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So apparently Starbucks wants to turn tens of thousands of baristas into facilitators for discussions about race. Starbucks CEO Howard Schutlz recently announced that he wants the company’s front-line employees to write “Race Together” on the sides of customers’ cups. The idea is to inspire a conversation about race.
Not surprisingly, the plan has been thoroughly mocked online. Jokes abound, as do cynicism and outright disbelief.
More seriously, there’s a worry about the position the plan puts baristas in. It’s reminiscent of recent criticism of a plan by McDonald’s to require employees occasionally to engage in cuteness — dancing, singing, etc. — as part of the chain’s “pay with lovin'” campaign. The indignity that could imply is pretty clear. As for Starbucks employees, these are people in low-wage jobs who don’t need the extra hassle, or worse, that might come from being required to engage strangers on touchy topics.
But from a social point of view, it’s hard to fault Starbucks for trying. After all, of all the social ills facing modern society, racial prejudice, racial discrimination, and the resulting racial tension together constitute one of the big ones. And in fact, trying to do something — anything — that would help combat racism is a good example of what I would call true corporate social responsibility. That is, it’s a matter of a company taking on what it sees as a responsibility not to customers, or to employees, or to other specific stakeholders, but to society as a whole. Whether Starbucks or any other company actually has such a responsibility is another question. But if it does, then such a responsibility is emphatically a social one.
Naturally, some will be cynical. As is almost always the case when a big company makes big headlines, there will be conspiracy theorists who speculate that the campaign was never really intended to get baristas to engage customers, but to raise a ruckus and thereby garner Starbucks free exposure. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, blah blah blah.
That could certainly be the case. But that doesn’t mean the campaign couldn’t have social impact. Even if thousands of baristas are not going to be joining hands with customers to kick down racial barriers, the company has none the less started a dialogue about race. After all, the question everyone is talking about now is about just why it is that having employees engage customers on race would be such a problematic thing. The fact that the prospect is an awkward one is, after all, precisely a result of racial tension. So, we’re not talking about race, but (you’re reading this, aren’t you?) we’re talking about how hard it is to talk about race. And that, I think, amounts to the same thing.
See also: Why Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is right to talk about race
The Apple Watch is here! OK, not quite here yet. But soon, soon. Will the nifty features built into Apple’s latest gizmo help the company win this round of battle of wearable tech? Opinions vary.
Whether you love it, hate it, or doubt it, one of the most interesting things about the new Apple Watch lies in the somewhat subtle fact that the watch is ungendered. Rather than coming in two genders — men’s and women’s — it merely comes in two sizes, bigger and smaller. On Apples product page you’ll find reference to the 38mm model and the 42mm model, but no reference to “his” and “hers” models.
This is a subtle thing, but entirely refreshing. Even in 2015, we still have plenty of pointlessly gendered products. But Apple isn’t the kind of company that was going to produce watches with a “pink for her” option.
Of course, not all gendering of products is stupid. Women are, on average, smaller than men. And so clothes and other wearables designed for women should generally be smaller. But that statistical generalization obscures substantial overlap in body size, and a commensurate overlap in preferences. And as for watches, gender bifurcation is at least somewhat dubious. Most jewelry and department stores keep watches neatly divided, like members of some especially conservative place of worship, into a section “for him” and a section “for her.” Generally, the big watches are in the “for him” section and the dainty ones are in the “for her” section. But interestingly, when you look in the display cases you see considerable overlap in the size of the watches. The biggest watches in the women’s section frequently dwarf the most slender ones in the men’s section. So the bifurcation amounts to gendering for gender’s sake.
It is interesting, then, that Apple opted to buck the trend and go gender-free. Of course, the fact that the company didn’t name them “men’s” and “women’s” doesn’t mean Apple didn’t intend to target two different sets of customers. And some people are inevitably referring to the 38mm Apple Watch and the 42mm one as the “women’s” and “men’s” sizes. But Apple isn’t calling them that. And words matter. The company apparently has no interest in reinforcing gender stereotypes. For its part, the company is just making two different sizes of watch, and offering them for sale. And its refusal to gender the watches is as much a recognition of the diversity of its customers as the fact that the company offers more than one size to start with.
Business is about sales. From a business point of view, your mission is to make a product that people want, and to sell a lot of it. The drive to sell a lot is what motivates cleverness in product design, efficiency in production, and consumer-friendly low prices.
Sure, the idea of selling more-more-more has its critics. There’s a strain of anti-consumerism that sees the drive to sell (and hence buy) more as the root of all evil. And certainly in some product categories, maximizing the selling-and-buying cycle can have pretty bad environmental effects.
But in general, it’s hard to tell a businessperson, with a straight face, that they’re ethically obligated not to sell so much stuff. After all, that’s their function.
There are, however, exceptions, cases in which selling more is so obviously socially destructive that it becomes morally mandatory to try to maybe sell a little less.
See, for example, this must-read piece by Mike Mariani in the Pacific Standard, called “Poison Pill: How the American opiate epidemic was started by one pharmaceutical company.” It’s the story of how Purdue Pharma, maker of the opioid analgesic Oxycontin, used innovative marketing strategies to turn the painkiller into a $100-million commercial success, and how the drug not coincidentally became the darling of millions of addicts. Part of that story is about unethical (and illegal) marketing methods. But the question of methods can’t be separated entirely from the question of goals. And the goal, here, is sales — in particular, maximizing sales. But when you maximize sales of a drug like Oxy, you inevitably encourage a greater amount of “leakage” of the drug from the stream of legitimate uses into the realm of addiction and criminality.
This is clearly an extreme case. Oxycontin is a potent narcotic, subject to strict legal controls for good reasons. Taken incorrectly, it can ruin your life or even kill you, and for that reason distribution channels are limited.But it’s worth noting that this is not a bad product. Used properly, it’s a godsend.
But oxy is far from the only product that is good when used properly, but dangerous when used incorrectly. Consider the Big Mac. Or 7-Eleven’s Big Gulp. Or Coca Cola. Each of those is harmless when consumed the way any reasonable person would consume them, i.e., relatively seldom. A single Coke — or even a Big Gulp-sized Coke, just isn’t going to hurt you. So, it would seem no one is doing anything wrong by selling you one. Or even two. Or even several.
Now, when consumed in excess, both Coke and Big Macs can have, shall we say, a negative impact on your health. But it’s hard to imagine telling the cashier at minimum-wage earning clerk at McDonald’s or 7-Eleven that they’re obligated to cut customers off after they’ve had “one too many.” And besides, with regards to grownups, at least, consumers are allowed to make their own mistakes, even at the risk of significant personal injury. Hey, that’s the price of freedom.
But there’s also the question of social impact. Coke and Big Macs aren’t just having an impact on individuals; they (along with lots of other high-sugar fast foods and snack foods) are implicated in the obesity epidemics currently plaguing so many industrialized countries. From a social point of view, selling more isn’t better. And from the perspective of net sales, it’s slightly more plausible to think that a company might contemplate exercising some restraint.
Of course, it’s all too easy to think that such companies should sell less. But it’s much harder to specify how much less, and how they should do it. Indeed, it’s hard even to enunciate what the relevant moral principle would look like. Go ahead and sell, sell, sell, but only up to…what point?
I don’t have a solution to suggest here. My point is just that the tragic story of oxycontin is merely a grotesquely extreme example of a larger problem, namely how to do business responsibly when selling a product that is at once both good and evil.
News that Canadian engineering giant SCN Lavalin is facing new criminal charges caused a stir last week, not least because of the penalties that are on the table. The fraud and corruption charges spring from the company’s dealings in Libya. And if convicted, in addition to any other penalties handed out the company could be barred, for 10 years, from competing for contracts with the Government of Canada — a category of contracts that make up an important element of the company’s income.
Jacques Daoust, economy minister for Quebec (where SNC is based) thinks that rule is too harsh, and was quoted as saying, “In 10 years a company might not be the same. Everything can change. And in the case of SNC, they’ve decided to make drastic changes already over a short time…”
But the appropriateness of the punishment depends in part on what your goal is in punishing in the first place.
Some will say that we need harsh penalties as a deterrent. That is, if we punish wrongdoing (including corporate wrongdoing), wrongdoers should be less likely to repeat their offences, and other potential wrongdoers are likely to think twice before stepping out of line. But so far criminologists have been unable to find support for the claim that deterrence actually works. It defies our intuitive understanding of human motivation, but it’s true: we simply don’t have clear evidence (despite having looked for it) that the threat of punishments deters corporate crime.
Another possibility is that punishment is intended to inspire reform. This is presumably what Daoust has in mind: having already suffered significant legal penalties, SNC Lavalin has engaged in a process of reforming itself, making internal changes that (hopefully) will change the organization’s character and make it less likely to offend in future. Will it work? Who knows? But reforming a corporation may be more plausible than reforming a human criminal: after all, you can literally re-engineer a corporation to change the way it makes decisions, but you we don’t know how to do that to a human (and if we could it likely wouldn’t be ethical). And if, as Daoust seems to imply, the key reforms have already been implemented, a prohibition on federal contracts would be baldly punitive, a form of punishment for its own sake.
And to be sure, some will cheer for purely punitive actions. Denunciation — the community, through legal mechanisms, effectively shouting “No!” in the face of wrongdoing — is another of the ‘classical’ justifications for punishment. But in engaging is such denunciation, the Canadian government might be ‘cutting off its nose to spite its face,’ as the saying goes. Because by barring SNC for competing for contracts, just for the pure punitive joy of it, the government would also thereby be cutting itself off from a large, competent, Canadian engineering contractor.
This leaves one possibility, one rationale that would make sense of debarring SNC, in addition to whatever other penalties the company and its officers might suffer. The other classical rationale for punishment — a rationale usually reserved for explaining the value of incarceration — is an interest in removing offenders from settings in which they would be able to repeat their crimes. Criminologists refer to this as incapacitation. When you put the child molester in jail, he no longer has access to children and hence can no longer molest them. Put him away for 20 years, and those are 20 years during which he will molest zero children. By parallel, if you forbid a company from competing for government contracts for 10 years, those are 10 years during which they will engage in precisely zero instances of attempted bribery or other acts of corruption, at least with regard to bribery or corruption of Canadian officials.
As the entire universe probably knows by now, Louis CK released his latest hour-long comedy special, “Live at the Comedy Store,” a couple of weeks ago.
His business model—the distribution mechanism for the video—is by now familiar. As with his previous special, he’s selling this one as a video that can be downloaded via his own website. Not on iTunes, not on Amazon. Just his own website. And the one-hour video is priced not at the $9.99 or $18.99 that the pricing savants at iTunes or Amazon would surely have insisted upon, but at the low, low price of $5.
All of this is pretty amazing. Why, in particular, the $5 price tag? After all, the comedian surely could have charged more, and made more money for himself in the process. Yes, as price goes up, demand goes down, generally. And probably there really are some people who would be willing to pay $5 but unwilling to pay, say, $10. So keeping the price low let demand rise. And indeed this video is apparently selling better than the previous one. But if CK had opted to choose more — even substantially more — relatively few fans would be unable or unwilling to afford the difference (and even fewer such people who have the requisite internet connection in the first place). I’d wager that he could literally have doubled his price and not reduced demand by anything close to enough to offset the gains. But I’ll leave such speculation to the marketing gurus out there. Suffice it to say that as these things go, $5 is a surprising bargain.
So CK presumably had an actual choice about how to price his special, his ‘product.’ Why choose such a low price?
Some will suggest that what’s really going on is something cynically clever, perhaps an attempt to use low prices as a way to build his brand or his market share? Perhaps. But CK’s brand could hardly be bigger. If you hadn’t already heard of Louis CK, and if you weren’t already an ardent admirer, it’s unlikely that being able to access what is by all accounts his least-polished special to date would result in your sudden awareness and conversion.
Another possibility was that CK’s pricing was effectively an act of charity. He “left money on the table,” as the saying goes, and that money stayed in the pockets of his fans. And for those fans (however many there are) who could not have afforded to pay $10 for the video, his pricing effectively amounted to gifting them with access that they otherwise wouldn’t have had.
In other words, this rich entertainer (according to some reports CK is worth over $25 million) just donated a little bit of money to every single person who downloaded his special.
Of course, whether he was thinking of it that way when he chose that price is impossible to tell. Who knows what was going on in that head? This is a good illustration of an age-old debate about what it is that really matters, ethically: outcomes or intentions. In this case, it’s impossible to know what CK intended, but it’s much easier — for fans of comedy and fans of charity — to praise the outcome.
This is good news for consumers, but bad news for makers and sellers of herbal supplements. The New York State attorney general’s office accusing major retailers of selling. The office issued a series of cease and desist orders on Monday, targeting herbal supplements that, according to genetic tests, don’t contain what they claim to and often contained ingredients that don’t appear on the label. Walgreens, Walmart, and Target, along with supplement and vitamin retailer GNC, have been ordered to stop selling “adulterated and/or mislabeled” herbal dietary supplements, and given one week to produce a small mountain of information regarding the methods by which those products are manufactured and tested.
The AG’s investigation was apparently spurred by a 2013 article in the New York Times that cited a University of Guelph study that used genetic analysis to examine various commercial herbal remedies. That study found a striking disparity between what was on the label and what was actually in the bottle. (I wrote about the study here.)
As I wrote back in 2013, the findings of the Guelph study (and now the findings of the New York attorney general) suggest a quality control problem at best, and outright fraud at worst.
As it happens, I gave a presentation last week (with pharmacist and blogger Scott Gavura) on the ethics of marketing complementary and alternative medicines, including things like herbal supplements. You can see the webcast here. One of the key points we made involves the difference between marketing, say, a homeopathic ‘remedy’, which is utterly incapable of having any biological effect because it literally lacks any active ingredient, and marketing herbal products, a category of products which can in some cases be quite potent, but which can be highly variable in content, concentration, and labelling, not to mention the extent to which their effects and side effects have been verified. Marketing the former is unforgivable: you have to be either a huckster or willfully ignorant to market homeopathy as if it actually works. But the ethics of marketing herbal products is a trickier thing.
The heart of the ethical problem here is that herbal supplements are what economists call a “credence good” — that is, a good that most consumers aren’t qualified to evaluate. The only thing you can do, as a consumer who buys an herbal supplement, is rely upon the word of the manufacturer who claims that those pills really do contain ginkgo biloba or garlic or whatever. In other words, it requires trust.
And that trust could in principle be supported in two things, two forces that could make it more likely that those product labels would tell you the truth. The first is the ethics of the manufacturer. Most people are basically honest, so most-of-us-most-of-the-time trust the makers of the goods we consume, and that works out just fine. But as a backup, we have commercial law and various regulations to give makers and sellers of products good reason, from a self-interested point of view, to treat consumers well.
Alas, the herbal supplement industry has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted. So it’s a good thing that the NY state attorney general is stepping in to protect consumers.
Now if only Canadian regulatory and law enforcement agencies would follow suit.
That question is the topic of a big academic literature, but the question itself is far from academic. In fact, it has enormous practical importance. Take, for instance, the recent news that Target is leaving Canada, news that puts a rather fine point on the question.
Surely for the top executives (and presumably the Board) at Target, the decision to pull out of Canada was a tough one. But one suspects it was also entirely a ‘business’ decision — that is, one driven entirely by bottom-line considerations. CEO Brian Cornell pointed out, as part of the rationale for pulling out of Canada, that projections indicated that, if the company stayed in Canada, Target Canada would not expect to be profitable until 2021. Presumably shareholders were simply not going to put up with that. And from a fairly standard view about the purpose of the corporation, the wishes of shareholders matter a great deal. After all, or so the story goes, the entire purpose of a corporation is to make money for shareholders.
But of course, shareholders aren’t the only interested parties in this story. Consumers, too, have a stake. And despite the fact that many Canadians were sorely disappointed in Target’s initial efforts, many held out hope that Target Canada would eventually live up to the standards of their US counterparts, stores that are in fact a favourite cross-border shopping destination.
But among various stakeholder groups, the move is perhaps felt most acutely by Target Canada’s employees. Pulling out of Canada means Target is closing 133 stores and eliminating 17,600 jobs. For employees, the company was a source of jobs — jobs ranging from cashier to admin assistant to fairly senior executive posts. To the holders of those jobs, Target was a valued employer — a way to feed a family and pay the bills and maybe save for a vacation.
So now ask, again, what’s the purpose of a corporation? We’ve mentioned already the shareholder-wealth-building view. A more modern, critical view is to say that the purpose of a corporation is something more than the pursuit of shareholder wealth. Corporations, on this view, have a higher purpose as part of a community. The corporation has a social role, and that role goes far beyond attending to the interests of shareholders. Adherents of this view are indeed typically indignant at the very thought that anyone could think that corporations have so lowly a purpose as to merely make money.
And those critics are right, at least in part. It really is foolish to think that the purpose of a corporation is to make money. But that’s only because it’s foolish to think that corporations have purposes at all. That is, it’s foolish to think of a large, multifaceted organization as having a single, unitary “purpose” in the universe, rather than thinking of it as serving many purposes for many interested parties. Arguing over what a corporation is “really for” — building shareholder value? making products to make people happy? providing jobs? etc. — is a fool’s errand.
There are of course exceptions. If an individual or small group files the paperwork to form a corporation to serve some single, stated purpose, then it’s probably fair to say that that is what the corporation’s purpose is. But that’s seldom what’s at stake, at least as far as this debate goes. When you’re talking about a widely-held, multibillion dollar corporation like Target, talk of the organization’s “real purpose” just sounds silly.
But the fact that the corporation is many things to many people doesn’t mean that everyone is bound to consider all of those purposes, all of the time.
To see what I mean, consider a different, parallel question. What is the purpose of a job? Say, your job. If we think of your job as an abstract thing — a position in the marketplace that happens to be filled by you — what is its purpose? Does that question even make sense? You’ve got the job, and it (hopefully) helps you achieve your goals. How you should behave yourself in the course of that job, in pursuit of those goals, is a question of ethics. And that question is much more enlightening than some grand question about purposes.
Retailer American Apparel has announced a new code of ethics. The move comes, not coincidentally, just a month after the board sacked controversial CEO and founder Dov Charney. Charney had been at the centre of a string of employee sexual harassment suits.
And the new code contains — again, not coincidentally — a substantial section on sexual harassment.
The move by AA to beef up its Code is an opportunity to emphasize several key points about the role and significance of a Code of Ethics in general.
The first point has to do with the insufficiency of a code, in spite of the admitted necessity of having one. A company the size of AA can’t not have a code. Having one is effectively ‘table stakes,’ at this point, and in some jurisdictions it’s legally required. But AA’s board also shouldn’t dream for a second that simply having a new code is going to fix the company’s problems, any more than simply removing Charney from the helm will do so.
What the company surely needs is a change in culture. Charney’s departure will surely help — tone at the top, etc., etc. — but it likely won’t be enough. Charney has surely left his imprint on the corporate culture, and it will take time for that to change. A new code may serve as a focal point for such change, but only if the code is noticed and taken to heart. And that will only happen if sufficient training takes place. In other words, AA needs to not do what too many organizations do: simply post the new code on the wall. Even sending each employee a copy and “requiring” them to read it won’t be enough.
The final point has to do with the relationship between ethics and the law. As should be obvious, ethics and the law are not identical. What’s legal isn’t always ethical, and vice versa. An ethics code typically tries to bridge the gap: they tell employees what’s ethically required, but they also typically threaten a penalty, most often termination of employment. Further AA’s code effectively advises employees to think of the code as a legal document:
“…we ask that if you have questions, ask them; if you have ethical concerns, raise them; if you believe something to be suspicious or inconsistent with the Company’s best interests, report it to the General Counsel…” [or to contact the company’s outside ethics hotline provider].
That’s fine, but given the importance of culture, it’s important that the legal implications of a code not dominate. And unfortunately, AA’s code was pretty clearly written by a team of lawyers. The wording is often legalistic. That’s not surprising. Ethics policies often are. The most we can hope is that the ethics training that should accompany the code’s launch focuses on the values that underpin the code, not on the punishment that could result form its violations.
So is American Apparel’s new code good news? Absolutely. Are the company’s worries over? Far from it.
Uber’s “UberX” program hit a horrifying bump in the road this week, as one of its drivers in Delhi allegedly raped a female passenger. The incident earned the company a complete ban throughout the Delhi region, and is sure to send shockwaves through a much broader global community of users and potential users of UberX.
For all its success, Uber has had plenty of troubles. It’s been accused of anti-competitive behaviours. It’s been accused of privacy violations. Some of these problems can be overcome through smarter use of technology — and after all, that’s what Uber is supposed to be good at. But it’s important to see that the key to Uber’s success isn’t its mobile app. It’s the ability to get strangers to trust each other. If Uber wants to keep its recent $40 billion valuation, it’s going to have to figure that out.
Because commerce — all commerce — relies upon trust.
When I hop into a taxi, I’m not just getting a ride to a destination. I’m getting an exchange of trust. Think about it: I’m getting into a car with a stranger. But the branding of the cab company, plus the municipal licensing, give me some assurance that a) I’m going to get where I ask to go; b) I’ll arrive there alive; and c) I’ll be given the correct change even if I fail to count it. Uber got big by leveraging that pre-existing trust that most of us have in taxis.
The key question, then, is whether Uber will be able to sustain that trust.
I should add that it’s not just about customers. Trust has to be built and maintained with drivers, too. I spoke to one Uber driver recently who said that some drivers have left Uber because of how the company has treated them. He suggested such drivers feel that in introducing UberX, the company has effectively turned its back on the professional drivers that built the brand. Maybe the company doesn’t care about the professional drivers — maybe its long game lies with UberX. But if informed and experienced professional drivers don’t trust Uber, it’s hard to see how amateurs are going to do so.
So, Uber needs two things in order to build and maintain trust.
First, it needs to make smarter use of the technology at its fingertips. Some of that is already in place — simple, trustworthy financial transactions are clearly a key component of the company’s success to date. But it also needs to assure users that, for example, the company can be trusted with the vast amounts of data it gathers on their travel behaviour. Finally, the company needs not just the technical infrastructure of trust, it needs to engage in the behaviour that will signal to users that the company is here to stay, here to be trusted, here to be a reliable and trustworthy service provider for the long run.
The grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri failed to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Then a grand jury in New York failed to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of Eric Garner.
This isn’t just a matter of two high-profile cases in a row. Generally, grand juries are reluctant to indict cops. Not just reluctant overall, but comparatively reluctant. Because generally, grand juries do indict the people brought before them. Indeed, statistically, it is incredibly uncommon for grand juries to fail to indict. In 2010 (the most recent year for which data exists) U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 cases, and failed to get indictments in just 11 of those cases. But grand juries don’t like to indict cops.
And there’s a certain logic to that reluctance. Police officers generally have a tough job. They are issued deadly weapons and asked to insert themselves into situations that the rest of us want desperately to avoid. This clearly requires a lot of situation-specific judgment. Most outsiders don’t understand the principles of modern policing, nor the challenges presented by life “on the street.” It’s easy to imagine — even absent any conspiracy theory and minus any accusations of racism — why a grand jury, and the prosecutor that guides it, might be reluctant to indict a cop.
This reluctance is part of a general pattern in society. There are circumstances in which outsiders generally are and generally should be incredibly reluctant to judge. Courts are generally quite reluctant, for example, to second-guess the work of licensed professionals. A court won’t typically tell a surgeon she’s done sloppy work, even if the patient died, unless credible expert witnesses — namely other surgeons — swear that the surgery didn’t meet their profession’s own standards. What if those standards are themselves flawed? Here, too, courts are generally reluctant to intervene. Professions like medicine, nursing, and engineering are effectively given monopolies over fields of practice because (or so the story goes) their work is so complex, and requires such nuanced judgment, that only the members of the profession itself are qualified to set standards and to adjudicate violations.
This reticence to judge extends to the business world, too. Under the “business judgment rule”, courts (in Canada, the US, the UK, and elsewhere) are generally reluctant to tell a corporation’s board of directors that they’ve failed in their duty of care vis-a-vis shareholders, because the court lacks the competency to do so. So long as the board is found to have taken suitable care in their decision making process, the substance of their decision will not be second-guessed.
But there’s a proviso, here, a limit. Reluctance to judge from the outside doesn’t imply a license to kill, either figuratively or literally. The set of circumstances in which outsiders should be reluctant to judge the behaviour of a powerful occupational group is pretty strictly limited to circumstances in which the members of that group do a good job of monitoring their own behaviour and enforcing standards that serve the public well.
This means that any group — any group — that wants to be left to set its own standards, and to be largely free from external scrutiny, needs to work incredibly hard to set and enforce suitable standards internally. There are lots of ways of doing that, including codes of conduct, training, mentoring, and so on. Also useful is a general obligation on the part of members of the profession to call out other members who violate the rules. But tight self-regulation is the quid pro quo. Fail at that mission, and you are going to find the public sticking its nose in. This applies to boards who want to be free from meddling shareholders, accountants who resent intrusive financial regulations like those embodied in Sarbanes-Oxley, and cops who think the public just doesn’t understand.


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Nike has announced a new version of the Apple Watch Nike+, bringing together the Space Gray Apple Watch 2 with a black and cream Nike sports band.
Labelled the Apple Watch NikeLab, the new watch is available on a limited edition basis and has been described as the “ultimate style companion” for all runners.
The website lists the new device as a “limited edition, neutral-toned Apple Watch NikeLab” that “maintains the beloved features of its predecessor: deep integration with the Nike+ Run Club app, exclusive Siri commands, GPS, a two-times-brighter display and water resistance to 50 meters”, “made possible by a powerful dual-core processor and watchOS”.
The new watch will ship from April 27, and will also be available to purchase at NikeLab locations and at the new Apple Toyko pop-up store, housed in the Isetan department store. For the first time, this model will not be available to purchase from the Apple website, meaning fans of the new design will have to visit one of the Nike locations to pick one up.
The Apple Watch NikeLab is slated to be priced at $369 for the 38mm model and $399 for the 42mm model, falling in line with the rest of the Apple Watch Nike+ family.
In other Apple Watch news, rumors are suggesting that the third generation of the device will be unveiled this autumn. As we have previously reported, Series 3 of the Apple Watch will be released in the second half of 2017, falling in line with last year’s Series 2 release and mimicking the annual releases of the iPhone and iPhone Plus.

domain: news


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Sales for the Mountain Warehouse jumped by over 25% in the six weeks leading up to the new year
The outdoor clothing and equipment retailer, which shelved plans for a possible £200million stock market float last year, shrugged off what analysts described as a “dismal” year for high street stores as its sales jumped 28.8 per cent in the six weeks to January 1.
Founder and chief executive Mark Neale said there had been “no sign” of waning consumer confidence, and while he had already flagged higher prices for shoppers for the first time in five years following a sharp fall in the pound, any increases are likely to be “minimal”.
He said: “I’m pleased to say we are firing on all cylinders in all our channels: our UK stores, online and internationally. We continue to believe there is plenty of life in UK high streets.”
We are firing on all cylinders in all our channels
Mountain’s record Christmas sales update provided some cheer to a retail sector left reeling by a gloomy profit outlook from bellwether Next.
The downbeat tone was reinforced by figures from accountants and business adviser BDO showing a 0.1 per cent drop in underlying high street sales in December, the fourth straight year with no growth.
Neale said the company had benefited from selling “functional” rather than fashion products, as well as being at the “value” end of the market.
Mountain Warehouse now has a total of 262 store after opening its first 20 years ago
Mountain served more than one million customers during the festive period, with hats, gloves, socks and ski jackets among the bestsellers of the 2.5million items sold.
Same-store sales jumped 13.6 per cent, online turnover was up nearly 32 per cent, while international sales, driven by strong growth in Poland and North America, soared 71 per cent.
The store specialises in selling cold-weather gear such as hats, gloves and socks
Neale has overseen an expansion of the business he started with one store in Swindon in 1997 to 262, about 200 of which are in the UK. It added 34 stores last year, with a similar number planned this year.
He expects record annual results for Mountain. Last year it posted a 36 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £16.2million on £141.4million sales.


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Intel announced a $9 million investment in Figure, a Bay Area-based robotics company. Figure is working on developing a multiple humanoid robot, a long-held goal in robotics.
Figures: A developing humanoid robot
Figure recently announced that its humanoid robot has taken its first steps, a milestone it reached just days before the company’s one-year anniversary. Figure has made a lot of headway in a short time, thanks in no small part to founder and CEO Brett Adcock’s $100 million initial start-up.
Running any robotics company is an extremely expensive undertaking, especially if you are building hardware and software for a multiple humanoid robot. Figure then started looking for external funding to make this dream come true. In May, it announced a sizable $70 million Series A funding led by Parkway Venture Capital.
Intel investment and potential strategic partnership
Today, the company announced on TechCrunch that it is adding another $9 million equity investment to its treasury, courtesy of Intel Capital, which could soon prove to be a strategic partnership.
For some time now, Figure has been showcasing its progress to interested parties, and Intel clearly likes what it has seen in the Figure 01 robot.
“Intel Capital is constantly looking for companies that push the boundaries of innovation, and we believe Figure has the potential to change the way the world thinks about artificial intelligence,” said Mark Lydon, general manager of Intel Capital. “Figure’s focus on improving the economy of work is an essential part of our future, and we look forward to being at the forefront of supporting humanoid development.”
Focus on industrial warehouse applications
Figure isn’t the only company currently working on a general humanoid. Tesla, Apptronik, and 1X, powered by Open AI, are all trying to tackle this immensely difficult problem. Unlike Tesla’s plan to go all-in at launch, Figure’s approach is deliberate, focusing primarily on industrial stock applications to get started.
Access to Intel through its venture arm offers many potential assets for a young company like Figure, especially one that is looking to get up and running and scale quickly.
This article is originally published on www.matricedigitale.it


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Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:
– The heavy equipment maker reported quarterly profit of $1.57 per share, beating estimates by 10 cents a share. Revenue also beat forecasts, with Deere saying the overall market improved and sales in South America saw a particularly strong rebound.
Rockwell Automation – The maker of industrial automation systems rejected a revised takeover bid from Emerson Electric, saying it undervalued the company and was not in the best interests of shareholders. Emerson had increased its original $215 per share bid to $225 per share in cash and stock last week.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise – Meg Whitman will step down as chief executive officer on February 1. She will be succeeded by the company's president, Antonio Nieri. Separately, the computer networking company reported adjusted quarterly profit of 31 cents per share, 3 cents above estimates, with revenue also beating forecasts.
HP Inc. – HP Inc. matched Street estimates by reporting adjusted quarterly profit of 44 cents per share, while the computer and printer maker saw revenue above forecasts. Its 2018 outlook is also in line with analyst forecasts.
Salesforce.com – Salesforce came in 2 cents a share above estimates, with adjusted quarterly earnings of 39 cents per share. Revenue also beat projections. The cloud software company did give current-quarter revenue guidance that falls slightly below Street forecasts.
GameStop – GameStop beat estimates by 12 cents a share, with adjusted quarterly profit of 54 cents per share. The video game and console retailer saw revenue beat estimates, as well. GameStop was helped by the ongoing popularity of the new Nintendo Switch gaming console.
Guess – Guess matched Wall Street estimates with adjusted quarterly profit of 12 cents per share, but the apparel maker's revenue missed forecasts on a sales drop in its Americas region.
Intel – Chips made by Intel are the subject of a government warning, with officials urging businesses to follow an alert issued by the chipmaker about security floors in some widely used microprocessors. Intel has said it knows of no cases in which hackers exploited the vulnerabilities in those chips.
JPMorgan Chase – JPMorgan is looking into possible business opportunities involving bitcoin, despite CEO Jamie Dimon calling bitcoin a "fraud." According to The Wall Street Journal, the bank is mulling whether to provide clients with access to a potential bitcoin product being considered by CME Group.
Walt Disney – Disney senior creative director John Lasseter is taking a six-month leave of absence, due to "missteps" that he said made some workers feel "disrespected and uncomfortable."
Mallinckrodt – The drugmaker's stock was downgraded to "perform" from "outperform" at Oppenheimer, which points to a lack of visibility regarding the growth of arthritis treatment Acthar, among other factors.


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Covid-19 turned the world on its head. We're defining new norms and what once made sense, is up for individual assumption and acceptance. Especially throughout the United States. The Real Estate market had an astronomical increase rate over the last two years with no signs of correction, pet shelters' inventory is at an all-time low (YAY!) and auto-lots are practically begging people to trade-in their vehicles; almost making non-classic cars an appreciating asset. Analysts are on a non-stop statistical hunt with our consumption and spending.
What about shopping trends within retail?


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Opera has released its State of Mobile Web 2019, giving a detailed insight into the African digital landscape...
11 Jun 2019
Opera's State of the mobile web report Q1 2018 reveals one-third of the surveyed internet users believe a mobile browser offers them more privacy features than a standalone social media app...
12 Apr 2018
From multiple account support to Stories, Instagram's team has been hard at work over the years. In saying so, there is one big feature they haven't implemented yet - and I'm not talking about the return of a chronological timeline...
Hadlee Simons 23 Jan 2018
Mobile browser, Opera, is planning to invest $100 million (R1.3 billion) over the next two years to facilitate the growth of African digital economy...
10 May 2017
No, not politically. The progressive we're talking about here might be the game-changer that bridges the divide between mobile web and mobile apps...
Jumia.com, one of Africa's largest online shopping malls, had a successful Black Friday 2015, with an increase in sales of 900% compared to 2014...
2 Dec 2015
In response to a business pain, you've dreamed up a great new app idea and have embarked on a litany of Google searches that probably involved the words...
Craig Terblanche 25 Nov 2015
Disruption, more specifically digital disruption is the buzzword on everyone's lips, with new competitors in a range of industries and sectors using technology to challenge long-established business models...
Cindy Diamond 5 Nov 2015
More than one billion people that have access to Internet.org's free basic services across Asia, Africa and Latin America will now be able to access more free services through the Internet.org platform, as it went live last week...
28 Sep 2015
In a new infographic by Jovago, Nigeria ranks lowest on the list for usage of mobile devices for payments in Africa...
21 Apr 2015
The influx of mobile phone has enhanced ease of access across the world - no more so than in Africa...
17 Apr 2015
14 Apr 2015
A recent study conducted in South Africa by Ipsos, a global market research company, on behalf of PayPal and FNB, shows a growing interest by South African internet users to shop online...
20 Mar 2015
If you're looking to make a success of e-commerce in Africa's mobile markets, best you pay attention to ways of raising awareness and conversion, says Paul Casarin of Gumtree...
Leigh Andrews 5 Feb 2015
Various research studies site South Africa as one of the leading countries in terms of mobile penetration (with access growing rapidly thanks to smart phones). It seems though...
Andrea Mitchell 21 Jul 2014
Forty-five percent of mobile searches are "goal-oriented," and are done with an eye to accumulating information to make a decision or purchase in the near term. The mobile search is an important indicator of buying intent. It increasingly is becoming part of the "last mile," meaning a searcher who goes to mobile to seek out information typically is close to pulling the trigger on an action.
Erika Morphy 23 Apr 2014
TechZim reports that the use of Opera Mini in Zimbabwe has been increasing while the use of other mobile browsers have been declining over the past two months.
7 Nov 2013
Airtel's customers will now be able to access information available on Wikipedia free of data charges through their mobile phones thanks to a strategic partnership between Airtel and the Wikimedia Foundation.
25 Oct 2013
The digital marketing landscape is a vastly changing one and in recent years we have seen two trends emerge almost simultaneously: real time bidding (RTB) has taken off and completely changed the face of digital advertising, and the rise of mobile has forever altered user interaction with digital content.
Kevin Dayton 22 Nov 2012
The AfricaCom Awards, which acknowledges the growth and importance of the telecoms and digital sectors across the African continent, is set to take place during the 2012 AfricaCom conference taking place from 13-15 November at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), South Africa, under the theme 'Reaching the Next Frontier for Growth'. The shortlist of contenders for the 2012 AfricaCom Awards have been released.
15 Oct 2012
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study on US smartphone shopping behavior based on data from its comScore Mobile Metrix 2.0 service.
20 Sep 2012
HAMBURG, GERMANY: The digital entertainment content provider Mondia Media presents, in cooperation with BITKOM and Hamburg@work, the first Content Conference Hamburg. The new format is a one-day conference with great industry-renowned speakers, inspiring impulse presentations and lively panel discussions on an international expert level.
21 Aug 2012
It is funny to me that the future of traditional advertising is digital. Where people believe that digital will someday kill traditional media, I believe that digital is in fact its saviour. With the fast adoption of smartphones, wireless internet and other mobile devices, the emergence of traditional and digital is most certainly happening in the mobile space.
Clinton Young 28 Jun 2012
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc has announced the US launch of Mobile Metrix® 2.0, its next generation mobile behavioural measurement service. Mobile Metrix 2.0 brings comScore's Unified Digital Measurement to smartphone devices, combining passive on-device measurement with census-level data to provide one of the most accurate and detailed views into actual US mobile media usage across apps and mobile browsing.
9 May 2012
SAN MATEO, US: InMobi SmartPay and Opera Software have announced their partnership to bring InMobi's SmartPay mobile payment platform to Opera's more than 160 million mobile browser users worldwide.
28 Feb 2012
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc has released the 2012 Mobile Future in Focus report. This annual report examines the mobile and connected device landscape, covering several mobile markets measured by comScore.
24 Feb 2012
A revealing infographic created by Hub Research, which documents the mobile infrastructure in Uganda, is throwing up some interesting insights about mobile use in Africa.
Staff Reporter 19 Jan 2012
LONDON, UK: comScore, Inc has released an overview of mobile social media usage across the five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) from the comScore MobiLens service.
22 Nov 2011
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc has released an analysis of mobile financial services usage in the US showing that 32.5 million Americans accessed mobile banking information on their devices at the end of Q2 2011 in June, representing 13.9% of all mobile users.
31 Oct 2011
OSLO, NORWAY: Did you know that users of Android phones are more likely to be active on music websites than iPhone owners? Or, that users of older, pre-smartphones are the most active social web users? These stats and more were revealed in this month's State of the Mobile Web report, published by web browser company Opera Software.
31 Oct 2011
RESTON, US:- comScore, Inc has released results of a study on mobile social media usage based on data from its comScore MobiLens service, which showed that 72.2 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011, an increase of 37% in the past year.
21 Oct 2011
LONDON, UK: comScore, Inc has released an analysis of the online advertising market in the United Kingdom across the general population of fixed line Internet users, online video viewers and smartphone users. Among its findings, the analysis shows mobile and video advertising gaining traction in reaching a sizeable percentage of the total audience.
5 Sep 2011
LONDON, UK: comScore, Inc has released data from the comScore MobiLens service showing that 13.5 million users across the five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK), accounting for 5.8% of all mobile subscribers, accessed online retail sites in the three month average period ending May 2011.
2 Aug 2011
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, has released results of a US study of mobile map usage based on data from its comScore MobiLens service.
19 Jul 2011
TOKYO, JAPAN: comScore, Inc has released a study on the use of various Japanese media sources in the aftermath of the March earthquake and tsunami disaster based on data from the comScore MobiLens and comScore Media Metrix services. The study found that the largest percentage of people (83%) identified television to be very important as an information source after the disaster, followed by fixed Internet (72%), radio broadcasts (66%) and mobile phones (49%).
9 Jun 2011
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc has released results of a US study on mobile advertising, which found that the number of advertisers using mobile display ad campaigns has more than doubled in the past two years, with mobile content and publishing accounting for half of all products advertised on mobile devices.
8 Jun 2011
TORONTO, CANADA: comScore, Inc has announced the introduction of its syndicated mobile measurement service, comScore MobiLens, in Canada. MobiLens offers insights into mobile consumers' demographics, behaviours, and device attributes and capabilities, to provide a comprehensive picture of the mobile market.
2 Jun 2011
OSLO, NORWAY: There is no doubt that social media is king of the mobile phone. Fresh results from the Opera State of the Mobile Web report reveal that the social component is dominant in the surfing habits of the top 20 mobile-surfing countries.
26 May 2011
OSLO, NORWAY / LAGOS, NIGERIA, JOHANNESBURG, SA: Nigeria has unseated South Africa as the country in Africa with the highest number of users on the Opera Mini mobile browser, according to the latest State of the Mobile Web report issued 19 April 2011 by Opera Software.
20 Apr 2011
OSLO, NORWAY: Opera Software today tinkered in its giant statistics machine and found that Opera Mini reached 100 million monthly users in March and two billion daily page views - new peaks for what's claimed to be the world's most used mobile browser.
11 Apr 2011
RESTON, US: comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, has released the latest insights on the state of the mobile financial services market from its quarterly Mobile Financial Advisor report.
30 Mar 2011
Mobile browser, BOLTT has signed an agreement with BuzzCity, a mobile media company that offers access to a global advertising network on the mobile internet. The partnership will see the mobile browser delivering mobile advertising content to its users.
17 Aug 2010
RESTON, US: Global audience to Twitter.com doubles in past year, as Latin American audience grows fourfold.
16 Aug 2010
OSLO, NORWAY & BARCELONA, SPAIN: Vodafone signed an agreement with Opera Software earlier this week to develop a custom-made version of the Opera Mini mobile browser to be made available in Vodafone markets across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
20 Feb 2009
SAN MATEO: AdMob last week released its July Mobile Metrics Report, which focuses on increasing usage of the mobile web in Africa and worldwide mobile browser marketshare. According to the report, there has been a 21% increase in traffic since the company began tracking the Africa market in Q1 2008.
22 Aug 2008
South African online shopping search engine Jump Shopping recently launched a mobile offering of its popular search engine Jump.co.za, believed to be a first for the SA mobile community.
21 Jun 2007


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Turks & Caicos signs 999-year land accord with luxury resort company
September 5, 2012, 12:09 am TWN
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks & Caicos Islands -- The British governor of the Turks & Caicos Islands has signed a multimillion-dollar land deal with a luxury resort company.
A government statement Monday says Caicos Resorts Limited has leased 17 acres of government land for 999 years for a US$3 million down payment and yearly rental income. The company runs the Amanyara resort on the island of Providenciales.
Gov. Ric Todd says the local population will benefit from increased revenue streams and more jobs at the Amanyara resort. He signed the agreement on Monday.


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Babar Zaheer, a makeup artist and celebrity stylist, is mocked online for his “revealing” costume at the premiere night celebration for Parde Mein Rehne Do.
Wajahat Rauf’s much-anticipated film Parde Mein Rehne Do will finally hit our screens on Eid tomorrow. A star-studded premiere of this social comedy flick took place at Nuplex cinema Karachi last night. Many A-list celebrities from the media were in attendance.
The who’s who of Hollywood stars descended on the glitzy premiere event. Hania Aamir, the film’s primary actress, arrived in a hot pink costume with plazos among the superstars. The 25-year-old entertainment queen did not arrive alone; she was accompanied by her buddies.
While Hania stole the show in her hot pink gown, her makeup artist, Babar Zaheer, created a stir on social media. A bold and colourful shirt was worn by the famous celebrity makeup artist. His chest was exposed by the clothing, which was way too revealing.
The stylist’s clothing was deemed “too exposing” by others. Netizens used the comments section to mock Babar Zaheer’s appearance. Some speculated that the makeup artist was assaulted on his way to the premiere of Parde Mein Rehne Do. Take a look!


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Amazon to kick off month-long Great Indian Festival sale from October 4 onwards
- Amazon Prime members will get early access a day before the official launch of the annual sale.
- Customers will save 28% more with a GST invoice on all transactions across categories.
- Flipkart will host its Big Billion Day sale from October 7 to October 12.
AdvertisementEcommerce giant Amazon will flag off its month-long festive sale ‘
As usual, Prime members will get early access a day before the official launch of the annual sale. They will also get additional cashback, extended no-cost EMIs.
Manish Tiwary, vice president at India consumer business at Amazon India, said customers will save 28% more with goods and service tax (GST) invoices on all transactions across categories — like laptops, printers, networking devices, office electronics, vacuum cleaners and more — from top brands like HP, Lenovo, Canon, Godrej, Casio and more.
The e-commerce giant has announced over 1000 new product launches from brands like Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Sony, Apple, Boat and others.
He further noted that more customers from Tier II and III seasons are expected to shop from the platform this year as well. The company has also introduced Marathi and Bengali interfaces — in addition to Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, English and other interfaces — to attract more customers from smaller towns and cities.
“This year’s Great Indian Festival is a celebration of the resilience of local shop owners and small and medium sellers. We continue to innovate on behalf of our customers to offer the widest selection, value and convenience, ensuring fast delivery of their #KhushiyonKeDibbe, to get them ready for the festive season from the comfort and safety of their homes," Tiwary added.
Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC’s ₹2768 crore IPO will open on September 29
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December 06, 2007
Giving the Gift of Gore? Video Game Buyers Beware
by Anne Moore Odell
ICCR works to educate video game buyers on video games ratings and works with retailers to keep
mature and violent video games out of children's hands.
Eighty percent of all video games are sold during the holiday season reports the Interfaith Center
on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). ICCR
recently sent out its annual holiday letter designed to help consumers make informed decisions when
choosing retailers who sell video games for children and teens.
ICCR is an association of 275 faith-based
institutional investors with over $100 billion in assets under management. ICCR and its members
work with companies to be socially and environmentally responsible.
The percentage of
people who play video and computer games varies from poll to poll, but represents millions of
Americans and is growing larger each year. A 2006 AP-AOL poll reports that 40% of American adults
play games on a computer or a console. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) states that 69% of heads of households
play computer and/or video games.
The ESA further reports that the average video game
player is 33 years old and that children and teens playing video games only make up 28% of the game
playing population. The most popular games are, actually, sports and card games, especially poker.
Although the majority of video game players are of age, ICCR is "concerned that video
games with extreme violence are often the item most likely given or purchased for children and
adolescents." To help shoppers, ICCR publishes its "Video Game Retailer Comparison Chart: Actions
Taken by Retailers to Prevent Sales to Minors of Mature (M) Rated Video Games."
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), whose independent raters give video games
both a letter rating and a descriptor phrase, rates video games. ESRB reports the percentage of
ratings assigned in 2006 as: E (Everyone) - 53%, E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) - 16%, T (Teen) -
23%, M (Mature) - 8% and EC (Early Childhood) and AO (Adults Only) - combined, less than 1%.
ESRB reports Game unit sales by rating category in 2006: E (Everyone) - 45%, E10+ (Everyone 10
and older) - 11%, T (Teen) - 29% M (Mature) - 15%EC (Early Childhood) and AO (Adults Only) -
combined, less than 1%.
The ICCR's chart lists the video game selling policies at Best
Buy, Blockbuster, Circuit City, Game Stop, Sears and Kmart, Target, Toys "R" Us, and Wal-Mart, and
includes what ICCR considers the "elements of an effective, responsible, and well-monitored video
game sales policy."
Gary Brouse, Director for ICCR's Working Group on Violence & Militarization
of Society explained, "I think the education of consumers is important because the games are
constantly changing. Every year it is getting more and more difficult to keep up with this issue.
It is important for consumers to understand that besides the ratings, there the descriptors that
describe how gruesome the games are."
"One thing that is really great about the chart, is
that it provides information to parents and consumers about the retailers. We aren't saying where
you should shop," Brouse added.
Patricia E. Vance, President of ESRB told SocialFunds.com:
"Actually, retailers continue to make good progress in enforcing their voluntary store policy not
to sell M (Mature) rated games to children under 17 without permission from their parent. "
"National research measuring parental awareness and use of the ratings for computer and video
games shows that 83% of American parents of children who play video games are aware of the ESRB
ratings, and 74% use them regularly when buying games for their families according to a study
commissioned annually by the ESRB, " Vance continued.
ESRB also reports that these figures
are higher than those measured in the same study in 2005, when awareness and use were at 78% and
70% respectively. The study was conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in March 2007, and
surveyed over 500 parents of children age 3 to 17 that play video games.
The retailers in
ICCR's chart all display video game policies in their stores and have other policies in place to
train employees around not selling mature rated videos to children. However, ICCR would also like
retailers to disclose the results of programs that verify that cashiers are requesting an ID prior
"Parents have the authority and primary responsibility to decide which games,
music and movies are appropriate for their children," said Bill Cimino, director of corporate
communications for Circuit City (ticker:CC). "Circuit City adopted its policy to support
parents, not to take their place. We strongly encourage parents to take an active role in
evaluating the entertainment products their children use. To that end, Circuit City has a carding
system in place for R-rated DVD movies and explicit lyric CDs."
ICCR's Brouse singled out
Target (ticker: TGT) as a leader for not
carrying the violent video game Manhunt 2.
"Target strives to provide merchandise that
will appeal to a wide variety of guests. We also want guests to be comfortable with the purchasing
decisions they make at Target," said Brandy Doyle, Target spokesperson. "While Manhunt 2 was given
a Mature rating by the ERSB, we received additional information that players can potentially view
previously filtered content by altering the game code. As a result, we have decided not to carry
the game. "
ERSB's Vance wonders if the media and special issue groups have made M rated
games videos and children a bigger issue than they really are. "It seems that a handful of M-rated
titles may receive a disproportionate amount of media attention, but the percentage of rating
assignments and game sales paints a different picture," Vance said. "In 2006, only one M-rated game
was among the top 10 selling video games while other titles in the sports, strategy and racing
genres continue to be very popular year in and year out."
ICCR has other issues with video
game industry besides exposing children to the violence found in some of the games. Brouse also
said ICCR is concerned with the lack of diversity in the video game industry. There are very few
women and minorities on the boards and in the management of game producers and designers. Brouse
puts the figure at 95% non-minority on boards and in management. This lack of diversity is
especially troubling considering that many of the games feature minorities and women.
is also working with federal trade and congressional leaders who are looking at the game sector and
The industry-tracking NPD Group reports that last year the video game
industry made $12.6 billion dollars, with December 2006 alone bringing in $3.7 billion. If 2007
follows this trend, as it set to do, the importance of the industry can't be over stated.
ICCR Holiday letter reads in part: "Behavioral science research has warned that playing violent
video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in children and youth. In many cases,
these types of video games encourage and reward players for performing acts of violence and
brutality that include beating women, shooting police officers and committing racially motivated
acts of violence.
"The holiday season is a time of celebrating with loved ones the
breaking in of light into a troubling and hurting world. Let us be instruments of light." it adds.
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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WUZHEN, China -- China's move to develop rules to restrict internet companies' anti-competitive practices are "timely and necessary," according to Daniel Zhang, chairman and chief executive of e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding.
Speaking on Monday at China's annual government-sponsored World Internet Conference in the eastern city of Wuzhen, Zhang said the emergence of Chinese internet companies onto the global stage was made possible by Beijing's market reforms and development policies.
"Development and governance help each other forward and are mutually dependent," Zhang said. "Relevant government agencies are seeking feedback on policies and regulations to ensure the orderly development of the internet economy. We think this is very timely and necessary."
Zhang's affirmation comes just three weeks after Chinese regulators blocked the stock market debut of Alibaba's sister company Ant Group, which had been expected to raise up to $39.6 billion as the world's largest initial public offering, in a last-minute intervention. Some have traced the move to a speech that Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and Ant, had made in late October criticizing financial regulators.
The State Administration for Market Regulation announced its plans to implement new competition rules on Nov. 10, sparking a wide sell-off in Chinese internet stocks. The draft guidelines, which would control practices such as exclusive sales agreements, bundling of products and services and promotional subsidies, are open for public comment until the end of the month.
"As part of China's digital economy, Alibaba is not only a participant and a builder, but also a beneficiary," Zhang said. "We fully appreciate it."
"For many years, Alibaba has always envisioned using technology to empower users to have a better life and ease our customers' business," he said. "In response to the future development of the online economy, we will actively learn and respond to national policies and regulations, building a healthier platform by raising the bar in order to contribute to the construction of a strong national network and a digitalized China."
The Wuzhen conference kicked off earlier on Monday with a message from Chinese President Xi Jinping promoting his vision of a global cybersecurity standard.
"China is willing to work with other countries to seize the opportunities surrounding the information transformation, cultivating new drivers for innovation and building a new structure for cybersecurity to create a better future for mankind," Xi said in the message read out by Zhuang Rongwen, minister of cyberspace administration.
Beijing aims to play a central role in global governance, capitalizing on China's lead in information technology. The country boasts over 900 million internet users who count on online services for their daily needs from ordering takeout to commuting.
Xi made a similar call to his counterparts at the Group of 20 summit in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, arguing for the world's largest 20 economies to address concerns over data security, digital divide, personal privacy and ethics.
There currently are some standards published by the International Organization of Standardization to assist organizations deal with security practices, but there is no single governance system for cybersecurity.
"It is difficult to form a global governance (system) because of many dynamic situations, one of them being geopolitics," said Joseph Ng, a cybersecurity engineer in Malaysia.
China launched a global data security initiative in September, spelling out a framework that Beijing hopes to discuss with other countries.
The initiative focuses on eight points, including ruling out the use of information and communication technology to impair other countries' critical infrastructure, offering support for suppression of activities that infringe upon personal privacy and promoting exchanges of data by national law enforcement agencies.
Some foreign tech executives joined the Wuzhen conference remotely, including officials from U.S. companies Qualcomm and Cisco Systems.
Chuck Robbins, Cisco chief executive, said China will continue to create opportunity for market players with its economic transformation and emergence from the coronavirus pandemic.


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The Success Story Behind Singapore Fashion Week
Cities like Berlin, Tokyo and Sydney boast enough local talent recognized internationally to draw a small-but-influential pool of editors and buyers from the US, Europe and still-growing luxury markets including Russia, South America and of course, Asia. But when a city like Singapore throws a fashion week, there's got to be more to it than industry buzz. There's got to be a consumer angle.
Singapore Fashion Week Spotlight: Zardoze's Global Outlook
There are plenty of emerging Singapore-based fashion labels, but maybe not one so well-supported as the less-than-a-year-old Zardoze, which showed its second ready-to-wear collection Friday at Audi’s Fashion Festival Singapore.


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FVC strengthens logistics set-up for African markets
European supply chain arrangement designed to result in faster deliveries
Emerging technologies distributor FVC has established a new logistics arrangement in Europe that it claims will benefit channel customers based in North and West Africa.
The company has signed an agreement with Netherlands-based logistics provider, Merzario, that will see its supply chain and logistics managed from Amsterdam.
FVC says the hub has been set up to provide "greater convenience" for FVC's partners in North and West Africa, as it can now take advantage of direct cargo flights to that region.
KS Parag, managing director of FVC, claims the move will mean it get can get products into the market more quickly.
"Setting up a supply chain hub into Europe has given our partners in North and West Africa an added value in terms of faster deliveries, speeding up the supply chain process. This is the most cost-effective solution all around," he said.
The new logistics set-up in Amsterdam will provide the same services as its existing supply-chain hub in Jebel Ali, according to FVC.
FVC carries products from a number of networking and communications brands, including Citrix, Polycom, Riverbed and TippingPoint.


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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- La Quinta Holdings Inc. LQ, -0.60% priced its initial public offering below the expected price and plans to sell more shares than anticipated, according to media reports late Tuesday. The hotel chain plans to offer just under 38.3 million shares at $17 a share, Bloomberg News reported. La Quinta was expected to price 37.2 million shares between $18 and $21 a share.
La Quinta prices IPO at $17 a share: reports
More News from MarketWatch


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The issue of jersey color doesn’t go past black and white in Miami. Maybe because the NBA’s Heat cooled off in the NBA Finals last year, the team decided to remove the red from their alternate jersey, debuting a simple black-and-white version this week.
With plans to use the jersey about a dozen times in the 66-game season, the white-only trim on an all-black background and with black lettering won’t steal the show from red (the team’s traditional dominant color), but it will cool off, or simply darken, their look this winter.
In the realm of basketball uniforms, you can’t get much darker than the new Adidas creation. With a black background, even the “Miami” across the front, the players’ names on the back and the numerals on both sides come out black. Only some thin white trim set them apart.
The new all-black look replaces an already fairly black alternate jersey for the Heat, which included white lettering and red trim.
Debuting a third jersey isn’t confined to just Miami. The Utah Jazz have already unveiled a largely green alternate jersey and purple has taken a backseat in Sacramento where the Kings now offer a black alternate.
The Dallas Mavericks have also tossed out a new black-based alternate. Of course, it isn’t as dark as Miami’s jersey. At least Miami can beat Dallas at something, right?


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Turkey farmers are struggling as much as everyone else with their predictions during our pandemic era.
“We were concerned going into the fall that we wouldn’t have that much demand because we thought people would not be hosting Thanksgiving this year,” said Samantha Naftal, owner of Flatbrook Farm in Sandyston, N.J., which raises 60 to 70 turkeys a year. “But as it turns out, demand is just fine. People are hosting, they’re just asking for smaller birds.”
The size requested has dropped from an average of about 18 pounds to between 12 and 14 pounds, she said.
Customers have been putting in pre-orders for smaller turkeys at Prime Time Meats in Milford, Pa., as well. “Typically, people do like an 18- to 20-pound turkey, and now it’s more toward that 10- to 12-pound weight bracket,” said Thomas Seltzer, an employee. “So far this year it seems like people have been ordering smaller turkeys because they don’t have as many people coming over.”
But, despite conjecture that home chefs would forego a turkey altogether this bizarre Thanksgiving season, local farmers are relieved to discover that people still want a turkey on the table. And they are willing to pay a premium for a sustainably raised bird. Pre-orders for pastured turkeys, along with a $20 commitment, have been coming in at Flatbrook Farm, where they are on pace to be sold out as usual.
“All of our regular customers are coming back,” said Naftal. “Poultry aside, Thanksgiving day aside, the theme this year has been people seeking to buy locally, and to buy from a shorter food supply chain. Plus, they didn’t want to go to the grocery store. They wanted products that were touched less, handled less.”
Farm manager Bob Campbell meets me at Flatbrook Farm on a utility vehicle, leading me past stately red barns and neat white fences to the turkey flock. The birds are out on a grassy hillside, surrounded by movable electric fencing, next to a pasture of grazing cows. As part of a beyond-organic rotational grazing system, the turkey hut is moved every other day, and their electric fencing moved weekly to fresh pasture, following in the path of the cows. Campbell and another farmer will do the slaughtering on-site on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
It looks blissfully bucolic, until Campbell shows me his arms, covered in decades of scars and a fresh scab from a turkey bite that had finally stopped bleeding after two days. “A 25-pound bird that doesn’t want to get caught is going to fight you,” he said resignedly. “Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough.” That day will find him enjoying the fruits of his labor on his own table. “It’s way different from your standard Butterball, which I grew up eating,” he said. “Fresh is as big a part of it as anything else. When you buy a frozen Butterball, it could have been frozen six months ago.”
Some of these turkeys will be on the smaller side, but only by chance. They ordered a round of replacement poults, or baby turkeys, after some in the first flock didn’t make it – “which happens, since we don’t use antibiotics or anything like that,” said Naftal. That second batch of birds, which arrived in early July, is a month younger than the first. That will work out well when filling those requests for smaller birds.
Aside from that, “we aren’t doing anything different,” said Naftal. “It’s all a matter of our customers being understanding and flexible, and they are, because they know we’re pasture raising and it’s variable. To some extent they kind of enjoy that’s part of the process, and what we’re doing is not this kind of strict science. Whatever they weigh Thanksgiving week, that’s what it is. Then we just have to temper their expectations. Please be flexible if the birds come in a little over or a little under.”
Getting smaller, gradually
Even before the pandemic, the turkey at the center of the Thanksgiving table had been trending smaller. “As for people wanting smaller turkeys, that has been the trend for the last few years, because I guess families aren’t as big,” said John Hoffman of Hoffman Hatchery in Lykens, Pa., which supplies Flatbrook Farm. “The growers, I guess, get them later, like at the end of July or beginning of August. That’s when most of the growers want them. I’d say for the last few years it seems to be getting later and later because they don’t want that big of a turkey.”
This year was no different than the last few for Hoffman Hatchery. And next year won’t be, either. “We’re just going to put in the normal amounts that we did before – what we can sell,” Hoffman said. “We’re not going to set up for a lot more because we don’t want to have baby turkeys on hand. We’ve been at this for a long time and we know about what it takes.” Hoffman’s mother started the hatchery. “We’ve been doing it for 72 years,” he said.
In the face of countless unknowns, suppliers are doing their best to hold steady. Bobby Mateszewski, owner of Quaker Creek Store in Pine Island, N.Y., put in his regular order for Thanksgiving turkeys from his suppliers. He won’t start accepting orders from his own customers until Nov. 1, and until then he’ll have no idea whether or not he over-ordered. “We have to pre-book in September, so we take a major crapshoot every year,” he said. Three or four years ago, there were bad hail storms in Pennsylvania and his turkey farmers came up short. This year, the weather’s been good, but will the demand be there?
“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I want to commit to things. There’s so much ambiguity, but somehow or another we’ll come through.” If worse comes to worst and the turkeys don’t sell, “we do a lot of prepared foods,” he said, and they can use leftover birds that way.
‘Super individual’ turkeys
At Gray Family Farm, in New Windsor, N.Y., the first batch of turkeys was headed to the slaughterhouse the last Friday of October, a couple weeks ahead of the typical schedule. “This week we have to pull the ones that are going to be going: mostly small, but I’ll throw a few larger ones just so that I’ll have a little variety,” said farm manager Jennifer Migdal. “Out of 150 birds, you have to pick out 40. It’s like herding cats.”
The expedited timeline is mostly a result of the mild autumn that’s allowed the turkeys to plump up fast, she said. Though she’d been expecting a run on smaller turkeys, Migdal hasn’t actually seen it from her customers – at least not yet. Then again, it’s still early. “People’s schedules change and family numbers, as far as how many people they’re having,” she said. “I’m going to let them choose if I can.”
For first-time chefs, the farm’s website has a formula to determine what size turkey you need: add six to eight pounds to the number of people eating. So if you’re feeding four people, you’ll want a 10- to 12-pound bird.
They cover their bases at Gray Family Farm by raising turkeys in three age groups of 50 poults apiece. That way, said Migdal, “you’re setting yourself up for a variety of sizes.” But once the gears are in motion, nature runs the show. Customers like to think they can request a certain size, and voila, that’s what they’re going to get. But it really has nothing to do with the farmer, said Migdal, and everything to do with the weather.
“We have no control over Mother Nature, so you kind of get what you get and you don’t get upset,” she said. “We’ve had some years where it’s been so bitterly cold come October, and they are ravenous animals, they will eat and eat and eat and won’t gain an ounce because they’re fighting to stay warm. When you’re dealing with pasture-raised, those are the things you have to deal with. Like any other breathing thing, you’re going to burn more calories when you’re fighting to stay warm outside.”
On top of that, turkeys are “all super individual,” she said. Out in the uncontrolled pasture environment, two birds in the same flock can weigh in at 12 pounds and 24 pounds, a 100 percent variation. “Some of the younger ones might get bigger than the older ones,” she said, “because they’re pigs and they shoe everyone else away” from the food.
There are two kinds of customers, said Migdal: those who “just want to know the animal was cared for and had a good life,” and those who, through no fault of their own, grew up thinking that turkeys come from a grocery bin, and eggs come from a carton. With the latter, there’s an educational component of a farmer’s job, which can be accomplished with a light touch. “We do always joke that I can’t put our turkeys on Weight Watchers when people say, ‘Well that’s too big, I want my turkey smaller,’” she said.
Gray Family Farm is on pace to be sold out of turkeys about a week ahead of usual. Migdal likes to keep aside a buffer of 10 to 15 turkeys that aren’t spoken for, as an insurance policy against the vagaries of nature. A weasel, for instance, had just gotten into the chicken coop and killed 10 hens. “Turkeys are a little hardier, but you just never know. I like to make sure that everyone who ordered a turkey gets one.” If all goes well, those buffer turkeys will go to people on the waitlist, and to the customers who show up last-minute looking for a smaller bird. “They don’t want to throw their hat into the ring until they know the weight, because it’s not cheap,” she said. “I get that.”
Notwithstanding the recession, the prospect of spending more on a choice bird is not keeping customers away. Maybe since people aren’t traveling, Migdal conjectured, they feel they can spend a little more on a turkey. It’s not just any turkey, of course. A testimonial on the farm’s website attests to its “shatteringly crisp skin. Unctuous flavour. Moist throughout. We ate every little bit, and then pulled the meat off the bones, made stock, and followed up two days later with turkey carnitas ramen.”
Clean meat is in demand
Samer Saleh, owner of Halal Pastures in Rock Tavern, N.Y., raises 400 to 600 turkeys a year, working with a farm in Syracuse. Like his own family, many of his predominantly Muslim customers don’t formally celebrate Thanksgiving. But they may observe it in a more casual way, one that often involves turkey. “What we’ve seen is a lot of families just use it as an opportunity to get together and share a meal,” said Saleh. Halal Pastures offers a 16.5-pound turkey for $140, about six times the cost of a frozen Butterball. “Thank God every year has been sold out, and then we had more demand,” he said.
“People are looking for these soy-free, wholesome, higher quality items,” said Saleh. His turkeys eat an organic mix of grains like corn and lentils, some of which are grown on the farm where the birds are raised. Each September, Saleh slaughters the turkeys according to Muslim law. He works with a crew at a certified organic slaughterhouse, but crucially, it is Saleh himself who holds each animal’s head in his hand, looks it in the eye, and utters a prayer before making one cut across the neck with a very sharp knife.
Because his meat is frozen and shipped all over the country, Saleh operates on a more relaxed timeline. If his turkey doesn’t sell by November, “it will sell in December and January, we’re not worried about it,” he said. A little more than half the turkey gets turned into parts – breasts, drums, wings, tenders – which are offered on the Halal Pastures website alongside grass-fed filet mignon, leg of lamb, and beef kabob.
“Most of us our customers tend to be families, so they do tend to order the larger size,” he said. But he’s just began offering a smaller size, too, since a few dozen of his turkeys ended up on the light side. “I’m sure 30 or 40 birds at 12 pounds will probably fly off the shelf.”
“A 25-pound bird that doesn’t want to get caught is going to fight you. Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough.” —Bob Campbell, Flatbrook Farm


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Chief executive officer news today: The world of CEOs is a constantly churning landscape, filled with strategic decisions, leadership challenges, and the ever-present public eye. Today’s news brings a diverse range of stories featuring CEOs, highlighting the human element behind the corner office.
Unveiling the Future: Apple CEO Tim Cook Hints at Generative AI
Tech giant Apple remains tight-lipped about its upcoming projects, but CEO Tim Cook offered a glimpse into the future during a recent event. Cook announced plans to reveal Apple’s strategy for generative AI later this year. Generative AI is a powerful technology capable of creating entirely new content, from realistic images to innovative music. This news has sent ripples through the tech world, sparking speculation about Apple’s potential applications for this groundbreaking technology.
Will Apple use generative AI to enhance its existing products
Like creating more lifelike photos for iPhones or personalized music recommendations? Or will they venture into uncharted territory, developing entirely new AI-powered experiences? Only time will tell, but Cook’s announcement underscores Apple’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological innovation.
From Meme-Lord to Mogul: Reddit CEO Aims for IPO with a $6.5 Billion Valuation
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, has always been known for his unconventional approach. Now, the self-proclaimed “meme lord” is gearing up for a massive initial public offering (IPO) that could value the social media platform at a staggering $6.5 billion. Ohanian’s leadership has been instrumental in Reddit’s growth, transforming it from a niche online community into a mainstream platform with millions of users.
However, the IPO plans raise questions about Reddit’s ability to balance its unique, freewheeling culture with the pressures of public ownership. Can Reddit maintain its core identity while becoming a publicly traded company with a focus on profits? Ohanian’s leadership will be crucial in navigating this delicate balance.
Leadership and Health: A Cautionary Tale from Zerodha CEO’s Stroke
The demanding world of being a CEO often comes at a cost. This week, Nithin Kamath, CEO of the Indian fintech company Zerodha, shocked the business world by revealing that he suffered a mild stroke at the young age of 42. Kamath’s story serves as a stark reminder of the importance of work-life balance, even for high-achieving CEOs.
The incident sparked a conversation about mental and physical health in the cutthroat world of business. It’s a call to action for CEOs to prioritize their well-being and create a culture that encourages healthy habits.
Layoffs and Empathy: The CEO’s Cryptic Tears Raise Concerns
A recent event highlighted a more emotional side of CEO leadership. In a now-viral video, the CEO of a tech startup announced a series of layoffs, seemingly overcome with emotion. However, his attempt to appear empathetic backfired, as his tears were perceived as inauthentic and performative.
This incident raises a question about the appropriate expression of emotions in the workplace, especially for CEOs. While compassion is important during difficult times, leaders need to find a genuine and effective way to communicate with their employees.
Beyond the Headlines: CEOs as Changemakers
The stories above paint a picture of CEOs grappling with a variety of challenges and opportunities. From navigating technological advancements to striking a healthy work-life balance, CEOs are constantly in the spotlight.
However, it’s important to remember that CEOs are not just figures in the news. They are essential in forming the environment we live in. Their decisions affect companies, employees, and entire industries. Their leadership can drive innovation, create jobs, and foster positive change.
In conclusion, CEOs are complex figures who wear many hats
They are strategists, innovators, and sometimes even public figures. The stories of today’s CEOs serve as a reminder of the human element behind leadership and the multifaceted world they navigate. chief executive officer news today


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Taxi drivers could be required to adopt a formal dress code, including wearing a uniform, under new proposals being considered by the National Transport Authority.
A review of driver licensing for small public service vehicles, which also includes hackneys and limousines, is to examine the benefits of introducing a dress code policy for licence holders.
The authority pointed out that taxi drivers are expected to wear smart clothing in many jurisdictions, although nothing in particular is specified. It also said uniforms are required to be worn in some parts of Australia, Spain and Canada.
In Edinburgh, drivers are required to wear a shirt with a collar, smart trousers or skirt and shoes, while items such as runners, baseball caps, tracksuits, denims and t-shirts are forbidden.


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(U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, was co-author of the Tester-Hagan Amendment to the Food Safety Modernization Act, which exempted certain small, local producers from regulation. He sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee and also on its Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies.) As an organic farmer from north-central Montana, I’ve always believed it’s important for consumers to know where their food comes from. Too many folks now think that milk comes from a carton, not a cow. This is largely due to the rise of multi-national food corporations, which dominate the marketplace. In the United States, four companies own more than 80 percent of the beef market, and one company, Monsanto, controls 85 percent of the corn and 91 percent of the soybeans. More and more large food companies have ingredients coming from farms and ranches all across the globe, and their products are processed in numerous plants around the world. These types of complex production chains have created consumers who have no idea where their food comes from and government regulations tailored to multi-billion-dollar corporations. But with the rise of the local food movement and the consumer’s desire to return to the core principles of safety and transparency, we need to adjust government regulations so they work for smaller, less complex food chains. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farmers markets increased by more than 50 percent over five years, from a little more than 5,200 in 2009 to more than 8,200 in 2014. Small producers know where their apples were grown, probably in their backyard; they know where they turned them into a pie, probably in their kitchen. It’s a simple supply chain with less opportunity for contamination, so why should they be subject to the same regulations as Betty Crocker? They shouldn’t. That’s why, in 2010, I was proud to help pass the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and include a small producer exemption to ensure that folks who sell food directly to consumers weren’t subject to the same rules as major ag corporations. My amendment protects small family farms from overly burdensome regulations aimed at big businesses with complex supply chains. Those regulations would do little to improve food safety for the small producers while undoubtedly forcing some of these operations out of business. We’re talking about farmers and processors who sell their product at farmers markets and directly to local restaurants — not national chains. For these folks, keeping food safety regulations at the state and local level makes a lot of sense. My amendment also allows FDA to remove this exemption in the rare instance that the farm or facility is linked to an outbreak of any kind. By cutting red tape for small producers, we are giving these entrepreneurs a better shot at success. And when they succeed and more folks are buying local, more consumers know how their food came from the ground to their kitchen table. This is the key to food safety. The relationship between a family and their farmer is important, not just to ensure the safety of food, but to preserve a rural way of life that is the backbone of so many economies. My wife Sharla and I actively farm 1,800 acres in north-central Montana, the same land my grandparents homesteaded more than 100 years ago. We transitioned our traditional farm to organic almost 30 years ago because we felt a responsibility to the folks who buy the wheat, barley, safflower and kamut that we grow. Just like us, there are small family farms and ranches across this country which respect the land and are committed to producing the safest, highest-quality products possible. We don’t view it as producing a commodity; we view it as growing a source of nutrition to feed our families. So, the next time you buy a loaf of bread or a carton of milk, try to trace it back to its source. If that food makes you sick, would you be able to pinpoint where it came from? What recourse would you have? These questions may stump the clerk at your big-brand supermarket, but I know the producers at your local farmers market will always know the answer. When folks can easily trace the food chain, it empowers them and protects them, and local businesses will thrive and grow.
(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)


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LG Uplus will launch augmented reality (AR) glasses made by Chinese firm Nreal next month alongside the upcoming Galaxy Note20, TheElec confirmed on Wednesday.
The carrier will call the glasses, called Nreal Light in China, U+ Real Glass and promote them together with the pre-oders of the Note 20 in South Korea. It will then group the glasses with LG’s 5G smartphones.
Samsung is holding Galaxy Unpacked 2020 on August 5 where it will introduce five new devices including the Galaxy Note20.
Last month, LG Uplus said it was launching the AR glasses for consumers in the third quarter of the year. It also held an online seminar for app developers. At the seminar, LG Uplus VP Song Dae-won said it will provide small- to mid-sized developers the opportunity to develop apps for the glasses.
However, the carrier has not provided the promised the developers’ kit for the developers that it was suppose to doll out before the launch. Developers will have to wait for the glasses to go on sale next month. LG Uplus reportedly told them that the COVID-19 resurgence in Beijing recently has delayed factory operations and component supply, causing them to focus solely on the launch and asked for them to understand.
U+ Real Glass is expected to be price around 600,000 won. It will weigh 88 grams and have a microOLED panel. It won’t have a battery but will be instead connected to smartphones via the USB port. Smartphone is the controller for the glasses.
LG Uplus said AR glasses, unlike virtual reality glasses, will allow users to view through the transparent glasses while using them and will offer 360-degrees contents.