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Cisco Systems, Inc. announced this morning that it is introducing a new, entry-level partner certification level and a host of new products all designed to help it expand its presence in the small- and medium-sized business market.
Cisco’s SMB announcement this morning at its Partner Summit in Las Vegas included the announcement of its SMB Specialization for channel partners – the first time Cisco has designated a certification for a segment of the market rather than a technical specialty.
The announcemend also included a package of products designed for networks of 16 users or fewer, including the previously announced Unified Communications 500 series, which supports both softphone and dual-mode phone voice-over-IP networks, and is designed to be simple enough to use that no IT specialist is required.
The SMB package also included the Catalyst Express 520, a Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch designed for Cisco VOIP phones, the 521 Wireless Express Access Point and 526 Express Mobility Controller. Together those two wireless LAN components are designed to create dynamic wireless networks with – again – little help from IT specialists.
Cisco also announced new versions of its Configuration Assistant and Monitor Director/Monitor Manager, which provide real-time monitoring and troubleshooting that is usually provided by channel companies.
The new Select certification adds a new tier to Cisco’s Certified Partner program, which currently includes Gold, Silver and Premier levels, plus Registered partners that sign up as resellers, but aren’t eligible for most of the training, discount or rebate programs available to Certified partners.
Cisco execs said they expect about half the 10,000 Registered partners to move up to Select. Members of Cisco’s SMB Select program – its current SMB-focused channel category – will have six months to qualify as Select partners.
Achieving Select status requires an SMB Specialization certification – which means passing a series of training sessions and exams focused on the sales and technical skills required to serve SMB customers.
In return, partners will get access to partner-development funds to help generate demand and prospect for new customers, as well as access to the new SMB Opportunity Incentive Program, which rewards SMB-focused VARs for finding and landing new customers. Select partners also get access to other Cisco incentive programs, including Cisco Capital’s Easy Lease program, which helps fund projects for SMB VARs without requiring hefty upfront payments for all the equipment involved. (Also see Cisco to extend SMB leasing through Ingram Micro partners.)
The SMB specialty is Cisco’s first to focus on the size of a market rather than its technical specialty. It has introduced several technical specialty certifications during the past year, in an attempt to expand sales in security, voice-over-IP and other areas. (See also Smaller VARs annoyed at Cisco’s Master VoIP certification.)
Cisco channel chief Keith Goodwin said the SMB specialty is a continuation of Cisco’s effort to expand its share in the SMB market, which has been weak compared to its dominance in other areas.
“We’re putting a strong marketing focus on that space,” Goodwin told SearchNetworkingChannel.com at the company’s C-Scape analyst conference in San Jose, Calif. in December. “We need to double our SMB resellers. We don’t want all our partners to go there, but we want to build up classes such as distributor affiliates and get them into the Cisco business model where they can grow profitably.”“Cisco didn’t focus on SMB a few years ago,” Goodwin said. “Now, for the first time we’re building purpose-built products for the SMB space and our partners can take advantage of disruptive technology, such as unified communications, to grow their businesses.”
Behavior blocking and heuristics are the next next big thing in malware prevention strategy. It’s like when Prince was singing about 1999 in 1983. One AV vendor using these technologies is San Mateo, Calif.-based behavioral security company Sana Security.
Yesterday, Sana Security announced that they have hired Don Listwin as their new CEO. According to the press release, “In his new position, Listwin will focus on company financing, formulating strategy, and developing partner relationships.”
The company has also closed in on $12 million in funding to fuel a massive expansion.
ZDNet blogger Ryan Naraine thinks that the company will quickly become a prime target for acquisition since the company’s main focus, behavior blocking software, will soon be a necessary component in successful antivirus suites.
My advice to you: Get in while the getting is good. Stay a step ahead. Learn about Sana’s partner program, and compare it to the partner programs of other security vendors with the partner program checklists on SearchSecurityChannel.com. Then you can party like it’s 1999 in 2007 when you’ve impressed your customers with forward thinking.
Do you think that something else is the next next big thing? Let us know, and we’ll help you navigate the details.
Blogger posts Windows Vista SP1 fixes on Web site The owner of the Hotfix blog has posted over 100 fixes he says he received from someone close to Microsoft who has access to the collection, expected to be released in the latter half of 2007. If the information’s legit, where are the security patches? [Computerworld]
Microsoft sued over ‘Vista Capable’ claims Microsoft deceived customers by allowing PC makers to label computers as “Windows Vista Capable” even though they couldn’t handle Vista’s key features, according to lawsuit lodged in the US. [ITWire]
Microsoft targets more software pirates Legal action aimed at groups that sold copies of Windows and Office discounted for academic use to regular users. [CNET]
Xerox Corp. has announced its intention to buy document-management and print-services provider Global Imaging Systems for about $1.5 billion in cash.
Global Imaging is a Tampa, Fla.-based company that focuses on the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) market through 21 regional subsidiaries and employs 4,500 people.
Global’s president and chief operating offer will continue with the company, reporting to Jim Firestone, president of Xerox North America.
Global carries products from Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Sharp, but does not currently carry Xerox. After the acquisition closed in May, Global will operate as a subsidiary of Xerox and will gradually add Xerox’ lines as well.
Lots of interesting Microsoft Vista news coming out today. The first article I came across talks about the problems with virtualizing Vista. Apparently, it isn’t going to be that easy. The article goes on to claim that Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) will be a costly endeavor. In addition to the additional fees that SMBs will have to pay, there are “technical limitations and massive IT resources” that will be required. The company seems to think that it will end up being nothing more than a niche solution. Apparently, Microsoft hasn’t been keeping up on the virtualization buzz that the channel has been seeing. Granted, VECD only seems to apply to desktop workstations, but server virtualization has been gaining enough steam that there will be a legitimate need for it in the future.
In security news, it looks as if the government will be upgrading to Vista by February 1st 2008. The goal of the upgrade being to standardize government workstations and provide a uniform level of security for the body that runs the country. Channel professionals specializing in Vista should be licking their chops in anticipation of the fat government training and support contracts that will soon be featured at a pork barrel near you.
Finally, are you or your client anti-disk storage? Been waiting for a technology to mature a little bit and gain some traction? In February Big Blue launched what it claims to be the first “tape library with enterprise-class encryption for SMBs and remote corporate offices.” Instead of dealing with pesky, quick data retrieval, SMBs can still rely on tape backup to keep their important data stored. Not bad for a channel partner who wouldn’t mind selling that hardware, creating a service plan and storing the data.
Just a thought.
Spam poses as Internet Explorer 7 download Beware of emails from “firstname.lastname@example.org.” It may look like an invitation to download Internet Explorer 7, but it’s really a trick to infect machines with malware. [SearchSecurity.com]
California’s $1.4bn IT boondoggle More dollars than sense. [TheReg]
Symantec Backup Exec gets Vista-tized Fresh release Exchanged and x64ed too. [TheReg]
Cisco develops smart network bot Network connection drops and these little guys pick it right back up again. [DailyTech]
In a recent interview about Business Process Management Solution (BPMS) channel opportunities, industry expert AndreTruong said that BPMS hasn’t hit the mainstream yet but presents fruitful future possibilities.
According to the report, Forrester defines digital business architecture: as “an IT architecture centered on business metadata on which IT solutions act in a unified and consistent way to deliver rapid business change.” The report then lays out two core requirements for the technology supporting digital business architecture:
- Business policies must be constructed in such a metadata friendly way, which will make it easy for it to be electronically stored, accessed and manipulated.
- The metadata must work consistently across heterogeneous environments.
The report touts BPMS solutions as creating a “major paradigm shift” by capturing business models “…inside the BPMS solution in an executable format, providing direct alignment between business design, technology implementation and business measurements.” Furthermore, BPMS’s graphical process model makes it easy to change processes.
The following bullet points are a boiled down version of Forrester’s findings:
BPMS allows standards-based, model-driven, design, development and execution:
- Captures business process flows
- Supports model-driven development
- Enables process orchestration
- Stores service definition
- Provides SOA infrastructure
BPMS features add value:
- Captures business metadata beyond process models
- Stores business metadata
- Provides real-time user visibility into business process
BPMS features support digital business architecture including:
- Integrated analytics and inside business intelligence
- Complex event processing (CEP)
BPMS puts the business in digital business architecture:
- Increased business collaboration in process modeling
- Enhanced communication between business units and BTs.
- Alignment of business process role-models
- Allows flexible adjustment of business rules
- Improved focus on business process ownership
Are you a BPMS consultant, or are you interested in becoming one? Are you a business-owner with BPMS experiences? If so, we would love to hear from you.
Dell reports it has found financial‘misconduct’ Dell said “evidence of misconduct” had been uncovered in an internal investigation of its financial practices over several years. [NYT]
What happened in TJX security failings? If company execs need a lesson on what not to do before and after a data breach, experts say there’s plenty to learn from a regulatory document TJX filed with the SEC Wednesday.
Will data breach be the end of TJX? This week in Security Blog Log: Industry experts say companies can learn from a data breach and even prosper from it. But is TJX following the right example?[SearchSecurity.com]
PC Makers: Vista brings little joy so far After all the hype surrounding its January launch, Microsoft’s new
Vista operating system has yet to brighten the outlook for PC makers and could even lead to oversupplies for those who had built up inventory. [ChannelWeb]
It may not matter, if the apples are going out of season. Phone numbers’ days may be limited with the growing popularity of VoIP. Contrary to the traditional practice of telecommunications companies charging users a fee for their phone number, session initiation protocol (SIP), which handles most online calls, doesn’t need the traditional ten digit number (or even the 1, if dialing out of area) to know who you want to talk to.
It’s kind of a “duh” concept, but only recently has someone put a plan in motion to bypass this “ancient” tradition in telecom. John Todd, of TalkPlus, helped create Freenum, an organization partnered with over 200 universities looking to adopt this idea into their own communications systems. The implications for further savings that this sort of “numberless” system might offer businesses are clear. However, it will be up to SIs and VARs to look at what Freenum is doing and adopt it to the channel.
According to a report in the Boston Globe, Vonage is the “worst-performing US initial public offering in the past year” and may be facing bankruptcy in the next few years.
Wall Street analysts have given the company low marks after a Virginia court ordered Vonage to pay Verizon $58 million for patent infringement; saying that the result could threaten the embattled company’s profitability.
Without any more fanfare than is given to any standard press release, Oracle reported yesterday on some of its users’ experience with Unbreakable Linux. Given that Oracle sued SAP for “corporate theft on a grand scale” last week, it’s interesting to note some similarities — and some differences.
|Oracle – SAP||Red Hat – Oracle|
|Who took from whom?||SAP’s subsidiary TomorrowNow took from Oracle, according to the suit||Oracle took from Red Hat, according to Oracle|
|What’d they take?||Support materials||An OS and publicly available support materials|
|Was it allowed?||No, says Oracle. Maybe, says an analyst.||Yes — open source|
|End result?||Support for Oracle at half the cost||Support for Red Hat at half the cost|
|Why’d they do it?||To undercut a competitor||To undercut a competitor|
|Reaction?||A lawsuit||No lawsuit|
Of course, open source is open source, and proprietary information is proprietary. And Oracle may get a court to agree that when TomorrowNow allegedly downloaded support information for one client and used the same information to support others it was “stealing software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers.” Or the court could decide that proprietary information — once legitimately paid for by a customer and used by a VAR to support that customer — can be used for other purposes with no further obligation to the original owner. And that’s assuming the case even makes it to court — Oracle and SAP could settle, instead.
IP arguments are complicated, and VARs involved in this kind of support could be culpable to the vendor who supplied the software and the documentation. So the difference between open and closed is no joke.
But it’s interesting to note the parallels, nevertheless.


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- Friday 14 March 2014
Police are hunting this man after a Tube passenger was subjected to a "tirade of racial abuse".
Princess Diana sent the News of the World a book of Buckingham Palace internal phone numbers because she wanted an ally against Prince Charles, the Old Bailey heard.
Published: 15 November 2012
We’ve heard a lot this week about the cost of living, and not much of it good. First the Office for National Statistics throws up a shock as inflation in October jumps to 2.7%. Then the Bank of England produces another batch of pretty fan charts, predicting more gloom next year.
How much use is all this in telling us what is really going on and the likely knock-on effect for the economy? I’m not sure. Take the ONS numbers: the vast proportion of this month’s rise in the Consumer Prices Index — 0.3 percentage points — comes from the trebling of tuition fees. This is counted now because universities are charging three times as much for their services.
But the students don’t have to find the money upfront, instead paying for years after their courses. So is it “real” inflation if it doesn’t feel like it at the time? Statisticians, who have to account for everything, would say yes. But it reminds me of the age-old poser of whether a tree falling in the woods makes a noise if there is nobody around to hear it.
People also notice some things more than others: they set their own inflation rate depending on what they spend. The cost of computer games, for example, is down 1.6% on last year, and that particular segment of the CPI has just as big a weighting in the basket of goods used to produce the CPI index as education, which ran a horse and cart through the October inflation numbers.
I’m not into computer games and I’m not a student. But like most others, I’m into living somewhere, electricity, gas and running water. And eating and driving a car. So I’ve compiled my own measure of the cost of living — let’s call it the RLI, or real life index — to try to work what’s going on.
First, the surprise good news: my basket of essential goods is only 2.5% higher than a year ago, well below the headline CPI headline rate. But the bad news is that this is largely because the ONS’s October inflation survey took place before SSE’s inflation-busting rise came in, so the November figures will be all the grimmer. Indeed, a look at the graph for the months ahead — based on forecasts from Capital Economics — sees the RLI hitting a peak of 4.8% in July next year, getting on for double the headline rate of inflation.
This isn’t as bad as the double-digit rises we were seeing in 2008 but these are still real, largely unavoidable, things that people have to stump up for. And the more they pay for them, the less they have to spend elsewhere. It feels a lot more “real” than the headline rate when you have just forked out a vast amount of cash on gas and electricity to heat your home.
And readers are unlikely to need reminding — particularly here in London with its higher cost of living — that average wage growth of 1.9% is still trailing well behind the near-5% rise in the RLI on the horizon.
It is an unfortunate state of affairs given that consumers were supposed to do much of its heavy lifting in the second half of this year and into 2013. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast of a 1.3% rise in household spending seems far less achievable against the backdrop of a steady rise in inflation in the first half of 2013.
Today’s dire 0.8% slump in retail sales underlines the point. It is very difficult to see consumers suddenly opening their wallets, particularly with a 3p rise in fuel duty on the way and the latest annual mugging from the train companies, which will charge us on average 6.2% more in January.
Despite our soaring RLI index, the door is still open to more money-printing, as Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King said yesterday. With average pay sliding, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of a wage-price spiral developing because of a weak jobs market.
The fourth-quarter GDP figures will be poor — maybe even a reverse, according to King — and a consumer recovery looks flaccid at best, particularly in the first half of next year.
It was heartening to hear the Governor say that the Bank hasn’t given up on QE: he may yet have to bite the bullet and look through the bad inflation news to give the economy another kick. My money’s on February.
Top stories in Business
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In November you coveted the soft teddy down of your winter coat – the affair is over. Now you’re trading up: switching cosy coat for spring jacket.
Enter the competition for your chance to win a copy of Parisian fashion icon Ines de la Fressange's book "La Parisenne" & £100 Uniqlo voucher to spend online
Harness the huge opportunities of digital, social and mobile. For a small investment get yourself a website that really attracts customers.
Snowdrops are sprouting and it’s time to kick your wardrobe into gear. And denim updates are one of the simplest and chicest ways to reinvent things for spring.

domain: news


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With so many retailing giants such as J.C. Penney , Sears, and Best Buy falling by the wayside in what has aptly been named the “Big Box Apocalypse,” it’s very reassuring to see Costco , the leading warehouse retailer in the U.S., thriving in the midst of all the retail industry snafu. Costco is still posting healthy gains even as the once mighty Wal-Mart and Target struggle to remain afloat. So what makes Costco tick?
Lowe’s continues to enter the tech world with a recent partnership with Porch.com, a four-month-old startup that aggregates data about home improvement projects all around the US. Porch.com will be in the hands of Lowe’s employees in 139 stores in the Seattle, North Carolina, and South Carolina area.
Google is acquiring connected device company Nest for $3.2 billion. Google sent out an email to employees noting the acquisition today and later issued a press release.
In the release, Google noted that Nest has been offering its best-selling thermostat since 2011 and recently began offering the Protect smoke alarm, which networks with its other devices.
Nest Founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers will both join Google. Rogers was one of the first engineers on the iPhone team at Apple.
Lowe’s might not often be thought of as an innovative company. Most consumers see it as a place to go for home improvements, especially if a Lowe’s location is more convenient than a Home Depot location.
Lowe’s and Home Depot might be competitors, but they’re both likely to be long-term winners, and they’re both more innovative than most people realize. There are many different innovative avenues to explore for Lowe’s and Home Depot, but this article will primarily focus on Lowe’s Iris system, which rolled out in 2012 with 40 home-automated products.
Heavy discounting and slow traffic weighed on retailers’ December sales results, but Costco Wholesale Corp. ( COST ) was among the few that bucked the trend.
The wholesale club reported sales at stores open at least a year rose 5% for the month, topping expectations for a 2.6% increase. Among the stronger performing categories were garden, automotive, apparel, small appliances and home furnishings. The consumer electronics category posted improvement from recent months, but the metric still declined slightly.
Costco Wholesale co-founder Jim Sinegal has been awarded the National Retail Federation’s Gold Medal Award, the organization said Tuesday. The trade association said that under Sinegal’s long tenure as chief executive the Issaquah-based company grew into the biggest warehouse-club retailer in the U.S.
New Iris products and services will include a water shut-off valve that cuts supply when a leak is detected, a voice control feature,smart sprinkler systems, smart meter add-ons, universal garage door openers, additional energy saving devices and more.
Costco , Sam’s Club of Wal-Mart , and privately owned BJ’s Wholesale offer over 1,475 membership-only warehouse club locations throughout the world. In contrast to much of the rest of the retail industry, Costco has continued to outperform while increasing its membership and net sales annually. This is despite the pressure from online retailers like Amazon.com on the retail industry. Going forward, though, what is a Costco membership really worth?
Ask six senior merchandising executives from Walmart and Sam’s Club what keeps them up at night and be prepared for an interesting collection of answers relating to key competitors and assorted challenges.


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British Computer Society debuts new Foundation Certificate for Green IT
The British Computer Society (BCS) yesterday unveiled a new Green IT qualification aimed at IT professionals working to reduce the environmental impact of their operations. The trade body, which is...
FITs would close entirely at the end of March 2019 under new plans, with little clarity over what, if anything, will replace the once popular incentive scheme
Theresa May was at pains yesterday to stress the government will deliver high environmental standards post-Brexit - but the fear remains her welcome pledges could dissolve with her authority
Act will mean motorway services and large petrol retailers have to install electric car chargers in support of EV rollout
Morrisons leads league table of supermarkets analysed for the proportion of their packaging that can be recycled


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OrthoLite unveiled its first EVA plastics-free, recyclable, biodegradable and industrially compostable foam Tuesday.
Described by OrthoLite vice president of global innovation Rob Falken as “a sea change in terms of what’s possible,” Cirql marks the first midsole solution from the long-time insole supplier to more than 350 footwear brands—including Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Skechers, New Balance and Crocs.
“For years our brand partners would say to us, ‘You guys are the foam experts, why don’t you make midsoles and other cushioning components?’” OrthoLite founder and CEO Glenn Barrett said at a virtual press event Tuesday. “If we were going to introduce our first midsole foam, we were going to do it right. OrthoLite Cirql delivers on our impeccable standards for comfort, performance and sustainability. And by focusing on an end-of-life solution, it brings a truly sustainable footwear future within reach.”
According to Barrett, Cirql is made from “responsibly sourced” plants and biodegradable materials and manufactured using a zero-waste, chemical-free foaming process. At the end of its life, it can either be biodegraded into a “nutrient-rich” soil compost or depolymerized and recycled into another midsole of equal quality.
Though OrthoLite’s Cirql division plans to begin development early next year, Matt Smith, general manager and vice president of Cirql, is “hopeful that we should be able to pull those dates forward.” At its current capacity, he said, it can produce approximately 1.8 million pairs per year. The partners that build its machinery have the capacity to produce enough machines to manufacture an additional 20 million-plus pairs per year, he added.
OrthoLite’s ambitions appear far greater than 20 million pairs per year, however. In Falken’s view, Cirql “is poised and capable to make a serious dent” in the 20 billion pairs of shoes the industry manufactures annually. Smith pointed to licensing partnerships with Tier 1 factories as one path toward eventually ramping up Cirql production.
“Tier 1 factories are desperate to maximize and improve their green credentials,” Smith said. “We know the brands want it because the consumers want it, but factories want it too. I think in the future that they will be winning contracts from brands based on their green credentials. And Cirql can help them to improve their green credentials by giving them the right to control their own supply chain and foam their own product—of course, licensed by us, a win-win for everybody.”
Though costs are not yet finalized, Smith acknowledged that brands can expect to pay a premium for Cirql. “We’ve thrown some indications on where we think this will sit in terms of price and we’ve not had any gasps of horror,” Smith said.
“I think the price we’ve communicated is payable in order to get that story,” he told Sourcing Journal. “Everybody will want to be first to market with this. It’s going to be a race to get the shoes with the first fully sustainable, fully compostable midsole.”
Cirql’s big push now centers around educating the industry. According to Smith, the midsole supplier has already sat down with a “handful” of brands. Though he didn’t name any companies, he said OrthoLite’s “biggest customers would logically be the right people for us to bring this innovation to first.” He also hinted that the company has spoken with some “strategic accounts” “that are heavily pushing for sustainability.”
“We want to lead the market and go everywhere,” Smith said. “The ambition is to replace EVA, period. Can we do that? Of course we can. It’s a matter of time. What we’ve had to do is be laser-focused on getting our product ready for launch, so we can sit down and start having the conversation with the brands and we have to start with one polymer, one version, otherwise you drown before you learn to swim.”
As a partner to so many major brands, OrthoLite’s sales team frequently sits down with some of the biggest decision makers on development and sustainability, Smith said. “One of the biggest things” to come from those conversations has been that engineers are becoming “more and more conscious of the need to move away from EVAs,” he noted.
“EVA is the box standard product that you find on most athletic footwear,” Smith said. “However, in its creation, it uses a lot of toxic chemicals, some dirty processes, and what’s left behind at the end of all of that, at the end of the life of the shoe, is a product that will stay there forever. It will never, never fade away. So, they’ve really been looking at a way to sort of address that elephant in the room.”
Cirql is OrthoLite’s answer. Though Smith categorized Cirql as a “performance product,” he said the plan is to start off “a little bit more leisure” and work from there. Unlike its parent company OrthoLite, which has hundreds of different formulations, Cirql only has one for now. When exactly future iterations will arrive remains unclear, Smith acknowledged. The aim, however, will be to develop “a more technical product” in the second iteration.
“With EVA, you just stick a little bit more fairy dust, a little bit more toxic chemical in there, and it becomes softer, it becomes more springy, or it can become more flexible,” Smith said. “We can’t do that, right? We have a natural polymer, a natural process, no emissions, no waste. We’re not going to mess that up, the claims that we make, by adding a toxic chemical to it.”
Designing for circularity
When a Cirql shoe reaches its end of life, brands have two ways to dispose of its midsole sustainably.
The first involves industrial composting. Different from traditional, backyard composting—a Cirql midsole discarded on the side of the street will never decompose the same way an orange peel would—industrial composting actively moderates temperature, humidity, pressure and microorganisms to facilitate decomposition.
Thanks to Cirql’s chemical structure and ingredients, the material can also be depolymerized into virgin-quality monomers—the precursors to the polymer that makes up the Cirql foam— “in perpetuity,” Falken said. This means that, unlike plastic recycling, which inevitably degrades the material over time, OrthoLite’s Cirql midsole can be recycled again and again, like aluminum or glass.
“No other footwear foam can be depolymerized back into usable monomers to make more of the same thing as Cirql,” Falken added. “And that’s because those other footwear foam types have contamination from some 15-plus ingredients being permanently bound together in a cross-linked chemical structure.”
Patented worldwide, Cirql has undergone third-party life cycle assessments and received certifications that verify its claims, Smith said. “We go into this with a perfectly clear conscience, no greenwashing, and it does exactly what it says on the tin, as they say,” he added.
As part of its validation process, Cirql is ensuring that the infrastructure exists for brands to actually compost its midsoles. “What we probably need to do, which will help the brands, is to see which format would we need to take that back,” Smith said.
“We don’t want to be pulling shoes apart, obviously,” he added. “It would be great if we could receive flakes [of] material or strips of material or maybe we can just compose the whole midsole and just let nature take its course.”
The recycling component, Smith noted, is “relatively scalable and mobile.” Though the specific machine it had created for the process is currently located in Italy, it could feasibly be brought to every market on the planet, he said.


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At The Hiden Collective we have declare a boycott against the Black Friday discounts being offered by the majority of online shops.
Black Friday as incredible negative impact on our planet, it is the biggest sales days of the year thanks to the crazy discounts that generate an incredible amount of waste worldwide.
Instead, we are donating 20% all our Black Friday sale to the Woodland Trust, the UK's largest woodland conservation charity.
This is why we are calling our Black Friday, Green Friday.
The decision comes from wanting to offer you an ethical and eco approach and this has always been at core of our business.
We would like you to think before any purchase this Black Friday about whether you want an item because is worth it, rather than because of a dramatic discount.
Living a more eco-friendly lifestyle does not mean gifts are banned, it just means making better choices.
Buy gifts that are made of natural materials rather than plastic.
Buy gifts that are local and therefore do not have the air miles.
Buy gifts that are reusable time and time again and don’t just get thrown away once Christmas is over.
Buy gifts from businesses that use compostable (not just biodegradable) packaging.
Buy from small businesses that have families to support this Christmas.
Buy from people that have a heart and are giving back.
They want us to keep buying as if there is not tomorrow, and Black Friday or Cyber Monday are just another way of wooing us into keep spending money and buying “stuff".
When consumers demand more, more needs to be made which increases the negative impact on the environment.
Our consumption habits are already taking a toll with increased emissions, increased land-use and deforestation, which is accelerating climate change.


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According to the price drop information, the Huawei P50 series has received a price cut on Vmall with a maximum of 1000 yuan ($144) in reduction.
Huawei P50 is 730 yuan down, which leads the 8GB+128GB version to 3758 yuan and the 8GB+256GB version to 4258 yuan. On the other hand, Huawei P50 Pro is getting 1000 yuan off on the 8GB+128GB version, making the sum at 4488 yuan, and the 8GB+256GB version is selling at 4488 yuan.
According to the information, these two models come with pre-packed chargers. Hence, customers won’t have to worry about buying them separately. To be mentioned, the offer is valid for a limited time in China and the company is promoting it on the official Huawei e-commerce store – Vmall.
Huawei P50 series:
Huawei P50 series is the first flagship that brings a dual ring unique camera design and a powerful camera photography experience. The phone has a unique design schematic that catches the eye at first glance.
Huawei P50 lineup was initially launched with Kirin 9000 chipset but later on, the retail units shifted to Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G platform.
Huawei P60 series:
Talking about its successor, the Huawei P60 series is likely to be the best flagship phone so far. The company is gearing up to release this new phone among consumers in the first quarter of this year and it could be a massive opener for the Chinese tech maker.
To follow the bloodline, the Huawei P60 series will also bring powerful camera technologies such as high-quality photography supported by a new XMAGE imaging system. A past leak reveals that the Huawei P60 lineup will bring you a brand new camera design, which is likely to be the main attraction for the people who are looking forward to this phone.
However, there is plenty of time left in the next P series and if you want then, the latest discount on Huawei P50 series is worth looking for.


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SAO PAULO, July 6 (Reuters) - Brazilian capital markets stormed back in the second quarter, powered by domestic investors seeking alternatives to meager fixed-income returns even as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy.
Equity sales by Brazilian companies grew 10% in the first half to $9.9 billion, according to Refinitiv data, surprising many bankers given the weak first quarter and in sharp contrast with a swoon in deals.
Other large Latin American markets stayed on the sidelines, with Panamanian airline Copa Holdings the only non-Brazilian company to conclude a share sale. Equity sales in the region fell 13% to $10.2 billion.
The first wave of transactions consisted of follow-on offerings providing “rescue capital”, said Eduardo Mendez, head of Latin America Equity Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley, which led ECM rankings in Brazil and Latin America.
That was the case of appliance and electronics retailer Via Varejo SA, which saw high demand for a $846 million share offering last month, even with most of its 1,000 brick and mortar stores closed. Grupo SBF, owner of sports goods retailer Centauro that also was sharply affected, raised $176 million in June.
“Now the dynamic has changed and companies are seeking incremental capital in order to expand investments”, Mendez said, adding that retail, healthcare, infrastructure, agribusiness, sanitation and logistics companies planned to access the market in the coming weeks and months. Banco BTG Pactual, Latin America’s largest independent investment bank, raised $490 million in late June to expand its retail banking activities.
Listed companies’ success in commanding high multiples in secondary offerings revived some IPO plans shelved during Brazil’s severest lockdowns. Retailer Via Varejo reached price to earnings ratio of 51 times considering future earnings and 330 times its profit over the last 12 months.
Companies prospering during the pandemic, like waste management and disinfection provider Ambipar, are pursuing stock flotations for the first time as others, such as drugstore chain Pague Menos and homebuilders You and Cury revive earlier plans.
Bankers say up to 50 companies are in talks for new issues, although not all will happen this year.
“We were pleasantly surprised and hadn’t expected a rise in activity until September”, said Fabio Nazari, partner and head of ECM at Banco BTG Pactual SA.
Benchmark interest rates are at an all-time low of 2.25%, fuelling investors’ appetite for the higher potential returns from fresh offerings. Even as foreign investors stay cautiously on the sidelines, many domestic retail investors bought more shares, helping spur a 33% rise in the benchmark Bovespa index in the second quarter.
Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that equities will account for 25% of assets under management in Brazil by 2025, double the current 12%.
M&A activity plunged throughout the region in the first half, but bankers expect better activity in the coming months. M&A volume fell 72% in Latin America to $10.8 billion, according to Refinitiv data, with Brazil hitting its lowest volume since 1999. Latin America had its lowest volume in 25 years.
One of the largest pending deals in the region, the sale of Embraer’s commercial operations to Boeing Co, collapsed in April.
Among advisers seeing a revival is Bank of America, which led regional M&A rankings and worked on the region’s largest deal, the $825 million sale of Latin American operations of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co to Hypera Pharma .
“We expect consolidation movements in many industries, including retail, travel, oil and gas, infrastructure, as companies see deals as a way to deal with the crisis”, said Hans Lin, its head of investment banking in Brazil.
Signs of a faster-than-expected Brazilian economic recovery may help speed up M&A deals, said Alessandro Farkuh, head of investment banking at Banco Bradesco SA, which led the Brazilian rankings.
Last week, Petroleo Brasileiro SA received initial binding offers for the first of a series of refineries it plans to sell. Two weeks ago, private equity firm IG4 agreed to buy a stake in one of Brazil’s largest grains terminals.
$1 = 5.3596 reais Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer, additional reporting by Carolina Mandl; Editing by Christian Plumb and Chizu Nomiyama
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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Today is a pretty exciting day for Baton Rouge residents. Why, you might ask? Well, the Krispy Kreme hot sign is on, and the store is officially reopened.
This grand re-opening comes almost one year after the Plank Rd. hotspot was torn down and completely rebuilt.
As Baton Rouge’s only location, customers are thrilled to have the ‘Original Glazed Doughnut’ and other fan favorites back where they belong.
Due to COVID-19, inside operations have been suspended but the drive-thru is up and running. Once normalcy resumes, the inside will be open from 6 a.m. – 10 p.m. and the drive-thru will be open 24-hours.
The lines are long, but the wait is worth it. Welcome back to Baton Rouge, Krispy Kreme!


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Pop culture is hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the once-ubiquitous home video format that will finish this month as a creaky ghost of Christmas past.
After three decades of steady — if unspectacular — service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor warehouse run by Ryan Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.
"It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," said Kugler, 34, a Southern California businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse we'll just give away or throw away."
Dumped in a humid Florida landfill? It's an ignominious end for a product that redefined film watching in America and spawned an entire sector led by new household names like Blockbuster. Major chains gave up on VHS a few years ago, but not Kugler, president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., who casually describes himself as "a bottom feeder" with a specialization in "distressed inventory."
The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was A History of Violence in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, Blu-ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than 4-million VHS videotapes over the past two years.
Those tapes went to bargain-basement chains such as Dollar Tree, Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Kugler's network of mom-and-pop clients and regional outlets.
Kugler estimates that 2-million tapes are still sitting on shelves of his clients' stores, but they are the last analog soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. "I'm not sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS," he said, "but it's been good to us."
The VHS tape never really had a chance once the DVD arrived in the late 1990s with all its shiny allure — higher-quality image, nimble navigation and all that extra content. After a robust run at the center of pop culture, VHS rentals were eclipsed by DVD in 2003. By the end of 2005, DVD sales were more than $22-billion and VHS was slumping badly but still viable enough to pull in $1.5-billion. Next year, that won't be the case.
Just before Halloween, JVC, the company that introduced the Video Home System format in 1977 in the United States, announced that it no longer would make stand-alone videocassette recorders. The electronic manufacturer still produces hybrid VHS-DVD players, but it's not clear how long that will last.
Kugler, with a sly smile, offered a warning to consumers thinking of putting up shelving to handle their burgeoning DVD libraries.
"The DVD will be obsolete in three or four years, no doubt about it. Everything will be Blu-ray," he said. "The days of the DVD are numbered. And that is good news for me."


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Vodafone's offering is cheap, but highly inconsistent network performance issues are still a major problem, making the Pocket WiFi quite a bit less extreme than it may first seem.
Typical price: $109.00
Vodafone's new modem isn't entirely mega, but it did show us the promise of better speeds than we're used to seeing out of the carrier.
Typical price: $99.00
On Wednesday, the two telecommunications companies announced a deal that will see TPG migrate its customers to Vodafone, who it will provide 5G-capable optic fibre infrastructure for through 2015.
A journalist says she is "appalled, outraged and very upset" amid claims her communications records were accessed by Vodafone staff, with privacy experts warning that this kind of data is "readily compromisable."
There isn't much to differentiate the Pocket WiFi from similar devices in regards to performance, but the addition of its LED display gives it a leg-up in usability.
Typical price: $119.00
Alongside unlimited calls and text, Vodafone is offering bonus data, unlimited international calls for select plans and even a data control feature to get a grip on downloads across shared plans.
Compass makes an excellent navigation tool for casual users looking for directions a few times a month or year. More frequent users should look to something more robust with absent features, like traffic monitoring and voice commands.
Typical price: $8.00
This budget Android mobile has an impressive specs line-up that includes a 13-megapixel rear camera and an octa-core processor. Hit play to see our first impressions.
Vodafone has launched new Shared plans that allow customers to spread plan inclusions across 10 devices under the one bill, while a new partnership with Stan is targeting streaming lovers.
The communications consumer advocacy group names Vodafone and a number of MVNOs as providers who have failed to comply with the January 1 deadline for free 1800 calls from mobiles.


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The company has received 99.99 per cent votes in favour of the scheme of amalgamation among GSK Consumers Healthcare and HUL.
New Delhi: GSK Consumers Healthcare Ltd said on Sunday that its shareholders approved its proposed merger with FMCG major HUL.
The company has received 99.99 per cent votes in favour of the scheme of amalgamation among the company and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) convened meeting of the equity sharehoders on June 1, 2019.
"The proposed resolution approving the Scheme was passed by the requisite majority of the equity shareholders of the Company," said GSK Consumers in a BSE filing. Earlier in January, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare had informed that it has received approval from the fair trade regulator CCI for its merger deal with HUL.
On December 3, 2018, Anglo-Dutch FMCG giant Unilever had announced the acquisition of health food portfolio, including popular brands Horlicks and Boost, from GlaxoSmithKline in India and over 20 other markets for 3.1 billion pounds (about Rs 27,750 crore).
Under the deal, Unilever's Indian arm, HUL is acquiring GSK CH India via an all-equity merger, valuing the total business of the latter at Rs 31,700 crore. GSK CH India is the market leader in the health food drinks (HFD) category, with popular brands such as Horlicks and Boost.


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Fiat has released the obligatory teaser trailer of its upcoming 500X compact crossover.
The small SUV, based on the all-new Jeep Renegade, will be officially unveiled at the Paris Motor Show next month.
We expect a range of petrol and diesel powertrains will be available, as well as FWD and AWD configurations.
The 500X might even make use of the new nine-speed automatic gearbox from the new Cherokee.
For a quick view of the main design themes found on the 500X, check out the video below.


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Australian dairy farmer confidence has taken a serious knock since the start of 2016, with a major industry report released today revealing fewer farmers are positive about their industry than a year ago – and a likely 20 per cent drop in confidence between March and now.
Peak body Australian Dairy Farmers says this is not surprising given the unprecedented industry shock that has hit dairy farmers and their businesses.
“Our first interest, with State dairy farmer organisations, is dairy farmers’ wellbeing, and our clear intent is to ensure no dairy farmer is ever again so vulnerable to processor decisions,” Mr Basham said.
“We must better balance market volatility throughout the Australian dairy supply chain.
“The last few weeks have painfully illustrated that farmers bear more than their fair share of risk and financial fall-out from global market volatility,” he said.
“Improving equity and transparency are just some of the matters ADF is driving with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Federal Government.”
He said short-term, targeted assistance measures provided by State and Federal Governments were broadly positive and reflected the immediate needs of the most affected dairy farmers.
“But it is crucial that the full suite of support measures be available to farmers across all dairying regions, as processors begin the process of setting milk prices to be paid from 1 July.”
Shona McPherson, Media Officer
M: 0447 161 919


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Why We All Need an Organic Manifesto
In her book Organic Manifesto, Maria Rodale explains why demanding organic is a much-needed solution to protect our health and heal our planet. The following is another great article from www.rodale.com
Choosing Organic food protects not just us, but the environment
BY LEAH ZERBE
Choosing food grown with organic methods keeps toxic chemicals out of the soil, and out of your body.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Organic matters, to all of us. Red state, blue state, churchgoer or atheist, soccer mom or single bachelor, what our society does to the soil (or allows to be done to it) directly affects our health. Sure, eating organic has long been a battle cry of environmentalists trying to protect the land, but as more and more science is telling us, we need to eat organic to save ourselves. As Maria Rodale, CEO of Rodale Inc. and author of the book Organic Manifesto, points out, “the planet will be fine without us.” We’re the ones in trouble if things don’t change.
Rodale, a third-generation advocate for organic farmers and farming practices, spent the last two years poring over peer-reviewed scientific research, traveling all over the country to meet with and learn about chemical and organic farmers, and interviewing the world’s leading environmental health experts. What she found is that we’re all living in a “great chemical experiment in which we are all guinea pigs.”
The warnings in Organic Manifesto apply to you if you are:
Do you know of any mother who would purposefully feed her child a plateful of food contaminated with residue that could lead to early puberty, ADHD, and increased cancer risk? How about a glass of poison-spiked water, or meat and dairy products raised in a way that makes our medicines useless?
The levels of atrazine, a common farm crop weed killer, routinely spike in drinking water and are linked to learning disabilities in children, miscarriages, and fertility problems, along with the feminization of males. Other recent research has linked the chemical to the castration of male frogs that live in atrazine-polluted waters, raising questions about the chemical’s effects on human development. And there have been huge jumps in the number of cases of ADHD, autism, asthma, diabetes, and childhood obesity. “Scientists can’t explain why the number of children with food allergies has increased 18 percent in the last decade,” Rodale writes. “Is it a coincidence that the prevalence of these problems has increased as we have increased the use of chemicals to grow our food?”
Chemical farmers face all the health problems listed above, but also suffer in other ways. They are lied to by chemical companies like Monsanto, who convince them they need genetically engineered seeds and toxic sprays to increase yields, when this really isn’t the case at all. Pesticides kill all the beneficial life in the soil that help store carbon (a climate change solution), retain water (reducing runoff and flooding during storms and storing more water for times of drought), and keep plants healthy and more resilient against pests and diseases. United Nations studies have found that organic farming methods increase yields over expensive and intensive chemical methods, even in places like food-starved Africa. Organic farmers also earn more livable wages, according to a USDA survey.
As Rodale points out in Organic Manifesto, perhaps nowhere is the sad case of chemical farmers more evident than in India, where desperate farmers, nearly run out of business because of U.S. farming subsidies, turn to “magic” GM (genetically modified) seeds. “After the first year, they find out that it costs much more to maintain their crops due to the ever-increasing prices of seeds and chemicals,” Rodale writes. “Yet they are still plagued by insects and, like all promises of magic, the yields are disappointing at best. Before long, the money lenders are knocking on their doors and there is not enough revenue from the crops to pay the debts.”
“More than 160,000 Indian cotton farmers have killed themselves in the past decade,” she continues. “The favored method of suicide? Ingesting chemical pesticides.”
A grocery store owner—or shopper
Farmer’s markets are great places to find healthy, organic food, but not everyone has a farmer’s market or backyard organic garden available year-round. (VisitLocalHarvest.org to find farm-direct organic food.) The more that consumers vote by purchasing organic food, the more stores will be inclined to carry it. If your grocery store’s organic section is scant, talk to the manager, lay out the health risks involved with chemical food, and tell him or her you’ll take your business elsewhere unless the situation improves.
A policy maker
Sales of organic food and products are growing, but they still represent just a sliver of the market. Complicating matters, the corporate domination of soy and corn seeds (ingredients in tons of food products) makes it impossible for all farmers to go organic tomorrow, even if they wanted to. There just aren’t enough non-GM seeds. Science has associated eating food grown from GM crops with an increase in food allergies and autoimmune disease, and even accelerated aging. And the GM crops are built to withstand very heavy sprayings of synthetic pesticides, chemicals that science has tied to everything from autism, ADHD, sexual development problems, some cancers, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and obesity.
To build up a bank of non-GM seeds in the next few years, we have to take action now, Rodale told an audience at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim last Friday. And that needs to start by ending broken farming policies that reward chemical farming methods that are poisoning us all and contributing to the healthcare crisis. Leading her list of “Five Solutions that Might Save Us,” Rodale demands a government ban of agricultural chemicals and GM seeds. “We need to demand that the government stop rewarding businesses that harm people and the planet by giving them subsidies and tax breaks and easing regulations,” she writes in Organic Manifesto.
Our existence—our children’s existence—depends on how we farm our food. Organic farming methods keep toxins out of our food and water, help mitigate global climate change, keep GM crops—which have barely even been tested for safety—out of the food supply, and can feed the world in a sustainable way. “We must restore the earth’s natural ability to absorb and store carbon,” writes Rodale. “Going organic will not only do that, it will also heal many other major ills as well: the poisoning of our children, our water, our wildlife, and our world.”
Visit DemandOrganic.org to learn more about how buying and growing organic can improve your personal health and help heal the planet. You can also become a fan of Organic Manifesto on Facebook, and follow Rodale’s blog, Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen.


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3,100+ commercial drone thought-leaders and professionals from around the world gather in Las Vegas for CUAV19, a 32% increase over 2018
Wingtra and SimActive are hosting an informative webinar for those interested in UAV technology this November. The focus is UAV mapping without the use of GCP (ground control points)
Commercial UAV Expo, Las Vegas, USA, October 30, 2019 — Soar, the digital mapping and imagery company building the world’s first dynamic super-map, has just announced the unveiling of Soar+ at the Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Terra Drone India’s new product portfolio includes Trinity90+, the UAV which India’s elite government organization, Survey of India, is using in various nonpareil projects for Large-Scale Mapping
Applanix and Phase One Industrial Workshop on Airborne Mapping and Surveying – November 13 & 14, 2019, Broomfield, CO, USA
MADISON, AL – GeoCue Group introduces their new hardware as a service (HaaS) Evergreen Subscription for their True View UAV LIDAR/Imagery Fusion Sensors to the drone industry.
Drones and the data they generate are transforming industries. With the rapid rate of innovation and increased adoption, users need to continue learning to keep pace with the industry.
Achieve higher accuracy and reliability when mapping with a UAV using LiDAR
VAUGHAN, Canada — September 12, 2019 — Teledyne Optech, a Teledyne Technologies [NYSE:TDY] company and global leader in advanced lidar sensors, is pleased to announce the CL-360, the next offering in its new line of compact lidar sensors for UAV and mobile applications.
Faster, More Accurate Volume Calculations


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Apple Inc's iPhone 5 and the iPhone 5S have finally outwit Samsung Galaxy S4 based on global sales in October, according to Counterpoint's report.
Counterpoint's Market Pulse noted the Apple's iPhone 5S retained the no. 1 spot for worldwide smartphone sales despite dealing with supply shortages that gave customers no choice but to wait for their orders to arrive. Since the supply of the iPhone 5S finally meets the demand, research firm Counterpoint expects Apple to meet stronger demand this November and December.
Also ahead of Samsung's S4 is the iPhone 5, which ranked second place. The older-generation iPhone remains a popular choice among smartphone consumers, leaving the Galaxy S4 in 3rd place. The iPhone 5C, Apple's cheaper iPhone, also enjoys strong sales at the no. 4 spot followed by Samsung Galaxy Note 3 at 5th place.
Based on Counterpoint's rankings, Apple did well around the world, especially in China. Apple's market share increased to 12 percent in October from a measly 3 percent in September. China has become Apple's third largest iPhone market.
A deal with China Mobile is expected to bring Apple more sales and greater market share since the Chinese carrier is the largest in the world.
Aside from Counterpoint, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech previously released a report about Apple getting a boost from iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C sales based on data ending Oct. 31. According to Kantar's research, Apple's iPhone sales represented 21 percent of world smartphone sales. In the U.S., the Android market captured almost 53 percent of sales. In European countries like Germany, UK, Italy, France and Spain, Android captured 71 percent of sales.
Apple-Microsoft Merger: Insane Prediction?
With Apple continuing the fight against Google's Android OS, someone made a fearless forecast based on current trends.
Analyst Keith Fitzgerald has claimed that Apple and Microsoft will possibly merge in 5 to 10 years. According to Fox Business, the Money Maps analyst said the competition from Facebook and Google will drive Apple and Microsoft to work together.
He said it is one of those "unthinkable, but absolutely possible deals."
Fitzgerald defended his point by saying that both companies may seek a merger since he thinks it will be the "only way" for Apple and Microsoft to achieve their goals in the future.
To contact the editor, e-mail:


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During what was another quiet week for cryptocurrency, crypto businesses operating in New York State had some critical decisions to make: apply for the BitLicense or close shop.
The 45-day grace period for businesses to make a decision came to an end. While several announced their intentions to get licensed, some notable names (Bitfinex, Kraken, LocalBitcoins) announced their departure from the state.
Once again, Bitcoin’s underlying ledger technology fared better than its currency. Visa, the world’s largest electronic payments network, disclosed that it too is exploring blockchain technology. The company, which once wrote off Bitcoin as a non-threat to its business, joins other financial heavyweights looking into the technology.
TrioMarkets Partners with HokoCloud, Expands its Portfolio with Social TradingGo to article >>
Israel-based Colu, a startup developing Colored Coins technology for blockchain technology applications, announced its beta launch and first industry partnership.
Bitcoin wallet services provider Xapo, currently going through a legal battle questioning the origins of its very existence, was chosen by Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) as trusted custodian over its bitcoin holdings.
BitFlyer was the first crypto company to secure venture funding this month, raising $4 million in its third round since launching.
Bitcoin prices initially found support at their low of $260, advancing as high as $271, but ended the week unchanged. Litecoin finished the week higher by 3.2% to $3.84. Ethereum’s cryptocurrency (Ether) at one point surpassed Litecoin in market capitalization and finished the week ranked fourth at the equivalent of $1.72.


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Across California, compost bins are fuller and dispensary shelves are a little emptier than usual. If you knew the signs, you’d sense that something dramatic had just happened. And you’d be right.
On Sunday, the stringent new “seed to sale” tracking standards for California’s cannabis market went into effect. Overnight, thousands of pounds of cannabis products worth hundreds of millions of dollars suddenly became noncompliant. Now, dispensaries are in the process of destroying them, in an event the industry has dubbed the “Marijuanapocalypse of 2018”
In The Aftermath of the “Marijuanapocalypse”
For the six months after the start of legal retail sales, which began on January 1, producers and retailers have scrambled to get their supply chains and products compliant with California’s new regulatory standards.
State regulators called this a “transition period,” a chance for businesses operating above board and seeking licenses to meet the Bureau of Cannabis Control’s requirements.
The six month lag on the new rules was a tacit acknowledgment of the illicit market that still undergirds much of California’s cannabis economy. But it also aimed to facilitate its transition into the legal, regulated market.
So through June 30, as licensing authorities reviewed applications, businesses were granted exceptions from specific regulatory provisions.
That deadline came and passed over the weekend, with many dispensaries unable to process all of their inventory under the new rules.
And that’s why California dispensaries must destroy $350 million worth of weed, according to one estimate.
In Lead Up To Deadline, California Dispensaries Rush To Sell Thousands of Pounds
News of the Marijuanapocalypse of 2018 has left many wondering how exactly dispensaries will destroy thousands of pounds of now-unsalable cannabis.
It turns out California’s Bureau of Cannabis Control has rules for that, too. Non-compliant products have to be rendered completely unusable. But dispensaries also have to record video of the destruction process, in case regulators ever come knocking.
But before it came to that, California dispensaries offered deep discounts on their soon-to-be noncompliant flower, edibles and concentrates. The last few weeks have been a buyer’s market across California for this reason.
On Sunday, however, the destruction process began. Dispensaries across the state dumped tens of thousands of pounds of flower and edibles into locking compost bins filled with other debris. They even smashed oil cartridges with hammers, capturing the whole process on video.
California Destroys Untold Amount Of Cannabis
The $350 million mark, however, is only an estimation. According to the spokesperson for the California Cannabis Industry Association Josh Drayton, it’s really hard to gauge exactly how much noncompliant product dispensaries have destroyed.
Drayton estimates Los Angeles dumped tens of thousands of pounds of product, alone. But that’s exactly the point. Those products aren’t integrated into California’s new seed to sale tracking system.
For businesses, the July 1 transition is part of the messy and difficult process of going completely legit. As more fully compliant products come to dispensary shelves, we might all forget about the $350 million marijuanapocalypse soon enough.


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Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson Is Melding Art and Fashion for Art Basel Miami Beach—and Real Emotion Too
The designer has curated a show for his store that will debut during the fair, and his fans won't be surprised by its sensitivity and taste.
For the last three years, Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of the crafts-oriented Spanish fashion label Loewe, has transformed the brand’s Miami Design District store into a makeshift museum every December to greet the hordes descending on Art Basel Miami Beach. A Brit who also oversees his own semi-eponymous label, JW Anderson, the designer has been using the fair as an excuse to curate a recurring exhibition to spotlight the artists he admires, allowing their work to interact with each other, with the space, and with his clothes. More importantly, the shows—each entitled “Chance Encounters,” with this one being “Chance Encounters III”—enable the ideas of art and commerce to interact with one another.
Sometimes Anderson becomes drawn to his artists in a thunderclap; other times it’s a slow burn. He came across the work of ceramicist Sara Flynn around 10 years ago and became transfixed with her fluid, sensual objects. “I’m quite obsessive,” Anderson says of his fascination with ceramics as a medium, which he also highlighted in last year’s exhibition. He likes the fact that ceramics, like fashion, walk the line between utility and decorative.
For this show, Anderson commissioned Flynn to create a collection of pieces, which he then juxtaposed the work of two other artists: the Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt, whose homoerotic portraits grace the walls, and Richard Smith, whose imposing sculpture towers above its peers. All will be arrayed within the store’s clinical white interior, in the middle of which Anderson placed a stone granary from the 18th century.
“It’s quite random, my process,” Anderson says about his approach to curating, admitting that his fashion design work follows a similar trajectory, taking bits of cultural ephemera and combing or juxtaposing them. Yet, it’s in that very randomness that Anderson says he finds the challenging discoveries that can make his work exciting, unexpected, and—most vitally—unique.
“It was a pinch-me project,” Flynn says of their collaboration, noting that Anderson gave her a lot of leeway in his brief. “He said, ‘I want you to be proud, and I want it to be a body of work that marks your body of work, your skill, and your ability at the moment.’” For Flynn, that meant she could create a collection of objects and know that an audience would not only see them individually but in relation to each other as well—an exciting proposition for her. It’s not often that commissioned work comes with such freedom. “It was like he was saying ‘No, I’m not going to tell you what I like, I want you to present what you think is strongest,’” she says.
Flynn also mentions her work’s relationship with function, a criterion for creation she let go of around a decade ago. “It was a boundary that was holding me back,” she says. “I didn’t want to worry if it was a jug that wouldn’t pour or a vase that would topple over.” That freed her to focus on reacting to and communicating with her material, and the results are seen in the earthy textures and bodily contours of her objects.
Placed together, the three artists’ work will no doubt take on new dimensions, an especially exciting proposal considering that both Wendt and Smith have passed away. Their interaction’s with Flynn’s work, will, in a way, reframe them and help them be seen anew—part of Anderson’s thinking behind this project, and a reason why he wanted to present work from multiple artists. “He’s got the vision, I think he could see it before it was even made,” Flynn noted. And while she may be crucial to the end result, she realizes that she’s merely a piece of the puzzle. “I can’t wait to see it put together,” she says.
The culmination won’t be seen until the show is unveiled in December, and then it will run through the holidays and into the new year, serving as a centerpiece for the site where Loewe’s fall collection, which traded in a mumsy, kooky glamor, will hang. Like so much of life in 2017, the exhibit—with its variety of emotions, its mediumistic range, its whiff of forbidden sexuality—appears to highlight the extremes of modern life, the aleatory quality of existence in the digital age.
Add that melding of art and commerce to this mix. Does Anderson think this mix of high and low, sacred and profane, is odd in any way? “Oh no, everything’s all mixed together now anyways,” he says. Fine art and fashion? It’s hard to tell the difference.
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LG G9 replacement might debut on May 15
Smartphone and electronic giant LG is all set to unveil a new phone series on 15th May this year. The LG G-series will be succeeded by the latest premium device range. While it is still unnamed, it is said that it will have Qualcomm Snapdragon 7-series chipsets and will arrive with support for 5G connectivity. Though it was also said that the LG G9 would be packed with Snapdragon 765G processor but, the plan has been dropped, and the same features will be seen in the upcoming G-series.
A Korean News channel has said that the brand held a discussion with 3-4 telecom companies in Korea to announce the launch date and get them active for the series. The organization also told the telecom operators that the G-series is being dropped and the latest series will emerge on May 15.
This new series from the brand will be targeted at the premium segment, and be backed by the outstanding Snapdragon 7-series chipset, which suggests either Snapdragon 765 or Snapdragon 765G chipset will be there in the device. The good news is that both the chipsets come with a 5G modem and will allow the facility on the upcoming device range from LG.
Keeping this top feature aside, there is a lot of buzz on the name of the latest series. The brand is dropping the G-series name and it is expected to come up with a catchy name on the lines of what Samsung has – like the Galaxy series. The brand’s smartphone business has decreased repeatedly despite the most advanced innovation and highly-powerful smartphones. According to the financial report of the brand in 2019, it is going to invest a huge amount of money in mass-premium and mass-tier 5G phones to grow interest for its phones again.
The organization has recently announced modifications to its smartphone range. The V-Series by LG is being kept for sales in Canada and the US. Apart from this, G-Series was believed to be launched for the Indian market. But according to latest news, the G-series will be totally replaced by something new.


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Apple today released its Q2 FY 2014 (ended March 29, 2014) earnings report, and the numbers did not disappoint. Tim Cook spoke glowingly of the better-than-expected performance, "We’re very proud of our quarterly results, especially our strong iPhone sales and record revenue from services." Almost all numbers were up, only iPad and iPod sales fell.
Apple posted a $45.6 billion quarterly revenue and a quarterly net profit of $10.2 billion, or $11.62 per diluted share. These numbers are up from last year's Q2 results, which were $43.6 billion, $9.5 billion and $10.09 respectively. The quarterly gross margin increased from 37.5 percent a year ago to 39.3 percent. Not only did this quarter outperform last year's Q2, but it also outperformed Apple's disappointing Q2 guidance, which caused a dip in stock prices in late January. The


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Apple has been targeted in a $50 million ransomware invasion following the vandalism of a trove of engineering and manufacturing schematics of current and upcoming products from Quanta, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures MacBooks and different products for Apple.
The leak, first proclaimed by The Record, was carried out by REvil, a Russian hacking organization that’s also known by the name Sodinokibi.
The group had already begun uploading the stolen images on April twentieth, explicitly planned to coincide with Apple’s latest “Spring Loaded” occasion, after Quanta refused to pay the $50 million ransom for the data. The group is presently expecting to get Apple itself to pay up by May first, promising to keep on posting new images from the leak daily until it does.
Quanta has affirmed that its servers were breached in a statement to Bloomberg, remarking: “Quanta Computer’s information security team has worked with external IT experts in response to cyber attacks on a small number of Quanta servers.” Quanta also declares, “there’s no material impact on the company’s business operation” due to the hack.
REvil has a history of same ransomware attacks, Bleeping Computer points out, with the group also carrying out similar hacks on Acer and different companies in the past several months. However, by virtue of its connection to Apple and the potential to reveal unannounced Apple hardware, the Quanta attack marks the group’s highest-profile target yet.
The company hasn’t revealed the extent of the leak yet. Yet, images leaked by REvil so far incorporate schematics for Apple’s simply revealed iMac redesign — which, preceding yesterday, hadn’t been seen by anyone outside of Apple’s sphere of influence, lending credence to the fact that the documents are indeed accurate.
The schematics also remember warnings for nearly every page: “This is the property of Apple and it must be returned,” and they specify that the documents are not to be reproduced, copied, or published.
Also contained inside the revealed files are manufacturing diagrams for Apple’s already-released 2020 M1 MacBook Air refresh and an as-yet-unreleased laptop that features additional ports in line with the existing rumors for the upcoming laptop refresh from Apple.
These documents were stolen and are being leaked to extort Apple and Quanta. Because of the nature of their origin, we trust it is unethical to cover their substance broadly. We’ve reached out to Apple for input and will update this post with any new information.


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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Did AMPEX Run Out of Silver & Gold ??
Ampex has launched a "reverse ïnquiry" in which it will pay "you $3.00 over the current spot price of Silver for your Silver American Eagles. ANY year, ANY quantity!" and "We will pay you $38.00 over the current spot price of Gold for your Gold American Eagles. ANY year, ANY quantity!" So aside from this first public confirmation that one of the biggest wholesale retailers of precious metals is now inventoryless [sic], we can certainly see why Asia has decided to take silver down in the afterhours electronic session.


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Greater Lansing Food Bank is a non-profit organization that provides emergency food to individuals and families in need in Ingham, Eaton, Clinton, Shiawassee, Clare, Isabella and Gratiot counties.
In the past, the greater Lansing area participated in a week-long event known as Restaurant Week to raise money for the food bank, but the event has not been reorganized. The wine bar’s General Manager Bill Schreck has revitalized it his own way.
“We thought it was a nice way to give back to the community,” Shreck said. “Last year they didn’t do (Restaurant Week) so we decided to do it ourselves this year.”
To donate at Dusty’s Cellar this week, you can order from a fixed Food Bank Menu. On it, a meal of a starter, entree and dessert costs $30 per person, with three options for each meal category. For those interested in donating more, there are also two extra options within the entree category that would add $10 to the bill.
“That includes wine, salads, anything you spend money on,” Shreck said.
According to the website of Greater Lansing Food Bank, all donated money goes to emergency food orders, which include enough non-perishable food to last a family in need for six days. The donations also provide support to home and community gardeners, by providing seeds, plant starts, tools and mobile food distribution.
“We want to make this an annual event, and maybe with doing this, we can get other restaurants involved again,” Shreck said. “The more money we make for the Food Bank, the better. It is such a great cause and organization.”


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Locally made green burial casket business to debut with event
BIG BAY — Green Renewal Caskets’ business debut is happening at the annual Wood-Sale & Open House party hosted by partner business, Wilson Creek Woodsmithing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in Big Bay.
Organizers invite the community to “join GRC & WCW at the lumber yard for a pleasant day of wood galore, local farmer and artist vendors, horseshoes, friends, and the debut of Green Renewal Caskets, an environmentally conscious casket company specializing in pine caskets for green burial.”
There will be products on display, including pet caskets, and lots of information to jump start attendees’ green burial education. To read about GRC and preview its caskets, visit GreenRenewalCaskets.com
The party location is 1498 County Road KJ, about 16 miles from Marquette, off of County Road 550 on the way to Big Bay. Call Jodi Miri at 906-251-0166 for more information.


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From the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance:
CHESTERFIELD, Mo., (March 3, 2016) – Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company, said it best: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” And the first step to coming together is showing appreciation for your customers. In agriculture, our customers are the people who eat, wear and use the commodities that we grow and raise every day.
“We as farmers and ranchers sometimes don’t take the time to stop and show our appreciation to our neighbors, our Facebook friends and all those people we don’t know who buy and use our products,” says Nancy Kavazanjian, USFRA Chairwoman and Wisconsin Farmer. “As crop farmers come together this week, we’re asking everyone to take a minute to recognize and thank our customers for supporting the great, efficient and sustainable U.S. agricultural system we have developed to feed, fuel and cloth the world.”
Join USFRA at Commodity Classic March 3-5 in New Orleans, La., to ‘Thank a Consumer’ and express appreciation for these individuals that keep the agriculture industry strong. In the U.S. and abroad, all consumers help sustain farmers and ranchers’ livelihood and contribute to their overall profitability. Many campaigns justifiably thank farmers and ranchers, but now it’s our turn to share that gratitude and thank a consumer for their continued support in buying the food and products that we grow and raise for them.
“Thank you consumers for your continued support and allowing American farmers and ranchers to stay in the fields to grow and raise nutritious food for you,” says Jay Hill, a vegetable, beef and nut producer from New Mexico and one of USFRA’s Faces of Farming and Ranching.
Interested in showing your support? USFRA will have a consumer appreciation photo booth and distribute ‘Thank a Consumer’ shirts at this year’s Commodity Classic located at booth #1009.


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August 24, 2016
BBC Chooses Vindicia for Digital TV Payments
Dec. 3, 2015
Subscription billing technology provider Vindicia on Tuesday said it has been selected by the BBC to manage payments for the British broadcaster’s video-on-demand service, BBC Store. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company will enable BBC customers to pay for digital versions of the network’s television programs they can view through BBC iPlayer. Vindicia will enable payments including e-wallets, PayPal and gift cards.
“BBC Store allows UK audiences to buy and keep digital copies of the BBC television programs they love,” said David Gibbons, director of global operations at BBC Worldwide. “We’re delighted to have a payment platform that will manage this effectively and enhance our customers’ experience of BBC Store.”


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Google Will Pay You $7.50 For Referring Google Apps To Businesses
Mobile apps ecosystem has grown in the past couple of years to become lucrative business for app developers and platform owners. Such has been the craze for applications these days, that you have educational courses based on coding and app development especially for Android. People centered around the business have made a lot of money but now Google is giving everyone the chance to make their own money.
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“The referral program makes it easy to share Google Apps with your network and show them how they too can use these tools at work. You’ll earn $7.50 for each new Google Apps user you refer”, as mentioned by Google on the referral page.
Join-Share-Earn is the modus operandi within which the referral program works and here’s how you stand a chance to make money by referring apps to one or more users.
- Register with your email ID, add bank a/c details (where money goes directly).
- Once you’ve registered, Google will send you a referral link to be shared.
- More the people signing up for the app, more money you get to earn.
- The money gets transferred to your bank a/c you shared and there’s even coupons too.
MSME EXCHANGE 2021Join us in amplifying the voice of over 60 million MSMEs in IndiaJune 28 - 29, 05:00 PM onwards
AdvertisementReferral program is another interesting initiative from Google and India is one of the 120 countries wherein the service has been made available. Want to make extra buck? Google referral program may be the best (and legitimate) way of earning quick money without putting much effort.
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Tencent Shares Fall After Chinese Regulators Block Sales of “Monster Hunter”
Tencent shares fell more than 3% last Tuesday after it was announced that the tech giant will not be able to sell a hugely popular game called “Monster Hunter: World” on its WeGame distribution platform.
Chinese regulators reportedly banned the game for not meeting regulatory requirements. However, a source close to the matter said that the removal was due to bureaucratic infighting with the country’s new regulator.
The tech giant’s gaming business has become a significant source of revenue, with titles like “Honor of Kings” boosting smartphone gaming revenues up by as much as 68%.


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VCN - The first Covid-19 wave has just gone away, now Vietnam continues to face the impact of the second, operations of many businesses are becoming more and more precarious. Therefore, maintaining jobs for workers in this context requires businesses to make great efforts.
|Strengthening inspection at tax offices amid complicated developments of COVID-19 outbreak|
|Agricultural products seek to sustain export growth amid COVID-19 fears|
|Vietnam, US to maintain trade balance amid COVID-19|
|To maintain jobs for workers in this context requires businesses to make great efforts. Artwork: Bui Nu|
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, in the first six months of 2020, the total number of enterprises temporarily suspending their business is 29,000, an increase of 38.2% over the same period in 2019.
In the second quarter of 2020, unemployed people of working age (aged 15 and over) totaled about 1.3 million, an increase of 192,800 people compared to first quarter and an increase of 221,000 people over the same period last year. This is the highest unemployment rate in this area in the past 10 years.
Notably, out of 51.8 million employed workers in the second quarter of this year, 30.8 million people were affected by the pandemic, of which 2.4 million workers lost their jobs.
According to the survey results of VietnamWorks during the Covid-19 pandemic and after the social distancing measures, when asked about the business situation, nearly 60% of enterprises showed certain capacity to maintain and continue business development. Specifically, 44% of businesses said they are still operating normally and are able to maintain the workforce as well as salary and benefits for employees; 16% of businesses say they are growing and increasing their staff size.
In addition, the vulnerable group due to Covid-19 accounts for 40%, of which 30% of enterprises had to cut human resources to maintain operations, 10% of businesses chose to cut staff, salary and benefits.
Many businesses were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in the first wave, a stronger outbreak of the disease made them almost exhausted. There are businesses that still exist, so they have to "struggle" to wait for the pandemic to pass.
Talking Customs Newspaper, Mrs. Can Thuy Ha, Director of Nam Duong Investment and Construction Co., Ltd., said that in the face of the risks of Covid-19 for the second time, with previous experience, the company is always proactive, calmly handling all arising issues. First of all, all anti-epidemic measures for employees of the company comply with the health sector's regulations, such as: washing hands regularly from the entrance to the reception, wearing masks, measuring the temperature of all employees in the company as well as in the workshop, the construction site twice a day.
“Communication and business activities are shifted from direct invoicing to online sales to ensure the safety of customers. The above safety policies are applied to all departments from administration, human resources to sales department in the company,”Ms. Ha said.
Facing difficulties caused by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, many businesses consider and calculate solutions to overcome the problem. While some businesses choose to cut labor to reduce costs and determine the risk of labor shortage when they return, many businesses are still trying to retain employees.
Thang Nho Production and Trading Co., Ltd has wondered a lot when it is imperative to cut working hours and shifts to work in moderation to wait for the pandemic to pass.
Representatives of Thang Nho Trading and Production Co., Ltd. said that the company had calculated the raw materials to return to production were delayed from March and April.
However, before the development of the disease, the company's raw materials for production have been exhausted because sources are imported. The plan to import goods and raw materials to serve production is almost paralyzed while the products made are in stock, greatly affecting the company's production plan. Currently up to 80% of production workers of the company have been cut from working 1-2 shifts / day, now only three shifts / week.
The leaders of Thang Nho Company spoke about the salary, we also negotiate with the employees that only the basic salary can be paid, the production salary will be adjusted according to the production hours of each employee. The entire administrative, accounting and human resources departments (those that are not directly involved in production) also have a reduction of 45-50% in salary.
|Ha Tinh Customs Department: Accompanying businesses to overcome difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic|
“Since its inception, the company's revenue has never been so deeply reduced. We are currently facing many difficulties in paying salaries for workers, maintaining machinery as well as balancing our debts. However, thanks to the public and transparent notification to the employees, most employees agree with the current income, all for the company to survive. We also guarantee that we will not cut employees, but only cut wages. This is necessary to stabilize the employees' psychology, help them feel secure in production and stick with the company. In addition, we will try to approach the Government's policies on labor and employment and enterprise support policies to overcome these difficulties,” Mr. Nguyen Manh Thang, Deputy Director of Thuong Co., Ltd. Trading and Production Thang Nho said.
By XuanThao/Bui Diep


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The long-awaited renovations to the University Mall will be open to students and the Fairfax community this November. The construction is updating existing storefronts and adding new businesses, a large outdoor courtyard and a community gathering room.
According to a presentation by University Mall Owner Richard Wolff, the new businesses will include a Tropical Smoothie, an ABC store and a new branch of a Virginia restaurant chain, featuring mostly Italian entrees.
According to Rosemary Ryan, a land use aide, the mall’s owners led the drive for the renovations.
“By and large, the communities that surround the Mall, with the exception of Mason, were staying pretty stable,” Ryan said. “But the growing and changing needs of the Mason students caused the mall owners to realize they needed to really do some major updating and so this was their initiative.”
While the construction has been going on for almost two years, there have been some delays due to environmental precautions and inclement weather.
According to Ryan, Giant Food’s slow decision to renovate also delayed the process. The decision finally came after Braddock District Supervisor John Cook wrote a letter explaining that the existing Giant was undersized and poorly serving the students.
“Finally, when Giant looked at the demographics of Mason, they decided that it really did fit their profile,” Ryan said. “But then the two-story addition that they originally looked at, which had elevators in the building and had lots more storage for goods in that store itself, came back way too expensive.”
While most of the mall will be completed by November, Giant will not begin construction until 2015.
“I don’t think they were aware of the fabulous economic opportunity that focusing on the Mason students and that campus community would have for their business model,” Ryan said.
During the process, some of the mall’s businesses experienced difficulties with the ongoing construction. An inconvenience for customers and business alike was loss of parking spaces, University Mall Theatre owner Mark O’Meara said.
Though many customers found their way around the construction to use the theatre, some periods were more difficult than others. According to O’Meara, construction used the theatre parking lot during University Mall Theatre’s popular $2 Tuesdays, which negatively affected customer traffic.
The renovations to the Theatre will include a larger front door entrance area and three more bathrooms near the entrance.
Despite some financial inconveniences, including raised rent and a necessary digital upgrade to theatre equipment, O’Meara said he’s optimistic about the effect of the renovations on business.
“I don’t like having pressure on my prices. I like to be a bargain house and family oriented and thrifty,” O’Meara said. “But I’m the optimist. I think it’ll be better.”
Local restaurant Brion’s Grille experienced the loss of some regular customers due to inconvenient conditions in the parking lot, Manager Jordan Doss said. Despite the difficulties presented by the construction, Brion’s Grille is also updating the restaurant interior and gaining an outdoor seating area.
“Our thought was it’s going to be a new facade,” Doss said. “We’re going to have this new, great looking exterior, a new sign to bring in some people and people are going to say ‘hey, Brion’s got a facelift, let’s come on in,’ and we want to show them something.”
This story was originally published in the August 25, 2014 print edition of Fourth Estate.


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(This is the transcript from our new video so it may not read as well as a normal blog post would)
Hi there. Today I want to take you through the future of search. It’s going to be a quick overview of what threats face Google in the next sort of decade or so from existing competitors as well as new entries to the market.
First off, let’s have a look at the existing competitors. So we’re talking about Yahoo! Bing mainly in sort of the UK/US markets, but we’re also seeing a massive growth in DuckDuckGo as well as Baidu, the Chinese search engine.
So if we look at Yahoo! Bing, the way Windows 10 has integrated with Bing is a massive step forward for the search engine, and there’s also been sort of complaints again that they’re limiting competition. But this does present quite a good opportunity for Bing to grow its market share. As well as this, it’s had a tie up with Spotlight, the Apple search software, which means that it basically is integrated into Apple iPhones and iPads and any devices running the iOS software, which is a monumental market to be the default search engine on.
We also want to look at the threat from the newer competitors on the market. So DuckDuckGo have formed a huge, comprehensive search engine based on the whole idea of privacy being a huge issue and that Google infringes privacy too much with its existing products. DuckDuckGo has seen a massive, massive growth and recorded four million searches per year. So it’s seeing sort of huge inroads in terms of becoming a big competitor to Google.
As well as this, Baidu is a huge competitor in China. It absolutely dominates the search market, much like Google does here. That search engine is available for users outside of China. So anyone in Western Europe, America, or anywhere, in the same way that Google is, can use Baidu. It would just take a good sort of marketing push to start integrating that wealth of knowledge and expertise that Baidu obviously have into becoming a real competitor to Google and causing it some real issues.
As well as the existing competitors, Google has also got to be slightly aware of areas such as Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
So Amazon is becoming one of the biggest competitors, and one of the heads of Google has already stated that Amazon is their biggest competitor. The reason he said this is because the product search on Amazon is huge. The market it has is massive, and one of the issues for Google is that product search is one of the main reasons why people advertise on Google. Bringing in that revenue is a huge part of Google’s advertising module, which brings in $58 billion every year for their business, and this is a core driver of Google.
So that’s a huge threat that Amazon have been able to pose. They’re really going to push forward with that, especially now they’ve started to exclude Google AdSense in Amazon as well, and they have started to exclude products such as Google Chromecast, for instance. It shows how much of an influence Amazon want to become in that market.
Facebook also have over a billion users, and they recorded a billion active users in one day, which again is not far off the numbers of Google. It’s just presenting another major opportunity for advertisers and Facebook itself to come together and create a real competitor to Google.
One of the big areas that Facebook could really excel at is local. It has a lot of location data. A lot of people like things from their local areas, and the knowledge it has on users is incredible. Even competitor Google, which has a lot of tracking features, but it doesn’t have the actual raw information per user that Facebook has. You can see through Facebook advertising at the moment how strong that data is to advertisers. So that provides a humongous opportunity for Facebook to really rival Google, especially in local searches and again probably moving into more web searches in the future.
There are also rumours that Apple may be using its Spotlight search feature, which has grown massively in the instruction of the new iOS, to create a web competitor for searches to Google. There’ve been a lot of rumours about job posts for specialists in search. This is one area that Apple, with its many billions in reserves, could give Google a real fight in terms of the iOs devices having inbuilt search software that bypasses Google completely.
So it’s a huge threat to Google, especially as mobile devices are becoming so popular. It would sort of mean Apple versus Android when it comes to mobile searches. So it presents a massive opportunity for Apple and a major threat to Google.
So the future of search is looking a bit more diverse than it used to be, especially for the UK and the US markets that have a massive reliance on Google. The competitors are growing in number and in ability and posing a much greater threat through specific types of searches, rather than Google sort of collect all search version of its algorithm.
So hopefully that gives you a little bit more information on the future of search. We’ve also written a blog post on it as well that you can have a look at. And if you’ve got any questions, please feel free to follow me @JamesaChallis. Thank you.
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