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On a Wednesday morning at Armature Works, videographer Nick George asked Muchachas owner Stephanie Swanz about her opinion on Yelp.
Swanz glared at him before discussing how review sites can impact independent restaurants. The goal was to figure out how to frame the topic before filming a video for the Tampa taco restaurant’s TikTok account, which has nearly 15,000 followers and posts with up to two million views.
“What if we ask you the question and it’s you staring at the camera in awkward silence?,” said marketing consultant Kiera Andrews.
Part of Muchachas’ strategy is to toe the line between controversy and playfulness so people will comment their thoughts below the video. They hope it will boost views and potentially translate to sales. As TikTok has grown beyond an app known for young people dancing to viral songs, it’s quickly becoming a platform where people get their information from — and some Tampa Bay businesses like Muchachas have taken notice.
Swanz, 37, first approached Andrews about getting her restaurant onto TikTok after realizing the addictive qualities the app can create. Andrews, the 29-year-old owner of Taste of Social Media Co., was originally hesitant as the app lacked the features like geotagging, which is great for small businesses since it allows an account to attach a location to their online post. It doesn’t matter much if you go viral if the people watching aren’t from Tampa Bay. But as TikTok rolled out more features, Andrews said the video platform shows where social media marketing is going. Now, she’s trying to get the rest of the businesses she works with to get on the app.
“Back in 2021, it wasn’t worth the time commitment and the investment. But now, it 100% is,” Andrews said.
The Beijing-based company ByteDance launched a lip-synching app in 2016 under the name Douyin in China and later merged with another lip-synching app Musical.ly, debuting globally as TikTok in 2018. TikTok exploded in popularity during the pandemic.
A Pew Research Center survey found news consumption on TikTok has increased 11% from 2020 to 2022, while the amount of American adults getting their news from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have either stagnated or declined. About a third of U.S. adults said they get their news through TikTok.
The app uses an algorithm that suggests videos on the “For You Page,” or FYP, based on a user’s viewing habits. TikTok is really good at finding content for individuals and continuing to serve it to them, said Kelli Burns, social media expert and associate professor at University of South Florida’s Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications. It’s becoming a place where both entertainment and information content intermix together.
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“It naturally flows because users are spending so much time on the platform, that they are seeing product recommendations and places to go in their city,” said Burns. “The more you’re exposed to the content, the more you think about TikTok as a resource for searching it out yourself.”
While brands catering to younger people were on the app first, Burns said now users of all ages are adopting the app and brands are seeing an opportunity to connect with them.
Muchachas aims to mix the information and entertainment aspect into their content. The team makes sure they don’t come off as a traditional advertisement for their audience, which consists primarily of adults in their 30s and 40s.
Videos just showing off the food typically don’t perform well, Swanz said. Swanz owns both Muchachas and Empamamas inside the Armature Works food hall in Tampa. Instead, their videos highlight employees’ personalities, answer questions left in the comments or show how their dishes are made.
Muchachas frequently uses a TikTok feature that allows them to repost comments into a video. After someone asked “I’m so confused why are we eating Chipotle out of a Doritos bag,” regarding their dish Walkin’ Taco, a burrito bowl in a bag of Doritos, staffer Heath North started off the video repeating the comment, stopping short of saying Chipotle and referred to the chain as “the c word” before explaining why they invented the dish. The video posted in June had more than 45,000 views. After they first posted a video of the Walkin’ Taco online, they saw sales jump 40% week over week, Swanz said.
For Andrews, she advises her small business clients to focus on original content rather than chasing the trends TikTok is famous for. Especially since many trends might not make sense for a specific brand.
“You should have a strategy where it’s 80% to 90% of original content or ideas that you’re coming up with. And then the other 10% can be a trending thing that’s going viral on TikTok,” Andrews said. “But I see a lot of small businesses try to do every single trend, and if you look at their videos, they’re not getting nearly as much reach as the original content.”
It’s also competitive to keep people’s attention on the app, so videographer George’s rule of thumb is to fit the word “you” within the first sentence to grab attention.
As TikTok has grown, other social media platforms have tried to copy the app’s features, including Instagram which introduced its video version Reels in 2020. But Burns at USF said no app has been able to replicate the high-energy culture that’s on TikTok. Unprofessional and more authentic videos typically perform better and businesses looking to get on should spend a lot of time on the app to figure out the style of content.
“You can’t create a video where you have a long intro, a little song or some rambling. One thing with TikTok is that you have to hook people within the first few seconds or they’re just going to swipe to the next video. It’s got to be very loud and engaging quickly,” Burns said.
TikTok quickly became the primary driver of online sales for Pop Goes the Waffle, said Sara Fludd, 53. In the last quarter, 50% of the Gulfport restaurant’s website traffic came from the video app while 30% came from Instagram and the rest from Facebook and Twitter.
Since Meta’s Instagram pushed hard for Reels, Fludd said Instagram hasn’t been delivering the same results for her business as it used to. Pop Goes the Waffle has 20,000 followers on TikTok, more than double their Instagram account. Instead, she’s been reposting her videos for TikTok onto Reels.
“I don’t even do promoted ads to push sales anymore,” Fludd said. “I’m really focused on trying to get it all on TikTok.”
But the problem Fludd has with TikTok, is it’s hard to know what will catch the algorithm and take off. Pop Goes the Waffle typically takes an hour out of the week to brainstorm and film ideas. Most of their popular videos caught Fludd and her employees by surprise.
“With social media, you never know,” she said. “And the thing is that we laugh about the ones that take up a really long time to do are usually the ones that don’t perform as well.”


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Breckenridge pitches its bag ban proposal back to town task force
Summit Daily News
Glenwood Springs, Colorado CO
BRECKENRIDGE, Colorado – The Breckenridge Town Council passed on a proposal that would ban plastic bags at large grocery stores and encourage other retailers to cut back on single-use bags, calling the plan unfair.
It was the first time town leaders have reacted to a concrete plan for bag reduction in Breckenridge since the new council put the issue at the top of its priority list last year.
But officials said they weren’t willing to adopt a proposal that treated single-use bags differently depending on who gave them out.
“This grocery versus retail thing, I’m adamantly opposed to that,” Councilman Mike Dudick said. “If plastic bags are bad, they’re bad. We, as a community, can’t be kind of pregnant on this.”
Without voting on it, the council returned the proposal to the SustainableBreck Business Task Force – the panel of individuals from local restaurant, retail and lodging industries who drafted the plan – asking for revisions last week.
City Market has declined to comment on the bag-reduction discussions to the Summit Daily, but town staffers said the company indicated it would not oppose or support a bag ban initiative during discussions with the town.
Town leaders also indicated they wanted a plan that would target both plastic and paper bags. Paper bags require more energy than plastic to manufacture, according to town staffers.
Three bag reduction strategies are currently on the table: a full ban of plastic and possibly paper bags, a fee on each bag – the revenue from which might be directed toward a bag-reduction marketing and education campaign – and a voluntary program encouraging local businesses, residents and visitors to move away from the use of plastic bags.
The task force proposal recommended banning plastic bags at large grocers in Breckenridge within six months, imposing a fee on paper bags and encouraging smaller retailers in town to decrease bag use, with benchmarks over the next few years.
The proposal received generally favorable feedback from the community.
More than 80 percent of people surveyed at a public forum and 66 percent questioned online supported the idea of banning plastic bags at large grocery stores. Approximately 80 percent of respondents at the forum and online backed the idea of asking retailers to voluntarily scale back on single use bags.
“I feel strongly that we should ban bags at all stores,” one unidentified online respondent stated. “Besides the use of petroleum in making them and long life in the landfill, they are unsightly trash hanging from our trees and bushes around town.”
Opponents of the bag reduction plan generally cite the possible implications on Breckenridge’s tourist economy, fueled by visitors who may not be aware of, prepared for or patient with a bag ban when they arrive in town.
“Breckenridge bends over backwards to please tourists,” another unnamed community member stated in an online comment. “Tourists don’t come prepared for anything, let alone bring returnable bags on a trip.”
Some have suggested using money generated by a single-use bag fee to supply local lodging companies and shuttle services with reusable bags branded with Breckenridge or local business logos to be provided to visitors.
Both Aspen and Telluride have implemented somewhat-successful bag bans in recent years. Fees on bags have been effective in reducing use in other jurisdictions, according to town staffers.
Approximately 14 million trees are cut and 12 million barrels of oil used annually to produce paper and plastic bags. Billions of bags end up as litter every year and are ingested by wildlife, introducing toxic chemicals into the food chain, a memo from town staff stated.
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Glenwood Canyon likely to remain closed for ‘weeks’ as I-70 assessed, repaired following numerous mudslides
Interstate 70 will likely remain closed for several weeks, as Colorado Department of Transportation crews work to assess the extent of damage from several days of heavy rains and debris slides from the Grizzly Creek Fire burn scar.

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Volvo Cars Chief to Pay $668,000 to Settle MAN SE Probe
Volvo Cars Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson will settle a German investigation into corruption allegations linked to his tenure as MAN SE (MAN)’s CEO by paying 500,000 euros ($668,000) to charity.
“I would have preferred to go through with the trial as I don’t have any doubt about my innocence,” Samuelsson said in a phone interview.…
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Cocoa bean exports from Sulawesi, Indonesia’s main growing region, dropped 38 percent in November from a month earlier because of limited vessel availability, an industry group said.
Shipments from the provinces of South and Central Sulawesi declined to 21,173 metric tons last month, from 33,898 tons in October, the Indonesia Cocoa Association said in a faxed statement today. Sales were 33,329 tons in November last year.
“Exports were lower because of changes in shipping schedules” caused by limited vessels, Herman Agan, head of the Central Sulawesi branch of the association, said by telephone from Palu, the provincial capital. “Exports may pick up again this month, adding delayed shipments from November.”
Falling supplies from Indonesia, the largest producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana, may help to halt a decline in the prices of the chocolate ingredient, which have dropped about 11 percent in New York this year. Sulawesi accounts for about 75 percent of total output and sales from the Southeast Asian country.
From January to November, overseas sales from the island in eastern Indonesia declined 2 percent from a year ago to 240,973 tons, the group said.
Cocoa futures for March delivery climbed 2.3 percent to $2,935 a ton in ICE Futures U.S. in New York on Dec. 3.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@Bloomberg.net;


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Australia’s first Ruby on Rails bootcamp style development school, Sydney Dev Camp, has announced the starting date of their first semester as 3rd April. The school aims to teach aspiring web developers and tech startup entrepreneurs to become confident programmers in just 10 weeks. Danila Davidson, the owner of Sydney Dev Camp, says “The course is designed to be intense but it will be fun too.”
A new website has been launched this week, billed as a ‘LinkedIn’ for the tech startup scene. The Startup Community aims to be a directory of the who’s who of the Sydney tech startup ecosystem and a new way for them to connect. As new startups and startup servicing businesses pop up across the city, this new website, built by Peter Argent of Sydney Dev Camp, plans to make it easy for people building their tech startup to find others who can help them grow and succeed.
Danilia Davidson has a private equity & VC background, in the past 8 years she has lived in 6 cities, 5 countries and 4 continents and on her journeys around the world has been lucky enough to meet some awesome people and to learn about the coolest technologies and the newest start ups


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August 2, 2016
Today, Amsterdam-based 3D Hubs is announcing the successful close of a $7 million Series B round led by EQT and Balderton Capital. The round is also supported by previous investors from Google, Uber, Booking.com, and Spotify. According to 3D Hubs, the company plans to use the new capital to expand their network to a global scale. Per the terms of the round, Ted Persson, Design Partner at EQT Ventures, will join 3D Hubs’ Board of Directors.
3D Hubs connects those in communities with 3D printers to those who need items 3D printed. As a result, the company contributes to both the on demand economy and adds additional value to those with professional 3D printing equipment to create a zero-inventory ecosystem. To date, their network spans to more than 160 countries around the world, connecting professionals to 3D printing services. According to the company, 3D Hubs has grown to more than 40,000 3D prints per month, which is a drastic increase since their initial funding round in 2014.
“We were inspired by the profoundly positive impact that online marketplaces have had on many industries, and we wanted to establish that same marketplace for 3D printing,” said CEO and cofounder of 3D Hubs Bram de Zwart. “Our team of investors has a deep understanding of online marketplace dynamics, and we’re thrilled to announce that EQT has joined us in our mission to decentralize manufacturing.”
Though the hobbyist world added fuel to the 3D printing industry, there has been a consistent shift to a more professional nature. This is especially true for 3D Hubs, which now primarily caters to professionals who want to select from a range of local custom manufacturing options and the materials used to create the prints.
“We’ve only seen the beginning of what 3D printing will offer, and 3D Hubs is by far the most well-positioned company we’ve encountered in this space. We are very impressed with what Bram, Brian and the rest of the team have managed to build in just under 3 years, so when EQT Ventures was invited to support their future journey we didn’t hesitate,” said EQT Ventures Design Partner Ted Persson.
To date, 3D Hubs has raised $11.5 million in outside funding. As part of their global expansion, funding from this round will go towards improving their on-demand, online platform.
“It’s rare to see a company that has such an immediate disruptive effect on both software companies and physical supply chains. 3D Hubs has already started changing the way designers and producers think and work.” said Balderton Capital’s James Wise.
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News tagged ‘enterprise’
Tuesday, 17 Apr 2012
If you're hoping that Windows 8 comes as a one-size-fits-all operating system like OS X, you're out of luck. But thankfully, Microsoft has announced that the number of variations has been cut down to a grand total of four.
Thursday, 22 Dec 2011
The Secret Santa gift exchange template allows users to quickly send out a form to collect necessary information from participating guests. Then, the form will assign Secret Santas and send automated emails to guests with all the details.
Wednesday, 13 Jul 2011
As the number of consumer devices increase, enterprise IT departments find themselves unable to keep up in terms of security and support.
Thursday, 17 Mar 2011
Seagate today announced its latest enterprise solutions designed to deliver storage for the widest range of application environments.
Monday, 20 Dec 2010
Seagate introduces the Constellation.2, the industry's first 2.5-inch enterprise-class hard drive to reach a record 1TB capacity. The Constellation.2 drive is designed for server storage applications.


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The Libra cryptocurrency project of Facebook Inclusive has not countered to a data request by the data privacy regulator of Switzerland, said the authority. The watchdog mentioned it had asked for more particulars to assist in delineating its oversight role over the proposed digital currency by the US social media firm.
In mid-June, Facebook declared of introducing Libra by next year as it steps into digital payments and e-commerce. Since then, it has confronted inspection by regulators, central bankers, and politicians across the world, comprising over concerns that extensive implementation by 2.38 Billion users of Facebook could disturb the financial system and make money laundering possible.
David Marcus, who supervises the currency project of Facebook, stated at a US Senate trial earlier this month he anticipated the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) to be privacy watchdog of Libra. This is as the nonprofit Libra Association set up by Facebook to watch over the currency is located in Geneva.
The FDPIC, in a statement, stated a letter has been sent on July 17 to the association as it hadn’t yet heard about the project from the group. The Swiss data privacy authority, among other things, stated it was anticipating Libra to carry out an impact evaluation of data protection risks coupled with the cryptocurrency, assess risks as well as put forward steps to curtail them. The watchdog stated, “At present, the FDPIC is waiting for the response to the July 17 letter by Libra Association and define their official position.”
On the other end, the data privacy handling by Facebook has been the focal point of condemnation, and the US Federal Trade Commission is all ready to proclaim the firm’s sweeping settlement of claims it mismanaged user privacy and would shell out $5 Billion, as briefed by 2 individuals knowing about the matter.
Nancy is one of the key individuals in the CMYK Digest’s content team. She had a promising track record in her college and pursued a Master of Science in Information Technology Degree with distinction. She has contributed almost 6 years of her professional life to the Technology sector. While Nancy carries out all the responsibilities as the Head of the Technology Department precisely, she has a commendable skill to get the work done in the stringent deadlines atmosphere. Although she is known as a great problem-solver in the team, people also appreciate her for her punctuality and precision in work.


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We’re starting to hear more and more about apple’s augmented reality ambitions, and its plans to launch a AR/VR headset that could be called Apple Glasses. Everything we’ve heard so far suggests this device is a long way off, but that may not be the case.
According to a report from China Times, Apple Glasses are set to arrive in the first quarter of 2022. In other words, you may be gearing up to buy a pair for yourself in just over a year’s time.
- Everything we know about Apple Glasses
- iPhone 13: Everything we know about the 2021 iPhone
- Plus: Apple Watch 7 could replace your iPhone with this major upgrade
The report itself comes from JPMorgan Chase industry analyst Yang Weilun, who claims Apple will have VR and AR powered headsets ready to sell during Q1 2022. Apparently these headsets will include six lenses, and a LiDAR scanner to better understand the location of the user and objects in the surrounding area.
It’s not clear what the six lenses are at this point, however. They could be camera lenses, but that would go against previous rumors claiming Apple Glasses would not include a camera for privacy reasons. The more likely option is that the headset will have six LiDAR sensors, so that it can get a full 360-degree view of the surroundings.
Apple Glass price: Get ready to pay a lot
Yang also says that this device is set to cost $500 to manufacture, meaning the retail price will likely be a few hundred dollars more. That does match up with what we’ve heard about Apple’s VR headset, which is reportedly going to be marketed as a premium niche device with an associated price tag.
That said, considering how advanced the Apple Glasses are set to be, we may well see similarly high prices for the first few generations.
Apple VR headset vs Apple Glasses
While the report mentions multiple headsets, everything that’s been said here sounds more like Apple’s upcoming VR headset, rather than the AR-centric Apple Glasses. The mention of VR is a particular giveaway, and we’ve already heard rumors that this headset will feature both AR and VR capabilities.
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Likewise, past reports have suggested that Apple Glasses are nowhere near ready for mass production. Everything we’ve heard suggests that Apple Glasses are designed to be exactly as the name suggests, a pair of spectacles with AR capabilities.
So Yang’s prediction that parts will start shipping towards the end of this year feels like an overly optimistic view. Apple’s VR headset, on the other hand, is reported to be much closer to completion, and it’s very possible that production could begin in that timeframe.
What we don't know is whether Apple will use the Apple Glass branding for both its VR headset and the AR-focused wearable or just for the latter.
Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.


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I know it sounds so pedestrian compared to the more serious problems Israel faces, but the Knesset’s new eco-terrorism “bag tax” bill annoys me. It will make our country a dirtier place, and add a needless expense (tax) onto an already heavily taxed consumer.
The Knesset just passed the first of three votes to try and kill the plastic shopping bag.
It will require that supermarkets charge you 30 agurot per plastic shopping bag you take. Every household will be given (somehow) 7 permanent cloth bags instead. Maybe they’ll hand them out with the gas masks.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when we go shopping for my family, we require far more than 7 bags (and we have to be able to lift them, so we aren’t going to overload them either). And when we get home, we don’t throw those plastic shopping bags away.
We recycle them.
Some bags line the garbage bins in the bathrooms.
Other bags are used for dirty diapers.
Another sits in my car for collecting garbage there.
Hareidim use them to protect their hats from the rain.
My neighbor (thankfully) uses his to pick up his dog’s poo, so the rest of us don’t have to step in it.
In fact, most Israelis I know recycle their plastic bags.
But now, a bunch of Knesset members (many I suspect don’t do their own shopping, clean their own houses, have large families, or pick up after their dogs) want to destroy this incredibly useful, recyclable and reusable tool.
Did you know that in 2002, in Ireland, when they imposed a shopping bag tax, shopping bag usage dropped 90%, just like their government wanted.
Instead, it had the unintended consequence of packaged plastic bags sales rising 400% in response. In fact, there was a net gain in plastic bag usage. People were simply forced to buy them instead, and they even bought more.
Maybe some of our Knesset Members should read this fact sheet before the next vote.
Here’s a quick excerpt:
“The Scottish Environment and Rural Development Committee concluded that a plastic bag tax in Scotland would increase waste arisings by 13,742 tonnes.”
Here’s another interesting tidbit, the amount of tax money collected as a result of the Irish bag tax went up, which makes one wonder about the true motivation behind the Knesset’s bag tax.
It’s also a myth that plastic bags kill masses of fish and wildlife like some eco-terrorists claim.
I wonder if our MKs even know what percent of landfill garbage plastic shopping bags make up. Maybe the MKs would like us to stop throwing away garbage completely, then our landfills would never fill up at all.
The Knesset doesn’t even wants us to switch to the more expensive, dual-use, biodegradable paper bags (which require more resources and energy to make, and take up more space per bag, but at least you can pick up dog poo with them).
By the way, in 2008, a 16 year old discovered how to biodegrade plastic bags in only 3 months.
And don’t think those 7 cloth bags are so eco-friendly in the long term. They get dirty and moldy, and you need to use up (expensive) water to wash them, otherwise bacteria builds up.
For health reasons, let me repeat that, you MUST wash these bags.
A 2010 joint University of Arizona and Limo Loma University study found that “Reusable grocery bags can be a breeding ground for dangerous foodborne bacteria and pose a serious risk to public health”. The study found that 97% of users did not wash them and that greater than 50% of the 84 bags contained coliform (a bacteria found in fecal material), while E. coli was found in 12% of the bags.
There’s a cost to making them too. And don’t get me started about what happens when the milk container leaks. And you’re obviously going to have to buy more than 7 of them if you plan to take your shopping home, especially if you want to be able to lift the bag. And when they start to rip, you’ll be throwing them away too.
A United Kingdom Environment Agency unpublished study in 2005 found that the average cotton bag is used only 51 times before being thrown away.
How many plastic shopping bags do you need, to take up the same amount of landfill space as one discarded cloth bag?
My guess (just a guess, I haven’t checked) is around 50. So if my guess is right, your 7 (initial) cloth bags will take up the space of 350 plastic shopping bags when you throw them away. And don’t forget, the average family will need to buy a few more each year to handle a normal weekly shopping.
And let’s not even talk about the inconvenience of having to take them with you everywhere in case you want to go shopping.
If our MKs want to really help our environment, they would stop the Arabs from wantonly burning their garbage everywhere in every open field they have.
Our MKs have an obligation to review this controversial bill before passing it, to determine what the real impact to our convenience, environment and pocketbook will be.
If they find that there is a clear, unequivocal benefit and the (clearly) predictable unintended consequences don’t negate its supposed benefits, then I won’t stand in their way.
But even if the sources I found are slanted, it is clear that the benefits are not as clear cut as the eco-terrorists would have you believe.
As I see it, this law, if it passes, amounts to nothing more than a new tax on households with babies, dogs, hats, and most everyone else.
We need plastic shopping bags to keep Israel clean.


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Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks in some unspecified time in the future of the firm’s occasion at Cell World Congress Americas in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Footage
LONDON — Microsoft-backed Graphcore has objected to Nvidia‘s $40 billion acquisition of Arm Holdings, per a key member of the British chipmaker’s early fashion.
Hermann Hauser, who helped to rep Arm in 1990, told CNBC that Graphcore has adversarial the deal in a “indispensable submission” to the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority.
“If Nvidia can merge the Arm and Nvidia designs in the identical draw then that locks out companies like Graphcore from coming into the vendor market and coming into a terminate relationship with Arm,” acknowledged Hauser, who is an investor in Graphcore by his project capital firm Amadeus Capital.
A spokesperson for Nvidia, which is planning to win Arm from Japanese tech huge SoftBank, described the deal as “authentic-competitive” on Wednesday. Arm didn’t immediately answer to a CNBC demand for commentary.
Graphcore and the CMA declined to commentary. Nonetheless, Graphcore CEO Nigel Toon told CNBC in December that Graphcore views the deal as anti-competitive. “It risks closing down or limiting other companies’ rating admission to to cutting edge CPU processor designs that are so important across the technology world, from records centers, to mobile, to automobiles and in embedded devices of all kinds,” he acknowledged.
Arm turned into once spun out of an early computing firm known as Acorn Computer programs, which Hauser co-primarily based in Cambridge, U.K., in 1978. Hauser turned into once instrumental in the enchancment of the first Arm processor, which turned into once before every thing developed as piece of Acorn.
Arm licenses its chip designs to over 500 companies across the enviornment and Hauser calls it the “Switzerland of the semiconductor industry” because it is terribly “even-handed” in the approach that it presents with its licensees. Arm’s vitality-efficient chip architectures are extinct in 95% of the enviornment’s smartphones and 95% of the chips designed in China. Hauser is anxious that Nvidia will assassinate Arm’s industry mannequin by closing off rating admission to to the firm’s chip designs.
A spokesperson for Nvidia insisted that the firm will deal with Arm’s open license mannequin. “Arm CPUs (central processing devices) will proceed to work with all peripherals and accelerators, pleasant as they manufacture now, and clients will most certainly be in a attach to integrate Arm designs with their take into accout accelerators, pleasant as they can at the unusual time,” they acknowledged. “We’re assured that regulators will peep the benefits to all of the tech ecosystem.”
Hauser acknowledged Nvidia is “lying by their teeth” when it promises to again Arm’s industry mannequin.
An Nvidia spokesperson acknowledged: “We are discussing our plans with the U.K. authorities, and we are very overjoyed to connect legally binding agreements in the lend a hand of all our commitments.”
Hauser, a Cambridge-primarily based entrepreneur grew to became investor — who spoke to CNBC from his farm in Recent Zealand by Zoom this week — has publicly criticized the deal ever because it turned into once presented final September, calling it a anxiousness for Arm’s home metropolis of Cambridge, as smartly as the U.K. and Europe.
“If you take into accout regarding the topic Nvidia is in, Nvidia is the one firm that could presumably perhaps make the most of spending $40 billion on destroying a firm,” acknowledged Hauser, who now no longer has any shares in Arm.
When announcing the acquisition, Nvidia and Arm acknowledged the deal will rep the enviornment’s “premier computing firm for the age of AI.” The duo maintain pledged to again Arm in Cambridge and invest carefully in the industry.
“This combination has giant benefits for both companies, our clients, and the industry,” acknowledged Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang when the deal turned into once presented.
Graphcore will not be any longer the most involving tech firm that has objected to the transaction. Local chipmakers in China including Huawei maintain entreated Beijing to maintain a examine out to block the deal over fears that they also can very smartly be at a downside if Arm results in the hands of a U.S. firm.
The deal is now being investigated by regulators across the enviornment. The EU and the U.K. are attach of dwelling to open “in-depth competitors investigations” into the deal, per a portray from The Financial Conditions on Thursday.
Two tech traders told CNBC final October that they own the deal will most certainly be derailed by regulators and Hauser believes the prospect of the deal being blocked is now increased than 50%.
Graphcore turned into once primarily based in June 2016 in Bristol, England, by Toon and Simon Knowles, who sold their outdated chip firm, Icera, to Nvidia for $435 million in 2011. The pair formed the initial conception for Graphcore in a tiny pub known as the Marlborough Tavern in Bathtub in January 2012.
Since it turned into once primarily based, Graphcore has raised $750 million for its unusual processors that are designed to vitality man made intelligence draw. The firm calls them intelligence processing devices, or IPUs.
Traders encompass the likes of Microsoft and BMW iVentures, as smartly as project companies like London’s Atomico and Silicon Valley’s Sequoia, which has additionally backed Nvidia.
In November, Sequoia partner Matt Miller told CNBC: “I don’t assume that you maintain gotten to buy on Nvidia for the reason that market is so fine. Taking on Nvidia is like this fine job. Or no longer it is a huge firm with billions of income and amazing teams doing all forms of honest things.”
He added: “I own that what Graphcore has the opportunity to manufacture is be a extremely solid participant in the AI microprocessor market. It continues to maintain mountainous progress with diverse the cloud suppliers, and plenty people desire to be diverse. They do no longer desire to be all in with one chip.”
Clarification: This myth has been amended to more precisely portray Hermann Hauser’s role at Arm Holdings.


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In the US, the Paramount and DreamWorks' film, in association with Hasbro topped Spider-Man 2's five day record sales at $201.2 million.
The film also came close to the best five-day sales of all time generated by The Dark Knight, which posted $203.8 million in ticket sales.
The second installment based on the Hasbro toy property currently has promotions running with Kmart, Burger King, Mars Snackfood U.S. and others.
Jem Sportswear recently launched an apparel line, while F.A.B. Starpoint was signed for watches, clocks and backpacks. Activision has released a game for Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and 3, Wii, Playstation Portable, Nintendo DS and Windows PC.


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- Apr 12, 2001
Macenstein reports that Apple has decided not to exhibit at the 2008 National Association of Broadcasters conference which takes place from April 11-17 in Las Vegas, NV.
The news follows an earlier announcement by Avid that they would also not be exhibiting at this year's NAB conference. We'd heard rumors that Apple would be pulling out of NAB and that the reason was primarily motived by the high cost of exhibiting."Apple is participating in fewer trade shows this year," said Anuj Nayar, senior manager of PR at Apple. "Often there are better ways to reach our customers. The increasing popularity of our retail stores and Apple.com Web site allows us to directly reach more than 100 million customers around the world in innovative new ways."
In 2007, Apple even held a special event at NAB, announcing a number of updates to their professional video applications.


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Strategies that directly protect muscle, strategies intended to preserve gut health may also directly reach and protect muscle (and vice versa).
Illinois sow farm rebuilds after roof collapse.
The Beresford store will also feature Hog Slat's exclusive line of GrowerSELECT ventilation and feeding equipment.
The Laurinburg location marks the 13th North Carolina store location for Hog Slat.
In addition to heaters, Zimmerman recommends producers check barn curtains to make sure they are in good physical condition.
Automation takes out guesswork at grow-finish sites.
The study found that North Carolina pig farmers have significantly increased feed efficiency over the past 17 years.
Legislative Watch: U.S.-Japan agreement signed; NAMI challenges Calif. Prop 12; unions file suit against slaughter rules; China talks resume.
Preliminary results highlight the complex nature of space, time and genetic relatedness relationships when assessing porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus transmission.
Law violates commerce clause of the Constitution.


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- Mandela not on life support in final hours, friend says
- Ukraine protesters topple, decapitate Lenin statue in Kiev
- Kim Jong-un’s uncle removed from North Korean state documentary
- Thailand crisis deepens as opposition quits Parliament
- Campbell Soup apologizes for SpaghettiOs’ Pearl Harbor tweet
- Former Reagan aide James Baker: President regretted apartheid veto
- Some donations to gay waitress who allegedly forged hate note refunded
- German President Joachim Gauck boycotting Sochi Olympics
- Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: If you want to pay more for your doctor, you can under Obamacare
- Sen. Rand Paul: ‘I am seriously thinking about’ running for president in 2016
Web sales tax could be just a click away; Senate approves rules for Internet
Online sticker shock just got a bit closer.
Internet retailers soon could be required to collect the same sales taxes that consumers pay to their bricks-and-mortar peers, after the Senate agreed Monday to send the Marketplace Fairness Act to the floor for a final vote in coming weeks.
Taxes on Internet commerce already exist formally. When consumers buy online, they are supposed to pay the sales tax directly to the government. But most people don't realize this because they are accustomed to brick-and-mortar stores charging the sales tax and passing it on to the state.
The Marketplace Fairness Act, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, and Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican, would fix this quirk in the tax system by requiring most large Internet retailers to collect the tax.
"All businesses and their retail sales, all consumers and their purchases should be treated equally," Mr. Enzi said during Senate floor debate. "Some argue the bill is a disguised attempt to create taxes. It is not. Consumers are already supposed to pay these taxes."
Opponents say it would be an overreach by a few states and fear the system would be too complicated for Internet retailers to deal with, forcing many of them out of business.
Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and an opponent of the Marketplace Fairness Act, said senators should take more time to consider the consequences of the bill.
"This legislation is new, only recently introduced, never has been vetted," Mr. Baucus said during floor debate. "This bill is fraught with all kinds of problems."
The Senate agreed Monday to send the bill to the floor for a final vote in a 74-20 decision, making passage in the upper chamber almost certain.
The vote could take place as early as Wednesday, or after the Senate returns from a weeklong vacation in May.
If it passes in the Senate, the Marketplace Fairness Act then would go to the House for a vote, where there is also growing support for a bill that would make Internet retailers collect sales tax.
On Monday, the Obama administration also threw its support behind the Marketplace Fairness Act.
"This bill would eliminate the unfair advantage currently enjoyed by big out-of-state online companies over local neighborhood-based small businesses," the White House said in a statement.
Supporters say the Marketplace Fairness Act would level the playing field for traditional retailers, which have long suffered from lost sales because their prices seem higher compared with online stores that don't collect sales tax.
"It is critical that the tax laws do not discriminate between similar businesses based on how their products are distributed," the National Retail Federation wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.
But Internet retailers say that collecting sales tax will be complicated. In addition to 46 states, nearly 10,000 local jurisdictions across the country charge some form of sales tax and opponents fear that this bill would make it difficult for Internet retailers to keep up.
Opponents complain that the Marketplace Fairness Act could force small Internet sellers out of business. While Internet-based giants such as Amazon and eBay can afford the complicated task of accurately computing, collecting and paying sales taxes to all the various governments, smaller online retailers may have more trouble keeping up with the complexities of the task.
Supporters point out that small Internet retailers that handle less than $1 million in revenue each year will not have to comply with the law.
"The legislation will level the playing field for retailers, while protecting small businesses from complicated laws in other states with a healthy small business exemption," according to the NRF letter.
Werherecoalition.org, a collection of web-enabled business retailers around the country, challenged the bill's definition of a small Internet company. The group points out that the Internal Revenue Service defines a small business as a company with annual revenue figures of $20 million or less, while the Small Business Administration sets the bar at $30 million in revenue.
"Essentially, any company with more than a few employees would be hit by this tax," the organization said in a statement.
To lighten the burden on Internet retailers, the Marketplace Fairness Act also would require states that want Internet retailers to collect taxes for them provide these online stores with software that helps them track the different rates.
The Marketplace Fairness Act also has supporters and opponents both claiming the mantle of "states' rights."
Supporters say each state should have the right to collect taxes from commerce with its own residents, without being undermined by out-of-state shippers. But opponents argue that any state attempting to force an out-of-state business to do its dirty work of tax collection violates another state's right to regulate its own corporate residents and their commerce.
"If you want to do business in Illinois [with a brick-and-mortar store], you would move to Illinois and have to play by Illinois rules," Mr. Durbin said Monday during debate on the Senate floor. "We think the same rules should apply to Internet sales, too."
But opponents argue this would lead to a form of "taxation without representation" since businesses would be forced to collect taxes on behalf of jurisdictions from which they do not receive the benefits of being located in that community.
"It essentially allows taxation without representation," said Josh Withrow, legislative affairs manager at FreedomWorks, who explained that businesses would "pay taxes to other states without ever getting the benefit of the use of those tax dollars."
"They have no option to vote out the officials who are collecting these taxes," he added, "because they have no jurisdiction."
FreedomWorks would rather see a system where each online retailer collects the sales taxes for the jurisdiction where their business is located, and not from where the consumer lives.
They call this an "origin-based" tax, as opposed to a "destination-based" tax, and say that it would make the process of collecting sales taxes much easier and less complicated, because they would have to deal with only one tax rate.
"We wouldn't be as mad about it," Mr. Withrow said, though he would prefer that Internet retailers not be required to collect taxes at all. "It's the location of the business that should dictate the tax rate."
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
About the Author
Tim Devaney is a national reporter who covers business and international trade for The Washington Times. Previously, he worked for the Detroit News, Grand Rapids Press, Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News. Tim can be reached at email@example.com.
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YouTube has eradicated a video that exhibits Tesla drivers finishing up their maintain security checks to search out out whether the EV’s (electric car) Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities would create it robotically give up for kids walking across or standing in the avenue, as first reported by CNBC.
The video, titled “Does Tesla Full-Self Driving Beta indubitably bustle over young folk?” used to be originally posted on Entire Mars Catalog’s YouTube channel and entails Tesla proprietor and investor, Tad Park, testing Tesla’s FSD characteristic along with his maintain young folk. All over the video, Park drives a Tesla Model 3 towards one in every of his teenagers standing in the avenue, and then tries again along with his assorted kid crossing the freeway. The auto stops earlier than reaching the teenagers both times.
As outlined on its strengthen page, YouTube has specific principles in opposition to scream material that “endangers the emotional and physical effectively-being of minors,” including “ dangerous stunts, dares, or pranks.” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi told The Verge that the video violated its insurance policies in opposition to low and dangerous scream material, and that the platform “doesn’t allow scream material displaying a minor taking share in dangerous actions or encouraging minors to create dangerous actions.” Choi says YouTube made up our minds to decide away the video which capacity that.
“I’ve tried FSD beta earlier than, and I’d belief my young folk’ existence with them,” Park says for the duration of the now-eradicated video. “So I’m very confident that it’s going to detect my young folk, and I’m moreover in regulate of the wheel so I will brake at any time,” Park told CNBC that the automobile used to be by no technique touring larger than eight miles an hour, and “made definite the automobile identified the kid.”
As of August 18th, the video had over 60,000 views on YouTube. The video used to be moreover posted to Twitter and smooth stays on hand to cross searching for. The Verge reached out to Twitter to peep if it has any plans to decide it down but didn’t straight away hear support.
The loopy idea to test FSD with steady — residing and breathing — teenagers emerged after a video and ad marketing and marketing campaign posted to Twitter showed Tesla vehicles seemingly failing to detect and colliding with tiny one-sized dummies placed in entrance of the automobile. Tesla followers weren’t buying it, sparking a debate referring to the constraints of the characteristic on Twitter. Entire Mars Catalog, an EV-driven Twitter and YouTube channel bustle by Tesla investor Omar Qazi, later hinted at putting in place a video provocative steady teenagers in an strive and show camouflage the usual results inferior.
In response to the video, the National Toll road Site visitors Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued an announcement warning in opposition to using teenagers to test automatic driving abilities. “No person ought to smooth possibility their existence, or the existence of anybody else, to test the efficiency of car abilities,” the company told Bloomberg. “Patrons ought to smooth by no technique strive and create their maintain test scenarios or employ steady folk, and particularly teenagers, to test the efficiency of car abilities.”
Tesla’s FSD device doesn’t create a car fully self reliant. It’s on hand to Tesla drivers for an extra $12,000 (or $199 / month subscription). As soon as Tesla determines that a driver meets a obvious security rating, it unlocks net entry to to the FSD beta, enabling drivers to input a vacation set apart apart and revel in the automobile power there using Autopilot, the automobile’s developed driver support device (ADAS). Drivers must smooth support their fingers on the wheel and be ready to decide regulate at any time.
Earlier this month, the California DMV accused Tesla of constructing counterfeit claims about Autopilot and FSD. The company alleges the names of both facets, as effectively as Tesla’s description of them, wrongly imply that they permit vehicles to characteristic autonomously.
In June, the NHTSA released knowledge about driver-relieve crashes for the principle time, and came across that Tesla vehicles using Autopilot vehicles had been taken with 273 crashes from July 20th, 2021 to Might well 21st, 2022. The NHTSA is currently investigating a change of incidents the set apart apart Tesla vehicles using driver-relieve abilities collided with parked emergency vehicles, moreover to over two dozen Tesla crashes, some of which were deadly.
Substitute August 20th, 2: 10PM ET: Updated to add an announcement and extra context from a YouTube spokesperson.
Thanks for studying our Tesla blog!
My trim dad says this plugin is very incredible!!


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It’s a big prediction, but it’s based on industry experience: The former long-time CEO of electronics manufacturing giant Flextronics believes that ERP’s vertical integration of an enterprise’s every aspect will change the face of the world’s $12 trillion construction industry.
Michael Marks founded precast construction start-up Katerra in 2015 to prove it – and after just two years the company employs more than 550 people, has won $500 million in contracts, and already has a valuation over $1 billion.
Based in Menlo Park, California, Katerra bills itself as a technology company, although its primary role is that of a general contractor. Through connecting building information modeling tools, computational design and a burgeoning global supply chain directly into Katerra’s SAP HANA ERP system, Marks believes Katerra can do for the construction industry what contract manufacturers like Flextronics did for electronics in the 1990s.
Construction, a highly traditional industry on multiple levels, is ripe for change. While other industries invested heavily in technology last year, 70% of construction firms dedicated a mere one percent or less of their revenue to technology, according to a report by software developer JBKnowledge.
But 3D printing, robotics and other automation tech. if properly integrated through ERP, can turn that on its ear, Marks believes. Rather than handling each new building as a one-off project, Katerra uses an “integrated factory” model that pulls together a cohesive system of design and architecture services, supply chain efficiencies, materials preparation, delivery and assembly.
“Instead of getting materials from a whole bunch of small companies that bid each project on a local basis, you come to Katerra and we do volume purchase agreements,” Marks said.
Architects can present any kind of design, he said, and the company’s ERP system can help arrange bulk acquisition of materials, streamline prefabrication of most parts of the building, coordinate just-in-time deliveries to the job site and track efficient assembly.
It’s a far cry from the old days of the building trade.
“We leverage technology and end-to-end control to move from individual project thinking to a systems approach,” he said.
• Vertical integration from design to build using ERP creates new efficiencies at each step.
• ERP can create international bulk sourcing for what used to be bespoke, small-lot local materials.
• Deeper insights gained from a global ERP system can streamline integration of new technologies.
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Vietnam’s logistics industry will need an extra two million workers by 2030, but vocational schools are not up to producing them.
“The demand for human resources in logistics is very high; however, graduates of vocational schools do not meet the requirements of employers in both quality and quantity,” says Vietnam Logistics Association’s (VLA) president Le Duy Hiep.
Hiep was speaking at the Forum on Human Resource Development in the Logistics Industry and Future Trends in Vietnam recently held in Ho Chi Minh City.
Developing sufficient human resources in this sector requires the central government, localities, logistics companies and vocational schools to work together, he said.
The vast majority of Vietnam’s logistics workforce are trained in-house, and only recently have institutions implemented formal training programs, leading to major shortages in a sector that grows at nearly 10 percent a year.
“The biggest difficulty is finding a worker with sufficient technical knowledge and English proficiency, most recruits we hire have to be retrained before they can start working. This is very expensive and time consuming for us,” said Tran Thi Hanh, owner of a cosmetics business.
According to the VLA, from now until 2020, Vietnam’s logistics industry will require around 200,000 high quality workers, with professional qualifications, skills and English proficiency. This number will rise to two million by 2030 to cater to new demands in the Industry 4.0 area.
A costly sector
Vietnam’s logistics sector, despite being crucial to the economy, has typically suffered exorbitantly high costs and made relatively low contributions to GDP.
The sector contributes just 3-4 percent to Vietnam’s GDP every year, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said at a logistics forum last December.
The cost of logistics services in Vietnam at the end of 2018 accounted for 25 percent of the country’s GDP, while the rate was just 9.5 percent in the U.S, 11 percent in Japan, 16 percent in South Korea, and 21.6 percent in China, said the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the main constraint for the sector’s growth is that there are many small firms and few large-scale ones.
Of 3,000 logistic firms in Vietnam, 90 percent have a registered capital of less than VND10 billion ($429,400), while just five percent have between VND10-20 billion ($429,400-$858,800), and the remaining five percent, over VND20 billion, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had said at a conference last year that Vietnam’s logistics costs were also driven by the high costs of transporting goods via land. In Vietnam, transportation accounts for 59 percent of all logistics costs, he said.
Phuc called for infrastructure improvements so Vietnam can stop excessive reliance on land-based transportation. The PM said he wanted the country’s logistics costs to drop to 16-20 percent of GDP by 2025, but at the same time, he also said that logistics companies should aim for revenue growth of 15-20 percent by 2025.
Last year, the World Bank ranked Vietnam 36th among 160 countries in the world and third in ASEAN on the Logistics Performance Index, up 35 places from 2016.
World Bank country director Ousmane Dione said that the logistics sector in Vietnam has a lot of potential to grow, as over $1 billion worth of goods cross Vietnam’s borders every day, a load that increases 10 percent a year.


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The Age of Information & Communications Technology is impacting advertising globally but Ethiopia is yet to catch up. DAWIT ENDESHAW, FORTUNE STAFF WRITER finds that the advertising business is still heavily reliant on print and traditional electronic media and though costly, is growing.
The walls of his office adorned with pictures, certificates and awards along with the half a century old autograph, tell a brief story of the industry. Anbessa Advertising in the age old Philips Building on Chad Street, puts one back in historical perspective, which helps to understand Ethiopia at present.
The indigenous way, intrinsic to the evolution of trading with money in the 19th Century, was ‘word of mouth’ advertising where merchants had their products announced in public or carried their products, shouting thir names. This is still done by vendors of various goods who shout out their wares through quiet streets of city neighbourhoods.
The rare and sporadic advertisements in print, rolled off the press a century ago with the birth of the unforgettable Aimero, Ethiopia’s first newspaper.
Others spawned later in the 20th Century included Addis Zemen, which remains a staple daily.
”Since working without the assistance of advertisements is just like walking without a stick for a blind person, let us advertise our desires! Let us not forget that while its cost is minimum, its advantages are however maximum!” reads the various editions of the 1950’s edition of Addis Zemen.
Though new to the culture, the advertising industry picked up quickly, with 34 companies transacting business that reached over a million Birr on those days. The shift in political ideology and economy of the 1970’s, killed this impetus and the nation ended up with just one state-owned enterprise advertising the (also) state-owned Ethiopian Airlines, banks and insurance companies.
The fifty year journey from the last days of the monarchical modernity call of the then regime that was stagnant as the national lottery came into being.
With the assistance of the Americans, the agrarian-based economy saw progressive movement in the manufacturing and service sectors.
Anbessa was one pioneer that survived the changes in regime and was revived, re-opening its doors for business in the early 1990’s.
The first advertising piece, too, was connected to the indigenous, oral advertising model mentioned earlier to promote an alien product, the lottery.
“I used to have one donkey – I loaded a bag of money on the donkey’s back and marched down along Churchill Avenue telling people that they better buy and take a chance,” remembered Woubshet Workalemahu, managing director of Anbessa.
Unlike old times where advertisements were limited to individuals, there are now companies that take the advertising business to the higher level.
Up until 2011, only five others along with Anbessa took the industry seriously and obtained business licences to do the job. This was the year when a law on advertising was issued, introducing mandatory registration of advertising businesses.
Five years down the road, the number advertising companies is now a little over 1,000.
As the number of advertising agencies increases and competition prevails, one would expect a decline in price, but paradoxically, both are hiking upwards.
Fifty years ago when Wubshet produced a single radio premium for the international brand Philips, his pay was merely 30 Br, with an additional 110 Br for going to most cities in the country to physically display the ad in public centres. Colleagues used mobile cinema projectors carried by car to advertise Philips’ famous radios, radio recorders and lights.
Nowadays, with the advent of ever-evolving technology, there are very different challenges. The the average cost of a one minute television advertisement, has reached 250,000 Br and a one minute ad produced for radio broadcast, 25,000 Br.
“The growth has been moving steadily up,” Serawit Fikre, owner of Serawit Promotions, a big player in the industry since the early 2000’s said.
His experience shows that cost has risen ten-fold in the past 15 years. But the cost of celebrity- character based promotion still stuck.
“Our ads were and still are celebrity based, as they provided options for low paid artists in the theatre and film industries,” said Serawit.
For small companies like Mestehaley Advertising Company, television and radio business is lucrative but hard to penetrate.
“The advertising business in electronics media of radio and television is fully dominated by few,” said Mehret Tadesse, manager of Mestehaley Advertising Company, who further explained that it is mostly done through group affiliation more so than profession.
The struggle of big and small fish in advertising has lessened, as the sector, protected by law, is reserved for Ethiopian nationals and foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin only. The law however leaves room to accommodate advertisements produced by foreign nationals, as long as this is done through a local advertising agent.
“Such can be a good strategy to protecting some social assets of the country, and yet respect the principle of free market,” an expert that asked to remain anonymous reflected. “But this alone does not protect the society from collateral damage ads bring in.”
In his opinion the industry so far has been left to thrive but now strict guidance and follow-up are critical.
In March 2016, a bold and serious decision was taken by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority (EBA), banning six broadcasters from airing three advertisements from giant breweries. The ban was imposed for the advertisements’ general tendencies to encroach on areas shielded by law: protection of minors, and assets of the society.
Most advertisers, including Woubshet and Serawit Fikere, agree that intervention is needed. They have their own take on where that intervention needs to come from.
A study conducted on 250 residents of Addis two years ago, assessing the impact of alcohol ads and alcohol consumption, concluded that youth and adolescents are more vulnerable to ads. They spend more time watching TV, and content usually leaves out negative impacts.
Parents reckon on the same. Fikerte Hailesellasie, 39, and a mother of two boys 12 and 8 is very concerned about her children’s attitudes towards TV.
“My son could not go to sleep, except while watching TV,” she told Fortune who met her while she was shopping for holiday gifts. Her effort to get them into the reading habit by constantly buying them books failed.
“They were never happy with the books,” the mother reflected on her challenge. But she noted that a DVD worth 15 Br would do the trick.
Fikerte and her husband also have a hard choice to make when it comes to how to spend evenings at home. The father wants to be with his children but cannot afford to miss watching or listening to the news. Having them both is difficult as invariably he asked to explain the ads that follow the news or are broadcast in the middle of it.
“Unfortunately it is usually for beer or condoms,” Fikerte said smiling sheepishly. Even the informative anti-corruption pieces are tricky.
The boundary is so gray, between information and promotion, said Gubae Gundarta, reflecting on the recent campaign by one of the big breweries targeting school age children, –
“It is about constant hammering,” said Gubae in response to the ban on the three advertisements. “They will grow anticipating prohibition.”
He shared the view that the matter was simply too delicate, that ads should be produced by professionals of high standard and has to be screened to protect the society.
The law on advertisements proclaimed four years ago has detailed guidance and prescriptions to follow.
“It was better than never,” a psychologist-lecturer, who for research purposes compiled data said. “The worrisome thing is that the law is not strictly being implemented.”
However, the regulatory body asserted that it had taken strong measures.
“What we did in March was not the first, but maybe of highest impact, as the ads were overwhelming,” Workenh Tuffa, communication head at EBA told Fortune.
At the beginning of the year there was a back and forth discussion on the content of an advertisement made to promote the new locally processed Anchor Milk.
“After brief suspension, an agreement was amicably reached to revise the ad’s content,” Workeneh said.
Now there are also emerging companies that offer a range of services, from conducting marketing research on how the end consumer perceives a certain product, to which tools are acceptable the products, developing strategies and undertaking the public relation task.
“The bridge between a product and the media the centrepiece where content is developed should be the intervention point to work on the industry,” said Addis Alemayehu, managing partner of 251 Communications.
The company, established five years ago, derived its name from area code of Ethiopia, (251). It is one of the advertising and communications companies aspiring to bring bigger scope to the advertisement sector.
Managing promotional material for clients’ products can be done via broadcast and print media, dealing the price following the progress is their task. Not only are they responsible for the below the line ads that is outdoor ads.
In five years 251 has managed to earn a client base of more than 70 companies. The cost here too is shooting up.
“The business is not yet exhaustively utilized, but now we have brewery companies that spent from 50 million Br up to 100 million Br a for a single year.”
The industry has evolved and the impact has grown so big. It affects families, individual behaviours and businesses at the highest level.
“In the running the company, the highest expenditure is for marketing, promotion and advertisement,” an employee in one of the highly competitive breweries disclosed to Fortune. “It is a monthly expenditure of over a million dollars.”
People like the parent and the psychologist researcher however, are wary of the growth.
“Unless the government take this industry seriously and follows-up closely now, it will be too difficult to hold the big muscle that is being built,” the psychologist said.
Follow-up and implementation of trespass of the law is so vivid on the streets, and ads not suitable for children are aired before 11.00pm, as the law prescribes.
“We need a revision of the advertisement proclamation that can fix this problem,” said Addis.
A billboard advertising a certain brand of shoe was placed for few months in one centre of the city, showing a man wearing the country’s military uniform. No action has been taken by the authorities who are there to make sure that the law is observed.
“A self regulatory association can be ideal to guide the industry in terms of ethical standards,” Serawit opined, “but setting up one has been the most difficult challenge members have so far faced.”
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In case you haven't heard, President Obama wants the wealthiest to pay more in taxes.
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Kohl's opens on Thanksgiving for holiday shopping
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. â€” Kohl's Department Stores said Monday it will open its doors on Thanksgiving for the first time, adding to the growing ranks of retailers trying to get a jump start on the holiday shopping season.
This critical shopping season used to start on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Retailers have been nudging their opening times earlier over the years in response to intense competition and tough economic times. Macy's and JC Penney each said last week they would open on the holiday.
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Is Fairtrade under threat? How logo is missing on new products from ethical chocolate brands and supermarkets
- New products from Green & Blacks have gone on sale without Fairtrade mark
- Brand owned by Cadbury, which is in throes or removing the logo from products
- Sainsbury’s, which is the biggest seller of Fairtrade Foundation products in the world, has switched to its own scheme and a new ‘Fairly Traded’ slogan
New products from the ethical chocolate brand Green & Blacks have gone on sale without the familiar Fairtrade mark
The Fairtrade logo, which is used on thousands of products to demonstrate struggling producers are treated well, is under threat.
New products from the ethical chocolate brand Green & Blacks have gone on sale without the familiar Fairtrade mark.
The brand is owned by Cadbury, which is in the throes or removing the logo from products, including Dairy Milk, in favour of its own ‘Cocoa Life’ scheme.
Separately, Sainsbury’s, which is the biggest seller of Fairtrade Foundation products in the world, has switched to its own scheme and a new ‘Fairly Traded’ slogan for some tea.
The decision has created fears that this is the first step towards the store phasing out the scheme completely.
At the same time, Tesco is giving greater prominence to a rival scheme for tea and coffee run by the ‘Rainforest Alliance’.
Anti-poverty campaigners suspect others will follow suit, so undermining schemes designed to help poor farmers in the Third World and causing confusion for shoppers.
The Fairtrade logo appears on more than 5,000 products, everything from tea and coffee to bananas and flowers.
UK sales exceeded £1.65 billion in 2016. As a result, there was an estimated financial premium of around £30 million – on top of the normal market price – for producers across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Caribbean.
The move by some firms to dump the logo has been condemned by Oxfam, the Catholic charity Cafod, Christian Aid, the Women’s Institute and several major ethical trading and co-operative groups representing millions of consumers.
In a joint statement, they said: ‘We see ‘own brand’ certification standards as a step backwards in tackling major issues related to poverty and environmental sustainability.’
Rachel Wilshaw, ethical trade advisor for Oxfam GB, said: ‘There is a risk of shoppers being left confused as some brands and retailers move away from the Fairtrade scheme to introduce their own alternative certification schemes.
‘With the Fairtrade mark on products, consumers are clear about what they are getting.’
Miss Wilshaw said sales of some Fairtrade product lines have been going up, adding: ‘This shows that customers continue to trust the Fairtrade mark as the best scheme for enabling poor farmers and workers to work their way out of poverty.’
The National Federation of Women’s Institutes said: ‘We would be very disappointed to see Fairtrade accreditation replaced with schemes that may confuse the consumer and may not have the same rigorous standards.’
Green & Black’s, which was founded in 1991 as a pioneering organic brand, was taken over by Cadbury, which is now part of US giant Mondelez, in 2005.
The Fairtrade logo appears on more than 5,000 products, everything from tea and coffee to bananas and flowers
The brand’s new Velvet Edition dark chocolate bars are not organic and the Fairtrade logo has been replaced with Cadbury’s ‘Cocoa Life’ symbol.
The brand’s existing classic range of dark chocolate will continue to carry the Fairtrade mark and use organic ingredients.
Cadbury pioneered the take up of the Fairtrade scheme in the high street when it signed in 2009. However, it now claims its alternative Cocoa Life regime offers better pay and conditions for a much larger group of farmers.
The Fairtrade logo is being removed from Cadbury’s Dairy Milk range this month. By 2019, the brand’s entire chocolate range in the UK and Ireland – including Flake, Twirl and Wispa – will switch.
Cadbury said its new regime has been endorsed by the Fairtrade Foundation, which is effectively a partner in the scheme even though its logo won’t be used.
It said Cocoa Life aims to secure a positive long-term future for 200,000 farmers and one million community members in six key cocoa growing countries by 2022.
The firm said: ‘Fairtrade remains a valuable partner for Cadbury and Cocoa Life and will continue to be involved in Cocoa Life.
‘Alongside our other NGO partners, Fairtrade will ensure Cadbury continues to be an accountable partner for farmers and plays a positive role in building thriving coca-growing communities.’
Fairtrade confirmed it is supporting the new Cadbury scheme, but it has refused to back the Sainsbury’s ‘Fairly Traded’ initiative and logo.
Tesco is giving greater prominence to a rival scheme for tea and coffee run by the ‘Rainforest Alliance’
A spokesman said: ‘We have some concerns on the Fairly Traded model, we do believe this particular scheme will create consumer confusion.’
The organisation said the Sainsbury’s scheme appears to have less rigorous standards and makes it more difficult for farmers to benefit from higher prices charged for their ethically produced crops.
Sainsbury’s said the change to its own scheme for tea is a pilot and no decision has been made to roll it out to other products.
The company said its own scheme is better for farmers with extra safeguards to ensure they receive crucial funding.
‘Fairly Traded goes further than the current model with more benefits, including longer-term commercial relationships and individually-tailored support to help them make their businesses more resilient and sustainable in the face of unprecedented challenges,’ it said.
Tesco said: ‘We are committed to sourcing our products in an ethical and sustainable way and work with a number of partners, including Fairtrade, to help us achieve this.
‘Tesco was one of the first retailers to support Fairtrade following its launch in 1994, and we offer our customers a wide selection of Fairtrade products.’
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The distinctive thin wood packaging around France’s famed Camembert cheese may be under threat from the EU’s recycling drive. That’s the fear makers of the soft cow-milk comestible from Normandy face — and French EU lawmakers have hastily stepped up to address.
On Wednesday, MEPs in the European Parliament, at the behest of its French members, introduced amendments to protect Camembert’s round wooden containers from the scope of an EU bill. That legislative text, presented by the European Commission last year, aims to reduce waste notably by setting recycling targets for all packaging from 2030.
The packaging industry has lobbied fiercely to make the legislation less restrictive.
“The wooden boxes used to package cheeses like camembert don’t have a dedicated recycling circuit because it would be too costly to create a logistic chain,” said Stephanie Yon-Courtin, an MEP originally from Normandy.
She is part of the centrist Renew Europe group in parliament, which encompasses lawmakers from French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party.
Their amendment seeks to spare wooden packaging from the recycling law.
That would apply not only to the traditional Camembert cylinder, but also to France’s Mont d’Or cheese as well as the wooden baskets in which oysters and berries are sold in French open-air markets. The amendment also wants to keep wax packaging out of the recycling law, which would apply to Mini Babybel cheeses made by French company Groupe Bel and popular as a snack.
The Renew lawmakers want the commission to first come up with a report on available facilities to recycle these types of packaging, as well as an impact study on what recycling them would do for the environment.
France’s European Affairs Minister Laurence Boone has lent her voice to the debate, telling a number of journalists on Tuesday the measure could inflame the rural electorate ahead of EU elections in June next year.
“If you want to caricature Europe before the election, you start by annoying Camembert producers and their wooden packaging… that makes everybody sit up,” she said.
Recycling was a necessity, she noted, and companies needed to be prodded to up their use of recyclable packaging material. But “there needs to be some pragmatic realism and not annoying Camembert makers,” she said.
Other amendments on the recycling law have also been lodged by French MEPs from other political groupings on the centre-right and far-right — who often defend farmers’ interests — to exclude wooden packaging.
But a German lawmaker, Delara Burkhardt, from the leftist Socialists and Democrats grouping, gave less heed to the arguments springing up around the emblematic French cheese: “The requirement for camembert wooden packaging to be recyclable must remain,” she told AFP.


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Vendors report mixed results from downtown Kingston Christmas sales
Vendors in downtown Kingston have expressed mixed feelings over the just-concluded Christmas sales, calling it the worst in years.
"The sales were very slow. It was far less than I had expected because last year this time, I would have about $3 million in me pocket from sales. This year is a little disaster," said Cheryl McLeash, who sells clothing on West Street.
Having spent more than US$13,000 to stock up on goods with the expectation of a healthy return on her investment, McLeash said that the experience has left a bad taste in her mouth.
"Is like me waste me money, seriously, because I don't even sell a quarter of the value of my goods and we looking at New Year's in a matter of days," she lamented.
Karen Coombs, a self-described 20-year veteran in the downtown Kingston vending district, said that she had to send some of her items with a friend to Falmouth in the hope of getting sales to save her US$4,000 investment.
She told The Gleaner that despite what was being said in some circles about the amount of money in circulation, some vendors such as her were seeing little of it.
"The people really nuh have nuh money - 'bout dem prosperity. Is only uptown people have money. Some vendors mek something, but nuff nah get any sales," Coombs said.
... A cheap Christmas
Clothing vendor Christopher Cowan said that he suffered from the lack of sales due in part to cheaper items being sold in Chinese-operated wholesales.
"A cheap Christmas dis. The people spend, but a cheap things them want because dem pocket thin," he said in explaining the reason for the low returns on items sold.
"In fact, still, enuh, I have to give thanks because it could be worse. We have to look at the economy and what a gwaan overseas. These things impact the local economy, enuh," said Cowan.
However, Dunstan Whittingham, president of the Jamaica Vendors, Higglers and Markets Association, said that Saturday was the "impact" day of the Christmas weekend, reasoning that based on information gathered, business was brisk and solid right through.
"Some of them (vendors) will never be honest to say they did well. That's the level of dishonesty we have to deal with. But truth be told, it was massive, and with the New Year's sales to come in, it will be greater," Whittingham stated.
He pointed to the organisation of the shopping district and the eagerness from vendors and shoppers alike for a new approach to vending downtown as the catalyst for the big spend.
"It was a very good Christmas both in sales and the level of discipline of our members. The seasonal vendors also played their part, and the experience, thanks to the police also, was a good one," he said.
More than half of the $13 billion in circulation around the Christmas period exchanged hands in downtown Kingston, according to Whittingham.


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Posted Fri Feb 19, 2016 at 02:00 PM PST by Steven Cohen
The drama starring Will Smith is coming to Ultra HD Blu-ray in March.
In an early announcement to retailers, Sony is preparing 'Concussion' for Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 29.
Will Smith stars in 'Concussion,' a dramatic thriller based on the incredible true David vs. Goliath story of American immigrant Dr. Bennet Omalu, the brilliant forensic neuropathologist who made the first discovery of CTE, a football-related brain trauma, in a pro player and fought for the truth to be known. Omalu’s emotional quest puts him at dangerous odds with one of the most powerful – and beloved – institutions in the world. With captivating performances by Alec Baldwin and Academy Award® nominee Albert Brooks (1987 Best Supporting Actor, Broadcast News).
The Ultra HD Blu-ray will feature 4K video with HDR, a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, and supplements will include: Nine Deleted Scenes; "Crafting Concussion" Featurette; "Inside the True Story" Featurette; and Commentary with Director Peter Landesman.
Suggested list price for the Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack is $45.99.
You can find the latest specs for 'Concussion' linked from our Ultra HD Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under March 29.
The latest news on all things 4K Ultra HD, blu-ray and Gear.


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Apple has been facing pressure lately on its App Store payment policy. The company has now agreed to allow dating apps in the Netherlands to include third-party payment options.
After being ordered by the Authority for Consumers and Markets in the Netherlands to exempt dating apps from its strict payment processing policy, Apple has indicated its readiness to comply. This will give this category of apps the chance to use their own choice of payment services providers and avoid handing over 15 to 30 percent of their revenue to Apple.
With this new payment method, apps within the Netherlands and under the dating category will be able to use two new optional entitlements known as StoreKit External Entitlements. They will allow the app to point users to a website to make their payment or introduce an external payment option right in the app.
Apple has, however, made it clear that for any app going this third-party payment processor route, it won’t be involved with refunds, subscriptions, or any other payment issues. This is not unexpected.
There are conditions for developers that want to take advantage of this policy change: they have to create a separate version of their app specifically for the Dutch market. If this appears like an extra hassle, it might set the tone for other countries where Apple might be compelled to offer third-party payment options.
Apart from creating a separate version, dating apps will still be charged for the transactions. Apple has promised more details on how the system will work.
Dating apps that wish to continue using Apple’s payment system do not have to make any changes.
Apple, however, is still fighting this order and has appealed in court. It said in a statement, “Because we do not believe these orders are in our users’ best interests, we have appealed the ACM’s decision to a higher court. We’re concerned these changes could compromise the user experience, and create new threats to user privacy and data security. In the meantime, we are obligated to make the mandated changes which we’re launching today and we will provide further information shortly.”
We brought you the report on how the ACM had investigated Apple’s in-app purchase practices after Match Group, owner of Tinder, Match.com, and OkCupid, filed a complaint. This explains why the concession is limited to only dating apps.
Failure to comply with the ACM’s order to include third-party payment options by January 15th would have attracted a fine of 5 million euros per week, capped at 50 million euros. Apparently, Apple would rather not pay a fine.
In similar news, Apple has agreed to allow apps to include their own payment methods in South Korea. The country’s Korean Communications Commission (KCC) had also carried out an investigation into alleged monopolistic practices, prompted by complaints from app developers. It ended in an order like that of the ACM.
In its home country, the US, Apple has also been ordered to let developers add links to third-party payment options. It came as the outcome of a lawsuit brought by Epic Games, the maker of the popular battle royale game, Fortnite. However, Apple does not have to implement it yet as the judgment has been stayed pending the conclusion of its appeal.
Apple’s 30 percent cut on all transactions, including recurring subscriptions, has always been a sore point in the developer community, but many choose not to speak out for fear of retaliation.


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USA flag on the background emblem of China in Beijing.
BEIJING, 5 Dec – China is confident that its U.S. trade agreements will be executed, said the Ministry of Commerce of China.
The leaders of the United States and China on the sidelines of the G20 summit have agreed on mutual steps to duties. Chinese President XI Jinping has promised to rectify the situation with the trade imbalance and start to purchase significant volumes of agricultural and other goods from the US. The US President Donald trump has agreed from January 1, to raise from 10 to 25% duty on goods from China import volume at $ 200 billion, if the parties will be able within 90 days to agree on a certain range of issues.
“The meeting was very successful, we have confidence that agreements will be fulfilled. Working groups of the two countries will, within 90 days, actively carry out consultations in accordance with the agreement and the road map” — said in a statement to the press.


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I love the iPhone X so far and I haven’t been so excited about an Apple product in years. The iPhone X is the most radical change to the iPhone formula ever, and despite some concerns, Apple has built a seriously impressive machine. I love its build quality and comfortable design, not to mention its expansive screen and great performance. The makeover here is drastic, though, and it’ll take some time to really get used to Face ID and life without a home button.
There have been some reports about the iPhone X not being responsive in cold weather, a blue tint and more recently a green line on the screen.
Apple stated that it has identified an issue where the iPhone X display becomes unresponsive to touches after a ‘rapid change’ in temperature. The company promised a forthcoming software fix will resolve the problem. Apple says that iOS devices should be used at operating temperatures between 0º and 35º Celsius.
Other users reported a green line showing on their iPhone X screen. The green line wasn’t visible on any of the affected iPhone X units when they were first taken out of the box but rather developed spontaneously after some period of usage in normal conditions.
The devices involved also don’t appear to have been dropped or damaged in any way. It happened to Samsung last year, except the line was pink. We didn’t hear anything from Apple on the green line problem.
One user already reports that their phone was replaced at the Apple store, so it seems unlikely that this is a software issue.
The iPhone X will evolve over time
In a recent interview with the Wallpaper magazine, Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer stated his views on the future of the iPhone X. He explains that the software plays an important role in the functionality of the new iPhone and Apple will be able to add new features as the software get’s improved.
“I’ve always been fascinated by these products that are more general purpose. What I think is remarkable about the iPhone X is that its functionality is so determined by software. And because of the fluid nature of software, this product is going to change and evolve.
In 12 months’ time, this object will be able to do things that it can’t now. I think that is extraordinary. I think we will look back on it and see it as a very significant point in terms of the products we have been developing.”
I’m excited to see the improvements in the years to come and I’m looking forward to having more features available for the iPhone X.
iPhone X bugs and glitches
In devices running iOS 11.1, the previous version of Apple’s mobile operating system launched a few weeks back some users have found the letter “I” autocorrects to a letter “A” followed by a symbol that normally looks like a box with a question mark. This bug has been addressed with the iOS 11.1.1 update released a few days ago. We think that Apple is working on an iOS 11.1.2 update that will fix the responsivity issues.
I hope all these issues are being addressed by Apple as we speak and I’m excited to see the improvements in the years to come. I’m looking forward to having more features available for the iPhone X.
If you experience any of the above problems, I recommend booking a Genius Bar appointment or contacting Apple’s support team via phone, email, or online chat.


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Crescent Cotton Mills Ltd. said its normalized net income for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30 amounted to a loss of 71 Pakistani paisa per share, compared with 28 paisa per share in the prior-year period.
Normalized net income, which excludes unusual gains or losses on a pre- and after-tax basis, was a loss of 16.1 million rupees, compared with income of 6.3 million rupees in the prior-year period.
The normalized profit margin dropped to negative 1.9% from 0.7% in the year-earlier period.
Total revenue climbed year over year to 914.4 million rupees from 884.3 million rupees, and total operating expenses increased 8.0% year over year to 966.8 million rupees from 895.2 million rupees.
Reported net income totaled a loss of 54.4 million rupees, or a loss of 2.40 rupees per share, compared to income of 29.1 million rupees, or 1.28 rupees per share, in the prior-year period.
For the year, the company's normalized net income totaled a loss of 2.02 rupees per share, compared with a loss of 61 paisa per share in the prior year.
Normalized net income was a loss of 45.7 million rupees, compared with a loss of 13.7 million rupees in the prior year.
Full-year total revenue fell 9.4% from the prior-year period to 3.45 billion rupees from 3.81 billion rupees, and total operating expenses declined 8.0% year over year to 3.53 billion rupees from 3.84 billion rupees.
The company said reported net income came to a loss of 112.8 million rupees, or a loss of 4.98 rupees per share, in the full year, compared with a loss of 31.4 million rupees, or a loss of 1.38 rupees per share, the prior year.
As of Oct. 6, US$1 was equivalent to 104.47 Pakistani rupees.


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The firm said the electronic parts maker, which specializes in materials polysilicon and sapphire, was upgraded on the upcoming commercialization of products in the pipeline, improving prices for key manufacturing materials, and continued progress regarding its recent supply agreement with Apple.
"The company is shifting its business model from equipment sales to a large mix of less volatile and less cyclical sapphire material sales," analysts said in a note. "We believe this transition will be rewarded in the market with multiple expansion."
Credit Suisse forecasts revenue of $717.7 million, $1.56 billion, and $2.12 billion over 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. Earnings per share are anticipated at 17 cents, $1.38, and $2.12 over the three years to 2016.
Despite the upgrade, shares have fallen 6.4% to $16.39 by late morning.
Must Read: Warren Buffett's 10 Favorite Stocks


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Employer gives away shopping spree on Indianola's Square
Dr. Gary Jacobsen of Dental Professionals surprised his employees with a shopping spree on the Indianola Square last week.
The rules were simple. Spend 50 $2 bills in an hour on The Square.
Amy Reed spent her $100 on a curling iron and some hair products at 180 Salon.
"Yesterday I was going to buy a curling iron, but they were a little pricey so I felt guilty," Reed said. "But this is wonderful. It's a huge surprise."
Shelby Lewis was searching for something to purchase in adorn.
"Part of the rules were that we had to buy something for ourselves," Lewis said. "I feel a little weird because unless it's clothing I hardly shop for myself.
"So I'm going to buy something I normally wouldn't buy - Something that I want to buy but I don't because it's impulsive - that's what I'm buying today."
Jacobsen said he's given out money to his staff to spend on The Square a couple of times.
"We just wanted to do something good for the employees and we wanted to draw attention to The Square," Jacobsen said. "We decided a good way to show the money is coming from us was to use $2 bills. People don't have a lot of them."
He said it's important to pay attention to the small businesses in the center of town.
"Nothing against the Walmarts of the world, but you want to have small businesses, which are the life blood of the town," Jacobsen said. "This town centers on The Square and we want to keep that going."
Erin Freeberg, owner of adorn, said she's appreciative of the extra business.
"I think it's such a cool concept," Freeberg said. "It's fun for their employees and it's a way to keep their dollars local."