn’t want them to travel outside of the city.”


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With chaos seemingly the status quo these days, many people might be looking for ways to remove themselves from the fray more than ever before, and that presents an opportunity for the hotel industry to truly shine.
In mid-January, Hyatt Hotels Corporation made news with its $215-million acquisition of Miraval Group and its resort and spa properties and brands.
This was interesting news in a number of ways, not the least of which was Hyatt’s stated commitment to grow beyond the boundaries of the traditional hotel industry and into what the company called “adjacent spaces.” But I think this has some pretty noteworthy ramifications on the hotel side as well.
In announcing the deal, President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian noted that desires for greater wellness offerings have grown into an almost unavoidable chorus, which in turn makes it an irresistible investment opportunity, especially for what is a relatively modest sum.
“As we engaged more with guests, key areas of want and need kept popping up, and wellness was prominent among them,” Hoplamazian said from the Miraval Arizona. “And (wellness) is more and more on the minds of C-suite executives thinking about productivity and effectiveness in meetings and in life. So what we ID’d with the Miraval opportunity was an opportunity to accelerate how we care for those customers and guests. … And we can do that in a very different way than how hotel companies have approached it in the past.”
Wellness has grown into a bit of a buzzword in the industry, and it’s certainly the focus of companies like Miraval, but it seems to hold particular potential right now given the current cultural climate we’re living in. No matter what part of the political spectrum you personally exist in at the moment, I think we can all agree that living in the Western world is a bit more emotionally and mentally taxing than it has been in recent memory.
Politics have been polarized, so anyone who is even somewhat politically minded right now seems to be significantly more prone to conflict. In 2017, more human contact leads to more conflict, and sustained conflict is particularly draining.
The opportunity inherent in that rather grim picture is for anyone offering to be the oasis in this desert of anger, and that’s exactly what hotels and resorts already are and can grow to be even more.
Beyond promises of smoother skin and physical fitness, now is the time for hotels to plan services and amenities around wellness, mindfulness and opportunities to truly unplug from the world. Obviously higher-end, leisure-focused properties are already keyed in to this in a way, but it’s time for them to expand those efforts to make it not just a niche offering but an expectation for every guest.
And I don’t think it’s outside the realm of reason to say properties priced on the lower side could also differentiate themselves from the competition by offering things that allow guests to shut out the world around them. After all, what is a hotel room if not a temporary sanctuary?
Of course, hoteliers need to be cost-conscious about how they make it happen, but there is the opportunity to be creative. It doesn’t have to be a spa experience or anything as involved as hot yoga classes, although I do find the idea of hot yoga at something like a Motel 6 on the side of the highway a strange and wonderfully unexpected mélange.
That said, I’m not sure off the top of my head what the solution is for helping guests find the off button. But we’ve got enough great minds in this industry that I’m sure someone else can think of something.
The opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or its parent company, STR and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to comment or contact and editor with any questions or concerns.


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Game companies may be playing gamesLast month, a 45-year-old office worker surnamed Kim was unpleasantly surprised when he received his February credit card bill: an 800,000 won ($703) mobile game purchase. The culprit was his son. All Kim did was hand his smartphone to his son, who asked to borrow it for games.
Kim called the game company asking for a refund, but he was denied. The company said there was no way to confirm whether the purchases were made by a minor. Kim looked through the term and conditions, but found that refunds are not guaranteed in cases like his or even on occasions of identity theft.
“They’re denying refunds for the mistakes of minors and putting the responsibility on parents - personally, it feels like they’re ripping off children,” Kim said.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has started to investigate these practices. It said Friday that it recently sent an official statement to 10 game companies on the matter. Among the recipients are the industry’s top three, often referred to as the 3N: Nexon, Netmarble and NCSoft.
The FTC plans to order reforms by the end of the first half if the investigation demonstrates abuses.
“The Korea Consumer Agency received more than 15,000 reports on game-related damages,” said an FTC official.
The FTC says six types of user terms are problematic. This includes imposing unconscionable conditions for claiming refunds, putting excessive responsibility on minor users and their parents and blocking a user account without considering the seriousness of the violation.
One item on the FTC list has the potential to greatly impact the performance of the game companies. Refusing to refund a charge if it was incurred by a minor is a significant issue.
One company recently introduced the following language in its user agreement: “Payments made by a minor without the legal representative’s consent can be canceled. But refund requests for charges falsely said to have been made by a minor will not be accepted. Whether the buyer is a minor will be judged based on the device and payment account ownership.”
“Simply put, this means there needs to be proof that the minor paid for the games behind the parent’s back,” said Ma Mi-young, who heads the Korea Consumer Agency’s service team. “This is not easy to prove, and that’s why there is room to argue that the terms are unfair.”
The FTC also raised a question about the refusal of some game companies to make refunds on the grounds that games are “content” and therefore not subject to online commerce laws that oblige refunds to be made within seven days.
Gaming companies say the proposed measures are excessive. They argue that minors spending big on games is also the result of bad parenting. Why, they ask, should the companies take all the blame?
“Despite the terms, in reality there are cases where the company would make a refund even if the parent can’t prove the minor is responsible,” said an unnamed source from a game company. “Some parents are ignorant about their children playing games or are loose in managing their payment passwords - it’s excessive to tell us to refund without conditions.”
A big issue is the practice of “refund abuse.” In online game communities, it’s not difficult to find posts about how users got refunds and free in-game purchases.
“There are a lot of cases where it was the parent who actually made the purchase but asked for a refund saying it was the kid,” said Bae Woo-sung, a senior researcher at the Korea Association of Game Industry. “Even now, refund abuse is a serious problem, but if the terms are forced to be changed, this can lead to even more cases.”
BY KIM KI-HWAN [email@example.com]


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Recently, we reviewed six medical apps for the iPhone and iPad that promised mobile PubMed searches — an essential functionality since the PubMed.gov website is extremely difficult to view on a smart phone. As of last week, this is no longer the case. The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) just launched a mobile friendly version of PubMed.gov last week.
The Web App they have created is currently in beta, and as of this publish date, if you go to PubMed.gov on your smart phone’s browser you will still be directed to the original non-mobile friendly website. However, if you point your phone’s browser to the following URL, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/, you are presented with the mobile version of the site.
The National Library of Medicine states the significant increase in mobile browsing for medical content is one of the key reasons they released this mobile web app. The folks at the NLM already have a plethora of mobile medical web apps available, such as the recently added MedLine Plus.
Continue on to see pictures of the PubMed app in action. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
The Internet has revolutionized how we receive information – and it’s also changing how we learn about and manage our health. A new “ePatient” movement promises to empower patients with online and mobile tools – making it easier than ever to contact a physician, track health variables, and join a support group.
Four minutes isn’t much time to summarize an entire movement, and I think I got a little off topic while suggesting a new use case for David Hale’s NIH PillBox (a pill identifier tool). I said it could be used to identify pills even after your pet licked part of the label off them!
For more information about ePatients, check out my earlier blog post.
Pillbox is the result of a partnership between the National Library of Medicine and the Food and Drug Administration. It helps you identify unknown pills and tablets by parameters such as form, color, size or imprint. The constantly updated database now has more than 7,000 entries with images.
Pillbox was developed to aid in the identification of unknown solid dosage pharmaceuticals. The system combines high-resolution images of tablets and capsules with FDA-approved appearance information (imprint, shape, color, etc.) to enable users to visually search for and identify an unknown solid dosage pharmaceutical. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*


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IDC has published some details regarding the tablet market evolution in late 2013. It would appear that in the fourth quarter of last year the market grew and global tablet shipments hit 76.9 million units.
IDC quotes a growth rate of 62.4% compared to the previous quarter. The Q4 numbers are certainly bigger than Q3, with a growth rate of 28.2%. However, we should have a cautious approach here, since the same IDC claims that things are starting to slow down. The growth rates for the same quarter in 2012 were much higher.
The year over year growth from 2012 was 87.1% and as far as the slow down is concerned, the market saturation is the cause here, at least in developed countries. IDC claims that developing markets still grow significantly, but they’re unable to sustain a global growth. Apple was the leader in tablets last quarter with 26 million units shipped, followed by Samsung and Amazon.


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Krebs on Security has the latest on super-small ATM “skimmers” — small devices that nefarious criminals attach to the mouth of an ATM that capture your credit or debit information when you swipe your card — and they’re only getting more advanced and harder to detect.
A new report from the European ATM Security Team outlines the rise of mini-skimmers, which actually sit inside the “throat” of at ATM, stealing data all day long while totally out of view.
One such skimmer, pictured below, works in cooperation with a tiny camera pointed at an ATM’s keypad. You swipe your card, the skimmer has your data. You enter your PIN, the camera captures you pushing the buttons. It’s totally vile, but it works.
Here’s the camera setup — the device itself is pictured left, and its false cover leaves it in prime position on the ATM (pictured right) to scope your PIN.
Often these skimmers will be powered by a mobile phone that transmits captured data via text message. They might also be facilitated by an MP3 player that stores data as sound, which can later be converted back to card data.
Krebs writes that “one of the simplest ways to protect yourself from ATM skimmers is to cover the PIN pad when you enter your digits. Still, you’d be surprised at how few ATM users actually take this simple but effective precaution.”
To learn more about skimmers and how they work, check out Krebs’ series on the topic.
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Apple and O2 are in talks to offer 3G access to the iPad in the UK, a report this morning confirms – suggesting international carrier discussions had to wait until after the product
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
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Hi, happy Friday, everyone, and thanks to those of you who grabbed a ticket yesterday to our upcoming event on Wednesday, February 8! We still have a bunch of seats left, but they’ll start to go fast, just fyi.
Hope you have a terrific weekend — enjoy those holiday parties — and we’ll see you Monday.:)
Top News in the A.M.
The highly hyped demonstration videos of Magic Leap, the secretive augmented reality company, were actually created by a special effects studio, according to a new piece from The Information that spells out what a lot of industry insiders have long speculated: that the promises of the well-funded startup are far from being realized. Magic Leap’s company’s founder and CEO, Rony Abovitz, has since tweeted that “what’s coming next” from Magic Leap is “the best part.” (Natch.)
Formation 8 Founder Jim Kim Has a New Fund in Builders
Jim Kim, who most recently cofounded the venture firm Formation 8, is launching a brand-new venture firm called Builders that looks to be raising a $200 million fund, judging by a recent SEC filing. His cofounder is Paul Lee, who left the Chicago venture firm Lightbank in 2014 and last year launched a startup studio called Roniin that we wrote about last year.
It isn’t a surprise to see Kim starting something new. After a tumultuous 2015, Formation 8 had decided against raising a third fund.
We wondered whether Builders meant that Lee was similarly moving on from Roniin, however, so we recently caught up with both men to ask that question, as well as ask how they came together, and what Builders — which already has an office in both San Francisco and Chicago — plans to do differently than the hundreds of other venture firms up and running. (We also asked about the pair’s fundraising progress, but they declined to comment, citing SEC regulations.)
More from that conversation follows.
How well do you two know each other? When did you meet?
PL: We go back 15 years. We both started our careers at GE Capital. Jim was building up its IT practice; I was building up its media practice. But we spent time talking about deals, we’d get drinks. We’ve probably talked monthly ever since then.
We did go off and build our own platforms. Jim built Formation 8. I ran Lightbank. But he was my first call in helping shape Roniin and he was the first investor in the platform and in five of the companies that have come out of the platform since.
Roniin’s big idea was to take the ideas of overly busy entrepreneurs, find first-time founders to bring them to life, then give both a big chunk of the new company — along with a little seed capital from Roniin. What happens to it now that you’re starting a new fund?
PL: It’s being rebranded as Builder Studios, and it will be working with the startups that we fund. [The $3 million seed round it raised] was used to prove out the concept and it worked; we learned how to run that P&L and run that infrastructure without a massive amount of burn. Now, we want to use that team of experts we’ve assembled [including engineers, sales personnel, marketers, and back office operations employees] to support our portfolio companies.
So you’re creating more of a platform for your new fund. And will the people at the studio get equity in these startups? How does compensation work across the fund and the studio?
JK: We aren’t commenting publicly on that right now. But when you look at the data, one out of every three seed-funded companies was able to raise a Series A round a few years ago; now, that percentage is much smaller. So there’s this opportunity to help an entrepreneur who has a good technical team to find product-market fit and help give them multiple shots on the goal. We aren’t talking about PR or HR. We think instead startups can benefit greatly from working alongside this studio and accessing this group of operators [to improve everything] from their UI/UX to product development.
How much money will you be plugging into your portfolio companies?
AutoGraph, a five-year-old, Seattle-based startup that provides user generated profiles as a service to help marketers better understand customers, has raised $4.7 million in Series B funding led by Rally Capital, with participation from Voyager Capital. More here.
strong>Crossover Health, a six-year-old, Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based company that designs and delivers membership-based primary health and secondary care services to self-insured employers, has raised $92 million from a single healthcare fund, Gurnet Point Capital. More here.
Elysium Health, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind what it describes as an anti-aging pill, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation from Robert Nelson of ARCH Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Eutilex, a South Korea-based biopharmaceutical company that’s focused on treating cancers and autoimmune diseases, raised $18.9 million in Series A funding from DS Asset Management, Kolon Investment, G.N. Tech Venture, and SNU Bio Angel. FierceBiotech has more here.
Eversound, a two-year-old, Boston-based wireless headphone technology company that’s helping older adults tackle hearing loss, has raised $3 million in seed financing from Shelter Group, Red Bear Angels and 10X Ventures. More here.
Nantero, a 16-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based nanotechnology company that’s using carbon nanotubes to develop semiconductor devices, including memory and logic devices, has raised $21 million in new funding led by Globespan Capital Partners, along with other unnamed investors. VentureBeat has more here.
Nubank, a three-year-old, Sao Paulo, Brazil-based company that offers a “no-fee” credit card managed via mobile app, has raised $80 million in Series D funding led by DST Global, with participation from earlier backers Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Founders Fund, and QED. Dealbook has more here.
Podotree, a six-year-old, Seoul-based affiliate of the mobile and web giant Kakao, has raised around $107 million in funding led by Anchor Equity Partners, with participation from the Singapore investment fund GIC and numerous other undisclosed investors. Podotree manages two of Kakoa’s fast-growing services: its social network and Daum Webtoons, a digital comics service (which are broadly becoming more popular in Korea, notes TechCrunch). More here.
Sixa, a year-old, San Francisco-based full computer that operates right from the cloud via a client app, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Tandem Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Vapogenix, a decade-old, Houston, Tex.-based company that makes non-opioid medicine for localized pain, has raised $8.2 million in new funding from Pamoja Capital, among other investors. More here.
Vesper, a seven-year-old, Boston-based electronics startup that’s aiming to make durable, low-power microphones, has raised $15 million in Series A round of funding led by Accomplice, with participation from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, AAC Technologies, Hyperplane, Miraenano Tech and other undisclosed investors. TechCrunch has more here.
(Other) New Funds
GAN, a six-year-old, Denver-based company that publishes industry data about accelerators their best practices, looks to be raising its own venture fund, judging by an SEC filing that lists a $10 million target. More here.
Warburg Pincus is raising a China-focused private equity fund, shows a new SEC filing that doesn’t list a target. The WSJ had reported back in March that the firm was looking to $2 billion for such a fund in order to more quickly “cut deals” in the country.
Time Inc., the New York City-based media company, has hired Morgan Stanley and Bank of America to field takeover or partnership interest, reports the WSJ. More here.
Big changes at the Honest Company, which is laying off 80 employees, as well as parting ways with CFO and COO David Parker and cofounder Sean Kane. The L.A. Times (via WWD) has more here.
Sean Rad is stepping away again from his role as CEO of the online dating company Tinder, to head up a new M&A arm of the company called Swipe Ventures. Meanwhile, Match Group CEO Greg Blatt is taking over Tinder. Recode has more here.
Peter Thiel has apparently proposed that Jim O’Neill, a managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management (who we’ve worked with on stories and who we like on a personal level but we don’t think is so much an active investor as an advisor), run the FDA(!). Bloomberg has more here.
Yik Yak, not so long ago a hot social media app known for allowing users to post messages anonymously to each other based on their location, has laid off 60 percent of its employees amid slowed momentum. The company has raised $73.5 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital. The Verge has the story here.
Microsoft is looking to hire a senior business development manager. The job is in San Francisco.
Bloomberg drills into Alphabet in a highly readable piece. Says one former top Google executive to the outlet: “No one wants to face the reality that this is an advertising company with a bunch of hobbies.”
Not so unsurprisingly, Michigan just became the first state to pass comprehensive self-driving regulations. Recode has more here.
How is Twitter going to deal with Trump
The touching new Christmas ad that’s been making the entire internet cry this week. (Yes, us, too.)
Disney is creating animatronic figures that can follow you (so hurry up and get to Disney before it turns into Westworld).
Better scratch those Apple AirPods off your holiday wish list.
The hammock gets an update.


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NEW YORK, April 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Today G/O Media, a leading digital publisher, announced the appointment of sales and media executive David Spiegel to the role of Chief Revenue Officer. In this role, Mr. Spiegel will lead direct, branded, and programmatic revenue efforts across G/O Media’s portfolio of brands, which include eleven category-leading digital sites. This role is effective April 19, 2021.
Most recently at LA Times as Vice President of Digital Revenue, David Spiegel has spent the past decade in senior leadership positions across some of the top-regarded publishers. He served as Head of Sales at New York Media, where he helped lead a total transformation of their business, enabling the merger with Vox Media where he served as Vice President of Sales.
Prior to that, he was the Chief Revenue Officer at Inverse, a tech and science publisher for Gen Z acquired by Bustle Digital Group. David was the SVP of Sales & Brand Strategy for CNN’s Great Big Story, helping to launch that brand and build its monetization strategy and team. Earlier, he was a founding member of BuzzFeed’s sales team, and held various leadership roles throughout his tenure, including as Vice President of Brand Strategy & Partnerships and Vice President of Branded Video Strategy.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the incredible team assembled at G/O Media,” said David Spiegel, Chief Revenue Officer, G/O Media. “As a reader and longtime competitor to these brands, I see the tremendous value they serve both our readers and brand partners and am thrilled to become an advocate for them in the marketplace.” He continued, “The G/O Media brands helped define what internet journalism would be for the 21st century, and their staying power throughout the chaos of the last decade is a testament of the relationship they have with their audiences. I’m excited to help innovate how we work with brands to connect them with these passionate fans as well as how we help build a sustainable business for a diversified editorially-focused business.”
“David is an incredibly accomplished leader in the digital advertising space and I know he’ll bring great contributions to the G/O Media team,” said Jim Spanfeller, Chief Executive Officer at G/O Media. “His ability to drive strategic insight and applications to our sales and marketing partnerships will be a welcome addition to the team. I’m happy to welcome David Spiegel to the G/O Media family and look forward to seeing him to lead and transform our already extremely successful team.”
About G/O Media
G/O Media reaches more than a third of all Americans online each month with over 100 million unique visitors, including its extended network. This collection of digital-first brands serves a young, diverse audience with content that reflects their shared values and passions, including category-leading sites focused on tech and science (Gizmodo); pop culture and entertainment (The A.V. Club); sports news (Deadspin); car culture (Jalopnik); modern women’s interests (Jezebel); gaming (Kotaku); lifestyle (Lifehacker); food and drink (The Takeout); African American news and culture (The Root); humor and satire news (The Onion); and e-commerce (The Inventory).
G/O Media Contact:
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/david-spiegel-joins-go-media-as-chief-revenue-officer-301266781.html
SOURCE G/O Media


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Mercedes SLS AMG spied again
The Mercedes SLS AMG is scheduled to make its official debut this September at the Frankfurt Motor Show, but Benz still hasn’t dropped its guard. The new super sports coupe from Mercedes has been spotted testing at the Nurburgring racetrack in Germany, and it is still wearing a disguise. One thing we can tell underneath all that camouflage is that the running lights appear to be made up of forward thinking LEDs.
The future gullwing will be powered by a 6.2 Liter AMG hand-built V8 that delivers 571 HP. The car will be balanced almost perfectly with a front/rear weight distribution of 48%/52% and will sprint from 0 to 60 MPH in only 3.8 seconds and won’t stop until it reaches a top speed of 195 MPH.


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One of the biggest challenges for most families looking to prepare for a disaster is how to feed their family when the grocery store shelves are picked clean and food supply lines are stretched thin.
Hoards of unprepared citizens will be waiting for the FEMA food trucks to roll in and then stand in line for hours to beg for their bag of rice while listening to the growing frustration and mumbling of the other distraught townsfolk caught up in the chaos.
Is this where YOU want to be?
I didn’t think so.
Here’s a video that shows your best survival food plan for feeding you and your family in any emergency, disaster, crisis, or collapse.


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- ASUCLA saw sluggish sales in October, but had very strong increases in sales in November, said Bob Williams, executive director of ASUCLA.
- BearWear sales were down during the early part of fall quarter, but were strong in November after the UCLA football team’s win over USC.
- The computer store was off plan, both in October and November. Sales have been decreasing and the committee attributed this to the trends in the computer industry of increased tablet sales.
- There will be an Alumni Associate Sale at Ackerman Union with discounts on BearWear.
- A new loyalty card program is expected to go into effect in January for ASUCLA benefits members. Students will be able to accumulate credit after purchasing items at ASUCLA locations and use points for other purchases.
- Food sales were down in October, mainly with the North Campus Student Center and Lu Valle Commons. This was expected with the opening of the Court of Sciences Student Center, Williams said. Overall November was a strong month for food, but still had decreased sales in both North Campus and Lu Valle.
- A mural behind the Panda Express in Ackerman Union may be refurbished.
ELECTION OF OFFICERS
- The Board unanimously approved the appointment of Karleen Giannitrapani and Maggie Thornton to Board of Directors Chair and Board of Directors Vice Chair, respectively. This will go into effect at the next meeting.
Compiled by Estefani Herrera, Bruin contributor.


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Motorola One Hyper launched: Expect a 64 mp camera, notch-less display, and 45-watt quick charging system
As the year comes to an end, the telecommunication company Motorola has come up with a new smartphone that has it all.
The American brand has launched its new phone known as the Motorola One Hyper. From the previous One series launched by the company, this device has taken the game to another level with jam-packed features at an affordable rate. The One Hyper is the company's first smartphone with a notch-less display which will let the user have a full-screen display experience on a 6.5" IPS LCD panel with full HD resolution.
The phone comes with a dual-camera setup at the back, with the primary one being a 64-megapixel camera with F1.9 lens and the second one being an 8-megapixel 117-degree wide-angle camera with a Quad Pixel technology. It comes with a pop-up front camera having 32 megapixels. All the cameras on the phone support Nightvision, which is going to make it easy for users to take pictures and videos in no light. The One Hyper comes with a fingerprint sensor on the back with an LED notification ring around it, making it easy to stay updated on the go.
Motorola has given the phone a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 chipset paired with 4 GB RAM and 128GB, expandable up to 1 TB. The phone has a hyper charging technology that has a 45-watt charging system and a 4,000 mAh battery which gives 12 hours of life in just 10 minutes.
The Motorola One Hyper comes with stock Android 10 and has a sleek plastic built water repellant designed body and is currently sold in one colour deep-sea blue. The phone is priced at INR 29,000 rupees. It is expected to reach the Indian market by February 2020.


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Urban Ladder (UL) was born to solve a personal pain point of one of its founders, Ashish Goel. In 2012, Goel had bought a dining table and a sofa... ...https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/one-step-ahead-093734574.html;_ylt=AwrHga8QcodXtU4A.gDxULlG;_ylu=X3oDMTFuZ3E3cmppBG1pdANCdXNpbmVzcyBUb2RheSBmZWVkcwRwb3MDMjIEc2VjA01lZGlhTW9zYWljTGlzdExQQ0E-;_ylg=X3oDMTFlbGJ1cmZrBGludGwDaW4EbGFuZwNlbi1pbgRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnM-;_ylv=3
From the Wires Jul. 13, 2016 10:39 AM CIOX Health ( http://www.cioxhealth.com ), the nation's leader in health information management and... ...http://in.sys-con.com/node/3872785
/PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Home Furnishings Market in Europe 2016-2020" report to their offering.... ...http://in.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=71915581
Wayfair (NYSE:W), one of the world's largest online destinations for home furnishings and décor, today announced the top 20 U.S. neighborhoods 1... ...http://in.sys-con.com/node/3861923
NEW DELHI: Berlin headquartered growth solutions provider DCMN has acquired Kochi, India and US-based startup 1SDK, which offers a SAAS-based... ...http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/berlin-headquartered-dcmn-acquires-india-us-based-startup-1sdk/articleshow/52972602.cms
That is a secret recipe. They're as...
It's only going to help Wayfair...


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With May upon us, the first-quarter earnings results are finally starting to wind down, and most of the analysts on Wall Street seem pretty pleased with the overall results. Add that to the fact that earnings growth for the S&P 500 for 2017 is expected to come in at +10.2%, which would be the best growth rates for the venerable index since 2012. It all totals up to the kind of positive scenario that could keep this old and somewhat tired bull market moving forward.
In a series of new research reports from the analysts at Jefferies, the firm’s top growth stocks to buy now are companies that posted very solid first-quarter results, and these are exactly the kind of stocks that investors looking to stay long the stock market need to focus on now.
The search giant continues to expand and is even working on a driverless car now. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is a global technology company focused around key areas, such as search, advertising, operating systems and platforms, enterprise and hardware products. It generates revenue primarily by delivering online advertising and by selling apps and contents on Google Play, as well as hardware products. The company provides its products and services in more than 100 languages and in 190 countries, regions and territories.
Alphabet offers performance and brand advertising services. It operates through Google and Other Bets segments. The Google segment includes principal internet products, such as Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Apps, Cloud, Android, Chrome and Google Play, as well as technical infrastructure and newer efforts, such as virtual reality.
The analysts point to Google Cloud, which is the largest cloud infrastructure and engages in more technology, infrastructure research and development in headcount and dollars than any other company. That gives it the strength and wherewithal to compete with and differentiate itself from Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure.
The company posted massive earnings this week, hammering analysts’ expectations. Revenue beat on Sites, Networks and Google Other. Paid clicks and CPC also were ahead of consensus. Wall Street is very positive on core margin improvement. Despite approaching $100 billion revenue run-rate, the company shows no signs of slowing down.
The Jefferies price target for the stock is a stunning $1200. The Wall Street consensus price objective is $983.60. The stock closed Friday at $924.52 a share, up almost 4% on the day.
The Jefferies team expects this top business service company to report solid earnings this week. Fleetcor Technologies Inc. (NYSE: FLT) provides fuel cards, commercial payment and data solutions, stored value solutions and workforce payment products and services. The company sells a range of customized fleet and lodging payment programs, and it offers card products to purchase fuel, lodging, food, toll, transportation and related products and services at participating locations.
The company also offers telematics solution that allows fleet operators to monitor the capacity utilization and movement of vehicles and drivers, vehicle maintenance services, prepaid fuel and food vouchers and cards, and workforce payment product related to public transportation and toll vouchers.
In addition, it provides proprietary equipment that reduces unauthorized and fraudulent transactions to over-the-road trucking fleets, shipping fleets and other operators of heavily industrialized equipment, including sea-going vessels, mining equipment, agricultural equipment and locomotives.
The analysts noted this in the report:
More interesting is the fact that the company is likely to release incremental metrics on the May 3rd earnings-per-share call to help disprove bear claims that US small fleet fees represent a large percentage of the company’s revenue. We look for 18% EPS growth for the company in 2017.
Jefferies has a $197 price target for the stock, and the posted consensus target is $187.03. The stock closed last Friday at $141.14 per share.


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The death of Samsung Chairman Lee Gun-hee: Reshaping the values of Korean enterprises by oneself
Original title: The death of Samsung Chairman Lee Kin-hee: A comment on the merits and crimes of the chaebol in reshaping the values of Korean enterprises by oneself
Samsung Chairman Lee Kin-hee passed away in Seoul, South Korea on Sunday at the age of 78 . The South Korean business tycoon built Samsung into a global giant in the fields of smartphones, TVs and computer chips, but was convicted twice for white-collar crimes in the process, but was pardoned twice.
Samsung has officially announced Li Jianxi’s News of the death, but did not disclose the specific reasons. Since his heart attack in 2014, Li Jianxi has been unable to move normally.
When Li Jianxi took over Shuaiyin from his father, Samsung Group founder Li Bingzhe in 1987, this company was seen by many Westerners as an electronics company specializing in the production of cheap TVs and substandard microwave ovens. .
Lee Jianxi’s experience shows that South Korean chaebols tend to adopt many questionable methods to maintain their influence. The chaebol is the main source of economic vitality in South Korea, so many Koreans suspect that the chaebol can even threaten the entire country.
In 1996, Lee Jianxi was convicted of bribing the South Korean president and was subsequently pardoned. More than ten years later, he was convicted of tax evasion, but was sentenced to probation in order to allow him to continue lobbying activities for the mountain town of Pyeongchang to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Shortly after the end of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Lee Myung-bak, who served as the president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking bribes. He accepted a bribe of 5.4 million U.S. dollars from Samsung in exchange for pardoning Lee Jianxi.
Lee Jianxi was born on January 9, 1942 in Daegu, South Korea, which was occupied by Japan at the time. His father Li Bingzhe founded Samsung, which specializes in exporting fruits and dried fish, just a few years ago. Li Jianxi was a wrestler in high school.
Samsung first developed by controlling consumer necessities such as sugar and textiles in war-torn Korea, and later expanded its business to insurance, shipbuilding, construction, semiconductors and other fields. Li Jianxi graduated from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1965 and then went to George Washington University to study for a master’s degree, but did not obtain a degree.
In 1966, he started his career at Toyo Broadcasting Company, which was then owned by Samsung. He worked for Samsung CT, the construction and trading company of the Samsung Group, and was appointed as the Vice President of the Samsung Group in 1979.
When he became the president in 1987, he continued his father’s foresighted style. Although the development environment at that time was still favorable, he still harbored an existential crisis. Today, this is still an important concept of Samsung.
“We are in a very important transition period.” Li Jianxi said in an interview with Forbes, “If we do not enter capital and technology-intensive industries, our survival will be threatened.”
When he summoned dozens of Samsung Electronics executives to a luxury hotel in Frankfurt in 1993, his radical transition concept was undoubtedly revealed. At that time, he provided training for senior executives for days, urging them to abandon their old work and way of thinking. He said: “Except for the same wife and children, everything has to change.”
He ordered Samsung to focus on improving product quality rather than blindly expanding market share. This requires the recruitment of overseas talents, and also requires senior managers to fully understand foreign markets and be familiar with the competition methods in these markets.
At that time, this was unacceptable in the Korean business community.
In 1995, out of the importance of quality, after discovering that a batch of mobile phones were defective, he went to the Samsung factory in Gumi to inspect.
What happened next became a legend. According to Tony Michel’s 2010 book “Samsung Electronics and the Battle for Leadership in the Electronics Industry”, 2,000 workers from the Gumi factory gathered in the yard wearing “quality first” headbands. Li Jianxi and the directors sat under the slogan “Quality is my pride”.
They watched as telephones, fax machines and other inventory worth $50 million were smashed and burned on the spot. The employees shed tears.
Li Jianxi’s business history is not perfect. Believing that electronics will become an indispensable part of automobiles, he founded the automotive division in the mid-1990s, but eventually sold the business in 2000.
The cooperation between Samsung and Hollywood was also short-lived. In 1995, the director Steven Spielberg proposed during dinner that Li Jianxi invest in a film production company. Although Li Jianxi himself is a movie fan, he and other Samsung executives eventually turned the topic back to the chip.
“I thought to myself,’How can they understand the movie business because they are so obsessed with semiconductors?'” Spielberg later recalled, “It was a complete waste of time that night.”
Samsung entered the stage of global dominance in the 2000s. It used gorgeous equipment and fashionable marketing to firmly plant its brand in the minds of Western consumers. However, Li Jianxi rarely shows up in public. He likes to collect sports cars and art.
By 2007, he confirmed the next imminent crisis for Samsung. China has an advantage in low-end manufacturing, while Japan and the West are still leading the way in advanced technology, while South Korean companies, including Samsung, have suffered.
However, when he began to reform Samsung, he encountered accusations of tax evasion of up to billions of dollars. He did not fight for reasons, but announced his resignation on live TV, shocking the whole country.
“20 years ago, I promised that when Samsung became a recognized first-class company, the glory and achievements will belong to you.” He whispered to employees in 2008, “I am not I apologize for fulfilling his promise.”
He was pardoned the following year, and he became the chairman of Samsung again in 2010.
After a heart attack in 2014, his son and Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong became the de facto spokesperson for the company.
Author:SINA,If you need to reprint,please indicate the source:http://www.todaycamera.com/camera-reviews/the-death-of-samsung-chairman-lee-gun-hee-reshaping-the-values-%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8bof-korean-enterprises-by-oneself


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Paul Simpson, Truck Sales Director at Orwell Truck and Van, has beaten entries from all over the UK to be crowned ‘Truck Sales Manager of the Year’ at the national Mercedes-Benz Truck Awards ceremony.
Will Davey, Managing Director, said: “This is a thoroughly deserved accolade for the effort he puts in to his position. Paul has been with the Imperial Mercedes-Benz group for four years and during this period he has worked hard to develop the Truck Sales department in Orwell.”
He continued, “He has now continued this journey by taking the position of Head of Truck Sales for the Imperial Mercedes group as of January 2018 - I’m sure there will be more awards to follow. Well Done Paul.”
Paul Simpson, said: “I was delighted to accept this award on behalf of the Truck Sales team at Orwell Truck & Van. The award reflects a solid team effort throughout a record-breaking year. Thank you - it’s been a pleasure working alongside you all.”
In addition to this, Rob Dale, HGV Fleet Sales Manager has been awarded the Mercedes-Benz ‘Sales Stars’ Award.
Will Davey, Managing Director, said: “This is a fantastic achievement that demonstrates Rob’s continual hard work. This award is recognised by Mercedes-Benz and is broadcast to the dealer network. Rob has done Orwell Truck & Van proud – well done Rob!”
Orwell Truck and Van are East Anglia’s leading provider of Mercedes-Benz Commercial vehicles. Specialising in the sale and maintenance of Mercedes-Benz and Fuso Commercial Vehicles and have a team of over 200 employees across the group.


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Here are 5 stocks added to the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) List today:
ArcelorMittal SA (MT - Free Report) : This company that owns and operates steel manufacturing and mining facilities has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings soaring 11.8% over the last 30 days.
Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP - Free Report) : This owner and operator of a transcontinental freight railway has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings gaining 5.4% over the last 30 days.
Credit Acceptance Corp. (CACC - Free Report) : This company that offers financing programs that enable automobile dealers to sell vehicles to consumers has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 3.5% over the last 30 days.
Dana Inc (DAN - Free Report) : This global provider of technology driveline, sealing and thermal-management products has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings surging 21.8% over the last 30 days.
IPG Photonics Corporation (IPGP - Free Report) : This developer and manufacturer of a line of fiber lasers, fiber amplifiers, diode lasers, laser systems and optical accessories has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings gaining 9.3% over the last 30 days.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
More Stock News: 8 Companies Verge on Apple-Like Run
Did you miss Apple's 9X stock explosion after they launched their iPhone in 2007? Now 2017 looks to be a pivotal year to get in on another emerging technology expected to rock the market. Demand could soar from almost nothing to $42 billion by 2025. Reports suggest it could save 10 million lives per decade, which could in turn save $200 billion in U.S. healthcare costs.
A bonus Zacks Special Report names this breakthrough and the 8 best stocks to exploit it. Like Apple in 2007, these companies are already strong and coiling for potential mega-gains. Click to see them right now >>


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Travelers Reconsidering Shared Ride Options after COVID
A GO Group survey finds a post-pandemic surge of air travelers braving the chaos and getting back to action
June 16, 2021
Chicago-based global ground transportation provider, Go Group, says travelers are once again looking at shared airport transport as the way to go. The company surveyed air travelers earlier this year about their travel plans for the remainder of 2021 and found “not just our survey, but other industry reports, show that people are ready to fly again,” says John McCarthy, president of the GO Group. “Virtual meetings won’t end anytime soon. But we think businesses are ready to send their employees off to in-person meetings once again.”
Of the survey’s respondents, 84 percent said they plan on traveling for leisure and 31 percent for business. Of those leisure travelers who had already booked a vacation, 54 percent reported booking within three months of departure; 28 percent booked within three to six months of departure; 5 percent booked between six to nine months of departure; and 12 percent responded that they’d booked flights nine months out or more.
“Additionally, we’re seeing a renewed interest in shared-ride airport transportation,” says McCarthy. According to GO’s most recent data, reservations for shared-ride shuttles doubled from April to May 2021. This indicates travelers are looking for lower-cost alternatives than ride-share companies, says McCarthy (with the ride-share companies being notorious for increased prices, especially during busier times and inclement weather, he adds). “In fact,” he says, “GO operators – whether giving shared rides, private vehicles, charters or tours – offer safe, reliable and affordable transportation services. They’re actually well-equipped to handle the anticipated increase in air travel.”
The Go Group offers shared rides, private vehicles, charters and tours, serving airports and cities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Australia and Europe.


text: Apple is turning a new leaf as far as security it concerned. No, don't worry, it still has a firm stance on encryption. But now it is, for the first time, also looking outward for help in keeping its software and services more secure. At the Black Hat cyber security conference in Las Vegas, which is also unusual for Apple, it announced that, at long last, it will have a bug bounty program. That said, it's not yet open to everyone, which makes the $200,000 prize somewhat of an unreachable dream.


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Consumer spending to drive growthPUBLISHED: 02 Aug 2010 04:45:54 | UPDATED: 03 Aug 2010 09:34:35PUBLISHED: 02 Aug 2010 PRINT EDITION: 02 Aug 2010
Interactive games, pay television and internet access fees and advertising will drive the media and entertainment sector over the next five years, lifting its turnover from $28.3 billion in 2009 to $36.2 billion in 2014.
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The Xbox 360 not only outsold Nintendo's new Wii U during Thanksgiving week, but also outsold the Wii U and the original Wii combined.
Microsoft's video game console, which has been No. 1 in the U.S. since 2010, sold 750,000 units last week, the company said.
Nintendo, by contrast, sold 400,000 Wii U's, a figure that was in part constrained by limited supply. The Japanese gaming giant also sold 300,000 units of the original Wii, which debuted in 2006.
The Xbox 360 has climbed to the top of the sales charts and stayed there through a combination of must-have titles for hard-core gamers, such as the recently released "Halo 4," and digital entertainment options for a general audience, including streaming movies, television shows and music.


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Eesti Energia’s new business directions got an innovation boost in cooperation with Tehnopol
Science and business park Tehnopol offers large corporations innovation services and one of the outcomes are programmes that are directed towards big companies, who want to accelerate new in-house projects, business directions, product development activities or spin-offs by using methodology that is common to start-ups. One of the large companies that Tehnopol recently cooperated with is Eesti Energia.
Tehnopol supported Eesti Energia in carrying out Enefit IdeaHUB accelerator, during which in-house business ideas were boosted to use the cleverness and capability of people working there to make innovation happen. The employees of Eesti Energia were supported by experts and mentors from Tehnopol, who carried out the accelerator programme in a structured and systematic manner. Enefit IdeaHUB sees accelerators as a quick way to test and validate ideas, and to understand if an idea is worth pursuing or not. Accelerators are one part of the IdeaHUB’s activities that promote innovation.
Eesti Energia’s Enefit IdeaHUB accelerator lasted for two weeks and this time four teams participated and developed new products or services. It took more than 100 hours of intense team work, trainings and presentations, during which the teams focused on creating new products and services, business development, building prototypes and putting together a business model. During the development sprint, a wholesome plan was made to bring new products and services to the market, which was validated during more than 60 client interviews and presented to the board of Eesti Energia. The acceleration programme involved more than 70 employees of Eesti Energia and Tehnopol’s mentors and experts. The topics included future energy solutions and reducing the clients’ environmental footprint.
Martin Goroško, the business service manager of Tehnopol, said that Tehnopol supports large companies that are seeking innovation. “Eesti Energia is a good example of how large companies can use their in-house resources to develop their services and products in a new way,” added Goroško.


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Monday, March 21, 2011
Lijit Launches Publisher Dashboards
Boulder-based Lijit announced this morning that it has launched a new publisher dashboard feature. According to the firm, it has launched a new dashboard and stats display for its users, which provides ad performance statistics and audience data to its users. Lijit operates an online advertising network combined with search and other tools for online publishers.


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Check the preview video and get the full info of the event Here!
Deadmau5 says @ twitter minutes ago “setting up, doing soundcheck and stuff…will be streaming at midnight“.
Deadmau5 has finally set a date and a name for his album! It’s called 4×4=12 and it’s getting released on December 6th through Ultra Records. It will feature a bunch of unreleased material of his, such as Sofi Needs A Ladder and Cthulhu Sleeps and others, as well as some brilliant selected released material. I’m truly looking forward to this release, stay tuned for more info!


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Shoe Zone, which is headquartered in Leicester, has revealed that it may cancel the payment of its 2019 Final Dividend to conserve the Company’s cash balances during an expected period of challenging trading as a result of the Coronavirus.
The retailer’s board has decided to defer the payment of the 8.0 pence per share 2019 Final Dividend that was approved at the Company’s Annual General Meeting held on 5 March 2020.
The company noted that on 28 April 2020, in addition to providing a half year trading update ahead of the Company’s Interim Results on 19 May 2020, the Board will announce the intention to convene a General Meeting in May, where a resolution will be proposed to cancel the 2019 Final Dividend.
In a statement Shoe Zone said: “In recent days we have seen a reduction in footfall, across our estate, and whilst the full extent of the Coronavirus on the short and medium term retail environment is not yet clear, it is becoming ever more apparent that it will create significant disruption to people’s lives and shopping habits in the coming months.
“The decision to defer and take steps to propose the cancellation of the 2019 Final Dividend has been taken with the unanimous backing of the Board and is one of number of appropriate measures being implemented to conserve the Company’s cash balances and ensure the robustness of the business to protect it from a sustained period of challenging trading.”


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As I write this, Carlos Slim Helú is the second richest man in the World, according to Forbes, following Bill Gates by a ‘mere’ $2 billion dollars. Carlos was number one in 2010 and 2011. Everyone knows how Bill made his fortune, as the founder of Microsoft, and much has been written about him. But what drives Carlos Slim’s success, and what are the strategies that make his companies so successful seem to be more of a mystery.
When companies struggle, they usually blame increased competition and unfavorable economic conditions. Carlos Slim seems to thrive on downturns and recessions.
Slim’s business portfolio, under the holding company Grupo Carso, is much more diversified: it includes real estate, retail, telecom, mining, financial services, tobacco, aluminum, tires, copper, insurance, restaurants, oil and gas, paper, hotels, and more.
People in Mexico say you can’t live a day of your life without somehow giving money to Slim’s empire. He has also made significant investments in the US. In 1997, Carlos purchased 3% of Apple for $17 a share. He has made significant investments in Saks and the New York Times and in business that have gone south like Prodigy and CompUSA.
Carlos is 75 but he has been very aware of technology advances and has positioned his companies to take most advantage of them: “Technology is going to transform people’s lives and society everywhere in the world. My main task is to understand what’s going on and try to see where we can fit in.“
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As I write this, Carlos Slim Helú is the second richest man in the World, according to Forbes, following Bill Gates by a...


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David Beckham Brings Haig Club Single Grain Scotch Whisky to Market
He has his hands in so many project these days, but David Beckham's tastiest venture is definitely his new Haig Club whisky.
The English soccer legend got together with his pal Simon Fuller and liquor giant Diageo for the new spirit, now on sale at select retailers in London for $77 per bottle.
UK activist group Alcohol Concern stated, “It’s incredibly disappointing that David Beckham, a global icon who has wide appeal to children has chosen to use his sports star image to promote spirits. Given David Beckham’s other roles promoting sport and a healthy lifestyle to children, we believe this will send a confusing message to them about the dangers of alcohol and its impact on a healthy lifestyle, and we call on the star to rethink his association with this product.”


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Dismantling the deceptively pristine image of the high-tech industry ‘The Cleanroom Paradox’ unveils the systemic suppression of information on occupational and toxic hazards at semiconductor production sites. A gradually disintegrating, screen-printed photograph of former Samsung factory worker Jin and a video documenting its creation are being superimposed with her and other industry experts’ stories of inadequate health measures at work. Jin was diagnosed with kidney cancer.
Interweaving stories and fibres, the used ink is corrosive and made of chemically dissolved smartphones. Analogous to the industry’s etching processes, the ink will disintegrate the print over time, skinning a surface in which’s lower layers Jin’s story is already inscribed. The toxicity hidden behind the many steps in semiconductor manufacturing and the effect of the labour necessary to shape our high-tech products shifts focus towards the middle-west.
Fates like Jin’s are not isolated cases and can be traced far across the industry.


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Production and export of light vehicles grew in August
MEXICO – The Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA) released the report on production, exports and domestic sales of light vehicles for the month of August, based on information published by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).
Mexican production and exports of light vehicles recorded double-digit growth in August 2022. The industry continues to overcome challenges in global supply chains. In addition, growing economic uncertainty and persistent inflation are dampening consumer demand in export destination markets.
Although the August figure is still below 2019 levels, vehicle production leagues two consecutive months with double-digit annual increases, while exports continue to recover at a moderate pace.
Meanwhile, domestic sales showed a considerable improvement in August and the cumulative figure for the first 8 months already exceeds the volume for the same period in 2021.


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Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, the former Tiffany & Co. vice president accused of stealing more than $2 million worth of jewels from the famed retailer, brought her legal drama to a quick end by pleading guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.
Lederhaas-Okun, 46, faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to a release from the U.S. States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. She will be sentenced Dec. 10.
She also agreed to forfeit $2.1 million and make further restitution in the amount of $2.2 million.
Lederhaas-Okun, who was charged earlier this month, served as Tiffany’s vice president of product development from January 2011 until February 2013. During that time, authorities said, she checked out 165 pieces of jewelry with a retail value of $1.2 million, including numerous diamond bracelets, platinum or gold diamond drop and hoop earrings, platinum diamond rings, and platinum and diamond pendants. She then sold some—though not all—of this jewelry for $1.3 million to a Manhattan reseller.
In addition to these pieces, Lederhaas-Okun also told the retailer that approximately $1.5 million in jewelry she had checked out would have to be written off. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also said that she made false statements to conceal the theft.
JCK covered tips and strategies for spotting and dealing with internal theft in 2008.Follow JCK on Instagram: @jckmagazine
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