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There is no doubt that the CBD industry is growing by leaps and bounds, and it is beginning to penetrate into circles where it was once unheard of. I love all this new awareness of this alternative medicine as I am an avid user of it myself.
Still, it hasn’t become quite ubiquitous yet, and I think there is a lot more awareness that can be gained in the coming years. Loosened regulations will certainly spur the growth of this industry, as we are already seeing more and more retailers offering these kinds of products.
Another thing that I think will boost the presence and usage of CBD is by bringing it to the masses at large events such as festivals and other community events.
Medterra Brings CBD to SXSW
This is exactly what is happening this week in Austin as Medterra (one of my favorite sellers of CBD – reviewed here: https://www.hlcomic.com/medterra-cbd-review/) is taking advantage of the opportunity to introduce a whole new group to this wonderful alternative medicine. The goal of the promotion, as stated in this article I found on digiday.com, is to “show how CBD can be woven into an everyday lifestyle”.
As quote in the article linked above, the CEO of Medterra, Jay Hartenbach, says:
“There is still a lot of confusion about CBD. People ask all the time, ‘Is this legal,’ Will this get me high,’ ‘Can I use this every day,’ so we see this as an education opportunity.”
To set up this event, Medterra CBD teamed up with an event agency called Wellhaus. I previously wrote about this agency in another post where they hosted CBD-related events at the Sundance Film Festival last year.
What This Means
A good takeaway that I took from the article on Digiday is how these products are being presented and received. It seems like the event-goers, as well as the promoters, are very aware of the wellness benefits of this alternative medicine.
As it is still a relatively new kind of drug, there is a lot of stigma around it, with many people confusing it with recreational marijuana (which couldn’t be more false). It seems like a lot of the focus of the promotion of CBD at this event has to do with health, wellness, and education.
This is a great step forward for Medterra, which is a brand that is growing by leaps and bounds. It is one of the favorite brands I review here as an e-commerce seller, and they already have wholesale relationships with around 2,500 pharmacies to get their products in the retail market. They are also launching their products with a major nationwide retail distributor this month, which I’m excited to find out more about.
They have also hinted at a new product line in the works, with a mention of a subbrand of Medterra that will be focused on skin care products for women. I’m looking forward to Medterra leading the way with continued awareness of these great products that can benefit so many!


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Soaring gas prices and catastrophic destruction from two hurricanes have had little effect on Marriott International Inc.'s bottom line, the company said yesterday as it reported third-quarter revenue up 18 percent.
Executives at the nation's largest hotel operator and franchiser told investors in a conference call that corporate travel, the firm's primary revenue generator, was strong despite high fuel prices. Also, Marriott's hotels in other cities picked up the slack for more than a dozen locations temporarily shut down in New Orleans.
"Let me say that despite considerable operating challenges from the Gulf Coast, our third-quarter results were fantastic," said Arne M. Sorenson, the Bethesda firm's chief financial officer. "In virtually every other market in the U.S. and around the world, demand was strong during the quarter."
Marriott's profit was $149 million (65 cents per share), up from $133 million (56 cents) from the comparable quarter last year, surpassing Wall Street's expectations. Revenue rose to $2.7 billion. Average daily room rates were up 8 percent.
The company said it lost about $1 million in management fees from its New Orleans hotels because of Hurricane Katrina and another $1 million from a donation it made to relief efforts. Marriott said fourth-quarter fees would be "modestly impaired," but over time it would recover the lost fees from insurance.
Having thousands of hotels around the country is likely to lessen the impact. "Major markets like Philadelphia, Washington, Orlando, Atlanta and Chicago have picked up business," Sorenson said. Twelve of the hotels in New Orleans have either already opened or will open soon, Marriott said.
Analysts had predicted that gas prices wouldn't hurt the company because Marriott is not in the economy hotel market, which caters to consumers more sensitive to higher gasoline prices. Also, there has been a slowing of new hotel construction, diminishing competition.
Companies in financial services, consumer goods, the defense industry, technology and pharmaceuticals were strong revenue generators during the quarter, Marriott said. Telecommunications and auto-industry firms were more cautious. Marriott intends to raise corporate rates 7 to 9 percent in 2006.
In another development, three current and former sales executives sued in a California federal court alleging age discrimination. The suit names several Marriott businesses and Rick Owen, a regional vice president.
A Marriott spokesman said the complaint has "no merit."

domain: news


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Australia’s leading eco-friendly, sustainable packaging company BioPak has introduced massive price cuts on its range of Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certified paper straws in a move designed to encourage more food and drink outlets to quit serving plastic straws.
Plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds are on their way to being banned in the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Theresa May. However no such ban has been promised in Australia. In a bid to stop pollution, Ms May has laid out plans to band single-use plastics. Mr Turnbull was visiting London for the Commonwealth


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Massive Inc., which pioneered the “dynamic” in-game advertising business, is becoming a bit more static in its approach. The Microsoft subsidiary recently began selling fixed product placements in videogames—commonly referred to as “static” ads—as they are baked into games during their production. That’s something of a departure for the company, which made a major splash in the industry back in 2005 when it introduced dynamic ads, i.e. ads served into games as they are being played, much like traditional online advertising.
Massive executives, while acknowledging the dynamic business didn’t explode as fast as some had predicted, said that the company’s broadened portfolio is being driven by advertiser demand for a more comprehensive in-game ad offering. “Now, we can help advertisers reach that gaming audience with deep integration in a game,” said JJ Richards, Massive’s general manager, who emphasized that static and dynamic are complementary.
Earlier this year, Richards brought on Aaron Lassila from rival in-game ad firm Double Fusion to serve as Massive’s national manager of fixed product placement. It was Double Fusion that in the past year or so first started expanding beyond dynamic ads into both static placements and casual games.
Double Fusion CEO Jon Epstein said that offering a broader portfolio is wise, since some brands need timely awareness messages, while others are drawn to games’ immersive qualities. “I can’t dynamically insert you into a storyline,” he said. “I can put a car in a game and park it there. If you really want to demonstrate, say, a new car’s speed attributes, that stuff still requires deep integration. There is a real role for static business.”
However, some perceive Massive’s move as a sign that dynamic ad spending has dried up during the economic downturn. That perception may stem from the recent news that competing in-game ad firm IGA Worldwide was in need of emergency funding or a possible white knight buyer in order to survive (executives at IGA were unavailable for comment).
Sources claim that IGA significantly overpaid for several of its game publisher deals and also vastly inflated its revenue estimates for recent years. The company is also said to have brought in roughly $3 million in revenue each of the past few years while burning through close to $18 million.
So is the recession driving down interest in dynamic in-game ads, or is it just bad forecasting that is hurting IGA?
“I don’t think that Massive’s interest is reflective of the fact that dynamic isn’t doing well,” said Paula Cuneo, Massive’s director, fixed product placement, who previously founded Activision’s in-game ad business. “We want to deliver against the needs of advertisers every time we go to them. This is easier for advertisers and publishers.”
Also, JJ Richards added “[Massive] just signed a seven-figure deal…We’re still growing. The overall tide isn’t. The independent dynamic strategy is having a tough time right now.”
But Dave Winding, director of network advertising for Sony, which employs both IGA and Double Fusion to deliver dynamic ads in 11 PlayStation3 games, remains bullish. “We are committed to both our ad distributors,” said Winding. “The only thing holding us back is a lack of inventory.”
Buyers note that many brands still find dynamic ads too passive for such a forward-leaning medium. “Dynamic ads need to evolve and increase the level of engagement in order to fully offer the opportunity that videogames present,” said Matt Story, leader of the gaming expertise at Publicis’ Denuo. “The importance of dynamic ads to brands will be limited until added functionality is present.”
Gaming consultant Alex Kakoyiannis theorized that dynamic in-game ads may have had some of their thunder stolen of late by newer, sexier digital media opportunities like video or social networking, which are easier for traditional brands to execute on. “In the past few years for nonendemic advertisers, there are so many other cool things out there that fit better in their box.”


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A petition which focuses on Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is only about 6,200 signatures away from requiring a comment from the White House. One of Tesla’s fans created the petition in an attempt to get the White House to assert its influence in favor of the company’s direct to consumer sales model. In order to prompt a White House response, the petition must have 100,000 signatures by Friday. It’s picking up steam though, and there’s a good chance the petition will make it.
Odds Look Good For Tesla Petition
The Tesla fan who wishes only to be known as Ken told ValueWalk last week that it looked like his petition would hit 100,000 signatures just in time. The Washington Post reports that John Voelcker of HighGearMedia said Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) emailed its customers on Friday, including a link to Ken’s petition and asking them to sign it.
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Before that email, there were about 36,000 signatures on Ken’s petition. The morning after the email, the number had risen to 40,000, and by the end of the weekend, there were about 70,000 signatures on the petition. When I started writing this story, the petition needed about 6,200 signatures, and in just a few minutes’ time, that number had dropped below 5,000.
Tesla’s Direct To Consumer Sales Model
Perhaps the biggest problem Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has faced since it started selling vehicles is its direct to consumer sales model. If the soaring number of signatures is any indication, consumers like it. However auto dealers on the other hand, hate it. They’ve launched efforts against Tesla in several states, although the automaker has managed to sneak through a loophole in some areas. The company sets up showrooms to show off its vehicles, although consumers in some states must take a road trip to another state if they wish to test drive one.
Of course even if the petition started by Ken does get the number of signatures required to garner a response from the White House, it may not have much effect on state laws. Each state sets its own laws regarding auto dealerships and whether automakers can own dealerships. The best the White House can do is voice its support in Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s favor and see what happens.
UPDATE: 9PM EST: The petition has hit the required 100,000 signatures mark.


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Apple has held a special event in October almost every year since 2011, with 2015 and 2017 being the only exceptions. The Mac has featured at every one of these events except the 2011 show in some capacity. With all the rumors about a new 16-inch MacBook Pro in the air, the event seemed like a sure bet.
We were expecting an October 2019 event from Apple featuring new products, but recent reports have cast some doubt on the likelihood of such an event happening. As we’re now in the final week of October, all hope for some sort of a press event has been dashed.
AirPods Pro jump the shark
Rumors began to emerge earlier this year about what would eventually get called the AirPods Pro. These new wireless, noise-canceling earbuds were leaked early, rumored for an October 2019 release date. If Apple had been planning an event, they would have no doubt been spotlighted. But instead of having some kind of media event, Apple has announced the new product with a simple press release.
Despite having just launched the AirPods 2 this Spring, Apple had been hard at work on a new version of its wireless earbuds. The AirPods Pro embrace both a fully in-ear design and noise-cancelling technology. The new earbuds are also the first AirPods to get an official IPX4 water resistance rating.
Rumors about the product had been swirling for months, but the recent report from China Economic Daily confirmed some of the key features of these new wireless earbuds. Most surprisingly, the report bumped up the timeframe from Spring 2020 to October 2019, which placed it right in time for the proposed late October press event.
The report also indicated a price of $260, which would make it spendy though not entirely out of the range of some of its competitors. For example, Apple’s own Powerbeats Pro true wireless earbuds debuted at a similar $250, since having been cut down to $199.
New rumors rekindled hope
Contrary to what previous reporting indicated, some new info had come to light that indicated Apple still had plans to hold an event in October 2019.
First, a report from China Economic Daily confirmed not only the existence of the rumored $260 AirPods Pro, but also a launch timeline set for the end of October. The product was previously rumored for a March 2020 release.
On the same day, an image was spotted in a new build of MacOS Catalina 10.15.1, that seemed to show a visual reference to the new 16-inch MacBook Pro we’ve been awaiting. The model number for the new laptop was MacBookPro16.1, which could confirm the screen size of the laptop. On the other hand, Apple’s numbering scheme doesn’t typically follow screen size as the current 15-inch MacBook Pro is know as “13,3.”
Neither of these rumors are a home run, but they do have us curious about what’s ahead. With October nearly over, any kind of press event has been ruled out. A recent report from a reliable source indicated that the rumored update to the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro may no longer be due for a 2019 release. Instead, the forecast is that these products will be moved to an early 2020 launch.
16-inch MacBook Pro
Apple’s much-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro was a big fat no-show at its September event, but that wasn’t too surprising. Apple usually has so much to cram into its September events, with iPhones, iPads and Watches all usually making an appearance, that there isn’t much time for the Mac. That was the case this year.
Still, given the sheer volume of rumors swirling around the 16-inch MacBook Pro, we’d expected it to make an appearance in October. Even if it gets delayed to Spring 2020, what exactly are we looking out for?
Well, word has it that Apple is going to completely overhaul its 15-inch MacBook Pro, giving it much thinner bezels so that the display can expand to 16 inches diagonally. That’d make it Apple’s largest display on a MacBook Pro since it phased out the 17-inch MacBook Pro in 2012.
It’s also possible that a new scissor-switch keyboard will replace the much-troubled butterfly keyboard in current MacBook Pro models. This will supposedly be a custom design from Apple that comprises several durable layers and light-emitting elements in an attempt to be both long-lasting and thin. At the same time, Apple has also been patenting refinements to the butterfly keyboard, so it’s possible we could just see another iteration of the current design.
Finally, it’s likely the 16-inch MacBook Pro will come with Intel’s 9th-generation Coffee Lake-H Refresh chips. Although Intel has recently launched its 10th-generation processors, they probably won’t get wide availability until 2020, which would be too late for Apple if it’s going to announce the 16-inch MacBook Pro this October.
Although Apple debuted a brand-new 7th-generation iPad at its September event, the iPad Pro was noticeably absent. As with the MacBook Pro, that’s not too surprising seeing as Apple saved the iPad Pro for its October event in 2018.
So, what could we see in a new iPad Pro? The biggest news is that Apple will supposedly bring the triple-lens camera system of the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max to the iPad Pro. This idea originates with tech website Sonny Dickson, which claims to have received a “final design mockup” of the iPad Pro from “a source that has repeatedly been reliable.”
The lens design in this mockup is noticeably different from that on Apple’s latest iPhones, however. Rather than the triangle arrangement seen on the iPhones, with a flash much smaller than the device’s lenses, the Sonny Dickson mockup shows the lenses and flash arranged in a square shape and all being roughly the same size. Whether this adds to or detracts from the leak’s authenticity, only time will tell.
Other iPad Pro rumors have been thin on the ground, aside from Bloomberg reporting that both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models will get minor processor bumps this year, as well as “upgraded cameras.” These will both be “similar upgrades” to those found in the new iPhones, lending weight to the Sonny Dickson leak.
Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR update
At WWDC in June 2019, Apple spilled the beans on its totally redesigned Mac Pro, as well as the all-new, all-powerful Pro Display XDR. With Apple showing off every minute detail on both devices, we don’t expect it to be hiding any major surprises up its sleeve for October.
However, there is the issue of both products’ release dates. At the moment, Apple’s website only says both the Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR will be released “this Fall.” We therefore think there’s a strong possibility Apple would have announced the availability of both at an October event, with them perhaps going on sale a roughly week after the event, as often happens with other Apple launch events.
With the AirPods Pro having gotten an October 30 release date, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Mac Pro and XDR Display get announced for launch on that same day.
Launched in 2017, the iMac Pro was Apple’s first proper attempt to lure back serious professional users since 2013’s Mac Pro. Whilst it was a killer machine two years ago, the world of tech moves fast, and the upcoming Mac Pro is making the iMac Pro look a little long in the tooth.
October 2019 would have be a good time for Apple to announce a spec bump for the iMac Pro to stop it getting left behind by the modularity — and sheer power — of the Mac Pro. For example, the best processor you can equip the iMac Pro with right now is an 18-core 2.3GHz Intel Xeon W chip. Pretty good, right? Well, the Mac Pro can be configured to come with a 28-core 2.5GHz Intel Xeon W processor.
We don’t expect the iMac Pro to get quite that much power due to its thermal constraints (it’s a thin machine, after all), but a more recent, more powerful processor is a must. Specifically, Intel’s Cascade Lake X chips are due out this year, so it’s entirely possible they’ll be making their way into an updated iMac Pro.
We wouldn’t expect many other changes though — a small graphics bump here, a higher RAM configuration there — and definitely won’t be seeing a new design this year (despite the iMac’s current look being with us since 2012).
StudioPods, a Tile competitor, and more
As always, there are a number of rumored Apple products that could have made an appearance at an October event. In particular, there are a couple of audio products that could have gotten some stage time.
Along with the AirPods Pro, Apple’s rumored over-ear headphones, the StudioPods, could also have made an appearance. They could easily have been paired up with a new MacBook Pro or Mac Pro fairly easily for the “Pro” market.
Lastly, some kind of a Tile competitor is said to have been in the works for a while now. Though it would have made sense that these were launched with the iPhone 11, MacOS Catalina does now include the Find My app, which could be a good excuse to launch a Tile competitor that lets you track items such as wallets or keys.
- Here’s why Apple’s M3 MacBook chip could destroy its rivals
- Here’s why WWDC could be a ‘critical event’ for Apple
- Apple could soon put an M3 chip in its worst laptop
- Apple just made a huge move to power up your next MacBook
- Waiting for the M3 iMac? We’ve got bad news for Apple fans


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The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) has faced a farmer backlash on social media after it concluded there is no current end market demand for an alternative “gatekeeper protocol” to farm assurance schemes for domestic crops for food and feed.
More than a year ago, the AIC was asked by Red Tractor, the NFU and farmers to explore the potential for introducing an alternative assurance scheme for domestic crops destined for the UK food and feed agri-supply chain.
A group of farmers, headed by Staffordshire arable grower and The Farming Forum founder Clive Bailye, suggested that a UK protocol could offer an alternative assurance route for farmers who did not wish to use existing farm assurance schemes, such as Red Tractor.
Currently, to access feed mills certified under the AIC’s Universal Feed Assurance Scheme (UFAS), growers must be members of a farm assurance scheme recognised by the scheme, such as Red Tractor.
But the group of farmers argue it is unfair that domestic growers must be Red Tractor-assured to access the vast majority of UK feed mills – while no equivalent grower assurance scheme is required for grain imports.
The farmers are devising their own gatekeeper alternative to Red Tractor and similar schemes, which, if approved by industry, would allow domestic crops to enter UK feed mills on similar terms to grain imports.
Mr Bailye told Farmers Weekly: “Red Tractor is a self-declaration by a farmer, so if they [AIC] are saying that is good enough, farmers could instead make a post-harvest declaration on the grain passport to declare the crop has been grown to UK standards.
“It’s unfair that grain imports produced using chemicals that are banned in the UK, such as neonicotinoids and chlorothalonil, are allowed to enter UK feed mills under less strict rules, simply by farmers ticking a self-declaration box at the first point of collection.
“We believe that the current arrangements could be illegal under competition law. The only way we could determine this is to test it in court, which could cost £1m. This would require someone like the NFU to test this, which is unlikely.”
‘Additional costs’ – AIC
John Kelley, AIC chief operating officer and managing director of AIC Services, said: “While we understand that some farmers are keen to look for an alternative to existing farm assurance schemes, a consultation with our members of AIC committees, as well as some processors and end users, found no evidence of significant end user or processor demand for a UK gatekeeper protocol to be introduced at the current time.
“In addition, it was found that the implementation of a UK gatekeeper protocol would generate additional cost and administrative complexity to food and feed assurance, while offering no added value to the supply chain.”
Mr Kelley insisted that the current farm assurance schemes offered in the UK were “the most cost-effective way of ensuring feed and food safety for the agri-food supply chain at this time”.
Several farmers lashed out on Twitter over the results of the AIC’s consultation, accusing the trade association of breaking the law by giving imports of grain easier trading conditions than UK-produced crops.
Yorkshire grower Steve Ridsdale, an outspoken critic of Red Tractor and AIC’s UFAS, tweeted: “Not allowing a Red Tractor alternative based on cost makes you wonder why AIC allow gatekeeper for imports, as [the] same reasoning would apply.
“The real reason is the AIC want ‘free’ bells and whistles Red Tractor for their members, so they don’t have to pay extra for it, which a two-tier system would create.”
Farmer Christopher Huck described the situation as an “utter sham”.
Last November, Red Tractor chief executive Jim Moseley said non-assured growers should be allowed “like-for-like” access to UK feed grain mills.
Alternatives ‘will be considered’
But Mr Kelley stressed it was important that scheme providers continue to listen and adapt to market needs.
“The AIC will consider any alternative assurance scheme at the farm gate and further up the supply chain, should these be developed in the future,” he said.
“Procuring agri-inputs for UK farming remains the highest priority for AIC’s members, and while supply chains are becoming more complex following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is even more important that the UK has a safe and secure agri-food supply chain,” he concluded.
The AIC said it worked with the Crop Stakeholder Group and various AIC committees over the past 12 months to ensure that the view of the whole supply chain was acknowledged.
Some members have asked for further clarity around the Gatekeeper protocol and I would like to flag this statement and video from @AgindustriesUK
AIC | Assessment of introducing Gatekeeping assurance into the UK https://t.co/1hz9mjCFpu
— Tom Bradshaw (@ProagriLtd) May 25, 2022
· The AIC has released a Q&A on the consultation review and a video explanation with voiceover. For details visit www.agindustries.org.uk


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By, Alison Gregor
ROBERT K. FUTTERMAN doesn’t come from an old real estate dynasty, but throughout his 23-year career in the industry he has been dogged by the legacy of Robert A. Futterman.
“He was a real estate guy from the 1950’s,” said Mr. Futterman, the chief executive of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, a firm based in New York that specializes in retail property. “I’ll speak to these older real estate guys now and then, and throughout my whole career, they’ve said: ‘Robert Futterman, I know that name. Are you any relation?’ “
Although the answer is no, Mr. Futterman learned enough about the other Mr. Futterman — who owned a company much like a modern-day real estate investment trust and wrote a book on urban development called “The Future of Our Cities,” published in 1961 — to take away a lesson.
“He was this intensely visionary and hyper real estate guy” who died in 1961 at the age of 33, at the height of a very fast-paced career, when he choked on a piece of meat, Mr. Futterman said. The story has resonated with Mr. Futterman, who is himself described as “driven” and “visionary” by colleagues and competitors alike. Yet the same peers who describe this silver-haired 47-year-old as intense say he is happiest with his arm draped casually over a business associate, closing a deal.
“I like having West Coast offices, so I can, if I choose to, work all night,” said Mr. Futterman, who shares custody of two sons, ages 13 and 11, with his former wife. “But I’m not totally obsessed. There’s a balance. Time to play; be with the kids.”
Still, Mr. Futterman has managed to expand his company, which he founded in 1998, into one of the country’s largest independent real estate firms specializing in leasing retail space. He has branched out into advising shopping mall developers, dabbles in property development himself and is now working to expand overseas.
Mr. Futterman began his career in retail real estate after leaving the University of Maryland without graduating and with the realization that a job in concert promotion — a focus in college — was not in the cards.
Since then, he has completed transactions in retail real estate leasing totaling more than $2.5 billion. Former colleagues at Garrick-Aug Associates, where Mr. Futterman landed his first job in 1983 for $250 a week as a retail store canvasser — meaning that he paced the streets of the city looking for vacant retail spaces for lease — characterize him as a “machine.” He rose through the ranks at Garrick-Aug to salesman, broker and then senior managing director.
“Throughout his tenure at Garrick-Aug, he was always the No. 1 producer and very well respected,” said James Aug, son of Charles Aug, the firm’s founder, who hired Mr. Futterman. “Many people tried to emulate him, and none ever succeeded.”
Mr. Futterman’s most notable job has been leasing 347,000 square feet of retail space in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle to retailers like Hugo Boss, Tourneau, A/X Armani Exchange, Sephora and Williams-Sonoma.
Mr. Futterman landed that job in 1999, a year after he left Garrick-Aug. Though Robert K. Futterman & Associates didn’t have much of a history in multitenant high-end shopping centers aimed largely at tourists, Mr. Futterman wasn’t intimidated. “I was the leasing agent for Donald Trump for many years, so we were involved in Trump Tower” while working at Garrick-Aug, he said.
“We were also the leasing agent at the Herald Center and the Manhattan Mall,” he added, “so anything that’s been vertical retail in New York, we’ve been involved in it.”
In other high-profile leasing projects, he has helped Rockefeller Center attract a collection of jazzy stores like Anthropologie and restaurants like Brasserie Ruhlmann. Another project was the leasing of space at the General Motors Building at 767 Fifth Avenue, at 59th Street, to Apple Computer, which opened a flagship store there last month.
He has also been the leasing agent for the rejuvenated Grand Central Terminal. Grand Central “has been an enormous success,” Mr. Futterman said. “Talk about a transformation from yet another situation where people said retail would never work,” he added. “Now, we’re 99.9 percent leased with a waiting list a mile long.”
More recently, his firm, which has grown to 85 employees from 22 at its founding, landed the job of leasing 160,000 square feet of space at the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, where Mr. Futterman says he envisions a department store, perhaps a Harrods Food Hall. The firm has also been selected by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as the initial retail consultant to the World Trade Center site reconstruction, which could eventually include 500,000 square feet or more of retail space, Mr. Futterman said.
“We’re happy about that,” he said. “Part of the spirit of our attitude when it comes to helping out the Port Authority is, being a New Yorker, you’ll do anything you can to help see that location get built.”
It was 9/11 that prompted him to expand his company into the national tenant representation business.
“After 9/11, the phone went dead, and business seemed to have come to a halt,” Mr. Futterman said. “We needed to reinvent ourselves as not just a regional company, but one that could take all the tenant-oriented relationships that we had and suggest that they hire us or that we represent them in formulating a strategy to expand around the country.” A Lesson Learned From a Legend
With his experience at the Time Warner Center, he has expanded into leasing the shopping-center components of mixed-use developments for property developers throughout the nation. Those sites include Meadowlands Xanadu in East Rutherford, N.J., and Mercato in Naples, Fla. Besides having its headquarters in New York City, his firm has offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco and is poised to open a fifth office in Miami.
While the core of the business continues to be leasing retail space for tenants and landlords in New York City, the firm has also found a niche advising property developers.
The developer David Edelstein had asked Mr. Futterman to examine the Shops at Desert Passage, a 475,000-square-foot shopping complex languishing on the Las Vegas Strip, before buying it in 2004. The shopping center was poorly designed, Mr. Futterman said, with sales averaging around $400 a square foot, while other Las Vegas malls were at $1,000 a foot. But the location was good, he added. Mr. Edelstein also consulted with Mr. Futterman on redevelopment of a pedestrian mall on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach that was in decline, with little foot traffic, after hitting its peak with several upscale retailers in the 1950’s. Both shopping centers are now having a revival.
Mr. Edelstein gave much of the credit for these turnarounds to Mr. Futterman. “Whenever I buy anything that has any retail component, I get his opinion,” Mr. Edelstein said. “He’s not a number cruncher. He’s a visionary. He sees where there’s value and where there’s not, and can think ahead to figure out how to create the most value.”
Mr. Futterman also joined in as a minority investment partner in the Shops at Desert Passage, which is being renamed Miracle Mile Shops.
NOW Mr. Futterman is looking to become more involved in international projects.
“I would think there’s enormous growth in the Far East in addition to markets like Dubai,” he said. “I think developers there are looking to align themselves with a company that can bring them Western brands.”
Even if he has cast his glance offshore, Mr. Futterman remains a dominant player in New York City, said Faith Hope Consolo, a former colleague at Garrick-Aug who last year became chairwoman of the retail leasing and sales division at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
Ms. Consolo said that she remembers going head to head with Mr. Futterman when they were at the same company and that this continues today, only on a larger scale. “He’s a fierce competitor, and he would say that about me, too,” she said. “We used to meet in the hallways of our old office, and now we meet in the shopping streets across the country.”


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HTC has launched a business division aimed at providing enterprises with advice, support and resources about HTC smartphones and mobile platforms.
HTC Business showcases the firm's latest high-end handsets running on the Google Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms.
A technical support team will help businesses set up and integrate HTC devices into back-end IT systems through a dedicated technical support service, the firm said.
A business training team, meanwhile, can support organisations at the time of rollout to ensure a successful implementation and reduce the number of internal support calls.
HTC Business customers will be able to test Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets through a loan scheme to ensure that the devices meet IT and user needs before investing, the manufacturer added.
The HTC brand is gaining traction with consumers, but the firm's heritage lies in the business market. HTC brought the first Windows Phone-based smartphone to market in 2002.
"We strongly believe that the latest generation of smartphones has finally reached a stage where we can truly speak of enabling mobile working and productivity at a reduced cost," said Jon French, executive director for HTC UK, Ireland and South Africa.
"Innovation and agility are two avenues through which small- and medium-sized businesses in the UK are looking to beat the current economic pressures."
The manufacturer is likely to invest heavily in HTC Business, French added.
HTC needs such a service in order to break into the enterprise sector and differentiate itself from other manufacturers of high-end devices, Francisco Jeronimo, research manager for European mobile devices at IDC, told V3.co.uk.
"Enterprises usually go for the most expensive high-end devices, so it is not surprising that HTC is addressing this area. Partnering with Google and Mic rosoft could also help the firm to provide an alternative to services like BlackBerry Enterprise Server," he said.
"The service will be targeting SMBs as they have more flexibility over which devices and operating systems they can adopt, whereas larger firms cannot switch operating systems overnight and many are not ready for the consumer-oriented Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms."
The BlackBerry platform remains very popular in the enterprise sector, but as HTC adds more services and support, business users will be attracted to its devices, Jeronimo believes.
Latest Tesla news: Tesla stock price tanks amid reports of 'widening probe' by SEC and claims the base Model 3 loses money
SEC 'probe' takes its toll on Tesla as new research suggests that Tesla loses $6,000 on every $35,000 Model 3
10nm Cannon Lake Core i3-8121U CPUs make a rare outing with Intel's NUC mini PC
'Notorious' Australian child hacker thought he had executed 'flawless' hack
The former employee says that Tesla fired him for bringing the accusations to management internally


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NORTH Wales Police is warning people of increased reports of a Facebook marketplace scam.
The force said it is seeing “more reports” of people being scammed when selling high value items on social media.
Offenders are attending victim’s houses to buy the item and showing a fake banking app showing a complete transaction. The offenders then leave with the item before the victims realise they have not been paid.
READ MORE: Flintshire woman scammed out of giving away puppy in Facebook marketplace fraud
Police have issued the following guidance:
Before parting with any items, make sure that the transfer has come across by checking your own banking application or PayPal, the funds should transfer immediately.
Do not release any items unless you have received the funds, if they are a genuine buyer they will always be willing to wait, return or pay cash.
For more information and advice, visit the Action Fraud website: https://orlo.uk/pqand


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Welcome to The Watercooler, issue 31.
LMTD has picked out some of the most interesting digital and social media stories making waves around the web this week, to keep you up-to-date with developments in the world’s most exciting and fastest-growing industry.
Something else you’d like to see? Let us know at firstname.lastname@example.org.
This week, our Senior Strategist and resident creative consultant Tom Bird gives us his thoughts on Facebook’s newest content series.
We all know that your friends will be there for you when the rain starts to pour, but are you sharing that with your Facebook ‘Friends’?
In a bid to try to increase engagement from the community with the community itself – rather than brands talking to ‘Likers’, Facebook has produced a content series around the theme of Friends. A host of inherently shareable videos and pictures has been created for you to watch, enjoy and of course share on Facebook. We especially like the ‘You think you’re not a hipster’ vignette which is especially apt for our CEO Will Hutson.
It’s interesting to note that the series is hosted on its own digital property – optimised for desktop, mobile and tablet of course – rather than a Facebook app which further signifies the shift outside of the desktop-orientated world of facebook.com.
As a case study in what to do to create an interesting, shareable and – dare I say it – viral platform, you couldn’t do much better.
Video is fast-becoming the medium for all social platforms, so the logical next step it seems is to move into live-stream. Long being the darling feature of Google Hangouts, recent moves have seen Twitter moving into the field. Recently it launched its native video publishing functionality and now rumours are afoot that it has acquired Periscope — a still-in-beta live-streaming app.
With the likes of Snapchat and its ever growing user base that lives in the moment, there is trend towards the ‘see it live and never again mentality’. Periscope isn’t the only player in this field and other apps are seeing their user base balloon fast because of their deep seated reliance on Twitter. Last week, Meerkat had its API access inadvertently blocked due to too much traffic.
However, just because we have the technology to broadcast what’s happening live in front of us to the world, it doesn’t mean we should. We’ve been able to see live webcams for years, but do we actually want to watch them? As ever, content is going to be king.
Social Media’s poster child Instagram is now ahead of Facebook when it comes to photo uploads, with brands posting an average of 9.3 times a week to Instagram, up from 7.5 posts a year ago. Facebook posts decreased, meanwhile, from 11.1 to 8.8 per week, signalling a shift in users’ appetites for content.
Fashion is amongst the leading categories paving the way amongst social media influencers, and brands such as Christian Louboutin, Louis Vuitton and Calvin Klein have hopped on for the ride too, with Instagram-first content and bespoke campaigns to take advantage of the platform’s power users and usage trends.
All is not bad news for Facebook. Luckily for the world’s largest social network, this coincides with a healthy and growing consumption of video content, performing as well as if not better than the world’s most watched TV network, YouTube.
What we do know for sure is that a platform-specific approach is more relevant than ever, with one-size-fits-all social media solutions becoming more and more obsolete.


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Seven years after Danielle Corona married and moved to Colombia, her handbag line, Hunting Season, has gone from being an artisanal niche brand in New York to a 2018 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist crafted by 50 predominantly women artisans at a dedicated factory outside Bogotá. Along the way, the brand has also become an insider favorite among actresses like Nicole Kidman, models like Kaia Gerber, fellow designers like TyLynn Nguyen, style setters like Lauren Santo Domingo of Moda Operandi, and an array of fashion editors. About two dozen of them, including Selby Drummond, Sabine Getty, and Alice Naylor-Leyland gathered in Paris on Monday night for British comfort food, Champagne, and gales of laughter.
The intimate dinner, held in a private room of restaurant L’Entente, was cohosted by Sarah Harris, the deputy editor and fashion features director at British Vogue. “I loved Danielle the minute I met her a few years back,” offered Harris. “But even more than that, I’m just so particular about a bag, and I feel like you almost can’t improve on hers: They’re beautiful and they work. She’s one of the new generation of designers that are doing luxury with a real heritage. It feels time-honored and heirloom. Plus, I just love how much she cares.”
Harris also lent a hand on Hunting Season’s new belt bag. “She already had this clutch design, and I thought how cool would it be to put this on a belt,” Harris recounted, noting that with a two-year-old daughter, she’s constantly on the lookout for hands-free bags. Clearly, she’s not alone on that count: Practically every woman in the room tried one on as Nguyen played photographer for the night.
But even beyond the glamour of traveling to Paris often and cohosting an intimate fashion-week dinner, Corona said that her biggest gratification comes from bringing forward generations of craft and tradition. “To me, seeing what we’ve been able to build and feeling the pride of different groups of craftswomen that their bags are going all over the world makes me realize how important it is to keep putting beautiful things out there.”


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Gap Inc Launches In India In Partnership With Reliance Retail
Written by Amit Sharma, Community Development Manager
The iconic American fashion brand Gap Inc. will set up shop in India through a long-term franchise agreement with Reliance Retail Limited, India’s largest retailer.
Through the long-term partnership, Reliance Retail has become the official retailer for Gap across all channels in India. Reliance Retail will introduce Gap’s latest fashion offerings to Indian consumers through a mix of exclusive brand stores, multi-brand store expressions and digital commerce platforms.
“The partnership is aimed at leveraging Gap’s position as a leading casual lifestyle brand, and Reliance Retail’s established competencies in operating robust omnichannel retail networks and scaling local manufacturing and driving sourcing efficiencies.” Reliance Retail said about the long-term agreement.
“We look forward to growing the Gap business across key international markets,” said Adrienne Gernand, Managing Director of International, Global Licensing and Wholesale at Gap Inc. “Partnering with regional experts, like Reliance Retail in India, allows us to deliver our relevant, purpose-driven brand to customers around the globe while continuing to diversify our business portfolio through our partner-based model.”
Earlier, Gap had a franchise business relationship with Arvind Fashion, a part of the Lalbhai Group but both the parties mutually parted ways in September 2020, amid the COVID crisis.
Founded in San Francisco in 1969, Gap continues to build on its heritage grounded in denim and connect with customers online and in company-operated and franchise retail locations globally. The latest franchise deal is part of the strategy to expand the business to international markets.
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Speedy Gonzales of USB
The newest builds of Windows 11 being shipped to developers contained USB 80 Gbps --the fastest USB ever.
Not for hacking, just exploding
Some idiot has been sending journalists USB drives which explode when they are plugged in.
Data transfer speeds on show
The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry body managing the USB standard, has come up with much simpler branding for USB-C cables and connectors.
Because it can
Windows 10's latest update released on June 28, 2022, has a nasty habit of breaking USB printers.
Super cool technology finally makes it to the iPad
The geniuses at Apple have finally got the super cool, game changing thumb drive technology to work on its latest iPad – just 20 years behind Microsoft
To use some of the features you paid for you have to buy more stuff
Fruity cargo cult Apple is trying to flog an incredibly over-priced Iphone X but it seems that its $1000 starting price does not include important things like a charger.
Not to spec
OnePlus has admitted to designing a dodgy USB Type-C cable in what might be the first high-profile case.
Offering up to 350/250 MB/s of performance
HyperX, a division of Kingston Technology Company, has unveils its newest HyperX Savage USB 3.1 flash drive.
USB drives for everyone
Microsoft has decided that there is no point putting Windows 10 on a DVD and insisting that people install from a Flash drive.
810 MB/s speeds and up - and it flips
It feels frustrating that Apple comes out with so many great technologies and one of the last ones is the Lightning connector. You would expect that this technology would be fast, but Apple is using USB 2.0 speeds. However, it uses a reversible connector that can be plugged in from either side.


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Steam digital distribution system has exceeded 15 million users, a feat that is most definitely worthy of cake.
In addition, an official press release states that Valve has seen 158% sales growth over the last holiday season, putting the company in a pretty good place coming into 2008. Steam's rapid growth is likely due in part to the critical success of Portal, as well as the ever-expanding offerings available through the download service.
With last year's debut of the Steam Community features, and the zombie survival FPS Left 4 Dead coming later this year, we can only anticipate that Steam will continue to grow in popularity. Kudos to Valve folks for all their hard work. Now, can we have a Mac version yet?


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Exciting New Developments for Mobile Casinos
mobileStorm has announced the launch of two new products designed to revolutionise mobile casino marketing. The products should prove invaluable to casinos keen to intelligently target customers with relevant offers and promotions.
The first product, Located-based SMS Messaging, will provide casinos with the most advanced geo-location messaging services available. The technology will automatically detect customers’ position and deliver relevant, real-time advertising which should massively increase conversion.
The Head of Client Development & Casino Services at mobileStorm, Darren Withers, said “The right message at the right time, & now in the right place, is what makes mobileStorm the most intelligent communications platform for the casino industry.”
The second product, AppMail, creates an internal inbox exclusive to a specific app. Once installed on a player’s phone, a casino can use it to send HTML content as well as push notifications to the inbox. The application makes it easy for casinos to launch content rich and highly engaging mobile advertising campaigns.
These tools will prove essential as more consumers adopt powerful smartphones. This week Apple launched two new iPhones, the 5S and 5C. The 5S has a number of performance upgrades which will make mobile gameplay better than ever before without a reduction in battery life while the 5C is cheap enough to open up mobile gambling to a whole new market.


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Details of an unannounced playtest for Gotham Knights have popped up on Steam.
While we’ve yet to have a confirmed release date for the highly-anticipated superhero game – or confirmation that a playtest is on the way, for that matter – if true, it may suggest that the release date may be sooner rather than later.
A Reddit post by the suspiciously-named SuspiciousTension19 (opens in new tab) was swiftly deleted from Reddit because the “automated bots think it might be spam”, but in the Redditor’s defense, details of the app are also apparent at Steam DB, too, which monitors the Steam backend (opens in new tab).
As spotted by PCGN (opens in new tab), it appears that at least one person was playing it before it was unceremoniously pulled from Steam again. It apparently takes up a chunky 82.5GB of your hard disk.
Of course, there’s every possibility that this is a closed beta that wasn’t supposed to reach the public consciousness and may have been for internal testing only… or it is indeed evidence of a sneaky upcoming beta after all. Right now, though, all we can do is keep our hopes in check, take it with the proverbial bucket of salt, and hope we hear something definitive about the possible test soon.
It follows a mysterious image that also popped up online yesterday that allegedly revealed that Gotham Knights will release in April (opens in new tab).
However, given the image was unsourced and was reportedly taken at an unspecified Irish video game store, fans have been urged to cool their heels, as it still may just be a placeholder date even though the cover features a promotional Gotham Knights game case with a sticker on it that states “April 24” – a Sunday – in numerical values, potentially indicating a release date. WB Games Montreal has yet to respond to our request for comment.
Otherwise, we haven’t heard much about Gotham Knights since it was delayed (opens in new tab) to 2022 almost a year ago and as Jordan suggested yesterday, a big game like Gotham Knights is unlikely to launch these days without at least a few months of pre-release marketing.
For what to play in the meantime, check out our picks of the best superhero games (opens in new tab) you can play right now.


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By Eric Blaisdell
BARRE — For the second time in four months, Quality Market in Barre was robbed Sunday night by someone wearing a mask.
According to police, at around 6:50 p.m., shortly before the store closed at 7 p.m., a lone male walked into the store and told the clerk to give him all the money in the cash register. The male then told the clerk to get on the ground as he made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.
The male is described as white with a dark complexion, approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall with a slender build. He was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt with blue duct tape over his face. The male was seen leaving the scene in a black newer model Chevrolet pickup, according to police.
Pam Trag, who owns the store with her husband, Guy, said Monday she has reason to believe the robber was someone who was in the store earlier that evening. She said video surveillance shows a man wearing the same clothes as the robber, but not wearing a mask, entering the store about half an hour before the robbery.
Trag said the incident was similar to an incident in October where a robber claiming to have a gun reportedly made off with around $1,300 in cash from the store. In October, the robber claimed to have a gun with his hand in his pocket, posturing as if he were holding a gun, and demanded cash. A gun was never seen.
Police say the male in Sunday’s incident also has his hands in his pockets during the robbery, although there was no mention of a gun.
The man involved in the October robbery was wearing an orange jacket and a hat and had his shirt or a scarf pulled over his face. An employee gave the man the money from the register and the large bills underneath the counter and the man ran off.
Police described the man involved in the October robbery as white and 5 feet 8 inches tall. They say he had a pink scarf around his face.
The store has been broken into in the past, including three times in 2012. To curb break-ins, the Trags installed a steel security door on the front of the store and steel mesh on the window of the loading dock door, and they reinforced a door to the basement with steel bars. The incidents in 2012 all involved people breaking in after the store was closed while the two recent incidents involve people robbing the store while it’s still open.
“This is a bit over the top,” she said. “We had the same situation 10 weeks ago. I don’t know what you do at this point.”
Anyone with information is urged to call the Barre City Police Department.
@timesargus.comMORE IN This Just InMONTPELIER — Gov. Full Story
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Wholesale disaster in retail trade
Imagine a society where 80 percent of all grocery sales are monopolised by just five giant retailers like Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour, locally grown fresh food is largely replaced by processed, low-nutrition plastic-packaged items, and heterogeneity of attire based on traditional and ethnic fabrics is gradually destroyed.
Such domination of “consumer choice” by a handful of corporate brands and logos resembles what most South Asians would consider a nightmare because of the artificial, chemicals- and energy-intensive products involved. But it’s not very far from what has happened in much of Western Europe and North America over the past 30 years, especially as regards groceries and clothes, and, increasingly, fruits and vegetables.
Yet, that’s the trajectory on to which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has forced India by permitting 51 percent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail. This is part of his strategy to boost GDP growth by feeding the “animal spirits” of entrepreneurs, in this case transnational corporations (TNCs) like Walmart, among the world’s most hated companies.
This decision, postponed last November because of internal dissent and fear of a popular backlash, is one of the most insidiously destructive economic measures ever taken in India. It will undermine the livelihoods of millions of petty traders, kirana shop-owners, street vendors, hawker and dirt-poor kabari-walas who contribute greatly to society by recycling waste and reducing carbon-dioxide emissions, which cause dangerous climate change. Its benefits will be minuscule, and limited to TNCs and India’s shopping-mall-addicted urban elite.
The decision is rooted in the bravado of a leader who scarcely cares for his own people, especially the poor, but is deeply ashamed at being called an “underachiever” by the West. So he has signalled his unwavering commitment to serving the interests of TNCs through neoliberal policies, just as these stand utterly discredited globally.
Manmohan Singh will make not just the ruling alliance, but the Indian nation, pay a heavy price for his bravado. The Congress Party, which is foolishly indulging him, will soon find that he has become an even greater political liability than before. He has wantonly provoked the Trinamool Congress to walk out of the UPA and weakened his own government’s credibility.
The arguments cited by the government for opening up retail trade to TNC-owned supermarket chains are wrong, if not dishonest as well, including creation of new jobs, elimination of middlemen, better prices for farmers, and benefits to consumers. Experience in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brazil confirms this.
India’s retail and wholesale trade has a turnover of about $450 billion and employs 44 million people. Walmart has a comparable global turnover ($420 billion), but employs only 2.1 million people. For each new job it creates in India, at least 17 workers will lose employment. Given the large economies of scale in organised retail, new job generation would be puny. The managing director of German trader Metro Cash&Carry, which runs 11 large wholesale outlets in India, admits this.
India’s experience with organised retail, recently opened up to domestic corporations like Big Bazaar and Reliance, demonstrates the harm caused to some of the most vulnerable people of the country. Corporate retailers routinely resort to predatory or below-cost pricing to attract customers initially-only to jack up prices later.
TNCs have deep pockets and can absorb big initial losses. They will only increase excessive concentration and non-competitive practices. They won’t eliminate middlemen, but introduce new ones, such as buying agents, processors, packagers, quality checkers, certification firms and all kinds of corporate consultants.
Farmers and other suppliers will become vulnerable to manipulative and monopolistic practices of TNC chains vis-a-vis which they have little bargaining power. TNCs can beat them down on prices through harsh negotiations and threats of delisting.
Fears of abuse of the “buyer power” of giant retailers aren’t imaginary. A report by the Netherlands-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations shows widespread abuse in the European Union. Supermarket chains reduce “the number of suppliers to a few or just one” and require that they “do not sell at lower prices to competitors.” They extract the lowest possible prices from suppliers, while imposing all kinds of fees and extra payments on them.
These include “retroactive payments,” such as costs of advertisements and renewal of stores, “sometimes outside contractual arrangements,” listing fees and slotting fees, and “late payments which enable supermarkets to gain profits at the expense of suppliers.”
These can add up to a high 50 percent of suppliers’ revenues in Italy, and 70 percent in France, often leading to their ruin. “This survey found that small and medium enterprises in the food sector and farmers have been especially vulnerable.” So much for a fair deal!
Many supermarket chains sell goods under “private labels,” that is, products with their own brand labels. This is claimed as a new opportunity for suppliers. But supermarkets can threaten both branded product suppliers and “private label” producers with delisting. Supermarkets alone decide “what products are sold on the shelves” and hold all the trump cards. So “private labels” have become “an important additional element” of abuse-capable “buyer power.”
Many European countries have over the years witnessed a serious reduction in the number of “small independent retail stores as well as independent wholesalers, and a lack of opportunity for them to expand due to the collective dominance of a few supermarket chains. It has also resulted in growing concentration of buying arrangements...”
In the long run, “buyer power” affects consumer interests – not least through “decreasing choice and quality of products, lack of food available in local neighbourhoods, decreasing innovation of products for consumers, and increasing dependence on private labels.” No wonder supermarket prices, initially pitched low, soon catch up with open-market levels and overtake them to the extent of 20 to 30 percent, as the evidence from the West demonstrates.
This evidence also suggests that it’s impossible to secure compliance with conditions such as 30 percent sourcing from small-scale industries. Under World Trade Organisation rules, these cannot be limited to national producers. In India, the condition has been diluted to favour Swedish home furnishings retailer Ikea.
Consumers will have less and less choice as supermarket concentration grows and the number of viable chains falls. When only a few buyers dominate the retail market, monopolies get formed quickly, allowing them to dictate terms. The giant retailers can raise their profit margins and also resort to more and more unfair labour and industrial relations practices for which they are already notorious, including anti-union policies, ultra-low wages, and use of prison/bonded labour.
They can increasingly source consumer durables like electronic goods from companies like Foxconn, which runs 13 factories in China amidst appalling working conditions, such as a 12-hour working day with a six-day week. Why, some of their Indian collaborators would be only too willing to supply similar products at ultra-low prices, while demanding “liberalisation” of labour laws so they become “competitive” with Foxconn. This would spell a race to the bottom-and great social retrogression.
So, at the end of the day, Manmohan Singh’s FDI-in-retail policy will have achieved not higher GDP growth-the rise will probably be marginal-but large-scale destruction of livelihoods, and greater depredation on some of India’s most underprivileged people.
Photo from the World Economic Forum


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If all of the buzz on the SXSW Interactive technology festival has you feeling left out, here are a few ways to keep in touch with the online-friendly mass gathering of techies.
SXSW Interactive, which is tied to the popular annual South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, may be taking place an 11-hour car ride away from Kansas City, but festival organizers are making it easy to stay tuned from afar.
If you’re interested in catching a company pitch from a Kansas City startup, the SXSW Interactive Accelerator is live streaming the business presentation Monday.
Kansas City-based Phone2Action, which helps connect constituents to public officials, is one of eight finalists in the “news” category of the SXSW Interactive Accelerator.
Follow @SXSW for official updates on the technology festival on Twitter.
For a constant stream of SXSW-related postings from festival-goers, key in to the #SXSW hashtag.
For updates from a group of Kansas City-area and other Missouri startups that are at the festival, follow @ShowMeSXSW.
A group of more than 30 local startup owners and advocates left the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation headquarters on Thursday for Austin.
Looking for another company with Kansas City ties in the Austin trenches? Try following @thehubfm.
TheHub.FM, which is part of Kansas City-based Think Big Partners’ accelerator program, is drumming up some attention with the launch of its mobile app.
Digital Trends named The Hub.FM’s app, which lets fans buy band merchandise on their phones at shows, as one of its eight favorite mobile apps launching at the festival this week.
“TheHub.fm crosses platforms by taking the excitement of a mobile launch to the artists trying to draw in fans while jamming out around Austin,” the technology website said.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal, an affiliate publication of the Kansas City Business Journal, is aggregating SXSW coverage and features online.


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Daily Court Reporter - News Smart ways to create calm as you rush from holiday to holiday
Smart ways to create calm as you rush from holiday to holiday
(BPT) Less than a month separates Halloween from Thanksgiving. And, this year, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are all within a day of each other, and the two multi-day holidays both end on New Year's Day. With end-of-year celebrations coming one after another, transitioning from holiday to holiday can ratchet up your stress level.
This article is restricted per publishing limits. Soon we will offer the ability to buy the ability to read this content.
Date Published: October 11, 2016


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MUVIT: Helping connect buyers, sellers from anywhere, anytime
As digital wholesale platforms continue growing in Canada, Cox Automotive Canada has launched a new Canadian dealer-to-dealer digital auction platform that it says can use Manheim’s brand and physical auction services to deliver a competitive advantage to all dealers and franchises.
The platform, called MUVIT, offers thousands of vehicles from coast-to-coast, according to the company, which adds that the platform adds fresh, high-quality inventory daily.
Cox Automotive Canada said the inventory is sourced from dealers, OEMs and fleet portfolios, which the company says removes the barriers of digital arbitration with direct access to Manheim services with the click of a button.
The company describes the platform as connecting “buyers and sellers from anywhere, anytime.”
It was designed and developed in Canada and supported by PAVE, an artificial intelligence vehicle inspection technology. With MUVIT, users can post vehicles for sale within minutes, the company said. The platform helps connect expanded sales channels, data analytics and integrated services for online auctions, the company said.
Together, MUVIT and PAVE provide an inspection and listing process for online selling. Automated damage detection, a guided workflow for image capture and click-to-list capabilities helps MUVIT create a consistent experience on every vehicle, Cox Automotive Canada said.
That, according to the company, helps dealers buy and sell more vehicles with confidence.
With MUVIT, the company said, dealers can find the vehicles they are searching for and — all in one transaction and available 24/7 — purchase, finance, and order transport.
The company said the platform offers diverse channels so buyers can find the specific vehicles they need. It also offers access to all of Manheim’s vehicle services, including arbitration, PayOnline, inspections, and transportation.
Other advantages of the platform for buyers, according to the company:
— Buyers get full transparency/disclosures on all vehicles sold, using the PAVE AI integrated inspection platform.
— Accurate wholesale market data refines bidding/purchasing to keep buyers current with vehicle trends through Kelley Blue Book values.
— From a desktop or mobile device, buyers can bid, buy, pay and order transport on all vehicles.
For sellers, the company says MUVIT’s advantages include:
— In minutes, PAVE inspects and loads vehicles, which according to the company creates a seamless process and saves time with what it says is the industry’s first automated damage detection.
— From a desktop or mobile device, more visibility and control over sellers’ inventory at Manheim locations.
— With flexibility to offer sellers’ vehicles in multiple digital channels to target what the company describes as the “right” buyers, that allows product to achieve the highest value.
— Sellers gain access to all of Manheim’s ancillary end-to-end remarketing services with what the company describes as “the maximum amount of resources to increase speed to market.”
— Support is provided from a trade desk sales team that the company says is dedicated to negotiating offers received on all sellers’ vehicles—whether they are listed online or in-lane across Canada—which the company says helps close more deals and reduce days to sell.
“With the addition of MUVIT and its seamless integration with our existing and trusted Manheim, NextGear Capital, Ready Logistics and Kelley Blue Book brands, Cox Automotive is now able to deliver the most robust suite of services in the market,” Cox Automotive Canada vice president, inventory & financial solutions Jerome Dwight said in a news release.
Dwight added, “Regardless of dealership size or location, our clients now have another channel to efficiently find the right car or buyer at any time.”


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Thursday, September 5, 2013
The UC Davis wine price challenge
Dr. Hildegard Heymann of UC Davis' Viticulture and Enology Department told me that every year, she asks students to taste six wines blind and link them with their actual retail prices.
The prices are distinctly different, such as $5, $10, $25, $50, $100 and $200. There's a bottle of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild waiting for the student who gets them all right.
Fortunately Lafite-Rothschild improves with age, because no student has won it yet, in nearly a decade of trying. Heymann said the best anyone has ever done was to correctly choose the cheapest and most expensive wines.
These not consumers or wine bloggers; these are students who have been intensely studying wine for four years and are about to go out and become leaders of the industry. They know all the tricks and traps of sensory evaluation. Yet they blow it anyway.
"The mistake most of them make is in ranking by their personal taste," Heymann said.
How hard can this be? I want to take a shot at it. I believe I can tell the price category by the quality and intensity of the oak flavor, especially in the top-end wines. But I guess I'm just setting myself up for failure.
Do any readers remember being humbled by this or a similar blind-tasting challenge?
Posted by W. Blake Gray at 6:00 AM


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CHICAGO, Ill. – After a record-breaking Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) President Thom Dammrich told Boating Industry that he anticipates continued success for the boat show season.
Predictions that this year’s Fort Lauderdale show would break records in attendance, sales and economic impact came true for show producers, as Kay Pearson reported earlier this week that preliminary numbers for attendance was up 10 – 11 percent daily from last. Early sales reports also boasted numbers over $600 million, an indicator for the show’s overwhelming success.
Factors contributing to show’s success may have included an increase in the buying public’s confidence and what Dammrich said were the lowest interest rates in 45 years.
“Consumer confidence is on the rebound as demonstrated by the 4-percent increase in September, the economy is clearly getting much stronger…” said Dammrich.
Dammrich went so far as to suggest that the economy is in “full recovery,” noting a third quarter GDP growth of over 7 percent.
“Though this growth level is not sustainable,” added Dammrich, “it is clearly a positive sign. …The positives for the economy and consumer spending are overwhelmingly positive and I think that bodes well for a very strong 2004 and 2004 boat show season.”
With what Dammrich predicts will be a “blockbuster show season,” he advised exhibitors to be prepared. “They need to have a plan and a goal,” he explained. Those who “plan the best will achieve the best results.”
In addition, Dammrich added, dealers who seek success in this year’s boat show season will need to have product.
“Boat builders are beginning to establish production backlogs again and those who are too cautious will miss the great opportunity 2004 is going to provide,” he stated.
- For more of the latest news, click here.


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By Daniel Woolls and Madrid
A LITTLE-KNOWN Spanish matador is breaking with a sacred tradition, agreeing to advertise on his cape while slaying bulls and endorse a soft drink that caters to gay men.
Matador Joselito Ortega will be plugging a club-scene energy beverage called Gay Up and have those words embroidered into his cape in large red cursive letters.
In Spain, matadors are seen by many as the pinnacle of macho, and Ortega's agreeing to endorse a product geared towards gay men is raising eyebrows.
But Ortega sees no incompatibility. ''I am a bullfighter. That is not going to change. I am going to go out into the ring as I have done until now, to risk my life, and the seven goring wounds on my body prove that,'' he said. ''If the gay community welcomes me as an image or a symbol, that is fine.''
Top-flight Spanish bullfighters are celebrities, just like football or movie stars, and it is common for them to do commercial endorsements for everything from wine and cars to fancy clothes. But it is almost unprecedented for them to advertise something while in the arena.
Bullfighting writers said the only case they recall is that of a matador named Luis Reina, who signed a deal in the 1980s with the Japanese electronics giant Akai and had that brand name embroidered on the sleeves and legs of the glittering traje de luces, or suit of lights, that he wore while fighting. No one expects Ortega to start a trend. It would border on scandalous for a top-rated bullfighter to advertise from the ring.
Gay Up is a new product in Spain, developed by a company based in the southern city of Malaga that bought the European rights to it from a manufacturer in Colombia.
There, it was made from strawberries. But the Spanish company decided that to make it a hit with gay men in Europe, it needed to be an energy drink, said Jose Maria Terron, the company's president.
Both he and Ortega said the advertising cape was a good way to shake up bullfighting, which they described as steeped in male bravado.
Ortega is hardly a superstar. He became a fully fledged matador in 2006 but had been hampered by repeated and serious gorings and had not fought often, said Juan Belmonte, a bullfighting critic for TV station Canal Sur in Seville.


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from the most-pirated-nation-status dept.
oxide7 writes "The United States will make China 'a significant focus' of its beefed-up efforts to fight global piracy and counterfeiting of US goods ranging from CDs to manufactured products, a US official said on Wednesday. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, which represents US copyright industry groups, has estimated lost sales in China at more than $3.5 billion in 2009 due to piracy of US music, movies and software."
How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb?
"Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem."


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October 24, 2016
Zenedge has launched Zenedge API Security, a product designed to protect APIs from DDoS attacks and malicious bots. The product uses advanced algorithms to make sure API requests are legitimate. Zenedge API Security includes a proprietary native SDK for use with Web and mobile applications.
Our API directory now includes 134 security APIs. The newest is the Universign API. The most popular, in terms of mashups, is the Google OpenID API. We list 8 Google OpenID mashups. Below you'll find some more stats from the directory, including the entire list of security APIs.
The recent debate surrounding Apple’s defiance of the FBI’s request to provision a back door into an iPhone has done something that few other news events could have done; it significantly raised the general public’s awareness of the degree to which Apple has gone to protect the privacy of its cus


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1. Before you pass this video off as boring, just give it a chance. Does it remind you of anything?
This is a preview of eBay’s new look, as presented by fashion people. Because, you know, yay shopping!
2. Maybe it reminds you of, oh, this other big ass site called PINTEREST.
3. Here’s what my eBay page looks like when I login.
I get a bunch of Philip Lim stuff, I guess because I searched that last time I was on eBay some months ago.
4. When I search for other things, like “Givenchy,” eBay gives me the option of “following” them.
5. Follow a few things, and this is what your page will look like.
Instead of boards, eBay labels them “Interests” – which is one letter away from…
The sexy Pinterest-esque redesign may make sense for eBay since users spend a lot of time on the site. As of February, Pinners were spending more time on Pinterest on average per month than Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ combined, and eBay might want the redesign to encourage users to approach the site similarly obsessively. Pinners who use the site as a portal to buy stuff on other retail sites also spend more — $168.83 on average — than Facebook ($94.70) or Twitter ($70.84), making its appeal to retailers obvious. And eBay is basically the biggest consignment shop in the world. Besides, the old eBay looked pretty janky.
- The Dakota Access Pipeline will no longer cross the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, a major victory for protesters.
- The death toll from Oakland's warehouse party fire has risen to 30. "We're still not done," a police official said Friday afternoon.
- The far-right candidate in Austria's election has lost the presidential race in a defeat for the global populist movement.
- Instead of ornaments, a women decorated her Christmas tree with paper angels honoring the biggest stars who died in 2016 🎄


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Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, is working from home in efforts to self-quarantine after returning from Milan Fashion Week, according to the New York Post.
She is not showing any symptoms but is taking precautionary measures due to the spread of the coronavirus in Italy, a spokesman told the Post.
Milan is the largest city in Lombardy, the region which has been hardest hit by a coronavirus outbreak that has killed 79 people and infected 2,263 in Italy, according to The Local.
Anna Wintour, the legendary editor-in-chief of US Vogue magazine, has self-isolated and is working from home after returning from Milan Fashion Week, according to the New York Post.
The Condé Nast artistic director is not showing any sign of having the coronavirus, according to a spokesman for Vogue owners Condé Nast, who spoke to the Post.
Instead, she is one of several editors being "overly cautious" after visiting Milan, a global fashion capital, but also located in one of the regions worst-hit by the coronavirus outbreak in Italy.
Milan, where the Fashion Week ran until February 24, is the largest city in Lombardy, where the majority of Italy's 2,263 coronavirus cases are clustered, according to Italy's edition of The Local.
79 people in Italy have died of the coronavirus so far, The Local said.
Lombardy is scrambling to adapt its regional healthcare system to tackle the coronavirus, but experiencing significant trouble, Business Insider's Sarah Al-Arshani reported.
Other fashion figures self-isolating following Milan Fashion Week are Elle's editor-in-chief Nina Garcia, Harper's Bazaar publisher Carol Smith, Aya Kanai, Marie Claire's top editor, and InStyle editor-in-chief Laura Brown, reported the New York Post.
None have are said to have shown any symptoms.
Troy Young, president of Hearst, which publishes Elle, told the New York Post that the company is being "overly cautious."


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Venture capitalists have a knack for investing in profitable business trends but you might also want to check out the Wall Street Journal's 2008 Tech Innovation award winners for your next lead. Companies represented in this list operate in the medical/biotech, consumer electronics and security industries and are poised to lead sales in specific sectors.
Physical Security — Vumii of Burlington, MA has introduced a new generation night-vision camera that allows operators to capture details such as the faces of possible intruders. The device will be marketed to power plant and water system operators, among others.
Medical/Biotech — Israel-based Rosetta Genomics has launched a diagnostic test that detects genetic links to cancer by using microRNA. Diagnosis of a specific form of cancer leads to more targeted treatment. Rosetta Genomics is just one company in this market segment.
Consumer Electronics — The marriage of information, communication and technology continues to result in innovative products for the consumer market. Spot, Inc. has been launched as a satellite-based messaging service for adventure seeking consumers (outside of mobile phone covered areas) who need to communicate or send a request for help.
Have any new businesses operating in the industries included on this list recently launched in your market?[Source: Totty, Michael. "The 2008 Technology Innovation Awards," Wall Street Journal, 9.29.08]


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The US jobs report will provide an insight into whether employment continued to fall in January, after an unexpected decline in non-farm payrolls in December amid a lack of fiscal stimulus and record COVID-19 infections that prompted many states to impose restrictive measures to respond to the outbreak. Also, the jobless rate is seen edging up to 6.8 percent, well above pre-pandemic levels of about 3.5 percent. Elsewhere, the ISM PMI survey should point to a robust manufacturing growth. Other notable publications are foreign trade, factory orders, construction spending, ADP employment change, fourth-quarter productivity, IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism, and the final readings of Markit PMIs.
On the corporate front, the fourth-quarter earnings season continues, with reports to watch including Alphabet, Amazon, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Gilead Sciences, Ford, PayPal and Snap.
Elsewhere in America, key data to follow include Canada employment figures, trade balance, and Ivey and Markit PMI figures; Mexico business morale, gross fixed investment and Markit Manufacturing PMI; and Brazil foreign trade, Markit PMIs and car production.
Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England is likely to stand pat on monetary policy when it meets on Thursday, with traders turning to the latest economic projections and a press conference by Governor Andrew Bailey, along with new findings into the impact of negative rates on the banking sector. Important data to follow include final Markit PMIs, mortgage approvals, Nationwide Housing prices and Bank of England’s monetary indicators.
Elsewhere in Europe, fourth-quarter GDP estimates and flash inflation rates will be released for the Eurozone and other member states including Italy. The bloc’s economy is expected to shrink 1.2% in the last quarter of 2020, partially reversing a historical rebound in Q3 as many nations tightened restrictions in November to curb new waves of Covid-19. Consumer prices in the Euro Area are expected to rise for the first time in five months. Investors will also keep an eye on the Eurozone retail trade and producer prices; Germany factory orders, retail sales and construction PMI; Italy and Spain jobs report; France balance of trade; Switzerland manufacturing PMI, retail sales and consumer survey. Also, final Markit PMIs will be released for the Eurozone, Germany and France while Italy and Spain will publish preliminary estimates.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Markit PMIs for several countries including China and India will be in the spotlight. Indonesia is set to release GDP growth figures and both the Reserve Bank of India and the Reserve Bank of Australia will decide on monetary policy although no changes are expected. In Japan, final PMI reading will be keenly watched together with household spending.


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A new color plaque regulation rolled out this week holding Contra Costa County food trucks to higher health standards.
The three-color plaque system is similar to what normal food venues in the county are held to.
Green indicates the inspector found minimal to no health violations, yellow means a violation is in process to be addressed and red indicated a closed operation for infestation or other hazards.
The program, which is under Contra Costa Environmental Health (CCEH), only involves food trucks that cater or sell prepared food like burgers, coffee or other items.
"It’s good, we follow compliance for the county and for the consumer," said Ivan Téllez, owner of Concord food truck Canasta. "When a consumer comes to the window, they see our placard 'it’s safe to eat with you guys.'"
About 200 food trucks are regulated by the CCEH. They say the new plaque system is just another way of keeping all that delicious food safe.


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This Week’s Weekly Want is inspired by the values cited in That ‘Made in U.S.A.’ Premium, which ran in this Sunday’s New York Times. Consumers want a lower price point but what they are sacrificing is quality. Domestic manufactures can’t compete with the race to the bottom overseas prices, but if the debate becomes quality or quantity, we can be the heart of quality.
The average price of a garment sold in the United States is $13.49, according to the NPD Group, an industry researcher. That low price is largely a result of sales at extremely low prices by huge retailers like Walmart, Target and H&M — sales that are made possible by efficient supply chains and purchases of products from low-cost countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD.
But keeping costs low, which consumers now expect, can often mean lower quality.
“In many cases the product that we buy today does not have the same, higher level of standards that we saw in earlier years,” Mr. Cohen said. “Are you buying a T-shirt that’s lighter than it used to be? In many cases, absolutely, yes. They had to take things out to keep the price the same.”
Read the full article here


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Many of us have long believed the old Pembrokeshire proverb suggesting that eating an apple on going to bed will keep the doctor from earning his bread. Unfortunately this might not be enough for you to remain healthy, but it will for sure keep the pharmacist at bay.
A new study by researchers from the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College has come to contradict what your mother told you about this age-old aphorism..
Matthew Davis, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, was quoted by The Atlantic saying that people who eat an apple a day are a little more likely to keep the doctor away, but once adjusted for all the other differences the effect disappeared.
To reach their conclusion, researchers had a look at data of U.S. adults who completed the 24-hour dietary recall questionnaire in the National Health and Nutritional Examination survey. Data revealed that over 19 million Americans consume at least an apple a day..
Researchers realized that about 40 percent of adults who take an apple a day keep the doctor away, compared to 33% who do not eat it. However this conclusion does`t necessarily confirm our long time belief about apple consumption when it comes to health.
In addition to this conclusion, they determined that adults who eat an apple a day had other healthy habits. They were less likely to smoke and had a higher average education level. Researchers finally concluded that eating an apple a day won`t in itself keep the doctor away.
The research nonetheless concluded that eating an apple a day may keep the pharmacists away. They found out that 48% of adults who consume an apple a day will avoid the pharmacist compared to 42% who don`t.
Dr. Matthew Davis said that the association between apple consumption and keeping the pharmacist away was robust. He went on saying that the association persisted when they adjusted for people`s health habits. Eating an apple may be healthy for us but it was not their actual medicinal properties that were being glorified when the proverb was first coined in February 1866 edition of Notes and Queries magazine.
Despite this disturbing finding, apples play an important role in promoting good health. Apples contain Vitamin C which boosts the immune system. It also reduces cholesterol, a fat that can increase your risk of heart diseases. They are also low in calories, have an insignificant amount of sodium and lack fat and cholesterol.
Though eating an apple a day does`t automatically stop the doctor from earning his bread, they are nevertheless worth consuming. Public health specialists agree among other benefits that apples reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and are among the healthiest food you can eat. #Medicine


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Smart devices and advanced technology in our homes are becoming the norm for many of us. Between our smart-phones, smart-microwaves, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, technology is becoming a core part of how we function in the office as well as in our personal lives.
Giants of the tech world are investing more and more into capturing how and who is using their technology. And yes, there is no doubt that soon we’ll be able to feed our pets, grocery shop, do our laundry and reach our daily steps – all whilst taking a relaxing bubble bath at a hotel on a tropical island. And yes, we can admit this all sounds like the dream – but when you actually take a step back to think about what that all means, it becomes a lot less desirable.
From this detailed Safeatlast infographic, it’s clear smart technology is already taking over our homes. “Smart home technology is not only impacting the houses it’s installed into. Its reach stretches to other industries like business, science and even health care”, writes Ana Bera.
It’s definitely worth taking a look at the info-graphic as it outlines the history of smart homes really well and demonstrates clearly industry trends and smart home forecasts.
“America is leading the global charge with 7.5% of homes already adopting the technology. In 2022 that number is expected to hit 19.5%. Life as you know it is changing every day due to smart homes”, warns Ana.
One only has to look back to CES 2019 (global convention for innovation) earlier this year, where a number of smart home devices were exhibited, to understand the rapid growth of the industry.
Everything from dishwashers to doorbells and even connected toilets. Yes, toilets!
With all these innovations and changes, one has to ask – what level of our personal data security are we willing to give up in exchange for the simple comforts smart homes can bring?
This question is especially important when looking to one of the major tech dilemmas for 2019: how connected and moving devices add numerous security risks to what information we share and how we share, and who can access this data. As more and more connected devices are brought into our homes, it’s important to protect them from online hackers (and as well as agenda driven organisations) and to think about how our personal data associated with these smart devices, is used.
Chief Cyber Officer of BioCatch, Uri Rivner said: “Your smart fridge will start scamming you. IoT-connected appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines already produce unattended payments that the user cannot personally verify. Fraudsters see this vulnerability now and will begin to take advantage of it.”
Think that’s a bit dramatic? Well, just ask residents of an apartment building in Finland, who lost control over their hot water and heating after a distributed ‘denial-of-service’ (DDoS) attack over the internet. To fix the issue the building manager had to disconnect the automated system from the internet! These kind of attacks are quite common in city-wide infrastructure and large companies but as they’re used more, they will also start impacting our homes.
Last year the National Cyber Security Alliance warned about how the rapid growth of smart homes could also open up new opportunities for criminals to practice acts of cybercrime. As all appliances in a smart home are all connected to a network, any breach in that network can allow cyber-criminals to access to your home appliances which can then jeopardise your privacy.
One of the biggest tech issues of last year was related to privacy and data, with Google and Facebook facing both public and legal backlash regarding data breaches. The Harvard Business Review said these events were “symptoms of larger, profound shifts working”, arguing that issues of privacy and security are converging.
So, how can we ensure we don’t face the same fate this year? Well, according to co-founder and Chairwoman of Duality Technologies, Rina Shainski, cybersecurity alone is not going to be enough to secure our most sensitive data or our privacy.
“Data must be protected and enforced by technology itself, not just by cyber or regulation. The very technology compromising our privacy must itself be leveraged to bring real privacy to this data-driven age”.
Shainski’s comments not only leads to more questions about just how technology can be used to bring about real privacy protection and who bears the responsibility of keeping our connected devices safe – but it asks questions about who governs and creates these protections.
Unfortunately, we do not have those answers and for now, it seems no one else does either.


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Video Technology Company Lands in Columbia, SC
Thursday - March 22, 2012 at 07:52 am
New technologies continue to be developed that allow businesses to take advantage of marketing opportunities on the Internet.
Mike Switzer interviews our next guest, who is the holder of 25 patents, some of which can help a company accomplish branding goals through personalized and interactive experiences. Prior to co-founding his current company, Pandoodle, Dr. Dirk Brown was CEO of Neoconix, a venture capital-funded electronics technology company serving Fortune 100 customers worldwide. Dirk is also the current Director of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center at the Moore School of Business at USC in Columbia.


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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WSPA) – From clothing and cooking utensils to air and soil, PFA substances are water-repellent chemicals found everywhere. While they’ve provided useful properties for consumers, it’s now come to the attention of health experts that they’ve been putting people and the environment at risk.
“The EPA has stated that approximately 80% of a person’s exposure to PFAS comes from consumer goods,” said Jennifer Hughes, chief at the Bureau of Water at DHEC.
On Monday the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control addressed where it’s most important to be mindful of PFAS – drinking water.
“PFAS are in water but they don’t start out in water, they are man-made chemicals and they get there because of their use in certain manufacturing processes and products and also consumer goods,” said Fran Marshall, director of Environmental Public Health at DHEC.
Over the course of 3 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been crafting a response to these forever chemicals. Their first announcement will come soon and in the meantime, South Carolina said they are ready.
“We began hearing that the (Third Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule) laboratory detection limits were not low enough and that new lab methods had lower detection limits and if we were not finding PFAS in our state then we are not looking at low enough detection levels,” said Doug Kinard, director of drinking water protection division at DHEC.
DHEC is reassuring South Carolinians that while PFAS aren’t going anywhere, officials are actively preparing for the impact. This includes educating everyone on what these chemicals are and where they can be found.
DHEC said this meeting is just the first in a series of briefings they’ll be holding over the coming weeks that will outline their plan once the announcement from the EPA is out. If you’d like to learn more, click here.


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Banks and telcoms worldwide are rethinking their current business models and sources of revenue in light of Fintech competitors and revolutionary technology. East Africa is a hub for such innovations and Payments East Africa is at the epicentre of this opportunity.
Learn how banks can save billions by integrating blockchain security. How telcoms attract millions of customers through mobile financial services. How central banks’ regulations can boost financial inclusion and expand card portfolios.