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Many people who spend a significant amount of time on the phone at work use headphones or a headset so they can go hands-free during calls and type as they talk.
While they have yet to enter the mainstream, there are also devices that fit over the mouth and allow phone talkers to muffle their voices. The idea is to let you discuss sensitive matters when there are people within earshot, preventing them from eavesdropping on—or feeling annoyed by overhearing—your phone conversation.
One of the newest voice-dampening devices is Bloxvox, which is developed by a Milwaukee-based startup of the same name. Bloxvox is seeking to rack up $25,000 in pre-orders of its voice privacy tool as part of a Kickstarter campaign launched on Tuesday.
Greg Umhoefer, the inventor of Bloxvox, says he believes the device has the potential to turn into an everyday consumer product. He says the device is practical for workers in offices with open floor plans and people who take calls while communing by train or bus.
Bloxvox has at least one competitor, Umhoefer says. Ukraine-based Hushme, which markets its device as “the world’s first voice mask for smartphones,” launched its own crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in May 2017. It’s raised more than $71,000 so far, according to the campaign website.
“It’s not a brand new idea to speak and have others not hear you,” Umhoefer says. But he says most of the other rival devices “aren’t really going after mainstream office folks or commuters.”
Bloxvox is made of rigid plastic and thermoplastic elastomer, which is the soft, rubber-like material on the part of the device that touches the user’s face, Umhoefer says. The product is shaped like a cup and doesn’t contain any electronic components, he says. Bloxvox is instead designed to be used in conjunction with microphone-equipped headphones, and has a slit along the side where the user can insert the mic. There’s also a small hole on the convex end of the device, with an attached tube that extends toward the user’s mouth and nose, to allow breathing.
If Bloxvox’s Kickstarter campaign turns out to be successful, Umhoefer says the next step will likely be to manufacture the device in large quantities. He says he made the initial product prototypes using his own 3D printers, but that large-scale production of Bloxvox will require working with an established injection molding company. Umhoefer says he’s currently in discussions with several such businesses.
Bloxvox plans to include a head strap with each device it ships so customers can go hands-free, Umhoefer says. However, headphones must be supplied by the user.
Bloxvox is not compatible with some wireless headphone models, such as Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) AirPods, Umhoefer says. Bloxvox may add Bluetooth technology and a built-in microphone to future versions of its device—or even add wired or wireless headphones, which would make the product a closed system.
A user who wants to order a single Bloxvox device must pledge $50. As one orders more devices, the per-unit cost comes down; for example, you can pre-order 10 units for $400, or 100 of the devices for $3,000. Pre-order customers will only get their devices (and have their credit cards charged) if Bloxvox eclipses its $25,000 goal, Umhoefer says. Competing devices tend to start at around $130, and he claims they’re more bulky and weigh more than Bloxvox.
“I think it’s a really cool solution to a problem,” he says of the product, which he says went through about 75 different prototypes in the past nine months. “But I want to see that confirmation from the market in order to go forward with production” following the crowdfunding campaign, he says.
Umhoefer worked in finance and helped launch a fintech startup before deciding to test the waters as a solo entrepreneur. He says if Bloxvox falls short of its $25,000 goal, he’ll likely turn to other sources to raise the money needed to pay for a large production run of the devices.
“It’s fairly likely that this product will be made one way or another,” he says.
Bloxvox doesn’t have any full-time employees. Umhoefer says he’s gotten some free help from friends in areas such as branding and injection molding. Still, he says, “it’s primarily been me” developing the device.
It can be bit jarring when you see someone using Bloxvox or a similar device for the first time, especially when he or she is also wearing the head strap. (Many bloggers have compared Hushme’s device to the mask worn by Bane in the 2012 film “The Dark Knight Rises.”)
The experience of talking into a noise-muffling device can likewise be somewhat unfamiliar, Umhoefer says.
“I think there’s certainly something unnatural about holding [or wearing] something over your mouth,” he says.
But not every new product looks and feels like it belongs after arriving on the scene, argues Umhoefer.
“Think about a normal headset that’s used at a desk,” he says. “If you didn’t know about it already, it actually looks kind of ridiculous. It’s like a headband with a tiny stick that extends out over your mouth. But, over time, it becomes normal. I think there’s there are a lot of weird-looking products that people just become used to.”


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Jan 20, 2016
Ghana is considered one of West Africa’s most stable democracies, and until recently it was a model for economic growth. But since 2012, the economy has taken a turn for the worse, and Ghana is now getting help from the IMF. In this podcast, IMF Mission Chief, Joël Toujas-Bernaté talks about the country’s economic challenges.
Jan 19, 2016
The IMF released an update to its World Economic Outlook published in October 2015. The WEO Update, projects global growth to be slightly lower than last fall’s forecast, at 3.4 percent this year, and 3.6 percent in 2017. IMF Chief economist Maurice Obstfeld, launched the new report at a press conference in London.
Jan 7, 2016
As the world’s metropolises expand to accommodate more people, the earth’s supply of sand is being pushed to the limit. Deceptively abundant, the basic raw material for glass and concrete can’t keep up with demand. In this podcast, Pascal Peduzzi, of the United Nations Environmental Programme, talks about how our overdependence on sand is unsustainable.

domain: news


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Following the announcement of Verzion’s new lineup of DROID smartphones the DROID Turbo 2 and DROID Maxx 2, they figured what better way to get the newest DROID into the hands of their Verizon customers then have them play a fun game of “Droid Seeker”. This is a virtual scavenger hunt where you have 30 seconds to search a city and look for one of 200 hidden Droids. More interesting is that this game is exclusively only for Verizon customers so if you aren’t down with the big red check you might be out of luck. For more official info check below and be ready by lunch time at noon for some Droid Seeker.
How to Play:
· At 12 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, October 28 customers can visit Verizon.tumblr.com to enter their mobile telephone number and sign-in to Twitter.
· Verified Verizon customers will then be put into the queue for a chance to play ‘DROID Seeker’ and will be reminded when it’s their turn.
· Once gamers log in, they will have 30 seconds on the clock to search the virtual city and find one of the hidden DROID Turbo 2 devices.
· If they are one of the lucky 200 to locate the DROID device, and tap on the icon in time, the shatterproof DROID Turbo 2 is theirs!
Verizon’s #WhyNotWednesday program surprises customers with real world experiences, cool apps and new technology, each week. Last week, Verizon customers went ‘Back to the Future’ with free DeLorean rides in New York City and partners such as iHeart Radio and NFL continue to bring epic real-time experiences.
The game is tough, but the phone is tougher. With its shatterproof screen, 48-hour battery life, 21-megapixel camera and two-terabyte expandable memory, the Droid Turbo 2 was designed to overcome some of the biggest challenges for smartphone users.


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The days of DVD video have been numbered for years now as online streaming and instant video downloads have been taking over. Now a new study reveals that getting rid of DVDs altogether would result in massive energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions in the United States. Estimates show that if everyone who currently rents or buys DVDs shifted to streaming in 2011, American households would emit about 2 billion kilograms (about 4,400,000 pounds) less carbon and use about 30 petajoules less energy – about as much energy needed to power 200,000 U.S. homes.
The study, carried out by researchers at Northwestern University and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, shows video streaming can be much better for the environment because it uses less energy and produces less carbon dioxide than the process of renting, and watching a DVD. According to the study, modern devices like laptops and tablets use significantly less energy than older appliances like DVD players. Therefore, streaming directly to your home eliminates the driving and subsequent emissions required to buy or rent a DVD from a store. The researchers found that one hour of video streaming eats up 7.9 megajoules of energy and emits 0.4 kilograms (0.88 pounds) of carbon dioxide, compared to 12 megajoules and 0.71 kilograms (1.5 pounds) for DVDs.
“It’s a modern-day equivalent of the debate about which is more environmentally sound, the disposable or the cloth diaper,” lead author Arman Shehabi of Lawrence Berkley National Library told Phys.org. “Our study suggests that equipment designers and policy makers should focus on improving the efficiency of end-user devices and network transmission energy to curb the energy use from future increases in video streaming. Such efficiency improvements will be particularly important in the near future when society is expected to consume far greater quantities of streaming video content compared to today.”
The market may be making the results of this study into a reality. The Wall Street Journal reports that digital movie sales increased by 47 per cent in 2013, while the sales of DVD discs have been in steady decline since their peak in 2004.


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Apple, which introduced the $ 349 HomePod smart speaker in 2018, has decided not to pursue that line. The manufacturer announced that it will stop producing this model and will not have a direct successor.
The release of software updates and technical support will continue, as will the sale of devices from the store’s stock. However, there will be no new deliveries.
Instead, Apple will focus on developing a line started with the $ 99 HomePod mini, launched last fall. It is better suited to compete with similar products from Google and Amazon.
In other words, the fate of the Apple HomePod is similar to the fate of the Google Home Max, which can still be purchased, but only from old stock, and Google has no plans to release a new model in this category.
Apple finally defeated Samsung in the global smartphone market
Apple overtook Samsung to become the world’s leading smartphone brand amid record sales of iPhone smartphones. The company showed a huge jump in the last quarter of last year, while Huawei‘s position weakened greatly.
Gizchina News of the week
According to Counterpoint Research, shipments of iPhone smartphones increased 22% in the previous quarter. The surge is driven by the release of the iPhone 12 lineup, which supports fifth-generation networks. Also, sales of previous models did not fall, the demand for which is stable after the price decline.
The company has shipped 90 million smartphones and has more than 23% market share. Analysts note that Apple has strengthened its position in the premium segment of smartphones in China. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, two of the top three selling premium smartphones in China are from Apple.
The second place in the quarter belongs to Samsung, which received about 19% of the market. The third place went to Xiaomi, followed by Oppo and Vivo, which took the fourth and fifth places, respectively. Huawei dropped to 6th place.
If we consider the results for the year, then Samsung is in the lead, Apple is second, Huawei is third, followed by Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme. The latter was the fastest growing brand in the past year.
Counterpoint Research’s data is broadly consistent with estimates by another analyst firm, IDC, which we have already published.


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New Insights on the Global Economy
04/10/2014 12:01 am EST
For the week ahead, let’s look at the year ahead using the recent projections from the International Monetary Fund, sort of set a baseline for 2014. What the fund said, the good news, was that the chances of the global economy slipping back into recession had gone down from 6% last October to less than 1%, in fact to .01%, so, basically, the IMF said, “Don’t worry about that.” The baseline that the IMF sent and this is what I’d you to focus on if you’re looking at the market, is for decent growth. They’re basically talking about 3.6% growth for Global GDP. That’s low for Global GDP. Global GDP, since you have all of these fast growing developing economies like China out there, is usually more like 4.5%, 5%, 5.5%, something like that, but what the IMF is saying is that right now, we’re looking at a global economy that is being dominated in terms of growth by the developed economies. It’s the US that’s going to grow at 2.8% or the UK at 2.9% or Europe at 1 point nothing, Japan at 1.4%. These are the big growth engines. These are the places you’re seeing increased growth and in the developing world, what you’re seeing is a slow-down. It’s not that they’re going to gross less than those numbers, but in terms of what they used to do, so China won’t be growing at 9%, it might be growing at 7%, so what you get is a world that’s sort of slanted toward the lower growth rates of the developed economies and what that means is that you can sort of start to set your patterns for 2014. It means that commodities are probably not going to be a good place to be, at least industrial commodities, because China is after all 40% of the world demand for copper, so if China’s economy is not growing, it’s unlikely that copper prices are going to be going up. You can say that for iron, coal, all of those commodities, so a lower baseline, but still growth and that’s what you’ve got to look for as you try to figure out where to put your money in 2014.


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Bersatu today criticised the Kota Bharu City Council for its decision to fine a non-Muslim business owner for wearing "indecent" clothing, calling it both misguided and unlawful as well as liable to creating mistrust among Malaysians.
Sasha Lyna Abdul Latif, the deputy chairman of Bersatu's legal and constitution bureau, said the council's move to penalise the woman for wearing a T-shirt and shorts was void as it exceeded the authority granted under Section 102 of the Local Government Act 1976 to make by-laws.
"Section 102 only permits the council to make by-laws pertaining to 'health, safety and well-being'. No power is granted to regulate clothing or morality," she said.
She added that while shariah enactments could regulate the clothing of Muslims, local authorities had no power to do so.
"Hence, the summons issued to the non-Muslim woman business owner is void and unlawful. The best course for the council would be to cancel the summons and suspend the operation of Section 34(2)(b) (of the Business and Industrial Trade By-Laws 2019) pending review by the state authorities or exco."
In a statement, she added that the standard imposed on Muslim women to cover the "aurat", or parts of the body that must not be revealed according to the Islamic dress code, could not be imposed on non-Muslims.
"The word 'sopan' in Section 34 (2)(b) is vague and open to manifold interpretation," she said.
"It is unfair to subject the woman to a fine when the definition of the offence is unclear."
She also said that whether the woman's clothes were decent or not was a subjective matter.
"To establish that the clothes were 'indecent' would surely require some degree of indecency which is more than just being clad in T-shirt and shorts, such as, for example, partial nudity. This is clearly not the case here."
Calling the fine "unnecessary", she said it could also create mistrust among Malaysians of all races and religions.
"It can also be perceived to be unjust as it appears to be targeting women exclusively," she said.


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Researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have been able to use clay to create bulletproof glass, this is being considered as a major development in materials science. The researchers were able to do this following decades of research and development. They are now capable of creating a bulletproof material that’s transparent and can be molded into just about any shape.
According to a new report Microsoft has teamed up with Black Tusk Studios to create Gears of War remastered for Xbox One. It won’t be a new title rather it’s just going to be a remastered version of the original Gears of War title that’s compatible with the new console from Microsoft. The remastered version will however come with updated visuals and reworked cutscenes if the report is to be believed.


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Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are putting pressure on China to stop artificially propping up its currency.
While the underlying assumption is that a strong yuan will help the economies of those developed nations, those policymakers should be wary of an old Chinese proverb: be careful what you wish for.
While U.S. lawmakers claim that an undervalued Chinese currency has created a trade gap between the two nations, the yuans comparatively low value has actually benefited technology manufacturers, many of which use Chinas high-density manufacturing centers to produce low-cost goods for overseas markets.
But while some tech-sector companies may be squeezed by a stronger yuan, consumers are unlikely to feel a pinch.
By mid-July, the yuan had closed at its highest rate against the U.S. dollar since China ended its fixed dollar exchange rate. The currency, currently at 7.5620 against the dollar, has already risen 9.5 percent since July 2005, and may strengthen to 7.47 by the end of this year.
That slow, yet inexorable, rise will increase the cost of doing business in China, ostensibly curbing exports from the country. According to some experts, the higher currency valuation will also galvanize companies into looking for cheaper manufacturing bases in neighboring nations.
The result: Potential slowdowns in the supply chain, which could translate to higher prices in overseas markets.
“If companies are forced to relocate due to a rising cost of business in China, there could be a modest delay along the supply chain, possibly for up to a year” said Catherine L. Mann, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The delay would be caused by relocating, building or finding new factories, and setting up infrastructure— ports, delivery schedules, a new workforce—to accommodate the new processes.
“The biggest winners in this scenario would be Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, and some African countries, all of which are trying to attract business with lower wage workers,” said Carl Steidtmann, chief economist and director of consumer business at Deloitte Consulting.
But China still has one advantage those other countries dont: infrastructure. Chinas competitors cant support the same critical mass of manufacturing centers, and thus cant deliver goods as quickly. Any cost advantage a company gained by leaving China could be offset by a slower supply chain.
“As with everything, you can have something cheap or good or quickly,” Steidtmann said. “You can only have two.”
Another reason companies may be reticent to leave is that specific areas of China—including Suzhou province in East China and Shenzhen province in South China—are home to key parts of the electronics supply chain. Most of the firms that do business with Western businesses there are Taiwanese.
According to Arthur Arthur Kroeber, managing director and head of research at the consulting firm Dragonomics, based in Hong Kong, those networks cannot be moved piecemeal but need to relocate together, much like they moved from Taiwan to China from 1995 through 2000.
“So until there is overwhelming pressure to move they are likely to stay put,” Kroeber said. “Furthermore, for linguistic, cultural and other reasons, I suspect Taiwanese businessmen will try to figure out ways of staying in China rather than moving to less familiar places like Vietnam.”
A flight from China would also buck a prevailing trend that sees increasing amounts of the electronics supply chain moving into the country, Kroeber said.
“The net tech trade balance of foreign invested enterprises went from a negligible $600 million in 2002 to $34 billion in 2005,” he said. “This is a very powerful trend, supported by the advantages China offers in terms of economies of scale and density of supply networks, and I find it hard to believe that this trend could be overwhelmed by a very modest currency appreciation.”
For now those modest increases are contributing only slightly to the cost of business in China. Consumers in the United States are unlikely to see any changes in retail prices.
“No matter what the [yuans] rise every technology companys number one objective is to maintain its market position in terms of final price to the consumer inside the U.S.,” said the Peterson Institutes Mann. “The companies will take a hit to their profit margin before they increase prices.”


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Conveyor belt restaurateur to sell a third of Yo! Sushi
SIMON WOODROFFE, the founder of the Yo! Sushi restaurant chain, is to sell almost a third of the company in a refinancing that will allow it to double the number of its UK restaurants and expand overseas through franchising.
Mr Woodroffe, who opened his first Yo! Sushi in Poland Street, Central London, in 1997, is in exclusive talks with an unnamed venture capitalist over the sale of a 30 per cent stake in the company for a sum believed to be well in excess of £10 million.
As part of the refinancing the entrepreneur will relinquish the role of chairman and become a non-executive director, leaving the restaurant chain in the hands of the managing director Robin Rowland, a former executive with Whitbread, Scottish &


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Iran, UAE Determined to Expand Trade Ties Despite Politics
EghtesadOnline: Iran and the UAE are determined to expand business ties, despite their political disputes, the Iranian chairman of the two neighboring countries’ joint chamber of commerce says.
“All spheres of bilateral engagements, including economic ties, are affected by the political climate. Iran and the UAE’s private sectors are trying to help boost economic relations; statistics on four-month foreign trade testify for this statement,” Farshid Farzanegan added.
The UAE was Iran’s third export destination in the four-month period to July 21 with 4.62 million tons of non-oil goods worth $1.21 billion and the share of 14% of Iran’s total exports. The neighboring country was also Iran’s second partner in imports with 1.33 million tons of non-oil goods worth $2.47 billion and the share of 23%, data by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration show.
“Consumer goods are not the only imports from the UAE; machinery and industrial products, cellphones, computers, laptops and graphite electrodes that add up to advanced industries are significant part of imports from the UAE,” he was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
Noting that over recent months, exports of agricultural products to the UAE have increased by 16%, Farzanegan said Persian Gulf littoral states are the main customers of Iran’s agricultural products.
His comments came after the UAE reached a deal toward normalizing ties with Israel.
The agreement was a “sovereign decision” that was not directed at Iran, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said afterwards.
The UAE has made a “huge mistake” in reaching a deal toward normalizing ties with Israel, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said in reaction to the deal.
Emirates Airline resumed direct flights to Iran last month. It landed its Boeing-777 at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on July 17. A Covid-19 PCR test is needed for boarding the flight, said an official with IKIA, adding that passengers are required to provide a certificate confirming that they have tested negative for Covid-19 from no later than 96 hours before their flight.
Earlier, a direct route between the southern Iranian city of Shiraz and the Emirati city of Sharjah resumed on July 3 after a four-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.


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Texas Roadhouse manager Brian Agee talks with regular customers Allen and Judy Hutchison during lunch Friday in the Muncie restaurant. The Hutchison's have been regulars since the restaurant opened.
- Filed Under
Gift cards are money in the bank for restaurants.
It's been years since gift cards were a novelty, especially restaurant gift cards. But you might not know how big a part of the local restaurant business they have become.
At Muncie's Texas Roadhouse - where the traditional gift card sales trailer should be in place this week - gift card sales often top $200,000 a year, peaking during the holiday season. ...


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Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web.
Software tools that can detect web advertisements and then block them from users’ view have become increasingly popular as consumers fret about things like data collection or the glut of advertising slowing down Web pages. The great philosopher Homer Simpson once memorably described alcohol as “the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.” Internet advertising is a bit like that — the funder of and terrible nuisance baked into everything you do online.
Advertising sustains pretty much all the content you enjoy on the web, not least this very newspaper and its handsome, charming technology columnist; as I’ve argued before, many of the world’s most useful technologies may never have come about without online advertising. There are pre-roll video ads before movie trailers, “One weird trick” ads next to an article, or native ads in our social feeds form of sponsored content. And for publishers, ad blocking software stops more than just offending ads – it also blocks tracking cookies that offer first-party insights into website visitors.
One recent report suggested the issue would lead to $22bn in lost revenue this year as one out of three internet users now employed some software to block ads. But at the same time, ads and the vast, hidden, data-sucking machinery that they depend on to track and profile you are routinely the most terrible thing about the Internet. As ad-blocking spreads across the internet, publishers have tried different strategies to deal with the problem, everything from completely disallowing ad-blocking users from viewing content on their sites to paying anti-ad-blocking firms to block the blockers. But, now with the increased use of these softwares the free Internet may be threatened, as most of the websites providing free content depends on ads for their revenue. “For at least some players in the media industry this looks like a cross between a Class 5 hurricane and a neutron bomb headed straight for their balance sheets.” AdBlock Plus has also released an Android extension and the company is now working to develop the software for iOS also. With an ad blocker, your web browser will generally run faster, you’ll waste less bandwidth downloading ads, and you’ll suffer fewer annoyances when navigating the Internet.
And, ad blocking on mobile, expected to be the fastest-growing ad channel, is starting to become a “thing.” Currently Firefox and Chrome lead the mobile space with a 93% share of mobile ad blocking. Mr McClusky said it was important to be straightforward with Wired’s “very tech-savvy audience”. “It’s too early to tell if the appeals are working, and Wired is still testing how best to communicate with its readers about ad-blocking,” Mr McClusky said. The first hint that I was doing something wrong came when I visited a website and saw, where ordinarily an advertisement would have popped up, a plea that I consider either unblocking ads or making a contribution.
The new iOS 9 will also allow for ad blockers. “If ad blocking goes mainstream in digital video, huge amounts of advertising won’t be seen, and will therefore be ineffective. This would then push ad dollars back to TV, reversing a trend,” he said, adding, “Interestingly, the demographic group that uses ad blockers most frequently is one that’s highly coveted by advertisers: millennials and gen Z.” One aspect of ad blocking tech that might allow marketers to breathe more easily for now is that research by Genesis Media found while 24% of respondents used ad blocking tools on work and home computers, only 3% reported using the technology on smartphones. Ad blocking has been around for years, but adoption is now rising steeply, at a pace that some in the ad industry say could prove catastrophic for the economic structure underlying the web. That presented a challenge when it came to making the message more dynamic than just text. “Young audiences definitely forget how media sites work and support themselves,” Mr Pittlik said. “Though advertisers are equally to blame for a history of irrelevancy, intrusiveness, browser-crashing ads and malware.” In a blog post last year, PageFair said it ran 576 different appeals on 220 websites, but found that only 0.33% of ad-blockers that saw an appeal added sites to their approved site list. Some publishers and advertisers say ad blocking violates the implicit contract that girds the Internet — the idea that in return for free content, we all tolerate a constant barrage of ads.
We hope this report will continue to help publishers, advertisers, consumer groups and technology vendors come together to define principles that support a sustainably free and open web,” the post read. Foster pointed out that marketers can take steps to make online ads more pleasant for the people to whom they are being served, saying consumers turn to ad blockers “for legitimate and understandable reasons.
The idea is to balance the need of websites to generate revenue with the irritation of users forced to click their way past annoying ads to get where they are going. Currently only two percent of ad blocking-technology enabled browsers are on mobile devices, but the mobile revolution will likely result in a spike in ad blocking.
Nearly 200 million people worldwide regularly block ads, the report said, and the number is growing fast, increasing 41 percent globally in the last year. Some have even compared the tactic to blackmail. “Trying to actively filter ads from websites is stealing,” thundered a recent post at the tech site Tom’s Guide. “Every time you use one of these services, you’re enabling an extortion racket where ad-blocking companies charge content providers money to let their ads through the filter.” German publishers and broadcasters have recently lost lawsuits against Eyeo GmbH, distributor of Adblock Plus. Among users who don’t currently use ad blocking technology, the main issue that would drive them to seek it out was a perceived misuse of personal information.
The court rejected their contention that blocking their advertising messages unfairly deprived them of revenue. (The publishers may appeal.) How big are the potential losses? In a separate blog post, PageFair calculated that Google would be losing about $6.6 billion worldwide annually, except for the fact that it pays Adblock Plus a rumored $25 million for whitelist status, enabling the company to recover some $3.5 billion. A lot of people are going to get accustomed to having an ad-free mobile experience.” PageFair also sells technology that allows web publishers to determine if users are running blocking software — and then serves them ads anyway, going around the blockers. Blanchfield said is currently being tested with a number of large websites, circumvents ad blocking by using “low-level networking” technology that he declined to detail in order to stay ahead of ad companies.
The likelihood that Safari users will follow suit led the financial site Seeking Alpha to conclude: “Apple would benefit more by getting a revenue-sharing deal on Safari search engine ads.” In other words, rather than be paid by Google, Apple should behave like Google. One could argue that publishers have brought this mess upon themselves, with their emphasis on endless pop-ups, videos that self-animate, ads that dart on and off the screen, and the rest of the chaotic commercial menagerie of the typical site. Fortune’s Ingram takes that view: “In the end, readers likely won’t shed a tear as they turn on their ad-blocking software or click away to some other site that doesn’t treat them so shabbily. That means the ads won’t feature animations, they won’t block content, and they won’t load “trackers” that monitor and report back to some unknown server what you do on a web page.
These ads are also low-fi — they can’t be animated or cover up a page’s content. (Eyeo charges some large companies a fee to show these ads; Google, for instance, pays Eyeo to have its search ads show up for Adblock Plus users.) Then there’s Ghostery, which makes a plug-in that lets users find and block online tracking tools — the code in a page that sends data about your surfing habits to marketers. According to the company, the number of such trackers has exploded in recent years because marketing software used to analyze consumer behavior has become much easier to use. And although why advertising works at all is the subject of hot theoretical dispute, everyone agrees that the target can never absorb the message if the he or she never knows the ad is there. Salmon offers the example of “native advertising.” (In native advertising — which seems to be growing, at least on social media — the commercial content on a site is indistinguishable from the content the user is seeking.) Some observers have also looked to a future dominated by user-generated advertising, a category that, when successful, can generate plenty of buzz. As the PageFair report points out, the irony is that much of the rise of blocking software is accounted for not by Adblock Plus and its cousins, but by the easy-to-use ad-blocking settings in Google’s own Chrome browser.
Banner blindness is possibly explained by attention theory: Cognitive resources are limited, and when input is busy and complex, the brain will focus on what is deemed most important.


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Purchase lending startup Jungle announced that it has secured a license from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to start operating in the Philippines.
Jungle, founded in April 2019 by Alejandro Reyes Bradford and Alfred Cardenas, allows users to make purchases in monthly installments even without a credit card.
“Jungle will now be able to operate in the Philippines and start providing purchase loans to Filipino consumers in just a matter of days,” the company said in a statement.
The startup’s foray into the financial technology space, particularly in consumer lending, comes as 77.4 percent of adult Filipinos, or about 52.8 million, remain unbanked, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country’s central bank.
Ownership of a bank account that can be used to save and receive money, as well as pay bills, is a basic indicator of financial inclusion.
For those who do not have bank accounts, 60 percent of them cited not having enough money as a reason, while 21 percent did not cite any reason at all. Meanwhile, 18 percent of the respondents said they do not have documentary requirements to open an account.
Jungle said it takes pride in being able to provide a fully digital purchase lending experience for both consumers and merchants, as well as its competitive rates for borrowers by removing fees and other charges.
The company said it would continue to pursue partnerships with the country’s top brands and retailers in different verticals such as consumer electronics, home appliances and furniture, dental and medical, travel, education, sporting goods, apparel, and many more.
“Jungle’s mission isn’t only to enable more people to afford making purchases through point-of-sale financing. We are equally focused on enabling them to afford a better future by helping them build a healthy credit history that will help them secure affordable housing, car, business, and personal loans in the future,” the startup said.
In October 2019, Jungle raised $125,000 in its pre-Seed funding round participated by Singaporean investors Roger Crook, Chris Rogers and Enrique Dubois.


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Hawaiian Telcom is Working to Bridge the Digital Divide in Wai‘anae
Hawaiian Telcom is working to bridge the digital divide in Wai‘anae by enabling More Homes and Businesses with 100% Fiber Internet Service.
In celebration of its fiber network expansion in Wai‘anae, Hawaiian Telcom hosted a free community event - “Imagine Wai‘anae” - on May 28 at Wai‘anae Mall.
The event featured family-friendly activities and a fashion show emceed by Wai‘anae High
School alumnus and renowned fashion designer Ari South. The show highlighted the designs of Wai‘anae High’s fashion and design students who were challenged to weave Hawaiian Telcom’s “Imagine the Possibilities” campaign that invites people to imagine a world where everyone has access to fiber internet service to connect, learn and dream into their designs.
“We are inviting our communities to Imagine the Possibilities with us as we bridge the digital
divide in Hawai‘i by accelerating our fiber expansion to deliver ultra-fast 100% fiber broadband service to underserved neighborhoods in Wai‘anae and across our state,” said president and general manager Su Shin.
Hawaiian Telcom announced it will enable 50,000 additional homes and businesses with its
100% fiber internet service called Fioptics in 2022. More than half of these locations will be on
the neighbor islands. Fioptics offers ultra-fast download speeds and the fastest upload speed in the state, enabling multiple users to share the same online connection without interruption.
After the fashion show, Hawaiian Telcom presented a $2,000 donation to Wai‘anae High
School as well as $700 in cash awards to support Hawai‘i’s next generation of fashion
designers who aspire to follow in the footsteps of Ari South.
“We are grateful for Hawaiian Telcom’s support as a strong community partner and a reliable service provider as we build a collaborative learning environment for our students,” said Rebecca Gebreysus, Waianae High School Vice Principal.
“Everyone needs fast and reliable internet service, especially in underserved areas where it
can make such a difference to local families,” said Ari South. “I appreciate Hawaiian Telcom’s recognition of the digital inequity that exists today and their efforts to change that by bringing broadband access to more people here on the Wai‘anae Coast.”
Hawaiian Telcom’s Fioptics expansion throughout Wai‘anae and Nānākuli is in progress and
targeted to be completed this fall. In addition, Hawaiian Telcom is expanding its 100% fiber
internet service on Lāna‘i and Moloka‘i as well as in Kapa‘a, Kaua‘i; Wailuku, Maui; Kea‘au on
Hawai‘i island. To learn more or to see if your address qualifies for service, visit


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- The platform will create exclusive NFTs for a range of artists across WMG’s catalogue of music.
- OneOf mints NFTs that are up to two million times more energy-efficient than other platforms.
- The platform is designed specifically for the music community.
Warner Music Group (WMG) has just announced its partnership with OneOf, a green NFT platform for the music community. This partnership will see the platform create exclusive NFTs for a range of artists across WMG’s catalogue of music.
Built on the Tezos blockchain, OneOf claims that its NFT mints are up to two million times more energy-efficient than its competitors. Specifically designed with the music community in mind, OneOf offers various forms of NFTs ranging from collectible and generative PFPs, to music royalties, and real life experiences.
“From collectibles to music royalties, NFTs and Web3 represent the pulse of consumer demand and an exciting future for the music industry,” says Lin Dai, OneOf CEO. “We are thrilled to partner and innovate together with Warner Music Group and use our cutting edge Web3 technology to bring their iconic labels and world-renowned artists to the next 100 million fans on blockchain.”
OneOf was first announced in May 2021, and is backed by legendary American record producer Quincy Jones. Since going live in September 2021, it has launched NFT collections with artists major and independent artists including Doja Cat, Whitney Houston, Alesso, The Game, Chief Keef, Pia Mia, and more.
In December, an NFT of a previously unreleased recording of 17-year-old Whitney Houston singing was sold for $1 million, the highest-priced NFT auctioned on the Tezos (XTZ) blockchain.
“Web3 is a massive leap forward in technology: it will expand the scale and scope of both human and machine interactions far beyond what we can imagine today,” said Oana Ruxandra, Chief Digital Officer & EVP, Business Development, Warner Music Group. “Partnering with OneOf, a leader in the emerging technology space of Web3 and NFTs, gives our artists an edge in more authentically building one-to-one relationships with their fans and winning in the new Web3 economy. We’re excited to see what’s possible.”
Warner Music Group is home to influential singers, songwriters and brands that are shifting global cultures. The company houses iconic labels such as Atlantic, Warner Records, Elektra, and Parlophone – with a roster of popstars such as Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, and Lizzo.
OneOf has recently announced a three-year collaboration with the GRAMMY Awards as well as partnerships with iHeartRadio and MusiCares.
Stay up to date:


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Virtually overnight, the whole process changed. These days, of course, it’s all done on computers: writing, editing, photography, page layout. Better still, the finished page is sent directly to the press.
For me, the worst part of the old method was coating the columns with wax. Inevitably, the sticky stuff got everywhere: fingers, desks, clothes, notebooks, files. I can’t say I miss those days. Still, I often feel a tinge of regret for the folks that made the coating machine. No doubt they did their best to make the finest machine money could buy. But if a technology comes along that helps you do the job better, faster and cheaper, you have to make the switch.
It’s a familiar story in our technological age. Someone invents a mousetrap that’s so much better than the existing mousetrap that the older technology quickly becomes obsolete. The company that made the old mousetrap has two choices: Keep pace with the new reality or join its old product in the dustbin of history. The competition doesn’t care if you’re a household name or a pioneer in your field. You either innovate or you die.
The latest chapter in the struggle between old and new technologies is playing out now in Minnetonka, MN. Earlier this month, Polaroid Corp.announcedthat it would no longer make instant film for its cameras. Thanks to digital cameras, the Polaroid instant camera is about to go the way of the typesetter and the waxing machine. And last week, the companyfiledfor Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in its history. (To be fair, the latter is not necessarily related to the former. Polaroid is blaming its financial difficulties on its parent company, the Petters Group, whose founder is currently in federal custody for alleged fraud.)
What a shame it would be if we lost the company that, with Kodak, invented photography. At least Polaroid is trying to keep up, and now offers a slew of products for digital imaging. The company’s newPoGo portable printer, in particular, looks like a winner. The pocket-sized device prints photos from digital cameras and cell phones, without the need for ink or ribbons. The heart of this new gadget is ZINK photo paper, an advanced composite material with embedded yellow, magenta and cyan dye crystals. The printer uses millions of tiny pulses of heat to activate the crystals and thereby create an image. Read about ithere.
What about your company? Are you working on the next PoGo printer in your field? I fear that many U.S. manufacturers are not. After a decade of uninterrupted increases, U.S. investment in research and development is set to fall next year, as corporations and the federal government tighten their belts in response to a faltering economy. After accounting for inflation, total R&D spending in the United States is expected to fall by about 1.6 percent in 2009, according to areportbyBattelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit trust that does scientific research for the government and industry.
That’s a distinct contrast from recent years. Since the late 1990s, R&D investment in the United States has increased annually at rates of between 1 percent and 2 percent, including inflation.
A similar shift is occurring overseas. Driven by China and other Asian countries, global R&D investment has risen steadily for several years running. In 2009, however, global R&D spending in inflation-adjusted dollars is expected to be flat.
In these tough economic times, many companies go into survival mode, cutting all but the most essential expenses. Justly so. I urge all U.S. manufacturers to consider R&D as one such expense.


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The play to earn gaming ecosystem Tamadoge has been causing quite the stir in the cryptocurrency community as of late, with the nexus of gaming, puppies, memes and the metaverse all culminating in a bullish community intent on rivalling dominant projects such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. Today, it was announced that TAMA would be launching on the OKX exchange.
Tamadoge have just announced OKX listing
Previously, the team at Tamadoge had hinted that there may be a tier one exchange listing on the horizon, but until today the community had been made aware of which one.
Today, it was announced that Tamadoge is to be listing on OKX, one of the largest and most reputable exchanges in cryptocurrency industry.
✨ Exclusive #NewListing ✨
Get ahead with #OKX, the FIRST exchange to list #TAMADOGE – the quintessential #memecoin with utility by @Tamadogecoin!
Join the #TamadogeArmy and go breed, care and battle your Tamadoge pets now!
Deposits opening soon ⏳
— OKX (@okx) September 23, 2022
Trading on the exchange will go live on Tuesday the 27th at 11:00 UTC.
This is an extremely impressive place for Tamadoge to have its IEO, given that OKX ranks as the second most popular cryptocurrency exchange with daily volumes regularly in excess of $2 billion.
TAMA will also be listing on the OKX Dex
Unfortunately, not all users around the world are able to access OKX, given that there are a range of different requires for AML and KYC procedures and OKX is not available for people in every jurisdiction.
Consequently, TAMA will also be listing on the OKX Dex, which is open to anyone and everyone.
This listing will also take place on the 27th, but at 17:00 UTC rather than 11:00 UTC.
Presale tokens can be claimed on 27th September at 8am BST
The team at Tamadoge has now announced that those who participated in the Tamadoge presale will soon be able to claim their tokens.
The Tamadoge presale lasted six weeks and was a huge success, having raised $19m to fund and develop the project going forward.
The presale was conducted in a series of stages, with initial investors purchasing TAMA at $0.01, and the price rising to $0.03 by the end, meaning that early investors will already have multiplied their investment several times over.
Today, the team made the announcement in Telegram that those who participated in the TAMA presale will be able to claim their tokens from the 27th September, at 8am BST.
Price is expected to perform well after launch
Many analysts are predicting strong gains after the launch of Tamadoge upon the initial listing.
The popularity of Tamadoge is almost unparalleled, and the raise is particularly impressive when one considers that most other projects are floundering at this stage of the bear market.
Nevertheless, the team at Tamadoge has managed to curate and sustain consistent momentum, and this is reflected in the positivity and cohesion of the community.
Tamadoge pet store coming in Q4 2022
The lead game developer, Thomas Seabrook, is currently managing the development and design of the game whilst Carl Dawkins is working as the head of growth for the project.
The Tamadoge team is currently working diligently to fulfil the next steps of the roadmap, most notably the upcoming Tamadoge pet store later this year.
The Tamadoge pet store will be one of the first parts of the Tamaverse, and will allow users to trade accumulate TAMA and NFTs.
Those who wish to participate more actively in the community, and who wish to stay up to date with all of the latest project developments at Tamadoge ought to join the Telegram community.
- Which Cryptocurrency to Buy Today – Tamadoge, EOS, Stellar, HNT
- Tamadoge Crypto to Take the Meme Games Space by Storm With a 10x Listing Lift Off?
- Which Crypto to Buy Today 22 September – Chiliz, Tamadoge, Algorand and Ripple’s XRP
Tamadoge - The Play to Earn Dogecoin
- '10x - 50x Potential' - CNBC Report
- Deflationary, Low Supply - 2 Billion
- Listed on OKX, Bitmart, LBank, MEXC, Uniswap
- Move to Earn, Metaverse Integration on Roadmap
- NFT Doge Pets - Potential for Mass Adoption
Discuss This Article
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A bill advancing in the Capitol would require restaurants to offer only water or milk with meals marketed for children.
As the food court at a Sacramento mall buzzed with families on a recent summer day, Emily Wickelgren and her daughter Thea were enjoying lunch at Subway. The 7-year-old opted for water with her sandwich instead of soda or juice.
“I do have unusual kids in that neither one of them likes soda and they don’t really like juice,” said Wickelgren, the mom of two daughters.
This is what many legislators hope will be the new norm for more California families. Under a bill advancing in the Capitol, restaurants could offer only water or milk with meals marketed for children. Not soda. Not juice. Not chocolate milk.
Those sugary drinks would still be available, at no extra cost, but only upon request. They couldn’t be advertised alongside kids’ meals or offered as a default option. If the bill becomes law, cashiers would ask customers ordering a Happy Meal at McDonald’s, for instance, if they want water, milk or a non-dairy substitute like almond milk. California would become the first state in the nation with such a requirement.
It’s the Legislature’s latest attempt to combat obesity and diabetes by limiting how much soda Californians drink. To illustrate the point at a Tuesday hearing, Democratic Assemblyman Kevin McCarty of Sacramento held up a jar containing 9.5 teaspoons of sugar—the same amount found in a 12 ounce can of soda.
Research shows that kids often get extra calories in their diet from sugary drinks like soda. The extra sugar puts them at a higher risk for tooth decay, type two diabetes and obesity, according to Public Health Advocates, a sponsor of the bill. Some health experts think changing the drinks offered with kids meals will cause a long-term behavioral shift, leading other kids to become more like Thea and prefer water over pop.
“It’s a thoughtful approach to giving families choice, making sure the choice is a healthful one but not taking away the right if they want to order the sugar-sweetened beverage,” said Sen. Bill Monning, a Carmel Democrat who has been fighting the soda industry for years.
His past legislation—including bills to tax sugary drinks and slap warning labels on them—died under strong opposition from the beverage industry. But his latest bill to regulate the drinks offered with kids meals has faced surprisingly little push-back, other than criticism that it empowers the government to make decisions that should be made by parents. It passed the Senate with bipartisan support and cleared the Assembly Health Committee this week without opposition.
The California Restaurant Association has not taken a position on the bill, and the American Beverage Association is neutral, writing in a letter to Monning that it “is committed to increasing access to beverages with less sugar and smaller portions in stores and restaurants.”
The group has already embraced guidelines that say elementary schools should offer only water, milk and 100 percent juice, which may explain why it’s not fighting the proposal to get soda out of kids meals at restaurants.
Some fast food chains are voluntarily taking similar steps. McDonald’s stopped advertising Happy Meals with soda in 2013 and in February removed chocolate milk as a default option, though it’s still available upon request. The meals are now advertised with plain low-fat milk or an apple juice drink that has half the sugar of 100 percent apple juice.
At the local level, cities have started to tackle the issue too. Berkeley passed an ordinance last year with the same requirements as Monning’s bill. Other cities—including Stockton, Daly City and Long Beach—have passed similar ordinances.
Nonetheless, the bill still raises debate about how much government is too much.
“I trust parents and I thought parents can make those decisions,” said Sen. Joel Anderson, a Republican from Alpine who voted against the bill.
Jennifer Nevarez, a Sacramento mother of four, echoed the same sentiment when told about the proposal at the mall’s food court.
“That’s not going to work,” she said. “I feel like it should be the parents’ choice.”
Nevarez said she only buys water and apple juice for her children at home, so the soda is typically a treat when the family eats out.
Still, some experts worry that drinking sugary drinks at a young age can cause problems later on.
“What we know is that the eating habits we establish when we’re young, often carry with us as we get older,” said Flojaune Cofer, director of state policy and research for Public Health Advocates. “If we consume more sugar, we tend to crave more sugary things when we get older.”


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Going For FOSS In I-Cafés
I had an article before about GNU/Linux Operating Systems for Cafés where I discussed the merits of using a free and open source software (FOSS) in a computer rental business environment. Today the basic issue is still the same, i-cafés catering mainly to gamers cannot go for FOSS operating systems (mainly GNU/Linux) because the popular network and online games run only on Windows. Yes, there are many FOSS games that run natively on GNU/Linux operating systems but i-café customers who are used to Windows-based games won’t just bite them. Simply said, the issue of going for FOSS in i-cafés depends on having the popular games ported to it because gaming is still the main source of revenues for the majority of computer shops in the country.
If it is any consolation to i-café owners who are already running their computers on FOSS, some online press releases show positive developments on having some popular games coming to Linux. One is that some Valve Games will soon be powered by Steam For Linux and some formerly Windows-only games will soon be running natively on FOSS; namely, World of Goo, Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 2004, Doom 3, Counter-Strike, Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. Syntensity, a relatively new platform for 3D games with amazing graphics has four (4) FOSS games on open beta.
Going for FOSS in i-cafés is a challenge posed on the industry especially now that the government, with its austerity measures, may seriously considered migrating its proprietary systems to the less expensive, free to use and modify open source software. We all know that the shift to FOSS will be good for all but the question is who will take up to the challenge first. Should i-cafés go ahead with FOSS and throw away the software piracy problem nagging the industry for long while now?


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In an effort to help its customers avoid compromised Web sites, Google has added a new tool to its search engine that notifies users when it has detected suspicious activity on a Web site.
In an effort to help its customers avoid compromised Web sites, Google has added a new tool to its search engine that notifies users when it has detected suspicious activity on a Web site, the company revealed last Friday .
When Web surfers use Google to search for something, a "This site may be compromised ” warning will appear underneath the search result if Google detects anything suspicious. If users click on the "This site may be compromised" link, they will be transported to Google's Help Center and receive this explanation.
If a site has been hacked, it typically means that a third party has taken control of the site without the owner’s permission. Hackers may change the content of a page, add new links on a page, or add new pages to the site. The intent can include phishing (tricking users into sharing personal and credit card information) or spamming (violating search engine quality guidelines to rank pages more highly than they should rank).
Search-engine users, however, will still have the ability to ignore the warning, click on the search result, and get transported to the Web site.
But with every security measure, there are people who could be adversely affected. In this case, they are Web masters whose sites have been compromised by a hacker.
"Rest assured, once the problem has been fixed, the warning label will be automatically removed from our search results, usually in a matter of days," explains Gideon Wald, an associate product manager at Google. "You can also request a review of your site to accelerate removal of the notice."
Google's new warning is one more additional security layer for its customers. The company already warns its search-engine users that "This site may harm your computer " when it detects a Web site hosting malware.
According to Google's Help Center, "In both cases, our detection might not be perfect -- we continually work on improving our system -- but it would be wise to proceed with caution."
♦ Snapshot from Google


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* FY 2013/14 underlying profit up 2 pct vs avg estimate 1.8 pct
* Eyes gradual improvement in China sales, sees soft U.S.
* Eyes around 900 job cuts worldwide under cost savings plan
* Shares up 1.7 pct, hit highest level since October (Recasts with deputy CEO comments in interview, adds share price)
By Dominique Vidalon
PARIS, Aug 28 (Reuters) - French spirits maker Pernod Ricard SA has forecast a recovery in sales in its second-biggest market China, dogged for years by a clampdown on the purchase of expensive gifts such as whisky and cognac, helping send its shares to a 10-month high.
The world’s second-biggest spirits group behind Britain’s Diageo Plc said on Thursday it expected sales to gradually improve this year, notably in China, offsetting slow growth in its top market the United States.
The group also vowed to push ahead with cost savings which it plans to partly reinvest to support the promotion of its brands, telling Reuters it could cut about 900 jobs worldwide, or 5 percent of its workforce. It gave no details on when or where the job cuts would be made.
The owner of Mumm champagne, Absolut vodka and Martell cognac made the predictions after reporting full-year underlying profit growth of 2 percent, broadly in line with analysts’ average estimate of 1.8 percent.
Pernod tied the performance to strict cost control as sales for the year through June fell 7 percent, hit by unfavourable currency effects and a 23 percent slump in China sales. Like-for-like group sales were stable.
“In this context, which remains challenging, we anticipate a gradual improvement in our sales growth, and we will increase the investment behind our brands and priority innovations in order to sustain long-term growth,” Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer Alexandre Ricard said in a statement.
Pernod shares were up 1.7 percent by 0944 GMT, outperforming a 0.2 percent decline in the European sector . The stock rose as high as 90.45 euros, its highest since October.
“Full-year results are in line, China (is) improving, U.S. worsening,” Societe Generale analysts said in a note, retaining a “buy” rating on the stock.
Like rivals Diageo and Remy Cointreau SA, Pernod has been hit by a Chinese government crackdown on luxury gift-giving and personal spending by civil servants, as well as by slowing economic growth in its second-biggest market.
Pernod Ricard makes 12 percent of sales and 15 percent of profit in China, its largest market after the United States. Asia as a whole accounts for around 40 percent of sales and 46 percent of profit.
In the fourth quarter, the situation remained tough in China, where sales slumped 38 percent like-for-like after falling 28 percent in the previous three months as de-stocking continued. But there were signs of an upturn.
Ricard told Reuters that Martell cognac depletions, or sales by wholesalers to bars, restaurants and retailers, were down 7 percent in the first nine months of the year but rose 5 percent in the fourth quarter.
“The fourth quarter is showing some positive signs and July and August confirmed this trend,” he said, adding that the improvement in China could become more visible in the second half of the group’s fiscal year.
The U.S. market, where sales growth slowed to 1 percent from 8 percent the previous year, was a weak spot, however, forcing the group to carry out hefty de-stocking in the fourth quarter.
Jameson whiskey continued to show good growth in the United States, with a 15 percent sales rise, but Absolut vodka sales were down 2 percent, partly due to price competition.
Pernod said it would push ahead with its already announced “Allegro” plan to improve efficiency and save 150 million euros ($198 million) over three years. At least one third of proceeds would be partly reinvested to support brand development.
Ricard said 30 million euros in savings were made in the 2013/14 year and a further 75 million should come this year.
At end-June, net debt was down 374 million euros at 8.4 billion.
Since spending 5.6 billion euros on Absolut Vodka parent V&S in 2008, the company has focused on cutting debt, ruling out large transforming deals to focus on small tactical purchases.
Pernod was, however, recently cited among potential buyers for Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates Ltd, the world’s No. 2 winemaker, whose books are being perused by U.S. private equity firms KKR & Co and TPG Capital Management for rival $3.1 billion takeover bids.
Ricard told Reuters he was not interested in making a bid. (1 US dollar = 0.7588 euro) (Additional reporting by Pascale Denis; Editing by James Regan and David Holmes)


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A new Amnesia game is coming later this year, the developer Frictional Games announced. Named Amnesia: Rebirth, it is a brand new story set in the world of the original game.
The masters of horror games, Frictional studio have been teasing their next project for several months now. Players have been craving for more Amnesia and Soma games for quite some time now and today, the developer decided to reveal the big news and announce a new Amnesia game.
Named Amnesia: Rebirth, the new title is a brand new story set in the world of the original game. However, instead of a nightmarish castle, Rebirth is set in Algeria. The reveal trailer, which you can watch below, does not show much, only small glimpses of gameplay, which pack a lot of dark corners, and creepy locations.
There is also a crashed plane, some ancient ruins so it is safe to say that we can expect a story filled with twists and turns from the get-go until the very end.
Speaking about the story, it will follow a new character Tasi Trianon as she sets out on "a harrowing journey through devastation and despair, personal terror and pain, while exploring the limits of human resilience".
Amnesia: Rebirth will be the third game in the Amnesia series. Previously Frictional Games developed Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a critically acclaimed horror and published a not so popular Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.
Amnesia: Rebirth is currently in development for PC and PlayStation 4. The release date is set for Autumn 2020.


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Passwords using easy-to-remember number sequences are not at all secure.
Yet the most popular passwords are "123456" and, yes, "password," reports app developer SplashData.
One in 10 four-digit PINs is "1234," according to consulting firm Data Genetics. Says president Nick Berry, "It's staggering, people's lack of imagination."
Keys to tighter security
Go big and random: Longer passwords are harder to hack.
Avoid actual words, years, and calendar dates; instead, devise memorable nonsense from abbreviated sentences. "The best TV show was Sanford and Son," for example, becomes "TbTVswS&S."
Store codes in the free, multi-device app Dashlane.
Don't repeat: Never reuse a password for sensitive accounts such as banks, email, or social media.
You can, however, recycle a password for sites that don't store your personal info, such as Internet radio stations or online publications.
Tell lies: To keep people from guessing your password-reset questions -- that's how Scarlett Johansson's e-mail got hacked -- go crazy.
|2 million Facebook, Gmail and Twitter passwords stolen in massive hack|
|Fast food worker: Protest didn't cost me pay|
|China's central bank bans some Bitcoin transactions|
|U.K. pension age to hit 69 by 2050|
|Ron Paul: Bitcoin could 'destroy the dollar'|


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The price increases and the time frames for the hikes differ depending on the client, according to reports by Taiwan's Liberty Times newspaper and other media outlets. Honestly we don’t know if TSMC had the balls to charge Apple more money and we would think it amusing and ironic if it did so.
For some companies that received TSMC's notice, the hikes took effect immediately. TSMC and other Taiwanese semiconductor companies raised chip prices by more than 10 percent between last autumn and this spring. But with strong demand continuing to outstrip supply, TSMC decided to sharply increase prices again.
TSMC claims that the increased costs are tied to ramping up production are being passed downstream, but really what are tech companies going to do? They either pay up or really suffer from the chip shortage.
This move likely will impact the sticker prices of end products. A TSMC spokesperson declined to comment to Nikkei about the higher chip prices. Concerns over lower profitability are another reason behind the price hikes. The company has said it will make $100 billion in capital investments over three years through 2023. That commitment has fuelled qualms about a potential decline in profits as TSMC prepares to boost its overseas expansion.


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Thousands of Resources. Ready to help.
Friday, December 17, 2021
Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s International Trade program helps businesses expand and grow—both right here in Michigan and around the globe. Each year, the International Trade team assists hundreds of companies in increasing their export sales, which contributes to job creation within the state.
Metal Craft Technologies is one of these companies. Based in Novi, Metal Craft Technologies delivers engineering resources and solutions to manufacturing companies worldwide, with a focus on the automotive and transportation industries.
In this episode of Beyond Borders—a video series featuring Michigan companies that have expanded globally with the support of the MEDC’s International Trade team—we speak with Metal Craft Technologies’ President and CEO Ray Fernandez, who has over 35 years of experience in international trade, to uncover his advice on how to succeed in the global market.
According to Ray, one of the best steps companies can take on the road to expanding internationally is signing up to attend an MEDC trade mission. The MEDC’s International Trade team hosts in-person and virtual trade shows and missions to create opportunity for Michigan businesses and international companies to network. Metal Craft Technologies has attended three trade missions, traveling alongside the MEDC to China, Germany, England and India.
“The International Trade team is comprised of dedicated professionals,” Fernandez says about the MEDC representatives who work in-country to serve more than 130 markets. “If you explain your business to them, they can find the right connections and coordinate the right meetings.”
Focusing on purchase orders when you expand overseas is a common mistake new businesses make. According to Fernandez, it’s not all about the purchase order; success in the global market is about maintaining the right connections and establishing trust among your international partners.
“The purchase order will come,” Fernandez says. “What it’s really about is making the connection last.”
If you’re looking to establish long-lasting connections with international business partners, visit michiganbusiness.org/export or contact your international trade manager.
To contact a business development specialist, click here or call 1.888.522.0103.


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Elon Musk Reveals What He Most Wants to Do Next at Tesla in Twitter Chat
Including what could be next after the Model Y.
Elon Musk spent the day after Christmas checking in with owners of Tesla cars, thanking them for their support and asking what they want his company to get to work on in 2018 and beyond. In the process, Musk dropped some major hints about what we could see next, including a specific kind of vehicle he most wants to make.
“Wanted again to send a note of deep gratitude to Tesla owners [worldwide] for taking a chance on a new company that all experts said would fail,” Musk tweeted Tuesday. “So much blood, sweat & tears from the Tesla team went into creating cars that you’d truly love. I hope you do. How can we improve further?”
Understandably, a lot of the responses focused on immediate, targeted responses to the existing Tesla vehicles, but one response focused on a future car the tweeter — and Musk himself, it turns out — would like to see: an electric pickup truck.
Musk has previously said the Model Y will be the next car the company focuses on developing after the Model 3, which itself still has the company in production hell as it seeks to ramp up production and achieve the scale necessary to fulfill orders. The reported plan for the Model Y is a more cost-efficient crossover utility vehicle with falcon-wing doors, drawing on elements of the Model 3 and the Model X.
Exactly when Tesla would be able to focus on a pickup would likely depend on when it can sort out logistics with the Model 3 and complete development of the Model Y, and there’s not yet a clear timeline for the latter. But consider 2018 to be the official first year of Tesla pickup rumors, even if we’re a ways way from seeing the reality.
Musk dropped one other hint when asked about the size of the truck, saying he wanted to include what he thinks is a “really game-changing feature.”
The rest of the requests were more incremental, with the most exciting being the prospect of intelligent windshield wipers that can respond to rain levels. Musk said this would be coming very soon.
He acknowledged the browser for the Model S and other cars is “terrible” and needs significant upgrades, which should start happening sometime in 2018.
He also promised major improvements for Tesla’s maps and navigation systems. Whether this would be part of the same upgrade that would see the improved browser is an open question, but it sounds like major updates could be coming by next spring.
Throw in some goodies with heated windows and general ability to control internal heat settings with a push of a button.
His other responses were a little less concrete, though at least the “Done” indicates Musk plans to address what sounds like what can be a pretty annoying issue with the bluetooth setup.
This proposed theft response sounds like the sort of clever, next-level automation that Musk and Tesla like to make their trademark. Whether it’s actually something to expect anytime soon is a little hard to parse from a simple “Ok,” but at least it’s on Musk’s radar.
He also said “sure” in response to this suggested feature for the app, which would inform others when the Tesla and its driver can be expected home.
And here’s a whole laundry list of features that Musk signed off on, but it ended up being the last one that really caught his eye.
Honestly, based on everything we know about Elon Musk and his love of whimsical bonus features, we can probably expect the first Tesla upgrade of 2018 to be Disco Mode. Actually, there’s still a few days left in 2017, no reason that can’t be Tesla’s final big splash.


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Holistic Nutrition is a fairly new concept in India: Dimple Mirchandani
The craze for fitness and nutrition is fast increasing in India too and the industry is expected to hit its peak by 2017, says Dimple Mirchandani.
Women entrepreneurs are carving out a niche for themselves in ‘unconventional’ businesses
Being a woman entrepreneur is a tightrope walk. Peo...
Startups like Confidential Couture, Secret Dresser allow users to sell off their luxury possessions
Delhi-based Confidential Couture has seen...


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Apple has launched iCloud to the public with iOS 5 and OS X 10.7.2 nowhere in sight. With the exception of those who got an iPhone 4S early, pretty much every Apple customer has their hands tied.
As the screenshot above shows, Apple requires that customers first set up iCloud on their iOS device or Mac.
The service requires iOS 5 and Mac OS X 10.7.2, none of which had been made available at the time of this writing.
Many expected Apple to launch at least Mac OS X 10.7.2 ahead of the October 12 iCloud debut. However, it appears that Cupertino is taking its time with the public release of the software requirements for iCloud.
iPhone 4S devices are the only ones currently equipped with all they need to access iCloud. The smartphone has been scheduled to reach end customers this Friday. Some, however, have received their units early.


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E Ink, TOPPAN and Isetan Mitsukoshi Partner to Develop World’s First Full-Color, ePaper Digital Point-of-Purchase Sign
BILLERICA, Mass.— February 22, 2019 — E Ink, innovator of electronic ink technology, announced its Advanced Color ePaper (ACeP) has been used by TOPPAN Printing Co. Ltd. and Isetan Mitsukoshi to develop the world’s first digital point-of-purchase (POP) sign using a full-color Electronic Paper Display (EPD).
E Ink’s first generation ACeP display is capable of displaying more than 32,000 colors, making the solution an attractive and sustainable alternative to paper POP.
E Ink’s ACeP display achieves a full color gamut, including all eight primary colors, using a proprietary four pigment microencapsulated electronic ink containing cyan, magenta, yellow and white. Rich color is achieved by having all the colored pigments in every pixel as opposed to the side-by-side pixel colors achieved with a color filter array (CFA). Like other E Ink ePaper technology, ACeP is low-power with paper-like readability under virtually all lighting conditions.
Isetan Mitsukoshi Ltd., which has been promoting initiatives for the reform of working practices and from ESG, or Environment, Social, and Governance, perspectives, worked with TOPPAN to develop POP signage to reduce paper waste from in-store promotions, and to enhance worker efficiencies. Isetan Mitsukoshi will install a prototype in the Isetan Shinjuku store for their “HANABANASAI” campaign that launches on February 20, 2019.
The POP product developed by TOPPAN and Isetan Mitsukoshi enables a simple content update process through a PC or smartphone for greater operating efficiency and reduced environmental waste. The signage does not require any power at the location of installation for easy mobility around stores when layout changes are needed. The addition of E Ink’s ACeP display brings an enhanced visual appeal to the in-store promotions, with the ability to update information wirelessly.
“E Ink appreciates TOPPAN’s initiative to drive the ACeP POP business at a top tier Japanese department store. As technology guides our world in becoming increasingly connected, it’s imperative that we find sustainable solutions that help our workers and the environment,” says Naoki Sumita, GM of E Ink Japan. “We look forward to working together with TOPPAN to continue efforts to expand ACeP in the POP market and in other potential markets.”
“We are pleased to jointly test the potential of full-color ACeP from E Ink, and look forward to the collaboration toward a digital POP product that contributes to solving the efficiency & waste challenges in the retail sector,” says Heeday Danjo, GM, TOPPAN Printing Co., Ltd.
A pilot of the solution is scheduled to be on display at the Front Entrance of Isetan Shinjuku Main Store in Tokyo, Japan, from Wednesday, February 20 to Tuesday, March 26.
The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Wide-Format Impressions. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of Wide-Format Impressions.


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John Thomas Batson, executive vice president of a Los Angeles advertising technology company called the Rubicon Project, has spent the past few weeks meeting with publishers around the country. The topic of discussion: how to survive.
Batson's company, known as a "yield optimizer," is eager to help publishers of online news get more ad dollars. Ad revenue is no longer paying the bills the way it did a decade ago, and that's not just because marketers have slashed their budgets during the bad economy. Another problem--specifically for the online world--is that publishers are losing consumer data to ad-buying networks that can collect data themselves.
The online publishing world has become a giant race to dig out reader information. News companies gather registration information, such as e-mail addresses, gender and income, along with preferences on what users like to browse. They know which readers like articles on cars and which are drawn to real estate sections.
Marketers are eager to get their ads in front of people who want to see their products. They want to know who's reading style sections of news so they can deliver them ads from designers such as
The big problem is that ad brokers are beating publishers at their own game. When a broker buys an online ad on a site such as The New York Times', the person who sees it--even if he doesn't click on it--is marked with a digital tracing code called a cookie. The cookie is placed on the user's Internet browser so that he or she can be tracked while flitting around the Internet. The advertiser can then serve up ads when a potential customer might be ready to make a purchase. Ad brokers can also create their own pools of people who are interested in the same things. They only need to make one ad deal with the publisher to get a lot of consumer information.
Batson says he and a group of publishers he declines to name are brainstorming ways to take back more control over their data and the price of their ad inventory. One of the ideas floating around is publisher mergers. If they could share networks and create larger audience pools, they'd more easily be able to compete with sites such as AOL,
Aside from banding together, publishers should think about holding back some of their inventory, says David Cooperstein, a vice president and research director at marketing research firm
It's too early to predict what publishers will do to solve their woes, but they'll have to be smart about it, says Batson. For the sake his business, he hopes they'll work with him. Whatever they do, they need to do it fast, Batson says: "Doomsday isn't here, but it's not too far around the corner."


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New details have emerged on Microsoft’s ambitious Hololens headset. At a presentation in Tel Aviv, Microsoft Technical Evangelist Bruce Harris revealed that the augmented reality headset would be completely wireless with the ability to connect to any Windows 10 device straight out the box. In fact no wired option will be made available to consumers and for this reason the headset will likely have a maximum battery life of only 5.5 hours reducing to 2.5 hours under heavy usage.
Harris also discussed the visible display area on the Hololens comparing it to a “15 inch monitor around two feet away”. However this size was apparently chosen to preserve battery life and once manufacturing of the device reaches a scale at which it becomes appropriate and cost effective, this could well expand.
Development kits for the Hololens are expected to release this quarter, costing around $3000.


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The crew at GMC has decided to launch yet another off-road special of its Sierra 1500 pickup truck, continuing GM’s collaboration with aftermarket outfit American Expedition Vehicles. The AT4X AEV is a hotted-up AT4X, which is itself a hotted-up AT4.
This brings up a question – is GM slicing its off-road pie into vanishingly small segments?
A California man sued General Motors this month for revising its tow ratings for his 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 5.3-liter V-8, which meant he couldn’t tow his toy-hauler and golf cart, according to court records.
The complaint, which was filed Dec. 11 in Central California’s district court, said General Motors intentionally misrepresented its claims for Richard Quintero’s truck, which he purchased in July 2013 for nearly $47,000.
According to Quintero’s attorneys, the man opted to buy the 2014 truck because its advertised tow rating of 8,800 pounds was significantly higher than the 2013 model’s 6,900 pounds. GM lowered the 2014 trucks’ ratings to 6,800 pounds in a letter to owners, which was less than Quintero’s 1,000-pound golf cart and 6,700-pound trailer.
For the discerning pickup buyer who can’t spend enough, GMC announced Tuesday its 2016 Sierra 1500 Denali Ultimate edition complete with 22-inch wheels and chrome all over the place.
According to a GMC spokeswoman, the truck will start in the low $60,000-range when it goes on sale near March next year. Denali sales represent 20 percent of GMC’s light-duty sales.
In addition to bigger wheels and chrome, the truck sports standard automatic steps for passengers and to load the forward section of the bed, magnetic ride control and trailer brake. GMC’s 5.3-liter V-8 paired with its 8-speed automatic transmission is standard; the 6.2-liter V-8 that makes 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque is optional on the truck, but probably going to be on every single Sierra Denali Ultimate anyway.


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08:03Whitby family overwhelmed by support after their son's accident in Thailand
08:11Come along to Whitby Winterfest this weekend!
08:2012 things you should have done on the Yorkshire Coast before you are 40
09:49Just 48 hours to cycle 500 miles
10:50Yorkshire Coast Bid approved as businesses vote '˜yes'
11:58Ross Noble brings his tour to Scarborough
12:10This heartwarming new RSPCA Christmas advert will melt your heart
12:45Here are the top Christmas baby names for the festive season 2018
12:52Free land trains and parking for Sewerby's Weekend of Christmas
13:18Michael Ball comes to Yorkshire on new UK 2019 tour
13:51'Gin'-gle all the way with these 10 must have gins for the Christmas party season
14:26This is how much people in Yorkshire spend on their breakfast
17:00This is how much the UK will spend on Christmas this year
21:45Find out who the winners were at the 2018 Scarborough Business Awards


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First spotted at Alexander Wang, then later during New York fashion week at Proenza Schouler, boots that strap up the leg in a steady climb to the knee made a third appearance at the Acne show in London earlier today. Like gladiator sandals on steroids, these lavender platforms buckle 11 times from toe to top and are easiest worn with bare legs and higher hemlines.
London Collections: Men, the city’s first-ever men’s fashion week (well, weekend, actually), consisted of three packed days of shows, presentations and parties, all beautifully executed by the British Fashion Council. Though Britain’s heaviest hitters — Burberry Prorsum, Paul Smith, for example — didn’t exactly abandon their longstanding spots in Milan and Paris (up next!), they and others like Tom Ford and Dunhill showed support for fashion’s new platform with things like lavish dinners and, at Dunhill, a pub quiz hosted by Will Self.
Charles, the Prince of Wales, hosted an inaugural cocktail party at St. James Palace, where the eclectic mix that is British men’s fashion design was well represented. Here, my Top 5 looks from the London Collections: Men.


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VeggieFocus Launches Industry-Changing Veggie Food Website
New York (PRWEB) November 21, 2013
VeggieFocus has launched a new website to help vegetarians and vegans find thousands of new veggie recipes and discover popular restaurants in more than 50 cities around the world.
The website aims to become the ultimate online platform for discovering new vegan and vegetarian restaurants nearby and exploring thousands of veggie recipes online.
The most unique concept VeggieFocus offers is the “Eat-In” / “Eat-Out” feature which gives users the choice to either find new veggie recipes to cook at home with their family or discover popular restaurants nearby to visit with friends.
“The “Eat-In” / “Eat-Out” feature is completely unique and makes it super easy to find new and exciting veggie food – we hope our website will inspire people from all walks of life to try more veggie food whether they are at home or on the go,” says Nathan Schacherer, co-founder of VeggieFocus.
Among other features, users are able to search and browse thousands of veggie recipes, collect their favorites, save local restaurants they want to visit, write reviews about restaurants they’ve already visited, follow other users to get inspired and find new places.
Read the rest of the article, here.


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UK Government Offers $37 Million Grant to Fund New Land Rover LRX
The UK Government will grant Land Rover $37.2 million for the production of a new vehicle. The new model, according to Land Rover, will use the LRX Concept shown at the 2008 Detroit auto show as a base. The company claims the new model will be the smallest, lightest and most efficient model that the brand has ever produced.
Phil Popham, Managing Director of Land Rover, believes the project will work. "Our engineering feasibility study has shown that we can very successfully deliver Range Rover levels of quality, drivability and breadth of performance in a more compact, more sustainable, package. Feedback from the most extensive customer research we have ever undertaken also fully supports our belief that a production version of the LRX Concept would further raise the desirability of our brand and absolutely meets all those expectations."
According to Land Rover, the proposed vehicle still awaits final approval, and its overall project cost will total $551.5 million. The funds offered by UK government are separate from a broader automotive industry aid package, and come from the Government's Grant for Business Investment.
Source: Land Rover


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Markets Buoyant So Far in 2021
Global equity markets notched strong performance in the first half of 2021 as Covid vaccinations began to roll out around the world and pandemic-stricken economies began to rebound. Here in the U.S., where the progress on vaccinations has been better than in most countries, the surging economy has produced not only rising output and employment numbers, but also much higher inflation readings. The combination of a low supply of goods and services in the wake of the pandemic, coupled with sudden, strong demand has put upward pressure on the prices of almost everything. In June, the rate of inflation reached its highest level in the last thirteen years as the Labor Department’s closely watched Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 5.4% from a year ago.
Companies to Report Strong Numbers
Companies have begun to report their earnings for the second quarter of 2021. The results will appear very strong in percentage terms, as they are lapping last year’s second quarter, when the world was in lockdown. For the moment, investors do not seem to be overly worried about companies’ financial health and business performance. Rather, their major worry is on the macroeconomic side: whether the recent trend in higher inflation is a durable trend and, if so, whether the Federal Reserve will be forced to combat it by tightening monetary policy ahead of its own expected timeline.
Fed in High Stakes Bet
In recent testimony to Congress, Fed Chairman Jay Powell outlined his belief that the recent rise in inflation would prove “transitory” and that as bottlenecks in the economy resolve themselves and government fiscal stimulus dissipates, the rate of inflation will slow. We think he will be correct. Much of the increase in inflation in recent months derives from prices for new and used cars. With the global semiconductor shortage contributing to low new auto inventories and people avoiding public transportation due to the virus, car prices have had nowhere to go but up. Rising airfares have also contributed to inflation as travel-starved consumers have booked up a reduced slate of flights. Finally, many commodities have seen their prices rise as home building and renovations continued apace during the pandemic. As supply chains normalize and as bottlenecks clear in the second half of the year, we believe the economy will settle into a more normalized post-pandemic groove, cooling the price increases we have seen in recent months.
Bond Market on Board with Powell
Right now, as equity investors wring their hands, bond investors seem to be agreeing with Chairman Powell that the current surge of inflation will prove temporary. Even as hot inflation numbers were being reported for May and June, long-term bond yields eased lower, confounding many. (Government bond interest rates include a real return as well as an expectation for inflation. Thus, if bond investors expected higher inflation in the future, yields would be going up, not down.) Since peaking at 1.77% in April, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note has declined to its current level of 1.30%.
What if the Fed is Wrong?
Right now, a major risk to the equity markets in the second half of 2021 is if inflation spirals up and the Fed has to stomp on the economic brakes to contain it by raising interest rates suddenly and substantially. Investor confidence would likely take a hit and equities would probably suffer. Nevertheless, there’s no question that we are getting closer to the time that the Fed will begin to tighten monetary policy, as there will be increasingly little justification for keeping interest rates at zero if the economy stays on (or close to) its present trajectory.
Economic Recovery Continues
Despite the rise in Delta variant Covid cases here in the U.S. and around the world, the U.S. economy continues to roar back from the pandemic slowdown. Investors will be watching closely to see if the strength of the recovery keeps inflation spiking or if the Fed’s position proves correct.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss your portfolio or the financial markets.