text:
Canada Suing Major Ticket Selling Sites Over "Deceptive" Pricing
Do you think you pay too much for concert and sporting event tickets?
You might be right — tickets to see the Raptors', the Jays, Beyonce, Drake, and beyond might just be more expensive than they should.
The Competition Bureau of Canada thorough Merchant Law Group LLP recently launched a national class action litigation against Canada’s two leading online ticket sellers: Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
The reason behind the legal action? According to the Competition Bureau, it’s “for allegedly making deceptive claims to consumers when advertising prices for sports and entertainment tickets.”
The practice is known as “drip pricing,” where consumers reportedly end up paying much higher prices than advertised. According to the Competition Bureau, these “mandatory fees” can inflate advertised ticket prices by more than 20 per cent. In some cases, ticket prices are allegedly increased by over 65 per cent.
The Competition Bureau says that the mandatory fees imposed by Ticketmaster vary by ticket, and include “service fees,” “facility charges” and “order processing fees.”
"In July, we called on ticket vendors to review their marketing practices,” said John Pecman, Commissioner of Competition in a recent statement. “Today, we are filing an application with the Tribunal to stop Ticketmaster from making deceptive claims to consumers. Together, these actions send a strong signal to online retailers: consumers must have confidence that advertised prices are the ones they will pay."
The Competition Bureau seeks to put an end to these alleged deceptive marketing practices and add an administrative monetary penalty.
“The litigation will seek compensation for all Canadians who purchased tickets through Ticketmaster,” says Merchant Law Group LLP.
If you feel like you’ve been affected by hiked ticket prices, you can learn more here.
- Competition Bureau warning online shoppers about third-party sellers
- Big Changes Coming to Ticket Sales in Mississauga and Beyond
- Ontario Considering New Rules for Online Ticket Sales
- Mississauga Man Claims Winning Lottery Ticket Just Days Before It Expires
- Residents Warned of Major Canada's Wonderland Ticket Scam
- How Dundas & Hurontario Looked Back in the Day
- Ontario ticket holder claims $1 million Maxmillion prize
- MAYORS CHAT: Bonnie Crombie chats about Mississauga - January 18, 2021
- Here’s what you need to know about the Province’s stay-at-home order
- Ontario sees signficiant drop in new COVID-19 cases today, Peel Region numbers remain steady


text:
Loop Media, Inc. Seals Deal to Become AirVuz’s Third-Party OTT Channel Partner
Glendale, CA – Loop Media, Inc., an innovative streaming media company focused exclusively on premium short-form video (OTC: LPTV), today announced a deeper partnership with leading drone video sharing community AirVūz to become AirVūz’s third-party OTT channel partner. The channels will capitalize on AirVūz’s vast catalog of professional and amateur drone footage.
Initially launching on Plex’s new free Live TV offering, the channels will focus on Travel, Action Sports, Tropical, and Nature:
· Travel: Discover or rediscover the places you’ve missed or have been pining to see
· Action Sports: Hold onto your seat as you experience the world of outdoor sports like never before
· Tropical: Take a break from the cold reality of life and warm up at the beach
· Nature: Experience the untouched beauty that our planet has to offer
“AirVūz is thrilled to announce this exciting news with Loop Media,” said Mike Israel, President and CEO of AirVūz. “This partnership will further broaden the reach for the highly-curated aerial content found on our site and provide even more exposure for the talented drone pilots in our community who create these great videos.”
“Loop Media has really enjoyed our partnership with Mike and the AirVūz team,” said Jon Niermann, CEO and Co-Founder of Loop Media, Inc. “This deeper relationship enables us to take their incredibly rich content library to viewers worldwide via a slate of themed content channels that will be made available for all CTV and streaming channel platforms globally. It’s some of the most engaging and captivating content we’ve seen, and based on the initial feedback we are getting from partners, we are confident that viewers will love it.”
AirVūz is the premier online destination for drone pilots and enthusiasts from around the world to share, watch, and engage with an amazing new visual media called drone video content. The explosive growth in small camera-enabled drones has opened up astounding possibilities for visualizing the world in entirely new ways.
The partnership adds to Loop Media’s globally largest music video library, as well as the company’s growing collection of over 500,000 short-form videos, including: film, game and TV trailers, and sports highlights that provide a variety of engaging product offerings to users. The Loop™ app is available to consumers on iPhone and Android, as well as all popular connected TVs including Amazon Fire TV and Android TV-supported sets such as Sony, Sharp, Philips, and more.
New content will be sourced and added to channels every day.
About Loop Media
Loop Media, Inc., is an innovative premium streaming media company delivering products and solutions for both businesses and consumers. Loop improves the entire viewing experience for premium short-form content by focusing on venues and consumers in the evolving frontier of digital out-of-home, streamlining the public-to-private viewing experience. Loop’s growing library of over 500,000 short-form videos, including: music videos, film, game and TV trailers, viral videos, sports clips and atmospherics and travel videos can be viewed in many popular hospitality, dining, and retail venues; on leading branded media and entertainment sites; and on over-the-top TV platforms and IPTV devices (our library of 500,000 can not currently be viewed on OTT and IPTV). To learn more about Loop products and applications, please visit us online at Loop.tv.
Since its launch in 2015, AirVūz has become the world’s leading drone video and photography sharing platform and global community for drone pilots and aerial media enthusiasts. Drone enthusiasts worldwide can upload and share videos and photos in unlimited quantity and at no cost. Site users have free access to an ever-growing library of drone media content including easily browsable curated collections grouped into easy-to-navigate groupings such as Landmarks, Cities, People, Transportation, and Nature. AirVūz users also have access to original AirVūz content, such as AirVūz News coverage of new drone industry applications and drone regulation.
Loop Media, Inc. Press:
Jon Lindsay Phillips

domain: news


text:
IS looks to solve cloud security anxiety
SECURITY| Aug. 30, 2012, 2:33 p.m.
Internet Solutions (IS), in response to industry's growing demand for secure, ubiquitous cloud solutions, has launched IS Cloud Web Security (CWS).
The solution, says IS, not only addresses the full gamut of cloud security concerns, but being a cloud-based solution itself, offers clients the benefit of reduced administration, and zero capex spend on hardware and software.
“Many organisations are hesitant to embark on the journey to cloud, as securing the cloud computing environment adequately has not, until now, been possible to guarantee,” says Graeme O'Driscoll, innovation and technology manager for cloud at IS. “As a result, organisations are losing the undisputed business benefits of cloud solutions. IS can now offer its clients holistic cloud security using Zscaler's secure cloud gateway to deliver the solution. Additionally, a 100% uptime service level agreement guarantees IS CWS is always available.”
The IS CWS proxy has the lowest throughput latency on the market, guaranteed; and is billed per user, per month, regardless of the number of end-devices associated with that user, or that user's bandwidth consumption.
By adopting IS CWS, organisations not only future-proof security needs, but will save about 60% of web security spend. Organisations can avoid inevitable appliance fatigue and refresh cycles.
Says O'Driscoll: For a traditional multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) client to get similar benefits to IS CWS, it would need to invest in numerous machines, including a proxy server, reporting server, a Web 2.0 gateway, and a URL filtering gateway. Costs accumulate – hardware, administration, and software – which need to be doubled if organisations are concerned with redundancy.
“IS CWS reduces all these costs, from rackspace, to carbon footprint, to salaries and capex spend on hardware and software.”
CWS offers organisations comprehensive end-device and mobile device protection – including data-leak prevention, anti -virus, -malware, and -spyware, and auditing of browsing, uploads, and downloads, all in real time. Policies are granular, and can be applied to application, user, location, time, and volume. Additionally, policies integrate with Active Directory, allowing for rules to be defined based on users and/or groups. “IS CWS offers decentralised internet access, with centralised control. Conservatively, CWS can free-up bandwidth usage by up to 10 times through these rules and policies – allowing for a far more productive, beneficial cloud experience.
“Through CWS clients now have access to a multi-tenant solution, meaning a user is not tied to a specific datacentre, which negatively impacts response times. Rather, related policies will be enforced from the closest of one of 47 nodes world-wide.” The result, says O'Driscoll, is ultra-low latency, and high reliability. In Africa, these nodes are in South Africa. Other African countries will connect via Seacom (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique) to Johannesburg; and WACS (Nigeria and Ghana) to Cape Town. O’Driscoll says nodes will be built in Kenya and Nigeria if there is enough uptake and growth in the solution to warrant dedicated nodes in these regions.
“Gartner has recognised the solution,” says O'Driscoll, as an “innovator” in its Magic Quadrant. “It is rare that a single solution is so comprehensive. With CWS, we have addressed cost in terms of time and money savings, offer the best policies and security available, real-time reporting and forensic auditing, ease of deployment for data loss prevention, and near-zero latency.”
MORE SECURITY NEWS
Ransomware: don’t pay the cybercriminalsESET offers tips on how keep PCs protected and avoid supporting cybercrime activities. Read More
Data breaches to cost $2.1 trillion by 2019New research suggests that the rapid digitisation of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2.1 trillion globally by 2019. Read More
Betting the farm on untested techWhile a plethora of new payment solutions are coming to market, businesses should be cautious about moving to new solutions just for the sake of it. Read More
Mobile student ID system to authenticate over 2 million Nigerian studentsHID Global and Botosoft have built and delivered a system to help the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) register and authenticate Nigerian students. Read More
‘WD purple surveillance drives tackle security challenges’Western Digital has released one of its flagship products, purple surveillance storage drives (WD Purple), in Nigeria, saying the solution, designed for high definition (HD) surveillance, will help tackle insecurity. Read More
Malawi Veep to lead in cyber security meetingMalawi’s Vice President Saulos Chilima will next week preside over a sensitisation workshop on Cyber Security organised by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) in collaboration with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). Read More
Fighting the insider threatThere has been a growing focus on the threats posed by company employees who have access to critical information and either maliciously or carelessly leak that data, says Phoenix Software. Read More
Zambia to host Southern African Banking and ICT Summit 2015Efforts to curb increased incidences of cyber crime within Africa’s financial institutions, Government Agencies and private sector have received a boost with the planned Southern Africa Banking and ICT Summit set for April, 30th , 2015 at Intercontinental Hotel Lusaka Zambia. Read More
E-PPAN alerts bank customers on fraudstersWith many bank customers that use the electronic payments falling prey to fraudsters, Electronic Payments Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN) has warned customers to be wary of how they release the details of their bank accounts to people. Read More
FEATURED STORYThe transformative power of affordable smartphones and unlimited data in Ghana
Smartphones are helping transform their lives of ordinary people in Ghana, Reports Nana Appiah Acquaye.
BEST READ NEWS
IN DEPTHNIMC infrastructure must be managed by credible people: NIMC chief
NIMC’s chief speaks to Kokumo Goodie about the role of the NIMC and his own legacy.


text:
With barely two weeks to go before Chinese New Year, many Malaysian bakers are adding to the festive cheer by making tiger-themed treats to welcome the Year of the Tiger.
And they are more than happy to share their mouth-watering creations on social media.
The words “tiger cookies” currently has over 1.7 billion views on Google, and the hashtag #tigercookies garners hundreds, if not thousands, of photos and videos on Instagram.
Facebook user Teoh Hooi Poh has been posting photos of her hand-painted tiger-themed pineapple tarts on her account. (@MadamPoh).
The pineapple filling is encased in a shortcrust pastry made from flour, egg, butter and sugar. Shaped in a ball, her tarts are coated with egg wash, baked and decorated with edible melted milk chocolate.
“I’ve made over 500 containers of tiger-themed pineapple tarts since December. Thankfully, my sisters and children have been helping me to fulfil the orders,” said Teoh, 63, in a phone interview from Petaling Jaya.
Teoh, who runs a home-based baking business, has been creating Chinese zodiac-themed pineapple tarts since 2017.
“I have created many characters like pig, dog and rat. I received many orders for themed tarts because they add more colour to Chinese New Year celebrations,” said the mother of four.
According to Teoh, it takes one minute to individually paint the additional embellishments like ears, eyes and whiskers to each feline-faced tart.
“Even though the designs look simple, a steady hand is needed to ensure each whisker is painted to perfection,” said Teoh, who learned to make the morsels of delight from a recipe book.
Teoh isn’t the only one who’s posting photos of her tiger-themed creations.
On Facebook group Sourdough Support Group Malaysia, baker Fenice Khor uploaded photos of her sourdough bread, dusted with edible powder to resemble a tiger.
“CNY mode is on, so I have sprinkled red velvet powder instead of dark cacao powder to create the 'dong dong chiang’ feel,” Khor posted on the group and her account, @Fenice Khor.
On YouTube, Malaysian baker Chay Mei Ling has also posted three videos on making sourdough tiger-striped buns and bread on her channel, MeiLing’s Kitchen.
On TikTok, check out cookie crafter Asmiza Zul’s custom-made tiger-themed sugar cookies. “Sape lahir tahun tiger (Who’s born in the Year of the Tiger) Aumm,” she posted on her TikTok handle, @misabloom.
Online shopping platforms like Shopee and Lazada are also offering various tiger-themed cookie cutters and gift wrappers in conjunction with the Lunar New Year.


text:
On June 30, 2016, Global Affairs Canada announced that as part of Canada’s commitment to transparency and rigour in export controls, the Honourable Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade, announced plans to accede to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The announcement from Global Affairs stated:
The government announced new measures that will allow Canada to demonstrate compliance with the ATT while enhancing Canada’s already robust export controls. These include new legislative amendments to regulate arms brokering, measures to formalize the assessment criteria used by the minister of foreign affairs in making export permit decisions, and other measures to increase transparency.
Minister Dion has now tabled the Arms Trade Treaty in Parliament. In addition, the Minister tabled the 2014 and 2015 reports on exports of military goods from Canada and the 2014 and 2015 annual reports to Parliament on the administration of the Export and Import Permits Act. At the government’s request, reports are already clearer than was the case in the past. The government intends to go further by working with industry and NGOs to inject even more transparency and rigour into how they are compiled and presented.


text:
September 17, 2008
Top-Notch Nosh Producers Sought
The hunt is on for the country's best local food heroes, and Cuisine magazine wants Nelson Mail readers to send in their picks for the Nelson region.
The new Cuisine Artisan Awards have been set up to acknowledge the best small food and beverage producers creating top notch local fare.Cuisine deputy food editor Fiona Smith said an artisan producer was someone who made handmade or individually crafted products, usually on a small scale and often according to tradition."We felt it was high time that these talented artisans and the fruits of their labour were recognised.
"You don't need to look to Italy for olive oil and salami, or France for fine mustard any more - these are being produced by skilled craftspeople just down the road with their own distinct Kiwi identity."
Nominees must be producing food or beverage products on a small scale with an annual turnover of less than $5 million to June 30 2008.
Product categories include dairy, preserves and condiments; oils such as olive, avocado or walnut; honey, mustards, seafood, meat, baked goods, speciality chocolates, drinks, fruit juices and boutique beer.
A panel of experts will judge the nominees and 10 winners, including a supreme winner, will be announced in the March issue of Cuisine.
To nominate a favourite Nelson artisan producer send an email naming the company and the specific product/s you think should be entered to [email protected] before November 30.
(c) 2008 Nelson Mail, The. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.


text:
After months of hard work, Notre Dame Elementary School 4th graders used their entrepreneurial skills at the Annual Notre Dame Elementary School Business Fair on April 26th, raising $2,237 for the Well Project in Africa.
As a culminating activity in Mr. Steve Cavolo’s social studies class, students studied basic economic concepts and applied them to a real business situation. To prepare for this event, students designed a product to create and sell.
To begin, they determined the price based on set-up costs and projected profits. Then, they developed persuasive advertising posters and sales pitches. All Notre Dame Elementary School students had the opportunity to shop for a variety of handmade products which were priced between $1.00 – $5.00.
Picture In Cover Photo: 4th graders, Julia Zarlinski (Kirtland) and Julie Siebert (Cleveland)


text:
Hyundai's 2002 XG350 was no milestone of automotive progress. However, the first Korean car to venture beyond a $25,000 price left its mark when Automobile Magazine pitted that entry-luxury sedan against a similarly priced Mercedes-Benz C230 coupe. Back then, Hyundai was clawing its way out of the muck while Mercedes was trolling for bargain hunters.
The astonishing upshot of our comparison test was that the mighty Mercedes failed to trump the humble Hyundai.
Ever since Hyundai registered on our radar, we've watched its flight path mimic that of the space shuttle Atlantis:
In the past six years, Hyundai's market share in the United States has grown 75 percent, and it is now the sixth best-selling brand here.
In the teeth of the recession, Hyundai Motor Company became the world's fastest-growing carmaker.
Last year, Hyundai passed Ford to temporarily grab fourth place in the global pecking order (behind Toyota, General Motors, and Volkswagen).
During the past two years, Hyundai has been showered with praise. Flattering endorsements have been bestowed by Consumer Reports, Forbes, J. D. Power and Associates, the North American Car of the Year jury, Advertising Age readers, the Wall Street Journal, and even the EPA.
It was not always sweetness and light, however. When Hyundai arrived in the United States in 1986 with the $4995 Excel, it sold 168,882 vehicles, a record for any new importer. Unfortunately, the jokesters descended in packs when Excels began breaking down; the Hyundai name was decoded by some as "Hope You Understand Nothing's Drivable and Inexpensive."
Hyundai considered folding its tent in America, but in 1999, a new ten-year/100,000-mile pow ertrain warranty marked a turning point. According to Hyundai Motor America president and CEO John Krafcik, what was touted as the industry's best guarantee served as a clarifier for the engineering team by forcing them to design systems for "infinite life."
To ascertain how Hyundai became the darling of consumers and critics alike, we polled Krafcik and two key lieutenants instrumental in the company's recent success.


text:
Digital Media Insider is delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence members.
DIGITAL MEDIA EXPECTATIONS FOR iPHONE 6 ANNOUNCEMENT: Apple is expected to take the covers off its new smartphone later today, and many have speculated about its new functions and specifications. Below is a summary of how some anticipated features could impact digital media businesses.
- First, the bigger screens. The iPhone 6 is expected to come in two screen sizes – a 4.7" and 5.5" version, about an inch and an inch and a half bigger than the iPhone 5S screen. As a result, mobile video viewing time will most likely increase, and marketers will create more video ads and creative producers will develop more video content, like Netflix is planning to do.
- A possible mobile payments platform may link to Passbook coupons, which means retailers would be able to learn a user's purchase habits and potentially allow them to target coupons to that user more effectively.
- DuckDuckGo could be available as a default search engine option on iOS 8. By including DuckDuckGo, a privacy-first search engine that doesn't track IP addresses, use search cookies or save search histories, Apple could diminish Google's power to collect mobile data and sell ads based on that data. Whether users set DuckDuckGo as their default search engine will depend on how helpful DuckDuckGo's search results are and how concerned consumers are about being constantly tracked and targeted.
- Details on Apple's live stream of the event: Click here to watch the announcement which begins today at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PDT. Add it to your calendar.
TWITTER NEEDS 'BUY' BUTTON MORE THAN FACEBOOK: Twitter has beat Facebook in launching an e-commerce tool that allows users to purchase products directly through its iOS and Android mobile apps. This first-to-market advantage could help the micro-publishing platform prime social media users to the idea that they can, want and should buy products directly through Twitter versus going through the hassle of clicking on multiple links to complete a purchase.
Twitter ranks next to last among seven major social media networks in terms of driving conversions, and last in terms of introducing new products, according to Aol Platform's social advertising study. Facebook, on the other hand, is better than Twitter at achieving both objectives. However, Twitter has the most impact on consumers during the middle of a path to purchase by driving brand awareness and direct site visits (see chart, below). And because consumers typically stay in the middle segment of a purchase journey for the longest amount of time, Twitter's new buy button could compress the path to purchase and inspire shoppers to buy earlier in the process.
YouTube, Facebook and Google+ are best at introducing new products and closing sales (the first and last segments along the purchase timeline) among the social networks. Twitter is strongest at driving brand awareness and site clicks during the middle of the buying process.
YAHOO OPENS UP NATIVE AD PLATFORM: Yahoo Recommends is the company's latest attempt at powering paid content type ads for digital publishers. Yahoo Recommends generates suggested content from across the web for publishers looking to monetize their mobile and desktop sites using native ads. It's yet another ad tool the company has developed to try to revive its shrinking display ad business.
FACEBOOK ADDS VIEW COUNT AND SUGGESTED CONTENT TO PUBLIC VIDEOS: Facebook users and pages will begin to see how many times their public videos have been viewed starting this week. Additionally, after a video plays to completion, Facebook will display related videos to keep viewers watching, as well as links to complementary websites where users can learn more about a company or product or make a purchase. Implementing these new features, which were first standardized by YouTube, are part of Facebook's strategy to become a more attractive digital video platform for users and advertisers alike. In the post announcing the changes, Facebook boasted its video metrics, citing that more than 1 billion video views have occurred on its platform daily since June, and that growth in video viewing surpassed 50% from May through July.
Facebook is the top mobile app in the U.S., well ahead of YouTube, and because more than 65% of video views on Facebook occur on mobile, Facebook has a unique opportunity to challenge YouTube as the dominant online video platform.
SPOTIFY LETS USERS LISTEN FOR FREE IN EXCHANGE FOR AD VIEWING: For mobile listening, users will have the option to watch 15- to 30-second videos in exchange for 30 minutes of ad-free music. Desktop listeners will now also see video ads that interrupt music playing much like Spotify's existing audio ads. Because non-paying Spotify users outnumber subscribers three to one (30 million to 10 million), according to Tech Crunch, it's important for Spotify to find new ways to monetize non-subscribers that are less intrusive to the listening experience. Lastly, the fact that even audio platforms are choosing to sell video ads illustrates the value and revenue potential advertisers and content makers derive from video.
INAUGURAL SET OF STANDARDS FOR AUDIO ADS RELEASED: The IAB has released the Digital Audio Ad Service Template (DAAST 1.0) for industry review and commenting. It is the trade group's first attempt at setting common parameters for the "fragmented audio advertising market," and spans processes for audio ad delivery, execution, and reporting across devices and platforms capable of playing audio ads. No action or reliance on the draft is necessary during this public comment period, which ends on Friday, October 10 of this year.
STAT OF THE DAY: Half of Africa's web users or 100 million people visit Facebook each month, and the vast majority (80%) do so through mobile devices, according to Re/code. Emerging markets is an important part of Facebook's growth strategy.
GIF ADS FROM GOOGLE: EA Sports, maker of the popular football video game Madden, is using a new Google ad platform (the GIFERATOR) to create GIFs during every NFL game this season using Madden NFL 15 video game footage. The GIFs will reflect what takes place during games, and appear on social media platforms and in ads on sports-related games and apps in real-time. Non-advertisers will have the ability to use the GIFERATOR to design their own GIFs too.
NEW YORK TIMES DISTRIBUTES COLLEGE NEWSPAPER CONTENT VIA APP: Students at Indiana University can now read college campus news along with national and international news through the NYT Now app, the New York Times' lower-priced offering designed for younger demographics. The paper hasn't said if it would work with more college papers, but this initial experiment could create an interesting way for the New York Times to reach younger audiences and prime them to pay for more expensive memberships later.
A DVR THAT CAN RECORD THREE YEARS OF TV: The TiVo Mega will cost you $5,000 but you'll get 24TB of storage which can hold 26,000 hours of standard definition video.
OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF APPAREL BRANDS HAVE MOBILE-OPTIMIZED SITES: Four out of five fashion brands on Women's Wear Daily's list of top 100 have a mobile-optimized website, according to IAB. The North Face, Tiffany & Co. and Victoria's Secret were among the companies with the best mobile sites, the study found. Features that make a brand's mobile site optimal include offering a store locator and easy tap-to-call phone number links.
Here's what else BI Intelligence subscribers are reading...
Feedback, tips and insights? Please email Reporter Hope King at email@example.com.


text:
Snuff (Naswar) to Fall under Tax Net @17%
ISLAMABAD: The Capital Administration and Development (CAD) has suggested the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Ministry of Finance to bring Naswar (snuff/snus) into tax net.
According to CAD Naswar is also an industry like cigarette, sheesha and other tobacco items, it should be included in tax net from next year in ‘smoking free project’.
According to official figures, more than 70 percent of the people in northwest province are in the habit of chewing Naswar. Many however, take it as a pinch and packed into the jowl.
CAD director has also suggested KP government and Ministry of Finance to register the persons having Naswar business.
Naswar from Dera Ismail Khan and Bannu is famous for its quality. It is made from fresh tobacco leaves, calcium oxide and wood ash.
According to the figures of Pakistan Tobacco Board, there is a huge market for Naswar in the province estimated at around Rs. 6 billion annually.
According to pulmonologists, use of Naswar directly causes lung, stomach and mouth cancer besides causing bronchitis, kidney, heart and other diseases.
Naswar is popular among all age groups from 12 years old to septuagenarians.
On the territory of Russia, naswar is not a traditional product, but it gained popularity in recent years especially among teenagers.
Naswar is sold in the markets of Moscow and in other cities of the Urals, Volga, and other regions of the country. Its trade is usually conducted on trays with spices, with naswar being bought as a means of nicotine addiction.
Leave a comment
Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated. HTML code is not allowed.


text:
The desi avatar of PUBG – Battlegrounds Mobile India is probably the most awaited mobile game in the country as of now. This highly popular game is making a comeback in an Indianised version after it was banned by the federal government last year citing data privacy concerns.
Ever since Krafton has announced the game’s reincarnation, users queued to pre-register for the game so that they do not miss the exclusive rewards on offer. While the company has been teasing its revival, however, Battlegrounds Mobile India’s official launch date has not been revealed yet.
Various leaks hint that the game – Battlegrounds Mobile India could launch on June 18 in India. Though this date is not only in line with some previous reports, it is also exactly a month after the company opened the game for pre-registrations.
A tipster hinted that the game could launch in the third week of June while the other one posted a date in binary which again turned out to be June 18. Keeping in mind Krafton’s history of releasing games updates on Tuesday, June 18 seems to be the most probable date when the game may go public again.
That being said, Krafton is still tight-lipped about the probable launch date of Battlegrounds Mobile India. Though industry sources suggest that the company normally releases information via influencers. This not only helps create a buzz on various platforms but also gives the company space and time to alter the plans in case something goes unplanned.
It is also reported that the company is also trying to avoid any comparisons between PUBG and Battlegrounds Mobile India. Krafton is even reportedly intimidating content creators from doing so. The only possible reason here could be the fact that it doesn’t want to face the ire of the Indian government, after all, it has already invested heavily in the makeover of the game and setting up a new entity in India.


text:
Village asks experts to assess business districts
Winnetka resident Julie Windsor stands in front of her Beat Street shop in the Hubbard Woods shopping district. | Photos by Curtis Lehmkuhl~Sun-Times Media
Updated: September 17, 2012 11:56AM
Three years ago, Winnetka shopkeeper Julie Windsor moved her Beat Street emporium on Green Bay Road to a larger storefront across the street in the Hubbard Woods shopping district.
The move, which roughly doubled her square footage, marked Windsor’s second expansion since she launched her business geared to the “tween” years in a tiny space on Oak Street nine years ago.
But like other retailers, she has seen a drop-off in foot traffic since her most recent move. Despite more inventory, sales “numbers are more like what they were across the street,” she said.
Winnetka retailers were feeling the effects of changing shopping patterns even before the economy tanked. Merchants believe some of the “retail leakage” stems from a proliferation of other shopping options in nearby suburbs and the convenience of shopping online.
The Winnetka Village Council last week took the first step toward revitalizing the village’s three business districts. Trustees gave the go-ahead for Village Manager Robert Bahan to finalize a $40,000 contract with the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit organization of land use and real estate professionals.
Two groups of experts, known as Technical Assistance Panels, will examine the downtown district centered around Elm Street and Green Bay Road, as well as the Hubbard Woods and Indian Hills districts at the northern and southern ends of the village, respectively.
One team will assess the three districts, while the other is expected to recommend actions that could spur development and ease the approval process for businesses. The panelists look at market potential, land use and design, financing and development strategies, governance and implementation issues.
Terry Dason, executive director of the Winnetka-Northfield Chamber of Commerce, is thrilled the village is taking that step. Input will be sought from many, including local merchants, owners of commercial and residential property, and local and civic organizations.
“I think the professionals (who) are coming in are so knowledgeable about these kind of business communities, that the fact they are willing to volunteer their time to research our community is incredible,” Dason said.
“One of the best parts of Winnetka is that we have so many independent, retail shops with so many unique products that you cannot find in the chain stores,” said Dason. “That’s what the (retailers) are hoping will continue to carry them.”
In the Hubbard Woods district, a group of merchants has been meeting regularly to brainstorm ideas, including the creation of a separate marketing brochure and possibly designating the area the “Hubbard Woods Design District,” playing up the large number of interior design-related businesses.
Cynthia McSherry, executive director of the Urban Land Institute, said the economy has dampened the climate for large-scale transformations in many places the institute has studied. So ULI professionals have been revisiting some communities to figure out smaller steps.
“You are not going to get that mixed-use residential development,” McSherry told the Village Council last week. “In order to do the big projects, you need to get your hands on the land first.”
Wilmette, after engaging the services of ULI, created a master plan for the downtown area using The Lakota Group consulting firm. The village streamlined some outdated and unnecessary zoning and permitting requirements that were deterring new businesses, McSherry said.
That sounds promising to Julie Windsor, who was stymied in her efforts to open an ice cream parlor two years ago in the old Hubbard Woods post office building. Sign restrictions also have been an issue for Beat Street, because the store’s hot-color logo and “funkadelic” color scheme don’t blend in well with the sedate brownish colors of the buildings.
“Maybe (the Urban Land Institute) can shed some light on what is wrong here,” she said, “and why we are not getting more small new businesses.”


text:
Friday Social – Metro.co.uk moves to Mail Online, Vizify goes to Yahoo and more
- Social Media
1.Vizify purchased by Yahoo
The personal web page creator, Vizify, has been purchased by Yahoo for an undisclosed sum. The site, launched in 2011, came out of beta testing in March 2013 claiming just over 250,000 registered users. Vizify uses data from social media channels to create videos and infographics, presenting data in interesting and shareable ways.
The site will be put in to ‘sunset’ by Yahoo, current paying members will receive a full refund, any users with personal domains will have the opportunity to claim these free of charge. Check the full FAQ for more information about the future of the site.
2. WeTransfer launches App
Popular file sharing service WeTransfer is launching its first iOS application, initially it will be geared towards the sharing of videos and images with a 10GB file limit on all transfers.
The app is free to download and membership can be upgraded to a Plus account which enables 50GB of cloud storage, a plus account will set you back $120 for 12 months.
According to The Next Web they are already working hard to bring out the Android version in the very near future.
3. Yahoo ending Facebook and Google log-ins
Yahoo again, we seem to be hearing more and more about them since Marissa Mayer took over in 2012. The latest significant update is the move towards revoking Google and Facebook log-ins to all of their services. Yahoo has confirmed that “eventually, the sign in buttons for Facebook and Google will be removed from all Yahoo properties.” You will need to have a Yahoo ID in order to access services in the future.
4. MailOnline takes on Metro Online
Some surprising news in the media world, Mail Online has announced it is to integrate Metro.co.uk in to its current team. The move will open up new resources to both companies; Metro.co.uk will remain under its separate domain and will continue to carry the Metro brand.
Steve Auckland, managing director at Metro, said: “The Metro.co.uk team have done a brilliant job on a limited budget. The three million daily uniques achieved on 18 February gave us a glimpse of the audience potential of this website and the camaraderie that exists within the team.
“However, the potential to accelerate this growth and monetise it is best served by the Mail Online team at this moment in time. It will free the rest of the business to concentrate on reinvigorating Metro.”
Ever sent a video or image to someone and wished you could document their reaction when they open it? Well now you can, with dumbstruck, users who receive a file have their front camera switched on and a video is captured of their reaction which is then sent back to the sender.
Head of strategy at Dumbstruck, Joe Masciocco says, “The vision isn’t an app, the vision is to bring a more natural form of human interaction to the way we digitally communicate today. True emotional feedback and validation have been missing from our apps and devices, yet they are critical to our nature”.
The company plan to monetize Dumbstruck by selling facial recognition data back to brands, for example if a user was to be sent an advert, facial reactions could give crucial feedback to companies. Clever.


text:
As the Three Stripes continues to roll out their 3D-printed, light synthesis-utilizing Futurecraft technology, it’s gradually become more common to see them call upon their collaborative partners to add a special touch to the tech. After Taiwan-based Invincible adorned the Futurecraft 4D with a light rainbow gradient earlier this summer, adidas is now looking to Y-3 — one of their most esteemed and longest-tenured co-conspiritors for another new take on Futurecraft, and Y-3 certainly has not disappointed. After releasing their first 4D collaboration all the way back in February, Yoji Yamamoto’s iconic brand — known for their minimalistic yet futuristic designs — has now created another new silhouette that’s fit for the modern-day ninja: the Y-3 Runner 4D II.
Calling upon a pitch-black Primeknit for the upper, the shoe features a unique black mid foot cage that utilizes cylindrical pieces and webbed detailing for a striking new Three Stripes graphic. The midfoot’s webbing stretches all the way back to the leather heel cage — giving the impression that it’s holding the shoe together — and the upper is completed with tonal Y-3 branding on the tongue and another leather patch on the medial forefoot. The full-length Futurecraft midsole boasts its signature light mint green colorway, and a black Continental rubber outsole completes the look. These new Futurecrafts release this week at END for the kingly sum of $555, so enjoy a look at the new kicks/a raffle list below.
adidas Y-3 Runner 4D II
Release Date: September 7, 2018
Style Code: CG6607
Where to Buy: adidas Y-3 Runner 4D II
More like this at ebay


text:
The fintech sector has been hugely successful (and hugely profitable) for much of the last decade, and even more so during the pandemic. But it might come as a surprise to learn that many in the industry believe that the story is just beginning and the sector is poised to achieve much more, with fintech’s next decade expected to be radically different from the last 10 years.
Long before the pandemic, the way in which banks were regulated was changing. Initiatives like Open Banking and the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) were being proposed as a way to promote competition in the banking industry — allowing smaller challenger firms to break into a market that has long been dominated by corporate titans.
Now that these initiatives are in place, however, we’re seeing that their effect goes way beyond opening up a gap for challenger banks. Since open banking requires that banks make valuable data available via APIs, it is leading to a revolution in the way that small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) are funded — one in which data, and not hard capital, is the most important factor driving fintech success.
Open banking and data freedom
In order to understand the changes that are sweeping fintech and reconfiguring the way that the industry works with small businesses, it’s important to understand open banking. This is a concept that has really taken hold among governmental and supranational banking regulators over the past decade, and we are now beginning to see its impact across the banking sector.
Allowing third parties access to the data held at banks will allow the true financial position of SMEs to be assessed, many for the first time.
At its most fundamental level, open banking refers to the process of using APIs to open up consumers’ financial data to third parties. This allows these third parties to design, build and distribute their own financial products. The utility (and, ultimately, the profitability) of these products doesn’t rely on them holding huge amounts of capital — rather, it is the data they harvest and contain that endows them with value.
Open-banking models raise a number of challenges. One is that the banking industry will need to develop much more rigorous systems to continually seek consumer consent for data to be shared in this way. Though the early years of fintech have taught us that consumers are pretty relaxed when it comes to giving up their data — with some studies indicating that almost 60% of Americans choose fintech over privacy — the type and volume shared through open-banking frameworks is much more extensive than the products we have seen up until now.
Despite these concerns, the push toward open banking is progressing around the world. In Europe, the PSD2 (the Payment Services Directive) requires large banks to share financial information with third parties, and in Asia services like Alipay and WeChat in China, and Tez and PayTM in India are already altering the financial services market. The extra capabilities available through these services are already leading to calls for the U.S. banking system to embrace open banking to the same degree.
If the U.S. banking industry can be convinced of the utility of open banking, or if it is forced to do so via legislation, several groups are likely to benefit:
- Consumers will be offered novel banking and investment products based on far more detailed data analysis than exists at present.
- The fintech companies who design and build these products will also see the use of their products increase, and their profit margins alongside this.
- Arguably, even banks will benefit, because even in the most open models it is banks who still act as the gatekeepers, deciding which third parties have access to consumer data, and what they need to do to access.
By far the biggest beneficiary of open banking, however, will be SMEs. This is not necessarily because open-banking frameworks offer specific new functionality that will be useful to small and medium-sized businesses. Instead, it is a reflection of the fact that SMEs have historically been so poorly served by traditional banks.
SMEs are underserved in a number of ways. Traditional banks have an extremely limited ability to view the aggregate financial position of an SME that holds capital across multiple institutions and in multiple instruments, which makes securing finance very difficult.
In addition, SMEs often have to deal with dated and time-consuming manual interfaces to upload data to their bank. And (perhaps worst of all) the B2B payment systems in use at most banks provide very limited feedback to the businesses that use them — a lack of information that can cost businesses dearly.
Given these deficiencies, it’s not surprising that fintech startups are keen to lend to small businesses, and that SMEs are actively looking for novel banking products and services. There have, of course, already been some success stories in this space, and the kinds of banking systems available to SMEs today (especially in Europe) are leagues ahead of the services available even 10 years ago.
However, open banking promises to accelerate this transformation and dramatically improve the financial services available to the average SME. It will do this in several ways. Allowing third parties access to the data held at banks will allow the true financial position of SMEs to be assessed, many for the first time.
Via APIs, fintech companies will be able to access information on different types of accounts, insurance, card accounts and leases, and consolidate data from multiple countries into one overall picture.
This, in turn, will have major effects on the way that credit-worthiness is assessed for SMEs. At the moment, there is a funding gap facing many SMEs, largely because banks have been hesitant to move away from the “balance sheet” model of assessing credit risk. By using real-time analytics on an SME’s current business activities, banks will be able to more accurately assess this risk and lend to more businesses.
In fact, this is already happening in countries where open banking is well advanced – in the U.K., Lloyds’ Business ToolBox offers unlimited credit checks on companies and directors in addition to account transaction data.
Open banking will also allow peer comparison analytics far ahead of what we have seen until now. APIs can be used to provide SMEs real-time feedback on how they are performing within their market sector. Again, this ability is already available in the U.K., with Barclays’ SmartBusiness Dashboard offering marketing effectiveness tools as part of a customizable business dashboard.
These capabilities will be so useful to SMEs that they are likely to drive the popularity of any fintech product that offers them. For SMEs, this value will lie mainly in intelligent data-analytics-based insights, recommendations and automatic prompts that can be built on top of account aggregation.
Then, additional insights generated from these same monitoring tools could enable banks and alternative lenders to be more proactive with their lending — offering preapproved lines of credit, in a timely manner, to SMEs that would have previously found it difficult to access funding.
The bottom line
Crucially for the fintech sector, it’s almost a certainty that SMEs will be willing to pay fees for data-analytics-based value-added services that help them grow. This is why some startups in this space are already attracting huge levels of funding, and why open banking is at the heart of the relationship between tech and the economy.
So if fintech has had a good year, this is likely to be just the start of the story. Backed by open-banking initiatives, the sector is now at the forefront of a banking revolution that will finally give SMEs the level of service they deserve and unleash their true potential across the economy at large.


text:
Chinese embassy in Islamabad reported figures on Pakistani imports over the past two decades have a yawning difference with the data reported by the local institutions. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD: It has finally happened and hopefully it would trigger a new era in the business community’s victory over smugglers on the Pakistan-China highway.
The 5th meeting of the 2nd phase of negotiations for China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was held in Islamabad on August 3-5. Tax reduction, exchange of customs data, quarantine measures along with inspection against some products imported from Pakistan was negotiated.
Hopefully, the next round would be on exchange of data on imports into Pakistan. This data will help the litigants in Pakistan before the National Tariff Commission to prove the actual over-imports from China that are damaging the local industry.
This cannot be accomplished without proving that excess amounts of products are being imported and resultantly, damaging the industry.
Read: Pakistan wants zero tariff on 70% items
For instance, the best Pakistani seamless pipe producers have been forced to operate under capacity levels not by their competitors but by importers, whose consignments could fall under the category of smuggling if it is proven that they commit dumping.
Anti-dumping laws in Pakistan are strict enough to discourage such smuggling, but winning cases of dumping claims is difficult without official data on imports.
So far, the Chinese and Pakistani customs data cannot be reconciled. That is because of under-declaration both in quantities and prices.
Such under-declaration is committed with the help of customs staff, to steel duties and taxes on consignments from foreign lands.
Countries with which Pakistan shares its customs data could help reveal cases of under or mis-declaration. With China, Pakistan is yet to start such sharing and reconciliation.
Experts and customs operators, who know this situation, view the present Pak-China trade as the most suspect part of the world trade.
Under-invoicing is rife with regards to stealing duties and taxes, while the immediate reconciliation of data on consignments between China and Pakistan is impossible because of a lack in exchange of data.
They find the lack of main-framing of Pak-China trade as the real source of Pakistani industry’s collapse. Some of them even say that foreign investment is discouraged by this menace in Pakistan. And this menace is impossible to remove without exchange of data.
Ironically, the NTC has never asked for data reconciliation. No other institution in Pakistan can be motivated to ask for it, as it is the NTC where officials receive and hear numerous complaints against Chinese exports to Pakistan’s under-invoicing.
The difference in data is so grave that the Chinese embassy in Islamabad reported figures on Pakistani imports from China over the past two decades that have a yawning difference with the data reported by the Pakistani institutions.
The big question
Can the two countries take steps fast enough to protect Pakistani industry from total collapse?
Can they remove the curse of data discrepancy?
One answer to this from the knowing quarters is that the Pakistan customs makes a lot of dirty money from under-invoicing; therefore it might not initiate a fast-track reconciliation process.
I know certain businessmen who have met Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal and even the Prime Minister. Even the high-ups could not get the anti-dumping authorities to quicken the process of getting the anti-dumping modules for data reconciliation.
Read: FTA with China: Pakistan offers to scrap duties on 50% of products
If the customs authorities are shy of such reconciliation modules, no power in Pakistan can force them to behave in a decent manner. Businessmen are forced to run from pillar to post in search of justice without success.
The writer has worked with major newspapers and specialises in analysis of public finance and geo-economics of terrorism
Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2015.
Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.
Read more: Pak-china trade , Under-invoicing
KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has detected mass under-invoicing on goods imported from India and an exercise to recover evaded revenue has been initiated.
According to details, in November 2015 Appraising Officers Ameer Nasir Ali and Hamood-ur-Rehman approached then Collector MCC Appraisement East Majid Yousafani reporting that goods imported from India were being largely under-invoiced and mentioned the official website of Indian government, which is a commercial portal of Central Board of Excise & Customs India.
This portal records all the details of exports and imports, when certain goods declaration and shipping bill numbers thereof were checked at www.icegate.gov.in, it was found that the values declared by the importers before Pakistan Customs were way too less than the values declared at the time of export before Indian Customs.
Subsequently, Majid Yousafani assigned two Additional Collectors Haris Ansari and Irfan Wahid to scrutinize the import data of goods from India to ascertain whether there was any revenue recoverable.
Additional Collectors in their report confirmed that mass under-invoicing was being carried on the goods imported from India. Majid Yousafani issued an Assessment Alert advising all field formations to consult the Indian website while making assessment a well as he wrote to Director Customs Valuation to revise the values of goods.
The then Director Customs Valuation Manzoor Memon, Additional Director Iqbal Munir and Principal Appraiser Hafiz Mohammad Jokhio after due deliberations revised the customs values of several goods imported from India in line with the values available at www.icegate.gov.in. Moreover, values of goods coming from Dubai were also revised because most of Indian origin goods come to Pakistan via Dubai.
Collector MCC Appraisement East Ashad Jawwad is continuing this revenue recovery campaign and because of this exercise several cases have been established and MCC Appraisement East alone have served around 20 contravention for adjudication creating demand of hundreds of millions of rupees, which was evaded through this scam.
It may be mentioned here that goods imported from India and are being under-invoiced include fabric, lubricants, jewelry etc.
It is worth mentioning here that Collector Adjudication Chaudry Mohammad Jawaid spared all the opportunity to the fabric importers in six cases to prove their claim that the values mentioned by www.icegate.gov.in were not correct and the exporters in India over-invoiced the exports in order to claim 17 percent export rebate. However, none of the importers submitted any evidence of the payment made to Indian exporters, which could verify their claim. Collector Adjudication has imposed fines and penalty on six different fabric importers.
Directorate of Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Karachi has served contravention on a number of traders importing tyre and tube from India for evading government’s legitimate revenue to the tune of Rs350 million through under-invoicing.
Scrutiny of import data of several traders, conducted by Director PCA Gul Rehman, revealed that they had imported declared to be “tyres and tubes, with or without flaps of different brands” of Indian origin, under different sub heads of PCT heading 4011 through different collectorates.
In these cases, the assessment has been made as per Valuation Ruling applicable at the time of import. However, in pursuance of information that the group under invoicing is being carried out, the matter was investigated taking into consideration the official website www.icegate.gov.in e-commerce portal central board of excise and customs.


text:
Outdoor Retailer Will Not Hold an In-Person Show this Winter
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, an in-person Outdoor Retailer trade show will not take place this winter, show organizers announced today. In its place will be Outdoor Retailer Winter Online, a digital marketplace and online experience.
The Outdoor + Snow Show was scheduled to take place January 27-29, 2021, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. The online trade and industry digital experience being offered in its place will be available “throughout the winter.”
“While there’s incredible value in gathering in-person, it’s our responsibility to provide a safe environment and serve the best interests of the snow and outdoor communities,” said Marisa Nicholson, Outdoor Retailer senior vice president and show director. “We are now focused on expanding upon the digital options we launched this past summer and are excited to introduce Outdoor Retailer Winter Online. We’re taking what we learned, along with feedback from our industry, and designing this next online edition with a host of enhancements for exhibitors and attendees this winter.”
Show organizers say that among the new developments is the addition of artificial intelligence (AI). The Outdoor Retailer Winter Online experience will be powered by AI, inferring a user’s likes and dislikes, suggesting matches, and creating a tailored experience for each user to find products, brands, retailers, and education best suited to their needs. Outdoor Retailer Winter Online will also allow facilitate communication between brands, buyers, and media, including live video conferencing and live one-on-one chats; data-driven lead generation in real time; personalized dashboards and networking opportunities; and education sessions with industry leaders, experts, and visionaries.
Outdoor Retailer will work with Snowsports Industries America (SIA), Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), and other industry organizations, to develop educational programming and offer business tools.


text:
Nearly a year after furniture giant IKEA issued a major recall of its chests and dressers, another toddler was crushed to death by an unsecured IKEA dresser. Two-year-old Jozef Dudek died in May, after a Malm dresser in his parents' room fell on top of him. Lawyers for the family claim the Dudeks were unaware of IKEA's dresser recall, which they called "poorly publicized ... and ineffective."
In a statement to Bustle on October 20th, IKEA wrote: "Our hearts go out to the affected family, and we offer our sincere condolences during this most difficult time." They added that the recall "offered consumers a choice of several remedies which are still available today, and which we have communicated to consumers since the recall via our web site, through social media and email campaigns."
IKEA issued of voluntary recall of about 29 million dressers, including their popular line of MALM products, in June 2016, after the Consumer Product Safety Commission found that six children died and at least 36 were injured by falling chests in incidents dating back to 1989. The affected products were found to be prone to tipping if not properly anchored to the wall, and could easily fall over onto a curious toddler climbing on the drawers.
The recall offers full refunds or repair kits for over 100 potentially dangerous dresser models produced between 2002 and 2016 (see the full list here), and partial refunds for any dressers produced before 2002. The company will also send repair crews to customers' homes to help them anchor affected chests and dressers to the wall, at no cost.
“Enough is enough,” CPSC chairman Elliot Kaye told ABC News after the recall. “These are inherently very dangerous and unstable products if children are around them.”
In the six-months after the initial recall, approximately 882,500 dressers were returned to repaired, the Philadelphia Enquirer reported. This would represent only three percent of all recalled products. IKEA, however, pushed back against these numbers, saying that because the affected products have been sold for decades, "it's impossible to know how many of those units are still in use," and suggesting some owners may have secured the units on their own.
Dudek was reportedly the eighth child to be killed by an unanchored IKEA dresser. And while IKEA has been at the center of the growing discussion surrounding toddlers and unsecured furniture because of its ubiquity, its products are far from the only ones that pose a threat to children. According to the CPSC, "unstable and unsecured TVs and large pieces of furniture kill a child every two weeks, on average," and send approximately 38,000 people to emergency rooms every year, two-thirds of whom are children under the age of five.
In a new statement, IKEA told NPR: "IKEA urges all consumers to securely attach chests to the wall with the hardware included in every IKEA chest of drawers package. Wall attachment is a necessary part of the assembly instructions, which must not be overlooked. If it is impossible for units to be attached to the wall, consumers should choose a different storage solution."
Although securing dressers and chests to the wall is an important safety measure, some consumer advocate groups argue that it is only a stopgap solution, and that more should be done to build safer chests and dressers that are less prone to tipping.
“We can build TVs that won’t tip over. We can build bookshelves that won’t tip over. We can do a lot more than we’re doing,” Gary Smith, director of the injury research and policy center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But we don’t have the political will to do it. And there isn’t the public outrage.”
But there is certainly outrage among parents who have lost their children. Jaquelyn Collas, whose two-year-old son Collas was killed by a fallen MALM dresser in February 2014, is suing IKEA for failing to tell customers that their dressers are potentially dangerous for small children.
"I didn't know to anchor my furniture and, in my mind, I feel that we really shouldn't have to,” Collas told ABC in 2016. “Get rid of it, it’s dangerous, it’s a really dangerous product.”


text:
By Latrishka Thomas
The cancellation of reservations due to the recent lockdown in the UK — due to increasing numbers of Covid-19 infections — did not come as a surprise to many in the hotel industry in Antigua and Barbuda and across the region.
Vice Chair of the Antigua and Barbuda Hotels and Tourism Association (ABHTA) Alex deBrito while speaking on Observer’s Big Issues programme on Sunday, shared that they have been aware that “things could change at any time” and are therefore “waiting to see what is going to happen in the next week or two to adjust again”.
A new month-long lockdown for England could have serious negative implications for the country’s already struggling tourism sector, says Tourism Minister Charles Max Fernandez.
Last week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a month-long lockdown of that country, which is due to end on December 2.
As a result, British Airways has suspended flights to Antigua and Barbuda causing occupancy at hotels in the twin island to drop from about 55 or 60 percent to 25 or 30 percent in the last 48 hours, deBrito revealed.
He stated that since Covid, the number of hotel workers has been cut in half and as of Saturday, November 7, 32 hotels are open on island but with the dynamic nature of the season, “it doesn’t mean that all will stay open, but they all try to be open”.
He explained that it was quite costly for these hotels to reopen and so staying open is paramount.
“We need to keep the destination open in order to inspire confidence in the market,” De Brito stated.
However, “on the positive side we also experienced some guests or tourists who are trying to extend their stay and stay longer,” he shared.
He also noted that the US market is responding positively to travel options in the Caribbean especially since Virgin Atlantic will continue flying.
“It’s helping us to maintain our hotels open,” he said.
“[But] we are now starting to rethink the process with the US market,” he said referring to people’s apprehension to travel as a result of the recent election. De Brito concluded that each hotel would have to analyze its unique situation and determine whether it makes sense to stay open.


text:
Australian cockatoo stolen in raid on pet shop
An Australian Cockatoo has been stolen during a break-in at a Stockton pet shop.
Officers are now appealing for information after the nine-year-old, called Rosie, was taken from Pet Mania.
A member of the public was walking past the Portrack Lane shop at 6.45pm on Sunday when he saw two or three men, described as in their mid-20s and one with a facial tattoo, holding the bird outside the store.
A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said: “It is not yet clear if anything else was stolen during the break-in but all other animals appear to be accounted for.”
The full story can be read on the Teeside Gazette website – click here to view
The Cockatoo has finally been reunited with its handlers at the Stockton pet store, according to reports yesterday.


text:
The Federal Communications Commission's plan for spurring 5G wireless deployment will prevent city and town governments from charging carriers about $2 billion worth of fees.The FCC proposal, to be voted on at its meeting on September 26, limits the amount that local governments may charge carriers for placing 5G equipment such as small cells on poles, traffic lights, and other government property in public rights-of-way.The proposal, which is supported by the FCC's Republican majority, would also force cities and towns to act on carrier applications within 60 or 90 days.Philadelphia is one of numerous local governments that objects to the FCC plan.But, according to Philadelphia, those proposed fees "are simply de minimis when measured against the costs that the City incurs to approve, support, and maintain the many small cell and distributed antenna system (DAS) installations in its public rights-of-way."Rural governments also cry foul
If you could take your most coveted pair of headphones for a test drive, would you?Well, SonarWorks’ True-Fi software supports 232 various headphone profiles, allowing your C-grade cans to emulate the frequency response of more desirable models.The company is constantly updating supported headphone profiles and plans to do so each month: recently added are gaming headsets like Razer and HyperX.True-Fi affords plenty of versatility and customization by empowering users to fine-tune each headphone’s profile.Do you like the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x but want a bit more low-end?True-Fi grants you the freedom to make those adjustments.
The next time you go to dinner at a fancy restaurant you might spot a chilled-out lobster hanging out in the seafood tank.While most of us would like to believe lobsters don't feel pain when we boil them alive for dinner, one restaurateur wants to find a more peaceful end for the tasty crustaceans.Maine-based seafood restaurant Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor is experimenting with cannabis to sedate lobsters before they are killed.Restaurant owner Charlotte Gill placed a test lobster she named Roscoe into a covered box with water at the bottom.She then had marijuana smoke blown into box for Roscoe to inhale.Later, Gill removed the bands on Roscoe's claws, and the lobster was allowed to roam free in the tank for nearly three weeks without any incidents of aggression.
the EUROPEAN commission has launched a study on how e-handelsgiganten Amazon using their data on traders, reports the Financial Times.According to the EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, focusing the investigation, preliminary primarily on e-traders ' dual roles as a competitor, but also the host of the tredjepartshandlare, who sell goods on Amazon's site.Amazon's ceo Jeff Bezos said earlier this year that more than half of the goods sold by the Amazon comes from the tredjepartshandlare.the European companies used Amazon's services to export goods for over 5 billion, more than € 50 billion, last year.Read more: Amazon employees are being investigated for having sold secret customer data
Musk has cranked out ill-advised tweets, taunted his critics, failed to take Tesla private, and smoked a little pot.But Musk's behavior is mild compared to other legends of the car businessTesla CEO Elon Musk has never been a normal or predictable leader.You just don't undertake something so foolhardy and statistically improbable as creating a new American car company from scratch by sticking to the CEO script.Ever since his infamous go-private tweet broke, however, an alarming new element has been added to criticism of Musk.He should, therefore, be punished, perhaps by the SEC, certainly by the markets.
Bad news, classic Droid fans -- you won't get a chance to add a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard to your Moto Z phone after all.Lenovo's indie partner on the keyboard, a company called Livermorium, has decided to scrap the project.Though Livermorium raised over $160,000 in contributions on Indiegogo for its Livermorium Keyboard Slider, the company's latest update posted Wednesday (as spotted by XDA-developers) lays out a laundry list of reasons for the decision -- including a lack of interest from retailers, the relatively low popularity of Moto Z phones, issues with size and weight, and not having enough money to justify buying certain components in bulk.It does raise the question, though -- wasn't Lenovo/Motorola supposed to be helping its mod partners with these things?It certainly seemed like an officially endorsed project back when we tried the keyboard mod at CES 2018.That said, the prototypes we tried were still pretty awkward.
A group of MIT students who run the project "How to Generate (Almost) Anything" has allowed an artificial intelligence to use his skills in a number of areas.In one of their latest experiments made, the general maskinlärningsalgoritmen textgenrnn take up the new pizza recipe.This was achieved AI by studying the ingredients in the existing recipe for pizza from a food blogger and recepsajter and then made the AI take out new recipes.Later, a pizzeria back the new recipes which you can check out above.the Students say, however, that in some cases generated the AI absolutely crazy recipes where grundingredienser was missing.So potentially, one might have been able to get almost the same "good" result with a random number generator I guess.
Tor Project's own private mobile browser app is now available on Android.It can be installed via the Google Play store and the file extension for Android can be downloaded directly from Tor's website, VentureBeat reported.Tor originally stood for The Onion Router and is named for the method it uses to protect information sent over a network.When a Tor-enabled browser makes a request to download a webpage, the request is encrypted multiple times for a journey that detours through three servers known as relays."Tor aims to make all users look the same, making it difficult for you to be fingerprinted based on your browser and device information," the company said.It isn't the first Tor-enabled browser available for Android devices, VentureBeat notes.
Notorious short-seller Andrew Left of Citron Research has filed a lawsuit against Tesla and Elon Musk.Left says Musk's "funding secured" tweet was merely a way to burn investors like him who were betting against Tesla's stock price.Watch Tesla trade in real-time here.Tesla is facing yet another lawsuit stemming from CEO Elon Musk's failed bid to take the electric-car maker private, this time from a notorious short seller Andrew Left.The founder of Citron Research alleged in a California court filing Thursday that Musk's "funding secured" tweet — which sent Tesla shares up 11% in a matter of hours — was sent simply to burn short sellers, who lost more than $3 billion during the stock's surge.Shares of Tesla fell roughly 3.8% off their intra-day highs following the filing of the suit, and are now little changed for the session.
In Linux Version 4.19, Linux’s developers had to deal with a hardware security bug, an issue that was particuarly frustrating becasue it was someone else’s bug.But Linux creator Linus Torvalds hopes that such incidents will be less common in the future.In the Linux development process, there is a two-week merge window for new code, then developers spend six to seven weeks looking for bugs.Usually, this process is not a big deal, Torvalds says.Most often, by the middle of the second week, bug-fixing ensues.[ Go deeper at InfoWorld: How to start your own bug-bounty program.
With Samsung working on bendy displays to put in flexible phones and even providing those screens to Chinese phonemakers to help grow the ecosystem, it’s clear a new era for smartphones is just around the corner.However, it seems like Nubia couldn’t wait that long, because at IFA 2018, the company released a frankly outrageous flexible screen device that looks like a smartwatch, but promises even more.But what may be the most ambitious thing about the Nubia-α—which the team behind it says was inspired by sci-fi—is that it isn’t just a concept.Nubia actually has plans to put this thing on sale sometime before the end of the year.The highlight feature of the Nubia-α is obviously its massive flexible display that wraps nearly halfway around its chunky segmented band.Nubia says this proprietary display was created to help reduce gadget fatigue by making available “all essential functions of a smartphone to the user at their fingertips.”
Forget everything you know about a cube being a 3D regular hexahedron with six identical square faces.Chinese tech giant Huawei is here to redefine the cube, and the first thing you need to know about its interpretation is that it's… round.Huawei unveiled the AI Cube on Friday at IFA, joining the ranks of phone makers turning their hands to crafting smart speakers.The Alexa-enabled home hub is a (currently, at least) Europe-only rival to Apple's HomePod, the Google Home and the OG Alexa speaker, Amazon's very own Echo.We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether Huawei would have been better off naming the AI Cube the "AI Cylinder," the "AI Colonnade" or the "AI Barrel With A Tapered Bit At The Top," but what does it actually do?The premise is simple: It combines a 4G router with smart home assistant support from Alexa (that's the AI bit) and, of course, a regular speaker.
Motorola says you can expect an update to Android Pie “soon” after launch.The Motorola One and One Power have finally been announced, coming a few months after we first got wind of the series.And as the name implies, the new phones are part of the Android One program.The two phones share virtually identical designs, including a wide notch, slight chin, a dual camera setup on the back, and rear fingerprint scanner.Buy the standard Motorola One and you’ll be getting a Snapdragon 625 chipset and 5.99-inch HD+ display (19:9).Opt for the Motorola One Power and you’ll get a more capable Snapdragon 636 processor and a slightly larger, 6.2-inch full HD+ display (19:9).
At Drake's concert at Madison Square Garden Tuesday night, the air was filled with more than just the roar of 18,000 fans.There were also 88 micro drones flying around the rapper during two songs in his two-hour show, synched up with his tracks Elevate and Look Alive.They hovered around with bright lights, changing colors from red to blue to white, like a swarm of large fireflies twinkling above the rapper.The elaborate choreography was coordinated between Drake's production team and Verity Studios, a Swiss company that boasts investments from Sony and Kitty Hawk, the flying car startup from Google's founder Larry Page."With the current technology that we have, Drake is as good as it gets," said Rafaello D'Andrea, the founder of Verity Studios.The drones use an indoor GPS system mapped out by their own Kedge Localization Unit -- think a small central satellite scanning every corner of a room and sending coordinates to the drones.
Another is that long delays while waiting for the transaction to clear can be the difference between winning and losing in such a volatile market.A Bitcoin futures and options exchange called Deribit has introduced the Deribit Perpetual, a trading product that tracks the Bitcoin price while enabling cost-effective and efficient trading.The company claims its trading platform is able to handle thousands of order requests per second, with a transaction speed of around only a few milliseconds per order.“We now have an enormously flexible distributed infrastructure, where server nodes can be easily added.Every trading book is replicated on multiple nodes, so if a single node would fail others are standing by to take over.”The Perpetual product tracks the Bitcoin price and allows traders to take positions without exchanging any Bitcoin.
It turns out you don’t need to shell out a couple of hundred dollars extra to enjoy frame synchronizing support with Nvidia’s G-Sync — you can simply force your Nvidia card to run Freesync instead.You will need an AMD card or chip (like an APU) of some description to make it work, but once you have the hardware in place, the process for getting Freesync working is relatively painless.Of the two frame-syncing technologies, Freesync is the more open and affordable standard, with G-Sync monitors often requiring extra expenditure to enjoy the feature.However, typically you need an AMD graphics card to run it and as great as those cards can be, the best graphics cards are almost all Nvidia branded.Fortunately, a new workaround to give you the best of both worlds has been discovered.Redditor Survfate was the first to post up the full guide on how to do it, showing that it was possible to get Freesync running on a GTX 1060 graphics card.
"When my colleague returned he directed the attendee to me as the most qualified person to answer the question.""In a day, I could be developing new client strategies, visiting customers and presenting solutions, speaking at events for internal enablement sessions for my co-workers or teaching the fundamentals of coding."And while technology has changed, as has the same issues I did when I first joined the workforce 13 years ago, including the lack of female representation and ongoing gender bias."It gives me hope that opportunities for women in a male-dominated industry will increase in the near future."He is a great sounding board, frequently supports my decisions, however is not afraid to challenge me in a way that helps me learn and develop.""It’s these relationships that have assisted my career aspirations and I am so grateful for their support.
In any case, the intelligent systems we currently call “AI” are going to be making increasingly important decisions for us and about us over the next generation.These capabilities will evolve alongside what we currently call the Internet of Things — a web of sensors and other devices collecting data about individuals and their physical environment.As a pedestrian of the future walks down a city street, there will be enough accumulated and real-time data about that person in various databases – consumer, employment, health and medical, social media, location, and so on – that a remarkably granular and predictive profile will emerge, usable for any number of purposes.Given a suitable infrastructure, the groundwork will have been laid for personalized sensory enhancements of the environment as well as an endless stream of immediately relevant content, much of it locked to physical locations.Today we have the smartphone.It has served as a ubiquitous and powerful connected platform that some innovators have exploited to create the first wave of consumer-focused augmented reality (AR) apps.
In a strange turn of events, mobile, console and PC gamers will soon all use the same controller – Microsoft’s Xbox One gamepad.News came today that Android Pie, the latest version of Google’s mobile OS, will fix a longstanding issue that incorrectly mapped the Xbox One’s buttons and prevented gamers from using Microsoft’s gamepad with their Android devices.Theoretically, this problem could’ve been fixed two years ago (when Microsoft first put Bluetooth inside the Xbox One S gamepads), but it wasn’t until this week that Google's top engineers finally figured out how to get the phone and the controller to play nice.This is particularly exciting news for fans of the first-person shooter and battle royale genres on mobile who have been using third-party gamepads to get an edge over their opponents.While Fortnite Mobile's developers haven't confirmed the exact timing that the game will support the new input mappings, a representative from Epic Games has told CNET that it will support the Xbox gamepad "sometime in the future".That being said, Google has marked the mapping issue resolved in the latest batch of code, which means support for Microsoft's gamepad should be available on the phones running Android Pie – namely, the Google Pixel 2, Google Pixel 2 XL, Google Pixel, Google Pixel XL, and Essential Phone – starting today.
When Alibaba reported its earnings yesterday, the cloud data got a bit buried in other stories, but it’s worth pointing out that its cloud business grew 93 percent in the most recent quarter to $710 million.That’s down a smidgen from the gaudy triple digit growth of last report, but their market share has doubled in just two years, and they are growing fast.As John Dinsdale, principal analyst at Synergy Research, a firm that keeps a close eye on the cloud market points out, the dip in growth is all about the law of large numbers.Alibaba couldn’t sustain triple digit growth for long.“Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform have recently seen similar reductions in growth rates, and if you go back far enough in time, AWS did too.The key thing is that the market for cloud infrastructure services is now very big, yet is still growing by 50% per year — and the leading players are either maintaining or growing their market share,” he said.


text:
Are you a Windows Insider in the Fast ring and yearning for the next build, which is coming at a rapid pace? Unfortunately, you’re not going to see one this week.
Tag Archives | microsoft
Tips, Tricks, How To Galleries, Reviews and News for all things Microsoft.
While using Windows 10, some programs won’t install or run correctly because they require older versions of .NET Framework. Here’s how to fix the problem.
During a live weather report on the evening news, a meteorologist was blindsided by the Windows 10 nag screen blowing in from the west.
Microsoft hides important application files and folders in Windows to keep users from accidentally deleting them. But if you need access, here’s how to make them display.
If you find it annoying when Cortana in Windows 10 launches when you have the TV on in the background, here’s how to remedy the problem.
Inking in Windows 10 Anniversary Update feels like a complete, end to end experience than an extension. Here’s a look at getting started with the feature.
Microsoft continues its quality iOS app support with the latest addition, Word Flow, a keyboard app. Here’s a look at how to get started with it on iPhone.
Microsoft today released Windows 10 Build 14332 to Windows Insiders today for both PCs and mobile. It includes a lot of bug fixes, and, new issues.
If you’re tired of connecting your phone to your PC all the time to share photos and other files, here’s a look at doing it cable free with Bluetooth.
The Windows 10 Weather app has come a long way. If you want to know the weather conditions for other locations around the world, here’s how to add them.
The Google Photos iOS app doesn’t support Live Photo uploads. Here’s how to get your iPhone Live Photos into Google Photos, and why you totally should.
Microsoft released Windows 10 Preview Build 14328 to Windows Insiders for both PC and Mobile this week and includes a significant amount of new features.
HBO Now is rolling out to Xbox One and Xbox 360 and the company is providing you the season 6 premiere from April 25th through April 28th.
While working on Office documents, a small change you can make, to improve your workflow, is to increase the size and color of the mouse pointer (arrow).


text:
Pakistan Oxygen Limited to establish new ASU plant worth ₨. 2.5 billion in KPK
The new ASU plant will be extremly beneficial for KPK as it is currently dependent on trunking oxygen from elsewhere in the country.
The Pakistan Oxygen Limited (PAKOXY) has announced that it will establish a state-of-the-art ASU (Air Separation Unit) plant in the northern region of Pakistan.
This will be the company’s fifth ASU plant in the country.
This was revealed by PAKOXY in a notification to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday.
The ASU plant, which will be installed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), will significantly boost the country’s oxygen-producing capacity.
This is particularly beneficial for KPK as it is currently dependent on trunking from elsewhere in the country.
The plant is expected to come on stream by 2023.
According to a company statement, “the new ASU shall also be able to serve the multiple ongoing and upcoming CEPC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor)-related projects in KPK providing growth opportunities for the Company.”
Along with Oxygen, the company’s investment in the ASU, which includes the plant and associated storage equipment, will meet the growing demand for other Industrial gases, including Nitrogen and Argon.
Pakistan Oxygen Limited (PAKOXY)
The Pakistan Oxygen Limited (PAKOXY), which is formerly known as Linde Pakistan Limited (2011-2018) — formerly BOC Pakistan (1949-2011) —, is a leading supplier of industrial, medical and specialty gases solutions, welding electrodes, and hard goods in Pakistan.
The company, headquartered at West Wharf in Karachi, was established in 1935, converted into a private limited company in 1949, and then converted into a public limited company in 1958.
Since the acquisition of the company from the Linde Group in 2018, the company’s new Board of Directors (BoD) has approved notable capital investments valuing around PKR 10 billion in development projects and for the betterment of the existing plants, machinery, and equipment.
What are your views on this? Share with us in the comments below.


text:
GAS PRICES RISING FAST IN ALABAMA
By WVUA 23 Web Reporter Haleigh Amend
Bad news for drivers: Gas prices are rising fast!
Average retail gas prices in Alabama rose 5 cents in the past week.
This 5-cent rise brings Alabama to an average of $1.59 per gallon according to the gas tracking website gasbuddy.com.
In comparison, the national average increased 6.8 cents and has risen to an average of $1.81 per gallon.


text:
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip is one of the widely used processors in Android devices today. In 2019 alone, nearly 40% of all Android smartphones from Google, Samsung, Xiaomi, LG and OnePlus run on Snapdragon processors.
But researchers from cybersecurity firm Check Point recently discovered that the digital signal processor (DSP) in Snapdragon chips had over 400 pieces of vulnerable code that leave millions of Android users at risk. The vulnerabilities dubbed “Achilles”, could impact phones in three ways.
So what exactly is the DSP and what does it do? According to a Gizmodo article, the DSP enables many of the modern features we have come to expect in phones from quick charging, HD capture and advanced Augmented Reality (AR). This would, in essence, make the DSP a super-efficient and economical component but it also opens potential pathways for hackers to take control of devices.
Check Point said attackers need only need to trick a user to install an app that bypasses all usual security measures. The first way they can inflict harm is through a spying tool that enables them to access a phone’s photos, videos, GPS and location data. Even scarier, hackers are could potentially record phone calls and turn on the phone’s microphones remotely, all without the user ever realising.
Another way is an attacker could choose to render an infected smartphone unusable by locking all data stored on it via a “targeted denial-of-service attack”. The third way they can get you is by hiding malware in your phone that is unremovable.
But why are there so many vulnerabilities? Researchers said this is because the DSP is like a “black box” that can only be opened and reviewed by the manufacturer. Though this makes it hard to crack but it also means that security researchers cannot easily test them, making them ripe for several unknown security flaws.
Check Point said it has disclosed its findings to Qualcomm and affected vendors. It, however, did not publicly publish the particulars of the Achilles flaw as millions of devices still remain at risk. Even though Qualcomm reported that it has since fixed the issue, that doesn’t that your Android phone is safe. It is still up to individual phone makers to push the relevant security patches to truly resolve this vulnerability and that will inevitably take some time.
Qualcomm told CNET that it has “worked diligently to validate the issue and make appropriate mitigations available” to smartphone makers. So far the company has not found any evidence of the Achilles vulnerability exploited in the wild, it advised Android users to update their phones with the latest patches as they become available as well as to only install verified apps from official app stores.
At the same time, Check Point advises users to protect their data on their phones with mobile security solutions. Its SandBlast Mobile is said to provide real-time threat intelligence and visibility into the threats while providing complete protection against the risks posed by Qualcomm’s vulnerabilities.


text:
The Minneapolis-based retailer gave an early preview of its holiday strategy on Monday, saying it is planning to expand its offering of fresh and frozen grocery items via Order Pickup and Drive Up to at least 1,500 Target stores across the country by this fall.
Target also said its stores will be closed on Thanksgiving due to the coronavirus pandemic, and that the retailer will roll out its biggest deals of the year in stores and online in October.
"There’s no question, the holiday season is going to be very different this year," says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “The investments we’ve made in our business and our incredible team have enabled us to move with flexibility and speed to meet guests’ changing needs during this global pandemic."
In June Target COO John Mulligan said "the speed and convenience of our fulfillment options are unmatched across the country, and they’ve become even more critical for our guests searching for easy and safe ways to shop during the pandemic. By adding fresh grocery to the pickup services our guests already love, we’re giving them even more reasons to shop at Target. During a time when even more people are looking for different ways to get the items they need, we’ll continue to invest in making Target the easiest and safest place to shop.”
The new service covers some 750 food items, including produce, dairy, bakery, meat and frozen products. “Now guests can get the grocery items they need — like milk, bread, eggs and ice cream — along with the staples they’ve already been getting through Drive Up and Order Pickup,” the company said. “And those items are in addition to the more than 250,000 items available for pickup across categories like home, apparel, essentials and more.”
Orders placed via the service are ready within a few hours, the retailer noted, adding that “for Drive Up, the experience is completely contactless, as we bring the order to your car in less than two minutes."


text:
Shortly after going on sale, it looks like Intel’s sixth-generation Skylake processors are facing a global shortage, with several retailers warning users of limited availability of the CPUs. It doesn’t seem to affect just the CPUs with unlocked multiplier, as even mobile SKUs are also in short supply.
During a recent earnings and financial call, CEO of Asus talked about the shortage of Skylake processors:
In September we are going to produce a lot of ‘Skylake’ products, but we expect significant shortage of ‘Skylake’ globally, not just for Asus. That is why in August we have Windows 10, but ‘Skylake’ only accounts for a very small percentage. In the fourth quarter, ‘Skylake’ will take a higher percentage….. is in significant shortage right now in the third quarter.”
Daniel Snyder, a spokesman for Intel, revealed to KitGuru that the latest-generation processors would be more widely available over the course of the quarter as Intel increases production:
We are experiencing supply tightness due to strong demand and expect additional volume to be available as Q3 progresses.
Considering that it takes 42 days for a freighter containing hardware from Europe from Taiwan and 20 days for it to reach the US from Taiwan, if Intel were to significantly increase production of Skylake next month, it would be four to five weeks until we see the hardware reaching store shelves. Which means the first Skylake-based notebooks may not be available up until November.
A likely reason for the shortage could be that Intel did not anticipate the high demand, with another possibility being that the vendor is strategically delaying the launch in order to give retailers the ability to clear inventory of last-generation CPUs.


text:
Spotify app database hacked
Spotify has said on their webpage today that Android users should update their Spotify app because of a recent hack. Apparently one user had their account compromised. No details past that were given but I am sure the affected user has been notified. As for everyone else, Spotify is recommending you update your app, change your password and they will be forcing you to re-enter your password in the next day or so, even if you have it saved.
Moto X – Save $100 off of a contract free phone!
Motorola has put a sale on for June 4th & 5th on their websiteRead More
Twitch announces E3 broadcast schedule
Twitch has announced via their blog their E3 broadcast schedule today. Here is theirRead More