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A new "soft gold" color option has been made available for the OnePlus 3T.
OnePlus January 11, 2017
The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T handsets both received the OxygenOS 4.0 update when the year 2017 entered.
OnePlus January 6, 2017
The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is currently one of the best Android phones in the market.
OnePlus January 4, 2017
With the major complaints of OnePlus 2 users of significant network drops since the deployment of the OxygenOS 3.5.5 on their devices, OnePlus has released the Oxygen OS 3.5.6 Hotfix update to fix the said issue.
OnePlus January 3, 2017
The latest reports on the Android Nougat operating system suggested that Samsung, Motorola, and OnePlus will soon release the updated software for their respective gadgets. Below, we have listed down the different smartphones on which the Android Nougat OS will soon be made available.
OnePlus December 14, 2016
Android Nougat has been already rolling out a few devices, with a few other ones slated for a live release very soon.
OnePlus December 9, 2016
Following the successful release of the OnePlus 3, the company has launched its new flagship smartphone called OnePlus 3T which sports the powerful version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821processor.
OnePlus December 3, 2016
Another essential phablet in the emerging medium-to-high range is the Huawei Nova Plus, and today, it goes face to face with the OnePlus 3T.
OnePlus November 29, 2016
The upcoming OnePlus 4 looks prone to hold the headphone jack, according to a tweet conveyed by the co-founder of the company, Carl Pei.
OnePlus October 26, 2016
OnePlus 3 is a killer flagship phone with great specs and features.
OnePlus July 8, 2016
The three smartphones have great features, but only one rules the lot.
OnePlus June 29, 2016
OnePlus 3 smartphone is currently trending with exceptional specs and features in all areas.
OnePlus June 22, 2016
OnePlus, the Chinese company known for its products, has just launched its 2016 flagship product and the update to last year’s model – OnePlus 3.
OnePlus June 16, 2016
Many leaked images suggest that the upcoming OnePlus 3 will consist of great specs and features at low budget.
OnePlus June 10, 2016
OnePlus2 is finally getting Android Marshmallow and OxygenOS update.
OnePlus June 8, 2016
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Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – especially scope 3 emissions that occur on the farm – has been on the agenda of leading dairy companies for several years with many taking the lead to set decarbonisation targets, take action, and make progress. However, with inflationary pressures, soaring input costs, and surging interest rates adding further challenges, a well-balanced combination of carrots and sticks will be needed to help these companies meet GHG emissions targets, according to a new Rabobank report.
In the report Global dairy companies taking the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Rabobank says dairy companies are in a delicate position to balance the interests of their milk suppliers, offtakers, and other stakeholders, while tracking other sustainability targets and maintaining healthy margins.
“For dairy companies to reach the 2030 climate goals and beyond, accelerating the adoption of on-farm GHG emissions reduction measures is crucial,” Rabobank dairy analyst Richard Scheper said.
“Reductions originating from productivity and efficiency gains may diminish over time and gains from new technologies may take years to achieve.”
The report says dairy companies that set (voluntary) targets subject themselves to reputational and litigation risks if targets aren’t achieved.
“Their market access could also be restricted or limited if competitors are meeting their targets and if the market demands that companies do so,” the report says.
“Reaching these targets requires a well-balanced combination of incentivising carrots and potentially corrective sticks to accelerate the on-farm adoption of a wider variety of GHG emissions reduction tools.
“With the growing need for incentives going forward, it’s of the upmost importance that all parties and stakeholders in the value chain contribute financially to these efforts – from the farm to the end consumer, plus (local) governments via stimulating subsidies (carrots) and/or taxes (sticks) and other stakeholders, such as banks.”
A copy of the full report is attached. Rabobank NZ Head of Sustainable Business Development Blake Hogate is available for interviews on this report if you have any follow-up questions.

domain: news


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SHOP BY CATEGORY
OnePlus 32 inch TV Launched at Rs.12999
OnePlus has launched its most affordable Smart TV in India as a part of the new OnePlus U ...
Fire TV Stick 4K with All-New Alexa Voice Remote | Streaming Media Player
Price as of Sunday a March 15 2020, 1852 hrs IST Product prices ...


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Queen Bey has been imotalized in the form of a cheese statue because why not?
Sculptor David Bradley teamed up with art group the Robin Collective to recreate pop Bey's famous pregnancy photograph ... in cheese.
They have named the creation Brie-oncé, despite the fact that the cheese is actually mild cheddar - a whopping 20 kilos of it.
"A lot of cheese puns floated around, and Brie-oncé was the one everyone liked the most," Robin Collective creative director Brandy Klingelpuss told CNN.
It took 28 hours to make, and will be presented at the East Village Cheese and Wine Festival in London this weekend.
The Robin Collective posted a photo of the cheesy sculpture on Instagram, with a fire pun to go with it: "If you like it you GOUDA put a ring on it!"


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Virtual is real
A study conducted by the The Work Foundation in UK has concluded that the Web is much more localised, more honest and far less chaotic than it is usually given credit for.
Online communities get real
So-called social software - e-mail, messaging systems, weblogs and shared online diaries - is allowing people to make the net work for them and bring the virtual world home.The report also mentions that the existing notions that people would thrive on false personas over the impersonal Net are being borne out as people are using social software to support real world interaction and to enhance face-to-face contact rather than departing from it.
New phenomena such as weblogs have allowed people to share their interest and passions with a wider audience but often provide a quite mundane and honest view of life.
Another key aspect of online communities is the ability to generate and build up public opinions.
And people power is also being helped by online communities such as epinions.com, a site which allows consumers to give their views on any products they have bought.Will Davies of The Work Foundation sums it up best when he says, "People are finally ditching the two-worlds view, which separates the internet from everyday life and now realise the two are part of one picture".
"As knowledge management and access to information have become central to all of our social and economic well being, so it has happened that social networks have grown in power," said Will Hutton, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation.


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She's got sole! Fashion designer Stella McCartney towers in platform boots as she steps out in central London
She is a towering success in the world of fashion.
But British fashion designer Stella McCartney was head and shoulders above her contemporaries for all the wrong reasons on Friday.
The 42 year-old was spotted wearing a dramatic pair of platform boots when she was seen out in central London.
She's got sole! The designer walks gingerly in her platform leather boots
Walking gingerly through Mayfair, the daughter of musician Paul McCartney looked focused on her stride as she navigated the slippery streets.
Assisted by a friend holding a umbrella, she looked at the floor intently.
Meanwhile, all eyes were on her - especially as she matched the look with skinny jeans for maximum effect. She also sported a peach jacket and casual grey cardigan.
That's a tall order! Stella watches her step as she walks around London i the heavy-duty shoes
The look is a rare fashion fail for the flame-haired star, who appears swamped by the over-sized shoes.
Earlier this week, during a launch dinner for Kate Moss' Topshop range, she looked stunning in a red, gold and black dress which was both demure and fashion-forward.
Fortunately, she has plenty of access to the world's best clothes.
Stylish: Stella is normally faultless in her choice of both clothing and footwear
Stella McCartney earned a dazzling £1.5 million dividend from her core British-based fashion business last year after sales and profits jumped.
Stella McCartney Ltd, which runs the group’s two London stores and the brand globally saw sales rise 25 per cent to £25.7 million, with profits up 38 per cent to £4.6 million, according to figures just filed at Companies House.
The firm, which is
half-owned by McCartney herself and half-owned by Italian fashion group
Gucci, paid out total dividends of £3 million for the year.
Looking good: Jefferson Hack and Stella McCartney get close at a lunch for Kate Moss's Topshop collection
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Christopher Bonanos, author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid, has authored a lengthy piece for the Washington Post on what Kodak — and whoever buys its film lines — can learn from the fall of Polaroid. The article offers some interesting facts about, and insights into, the film photography industry:
Yes, Polaroid and Kodak made hundreds of millions of cameras. But that was never their principal business: The hardware existed mostly to sell film. This is what business-school professors call the razor-blade model, pioneered by Gillette: The razor is sold at minimal profit or even given away, and the blades sell for years afterward at a healthy profit margin. Amazon does the same with the Kindle, selling it cheaply to encourage enthusiastic e-book buying.
More than anything else, Polaroid’s desire in the 1990s to keep film sales up and film factories humming was what killed the company. When it should’ve been diving into a variety of digital businesses, Polaroid doubled down on analog-film production, building new production equipment and trying to economize.
The business model Bonanos describes is also known as freebie marketing.
What Kodak could still learn from Polaroid [The Washington Post]


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Dollar store ban? Palm Coast inches toward moratorium
PALM COAST — The clock could soon be ticking on new dollar stores in Palm Coast.
Seeking to prevent an “influx” and “proliferation” of Dollar Generals, Family Dollars and Dollar Trees in the city, Palm Coast City Council members have talked openly for weeks about imposing more restrictions on the “small-box” discount stores.
The crackdown moved a step closer to reality this week as the city’s planning and land development regulation board voted 4-3 in favor of a 120-day moratorium on permitting for any new dollar stores.
The temporary ban must now go before the Palm Coast council to be enacted.
Planning board members Sybil Dodson-Lucas, Charles Lemon, Jake Scully and Clint Smith approved a recommendation for the moratorium during Wednesday’s meeting. They narrowly outnumbered Glenn Davis, Christopher Dolney and Robert Demara, who cast dissenting votes. Board members David Freeman and Suzanne Nicholson were absent.
Palm Coast officials contend the pervasiveness of the discount stores could box out small supermarkets that offer fresh produce and discourage them from setting up shop in town. They also claim the stores may be inappropriate for some commercial areas because they can have negative public health and safety impacts.
“The real concern has been that these stores are crowding out the grocery stores,” said Katie Reischmann, the city’s planning and land development attorney. “As we know, there are food desert problems in so many areas of the country. And the concern is that this is exacerbating it with the number of these stores that are generally not offering much in the way of healthy food.
The 120-day moratorium would give Palm Coast a four-month reprieve from reviewing any applications for dollar stores. Ray Tyner, Palm Coast’s deputy chief development officer, said that will give city planners enough time to study the issue, and possibly tweak zoning regulations to ensure the stores remain compatible with the city’s overall commercial outlay.
That could mean limiting the number of dollar stores by relegating them to neighborhood commercial zoning districts or prohibiting them from being within a certain distance of one another.
Reischmann said one of the trickiest issues will be in trying to narrowly outline exactly what type of store they want regulated in the city’s code.
“You can see in the definition that we’re trying hard to thread the needle here and deal with that particular type of store that sells at prices much lower than standard stores,” she told board members Wednesday. “This type of moratorium is occurring really throughout the U.S. on a fairly frequent basis because of the just incredible volume of these small-box discount stores.”
There are currently six dollar stores in Palm Coast -- four Dollar Generals and two Dollar Trees. The newest one was a Dollar General that opened at 1000 Matanzas Woods Parkway late last year.
Mayor Milissa Holland sparked the conversation about discount chains in Palm Coast during a Jan. 7 council meeting when she complained about “seeing these (stores) popping up on every corner of our city.” She asked if there was a way to apply restrictions to ease the saturation of the bargain stores. City attorney William Reischmann cited municipalities in Texas and Oklahoma City that have taken measures.
Seven days later, council members approved a resolution proclaiming there was “legislation in progress” on the matter. City officials said that resolution officially put the public on notice that Palm Coast was considering making regulatory changes to the small-box stores.
Dodson-Lucas was the most vocal board member in favor of the moratorium during the planning board’s meeting. She said there is a lot of concern from residents about the number of dollar stores popping up around town. She argued that “upscale or mid-scale” grocery stores are dissuaded from building in areas where dollar shops are in abundance.
“Because people will buy a dollar dress before they buy the $90 dress, and there are a lot of people that want that $90 dress,” she said. “Where you have a proliferation of these kinds of stores, other kinds of commercial enterprises that people want will not come because they will say there is no market.”
But she got push-back from some fellow board members. Demara scoffed at the notion that the stores were causing food deserts. Others said it makes financial sense for residents to buy at discount rates.
“This is a retirement community, a lot of people in retirement have a fixed amount of money,” Dolney said. “Sometimes they need to shop at these places.
“Sometimes,” Dodson-Lucas shot back. “But you don’t need one at every other block. You want that alternative, but you also want something that’s going to last longer if you buy it.”
“But that’s their prerogative. It’s their nickel, not my nickel,” Demara said.
Flagler County Realtor Toby Tobin called the idea “an incredible waste of time,” claiming it was a case of much ado about a problem that does not exist in Palm Coast. There are no applications pending for dollar stores in Palm Coast now. Tobin cited the fact that the city has only issued two such permits in the past two years.
“That doesn’t sound like a proliferation or an every-other-block situation at all,” he said. “This is a manufactured crisis. It may be a crisis in some towns or some cities, some places in the country. But the (idea) that dollar stores must be controlled or restricted because they sell at prices much lower than regular stores … that’s a bad thing?”


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Microsoft’s customer service is almost legendary in terms of how awful it is, but one woman in particular may have unlocked the Master Sword of incompetence. Susan Taylor awoke one day to find that her Xbox Live account was hacked, and $214.97 of MS Points had been purchased and transferred out. Microsoft would do all in its power to help. Or rather, help the hackers get away with it.
At first everything went somewhat sensibly. Susan notified Microsoft and PayPal, and they logged the complaint. After giving out a complimentary thirty-day Xbox Live code, Microsoft promised the victim that her now unobtainable Xbox Live account would be frozen so that nobody could use it. Naturally, this didn’t happen — the account wasn’t blocked and another $124.98 was stolen.
Taylor called customer service once more and demanded answers, only to be told, “The fraud department was unable to close your account.” When pressed for a reason, she got, “I don’t know,” and was advised to keep trying to log into her account. Because when a hacker changes your password, that’s the sensible thing to do.
Oh … and it gets crazier!
After getting the run-around from Microsoft on both the phone and via Twitter, Susan was added as a friend by one of the Gamertags that her stolen money had been transferred to.
Susan took matters into her own hands and contacted the new Xbox Live account holder. After some pretty smooth Columbo work, she got the details of the middleman who sold the account. Armed with knowledge that Microsoft should have been gathering itself, she was able to figure out that the hacker’s entire plan to crack into accounts, transfer out points, use the points to create new accounts filled with games, and sell them on at a bargain price. All of this is stuff Microsoft should have known and been looking into, but it fell on the shoulders of one frustrated gamer.
The story currently ends here. Susan has an impressive amount of details for the hacker, but she’s biding her time before pulling the trigger. You can read the continuing story in full at Hacked on Xbox, and I suggest you do, as it’s an amazing story — not just for Microsoft’s bullshit, but for the pretty enthralling detective drama going on.
I certainly wish Susan the best, and hope that some resolution is found soon.


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(This story originally appeared in
on Mar 2, 2017)
NEW DELHI: PepsiCo chief executive Indra Nooyi, who met traditional retailers across Mumbai over the past two days, wants to use the opportunity thrown up by demonetisation to push adoption of cash-less payments at the company’s most important points of sale: mom and pop stores.
PepsiCo, which along with other consumer goods makers was hit hard by the note ban in November, is in talks with a couple of leading FMCG firms to push digitisation at retail stores.
A PepsiCo spokeswoman confirmed the move. “We are working to create a consortium with partners and industry players to enhance digitisation of trade,” She declined to specify the names of the potential partners, adding that it was work in progress and that the information was “sensitive at this stage”.
PepsiCo’s beverages and snacks reach close to 3 million outlets, according to retail audit surveys. “We have set up a three-pronged approach to support the move to a less-cash economy,” the spokeswoman said. In addition to the consortium of players, the maker of Pepsi cola and Lay’s chips is working with ewallet companies and is in talks with a state-run bank to push digital payments among retailers.
At least two-thirds grocery stores had reported as much as a 70 per cent drop in sales in the first week since demonetisation. Just 1 per cent of kirana stores were equipped for non-cash payments before the move. Companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola were among the worst hit as people cut down on discretionary spending to conserve cash.
Nooyi, currently on an India visit, met finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday, and discussed the move to digitisation of payments and the impact and implementation of the goods and services tax. The new tax system that will bring most indirect taxes under a single levy is likely to be rolled out on July 1.
Nooyi had tweeted on Wednesday morning from Mumbai: “Innovative India is starting to use digital where cash once dominated - turning demonetisation into remonetisation.”
Most consumer goods firms across sectors had reported subdued sales in the October-December 2016 quarter, which they attributed to the currency ban. At least six global heads of consumer companies, including Nooyi, had said the impact would take time to settle.
“Our hope is that by the time Q2 rolls in, we would be through the bulk of the demonetisation challenges. The new currency and the digital currency will be back in circulation and we’ll be back to retail activity coming back to normal,” Nooyi had told analysts on a conference call after PepsiCo reported its fourth-quarter results.
She is set to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week to discuss matters such as Indo-US relations, demonetisation and the company’s proposed shift to low-sugar beverages and foods. Nooyi is the only Indian-American in President Donald Trump’s policy forum, which is helping the new US government in shaping economic agenda.


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Tiffany and Nike are pulling the lid back further on their hotly rumored collaboration, which includes a sneaker, along with footwear-focused sterling silver accessories.
WWD can exclusively reveal that the Tiffany and Nike sneaker — officially called the Nike x Tiffany & Co. Air Force 1 1837 — will be released on March 7. The low-top style, which was designed to celebrate the Air Force 1’s 40th anniversary, is priced at $400.
Limited quantities will be available for purchase at two Tiffany locations in New York City, including its Flagship Next Door SoHo store, along with the Nike Snkrs app and, “select Nike partner retail stores in North America,” according to a press release.
The exact time of the drop is yet to be determined and will be released in the coming weeks. Tiffany and Nike declined to offer further comment on the collaboration.
The sneaker — as depicted in images leaked last week — is made of black suede and comes with a Tiffany blue swoosh and sterling silver heel plate designed in ode to Tiffany’s classic Return to Tiffany collection. Available sizes will range from a U.S. men’s 3.5 to 18.
The two companies are not stopping there. Tiffany is also producing a range of cobranded, sneaker-centric sterling silver accessories, with prices ranging from $250 to $475.
They include a whistle set on a chain, a shoe horn, shoe brush and a dubrae to accentuate the sneakers’ laces. The accessories will be available for purchase on Tiffany’s website.
The collaboration marks Tiffany’s first foray into footwear.
In 2005, the jeweler got an unofficial taste of its potential in the category after Nike enlisted Nicholas Tershay, also known as Nicky Diamonds, to design a pair of low-top dunks on behalf of his skater label Diamond Supply Co.
The resulting sneaker — featuring stamped black crocodile leather trim and a silver swoosh set against a backdrop of Tiffany blue mesh and leather — was dubbed the “Tiffany.”
The jeweler did not have any involvement in the design, but the sneaker has been considered a classic and is available for sale on Sotheby’s website for $3,850.
Tiffany has engaged in an increased number of brand collaborations since its 2021 acquisition by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The jeweler has teamed with companies including Supreme, Fendi and Patek Philippe, as well as artist Daniel Arsham and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.


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Western Cape Premier Helen Zille visited the I-CAN Digital Gaming Hub hosted at the Khayelitsha Bandwidth Barn on Tuesday (10 July), as part of an official tour of the facility.
The I-Can Hub is an initiative of the Western Cape Government – in partnership with Lenovo and VS Gaming – and is operated by the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CITI).
According to Zille, the project is critical to the province’s ‘Alcohol Harms Reduction Game Changer’, which is focused on reducing alcohol related harms in target areas including, Khayelitsha Town 2, Gunya and Paarl East.
One of the key focus areas under the game changer is providing recreational and economic alternatives that will encourage our youth to spend more time on non-alcohol related recreational activities, she said.
“For years our government has been determined to provide alternative activities that may be inaccessible for many of our young people. The I-CAN Play project is a crucial initiative under our Alcohol Harms Reduction Game Changer,” said Zille.
“This project offers an attractive and beneficial activity for young people to participate in, away from the harm and violence caused by alcohol abuse.
She added that the Western Cape government had specifically chosen video games because of the perceived benefits they may provide to young South Africans.
“We have also strategically chosen gaming because of the value it can add to young people and their interest in the ICT sector,” Zille said.
“By making young people curious and comfortable with technology, gaming also opens up a pathway to better digital skills and careers in game development and the traditional IT sector.”
According to an accompanying statement sent out by the Western Cape Provincial Government, the South African video game market is performing ‘well’ and revenue is forecast to grow at a healthy CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 5.6% to reach R3.7 billion in 2020, up from R2.8 billion in 2015.
It added that eSports will soon be a $1 billion business with a global audience of over 300 million fans.


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Harry Styles' new haircut is all the buzz. Literally.
The singer has captured the attention of millions after posing for a photo with a fresh shaved buzz cut.
His shocking new look was posted by his beauty brand Pleasing and photographed by Lloyd Wakefield.
"Our Founder, Harry Styles, toasts the launch of Pleasing Fragrance with friends in London. November, 2023," the accompanying caption read.
While some were not fans of the "Watermelon Sugar" singer's new look, others were instantly in love with it, with one Instagram user writing, "Everyone's mad about the curls and they will be missed but I am LIVING for this new look, this man seriously can pull off anything!"
Styles, who has always worn an array of longer hair looks, did not immediately respond to all the commentary surrounding his chopped strands. However, he seems to be content with the look, which was initially spotted on him earlier this month at a U2 concert he attended alongside actress Taylor Russell.
The Grammy Award-winning artist has been busy lately, finishing up his second concert tour, Love On Tour, in July and launching Pleasing's new line of fragrances this week.
The latest drop, available for purchase at Dover Street Parfums Market on Nov. 20, includes three eau de parfums that the brand says are inspired by time, place and memory, and are intricately linked by the comforting warmth of a second-skin.
Styles debuted his Pleasing beauty line in 2021 with nail polishes and skin care. Since then, the brand has also released lip balms, makeup and more.


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Christmas is exactly a week away, and some e-commerce marketers may be a little less vigilant than they were during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, relaxing now would be a bit of a mistake, as those two days only drive 15 percent of holiday revenue, says the AlertSite team at SmartBear.
To that end, the marketing vendor sent Target Marketing its “Holiday Performance Checklist” infographic on Tuesday to help marketers ensure that they monetize every last dime of holiday revenue.
Here’s what SmartBear advises marketers do this week:
- Improve Site Speed, As Well As ‘Context and Sequence.’ ’Tis the season for light Web pages, as shoppers don’t want to be slowed down by rich media. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to work. These are the last-minute folks. Ensure the context makes sense and content follows a sequence visitors will understand.
- If You Can’t Increase Site Speed/Performance by 20% or More, Engage Consumers While They Wait. Performance is about perception.
- Remember the Alamo and Desktops. More people buy here and they buy more, as in spend more money. [Editor’s note: OK, yes. The Alamo wasn’t in the infographic.]
- Provide Shoppers With a Seamless Experience. “Ensure that your e-commerce offering — websites, Web apps, and native or hybrid mobile apps are working smoothly across various locations, devices, browsers, ISPs and wireless networks,” reads the infographic. [Editor’s note: SmartBear advises marketers ensure that all channels work together, but research from sources such as IBM suggests that consumers are looking for a seamless experience in one channel most of all, mobile, and they aren’t getting it. They’re switching to larger devices to convert, if they convert at all. So here’s a suggestion: Try being a mobile shopper and see how easy it is to convert in that channel, even if you think you can’t possibly improve. How did it work out?]
- Secure All Conversion Paths. “Facebook brings as high as 60 percent of the traffic to major retailers’ sites,” according to the infographic. “Ensure that the plugins and APIs that represent your offering on social media are working smoothly for all your customers, across diverse use cases.”
- Bulletproof Your APIs. “Customers coming from API-driven channels are reported to have 26 percent more CLTV than others,” says SmartBear.
- Be In It for the Long-Haul. Marketers who only prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday are missing out, the vendor says. Consumers are still out there waiting to convert. [Editor’s note: Using Halloween as an example, Blue Fountain Media found that 66 percent of shoppers made all of their purchases a few weeks before the event, with 2 percent of buyers waiting until the day before. That 2 percent still counts.]
Are e-commerce marketers still alert?
Please respond in the comments section below.
Related story: Boo! Scary Statistics for Marketers


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Social Media Wrap Up: Oporto, Bondi Pizza collaborate for new offering; Din Tai Fung unveils prawn dumplings; Crust's pizza scrolls
Find out what QSRs have been up to on social media this week.
BRAND AND STORE UPDATES
Sushi Hub now has 105 stores, following simultaneous openings in NSW and VIC.
Noodle Box opened its 74th store, located in Burpengary in QLD.
Yogurburry is opening a store in Rhodes Waterside Shopping Centre.
NEW ON THE MENU
Oporto teamed up with Bondi Pizza to create a bespoke pizza, available via Menulog.
Burger Urge unveiled its latest special, the Oklahoma Smash.
Chatime is now offering Oreo Crumb mix-ins.
Crust is promoting its pizza scrolls, including the limited-time Cookie Butter & Salted Caramel Scroll.
The Coffee Club launched its new Almond Croissant.
Din Tai Fung is now selling Prawn Har gow.
Outback Steakhouse has new milkshakes.
PROMOTIONS Sushi Izu is giving away ten sushi platters.
Photo credit: Oporto Facebook


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update 17 September 2021
Adjustments mask obligation at Veiling Rhein-Maas
As of Monday 20 September 2021, Veiling Rhein-Maas will apply a consistent mask obligation in the entire auction building and all logistical halls. In these areas you still have to wear a mask. However, you are free to choose whether to use a medical mask or a FFP2 mask. This means that you are no longer obligated to wear a FFP2 mask in our auction room and foyer. For Veiling Rhein-Maas, the general regulations of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will continue to apply. We will inform you immediately if there are any further changes for Veiling Rhein-Maas regarding the mask obligation. Thank you for your understanding and support!
If there are any changes, we will inform you via our website, newsletter or social media.
Previous news on Coronavirus:
- 29 June 2021: FFP2 masks are still obligatory in the auction room and foyer
- 1 June 2021: Omission of testing obligation for customers from the Netherlands, France and Belgium and mask obligation adjustments in the auction room
- 15 April 2021: Adjusted regulations for customers entering Germany from high incidence areas
- 9 April 2021: FFP2 masks are compulsory as of 12 April 2021
- 8 April 2021: New regulations for people entering Germany from the Netherlands
- 25 March 2021: Easter 2021: Auction takes place according to annual schedule
- 23 December 2021: Veiling Rhein-Maas will remain open from January 2021 according to the regular annual schedule!
- 15 December 2020: Veiling Rhein-Maas will remain open until the end of 2020 according to the regular annual schedule!
- 29 September 2020: Compulsory masks in all public areas at Veiling Rhein-Maas
- 20 May 2020: Supply of A2 quality possible again
- 22 April 2020: Current information about purchasing and selling at Veiling Rhein-Maas
- 17 April 2020: Reopening of garden centres and hardware stores in Belgium
- 8 April 2020: Auction will take place again according to the original annual calendar
- 7 April 2020: Adjustments at Clock pre sales and start of early auctioning period from week 16 onwards
- 3 April 2020: Special auction on Good Friday, 10 April, 2020 will take place!
- 2 April 2020: Positive market development at Veiling Rhein-Maas and further measures regarding supply
- 1 April 2020: Veiling Rhein-Maas will auction on Friday 3 April 2020!
- 27 March 2020: Use Remote Buying: Capacity of Remote Buying increased by 25%, limited seats in the auction room
- 26 March 2020: Important information on supply and purchase during week 14
- 25 March 2020: Veiling Rhein-Maas will auction on three weekdays from Monday 30 March 2020, Clock Service stays available from Monday to Friday!
- 23 March 2020: Opening of florist shops in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hessen permitted
- 22 March 2020: Auction will be held until further notice
- 20 March 2020: Veiling Rhein-Maas is taking further short term measures to secure business and marketing activities even in the event of a curfew
- 19 March 2020: Auction takes place until further notice
- 18 March 2020: Consequences of the decree from 17 March 2020
- 17 March 2020: Sale of horticultural products still permitted in Germany and the Netherlands
- 16 March 2020: Sale of horticultural products still permitted in Germany and the Netherlands
- 16 March 2020: Adjustment of supply regulations due to the current market situation
- 15 March 2020: Auction on Monday 16 March
- 13 March 2020: Handling of the coronavirus at Veiling Rhein-Maas
- 5 March 2020: Handling of the coronavirus at Veiling Rhein-Maas


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The European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has agreed in principle to a directive designed to curb environmental damage from the disposal of batteries and accumulators by reducing the volume of mercury they contain and increasing their collection and recycling.
This proposed legislation requires member states to ban products containing more than a specified percentage of mercury, calling for programmes to reduce the heavy metal content of batteries and accumulators and to encourage the separate collection of batteries, a task probably falling to local authorities.
Although the European Parliament has still to have its say on the directive, Council officials said this was likely to differ "only in details."
In a statement, the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) said it would like all nickel cadmium batteries collected separately and removed from the waste stream.
It added it was difficult to see how this could be monitored or enforced. A combination of different schemes would be needed, though "high collection targets may not be achievable without a significant element of kerbside collections."


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Ripple Sets Sights on a Big Year with Major Use Case Adoption in Place: Accenture’s Global Payments Head
The managing director of global payments at Accenture, Gareth Wilson, released new predictions for 2019 regarding the crypto and financial world. He expects Ripple to register major gains this year. Moreover, he expects Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to be adopted as well.
According to him, the Ripple network will be growing around the world attracting banks and financial institutions. Using Ripple services, companies can easily send and receive cross-border transactions reducing their costs and transaction speeds. There are more than 200 companies working with Ripple and using its services.
In the future, more firms could partner with Ripple not only to be connected to their network but also to use the xRapid product that uses the XRP cryptocurrency to source liquidity on-demand.
He has also talked about central banks and how they will be issuing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). There are several banking institutions in different countries analysing the positive and negative effects of launching a CBDC.
According to Mr. Wilson, at least one of these banks will have concrete plans to implement the technology. Venezuela has recently launched the so-called Petro in order to gather funds and avoid international sanctions imposed by western countries.
Wilson has also talked about biometrics such as facial, vice and hand-movement recognition will look robust enough for mass use. There will be several financial companies and banks that could use these tools to improve the consumer experience. Cryptocurrency wallets can also be secured using these methods.
About Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, he commented:
“Although most banks will still shun Bitcoin, expect to see cash management products appear that use Bitcoin and Ethereum, and are aimed at corporate treasurers. […] Ripple’s network for cross-border transactions will continue to grow significantly, attracting more banks and corporates, leading to rising transaction volumes.”
XRP has just been added to Coinbase Pro, the trading platform managed by Coinbase. This is something very bullish for Ripple and XRP. The announcement was made by Coinbase in a blog post and XRP spiked more than 7% in the last 24 hours.


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Two weeks ahead of The Sims 3’s official release, the life simulation game has leaked to BitTorrent sites.
Ars Technica, which reported the leak, won’t link to the sites where it found the games and hasn’t downloaded it — doing so would break the law — but searching for "Sims 3 BitTorrent" on Google turns up plenty of results. Commenters at the sites Ars found are reporting that the game is working fine, though I’ve turned up one example of a commenter warning of viruses.
It’s worth noting that the description at one site includes a moral appeal along with instructions for installing the game. Following the steps on cracking the game’s encryption and preventing it from going online, a final suggeston reads: "Support the software developers. If you like this game, BUY IT." (The story of an indie game developer that made this appeal directly to downloaders can be found here.)
Of course, no story on EA’s struggle with software pirates is complete without recalling the Spore fiasco. After shipping the game with particularly oppressive digital rights management, angry customes launched an Amazon Bomb. Meanwhile, the game became one of the most illegally downloaded in history., though it’s not clear how much the legitimate game’s DRM played into that.
For The Sims 3, EA will drop online authentication and rely on simple disc-based encryption instead. However, if the early leak is for real, it only signifies that the company is in a tough spot no matter what method it tries. The Sims and Spore are widely-appealing games. It’s no surprise that they’re popular targets for illegal download even if, as Ars points out, many downloaders say they’re just picking up the game for their girlfriends.


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Pictures of the Nike store in Soho
To strengthen its direct-to-consumer business, Nike is reinventing its retail experience. New York’s Soho neighborhood is where the brand is setting foot, with a 55,000 square foot store spread over five floors in a newly constructed building. But what sets this store apart from other Nike outlets in town?
Chief among them are what Nike calls “immersive experiences.” If you’ve ever wanted to lay up in a pair of Jordans before dropping some cash on them, now you can. Store cameras track your movements and progress through these experiences and upload them to the Nike+ app. The store is fully connected, intended to bridge the gap between digital and brick-and-mortar. Not only will it know your stride and the last time you rode the treadmill at the store, it will also know what shoes you last tried on.
A guided sales team will make time to be with you one-on-one for up to an hour, whether you’re trying on running shoes or shooting hoops.
“We see [the store] as the global beginning of the future of sports retail, and we see Soho as the beginning,” Heidi O’Neill, president of direct-to-consumer initiatives at Nike, told Business Insider.
The store, which opens Nov. 18, comes at a pivotal time for Nike, which is struggling with parts of its third-party retail business and focusing on its ever-growing direct-to-consumer division. Nike hopes to take this store concept and apply it, in whole or in part, to other regions of the country.


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Kerala Budget 2021 Promises To Ensure A Laptop In Every House, Free Internet For BPL Families
One of the biggest takeaways from the COVID-19 lockdown from last year was the great digital divide in the country of 1.3 billion.
As schools were closed, classes switched to online - but there was a problem, a large section of the population did not have a device to connect to the internet, namely a laptop or smartphone.
Now Kerala is taking a small yet significant step that can help in narrowing the digital divide.
Every household to get laptop
Kerala Finance Minister Dr. TM Thomas Isaac who presented the Budget 2021 announced that the laptop distribution project of the state government will be expanded in a way that every household in the state will have access to a laptop.
“Besides digitalising schools every home should have a laptop with internet connection for creating digital society,” said Isaac.
BPL families will be able to purchase laptops at a subsidy of 25% and those classified as 'financially vulnerable' will get free laptops.
Digital study materials too
Additionally, 3.5 lakh students in the state will get access to digital study materials.
Another major digital infrastructure announced by the minister is KFON, the Kerala government's initiative to make the internet accessible to everyone.
KFON which stands for Kerala Fiber Optic Network will be inaugurated next month, the minister said.
Families below the poverty line (BPL) will be able to surf the net free of cost, the minister said.
30,000 government offices in the state will be linked through high-speed intranet service of which the speed will be between 10 MBps to 1 GBps.
Isaac also stated that no monopoly would be allowed on the internet highway in Kerala.
Last year, Kerala government-owned KELTRON and US-based technology major UST global had come together to launch their own branded lineup of laptops.
The Coconics laptops were aimed at providing affordable hardware for schools and government offices in the state.


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Nordic Innovation is a free, online magazine showcasing all areas of innovation in the Nordic region. The third issue of the magazine has just been released and its over-60 pages are filled with useful and interesting information.
The theme of the magazine’s third edition is ‘playing with innovation’ – with articles about how creative entrepreneurs can play with the concepts of innovation with surprising and positive results.
Nordic Innovation is intended for people all over the world and is written about the entire Nordic region. It is based in Iceland and is published by Klak Innovation Centre.
“The theme of this third issue of Nordic Innovation is ‘playing with innovation’. We got three innovators to answer questions related to how to play with innovation,” the magazine’s editor says. “They helped us to explore the concept. It is not about efficiency but effectiveness, it is about being fearless to create new things and it is about the tolerance of failure. Companies and individuals need to play with innovation like they were kid-curious about the world.”
This third issue of Nordic Innovation discusses the gaming industry and gaming companies. It explores the fact that playing has become a huge industry and the gaming industry has come to rival even the film industry. Furthermore there is discussion of the creation of a new constitution in Iceland using web-based products which have recently been introduced by start-ups. It is possible to make big and ambitious projects like a new constitution much easier and cheaper with smart solutions, the article argues. This issue also presents a list of 100 Icelandic ventures which was made for Frjáls verslun, an Icelandic business magazine. The list was published to promote the importance of new ventures and the value of new companies. It emphasises why it is important to play with innovation.
Link to webpage:
Link to free Flash version of the magazine:


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"It's an important product for us, so the measure is significant but we don't want our clients to worry," Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson told AFP.
Meanwhile, Sweden's Agriculture Minister Eskil Erlandsson wants the country's National Food Agency to take over responsibility for monitoring smaller meat processing plants after the horsemeat scandal spread to Ikea. Currently, the NFA has responsibility only for larger meat plants.
However, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) tells Swedish Radio News today that Erlandsson's proposal is a "bad idea" and control should not be centralised.
Swedish Radio writes that municipal control of smaller meat producing plants has previously been criticised by sectors of the food industry for having deficiencies in supervision. SKL, however, says that its controls work well and local control has benefits to the consumer.
"Municipalities are close to local people and local people have the opportunity to talk to us about something. We can act quickly," says SKL's Ann-Sofie Eriksson to Swedish Radio News.


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TORONTO, Oct. 25 /CNW/ - On behalf of its members, Food & Consumer
Products of Canada (FCPC) has made available a print-ready photograph of a
sample of low- or reduced-sodium products currently available in Canada.
The photo is available on CNW Group and showcases a small snapshot of the
work individual companies have done over the past several decades to reduce
sodium levels in products.
/NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available on
the CNW Photo Network and archived at http://photos.newswire.ca.
Additional archived images are also available on the CNW Photo Archive
website at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited
members of the media/
For further information:
For further information: To speak with an industry representative for
comment about the National Sodium Policy statement, please contact: Catherine
Baker, Food & Consumer Products of Canada, (416) 510-8024 ext 2276,


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Major League Baseball is one of America’s Big Four leagues, and the Atlanta Braves from this league have become the first team to “operate” on the Metaverse
Physical Sports Franchises making the move to the Metaverse
It has been apparent that the future of sports viewership and sporting experiences is online. For the past few years, we’ve been aware of the need to incorporate virtual experiences into the sporting world. Still, this need only became painfully obvious when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and fans could no longer visit their preferred arenas to support their favorite teams.
For the few months where fan attendance was outlawed at sporting events, sports teams and leagues worldwide realized the urgent need to incorporate a system where fans can interact and enjoy experiences similar to visiting their favorite arenas in person. Another reason sports organizations view virtual experiences as the future of sports is due to the amount of revenue they stand to make.
Across the world, sports organizations are going above and beyond to put their teams on the Metaverse because it just makes sense. It would be a lost opportunity for franchises worldwide not to create more virtual experiences for their fans.
Atlanta Braves: Welcome to the Metaverse
February 2022, The Atlanta Braves became the first MLB team to enter the Metaverse, and now fans can enjoy awe-inspiring experiences on the digital rendition of its Truist Park Arena. Atlanta Braves call Truist Park their home, and thanks to the new photo-realistic digital copy dubbed “Digital Truist Park,” fans can experience this space like never before.
The Braves’ Metaverse is powered by Unreal Engine technology from Epic Games, and the team behind this project had enough foresight to include surrounding architecture into this experience. Not only will you enjoy amazing views of the Digital Truist Park, but you can also pay a visit to the nearby Battery Atlanta Shopping Center for a shopping experience that you’ll not forget in haste.
The Atlanta Braves back office also shared that the launch of the Digital Truist Park project is part of their long term Web3 plan; in the future, we can expect Web3.0 innovations, NFTs, and even cryptocurrencies from this franchise, and they hope all these will help them better engage fans of the future.
Are the Atlanta Braves the exception in the world of Sports?
As the Atlanta Braves make their entry into the Metaverse, they’ll be joining a healthy and growing list of sports franchises and leagues worldwide that have made the Metaverse their digital home. The National Football League (NFL) launched a virtual store in a Roblox video game in November 2021 and expanded on this experience in February 2022 for the Super Bowl.
In Association Football, the Premier League’s Manchester City Football Club recently partnered with Sony on the digital recreation of their Etihad Stadium home as part of their digital masterplan.
Finally, The city’s NBA team, the Atlanta Hawks are launching NFTS.
As time goes on, we can expect more franchises in sports worldwide to make their entrance into the Metaverse, and soon you may be living a fantastic experience on your favorite teams’ metaverse clubhouse.


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News from The Business Journals
Feb 13, 2013, 11:17 am EST
McDonough, Ga.-based Alpla Inc., a unit of the Austrian global packing giant Alpla Holdings, will spend more than $20 million to open a blow molding plant…
Feb 13, 2013, 7:43 am EST
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Feb 1, 2013, 7:59 am EST
Several Cincinnati-area businesses will receive tax incentives that could lead to new Kentucky jobs.
The Cincinnati Business Courier reports that two…
Jan 31, 2013, 3:02 pm EST
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May 20, 2011, 6:00 am EDT
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Mar 8, 2011, 1:32 pm EST
ALPLA Inc. will provide on-site manufacturing for the Sunny Delight Beverages Co. in Sherman, Texas.
The agreement is part of the $70 million investment…
Feb 25, 2011, 6:00 am EST
L’Oréal USA Inc. in Florence is bringing one of its suppliers in-house to produce bottles for its shampoo and conditioner products.
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May 11, 2010, 3:28 pm EDT
Alpla Inc., a privately held $3 billion manufacturer of plastic packaging, received state incentives for its expansion in St. Peters, Mo.
Apr 13, 2010, 3:49 pm EDT
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Nov 30, 2009, 12:00 am EST
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Jul 8, 2009, 1:44 pm EDT
Austrian-based Alpla Inc. will open a new plastic bottle manufacturing facility in Raeford, Gov. Bev Perdue announced Wednesday.
The $7.2 million facility,…


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Rob Bowers handed Neal McTighe a green grocery bag full of newly ripened tomatoes. McTighe put his face inside the bag and inhaled.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh.
That evening earlier this month, McTighe used those tomatoes to make sauce, a test batch for a new marinara that will join the three other varieties of his Nello’s tomato sauce brand.
His latest sauce, scheduled to hit shelves exclusively at Whole Foods in August, is made from Bellstar tomatoes, garlic and basil, ingredients all grown by Bowers and his wife, Cheri Whitted Bowers, at their Whitted Bowers Farm in Orange County, the only biodynamic-certified grower in the Southeast.
Since McTighe started making marinara sauces for his North Raleigh tomato sauce company Nello’s Sauce in 2010, he envisioned partnering with a farm. He fulfilled that goal when he began collaborating with Whitted Bowers Farm in Cedar Grove in mid-2014.
Biodynamic farming, a type of organic farming that requires an extra certification, is gaining popularity among retailers like Whole Foods Market, said Elizabeth Candelario, co-director of Demeter Association, a nonprofit that aims to help farmers adhere to biodynamic practices. But because of biodynamic’s tough standards, it’s difficult for farms to grow products on a large scale.
McTighe saw a need in the marketplace for biodynamic grown food and knew a partnership with Whitted Bowers Farm would mean he could fill it.
“It’s so cutting edge within the sustainable food movement,” he said. “It gave us an opportunity that the big food companies don’t have.”
Although Nello’s Sauce is now sold in about 350 stores – including Harris Teeter and Publix – it was Whole Foods, the national grocery store chain that specializes in organic foods, that loaned McTighe $30,000 to invest in his partnership with Whitted Bowers Farm to produce the biodynamic marinara sauce.
In the partnership’s first year, McTighe will use about 10,000 pounds of tomatoes, stretched out over four harvests and 6,000 plants. After they’re picked, the tomatoes will be ground into a smooth puree for the sauce.
Biodynamic farms limited
Biodynamic farms, like organic farms, focus on sustainability. The goal, Bowers said, is to use as few synthetic products as possible. But unlike organic farms, biodynamic farms must be completely self-sustaining.
According to the Biodynamic Association’s website, “Biodynamic farmers strive to create a diversified, balanced farm ecosystem that generates health and fertility as much as possible from within the farm itself.”
The concept of biodynamic agriculture was developed by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the early 1920s. It gained popularity with wineries in Europe, Candelario said.
A long list of requirements must be met to be certified by Demeter. High standards make for few certified farms. There are only about 200 in the U.S.; about half are crop farms and a third are wineries, Candelario said.
Growers like Whitted Bowers Farm are especially scarce in the Southeast, and the next-closest certified biodynamic farm to the Triangle is near Philadelphia.
McTighe initially contacted Bowers on Twitter, and soon the pair began negotiating. Struck by McTighe’s passion for his product, Bowers agreed to grow the produce for McTighe’s marinara.
Bowers splits agriculture into three types: conventional, organic and biodynamic. Organic farmers, unlike conventional farmers, recognize that soil is a limited resource so they try to maintain it, Bowers said. The way he sees it, biodynamic growers go the extra mile.
“What we’re trying to do in biodynamics is make the soil better so we can keep on growing the best quality food,” he said.
Biodynamic farms are limited in what they can produce. The process requires an incredible amount of planning, Bowers said. McTighe said he was lucky to find a biodynamic farm able to produce the volume of tomatoes he needs to market the new sauce.
Some of the primary beliefs in biodynamic farming often raise eyebrows, Bowers said. Biodynamic farmers believe the moon affects the growing cycle of plants.
Another common practice is burying a cow horn stuffed with manure in the fall, according to a study from Washington State University. The horn is uncovered in the spring, then the manure is processed into a rich compost and used in low doses.
Bowers has seen the results of practicing biodynamic farming. He recalled a day at the Carrboro Farmers Market, where a lot of Whitted Bowers Farm’s produce is sold, when a girl ate one of his carrots, and said, “Mommy, I feel like I’m eating stars.”
“There’s something about the vitality of the food that’s just different,” Bowers said.
There are about 24 biodynamic-certified products at Whole Foods, said the grocer’s Executive Global Grocery Coordinator Errol Schweizer. The products range from frozen dinners to teas.
Selling biodynamic products can be tricky, Candelario said, because buyers are not yet familiar with the benefits of the technique. But Schweizer said customer response to biodynamic-certified products has been amazing. Whole Foods is “deeply committed” to organic foods, he said; biodynamic products take the grocer to the next level.
Candelario thinks McTighe’s new product will be successful due to the existing popularity of Nello’s.
“The beautiful thing about Nello’s is that he has a strong consumer base that really believes in his brand,” Candelario said.
Birth of Nello’s
McTighe studied in Italy and earned his Ph.D. in Italian language from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2007. Wanting to share his love for the country and its culture, McTighe began writing a blog called “Nello’s Italy.” He had hoped to make travel videos and books about Italy.
The idea of selling an authentic Italian marinara sauce came to McTighe as he was lying in bed in his apartment in the spring of 2010. McTighe and his wife, Heather, wrote their first recipe for Nello’s marinara sauce in July of 2010 after attending Carrboro Farmers Market Tomato Day.
By January 2011, McTighe had set up an online store to sell the sauce. At first, only family and friends bought it. Selling a pasta sauce online proved to be difficult, and soon after McTighe turned to retailers. He kept his first invoice — $183.60 for jars of his 14-ounce marinara — from the Weaver Street Market.
In early summer of 2011, McTighe took a jar of sauce to Whole Foods in Chapel Hill and urged a customer service representative to try it. She did, and McTighe’s relationship with Whole Foods quickly expanded. The following August, Nello’s Sauce appeared on Whole Foods’ shelves in the Triangle.
Now the retailer is sponsoring the biodynamic sauce through its Local Producer Loan Program, which has lent about $15.7 million total to more than 200 primarily small, local suppliers, including the $30,000 it loaned to Nello’s.
This growing season, frequent thunderstorms have been hard on Whitted Bowers Farm’s tomatoes. Bowers and McTighe expect to yield about half what they originally hoped for. While disappointed, McTighe said he expected challenges when he decided to pursue a biodynamically grown sauce.
The sauce will be limited release, appearing in Whole Foods stores nationwide for about two months. But if the new recipe sells well, McTighe said he and Bowers will double or even triple their production of the biodynamic product.
“This is probably the single most exciting thing this business has ever done,” McTighe said. “In the history of food, I think it’s very significant.”


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Let’s discuss what Amazon Sidewalk is, how it works and what’s happened in the last year since it launched.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing exponentially. Spanning a $212 billion market, the IoT is predicted to see an increase in the number of connected devices to 38.6 billion by 2025, according to Statista. As these devices become more prevalent, our networks will have to change and evolve to support them.
Smart technologies have made our lives more convenient in many ways. Tile helps us find our lost keys, Alexa makes our homes smarter and Ring cameras monitor our homes and keep us safe. One year ago, the tech giant Amazon launched a program called Sidewalk, which is a shared network aimed at helping connected devices work better outside of the home. Amazon Sidewalk wasn’t without its criticisms when it began rolling out to Echo and Ring devices in the U.S. last year, but there hasn’t been much news about the shared network since then.
What happened to the shared network, and what does its future look like?
What is Amazon Sidewalk?
Amazon describes Sidewalk as “a shared network that helps devices like Amazon Echo devices, Ring Security Cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers work better at home and beyond the front door.” Users can share a small portion of their internet bandwidth to create a shared network that supports other Amazon Sidewalk devices (called Sidewalk Bridges). With Sidewalk, compatible devices — including speakers, light bulbs, door locks and sensors — will be able to anonymously connect to other Sidewalk devices to borrow internet connectivity, which should enable some intriguing features down the road.
These communitywide networks can have many benefits, according to Amazon. They cite examples like a Tile tracker attached to a lost pet’s collar being tracked across the network to bring them home or hopping on your neighbor’s network to have seamless access to your Ring security cameras when your internet connection goes down. Other benefits include helping devices that have wireless-range issues remain connected to the internet and enabling faster and less complex setup of new devices.
How Does Amazon Sidewalk Work?
Using Bluetooth, the 900 MHz spectrum and other frequencies, customers can share a small part of their bandwidth to the low-bandwidth network so that other Sidewalk-compatible devices in range can connect to the internet. Consequently, every device that is connected to the network makes it stronger. Amazon Sidewalk settings state the speed of an Amazon Sidewalk device will be limited to 80 kbps, which is a small portion of the average internet user’s bandwidth.
Consider a Tile tracker on your child’s backpack as an example of how the innovative network technology works. With Amazon Sidewalk, in theory, you could “follow” your kiddo as they walk to school, with the tracking device seamlessly connecting to and disconnecting from the various Sidewalk devices in your neighborhood, town or city along the route.
Today, Sidewalk Bridges, devices that provide connections to the shared network, include the following comprehensive list of devices:
Mobile networks require a lot of power, and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi often don’t have enough range to connect to devices outside of the home. This is where services like Amazon Sidewalk come into play. By providing a communitywide network connection, Amazon can continue to make every aspect of our lives smarter and more convenient. Rather than just smart homes, Amazon Sidewalk creates smart neighborhoods.
Where Did Sidewalk Go?
Although there was a fair amount of news coverage about Sidewalk when it was launched last year, news about the product has been fairly scarce since. However, this does not mean that Sidewalk was a failure or that it has gone away. In fact, many people might have a Sidewalk Bridge that’s already connected without even knowing it. Amazon Sidewalk settings are such that users must proactively opt out, meaning that Sidewalk devices like Ring security cameras and Tile trackers are automatically connected. Despite the potential for security and privacy concerns, there have been no formal complaints about the shared network.
At Cardinal Peak, we believe the greatest threat to Sidewalk is the potential privacy and bandwidth concerns. While these concerns are fairly unfounded given the very low data use and the layers of encryption that protect from gateways accessing the contents of the packets, the growth in the number of devices using Sidewalk will help to increase the reliability of connected home devices, thereby driving continued uptake of Sidewalk devices.
If Amazon can stay on top of privacy concerns, Sidewalk is on a trajectory to become ubiquitous because it meets the growing need for greater and more reliable coverage for connected devices.
The Future of Amazon Sidewalk and Other Shared Networks
Shared networks like Amazon Sidewalk could be the way of the future. As our broadband networks become more advanced and our connections more secure, an increasing amount of technological innovation will become possible. This presents a new opportunity for innovators and product development companies to create technologies that leverage Amazon Sidewalk as well as other shared networks to deliver connected convenience.
Amazon offers the Sidewalk Developer Service, which is a suite of silicon chipsets, purchasable development boards, device software development kits (SDKs), device provisioning tools, technical documentation and a cloud integration, to help manufacturers launch Amazon Sidewalk devices.
It’s expected that Amazon will open up the Sidewalk network to more developers and vendors in 2023. With that and the initial privacy concerns addressed, we will likely see a lot more Sidewalk-based devices in the near future, including expansion beyond residential and consumer to industrial and commercial applications.
If you’re looking to bring a new device to the Amazon Sidewalk network, reach out to us! We already have extensive Amazon Alexa, Amazon Web Services and embedded engineering experience, making us a perfect fit for your Amazon Sidewalk device development project.
Check out our related blog posts on trying out Amazon Sidewalk dev kits and speaking on a panel about Sidewalk value propositions and more.


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The new Lilo and Stitch Tsum Tsum series will be released in the US on July 7. The series will include Lilo,
Baby Duck, Angel, Scrump and Jumba. The Stitch in the photo was previously released at Disney Stores and Disneystore.com. While the series is missing 4 of the Tsum Tsums that will be released in Japan on June 26, don’t rule out a bag set just yet. Also, note the 2 per person limit that has been added to the monthly Tsum Tsum Tuesdays at Disney Stores and Disneystore.com. In case you missed yesterday’s preview, you can check to out by clicking here.


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Europe's mobile industry is being hamstrung by a fractured and inefficient mix of over-regulated markets, with American consumers set to benefit from twice as fast mobile broadband by 2017.
A report by the trade body GSMA said the European market is over-regulated, backing claims by many telecom CEOs. It recommended that a single market for mobile across the continent should be implemented, imposing a single European regulator, stripping out restrictions on planning and network sharing and paying subsidies for increasing rural coverage. Europe should be more prepared to allow telecom companies to merge, arguing market forces should determine the best number of competitors. The GSMA said Europe needs to address a looming spectrum shortfall and speed up the allocation of the 700MHz band for future mobile data services.
If none of these recommendations are taken forward, the trade body argued that Europe will continue to lag behind the United States, despite early innovations in the mobile market being pioneered this side of the Atlantic. The report found US consumers are using nearly twice as much data as Europeans. By the end of this year, nearly a fifth of US consumers will be on a 4G network, compared to fewer than one in 50 in Europe.
Anne Bouverot, director general of GSMA, said: 'Europe was the early leader in mobile, with a wide range of companies pioneering the innovation that now benefits more than 3.2 billion men and women around the world. However, this report confirms the very sobering reality that Europe has lost its edge in mobile and is significantly underperforming other advanced economies, including the United States.
'While there are many factors that have contributed to Europe’s current position, it is clear that enlightened policy reforms could bring improvement, creating substantial benefits for EU consumers and driving economic growth.'
Author: Graeme Neill


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CES' evolving status as a showcase for breakthroughs beyond consumer electronics was highlighted when P&G Ventures announced the winner of its annual Innovation Challenge: Lady Patch, a drug-free product that treats female bladder leaks and frequent urge to urinate.
As winner, Lady Patch will receive $10,000 and a potential P&G partnership for further development of its product.
Lady Patch “offered an innovative solution to a problem that affects so many,” explained Guy Persaud, president of new business for P&G, in announcing the winner during a virtual presentation.
Incontinence affects one in every three women around the world, P&G said. Of the 25 million adult Americans suffering from some form of urinary incontinence, 75%-80% of those are women, according to the National Association for Continence.
Lady Patch says its product, a small patch that attaches to the clitoris, "causes the bladder to relax while strengthening pelvic muscles at the same time.”
The patch (taglines include “We believe in life beyond the bathroom” and “stay pee-free in 1-2-3”) is currently selling for $19.99 through Amazon. That price includes two packs of 18 patches each, one labeled “regular” and one “active.”
Three other finalists, each of which will receive $5,000, were another feminine hygiene line, Kushae Naturals, which boasts “non-toxic feminine care products for every vulva”; Cybele Microbiome, a microbiome-based skincare developer; and Ryp Labs, a food and crop protection company.
P&G Ventures, the company’s early-stage startup studio, had specifically requested fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) entrants that improve consumers' lives in the areas of nontoxic home and garden, men's and women's active aging, healthy skin, food preservation/waste reduction, daily wellness, go-anywhere cleaning, parental assistance, and “other new frontiers.”
The result, the studio said, was a record number of submissions, along with the highest-ever percentage of female founders (60%, including the winner and the first two finalists listed above), and Black and Latin founders (30%).
The first five years of the Innovation Challenge, winners were: Sana Health, a wearable device that uses audio and visual stimulation to relieve chronic pain and reduce anxiety levels; SAVRpack, a packaging technology to keep food from going soggy; Healium, a mental fitness channel that uses augmented and virtual reality apps for the self-management of stress and anxiety; Morari Medical, a wearable device to prevent premature ejaculation; and Nanospun Technologies, which produces disruptive, live-active biological tissues for skincare, medical, and industrial applications.


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Google to test out grocery delivery
It used to be that you went to Google when you needed a search engine, and to Amazon.com to buy books. Obviously both of these mega-corporations have vastly spread their wings to provide products and services in a number of different markets. Now, Google and Amazon want to deliver fresh food, like groceries, and hot, ready-made restaurant meals directly to your door.
Later this year, Google plans to test out its new grocery delivery service in San Francisco and one other yet to be announced US city. Google Express already delivered general merchandise, including non-perishable food items, from its warehouses. Now Google will work with Whole Foods and Costco to deliver groceries, including fresh produce, the same day that a customer places an order.
According to general manager of Google Express, Brian Elliot, “it’s our incentive, as well as the merchant’s incentive, for us to help customers get the full store delivered to them.”
Google playing catch up
Google is playing catch up to Amazon, whose service, Amazon Fresh, began delivering groceries in the Seattle area in 2007. In the past two years, they’ve expanded the same-day delivery service to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia.
Amazon has taken it one step further. In a recent press release, Amazon announced that they will also begin delivering hot foods from select restaurants in the Seattle metropolitan area. Customers can order food from a handful of restaurants and get them delivered by Amazon via a mobile app. To generate interest in the service, Amazon is temporarily offering free delivery.
The entrance of these ecommerce giants into the delivery service market must have some small delivery businesses, such as Instacart, concerned about the competition. A recent report found that Amazon offered the lowest cost delivery service in New York.
What do you think? Are Google and Amazon offering a great customer convenience, or are they overstepping their territory by competing with smaller delivery companies? Are they really just the Walmart of the web, snuffing out smaller brands, or are they innovating like no young brand can?


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The Consumerist reports, when making a carbonated beverage at home you might expect there to be a little bit of pressure during the process, but probably not enough to make a bottle explode. Yet that’s what tens of thousands of recently recalled SodaStream bottles could do.
SodaStream announced Tuesday that it would recall 51,000 one-liter, blue-tinted, plastic carbonating bottles in the U.S. — as well as 7,600 in Canada — that could contain an unspecified manufacturing defect.
According to a notice posted with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the bottles can burst under pressure, posing an injury hazard to users or bystanders. So far, the company says it is unaware of any injuries related to the issue.
Bursting under pressure is obviously a problem, as the entire purpose of having a SodaStream system is to create carbonated beverages at home. To do this, the SodaStream device carbonates water by adding carbon dioxide from a pressurized cylinder, thus creating soda that users can add flavor to.
The bottles have a blue cap and a blue bottom base, and the words “SodaStream” and “Dishwasher safe” printed on the side.
Affected products can be identified by the expiration date of “4/2020” located near the warning label.
The bottles were sold for about $15 at Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Walmart, Amazon, SodaStream online, and other retailers from Feb. 2016 through Jan. 2017.
SodaStream urges consumers to immediately stop using the carbonating bottles and contact the company for a full refund.


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Statement from Steve Pasierb on Senator Schumer Palcohol Ban
The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, a national nonprofit dedicated to reducing substance abuse among adolescents, commends U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York for introducing a measure to ban the production, sale and possession of powdered alcohol.
This month, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved labels for powered alcohol, called “Palcohol.” Senator Schumer has described this as the “Kool-Aid of teen binge drinking.”
There are public safety and public health risks associated with powdered alcohol, particularly for teens. It provides an avenue for abuse as it’s easy to hide and transport, making it harder for parents to detect. There are also concerns that this product could be snorted or mixed with other drugs. Furthermore, the company that makes Palcohol plans to sell fruity flavors such as “cosmopolitan” and “margarita,” appealing to young drinkers.
We hope that there will be a careful review of these products that takes into consideration the harmful effects and the potential for increasing underage drinking.
It’s important for parents to remember that any and all substances, including powdered alcohol, are damaging to the still-developing teen brain.


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Pablo Picasso’s painting Jeune Fille Endormie, showing Marie-Therese snoozing on her folded arms, is estimated to fetch £9 million ($15 million) to £12 million ($20 million) at Christie’s International. An anonymous American donor has given a Picasso canvas to the University of Sydney on the condition the school use proceeds from the painting’s sale to fund scientific research.
Jeune fille endormie, painted in 1935, shows Marie-Therese Walter asleep on her arms. It was bought by Walter P Chrysler, founder of the motor company, and was shown at a Picasso retrospective at MoMa in 1939 and an exhibition of works from the Chrysler collection in 1941. It has changed hands just once since and not been seen in public. Giovanna Bertazzoni, head of impressionist and modern art at Christie’s London, called it an absolute jewel of a painting by one of the great artistic geniuses of western art.
Its auction follows the record-breaking sale of another 1930s Picasso’s portrait of Walter last year. Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) became the most expensive painting sold at auction when it was bought in New York for $106 million, and can now be seen at Tate Modern, to which it was loaned by its anonymous owner. Another in Picasso’s series of Walter portraits, La Lecture (1932), was sold in London earlier this year for £25.2 million, more than double the low estimate of £12 million.


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BP Solar, which has roots going back decades to the early days of solar panel manufacturing, can’t compete in a difficult solar panel market, so it’s closing its doors, according to reports. It joins a number of other solar manufacturers, including famously the U.S. government-backed Solyndra, that have failed during difficult times for the solar industry.
According to the Financial Times,
“The continuing global economic challenges have significantly impacted the solar industry, making it difficult to sustain long-term returns for the company,” wrote Mike Petrucci, chief executive of BP Solar, in an internal email to staff last week.
“Over the last six months we have realised that we simply can’t make any money from solar,” a spokesman confirmed.
No doubt a number of factors contributed to its demise. Chinese manufacturers have driven down the cost of making solar panels, making it difficult for established companies to compete. (See my new feature, “The Chinese Solar Machine”). The growth of Chinese manufacturing capacity has contributed to an oversupply of panels caused prices to collapse.
But just as important is BP’s failure to capitalize on its own innovations. One of its own researchers, Nathan Stoddard, invented a new way to make silicon wafers for solar cells that could dramatically cut the cost of high efficiency silicon solar panels. But the company dragged its heals and never commercialized the technology. Manufacturers in China, developed their own versions of the advance and beat the company to it. (See: “How BP Blew Its Chance to Spearhead a Solar Innovation.”)
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The plans include symmetrical multiplayer games, involving one player on the Morpheus and another interacting via a game controller, looking at the TV. Other options include companion apps on smartphone/tablet.
“For example, we have a version of The Deep where someone has a radar view on their screen and they can speak to the diver,” says Ranyard. “We did another prototype where we put [SCE president] Shuhei Yoshida in a haunted house and you could control the scares on a tablet. We’re even looking at turn-based experiences. We just want to get other people involved, even if you only have one headset.”
One other cool feature that Sony is planning is the ability to show on the TV whatever the Morpheus player can see, so that everyone in the room can participate in some way.
“There’s this kind of sci-fi view of VR being about isolation, but we want to turn that on its head,” says Ranyard. “We’ve made a lot of local multiplayer games – SingStar, EyeToy, etc – and we’re actively using some of the things we’ve learned from them.”
“I’ve seen everyone from high-ranking industry executives to non-gamers playing with the Morpheus headset, and one thing I’ve learned is that, if there’s a visual icon for our coming age, it could well be someone wearing a VR headset, reacting to something the rest of us can’t see.”


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The Future of the Consumer-Driven Economy: a Preview
The consumer-driven economy will survive the current recession. But it will look different afterward.
How different? For starters, it'll likely be smaller. Home ownership will be less widespread; anxieties about paying for health care, retirement and college will run high; and purchase financing will change.
Those are the expectations of Harvard University history professor Lizabeth Cohen, who explored the rise of the consumer-driven economy in her 2003 book "A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America." "Consumers' Republic" is the name she gives to the economy, culture and politics that put the consumer at the center of the economy.
"I think we got to the crisis as an apex of the Consumers' Republic," Ms. Cohen said in an interview. "That private consumption had risen to 70% of GDP, that we had home ownership that had expanded so extensively, that all these people were maxed out on credit cards -- all of that was the nightmare fulfillment of the promises of the Consumer Republic. Now that it's crashed, it will be interesting to see how it's reconstructed."
"Consumers' Republic" traces the origins of the consumption-driven economy back to the Great Depression, when policymakers identified the consumer as the agent for expanding the economy and broadening prosperity. After World War II, government policies (the G.I. Bill being the most famous) and private-sector initiatives made that happen. Consumers were seen as the engine of growth; in the book Ms. Cohen quotes President Dwight Eisenhower touting consumer spending as critical to getting the country out of a recession.
The Consumers' Republic was a constantly evolving thing, influencing and shaping everything from the civil-rights and feminist movements to the rise of suburbanization to the development of market segmentation.
The current recession, financial crisis and tightening of credit likely will force a new evolution. "It may be less than it was, and it may be more realistic than it was," Ms. Cohen said. "We were in a situation where we would put up a new mall, and one that was open for 15 years would close. There are certainly going to be adjustments."
What adjustments might we see? While saying she's a historian and not a predictor, Ms. Cohen sees potential for:
The first challenge is getting off the blocks. The old answer -- get consumers spending -- is problematic in light of the bursting of the housing bubble, defaults and wallets already being stretched. Moreover, people are saving more after watching their retirement plans get whacked. And even people who have jobs are nervous. Indeed, Ms. Cohen said she sees a role for government ?? in health-care reform -- to make people feel more confident.
"The economy will start growing again if people feel more secure," Cohen said.
In any event, Ms. Cohen said she is confident that savvy marketers will continue to find ways to sell in this environment.
Many marketers are stressing value messages common to the 1930s, Ms. Cohen pointed to World War II as another precedent. The reason: It was a period of low consumer spending and pent-up demand for goods that were either unavailable or out of reach (obviously for very different reasons; it was difficult to buy a car because Detroit was churning out Sherman tanks and bombers).
Marketers "used advertising in a long-term way to try to build people's appetite, to sustain their appetite for" appliances and other goods, she said, "promising when the war ends there will be homes, there will be appliances. They were really trying to keep delayed gratification fed."
Her book includes a General Electric ad in which a guy in uniform, sitting with his gal on a park bench, drags a stick through the sand to draw a house. "It's a promise!" reads the cursive headline.
It remains to be seen what the new Consumers' Republic will look like. But Ms. Cohen said she has little doubt it's here to stay. "I don't know what the alternative is to a consumer-based economy."
~ ~ ~
James Arndorfer, a former Ad Age reporter, now works for MillerCoors.


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Yes, GrubHub, the seemingly-innocent food app you may have used to order takeout or delivery from local restaurants — one of the first mainstream apps of its kind to bring ordering takeout online and away from the phone. It seemed convenient and benign enough at first. Then it acquired a handful of related companies, including Seamless, AllMenus and MenuPages, essentially becoming a duopoly with Yelp. Now, in its rapacious quest for profit, GrubHub has allegedly been making money off restaurants by controlling their internet presence without them knowing.
The report, published in New Food Economy, documents the story of Shivane M., who owns two small restaurants in Brooklyn and Queens with her husband. Shivane was gearing up to ditch GrubHub after realizing the company’s commission fees had been increasing over the years, hurting her restaurants' bottom line. One month, she gave an $8,000 cut to the company. In an attempt to ditch GrubHub, she considered increasing her restaurant's web presence to offer online orders from their own website. But according to the report, Shivane was shocked to find that GrubHub already owned a domain that matched her restaurant’s name. Shivane makes clear she never “gave them permission to do that.”
Shivane is not alone. GrubHub has actually registered more than 23,000 web domains (full list here). Additionally, according to the report by the New Food Economy, GrubHub has allegedly set up generic, templated pages that look like restaurant websites, but only link to GrubHub, and provide phone numbers that GrubHub controls. This tactic enables GrubHub to charge the restaurant a commission fee, making sure that GrubHub is always the middleman, even when the restaurant is unaware.
GrubHub has denied these claims since the story was published, saying its contract agreements with businesses allow the company to engage in marketing tactics on their behalf. “The allegations are untrue,” Chief Executive Matt Maloney wrote in an email to employees, obtained by the Los Angeles Times. “And those spreading false narratives are being reckless.”
The Los Angeles Times obtained a contract that supported Maloney’s disputes. The terms of service signed by restaurant owners says GrubHub “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.”
There are two sides to every story, but the bottom line is this type of issue has become synonymous with the gig economy and big tech companies. You saw this with journalism: tech companies, mostly Twitter, Facebook and Google, came to control the majority of the distribution of online news; once they got to that point, those companies came to dictate to the news sites (off whom they profit) the rules of engagement in order to keep news sites' ad revenue coming. Just as the media industry has been decimated by tech's oligopolies, GrubHub seems intent on doing the same to the restaurant industry. And because corporations can afford lawyers who can foresee how to squirrel away contractual language like the aforementioned, the power imbalance is embodied in the fine print.
As Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, explained to the Los Angeles Times, “the terms of service have become a way for these large companies to establish and justify an exploitative relationship. They’re typically something that is take it or leave it. If you don’t take it, you’re locked out of half the market.”
One might also recall the saga of Uber and Lyft, a duopoly that has become a gatekeeper for rideshare drivers' (often terrible) wages. Said drivers are largely helpless in the face of these megaliths (though that doesn't mean some haven't attempted to band together to try to make a better wage).
It might be too late for small restaurants to regain their internet presence, and do their own marketing to reach more customers — unless lawmakers take some action. For now, if you feel uncomfortable with letting a middleman like GrubHub take a cut off every takeout or delivery order, you can always just order over the phone. (Just make sure it's not one of the "fake" forwarding numbers that GrubHub secretly controls.)


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The Financial Conduct Authority has urged consumers to do their research and assess the risks when dealing with cryptocurrencies.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a consumer warning about the risks of investing in cryptocurrency today. But it wasn’t scaremongering, instead, it was an acknowledgment of the risks that do exist in the industry.
In its warning, the FCA listed five main risks and concerns associated with “high-return investments based on cryptoassets,” including consumer protection, price volatility, product complexity, charges and fees, and marketing materials.
Ok, so these are the bullet points from the FCA announcement this morning. I don’t see anything groundbreaking here. What am I missing?? pic.twitter.com/Bro3k3egIl
— Mati Greenspan (tweets ≠ financial advice) (@MatiGreenspan) January 11, 2021
Firstly, the FCA reminded the general public that some digital assets—including the ones promising high returns—may not be regulated beyond anti-money laundering requirements. This implies that consumer safety is not guaranteed—like it’s often the case in the world of crypto.
“Significant price volatility in cryptoassets, combined with the inherent difficulties of valuing cryptoassets reliably, places consumers at a high risk of losses,” the regulator continued.
With Bitcoin losing nearly 20% of its price today, it’s hard to argue.
The FCA pointed out that there is a high amount of risk involved with cryptocurrency—which is well known due to the number of scams, hacks, mistakes and experimental technology involved in the industry.
We are, that’s why we own cryptocurrency. https://t.co/AxTUq10ZE4
— Emptybeerbottle (@Fullbeerbottle) January 11, 2021
“Investing in cryptoassets, or investments and lending linked to them, generally involves taking very high risks with investors’ money. If consumers invest in these types of product, they should be prepared to lose all their money,” said the regulator’s warning.
The FCA noted that digital assets are oftentimes complex technical products and it can be hard for consumers to figure out all their underlying intricacies. There is also no guarantee that any given crypto can be converted—at least easily—back into cash since it depends on their supply and demand, the regulator added.
Finally, various charges and fees may be not evident at first glance while marketing materials that accompany some digital assets could be over-embellishing.
“Consumers should be aware of the risks and fully consider whether investing in high-return investments based on cryptoassets is appropriate for them. They should check and carefully consider the cryptoasset business involved,” the FCA concluded.
In summary, do your research, consider the risks, and understand that the technology is experimental. And don’t mortgage your house to buy at the next all-time high.


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Dunkin’ Donuts accidentally trolled itself, and Patriots fans, when a shipping mistake lead to New England customers receiving their iced beverages in Philadelphia Eagles World Champion cups
According to The Sun Chronicle, Dunkin’ Donuts accidently sent the Eagles cups to stores in Massachusetts instead of Patriots cups. The company even the following statement to The Sun Chronicle:
Massachusetts-based radio station Fun 107 also reported customers were being given Eagles cup in a Facebook post.
“We are getting reports that Dunkin’ Donuts is serving iced beverages in Philadelphia Eagles World Champion Cups right here in Patriots Nation,” the post read.


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Jeep India has assimilated hands with Laqshya Media Group to emanate India’s largest outside media designation for a Compass SUV on a Mumbai-Pune Expressway. The billboard is around 25,000 block feet and homogeneous to thirty billboards. To formulate, it compulsory 70 learned craftsmen, 80,000 kgs of steel and 45 days to finish a project. The designation is 253 feet far-reaching and 100 feet tall. The Jeep trademark itself is 164.6 feet prolonged and 65.8 feet tall. For those asking, Mumbai-Pune Expressway is one of a busiest inhabitant highways of India that connects dual vital cities, Mumbai and Pune.
Checkout a recently launched Jeep Compass Bedrock Limited Edition in India!
Mr. Atul Shrivastava, CEO, Laqshya Media Group pronounced that, “Laqshya media organisation have always given significance to a customers’ needs and understands a requirement in-depth. We chose India’s largest outside designation site to emanate a landmark for a Jeep Brand to showcase a brand’s sign of go anywhere and do anything. This was a severe charge and a efforts of a group were on a grander scale than ordinary. This is a pleasing instance of how a teams opposite several functions come together to emanate something as huge as this. We are intensely unapproachable to have grown a truly incomparable than life site for Jeep. The site stands out for all a efforts we have put into this. We are intensely unapproachable of a debate and a hum continues stronger day by day.”
Mr. Rahul Pansare, Head of Marketing PR, FCA India Automobiles, pronounced that, “When it comes to a code Jeep, zero is typical and so wanted to do something that has never been done. We partnered with Laqshya Media Group as they are a leaders in outside promotion to emanate an designation that stands for passion and adventure. We are really happy with this partnership as they helped us in formulating a landmark site on one of India’s busiest highways.” Advertising output in a outside media market, such as billboards and movement advertising, is set to soar this year, clocking 15 percent expansion year on year. Since it can't be skipped by consumers or blocked in outside environments, a out-of-home (OOH) middle has remained a core channel to strech mass civic audiences.