text:
PremierLeague-News.Com Sorrell bullish as digital ad play S4 makes waves Breaking news
PremierLeague-News.Com - Advertising firm S4 Capital (SFOR) – led by WPP (WPP) founder Martin Sorrell – gained 2% to 570p on a confident first quarter update.
PremierLeague-News.Com - Breaking Sport Transfer News ! Advertising firm S4 Capital (SFOR) – led by WPP (WPP) founder Martin Sorrell – gained 2% to 570p on a confident first quarter update. The company upgraded its annual guidance after its first-quarter gross profit jumped 71% as acquisitions boosted sales. Separately it announced that it had acquired Brazilian digital performance agency Raccoon, for an undisclosed sum. Gross profit for the three months through March increased to £104 million, which the company said represented growth of 33% on both a like-for-like and pro-forma basis.
News source = PremierLeague-News.Com
. The company also announced plans for a new bond issue to help fund its buy-and-build strategy – with the company targeting firepower of £500 million.
Executive chairman Sorrell commented: ‘We are extremely optimistic about our prospects for this year and next, given the huge global fiscal and monetary stimulus introduced to counter the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent increase in consumer savings ratios and stagnation of corporate capital investment.’
Numis analyst Steve Liechti commented: ‘S4 momentum remains good; we see a nice play on digital/data-led growth trends in marketing given its blank sheet focus and experienced management.’
Source = PremierLeague-News.Com


text:
Search For "commerce secretary anup wadhawan"
Updated : 1 year, 4 months ago IST
New Delhi [India], Aug 3 (ANI): India has called for a balanced outcome in trade negotiations at the 8th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) inter-sessional ministerial meeting held in Beijing on August 2 and 3, an official statement said on Saturday.
Beijing [China], Aug 3 (ANI): Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan pushed for some of the market access-related issues of various products such as milk and milk products during his meeting with the Vice Minister of China's Commerce Ministry, Wang Shouwen, on the sidelines of the Eighth Regional
Updated : 1 year, 6 months ago IST
New Delhi [India], May 13 (ANI): India said on Monday that existential challenges to the multilateral rules-based trading system are manifest in a spate of unilateral measures and countermeasures, deadlock in key areas of negotiations and the impasse in the appellate body threatening disp

domain: news


text:
We are here at beautiful Fort Mason in San Francisco on a spectacular day. The Bay is sparkling, Alcatraz beckons (for some of us), and somewhere inside the theater HP is making all the final preparations. The line to get in is already pretty long, and growing. We are about to see the launch of a new lineup of HP mobile products based on the company's WebOS platform.
30 of 35
Now showing video calling. Works like on a Motorola Xoom running Android 3.0. This is likely to be one of those killer apps for the tablet -- and one that the iPad has yet to provide because it doesn't have a camera, yet. The Android devices will provide this as well.
Building A Mobile Business MindsetAmong 688 respondents, 46% have deployed mobile apps, with an additional 24% planning to in the next year. Soon all apps will look like mobile apps – and it's past time for those with no plans to get cracking.
. We've got a management crisis right now, and we've also got an engagement crisis. Could the two be linked? Tune in for the next installment of IT Life Radio, Wednesday May 20th at 3PM ET to find out.


text:
SEOUL, South Korea — Koreans like to joke by welcoming foreign visitors to the “Republic of Samsung.”
Among an oligarchy of competitors, South Korea’s largest conglomerate is a ubiquitous presence.
Samsung builds ships, military weapons, bakeries and even operates a theme park. But it’s known abroad chiefly for making smartphones and refrigerators.
Its flagship division, Samsung Electronics, is the world’s largest electronics company by revenue. Total sales reached $179 billion in 2012.
Samsung has competed neck-and-neck with its American competitor Apple for the past three years in a mobile-phone war waged between Galaxy handsets and iPhones.
But now Samsung is edging ahead. During the first quarter of this year, Samsung again overtook Apple as the world’s leading mobile phone seller in terms of revenue, according to Strategy Analytics, a Massachusetts-based consultancy.
Samsung sold smartphones worth $23.6 billion in the first quarter, bringing the Korean company back to the top spot after Apple briefly overtook Samsung in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Although Apple trailed Samsung with sales totaling $22.95 billion in the first quarter, down $7.71 billion from the previous quarter, it has retained the top ranking in profits thanks to its high-end approach.
“The business earnings of the mobile business grew from the previous quarter led by increased sales of smartphone products,” spokesman Ki-yung Nam said. “Especially flagship smartphones such as the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, and by decreased marketing expense due to seasonality.”
At the same time, the popularity of Samsung’s devices is helping prompt users of the Google Android platform they use to download 500 million more apps a month than iPhone users, and Android is set to overtake Apple in the number of apps each offers.
Experts credit Samsung’s edge to a number of factors.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s death in October 2011 could be eroding Apple’s celebrity. “One thing Apple had in its favor was a mystique of exclusiveness portrayed in his public appearances,” said Tony Michell, a Seoul-based consultant and author of Samsung and the Battle for Leadership of the Electronics Industry.
Apple phones were more expensive, implying better quality.
But Apple’s decision to sue Samsung on patent infringement accusations in two separate American lawsuits in 2011 and 2012 may have tarnished the brand. “The court cases and associated publicity actually broke this mystique in my view,” Michell said.
A California court ruled in Apple’s favor in August 2011, however Samsung has won rulings in Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
On Thursday, the company also announced it would open a research and development center in Finland in an apparent attempt to take on another competitor, Nokia, on its home turf.
“The question could be posed as what took Samsung so long,” Michell said.
Samsung holds an exalted place in what was recently a poor country that has transformed itself into a technology hub over the past two decades.
The conglomerate’s predecessor started out as a vegetable and rural dried-fish exporter in 1938, when the Korean peninsula was a Japanese colony.
After dictator Park Chung-hee rose to power following the Korean civil war of 1950 to 1953, he directed easy credit to the country’s conglomerates, called chaebol, in an attempt to bring prosperity to his barren backwater, and encouraged them to expand into fields that would drive national development.
However, Samsung only recently became a high-tech champion.
Its chairman Lee Byung-chul founded the electronics division in 1972. It spent the next two decades manufacturing home appliances before moving into low-cost televisions and phones.
“The laboratory reminded me of a dilapidated high-school classroom,” Ira Magaziner, a health-care advisor to Bill Clinton, wrote of his 1979 visit to the Samsung Electronics campus.
After Lee died in 1987, his son, Lee Kun-hee took over the company.
Despite worries that he lacked adequate entrepreneurial spirit, the Japanese-educated new leader transformed Samsung’s global image.
He ordered the company to move away from mass-produced, low-quality items. “Change everything except your wife and kids,” he said in a line company representatives continue to repeat.
In the mid-2000s, Samsung sales overtook those of its main competitor, Sony, and challenged Nokia’s dominance in cellphones.
After Apple proved released the iPhone in 2008, Samsung set to work developing its competitor, the Galaxy S smart phone, released in June 2010.
The company managed to keep up its success despite the 2011 legal battle with Apple. On its home turf, the company also weathered a public outcry in 2008 over the arrest, conviction, and presidential pardon of chairman Lee for tax evasion.
Part of the company’s resilience rests on its diverse business operations. In addition to smartphones, the multinational corporation sells chipsets and parts to Sony, Apple and other competitors.
That arrangement helps insulate Samsung from market fluctuations.
As the world’s largest maker of memory chips, the company holds 10 percent of the global market in system semiconductors, according to the market information provider iSupply.
The question now, analysts say, is whether Samsung can keep up its game, or whether its cutting-edge tendencies will stagnate like Sony’s a decade ago.
Michell, the consultant, believes the bureaucracies of South Korean companies, with their rigid hierarchies, are prone to stifling innovation.
Samsung may be widening its lead for now, he says, but whether it remains competitive will depend on how much it can cut down fat and stay flexible.


text:
Disrupted logistics, increased cargo transportation prices, and soon Russian aggression against Ukraine, which led to an increase in the price of raw materials and energy resources. The result is double-digit inflation.
But the country’s business held up even in these conditions. Lithuania’s GDP grew by 2.2 percent during the year.
However, most economists predict that Lithuania may experience a technical recession in the first half of this year. After all, the last quarter of 2022 was not impressive – compared to the third quarter, GDP fell by 0.5 percent.
This was due both to the uncertainty about energy prices, although they have already clearly started to decrease, and to the start of rising base interest rates.
As noted by economist Tadas Povilauskas, according to the fourth quarter fixed recession, Lithuania was among the worst performing European countries.
“However, even worse than Lithuania’s GDP changes in the last quarter were shown by those countries with which we often compare, Poland, Estonia and Sweden. Poland’s quarterly GDP change was the worst among EU countries (a drop of 2.4 percent compared to the previous quarter. – Ed.).
In Estonia, GDP has been declining for three consecutive quarters and the technical recession there is moving towards a real recession. By the way, the Baltic and Nordic countries are the ones with a much larger share of variable interest rates and which will be increasingly affected by rising interest rates in the coming months. Therefore, it is very real that at least in the first half of the year, this region will be relatively hurt.
However, Southern Europe is waiting in line – the rising interest rates there will require more and more money to pay the already much higher interest rates to the authorities of those countries when refinancing loans”, explained T. Povilauskas.
Recession is on the nose
According to economist Alexander Izgorodin, our country will probably not be able to avoid technical recession, when the GDP declines for two quarters in a row.
Data from January showed that the engine of the economy, the export industry, whose expectations were worse than even during the COVID-19 pandemic, felt uncertain. In addition, more and more production is loaded into warehouses instead of being sold.
“So far, the data shows that we may see a recession again in the first quarter of this year. The only good news is recovering consumer expectations. People are more optimistic about the prospects of the labor market and their financial condition.
Therefore, growing domestic consumption can moderate the fall in industry. But Lithuania’s economy is still much more dependent on exports,” said A. Izgorodins.
According to financial analyst Marius Dubnikovas, the energy crisis, when electricity and gas prices jumped several times, affected the manufacturing sector the most. The most striking example is the semi-functional Achemas fertilizer factory.
“Poultry farms and the entertainment and catering business were also severely affected. It’s a wonder that swimming pools and wellness complexes were open at such prices. But now these sectors are already recovering”, explained M. Dubnikovas.
True, it is much more complicated in some other sectors. For example, in January, compared to the same month last year, furniture production fell by as much as 22 percent, wood products industry – by 17 percent.
“Companies in this area are highly dependent on export markets, and they are unlikely to recover soon.
Interest rates are rising, consumers in foreign countries are extremely cautious, so they are less likely to make large purchases, including furniture.
In our country, such a trend is much less noticeable due to the fact that, despite the huge inflation, the income of the population continues to increase. In many foreign countries, they grew much more slowly, and in some places it was completely symbolic,” explained M. Dubnikovas.
Profits will be lower?
Many consumers have already felt the rising base interest rates, when the monthly mortgage payment jumped by a hundred or even several hundred euros after the interbank interest rate EURIBOR rose from 0.5 to 3.5 percent.
However, even this is unlikely to be the limit, as the European Central Bank continues to raise interest rates.
And this means that not only residents with loans, but also businesses have to pay more.
“Of course, the cost of capital for business grows along with base interest rates. However, when consumers change their habits, when raw materials and energy resources are finally cheap, it will be very difficult to shift more expensive loans onto the shoulders of buyers, after all, competition also works.
Therefore, the capital appreciation will most likely affect the shareholders’ pockets – the profit will simply decrease”, predicted financial analyst M. Dubnikovas.
The bottom of the milk crisis
The most important thing for almost all consumers is when the prices of basic food products will stop rising. Because they danced impressively last year – in December, food products were even a third more expensive than a year ago.
It is true that the same thing happened in neighboring countries – in Estonia they rose in price by almost 31 percent, in Latvia – by 27 percent.
One sector where prices rose particularly significantly was dairy products. There is a possibility that they will become cheaper because the purchase price of milk has started to decrease.
“The situation in the milk market changes very quickly, not even every few months, but every week. At the beginning of March, I would have said that dairy markets had bottomed out and things would only get better from now on, but soon those uptrends started to fade.
I myself think that the markets have nowhere to fall, but for now there is no peace in them, which affects the entire sector – the ability of milk processing companies to sell their products also affects the price of raw milk”, explained Dalius Trumpa, the director of the Rokiškios sūris company.
Even after the start of the war in Ukraine, last year was very good for dairy farming, but the biggest decline started when consumption stopped.
“Consumers have the money that could be earned by companies and paid to farmers. They currently spend less on food, including dairy products.
After all, due to inflation, you have to pay more for services, energy is more expensive, and the interest rates when paying installments for loans have risen especially sharply,” said D.Trumpa.
There was no food crisis
The year 2022, despite the challenges of nature, war and other geopolitical events, was good for agriculture in the world and in Lithuania – the predicted food crisis was avoided.
Raimundas Juknevičius, representing the farmers, reminded that the grain exchange was shocked when Russia attacked Ukraine, prices jumped because Ukraine had not sold a lot of grain from last year’s harvest.
“It was completely unclear what impact the sanctions against Russia would have on the market. Later, the prices fell when the ships with grain left the ports of Ukraine”, reminded R. Juknevičius.
Currently, the price of a ton of wheat for May transactions on the Matif exchange is 263 euros, last fall it hovered around 330-350 euros.
To compare the 2022 harvest with the 2021 harvest, 0.5 million tonnes of grain, legumes and rapeseed were grown in Lithuania. tons more – a total of about 7.3 million tons. According to the volume of wheat exports, Lithuania is in the fifteenth grain exporting countries in the world.
However, this sector has one problem – a large part of the harvest is simply exported, instead of being processed locally and creating additional added value. True, Karolis Šimas, president of the Association of Grain Processors and Traders, said that value is created not only by processing grain, but also by selling and exporting it.
“In Lithuania, no other branch of agriculture creates as much added value as grain production, but it is distributed in various sectors.
Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the entire product chain that creates added value in Lithuania, because one part goes to farmers, the other to trading companies, the other to local processors, brokers, logistics companies that transport grain by wagons or trucks, the seaport and loading companies there,” explained K. .This one.
Last year until October, when grain purchase prices were high, professional farmers who sold grain received 2-3 thousand from 1 hectare, depending on the cultivated crop. euro income.
“A few years ago, when grain was still cheap, the Lithuanian Association of Grain Processors and Traders conducted an analysis and compared the shares of the total added value created by livestock and grain production for the Lithuanian economy. The latter received 25 percent, grain growing – 75 percent,” explained K. Šimas.
According to him, the added value attributable to each person working in grain processing or grain trading companies in Lithuania in 2021 was about 65 thousand. euros, and in 2022, according to a preliminary assessment, it should have exceeded even 100 thousand euros.
It can be compared with the added value per person created by all Lithuanian industrial companies – it amounts to about 30-40 thousand. euros.
“In 2021, the added value created by the companies belonging to our association per employee was 65 thousand. euros, and after all, it was not the most fruitful year, nor was grain expensive. Thus, the value created by the grain trade, processing and export sector is particularly high”, assured the head of the association.
It would not be easy to quickly increase Lithuania’s added value in the processing chain, but it is possible, so it is necessary to move in this direction as well.
“It’s just that the flour industry in Lithuania cannot quickly create even greater added value, because there are only two mills left – the Malsena Plius and Kauno grūdai companies.” Due to the minimal profit margin and high competition in international markets, other participants in this market did not survive.
And the market for the preparation of grain or fodder has stabilized, although these companies are still finding certain niche products for export.
The biofuel or oil market could quickly increase the share of recycled production, but this requires political will and support to increase the share of this production in fuel and reducing the alternative of imported olive oil,” the interviewer explained.
Other types of grain processing industries, such as cereal or quick snacking, are niche, but they are expanding rapidly and the growth of this industry is already visible.
“Lithuania processes and consumes slightly more than 2 million tons of grain (together with seed preparation and for farmer’s feed) – about two-thirds of the harvest and more are exported.
So-called deep processing, like Roquette Amilina’s production of gluten, starch and other products from wheat, adds significant value, but such projects are complex. A lot of time is wasted before they enter the market. In addition, it requires large capital, specific knowledge, and the development of so-called greenfield projects involves a lot of bureaucratic regulation.
But if large global companies come to us to invest in one or two more factories, the current processing would be increased to 50%”, explained K. Šimas.
According to him, the situation is similar in other countries with old traditions of grain and rapeseed cultivation: the USA and Canada export grain in a similar ratio, Australia – even more, because in fertile years they keep up to 15 percent for themselves. harvest
“However, the crop sector is the future of agriculture.
This is important both because of the prospects for the so-called food of the future, and because of the future food shortage, and because it provides economic benefits to our state, processors, traders and farmers,” said K.Šimas.
We are also talking about deflation
Greater added value is very important from a macroeconomic point of view. However, ordinary buyers only see the fact that the prices of bread and its products rose by about 40 percent during the year.
However, economists have been reassuring for some time that inflation should stop soon. “She is getting serious, although not as fast as she would like. Gas, electricity, even diesel is expensive, although it was believed that it should become more expensive in the EU when imports from Russia are stopped.
This makes it possible to increase competition, and its effect is most felt not in the service sector, but in the trade sector. You can’t find a store that doesn’t have all kinds of promotions.
On the other hand, inflation puts pressure on consumer expectations, they buy less and try to save. And this is also an impetus to lower prices”, explained financial analyst M. Dubnikovas.
In his opinion, already in the second half of the year we can see a long-seen phenomenon – deflation, when prices will be lower compared to the same period of the previous year. This can be determined by another factor – an extremely large comparative base.


text:
Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra headlines 'Hallelujah Festival' dedicated to Book of Psalms
The Hallelujah Festival, a concert series dedicated to Tehillim, the Book of Psalms, took place lately in Jerusalem.
From an article in the Jerusalem Post
Read the rest of the article here
Introducing our new collection of Botanical Jewelry
Make your shopping in our store today!


text:
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo hopes to ramp up Tumblr's revenue by rolling out new ad products for the social network later this year, the company said Thursday. The new ad products will be sold by a revamped Tumblr sales team that will be shared with Polyvore, another social media company purchased by Yahoo in 2015.
Yahoo purchased Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion, hoping the New York-based social network would turn into the next great digital advertising service, but it has failed to live up to those lofty expectations. For 2015, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had told investors to expect Tumblr to break $100 million in revenue, but earlier this month, she announced that Tumblr had not met that goal.
Speaking at the 2016 Yahoo Mobile Developers Conference, Yahoo Senior Vice President Simon Khalaf took responsibility for that failure. "I'm part to blame. I came in and I said, 'All I care about is freaking [daily active user] growth," Khalaf said.
With Yahoo's core business now on the verge of being sold, Tumblr is turning its attention back to advertising. The company said it has new ad products that will be coming out, and earlier this month, Yahoo said Tumblr would have its own dedicated direct sales team. That's not exactly true, however.
Instead, Tumblr will be sharing a sales team with Polyvore, a social shopping site Yahoo purchased last year, Khalaf said. The team will be led by Polyvore Chief Operating Officer Arnie Gullov-Singh and will be tasked with improving both Tumblr and Polyvore's revenue. Khalaf declined to give 2016 revenue goals for either service.
"We could've done better in terms of introducing more ad units," Khalaf said.
Tumblr's focus on user growth may not have produced significant revenue, but it brought more users to the social network and kept them there longer, Khalaf said. This was done by rolling out features designed to make Tumblr users keep coming back more often and to make it easier for new users to get started and for all users to find important content they missed while away. "We changed this model to create more urgency to get to Tumblr on a daily basis," Khalaf said.
Over the past year, Tumblr saw its number of daily active users grow by 34 percent, although the company fails to specify exactly how many daily active users it has. But its number of monthly active users is still only in the "tens of millions," Khalaf said, far fewer than competitors like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, all of which count more than 300 million monthly active users.
Instead, Yahoo likes to boast that Tumblr reaches more than 600 million "monthly unique visitors," which includes anyone who makes their way to Tumblr without necessarily signing into the service. That figure is up from 300 million in 2013, when Yahoo purchased the social network.
In 2016, though, the focus is no longer simply on bringing in more users. Now Tumblr will also be ramping up its focus on advertising. "We can do two things at the same time," Khalaf said.


text:
National numbers are revealing sales were slow this holiday season leading up to Christmas day. Despite those reports, shoppers in the Jackson area spent money, strengthening the local economy.
"Michael Kors handbags, watches, scarf's,"said Dillards Assistant Store Manager Carissa Moceo.
Name brand items like those listed were the driving force behind an increase in sales at Northpark Mall anchor store Dillards. Moceo said while there are many items flying off the shelves, it was the designer Michael Kors that stood out, helping the store reach the two percent increase in sales compared to last years numbers.
"Anything Michael Kors has been the hot ticket this year," added Moceo. Everyone came in looking for it. Luckily, we have enough stock in. We never ran out."
Early national numbers being released by retailers reveal holiday sales were at a slow pace this year. One of the slowest years reported since 2008. But, co owner of Cowboy Maloney's Electric City in Jackson, Con Maloney, said its numbers reveal differently.
"Sales have been particularly good this year," said Cowboy Maloney's co-owner Con Maloney. "We did note that December was a little down. We had projected about a 15 percent increase and we ended up with about a seven percent increase. But, November was particularly strong."
Maloney said one of the main reasons the locally owned store did so well is because of the 60, 70 and 80 inch big screen TV's which accounted for a lot of money.
"I think basically people are beginning to feel a little more comfortable with the economy," said Maloney. It's not a roaring move, but it is a gentle move and it's on the positive side."
"Sales in this location have been great compared to last year. I think people are ready to get out and spend their money and have some fun shopping," said Moceo.
Moceo said the store still has several days to calculate total sales and final numbers for the month of December.
Copyright 2012 MSNewsNow. All rights reserved.


text: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — TRADE WAR. The deadline is July 1. The prospect is for a trade war. A meeting to head it off began Tuesday night between U.S. and European Economic Community representatives. Richard Lyng, the U.S. agriculture secretary, and EEC officials expressed some optimism. The issue is compensation for the United States because of restrictions of U.S. agricultural exports to Spain, which joined EEC at the beginning of the year. The EEC has rejected the U.S. demand and has warned that if the United States reduces EEC shipments of pork, cheese, wines and brandy to the U.S. market, as it has threatened, retaliatory action will be taken.


text:
Think outside the box and step out in something that marks your individuality.
Ben Butler Motorists are paying more for petrol because big chains BP, Caltex, Coles, Woolworths and 7-Eleven use a members-only website to coordinate price movements, the consumer watchdog alleges.
Ben Butler The consumer watchdog has accused big petrol station chains BP, Caltex, Coles, Woolworths and 7-Eleven of using website Informed Sources to co-ordinate fuel prices and says it is concerned the...
Brian Robins Along with privatisation, "congestion pricing" should be on the table in any debate over how to achieve further economic efficiencies, the head of the competition watchdog Rod Sims said.
David Ramli Competition boss Rod Sims says the regulator will rule on the legality of TPG Telecom’s controversial plan to roll out a high-speed broadband network in competition with NBN Co within one month.
Jamie Freed The competition regulator has launched its inquiry into Expedia’s proposed $703 million purchase of Wotif.
Brian Robins Competition concerns over consolidation in the power market have been swept aside, with the challenge by the competition watchdog, the ACCC, to block Australian Gas Light Co from buying Macquarie...
Malcolm Maiden ACCC chairman Rod Sims is still the gate-keeper for takeovers in this country, for now.
Vanessa Desloire Telstra has won its battle against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, with the Federal Court upholding an appeal by the telco that the watchdog did not have the power to intervene in...
Julie-Anne Sprague East coast farmers will press the government to give them increased powers under a mandatory code set to govern grain handlers including GrainCorp by the end of the year.
Brian Robins There would be ‘‘significant detriment’’ if AGL’s proposed purchase of the country’s largest power generator, Macquarie Generation, was to proceed, while public benefits would be ‘‘small’’.
Georgia Wilkins The country's top competition regulator is increasing its focus on cartel activity as part of a sweeping crackdown on companies that engage in anti-competitive behaviour.
Adele Ferguson I
Nassim Khadem and Tom Cowie The competition watchdog is investigating the construction union over alleged boycott of Boral.
Eli Greenblat The competition regulator has accused Coles of engaging in unconscionable conduct towards suppliers.
Jessica Gardner The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has blocked float hopeful Healthscope's proposed purchase of a 123-bed rehabilitation hospital in Melbourne's north.
Eli Greenblat ACCC has started proceedings in the Federal Court against the supermarket duo for allegedly breaching their promises over future fuel shopper dockets schemes.
Eli Greenblat Woolworths and Coles will test the competition regulator's power to rip apart generous fuel discounts of more than 4¢ a litre, with a December truce between the supermarkets and watchdog already...
Brian Robins The competition watchdog, the ACCC, has blocked energy group AGL from buying Macquarie Generation, the largest power generator in the national electricity market, which has thrown into doubt the...
Brian Robins The decision by the competition watchdog to block energy giant AGL's purchase of Macquarie Generation, the largest generator in the national electricity market, may limit future government sales of...
David Ramli Telstra has lost its case against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and several rival internet service providers in the Federal Court over whether the regulator had jurisdiction over...


text:
You wouldn’t let a thief enter your home, but what if the thief was masquerading as someone familiar, such as a postman, and tricked you into opening the door? Phishing works in a similar way - people open the doors to their personal data, giving up login details, passwords or even payment details to malicious e-mails, links or websites designed to look like they’re authentic. That information can then be used to commit fraud and cyber crime.
The national Cyber PROTECT Network, led by the City of London Police and in partnership with Action Fraud, is warning people to lookout for phishing messages on National Fish and Chip Day. Action Fraud received over a quarter of a million reports of phishing between April 2018 and March 2019. Over two thirds of these reports were about emails claiming to be from a well-known brand. There were almost 70,000 that related to phishing phone calls, otherwise known as vishing, and close to 18,000 relating to phishing text messages, known as smishing.
Commander Karen Baxter, National Police Coordinator for Economic Crime at the City of London Police, said:
"Fraudsters often use spoofed phone numbers and email addresses to trick you. If you receive a message claiming to be from a well-known brand or organisation, always check directly with that brand or organisation to see if it is legitimate. If something feels wrong then it is usually right to question it."
Phishing is an enabler of fraud. These messages are commonly used by fraudsters to gain access to the victim’s personal details, including date of birth, banking details and addresses. The victim’s details are then used to commit fraud and / or cyber crime. The most commonly spoofed sectors are telecoms companies, technology brands and Government organisations.
Criminals are constantly evolving the tactics they use to carry out these phishing attacks, which is why it’s sometimes difficult for people to know what to look out for. We’ve got some simple advice that can help you protect yourself from most phishing attacks:
One victim who spoke to the City of London Police’s Economic Crime Victim Care Unit said he felt stalked and warned people to be cynical, never doubt their instincts and react quickly to an attack. He knew he was compromised at the time and changed his passwords, but says that he now wishes he had reacted quicker. It wasn’t until speaking to people he knew that worked in IT that he was informed of what further steps to take. He then spent 24 hours cancelling false log ins and changing passwords. He advised people to log into their settings to see how many sessions they are logged into for their online accounts.


text:
A voice-over company which records for brands such as Google and Amazon has grown during lockdown.
Voice Talent Online invested in new, bigger Gravesend premises last March, just as the country was told to go into lockdown.
Yet against the uncertainty of the pandemic, the studio was still able to grow.
The company saw an increase in demand for a variety of online voice-overs, many linked to the pandemic.
There was an influx of multi-language voice-overs requested by pharmaceutical, particularly vaccine, companies, and an obvious surge by businesses for announcements reminding people to socially distance.
The company also recorded telephone messages to book Covid-19 tests.
Chief executive Simon Luckhurst said: "If you’d told me a year ago that we would be growing during this difficult time, I’d have liked to believe you but I probably wouldn’t have.
“But by implementing new, Covid-secure ways to work, we were actually able to bring in more business than last year.
"We have grown year on year, recorded hundreds more minutes of finished audio and added a full-time staff member, taking our total current number of staff to 12.
"And we’re currently recruiting for two new positions on the production team.”
While most recording artists were already recording in home studios by 2020, Voice Talent Online also ensured that those voice-over artists and crew visiting the studio were being kept safe by installing Perspex screens, sanitation stations, a ventilation system and clear visitor guidelines.
Simon added: "To make sure recording artists feel comfortable coming into our studio, we e-mail them beforehand explaining all the measures we have taken.
"This way we can ensure that everyone feels relaxed and ready to deliver their best performance.”
Former Strictly Come Dancing judge Len Goodman, who runs a dance school in Dartford with his wife and lives in Ightham, was one of those to record at Voice Talent Online last year.
They welcomed the 76-year-old TV star with a Covid-secure studio close to home. What he was recording has not been revealed.


text:
Speaking at Nokia's launch of their Windows 8-powered Lumia 820 and 920, Steve Ballmer gets numeric with prediction.
Trying to entice app developers, Ballmer says there should be relatively few Surface tablets in that count, but writing for Windows 8 phones means writing for Windows 8 tablets. This prediction must be considered in light of the 375 million Windows PCs to be sold next year, reports The Register.
Other devices Ballmer expects to help reach his 400 million goal are the Samsung ATIV S phone and unnamed models from HTC, says Venture Beat. “We bring a developer platform and a store that’s common to both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8,” said Ballmer.
Big numbers for non-shipping devices
I've got a lot of hard core phone enthusiast friends (both Apple and Android) and not a single one would even consider changing to a W8 Phone.Krojack76 on venturebeat.com
The guys an idiot. I'm all for leaders hyping their products, but there is hyping then there is just plucking numbers from the airLarry Crapbeans on theregister.co.uk
Vaporware. Pretty lame attempt at best. May not ship till next year. iPhone 5 available Sep 21st with new IOS 6.iPhones rule on barrons.com
I had to put on my dark sunglasses just so I could be able to glance at the photos of those hideous phones. What gaudy, ugly playskool phones.kathy on barrons.com
Ballmer made a funny
400,000,000? yea right. a smiley because ballmer makes me smile when he talks crap.the-it-slayer on theregister.co.uk
Its just PR drivel. Actually, its worse for MS. By setting up the expectation that tablet, phone and desktop are all the same, they are setting up both devs and customers for a massive disappointment.P. Lee on theregister.co.uk
Steve Ballmer makes me laugh!! May Steve Ballmer remain CEO as long as it takes! (to run Microsoft into the ground)Todd on barrons.com
Windows 8 for the win
Windows 8 could be the missing ecosystem which Microsoft was missing for long.Nitin Narang on venturebeat.com
Microsofts numbers have been fantastic of late. They have for the first time in a very long time got a very decent and clearly matching and consistent looking portfoilio from Xbox, Phone and PC.hugh wanger on theregister.co.uk
Tells us: is Ballmer A) right on, or B) crazy?
Now read this:


text:
Between 2008 and 2016, specifically — and the Defense Department led the way, a new report finds.
Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) is a longtime proponent of Buy America, which ensures that when the federal government builds new infrastructure or buys new goods, the materials and products purchased are American-made.
It’s commonsense policy, as it reinvests taxpayer money into local communities, supporting job growth and strengthening the economy.
But loopholes have meant that some federal agencies have skirted Buy America — and so Stabenow wanted to find out just how much money is being sent overseas.
Spoiler: It’s a lot.
A new report from Stabenow’s office found that 13 federal agencies used Buy America loopholes to spend more than $92 billion on foreign contracts between 2008 and 2016.
The Defense Department led the way, spending nearly $85 billion on foreign contracts because of loopholes (and spent about $154 billion total on foreign purchases during that same period). The department, unfortunately, has a history of skirting these laws — 81 out of 280 Defense Department contracts were found to not comply with Buy America, a recent audit by the agency’s inspector general found.
And while the Defense Department is certainly the biggest offender, it is hardly alone. Other agencies that used loopholes to spend money on foreign contracts include the State Department, which spent nearly $2.5 billion; the Department of Homeland Security, which spent more than $1.58 billion; and the Treasury Department, which spent more than $510 million.
These agencies bypass Buy America in a variety of ways, including granting themselves an exemption if a particular item isn’t available in “sufficient quality or quantity” from U.S. manufacturers; if an agency determines complying with Buy America is “inconsistent with the public interest,” such as responding quickly to a national emergency; and if a product is set to be used outside the United States, like at an embassy or for overseas military operations.
The problem is that federal agencies have often stretched the limits of the loopholes, the report notes.
“[F]ederal agencies have abused their authority by granting domestic non-availability waivers even when a U.S. manufacturer could clearly fill the intended contract,” the report states. “In February 2018, DoD’s Inspector General issued a report finding multiple instances when DoD contracting officials improperly purchased foreign-made items… In one documented example, Air Force officials did not perform adequate research to find American vendors to produce Buy American-compliant football uniforms. Instead, officials issued two domestic non-availability waivers to purchase foreign made jerseys and pants.”
Agencies also are allowed Buy America waivers if a purchase is from a company that is located in a country that has joined certain free-trade agreements with the United States. This eases certain Buy America restrictions, so long as U.S. manufacturers are given equal access to that country’s market.
The problem is that the United States is rarely given that access. “These agreements have given foreign manufacturers substantially more opportunities to bid on U.S. government contracts and have shortchanged American manufacturers,” the report states.
For example, the United States opened about 80 percent of its federal procurement market in 2010 to countries that were signers to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement. Other signers gave significantly less access to their markets; South Korea granted access to just 13 percent of its total procurement spending, while the European Union provided U.S. companies access to just 16 percent.
Stabenow recommends strengthening Buy America laws in the report, including via her Make It In America Act, which seeks to close Buy America loopholes, further prioritize American companies, eliminate the overseas exemption, and create more transparency in the foreign procurement process. The senator is also supportive of the Made In America Act of 2018, which would add new Buy America requirements to 16 federal programs.
“My report shows that foreign companies are benefitting from loopholes in our nation’s Buy American laws," Stabenow said. "My agenda closes these loopholes, holds the federal government accountable, and creates opportunities for Michigan businesses and workers.”


text:
CNET news editors and reporters provide top technology news, with investigative reporting and in-depth coverage of tech issues and events. information technology, IT sector, software industry, BPOs, outsourcing, US economy, US jobs, US outsourcing jobs, US, Bangalore, Bangalore IT industry, new technology, IT deal, IT honchos, IT companies, IT companies results, IT companies stocks, IT comp. Stories about business and industry issues in health, technology, environment, and society. Employee-Job Personality Match Linked With Higher Income. Nov. 29, — An employee 27, — In the era of fake news, less scrupulous businesses are using deceptive tactics to smear their rivals. But companies that.
Industry News - All News Related to Industry News | 2018 Video
Industry News - All News Related to Industry News | 2018 - bekannte Buchmacher
Car Industry By Andrew Krok. RBI introduces new Rs 10 note with new design, colour. All News Videos Photos. HP laptop batteries overheating leads to recall by Daniel Van Boom. ET EnergyWorld A one stop platform that caters to the pulse of the pulsating energy. The proposal, circulated in the form of internal memo by the Department of Homeland Security DHS , seeks to end the provision of allowing extensions to H-1B visa holders whose applications for green card had been accepted. But the company also says that "there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time" and that fixes for one flaw are already available. Fitness trackers for every budget Whether you're trying to lose a couple of pounds or train for a race, fitness trackers can help you get there. The fall of the Unicorns. Belkin expands its roster of wireless chargers With wireless charging becoming a more standard feature on new phones, Belkin's bringing out several new wireless Play | StarGames Casino accessories later this year. Sci-Tech By Amanda Kooser. Rainforest dream spielen chairman may be skipping CES due to death threats Ajit Pai canceled his scheduled appearance at the annual trade show over threats to his safety, Recode reports.
Industry News - All News Related to Industry News | 2018 - Rubbellose
NIFTY 50 10, STT on bonds, more exemptions under section 80C among key expectations of investors. Opinion 5 January Media Gurus. Pipeline Jan Palma de Mallorca Spain. Your edition is set to. T-Mobile says it's best in customer satisfaction. T-Mobile says it's best in customer satisfaction. The Wi-Fi-enabled faucets will let you use the voice-activated assistant to perform basic tasks. As with many German cars, clicking a bunch of options boxes will cost some serious dough. Bad loans to remain a thorn in Indian banks' side for now. Evans Opinion 5 January. Samsung Elec on track for record Q4 earnings. Fitness trackers for every budget Whether you're trying to lose a couple of pounds or train for a race, fitness trackers can help you get there. Random By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper. Terming the trend of no hikes for juniors and freshers as "worrisome," Murthy rued that the senior level people have been taking handsome hikes. Bad loans to remain a thorn in Indian banks' side for now. Crossovers By Andrew Krok. Services Nursery to class 8 closed till January 10 in Noida due to cold Jan 5, ,


text: ASUS is on a mission to become a tablet-toting, force to be reckoned with and it looks like that mission could begin to yield some pretty nifty tablets moving forward. And while ASUS’ aim is to become the world’s No.2 tablet vendor by next year, it sounds like ASUS will continue to cook up some interesting products in other categories as well. Netbooks don’t get as much coverage these days, but the category is still a pretty big money maker for companies like ASUS. According to ASUS CEO Jerry Shen who spoke to reporters at CeBIT, we can look forward to both Android and MeeGo netbooks from the company in the near future. Shen also says ASUS is working on a Windows Phone that will launch next year. Moving back to tablets, Shen talked up 3D displays, quad-core processors and SSD drives when discussing the company’s roadmap, though he didn’t get into any specifics. The just announced Apple iPad 2 gave competitors plenty of room to shine in 2011, though it could be almost impossible for any single vendor to make any real headway with imminent floods about to drown us all. What definitely won’t help is a lot of talk with no products to back it up, so we’re hoping ASUS has some intriguing devices in hand next time executives talk tablets.


text:
A Scots housebuilder has launched a new home viewing experience which has been tipped to “revolutionise” Scotland’s housing market.
Cruden Homes is offering virtual reality tours of its new Baron’s Vale development in Glasgow’s east end. From the comfort of the sales and marketing suite, a headset will allow potential buyers to experience and feel every detail of the homes.
Cruden, the Homes for Scotland Housebuilder of the Year 2016, said many new homes are now being purchased off plan, making it difficult for people to visualise how their home will look. The virtual reality software allows customers to make more informed decisions before reserving a home.
Once the user puts on the headset, they will feel like they are standing in the home and can walk from room to room by moving their head.
Liz Mallon, sales & marketing director of Cruden Homes West explained, “Our virtual reality headsets offer a real step change to the Scottish housing market. People visiting our Baron’s Vale sales suite will be amazed by how realistic it is to ‘virtually’ walk around what could be their dream home.
“This new development caters for first-time buyers, families and downsizers and demand has already been high, with only 10 homes remaining available for sale. Cruden has a reputation for being innovative and we expect to be very busy in the coming weeks with the introduction of this incredible new technology!”


text:
George Washington University and Princeton are rejecting the iPad, citing security issues, according to Dow Jones. Cornell University is seeing connectivity issues.
GW says its wireless network's security features don't let the iPad, or iPhone or iPod touch connect.
Dow Jones says Princeton blocked 20% of iPads from its network when it realized malfunctions could screw up the school's computer system.
Maybe there's something to Israel's plan to ban to the iPad, after all?
See Also: 99 iPad App Reviews


text: NBA 2K21 has been among the most popular games released this year. The makers have verified that NBA 2K21 will obtain a next-generation variation to NBA 2K21 MT their game. This has created much expectation among the gaming community. Thus we've opted to answer all the questions associated with NBA 2K21 next-gen release date. Read more to know about NBA 2K21 next-gen release date.NBA 2K21 Gives a Special Tribute to Lakers Legend Kobe BryantThe manufacturers of NBA 2K21 next-gen have confirmed the release date of their game. The NBA 2K21 next-gen release date is November 10 for both, PS5 and Xbox Series X. Apart from that, the makers even released the cost of NBA 2K21 next-gen. It's likely to cost $69.99 to get the normal edition of this match. Not a great deal of information has been published about the same. But several information miners have been working towards releasing new content about their NBA 2K21 next-gen. A fan on Reddit also stated that NBA 2K21 next-gen will be somewhere around 121.7 GB on Xbox Series X and 101 GB for Xbox Series S. A lot of visual improvements have been made to the game. Read more to know about NBA 2K21 next-gen discharge date.BA 2K21 is becoming a major face-lift with the next generation of consoles. 2K21 is confirmed as a launch title for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and the developers have worked hard on enhancing the relatively dull experience of the present generation. Among the critical ways 2K has achieved that is by expanding'The Neighbourhood' to'The City`.The City is an all-new sandbox experience where players can roam . Once it follows the fundamental principles of the Neighbourhood, it is currently on a far bigger city map. There are four distinct segments of the map for Buy NBA 2K21 MT Coins four distinct affiliations. However, one can reckon that four affiliations will be congregating on a particular court.


text:
Don’t miss Commerceweek, February 28–29 in NYC, to explore the technology and trends fueling commerce. Get strategic insights from leaders at The New York Times Advertising, Turo, TikTok and more. Register.
Advertising on Instagram has become an effective and profitable strategy. Social media users are heavily engaged with brands, and brands are learning that Instagram is no longer an option, but a necessity.
Simply Measured analyzed more than 2,500 posts and 80 million likes and comments from more than 138 followers of 90 brands in the Interbrand 100 during November of this year.
Across all metrics, participation and engagement is up.


text:
Teams from Chulalongkorn University and Thammasat University come out as winners at the Business Triathlon 2020 Project.
Co-organized by Chulalongkorn University’s Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration, Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF), Singha Corporation and Tesco Lotus, the Business Triathlon 2020 is a competition for undergraduate students from across the country to develop strategic plans to analyze and solve real business cases.
The Business Triathlon 2020 winners for each business case included:
-Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF): Faculty of Engineering, CU
-Singha Corporation: Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, TU
-Tesco Lotus: Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, CU
The 1st and 2nd runners-up for the CPF’s business case were the teams ‘Extrema’ and ‘CAPE’, both from Thammasat University. For Singha Corporation’s business case, ‘Dumpling Consulting’ team from Chulalongkorn University and ‘No Brand’ team from Thammasat University were the 1st and 2nd runners-up. The ‘Marmalade’ Team and ‘Acestasy’ team from Chulalongkorn University took the 1st and 2nd runner-up positions for the Tesco Lotus’s business case.
The final-round competition was streamed online on April 24, 2020, where the teams presented their project plans to a panel of company executive judges.
The judges from CPF included Mr. Chaiyuth Tipsuwanporn (Senior Vice President – Retail Business), Mr. Pote Sakunthavorn (Vice President – Commercial) and Mr. Kris Kongthanadarakorn (Vice President – Talent Attraction and Acquisition).
From Singha Corporation, the judges were Mr. Cholawit Sukudom (Managing Director Group of Knowledge and Development, Boonrawd Brewery), Mr. Paisan Chitrekarn (Managing Director, EST. Company (1933)), and Mr. Vorapat Chavananikul (Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Boonrawd Trading).


text:
All articles by BRAIN Staff
BOULDER, CO (BRAIN) — Retailer web services provider SmartEtailing has expanded its Boulder office space and added three new staff members.
OLYMPIA, WA (BRAIN) — The bike retail business lost two members recently. Each was killed in a vehicle accident while bicycling.
WASHINGTON, DC (BRAIN) — FLO Cycling is working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall about 800 sets of rim tape sold with the company's FLO 60, FLO 90 and FLO Disc aero road wheels earlier this year.
PORTLAND, OR (BRAIN)—While Portland is a commuter market, it also has a thriving mountain bike, tri and road scene. New shops offering only service are also finding success in this crowded retail market, as are Internet-based businesses that are expanding into brick and mortar.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (BRAIN) — Rocky Mountain Bicycles has added new sales reps in the U.S, in addtion to new inside sales and demo staff members.
WASHINGTON, DC (BRAIN) — The League of American Bicyclists has designated nine new schools to its "Bicycle Friendly Universities" list, bringing the total to 44 institutions in 25 states. Among the new names on the list are Ivy League schools Yale and Princeton, League officials noted.
BOSTON, MA (BRAIN) — Sales agency New England Athletic has a new name and has added Cervélo and Focus bikes to its portfolio.
The agency has been renamed GPM Sports Group.
NORTHVALE, NJ (BRAIN) — Jamis Bicycles has hired Mike Abrams as Eastern regional sales manager.
SAN CLEMENTE, CA (BRAIN) — Southern California race promoter Over the Hump Bike Race Series is offering limited license agreements to expand the event's brand to new territories.
ASHEVILLE, NC (BRAIN) — Former UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team trainer and soigneur, Bill Haelsen, died Monday at his home in Asheville, North Carolina. Haelsen was 45 years old.


text:
Ananas Anam is an incredible story about creating a unique fabric in the world. Using pineapple leaves from plantations in the Philippines, the company supplies international firms such as Hugo Boss or Paul Smith. The pineapple fiber is processed in Catalonia by suppliers the company found through the Catalonia Trade & Investment's Supplier Search Service.
The origin of everything: the Philippines pineapple
Ananas Anam came to light four years ago as a far more sustainable and respectful alternative to leather, which is highly contaminating. The Global Supply Chain Manager of Ananas Anam, Silvia Colomina, says that the founder "saw on a trip to the Philippines that pineapple fiber had already been used in clothing, and she decided to research this area."
After a few years and with a Ph.D. behind her, the company Ananas Anam, which today has a team of 20 people working on pineapple plantations in the Philippines and 13 other employees in Europe, was set up. With the resulting fabric, called Piñatex, the company manufactures clothing such as bags, shoes, or coats.
Catalonia, a pole for textile innovation
Silvia Colomina explains, "We contacted the Supplier Search Service to create a distribution center in Catalonia." Pineapple fiber enters Europe through the Port of Barcelona. In Catalonia, Ananas Anam has "a pool of suppliers that develop and finish the fabric, then prepare the orders and distribute them throughout Europe."
Why did you choose Catalonia? "Catalonia is a strategic center in the textile sector," says Colomina. "Traditional knowledge is rooted here. Although a lot of production has been moved to Asia, the know-how has remained in Catalonia, and the local textile industry has found new strengths by investing in innovation", she adds.
A logistics and commercial center
"Catalonia also has a lot of muscle at the logistics and commercial level," continues Colomina, "and from here, we can reach the global fashion markets." But not only is the fashion sector interested in Piñatex fabrics: the company is already working on orders for the automotive industry (for vehicle upholstery) or for the hospitality business (for furniture upholstering).
In the short term, the company will move its headquarters in London to Catalonia due to Brexit: "We want to access European calls for research and R&D projects, and from London, we won't be able to," says Colomina.
In addition, the company will soon start working on plantations in Costa Rica, where it will copy the Philippines model. "We need lots of pineapple leaves!" says Colomina. Increasing the supply of raw materials is vital to managing large orders. "We need several sourcing points because the pineapple plant takes 18 months to grow and can be affected by unfavorable weather conditions", says Colomina.
Incorporating the circular economy is also one of the objectives. And they have already identified Catalan suppliers for that: "Catalan companies are concerned about environmental issues such as water and waste management." She says that "raising awareness and persuading the end customer that this is not fast fashion: it is another mentality" is missing now.
Catalonia Industry Suppliers
Ananas Anam took part in the presentation of Catalonia Industry Suppliers, a new online directory that brings together more than 5,200 suppliers in Catalonia. "It will benefit us, and we will use it for sure," says Colomina. "It's a quick way to access potential providers, but sometimes you need more information." At that point, she recommends seeking personalized advice from the Supplier Search Service.
The company plans to achieve a turnover of €1.9 million this year and has the financial support of several international investors concerned about sustainability. What is their key to success? Colomina is very clear: "This is a product that has revolutionized the world of textiles thanks to the team behind it, from the farmers in the Philippines to the commercial team," as she concludes, "We are like a family."


text:
High street chain Clarks has axed 170 jobs just weeks before Christmas, amid further fears of store closures.
The redundancies come following changes to its business operations under a newly appointed chief executive.
A total of 80 job cuts have been made at its headquarters in Street – with affected workers told the news on Friday – just three weeks before Christmas.
A spokeswoman confirmed 170 staff members will be made redundant and 80 of these workers are based in Street.
"Clarks has introduced changes to its business operations in order to support its brand strategy under the leadership of recently appointed CEO, Giorgio Presca," a statement explained.
"Today we have announced changes which affect the way our corporate teams across the world are structured which, regrettably, will result in approximately 170 colleagues leaving the business globally.
"We are committed to working with all those affected by this decision to support them throughout this transition.
"These changes do not impact our distribution centre operatives or stores."
Giorgio Presca replaced Mike Shearwood as the chain's new chief executive officer in March this year.
Presca is responsible for all operational, financial and commercial aspects of the business and leads the Clarks strategy with the executive committee.
It was announced in November that its factory in Street would close, at a loss of dozens of jobs.
The firm, which opened the new "robot-assisted" technology factory in 2017, said it was because targets were not being met.
Earlier this year Clarks warned that store closures were also on the cards after its losses more than doubled.
The 194-year-old retailer, which has more than 1,000 branches worldwide, said it may be forced to axe more branches amid tumbling profits.
The latest accounts show sales fell 4.6% to £1.47billion, pushing losses from £31.3million to £82.9million in the past year.
Clarks has 1,000 shops globally, with 553 in the UK and Ireland.
Earlier this year, the retailer confirmed plans to axe its only remaining UK factory at a loss of dozens of jobs.
Source: Read Full Article


text:
They are the driving force behind the digital economy. Whizzing around on electric motorbikes and scooters, they tend to blur into the background of China’s major cities. But these human workhorses of consumerism are just as crucial as the technology which has fueled the boom in online shopping.
Every day in a 24-hour cycle, you can see them speeding down roads, and dodging pedestrians on sidewalks, in Beijing as they race to deliver a vast array of products from pizzas to perfumes.
Many are low-wage migrant workers and they were the cornerstone of the capital’s explosive e-commerce sector until they were suddenly evicted from their homes during a 40-day operation to demolish unsafe buildings.
“Beijing needs migrant workers to do all the low-cost efficient service jobs that middle-class Beijingers depend upon,” said Geoffrey Crothall, a spokesman for China Labor Bulletin, a non-government organization which promotes and defends workers’ rights.
“But if you push them out of the city altogether, then there is going to be no one to do those jobs [such as delivering goods],” he added.
Fire disaster spurred mass of evictions
The decision to launch a sweeping eviction campaign came after a fire in the Beijing district of Daxing killed 19 people, including eight children.
Immediately after the tragedy in November, the Beijing Work Safety Administration started a massive cleanup campaign, which saw tens of thousands of evictions, threatening the e-commence sector.
“As many delivery people are being cleaned out, it will get more and more difficult to hire them,” Huang Gang, a logistics expert at the China E-commerce Association, told the Financial Times. “Wages in logistics will increase.”
For Beijing, this could prove to be a major problem when you look at what is at stake. Already online retail sales in China are approaching US$1 trillion this year, which will make it the largest e-commerce market in the world, according to S&P Global Ratings.
The figure is based on record spending during the China’s Singles Day shopping spree in November, which topped a whopping 254 billion yuan ($38 billion), e-commerce data provider Syntun reported. In the next two years, the industry is expected to grow between 20 to 25%.
“Chinese online retailers still have enough space to [expand],” Shalynn Teo, an analyst at S&P, told the media. “More product categories will go online, and the increasing mobile penetration will promote the online sales momentum.”
Clearance campaign hitting delivery sector
But to produce double-digit growth in the online retail sector, China will need cheap migrant workers to deliver the goods at the end of a long logistics chain.
Last year, the Beijing municipal government announced plans to reduce the capital’s population to 23 million by 2020 and cut by 15% the number of people in six main districts.
Obviously, this will have a dramatic effect on China’s much vaunted “new economy” as migrant workers are the backbone of the sector, delivering everything from teaspoons to TVs.
What is impossible in a high-wage economy, such as transporting items like a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin for 10 yuan, or $1.60, is viable because the drivers work for rock-bottom wages of around 4,500 yuan-a-month.
The knock on effect of the clearance campaign has also created shockwaves in the logistics operation.
Media reports estimated that more than 25 key distribution centers in Beijing were forced to close or operate at a lower capacity because of labor shortages.
“Many delivery companies have stopped receiving Beijing-bound packages because they don’t have the capacity to deal with them,” said Wang Fei, the chief executive of warehouse-sharing company Lianzhong Cloud Warehouse in Beijing. “Delivery companies face hundreds of millions of renminbi in losses.”
So far, the Chinese e-commerce, retail and technology conglomerate, Alibaba Group, has managed to weather this digital storm. But its logistics partners, such as ZTO Express and Best Logistics, have taken a hit.
Competition in the sector is ferocious with ZTO earning less than 30 cents per parcel. To keep costs down to their bare minimum, the company outsources the delivery work to migrant drivers. Naturally, this business model has been extremely profitable for Alibaba.
“Its net profit margin in the past 12 months to the end of September was about 31%, [while] its rival JD.com, which handles its own logistics, only just about breaks even, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“The Alibaba system, though, is vulnerable to shocks from events such as those [that happened] in Beijing, especially if the eviction of migrants spreads to other major cities,” the WSJ added.
Plight of migrant workers spurs condemnation
Whatever the financial ramifications, the plight of China’s migrant workers has become a distressing human drama and a wake-up call for investors in the seemingly unstoppable e-commerce industry.
As the evictions continued, more than 100 prominent Chinese intellectuals circulated an open letter online, criticizing the municipal government’s action.
“Hundreds of thousands of migrants could be affected by the crackdown. In our view, this is a vicious incident that breaks the law and tramples on human rights and should be resolutely stopped and rectified,” the group wrote.
If it continues, these human workhorses of the e-commerce industry could slowly disappear from the streets, and sidewalks, of Beijing and other major cities in China.


text:
The closing of the Sears store in Lake Success Shopping Center has attracted the attention of potential tenants, a real estate executive said.
Kenneth Schuckman, president of Schuckman Realty, represents the private family partnership that owns the Lake Success property.
“We’ve had multiple suitors approach us about filling the location,” Schuckman said. “And a lot of interest from national brand tenants.”
The Sears store is one of 33 nationwide closing this fall, in addition to 13 Kmart locations, as a result of continued losses at Sears Holding Corp. Liquidation sales have already begun. Sears reported a $508 million net loss in the second quarter this year.
Schuckman Realty is marketing the three-floor, 118,000-square-foot space as an anchor location at the center, featuring 684,000 residents within a five-mile radius and strong co-tenancy with the other retailers.
The space is advertised as both a single tenant space or open to divisional renting, with three spaces each ranging from 30,000 to 41,000 square feet.
“A decision is going to be made that the owners think will be best for the future of other businesses and the community,” Schuckman said.
Although Schuckman did not reveal who was in talks to occupy the location, he said that he is confident a new tenant will be chosen soon.
Efforts to contact Town of North Hempstead Councilwoman Lee Seeman, who represents the 5th District where the Lake Success Shopping Center is located, about the store closing and prospect of new tenants were unavailing.
I think you should put a target it will be easiest because target is very much used


text:
Two new bagel shops that started as pop-ups are coming to SF soon
Two new bagel purveyors — Schlok’s Bagels and Midnite Bagel — are finally opening physical stores in San Francisco, adding to the growing and increasingly respected pantheon of West Coast bagels.
Not too long ago, San Franciscan transplants from the East Coast — particularly New York City — complained at length about the inability to find a decent bagel in the Bay Area. There were theories about how Manhattan water had to be even more perfect to produce the ideal bagel, or maybe it was something in the yeast.
The New York Times sent shockwaves through food media last spring when it deigned to claim that California now makes the best bagels in the country. (I have yet to find a bagel that compares to Absolute Bagels on Manhattan’s Upper West Side…fight me.) And he cited as examples Boichik Bagels in Berkeley and Midnite Bagel, the pop-up and based on the delivery bagel business launched in 2019 by former Tartine chef baker Nick Beitcher.
Now, as Eater reports, we just have to wait a few months before Midnite Bagel has a brick-and-mortar home in the Inner Sunset — though you can still order bagels for delivery or buy some from Bi-Rite or Rainbow, and Beitcher has a production facility already operational at 23rd and 3rd Streets. Midnite Bagel has signed a lease for the former Tea 4 You space at 646 Irving Street, which Eater announced last month.
Beitcher says it will be a “little, no-frills bagel shop” after a brief renovation inside — and bagel baking will continue in his commissary kitchen, with fresh bagels delivered to the store several times a day.
There will be bagel sandwiches, breakfast sandwiches, babka, “everything” cookies and coffee, and Beitcher promises a sandwich inspired by the one he grew up in New Rochelle, NY – with eggs , cream cheese and jelly.
Earlier than this opening, as early as the next week or two, you can expect to see the opening of Schlok’s Bagels in the NoPa neighborhood. Schlok’s announced its move last spring to a brick-and-mortar location at 1263 Fell Street, and as of last week, they’ve confirmed that some inspections are already being done and they’re preparing for an imminent opening.
“We are officially on track for a February opening,” they said on Instagram.
Co-founders Zack Schwab and James Lok (the brand name is a combination of their last names, you see) have a fan base built from their pandemic pop-up at The Snug in Pac Heights, where they took orders and handed out bagels and bagel sandwiches through a window.
The small store on Fell Street just off Divisadero also appears to have a window situation – or else it will just be a small counter service operation next to Hahdough Bakery on the corner of Falletti.
Unlike Midnite Bagel, which uses a sourdough starter in a very West Coast vein, Lok favors conventional yeast for its bagels at Schlok’s. And, he and Schwab have previously said that they “wanted to have a small menu and do the things that we do really really well.”
So that’s a lot of new bagelry action in just a few months! And the competition should give established stores Wise Sons and Daily Driver a run for their money.


text:
Taiwan: Drop in annual consumer prices eases in May
June 5, 2015
Consumer prices in May rose 0.24% over the previous month, which followed April’s 0.47% increase. According to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting & Statistics (DGBAS), the reading mainly reflected increases in the prices of fuels and lubricants as well as prices for water, electricity and gas supply that were partly offset by a decrease in prices for fruits, meats and eggs. In addition, prices of clothing fell.
Annual consumer prices dropped 0.7% in May, which was a more moderate decline compared to April’s 0.8% decrease. The figure matched market analysts’ expectations. Annual average inflation fell from April’s 0.6% to 0.5% in May.
Core consumer prices, which strip out prices for electricity and fresh food, fell 0.05% in May over the previous month, contrasting April’s 0.53% rise. Core inflation fell from April’s 0.7% to 0.6% in May.


text:
Nu Marketing – 5 Years
This year many Arkansas businesses are celebrating big anniversaries alongside our state’s celebration of its territory bicentennial. Anniversaries are always an accomplishment, whether it’s one year, a centennial or more.
Bought as part of the Louisiana Purchase, the land that became Arkansas was established as a territory on March 2, 1819, according to the “Encyclopedia of Arkansas.” To celebrate the bicentennial, Arkansans gathered at the State Capitol in March for a party complete with a birthday cake, historical displays and a speech from Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Several of the state’s businesses are holding their own anniversary celebrations this year. It’s a milestone many do not get to enjoy. Twenty percent of businesses never see their first anniversary, and only about half will make it to their fifth year, according to the Small Business Administration. Arkansas is lucky to have such a diverse economy made up of local, homegrown businesses that Arkansans have continued to support for many years.
Nu Marketing is celebrating five years of helping the architecture, engineering and construction industries reach their marketing goals. Founder Lindsay Young began her business in Wichita, Kansas and has since expanded to Northwest Arkansas. Young is experienced in business development, marketing plans, market research, social media strategies and several other areas.
The company is not an advertising agency but rather a resource for businesses that provides marketing and development solutions. Nu Marketing offers services such as brand perception surveys. Young will call her clients’ clients with a series of questions.
“From that information, I put together a summary of how their company is viewed in the marketplace,” Young says.
Young loves helping businesses that otherwise would not have the opportunity to work with a marketing expert. Because of this, Nu Marketing helps small and medium-sized businesses “tailor their solutions to their business,” she says.
Young knows the architecture, engineering and construction industries well and is able to provide her clients with a specific plan just for their business.
To celebrate five years, Young held festivities at both locations, and Mother Nature crashed them both. Witchita, Kansas, had five feet of snow for the party in February, and a tornado ripped through Rogers on the day of the Northwest Arkansas celebration. Young says it is a joke among her clients now. They tell her they know crazy weather is coming when she throws a party. Nu Marketing’s fifth anniversary will be one to be remembered for years to come.


text:
TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Read our ethics statement.
In brief: Apple's upcoming iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Max are expected to feature an even larger rear camera bump than the current-gen handsets. According to a leading iPhone analyst, the bigger bump is necessary to accommodate a larger camera system.
Max Weinback from Android Police shared schematics for the next-gen iPhone on Twitter last week. According to the leaked documents, Apple's next iPhone will feature a rear camera array with dimensions that are roughly five percent bigger. The bump will also protrude further out from the device.
In a recent tweet addressing the changes, renowned iPhone analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the main reason for the larger and more prominent rear camera bump is to accommodate a higher-resolution camera module.
The rear camera sensor on the iPhone 13 family is a 12MP unit, but the new higher-end phones will reportedly feature a 48MP sensor.
"The diagonal length of 48MP CIS will increase by 25-35 percent, and the height of 48MP's 7P lens will increase by 5-10 percent," Kuo added.
Apple's next iPhones are widely expected to debut in mid-September. The high-end models are also rumored to ship with a hole punch-style camera to replace the unsightly notch up front. Some are also convinced that only the Pro and Max models will get a new processor and faster RAM this time around, with the entry-level and mainstream models sticking with the A15 Bionic from the iPhone 13.
Should that come to pass, it'd be a precedent-setting move that would further define the line between standard and flagship iPhones.


text:
Trade and Industrial Chamber of the country together with ministries and departments have developed the project of virtual exhibition, which is planned to be launched on November 1 this year.
Vice-premier Chary Gylyjov has informed the Head of the State about work for organization of virtual exhibition of economic achievements of Turkmenistan.
Demonstration of economic achievements of Turkmenistan in global network using virtual displays and accessible electronic resources will allow remote users to receive interesting information.
At present time, the portal includes the content presenting production and services of the participants, which are able to renew their expositions and introduce additional data. Visitors of the website are automatically registered, which is allows counting the quantity of interested sides.
In this regard, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has noted that implementation of Virtual Exhibition project is a good opportunity for demonstration of success, effective advertisement campaign, a way to find deserving partners, enter into new contracts, assess the tendencies of the market and their capabilities. It is necessary to attract innovative technologies for organization of similar exhibitions, the Head of the State highlighted.
Copyright 2012-2020 The state news agency of Turkmenistan - Turkmenistan today


text:
MONROVIA, Calif. — Double Coin Holdings Ltd. and its CMA L.L.C. subsidiary have made three changes to its leadership team, naming Teresa Galvan as CMA's director of strategic operation, Brian Rainwater as the leader of distribution, logistics and purchasing, and Jackie Concepcion as director of customer service.
The company said the moves were made to streamline operations and improve CMA's overall customer experience. The appointments become effective Jan. 1.
Ms. Galvan is taking on a new position within the marketing and operations. Tim Phillips, vice president of marketing and operations, called her "a true professional" and "an invaluable member of the CMA team for over 11 years, working in several customer care positions."
Mr. Rainwater, who has been with the company for five years, will be tasked with tying the customer experience to operations and improve it "so that we as a company will be able to deliver more value to the customer," Mr. Phillips said.
Prior to being appointed to her new position, Ms. Concepcion served as a team leader in customer service at off-road tire maker Camso Inc. Her responsibilities included onboarding and training customer service agents, integrating with the sales team to improve the customer experience, tracking factory direct purchases, developing a system of corrective and preventative action (CAPA) for process improvement initiatives and implementing the company's CRM program.


text:
Through the partnership, Airbnb will work with SEWA members to help them share their homes with Airbnb's community of international and domestic guests, creating economic opportunities for women in rural areas and promoting tourism spend in parts of India that have not traditionally benefited from tourism and hospitality, the company said in a release.
Founded in 2008, Airbnb started operations in India in 2016 and has 18,000 properties listed here. Mike Orgill, director of public policy, Asia Pacific said, "we have seen 188% growth in guest arrivals in India. Almost half the hosts here are women. The partnership with SEWA will boost opportunities for women in India."
As part of the partnership, Airbnb and SEWA plan to expand the network of Airbnb homes in rural areas through SEWA's member network: The initiative will begin in Gujarat and eventually expand to other states that have a significant presence of SEWA members.
Besides, through the partnership Airbnb will offer training for hosting standards. Airbnb and SEWA will train SEWA members on home sharing, hospitality and amenity standards, and responsible hosting practices. Airbnb will also help SEWA build a community of SEWA hosts who can learn from each other and improve hosting standards.
Airbnb will use its digital platform to create awareness of SEWA homes to its community of international and domestic guests.
"The partnership is an important step in Airbnb's commitment to enable economic empowerment for female entrepreneurs and promote digital inclusion in rural areas," said Thao Nguyen, Airbnb's director of policy partnerships, Asia Pacific, in a statement.
"By partnering with SEWA members to offer homestays on Airbnb, we hope to offer an authentic experience of rural India for travellers while ensuring that the benefits of tourism flow back to the rural community," said Amanpreet Bajaj, Airbnb India country manager.


text:
Trade credit insurers tighten UK appetite
Trade credit insurers in the UK are paring back the level of cover they offer to clients, amid a deteriorating claims environment.
The pressure is being led by the three largest trade credit insurers in the market: Euler Hermes, Coface and Atradius.
Trade credit insurers cover the risk of a company’s suppliers going bust, leaving them with unpaid invoices.
Shaun Purrington, managing director of credit and surety broker Avenue Insurance Partners, said: “There’s definitely a tightening going on. It’s not even rates going up, it’s insurers walking away from certain policies.”
Purrington said there had been a “shock” in the market because of the level of claims. He added that many insurers have multi-year exposure – policies that will now not be renewing on the same terms.
The key renewal dates in the whole-turnover trade credit market are 1 January and 1 April.
Market sources polled by The Insurance Insider agreed that prices were increasing marginally, with coverage being cancelled in a move led by the big three insurers.
One underwriting source said more than half of buyers would see modest rate increases of around 2 percent at renewal.
However, an abundance of capacity in the market is stopping prices rising further.
“It’s difficult to increase prices if there is a lot of competition,” said another source. “We are a very long way from a hard market.”
The Association of British Insurers reported that Q2 2018 was the most severe period on record for trade credit claims in the UK, with £92mn ($80.7mn) paid out. The previous high was set in the third quarter of 2009.
Sources said the last time there was this level of risk aversion in the UK market was a decade ago, during the financial crisis.
It has been suggested that one credit insurer has cut around 2 percent of its book by cancelling policies, with the cancellations focused on troubled areas such as retail, food and construction.
Suppliers to department store Debenhams are no longer able to get cover against the risk of the firm going out of business. Coverage to House of Fraser was withdrawn in February.
Underwriters are keen to correct the impression that insurers ditch clients as soon as the going gets tough, and point out that they stay on risk for up to 18 months, depending on the type of policy in place. Utility companies, for example, buy cover for a year ahead, locking an insurer in regardless of whether they would continue writing new business.
A spokesperson for Atradius said: “Non-payment is the single biggest risk to a business and, unfortunately, one which shows no sign of abating.”
The spokesperson added: “Atradius economists predict insolvencies will rise by 6 percent in 2018 with failures concentrated in the construction, retail and hospitality sectors.
“It is widely recognised that the retail sector has faced challenges for an extended period of time and that the current economic environment is exacerbating those pressures.”
Atradius said its risk appetite remained high and risk exposures in the UK have continued to grow “despite the uncertain and volatile economic environment”.
A more circumspect approach to UK trade credit underwriting by the big three carriers is also creating opportunities for rivals. Carriers like AIG, QBE, Canopius and Axa XL are ready to step in on placements dropped by Euler Hermes, Coface and Atradius.
Other UK trade credit insurers often write cover on an excess of loss (XoL) basis, with the client retaining more risk, relying on credit insurance only for the most costly claims.
“XoL works well for large companies, the onus is on the client,” said a big three source. However, they added that this approach was not suitable for medium-sized businesses with less sophisticated credit management resources.
Brexit is lurking in the background for carriers. Euler Hermes puts the risk of a hard Brexit at 25 percent.
It is feared a hard Brexit would cause a severe drop in the value of sterling. The Allianz-owned carrier puts the chances of the UK remaining in the EU at 5 percent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also warned the UK faces a recession in the event of a no-deal Brexit. GDP growth is likely to be 0.25 percent lower as a result of Brexit, the IMF said.
Unlike most insurance, which is largely unrelated to the wider economy, the performance of trade credit carriers is intimately tied to the health of the economy.
Credit insurers are particularly concerned about sectors like car manufacturing, which requires parts to cross borders with precise timing.
As credit insurers typically think at least six months ahead, they are already preparing for a Brexit that is likely to bring more claims, cover cancellations and higher rates.


text:
Nokia World 2009 was all about the brand new X Series of handsets, including the freshly announced Nokia X6 touchscreen phone. Last we heard, the handset was heading for a Q4 launch this year, with a price tag of 450 EURO, Nokia Comes With Music subscription included.
Now, it turns out that aside from the standard 32GB version of the phone, there will also be a cheaper one with less memory, 16GB and without a Comes With Music subscription. Expansys already lists this version as available in the UK starting from February 24, 2010, for $566.
The original version of the X6 will hit the market on November 12, this year for $870. Quite a price for a bunch of songs you can get (unlimited downloads that is)…
[via Unwired View]


text:
e-Amrit website launched for electric vehicles EVs in India
e-Amrit is a web portal launched by the Indian government on November 10 to impart knowledge on electric vehicles (EVs). The platform is said to be a one-stop destination for all information on electric vehicles — busting myths around the adoption of EVs, their purchase, investment opportunities, policies and subsidies. It has been developed and hosted by NITI Aayog under a collaborative knowledge exchange programme with the UK government. To find out more, watch our latest video!


text:
Apple finally confirmed this weekend that it acquired PrimeSense, the Israeli company that developed the Kinect 3D motion sensor for Microsoft. So what does the deal mean in practical terms?
Having miniaturized its sensors, 3D gesture tech will likely end up in future iPhones and iPads. Expect future generations of these products to offer advanced depth perception and perhaps face and feature recognition, as well as a new range of gestures available without touching the device.
Apple Appeals to our Senses
Apple has a history of acquisitions in interesting areas of processing, interface technologies and sensors. Rumors of it picking up PrimeSense have been rumbling for months and the company finally confirmed the acquisition. It is bringing the company responsible for one of Microsoft's biggest hits into the Apple fold for a reported $360 million.
PrimeSense developed the technology behind the original Kinect sensor for the Xbox 360. It was a huge consumer success because it added motion controlled gaming. PrimeSense also develops the sensors and middleware for a range of related technologies, including in-store body measurements for clothing retailers and robot automation.
The company's latest Capri system-on-a-chip product is designed for mobile and could end up in a future iPhone and iPad or in Mac computers. Linked with Siri for voice commands, it could supplant touch technology on PCs with gesture-based commands.
The combination is most likely to appear in Apple's much-anticipated HDTVs as a way to navigate the menus and channels without the need for remote controls. Certainly, the company will be looking to further differentiate its products from an increasingly similar-looking line-up of consumer products.
A Disturbance in the Force
Despite its recent win in the Samsung patent retrial, rivals will continue to mimic Apple (and Apple will no doubt borrow the best features that its rivals produce), without infringing each other's massive pile of patents. There are several other sensing-specialist companies on the market, with software and hardware solutions to be acquired or licensed from.
Also, Samsung smart TV sets already offer motion sensing, so Apple will need to move things to a new level to claim any degree of innovation. Maybe Apple plans to use its $290 million settlement from Samsung to cover much of the cost of this acquisition. But money is hardly the problem for Apple, raking in sales of the latest iPad and retina mini model.
Tim Cook declared 2014 to be a "product" year for Apple, but progress is moving fast in its likely areas of interest, smartwatches and smart HDTVs. So creating truly compelling products will be an increasingly challenging task.
There is no doubt a market for Apple-branded HDTVs with the power of iTunes and the App Store behind it. But will Apple be able to give it wide-enough appeal at what will like be a very premium price point? That remains to be seen, but PrimeSense could help it develop some critical features to drive user interest.


text:
Statement Regarding Telegram Comment on 25.08.2019
Within spot9’s Telegram community, Johannes Gorski, CEO of spot9 GmbH, provided the following statement: “We push BaFin and our legal department to remove all crypto in Germany they are not working in a legal and compliant way.”
spot9 is not an opponent of innovation; however, we value the importance of compliance with legal foundations. Mr. Gorski’s comment was part of a heated debate with a direct competitor within the channel. We have not taken any legal action so far and we have no plans to do so.
Johannes Gorski and spot9 regret to have agitated the crypto community. We are convinced cryptocurrencies will change the world and we want to bring cryptocurrencies and digital assets to the public by providing easy, legal and secure access to Crypto-ATMs.
To give other established and also young companies in Europe the opportunity to roll out legally compliant Crypto ATMs in Germany, spot9 will offer a whitelabel solution (in partnership with Sutor Bank).
In addition to Crypto ATMs, spot9 is working on a unique and innovative mobile banking application. We are developing products and services that will make daily banking, payments and the handling of digital currencies simpler to use.
For interviews and background information on spot9, our CMO would be delighted to speak to you.
Tim Alexander Söther
Chief Marketing Officer
E-Mail: [email protected]
This post may contain promotional links that help us fund the site. When you click on the links, we receive a commission - but the prices do not change for you! :)
Disclaimer: The authors of this website may have invested in crypto currencies themselves. They are not financial advisors and only express their opinions. Anyone considering investing in crypto currencies should be well informed about these high-risk assets.
Trading with financial products, especially with CFDs involves a high level of risk and is therefore not suitable for security-conscious investors. CFDs are complex instruments and carry a high risk of losing money quickly through leverage. Be aware that most private Investors lose money, if they decide to trade CFDs. Any type of trading and speculation in financial products that can produce an unusually high return is also associated with increased risk to lose money. Note that past gains are no guarantee of positive results in the future.
More from Press Release
Huobi DeFi Labs partnered up with Kava Labs, offering new yield-farming opportunities to its exchange users. Huobi DeFi Labs has strategically …
Increasingly, entrepreneurs and ordinary people are asking the question of what role the state plays in their life and business: …
Following in the footsteps of Uniswap, popular decentralized exchanges (DEXes) aggregator 1inch.exchange has announced a similar airdrop by airdropping 1INCH …


text:
HSBC has filed trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a variety of digital currency-related goods and services, including those associated with the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
HSBC Trademark Applications for Cryptocurrency-Related Goods and Services
HSBC has filed two crypto-related trademark applications for its name and logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Mike Kondoudis, a USPTO-licensed trademark attorney, tweeted on Friday that HSBC’s trademark registrations indicate the bank’s aspirations for a variety of digital products and services, including those related to the exchange and transfer of virtual currencies.
HSBC submitted crypto-related trademark applications with serial numbers 97718803 and 97718583 on December 15. The bank’s apps detailed a vast array of products and services, such as sending, receiving, converting, and holding digital currency.
Several products and services related to the metaverse are also described in the trademark applications, such as “facilitating secure payment transactions by electronic means in the metaverse,” “providing banking services in the metaverse,” and “providing processing of virtual credit card, virtual debit card, virtual prepaid card, and virtual payment card transactions in the metaverse.” HSBC also included a number of NFT services, such as “downloadable digital files authenticated by non-fungible tokens (NFTs).”
HSBC entered the metaverse in March by forming a partnership with blockchain-based virtual gaming platform The Sandbox. However, Noel Quinn, the CEO of HSBC Group, declared in September that the bank had no plans to adopt cryptocurrencies.
A rising number of large corporations and financial institutions have filed trademark applications for a range of digital currency and metaverse-related goods and services. Visa, PayPal, and Western Union, among others, filed trademark applications linked to cryptocurrencies in October. Last month, JPMorgan Chase was granted a wallet trademark that covers a variety of virtual currencies and payment services.


text:
Krispy Kreme Philippines and Mobext officially launched the brand’s first foray into mobile – the Krispy Kreme App. The launch was held at the Krispy Kreme branch at Bonifacio High Street, Taguig.
The app allows users to order their Krispy Kreme favorites and have them delivered right to their doorstep or have them ready for pick up at their preferred branch. The pick-up and delivery functions are available in selected stores nationwide.
Among the app’s features are: a loyalty program called the KK Stamp Card that rewards avid users with treats; access to exclusive e-coupons; a store locator; and, push notifications for the brand to regularly engage with app users.
The app also enables users to customise their assorted box of donuts and save their favourite customised set for future orders. Through social integration, it makes it easy for users to share their cravings on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Notably, apart from marking the company’s entry into mCommerce, there are currently no other branded donut apps in the market with this combination of features, making the Krispy Kreme App the first of its kind in the region.
The app enjoyed a good reception in the iTunes App Store all throughout the weekend of its launch, where it currently sits among the top free apps of the Food and Drink category.
With smartphone penetration in the Philippines expected to hit 50 per cent this year, the move is a strategic one for the brand. Krispy Kreme’s target market is online and mobile, and this is a recognition from the company that mobile is the next frontier for brands.
Apart from its order and delivery capabilities, the app is an opportunity for the brand to nurture and reach out to its customers using the one thing they are most likely to have.
“Krispy Kreme is always at the forefront of innovative ideas that aim to always raise the bar on quality in our products and services, and delight our customers,” said Ariane M.Valinton, marketing manager for Krispy Kreme.
“With this innovation from Krispy Kreme, we aim to reach out to more customers and further strengthen their brand experience with a more fun, exciting, interactive way to enjoy and share their favorite Krispy Kreme delights.”
“We’re thrilled to work with Krispy Kreme. The app is a great example of mobile’s ability to enhance both customer loyalty and sales,” says Arthur Policarpio, CEO of Mobext Philippines. “Mobile is a powerful tool for business and now is the time for brands to take the leap and incorporate the channel into their strategy.”