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March 2, 2000 - Industry News
Allied Holdings Inc., Decatur, GA, has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Axis Group, has acquired CT Group, Inc., a Michigan-based holding company which owns CT Services and Cordin Transport.
Canadian-based fleet Vitran Corporation Inc. had a 15% increase in revenue and income for the twelve-month period ended Dec. 31, 1999.
Renault SA isn't ruling out the possibility of selling Nissan Diesel to another company after it achieves breakeven, a company executive told AFX News.
The American Trucking Assn's says a new ergonomics standard proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is unconstitutional
DAF Trucks NV, the Dutch truck manufacturing subsidiary of Paccar Inc., says it will raise daily production to 120 vehicles later this year
March 1, 2000 - Industry News
Two driver training groups are teaming up to put on a joint conference that is being billed as the largest gathering of commercial truck driver training programs ever held in the U.S
The family that owns the seven-state Sapp Bros. truckstop chain is involved in a family dispute over stock ownership
When the Louisiana governor called the state Department of Transportation and Development to ask for fund-raising ideas, the agency complied with more than $100 million in possible fee increases - most of them aimed at truckers
Truckers caught going just a few miles over the speed limit in West Virginia could face a much higher fine than a motorist going the same speed if a bill approved by the state Senate becomes law
With the return of warmer weather, normal weight restrictions are back in place in Wisconsin
SignPost, publisher of The National Survey of Driver Wages, is offering one-day seminars on retaining drivers
Nissan Diesel Motor Co dismissed recent German news reports that DaimlerChrysler AG would take over the heavily indebted Japanese truck maker.
"We deny the German reports," a spokesman told Stark's News Service. Germany's VWD news service said
Williams TravelCenters, Nashville, through an affiliation with Brewco Motorsports Inc., will sponsor driver Andy Kirby and his #39 Monte Carlo in a 10-race schedule this year in the NASCAR Busch Series, Grand National Division.
Professional Transportation Group Ltd., Marietta, GA, has signed F Systems Group as an agent carrier.
The National Perishable Logistics Association/Refrigerated Transportation Foundation (NPLA/RTF) will hold its annual meeting September 16-18, 2000, at the Resort at Squaw Creek, Lake Tahoe, CA.
Paccar.com has made an equity investment in eScout, a provider of business-to-business e-commerce solutions for independent businesses
Fleetclean Systems, Hardin, TX, has signed a service agreement with Highway Transport Inc. under which Fleetclean's Hahnville, LA, tank cleaning facility will become the South-Louisiana base of operations for Highway Transport.
Sweden's AB Volvo has announced plans to build trucks and buses in Russia through a joint venture with AFK Sistema, a Russian financial and industrial group
Veteran drivers at Heartland Express can now earn up to 40 cents a mile. The company recently announced pay increases for company drivers that boost the mileage rate for drivers with one year of experience to 37 cents a mile, including a 1 cent safety bonus.
Sirius Satellite Radio has entered into a marketing and technology alliance with ATX
Technologies, Inc. to develop systems which will eventually allow truckers to buy items and respond to radio programming while driving a vehicle.
February 29, 2000 - Industry News
SmartStop, Portland, OR has signed a deal with National Electronic Technologies Corp., Rothesay, New Brunswick to install a network of kiosks in truckstops.
Yellow Corp. is the latest fleet to become involved in an online venture which provides business-to-business transportation services.
I2 Technologies, Inc. has announced FreightMatrix, an Internet-based business-to-business freight marketplace
Delphi Automotive Systems Corp. has reached an agreement to buy the AP Distribution Services business of AP Group Limited for about $65 million cash.
Buoyed by the apparent success of last week's demonstration in Washington, DC, organizers are planning a second, larger convoy for March 16.
The recently formed National Owner Operator Trucking Assn. hopes to organize at least 200 trucks
We offer e-newsletters that deliver targeted news and information for the entire fleet industry.
The expert, Shawn Whitacre from Chevron Delo, will answer your questions
The expert, Steve Carlson from Xantrex, will answer your questions
The expert, Brian Fletcher from Eaton, will answer your questions
On the Spot: Drive the Future With Volvo's SuperTruck [Video]
Highlights From ATA Management Conference & Exhibition [Video]
Navistar's Las Vegas LT Series Launch Presentation [Video]
Test Drive Preview: Freightliner's 2018 Cascadia [Video]
App Helps Truckers Report Accidents
Charger Keeps Batteries Topped Off in Winter
Tool Designed to Remove Tie Rods and Ball Joints
Driver Wellness Courses Address 3 Key Concerns


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By Joanna Smith
OTTAWA — U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has an issue with getting agricultural products to Canada, and it might not be the ones you think.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“It’s an extraordinary problem for those people who are affected,” Lighthizer said June 22 when he appeared before the House of Representatives ways and means committee to talk about trade priorities. “And there is no justification for it.”
Much of the spotlight on Canada-U.S. trade leading up to the new North American Free Trade talks has been on dairy products.
This time, though, Lighthizer was not talking about cheese, but what you pair it with: wine.
Two days before President Donald Trump entered the White House, the U.S. launched an aggressive trade challenge by asking the World Trade Organization to examine how the B.C. government was allowing only wine produced within the province to be sold in grocery stores.
Lighthizer told the committee in June that WTO consultations — the first stage of the process — had not resolved things, so the administration was thinking about whether to press ahead with a dispute settlement panel in Geneva.

domain: news


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Sustainability consultancy Carbon Footprint debuts new challenge prize, as Boeing launches next phase of green R&D programme
A new competition launched this week is set to reward the next great leap forward in sustainable flight, offering a cash prize expected to be in the millions of pounds for the first zero carbon transatlantic...
'Leading by example': Green economy welcomes stretching target to slash UK emissions 78 per cent by 2035
But big questions remain over how the UK will meet hugely ambitious new targets, after government signalled it will not sign off on all the CCC's policy recommendations
Tech giant pledges to deliver carbon neutral operations by 2025 and a net zero emission value chain by 2040
British fashion brand launches ‘made to last’ sustainability manifesto geared at transforming into a fully regenerative and circular business model by 2030
Netflix, Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group, and Salesforce also among founding members of Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA)


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Nokia has just started its Windows Phone 7.8 update roll out today for the Lumia 900, Lumia 800, 710, 610 and 510. Other manufacturers have yet to announced any date but as it’s usually the case you can already update your trusty Samsung, HTC, LG E900 or even Dell Venue Pro right now if you aren’t afraid to do it all by yourself. To do so simply follow the instructions below and grab the correct packages after the break:
Continue reading Windows Phone 7.8 update rollout started for Nokia handsets but others can also update now manually →
LG is apparently back in the mix after calling it quits 9 months ago. The Korean manufacturer who finally having some relative success with its latest line of Android Optimus handsets and the Nexus 4 is currently working on several Windows Phone 8 devices according to a senior executive from one of LG’s local partners. As you may recall the LG Fantasy E740 never saw the light of the day as a commercial device and LG essentially stopped to support its Windows Phone 7 handset just a few months after the OS’s launch in 2010 even-though the company was the premier OEM partner for Windows Phone 7 during OS’s development.
Having LG back on board can only be seen a a good thing for the platform but won’t fix the may problem which is Microsoft’s current attitude towards its on product.
Continue reading LG working on Windows Phone 8 handsets →
As promised last week by Nokia the Windows Phone 7 Tango (7.10.8773.98) worldwide update has started for the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710. What’s even better is that you owners of any other Windows Phone 7 device can also manually update their handset to the latest OS version thanks to the OS bits made available by Microsoft on Windows Phone update servers. So let me recap what is going on:
- If you are a Nokia Lumia 800 or 710 owner you can either wait for the update to show up in Zune or manually push the OS update to your phone followed by the OEM Firmware update (1750.0805.8773.12220).
- If you own a Nokia Lumia 900, HTC, Samsung, LG, ZTE handset your only option right now is to manually push the OS update to your handset and wait for the subsequent OEM Firmware to be pushed to your device via Zune later on.
Hit the break to get all the goodies.
–Updated with all Language Packs–
Continue reading Windows Phone Tango roll out has started. Update your phone manually to build 7.10.8773.98 →
Here’s a little something that should brighten up your day and hopefully give some credence to the rumored Nokia Lumia PureView rumor that poped-up a little while ago. The unicorn device in question supposedly packs an Adreno 320 GPU which should only be available in two Sanpdragon S4 SoCs later this year: the Quad-Core APQ8064 (w/out the modem) and later the Dual-Core MSM8960 Pro. It now turns out that Qualcomm is right on track with its roadmap and is already sampling the APQ8064 for its OEMs which means that there’s a chances that we will see Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices powered by these SoCs in the coming months.
The LG-E970 Android 4.0 handset (known as the LG-LS970 on Sprint) is already in wild and has been cough running the GLBenchmark suite lately to test out it’s beastly Adreno 320 GPU. Unfortunately for us the results aren’t really that interesting given that they were ran with Vsync on (@ 1280×768). Check out the result in the screen shot after the break:
Continue reading First Adreno 320 Benchmark results →
Quick! Everybody abandon ship! The Windows Phone ship is sinking…or maybe not. LG (Windows Phone’s premiere OEM partner..)has simply announced during its latest earnings conferences call that it has no immediate plans to manufacture or ship a new Windows Phone based smartphone. Nothing really shocking here given that the south Korean manufacturer was totally absent from the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango launch last year and hasn’t done anything meaningful to the Windows Phone ecosystem since the initial platform launch in 2010.
LG isn’t totally abandoning Windows Phone and will continue research and development efforts in hopes of a brighter future. The company’s mobile division has been in the crapper for a little while now even with the launch of several high-end Android smartphones plagued by atrocious firmware issues (everything isn’t to blame on Windows Phone..). The LG Fantasy E740 with it’s NFC chipset will remain a prototype for ever.
Continue reading LG temporarily abandons Windows Phone →
Nokia has officially announced the first NFC enabled Windows Phone handset today; the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC. This may sound surprising given that even the company’s high end Windows Phone model, the Lumia 900, which just launched a few days ago doesn’t have an NFC chip in there. Nokia has apparently added its own software stack on top of Windows Phone 7.5 Tango to get this whole NFC thing going. Remember that LG has apparently done something similar with, the yet to be announced, LG Fantasy handset. The Nokia Lumia 610 NFC will be available in Q3 2012 on Orange. Check out the full press release after the break and a video demo of the handset in action:
Continue reading Nokia Lumia 610 NFC officially announced: Q3 2012 release →
LG which was one of the most active launch partner of Windows Phone 7 in the fall of 2010 with the LG Optimus 7 and LG Quatum has been oddly missing from the WP7.5 Mango festivities a few months ago. The mysterious LG Fantasy that has emerged on the web several times in the past 6 months is back again flaunting in the wild and nearing it’s official unveiling later this month during MWC. So what can we expect from this devices? Well not much in terms of over all design compared to HTC and Nokia’s offerings and the SoC is apparently an MSM8255 clocked at only 1Ghz. The device also on packs 8GB of internal storage, a front facing VGA camera and a 5MP main camera with no flash on the back. The 4″ screen is a LCD TFT Nova panel. The most interesting part though is the inclusion of an NFC chip which as far as we knew won’t be supported until Windows Phone 8 Apollo launches later this year but seems to be functional under windows Phone 7.5 thanks to an native debug app developed by LG. Anyway, hit the break to watch the device in blurry action and more blurry pictures.
Continue reading LG Fantasy E740 aka LG Miracle out in the wild: First Windows Phone with NFC support →
Another bites the dust. Microsoft has added LG Electronics to its long list of Android manufacturers who are now paying the Redmond software giant every time the build a Google powered device. Samsung, HTC, Acer, Viewsonic, Compal etc the list goes on and Microsoft is most probably making more money through Android than windows Phone right now. As usual terms of the agreement were not disclosed but Microsoft is happy to announce that “more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the U.S. are now receiving coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio”. Full press release after the break:
Continue reading Microsoft signs Patent agreement with LG covering Android and Chrome OS devices →
Microsoft Romania is probably looking for a new Windows Phone tester as we speak because one has apparently sold the yet to b announced HTC Fantasy Mango handset to an XDA-dev poster this week. The only thing known right now is that it supposedly sports a 4″ IPS display which isn’t really that exciting anymore given the quality of the SLCD panels used by HTC on the HTC Titan, HTC Radar and all of their new high end smartphones. The back of the phone also reveals a 5Mpix camera. One more picture after the break.
Continue reading LG Fantasy out in the wild →
Got to love baseless rumors and blurry pictures. Lot’s Mango rumors apparently originating from Orange France lately…the latest is blurry picture which is said to be from somebody who sent out his phone for repair at Orange France and got it back from them with Windows Phone 7.5 pre-loaded on it. Well, the first thing I did was to look up the device firmware and strangely this is exactly the same as the official NoDo one that was pushed out back on July 21st:
- Firmware Rev 18.104.22.168
- Hardware Rev 22.214.171.124
- Radio Software 126.96.36.199
- Radio Hardware 0.3.5.0
- Bootloader Ver 188.8.131.52
- Chip SOC 0.30.2.0
So what with have here is essentially a device with the RTM code (which has leaked a little while ago..) running on it. Either LG isn’t going to update it’s Optimus 7 firmware for Mango which I find a bit unlikely given that HTC and Samsung are updating them or Orange’s repair center is having some fun…or this is simply a picture of somebody’s device with the leaked Mango RTM code on it with a nice little story attached to it. You be the judge but we won’t have long to wait given that fall is when all the action begins.
Continue reading Blurry pictures aren’t proof of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango roll out →
Grab some salt and sit tight cause Pocketnow is claiming to have gotten their hands on LG’s upcoming road map which is filled with Android smartphones and one single Windows Phone 7 handset running Mango ; the LG Fantasy. As its usually the case with these kinds of leaks nothing should be taken as a fact until the company officially unveils its plans. What we know for sure though is that LG has a Mango device currently in the making currently named the LG-E906 and this could very well be the LG Fantasy device rendered above which strangely looks like a cousin of the HTC HD2/7.
Continue reading LG Fantasy Mango handset and 6 other Android devices coming this year? →
Several Windows Phone devices have firmware updates now available to instal when the handset is plugged in the the PC. Keep in mind that these will only update the firmware part and not the OS itself. As of right now several models are part of the roll out: the Samsung Omnia 7, HTC Mozart, LG Optimus 7. There nothing to really get excited about here folks and in the case of the Omnia 7 this update doesn’t included the latest bootloader available for the device which can be manually installed here (but it does include the disable capacitive hardware buttons when the screen is touched). As a matter of fact I didn’t even get the update notification at all.
Continue reading Windows Phone 7 device firmware updates being rolled out for Omnia 7, Optimus 7 and others →
With all of the Nokia , HTC and Samsung buzz people tend to forget that LG is still a Windows Phone OEM and that we should expect new Mango devices from the Korean company later this year. The first one seems to be the LG-906 which has been WiFi certified back in May and is known to run Mango thanks to its User Agent xml.
Continue reading LG-E906 Windows Phone 7 Mango handset in the works →
Amazon Wireless is running a promotion ending June 30th on their Windows Pone 7 catalog: If you buy a WP7 handsets between midnight, May 30, 2011, and 11:59 p.m. PDT, June 30, 2011 you will receive a $25 amazon.com Gift card. Four of the seven devices available are only priced at $0.01! Check them out after the break:
Continue reading $25 Amazon Gift Card with Purchase of Windows Phone 7 handset →
The Verizon HTC trophy is now finally available for order on the company’s website alongside the Xperia Play. The HTC Trophy costs $149.99 with a 2 year contract and a free Xbox 360 game (Halo Reach, Kinect Sports or Lode Runner) while the Xperia Play is priced at $199.99 with a 2 year contract and is pre-loadeded with 6 PlayStation certified games: Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Madden NFL 11 from EA, and Crash Bandicoot (hands on video here).
Continue reading Verizon HTC Trophy and Xperia Play available for order →
LG has just announced that it has licensed the ARM Cortex-A9 & Cortex-A15 MPCore processors and Mali T-604 GPU. This most probably means that future LG smartphones,tablets, and other multi-media devices will no longer use third-party SoC’s (nVidia Tegra, TI OMAP etc) but LG’s own chips instead. It the case of windows Phone 7(and future versions of WP) LG will still be obliged to use Qualcomm’s certified SoCs.
LG is now in a situation similar to Samsung: both companies will uses their own SoCs on most of their products and will only have to use competitor chipsts when need it (currently Tegra 2 is the only Honeycomb certified chipset for example). This announcement could also mean that LG uses it’s on SoC in future Windows 8 tablets in the future. Full press release after the break:
Continue reading LG licenses ARM Cortex-A9 ,Cortex-A15 MPCore processors and Mali T-604 GPU →
Here’s a relatively rough estimation of the Windows Phone 7 manufacturers market share and most successful devices based on the handsets running applications using the AdGAC ad control. As you can see above that HTC is the clear leader mainly because of the sheer number of models it currently offers (and HD2′s running WP7 too…). It is followed by Samsung who offers only one model in EU (Omnia 7), one in NA (Focus) and then LG who only offers one model in NA/AUS (Quantum) and one in Europe (Optimus 7).
Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Manufacturer market share estimation →
Microsoft has just officially announced that AT&T’s LG Quantum and Samsung Focus are now scheduled to receive the NoDo update in the coming days. Unfortunately the HTC Surround isn’t invited to the party yet and is still being tested by Microsoft and AT&T. You can read the full explanation on the situation after the break:
Continue reading Official: AT&T Windows Phone 7 devices to receive NoDo fairly soon →
This just came out of nowhere…AT&T and HTC have just announced an updated version of the HTC HD7 (which was only available on the now soon to be defunct T-Mobile US). So, what’s new in the HTC HD7S? Well it will come pre-loaded with the latest NoDo version of Windows Phone 7 and will also feature a 4.3inch Super LCD panel (this is a first as there was no SLCD panels of this size manufactured before). AT&T is also going to carry the LG Optimus 3D which is renamed as the LG Thrill 4G. Check out the full press release after the break:
Continue reading HTC HD7S with Super LCD announced, LG Optimus 3D renamed LG Thrill 4G →


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Cringing video shows Nokia Lumia 900 being used as a hammer
0. phoneArena 18 May 2012, 11:21 posted on
Anyone who has had the misfortunate of witnessing a smartphone glass casualty knows that skin crawling sound of hard earned money going down the drain and the subsequent aggravation that will take place replacing the device...
This is a discussion for a news. To read the whole news, click here


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Our trip to Bolton on Saturday 9 April in Sky Bet League One has sold out to Wednesdayites.
Last week it was announced that the Owls had an allocation of 5,147 for the clash at the University of Bolton Stadium.
Our full allocation has now sold which will make this fixture our biggest away attendance of the campaign.
For this game, please do not email firstname.lastname@example.org for a place on the waiting list.
Any tickets returned will become available to purchase online.


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April Ag Prices Received Index Up 6.9 Percent, Prices Paid Up 0.8 Percent
April Prices Received Index Up 6.9 Percent
The April Prices Received Index 2011 Base (Agricultural Production), at 105.1, increased 6.9 percent from March and 28 percent from April 2020. At 106.1, the Crop Production Index was up 6.8 percent from last month and 23 percent from the previous year. The Livestock Production Index, at 104.3, increased 7.1 percent from March, and 33 percent from April last year. Producers received higher prices during April for broilers, corn, hogs, and cattle but lower prices for market eggs, lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower. In addition to prices, the volume change of commodities marketed also influences the indexes. In April, there was increased monthly movement for strawberries, milk, broilers, and oranges and decreased marketing of corn, soybeans, cattle, and hay.
April Prices Paid Index Up 0.8 Percent
The April Prices Paid Index for Commodities and Services, Interest, Taxes, and Farm Wage Rates (PPITW), at 112.6, is up 0.8 percent from March 2021 and 4.2 percent from April 2020. Higher prices in April for feeder cattle, feed grains, nitrogen, and feeder pigs more than offset lower prices for LP gas, milk cows, supplements, and diesel.


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"News" piece on the Northeast Dairy Compact, a price protection program for New
"News" piece on the Northeast Dairy Compact, a price protection program for New England's dairy farmers that expired last week. The 4-year-old compact was designed as a small farm preservation act. But Maine dairy farms continued to go out of business in spite of the average of $10,000 in income the compact provided to the state's 450 farmers last year. Political observers Dough Hodgkins, a Republican, and William Coogan, a Democrat, doubt that any Maine politician will suffer serious damage because the compact expired. Still, Maine's congressional delegates are trying to get the compact reauthorized as part of the giant Farm Bill due to be considered later this year, which would tie it to price supports for commodities like corn and wheat and garner support from the midwest.
Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact
Burnett, Lee, ""News" piece on the Northeast Dairy Compact, a price protection program for New" (2001). Maine News Index – Maine Times. 5531.


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ARM CTO, Mike Muller, talks about IoT and healthcare
Been waiting a while? Get Flash to see this player.
IoT has many uses, though the most beneficial may be healthcare.
12LP chip uses Arm 3D mesh interconnect tech to boost performance and efficiency.
A new Surface laptop unveiled in autumn will use an AMD Picasso SoC, says report.
Thanks to this commitment, Nvidia will accelerate IBM Power, x86, & Arm architectures.


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Gisela Campagne is the woman behind Wags N’ Wine, a Huntington Beach fundraiser that’s been helping save dogs for years. It brings together many Huntington Beach homeowners’ loves: dogs and wine. An unlikely pairing to be sure, Campagne says the campaign has been an overwhelming success.
After working for the Huntington Beach Planning and Community Services departments for 37 years, Campagne said she decided to put her knowledge and skills in planning events toward a great cause. She adds, “I’ve done a lot of fundraising for the city and event planning. Somehow I was always the party planner wherever I was.”
On June 23, Wags N’ Wine celebrated its fourth annual event. Proceeds benefit the Waggin’ Trails Rescue Foundation, which helps find dogs new homes. Waggin’ Trails transports dogs that are unwanted or slated to be euthanized to reliable rescue shelters across California. The foundation also sends canines to Washington, Oregon, Idaho and even Vancouver.
In its early days, the event took place at a Huntington Beach home with home-cooked pasta dishes and donated wine. Now, over 10 wineries in Napa Valley contribute to the event each year, which took place at the Waterfront Hilton. Featured wineries this year included Rutherford Wine Company, Anantaah, Peju and Charles Krug.
“People come and they have such a good time,” said Campagne. “I think it’s because we offer such an amazing value.” While the event has come and gone this year, Huntington Beach homeowners are encouraged to put it on their radar for 2014. General admission tickets this year were $45, or you could purchase a VIP ticket for $60 leading up to the event. All tickets include unlimited wine tasting and a souvenir wine glass, however, those electing for the VIP ticket received an upgraded glass, a swag bag and access to premium wine tastings.
“I walked door-to-door in Napa Valley just to get this wine donated. I really did,” Campagne said. “I went from one winery to the other and that’s how I got this amazing premium wine donated.”
There are so many reasons to consider becoming a Huntington Beach homeowner! If you would like more information about this amazing seaside community, please contact me. I’d love to show you around!
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A 165-page dossier submitted to the United States Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York may have finally blown the lid off biggest banking fraud in Indian history. The report is prepared by John J. Carney, an examiner appointed by US bankruptcy court for the three US-based jewellery companies owned by PNB fraud accused Nirav Modi.
While the investigations related to Nirav Modi scam are still ongoing in the country, the new report submitted in the US court may bolster India's efforts to attach assets and properties of Nirav Modi and his associates in the US.
After conducting an intensive 120-day investigation, the examiner has found substantial evidence to support the knowledge and involvement by the Nirav Modi's US-based aides namely Mihir Bhansali (CEO of Firestar Diamond International and Fantasy Inc.) and Ajay Gandhi (CFO of all Firestar U.S. entities, including FDI, FI and A. Jaffe) in the PNB fraud.
In February, soon after India's biggest banking scam was unearthed at PNB's Brady House branch in Mumbai, Nirav Modi controlled Firestar Diamond, Inc., Fantasy Inc., A. Jaffe Inc. had filed for bankruptcy in the US.
On April 13, the court appointed the examiner to determine if the three US corporations indirectly owned by Nirav Modi and their officers and directors were involved in the criminal conduct alleged in India. The examiner was assisted by Alvarez & Marsal Disputes and Investigations, led by retired FBI special agent William B. Waldie. Indian forensic auditors BDO India, hired by PNB for internal audit after Nirav Modi scam, had later joined the investigation.
Nirav Modi's US-based companies were in the business of selling finished jewellery to major retailers, including Costco, J.C. Penny, Army/Navy Stores, Macy's and Zales, among others.
The examiner identified tens of millions of dollars of purported diamond sales by the Nirav Modi's US companies to various shadow entities, where payment can be traced to proceeds from the PNB fraud, the report said.
The examiner's investigation further confirmed that criminally derived proceeds from these sales flowed from India into the US and in numerous instances were returned to India or used to fund US operations, including making payments on loans made by banks, it added.
The investigation has also indicated that a large chunk of money was diverted in real estate in US after Nirav Modi left India. The dossier stated that money from shell companies was used to purchase an approximately $6 million apartment on Central Park South for the sole use of Modi and his family in the US.
The investigators interviewed 45 people and analysed 1.8 Terabytes of data recovered from various sources. It concluded that Nirav Modi linked firms (including those in US) were involved in running shell companies, overpricing, round-tripping of diamonds and were beneficiaries of illegal LoUs.
The US investigators have identified more than 20 shadow entities belonging to fugitive Nirav Modi. The report said that "diamonds sold to or purchased from shadow entities were routinely shipped out the same day or within days after arrival, without ever being opened or inspected by employees to ascertain the contents of the packets, in contrast to shipments that were made to or received from non-Shadow Entities."


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The unprecedented circumstances due to the Coronavirus outbreak has pushed many boundaries now. Not to forget the economy is paying its price for the disruption in everything. Keeping this in mind, the Reserve Bank of India has come up with the solution to go easy. This applies both for the borrowers and the lenders. RBI has come up with approval for all Lenders to allow the borrowers 3 months moratorium on loans. This is applicable to all term loans by all lenders.
What 3 months moratorium on loans Mean for borrowers
“All commercial banks, NBFCs (nonbanking finance companies), all-India financial institutions are permitted to grant a moratorium of three months on payment of all instalments falling due between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020,”.Reserve Bank of India told on Friday the 27th Of March 2020
According to State Bank of India (SBI) chairman, Rajnish Kumar. The customers wanting to avail of the benefit will have to opt for it. Note that, this is not provided to all the customers by default. Customers will have to opt for it.
Should you need to avail of this facility brought in by RBI. You will have to reach out to your lender asking for a moratorium as directed. And they should be able to provide you the facility.
According to RBI data at the end of January, banks have an outstanding exposure of Rs 11 lakh crore to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector and Rs 7.37 lakh crore to the NBFC sector. Banks have also lent Rs 3.73 lakh crore to the manufacturing sector, Rs 2.27 lakh crore to the commercial real estate sector, Rs 1.41 lakh crore to the transport sector and over Rs 45,000 crore to the tourism and hotels segment.
A Crisil review of 120 companies in the airline, hotel, tourism, mall, organized brick-and-mortar retail, multiplex and restaurant sectors led to the rating action on 81 companies — 22 were downgraded, 40 saw a downward revision in rating outlook, and the remaining 19 were put on negative rating watch. (The above excerpt was taken from Times of India article on the same topic)
Do not wait and reach out to your lender if you are running any EMI from any lender.
Here are some of the articles you might be interested in:
I am a 31-year-old dude from a lower-middle-class family hailing from a small village Narasinghpur in Cuttack, Odisha, INDIA. I have a post-graduate degree in M.Tech from BITS Pilani. I started blogging back in June 2014. You can check out my journey and all that I have learnt all these years on my website.


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Magnet Forensics Acquires Evidence Software Company DME Forensics in $ 9 Million Deal
Digital investigative software startup Magnet Forensics has acquired U.S. video and multimedia evidence solutions company DME Forensics in a $ 9 million deal.
The purchase marks Magnet Forensics’ first since its IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) in April and the third acquisition overall.
Magnet Forensics acquires DME as part of its US subsidiary. The deal consists of an initial cash consideration of $ 6.75 million, plus a two-year earn-out of $ 2.25 million based on the achievement of certain integration-focused goals. DME employees and management are ready to stay and be a part of Magnet Forensics.
DME is a startup itself, founded in 2012 by Jimmy Schroering, a former forensic examiner for the Audio, Video, and Forensic Image Analysis Unit of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
DME is developing video and multimedia evidence solutions, including one that allows investigators to retrieve video evidence and metadata from digital video recording systems (DVRs) in a “legally reliable manner”. The technology is used by more than 900 public safety organizations in more than 80 countries. Uses of the software cover the investigation of terrorism, civil unrest, homicides, property crimes, child exploitation and other crimes.
The technology complements Magnet Forensics quite well, as the company’s software acquires, analyzes, and shares evidence from computers, smartphones, tablets, and IoT-related devices. Kitchener-Waterloo-based Magnet Forensics said the acquisition allows it to integrate DME’s technological capabilities into its own digital survey solutions. The startup also plans to continue selling DME’s DVR product through its own sales and distribution channels.
“Consolidating video evidence with other types of data is an important part of Magnet Forensics’ vision,” said Adam Belsher, CEO of Magnet Forensics. “We are building a comprehensive, analytics-powered digital investigation platform to help our clients identify and report critical evidence in a timely and accurate manner. DME’s video forensic capabilities further strengthen and expand our platform in this growing segment of digital investigations. “
Founded in 2010, Magnet Forensics is a team that includes a number of former BlackBerry employees, including Belsher who was vice president of Verizon Business within the company. Former BlackBerry CEO Jim Balsillie also sits on the board of Magnet Forensics.
The ten-year-old company has seen notable success to date, with its initial public offering that grossed $ 115 million. Magnet Forensics has seen its share price rise since entering the market at $ 22.50 per share, reaching a high of $ 64.90 at the end of August. Following the announcement of the deal, Magnet Forensics stock price was $ 51.12 at the time of publication.
In its latest quarterly report, the company reported revenues of C $ 20.6 million, an increase of 42% from the previous quarter. At the time, Belsher attributed this growth to the fact that Magnet Forensics continued to gain new customers and grow its existing accounts. “This performance brought our ARR to almost $ 50 million,” said the CEO. “Our pipeline of new opportunities is strong and the new offerings we have launched are gaining ground in the market. “
In early August, Magnet announced a collaboration with the London Metropolitan Police and Microsoft Azure to transform the way law enforcement agencies investigate crimes with relevant digital evidence from smartphones and computers with its software. Magnet Forensics says its products are used by more than 4,000 public and private sector customers in more than 90 countries.


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BOISE, Idaho - Albertson's family of stores and the Coca-Cola Company are honoring the achievements and contributions of African-American entrepreneurs during Black History Month by donating a portion of proceeds from sales of African-American manufactured and distributed products to museums across the country.
"The achievements and examples set by these African-American entrepreneurs give hope to all our children," said Larry Johnston, Albertson's chairman and CEO. "Albertson's raises the bar honoring the entire African-American community by supporting the growth of these businesses and investing in museums that educate us all about African-American history."
Museums benefiting from the donations include Chicago's DuSable Museum of African-American History, Wisconsin Black History Society, the African-American Museum in Philadelphia, Kansas City's Negro Leagues of Baseball Museum, California African-American Museum, African-American Museum & Library at Oakland, and the African-American Museum in Dallas.
The program, which runs throughout the month of February, is supported by Albertson's and Coca-Cola.
"At Coca-Cola we believe in investing in the communities in which we operate," said Brian Pohl, national account executive, Coca-Cola Enterprises. "We are pleased to partner with Albertson's in programs that enhance community values. The Black History Month program is an event that not only supports a worthwhile cause, but celebrates the achievements of African-American entrepreneurs and promotes support among the African-American community."


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Why Facebook’s new Libra cryptocurrency will be a privacy disaster
Facebook has been appearing on this blog with increasing frequency. In one way, that’s natural. A social network, by definition, is about people and their personal information, and so is likely to be of interest to readers of this site. But Facebook is frequently cavalier in how with how it uses that information, despite repeated claims that it values the privacy of its users – hence the numerous posts about its misdeeds.
This post is about an important new Facebook project that is likely to have a major impact on privacy in the online world. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook will be launching its own cryptocurrency, Libra, with roll-out planned for 2020. A useful white paper outlining the main features of the new project has a good definition. Libra is:
A stable currency built on a secure and stable open-source blockchain, backed by a reserve of real assets, and governed by an independent association.
Libra differs from better-known cryptocurrencies in at least two important respects. It is designed to be “stable”: that is, the value of a Libra unit will be kept roughly constant. That’s unlike other cryptocurrencies, which are often launched with the promise or assumption that each unit will gain in value over time. Libra is also radically different in that every unit of Libra is backed by real assets, represented by holdings in other currencies.
Essentially, this means that Libra is designed to be a means of exchange, rather than a speculative instrument. Indeed, its initial use will be to enable safe and very low-cost international transfers of funds. They will typically be sent using the kind of low-end mobile phones that hundreds of millions of people use today. Such remittances are a vital part of many emerging economies, where people who work overseas send back funds to their families at home. The World Bank estimates that annual remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $529 billion in 2018. Currently it is often relatively expensive to send money, particularly for people who do not have bank accounts. A UNESCO report says that on average remittance transaction costs eat up 7% of the sum sent. A secure but simple system based around Libra, with very low transaction costs, could be a real boon for many people around the world.
As the white paper definition quoted above notes, Libra is run by an independent, not-for-profit Libra Association, based in Switzerland. Facebook is just one member of the governing Libra Association Council. Other big names that have already joined include payment companies like Mastercard, PayPal, PayU, Stripe and Visa, online service companies like Booking, eBay, Farfetch, Lyft, Spotify and Uber, and non-profits. Each member of the Council has one vote, and operates one of the nodes of the Libra network that defines the public blockchain record. Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Libra is a permissioned network, where only authorized nodes can participate. Transactions are pseudonymous, not anonymous, and are potentially vulnerable to government demands for details about who sent funds to whom, and when. There are vague plans to move to a fully decentralized, permissionless network, although this raises questions about whether it could cope with the scale that is envisaged for the Libra system.
Libra was designed by Facebook, but the company has gone out of its way to relinquish direct control, using an open-source design, and the independent Libra Association, which controls the cryptocurrency, the currency reserves and infrastructure. This is a shrewd move. As well as helping somewhat to assuage fears that Facebook will be controlling a globe-spanning cryptocurrency, making Libra open will encourage other major players to adopt it, and speed its uptake. But there is another element of the Libra cryptocurrency network that Facebook does control: Calibra. A Facebook press release explains:
Today we’re sharing plans for Calibra, a newly formed Facebook subsidiary whose goal is to provide financial services that will let people access and participate in the Libra network. The first product Calibra will introduce is a digital wallet for Libra, a new global currency powered by blockchain technology. The wallet will be available in Messenger, WhatsApp and as a standalone app – and we expect to launch in 2020.
As that notes, a Libra digital wallet will be built in to Messenger and WhatsApp. This will allow funds to be sent effortlessly to family and friends using those services. But the key phrase there is “a newly formed Facebook subsidiary whose goal is to provide financial services”. Calibra seems to be the start of Facebook’s long-awaited move into e-commerce that Privacy News Online has discussed before. A core requirement for e-commerce is a trustworthy and easy-to-use online payment system, which is precisely what Libra will provide.
With these announcements, we can begin to see how Facebook hopes to emulate the Chinese social media leader Tencent, and become not just an e-commerce giant, but the very foundation for most everyday e-commerce transactions online, at least in the West.
Libra will begin as a remittance service. Once it has been established that the basic system works well for these kind of “pure” financial transactions, and the user base builds up, companies will start to let customers use Libra to pay for goods and services, along the lines of PayPal. Facebook will doubtless extend the use of digital wallet to the main, public-facing Facebook service. Doing so would mean that companies will be able to sell directly to Facebook users, who can pay for things simply by clicking on a “buy now” button. The money will flow invisibly from the Calibra wallet to the vendor, and goods can be shipped to a default address, or elsewhere.
The question then becomes: what about all the personal data that this generates? Facebook explicitly states: “Calibra customers’ account information and financial data will not be used to improve ad targeting on the Facebook family of products”. However, a Calibra white paper on “customer commitment” reveals:
Calibra will use Facebook, Inc. data to comply with the law, secure customers’ accounts, mitigate risk, and prevent criminal activity. Beyond these cases, if a Calibra product feature can be personalized or improved with data from Facebook, we will first obtain customers’ consent to share the relevant data with Calibra.
For example, people may choose to import their Facebook friend list into Calibra to make sending money easier. This import will not be automatic – we will obtain in-product customer consent.
This is where things start to get murky. As we already know from past experience, not least with the GDPR, when an annoying pop-up appears asking a user for “consent”, most people just click on “yes” without bothering to see what exactly they are agreeing to. And Facebook may not even need to ask permission to glean important information about buying habits. If purchases via Libra take place on the Facebook site, or on a third-party site with Facebook tracking, then the company already knows exactly which products people are looking at. If they go on to buy something using the Libra currency, the mere fact that a payment has been made on that particular product page tells Facebook everything it needs to know about the transaction. It could then add this information to its main user database without breaking its promise not to draw directly on customer data held by Calibra.
There’s another troubling possibility. As the white paper explains:
Essential to the spirit of Libra, in both its permissioned and permissionless state, the Libra Blockchain will be open to everyone: any consumer, developer, or business can use the Libra network, build products on top of it, and add value through their services.
Calibra’s head of product Kevin Weil told TechCrunch: “There are no plans for the Libra Association to take a role in actively vetting [developers]”. This is the same recipe for disaster that produced the Cambridge Analytica fiasco. With Libra, it will not only be highly-sensitive personal information that is obtained, but possibly Libra holdings too. Ironically, the stronger and better-known the Libra brand becomes, the more likely it is that naive users will assume that any product using it is safe – and the more likely that fraudsters will rush to exploit that.
Although the idea of a very low-cost remittance system is welcome, the more complex applications of the Libra cryptocurrency are unlikely to be so readily accepted. Already, a host of regulatory issues have been raised in the US and in the EU. Many people are naturally alarmed by the prospect of Facebook extending its power even further by becoming one of the world’s main e-commerce platforms – perhaps as dominant in the West as the ubiquitous WeChat is in China. Now would be a good time to worry seriously about the harms that Libra is likely to cause to online privacy, and to try to minimize them before it is too late.
Featured image by Libra Association.


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After New Zealand made the controversial decision to (almost) kill off software patents on Wednesday, experts have expressed doubt at the bill's validity; they question how best it can be enforced.
...of fabulous flagships, Xbox excitement and Microsoft's mobile meltdown
Catch up on what's new in the Windows Store
windows store weekly
Microsoft's future phones to target businesses in just 18 'core markets'
Amazon Kindle Oasis 3G: the best Kindle that $360 can buy
Your handy guide to all the phones + tablets running Windows 10 Mobile
windows 10 mobile
A Mexican court has fined Yahoo $2.7 billion dollars over an apparent breach of a contract that seems to date back to 2003. The search giant obviously intends to challenge the decision made.
Microsoft has updated its Terms of Service further, clarifying the usage of their services and what you can do. It might be one of 2012's only pieces of tech-related legalese not used in a lawsuit.
A class-action lawsuit has beaten Facebook into allowing users to opt out of Sponsored Stories, and could also cause significant financial ramifications for the site as well.


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Even though I do not use the music app I thought I would share…..
Built in secrecy and released in a high-profile swirl of hype just under a year ago, Twitter (s twtr) is finally pulling the plug on it’s #music app. According to a tweet from the company, #music’s iPhone app (s aapl) has been deleted from iTunes as of Friday, and the service will cease on April 18 — coincidentally, the day the service was first announced.
Twitter #music was meant to be Twitter’s foray into “music sharing,” intimately working with engineers from Rdio and Spotify to create an extra social layer for streaming music services. The company had acquired music ranking service We Are Hunted to build #music months before it debuted in mid-April of last year.
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|Fiction: the great escape|
|Written by Staff|
|Monday, 08 June 2009 01:01 PM America/New_York|
Growing category is a bright spot fornewcomers, fueled by ‘hunger for hope’
Defying current sales trends, Christian fiction continues to grow, offering a bright spot for retailers, publishers and readers in a bleak economy.
In the midst of the economic recession, some publishers are targeting growth while others are launching new fiction lines for the first time.
Although some have suggested that even flat sales are good in the current economy, considering a February Association of American Publishers (AAP) report of a 19% drop in religious books for the month, news of growth is even better.
“From the news, the trend is now saying that flat is the new good,” said Allen Arnold, senior vice president and publisher, fiction for Thomas Nelson. “(The reports indicate) if you’re flat, be thankful you’re not negative, but we have not seen that in the fiction area at Nelson.”
In fact, Arnold said the category has seen double-digit growth this year versus 2008, translating to “millions in revenue.” Weeks into the new fiscal year, the company is “projecting aggressive growth” for the next year, which includes summer releases from Ted Dekker, Colleen Coble, T.L. Hines and Eric Wilson.
“No publishing group is bulletproof, but fiction that offers hope is one of the best places to be right now,” Arnold said.
On his blog, leading agent Chip MacGregor recently acknowledged the “crazy” surge in sales of fiction for the last four to five years, but also said he believed current sales were slowing down.
“My guess is that we’ll still see some growth in fiction, but it will be moving much more slowly as the various houses shake out what’s working and who is selling,” he wrote.
As those houses find out what’s selling, others are finding success with their first entries in the category.
Carlton Garborg, president of Summerside Press, found a “market extremely welcoming to inspirational fiction” when his company launched the new fiction line “Love Finds You” last fall. Pre-sales were “quite encouraging,” and the company has been doing large print runs to keep up with demand, he said.
Elsewhere, United Methodist Church-based Abingdon Press is taking the fiction plunge this summer with its new line of inspirational novels. The company will release The Call of Zulina by Kay Marshall Strom, Surrender the Wind by Rita Gerlach and Gone to Green by Judy Christie in August, with other new releases coming the following months.
Paul Franklyn, executive director of new business development for the company, said the new titles had generated “even higher interest than expected.”
“Booksellers seem eager to sell more fiction at a time when most inventories are cutting back,” he said. “The best is yet to come.”
Nordskog Publishing, which began its venture in Christian publishing in 2006, is launching a new fiction imprint. Noble Novels made its debut last month with West Overseas by Lars Walker, a story about the Vikings during the time of a massive conversion to Christianity in Norway.
If fiction is bucking the trend of declining sales, some say it’s because the category offers hope and an escape from life’s difficulties.
Shannon Marchese, senior editor, fiction for The WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, sees a parallel between fiction’s popularity during the current recession and previous economic troughs.
“Historically speaking, novels have been an affordable means of entertainment and ‘escape,’ so to speak,” she said. “The Wizard of Oz is one of the best examples, in both book and film form, of a very popular choice, written during an economic shift and attracting fans during the Great Depression. (In) an environment where it’s difficult to turn on the news, I believe fiction that offers a different view of the world, like fantastical or allegorical stories or some of the sub-genres, with embedded truth will draw an audience looking for a good story and a bright spot.”
Marchese said even though readers are responding to fiction titles, she cautioned that publishing shouldn’t be “reactionary” and “dogging that interest with a flood of product for a particular reader.”
Karen Watson, acquisitions director for Tyndale House Publishers, agreed that fiction titles tend to surge during “times of stress,” adding that the genres that are selling well include suspense, romantic suspense, historical and general fiction for women from authors like Jason Elam, Joel C. Rosenberg, Angela Hunt, Susan May Warren and Randy Singer.
Francine Rivers’ “Mark of the Lion” backlist series is also experiencing a “whole new audience,” Watson said.
“I think this shows that in times of stress, readers often go back to books that have strongly impacted them in the past,” she added.
Barbour Publishing’s fiction category is “strong,” Publicist Angie Brillhart told Christian Retailing. Summer titles from the publisher include Montana Rose by Mary Connealy, Menu for Romance by Kaye Dacus and The Blue Enchantress by M.L. Tyndall.
“We’re booking new contracts and looking forward to promoting some new authors in the coming year,” Brillhart said. “I know it’s rough out there in the economy, but I think people are still enjoying finding entertainment in books.”
Karen Campbell, director of public relations for Zondervan, referenced the popularity of titles from Terri Blackstock and Karen Kingsbury, and said: “I definitely can see where people would turn to Christian fiction as a form of entertainment and escape.”
Recent and upcoming titles from Zondervan include Kingsbury’s Take Two, Robin Lee Hatcher’s A Vote of Confidence, Robin Jones Gunn’s Coming Attractions and Amy Clipston’s A Gift of Grace.
Debbie Marrie, editor for the Realms fiction imprint of Strang Book Group, also reported interest on the company’s spring and summer releases, including The Deliverer by Linda Rios Brook, The Y Factor by Liam Roberts, Mohamed’s Moon by Keith Clemons and The Firstborn by Conlan Brown.
“We’re thrilled to see several of our books in the suspense/thriller genre starting to take off and exceed our sales expectations,” Marrie said.
Contemporary, thrillers and suspense are hot genres for David C. Cook, said Don Pape, publisher. He echoed the comments of fiction’s role in supplying hope, although he said he did not believe that was limited only to the hard times and noted that he had seen “no tangible proof” of a surge in sales of his titles.
“I am not sure that readers turn to fiction because of tough times,” he said. “I think people turn to fiction to go (to) another place, and that can be in good times and bad.”
New fiction titles from Cook include Lisa T. Bergren’s Breathe, Tom Davis’ Scared and Bonnie Grove’s Talking to the Dead.
Summerside’s Garborg believes the fiction trend could be due in part to readers using paperbacks as an inexpensive way to explore the world. In his company’s “Love Finds You” series, authors like Melody Carlson, with her forthcoming release Love Finds You in Sisters, Oregon, use real towns for romantic settings.
“It could be that in an economy where people are more careful about how they invest their hard-earned dollars, they have rediscovered the power of quality fiction to transport them to other times and places,” Garborg said. “We’re really offering exciting vacations between two covers.”
ROOM TO GROW
Even if Christian fiction is selling well, Christian retailers have to ensure that their customers are aware of the latest and best-selling titles.
According to a recent statistic reported by Kelly Gallagher of RR Bowker during the April Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) Executive Leadership Summit, Christian book titles comprise only 41% of “active” Christians’ book purchases. So retailers have a wide open market to reach the other 59% of their purchases.
“If I were in a store today, I would be positioning fiction as hope-filled entertainment,” Arnold said. “I’ve heard many people say that lately they’ve quit watching the news or reading newspapers. What they’re really saying is they need hope.”
Meeting that desire is even considered in cover design. During the design process for Robert Whitlow’s Higher Hope, Arnold went back to the artist to lighten what appeared to be a darkened sky in the design. Also, Lis Wiehl’s Face of Betrayal had a last-minute face-lift to brighten its coloring.
“These are subtle changes, nuances,” Arnold said. “We’re trying to speak to the need in the marketplace. I think Christian fiction is uniquely positioned to do that.”
At retail, Arnold said a good idea would be for stores to gather eight to 10 new and best-selling novels in a prominent place in the store for $9.99 each.
“For $10, readers can walk out with a story of hope that will carry them through the next week,” he said. “So much entertainment is dark, so I would position for customers: ‘Here’s a way to put hope in your life.’ In Christian novels, every novel does that, where in the general market, you have to cherry-pick.”
Marchese also believes “expendable dollars” are being watched carefully by consumers and noted several WaterBrook Multnomah titles releasing this summer at low price points. They include full-length historical romances by authors like Angela Hunt, Lisa T. Bergren and Jane Kirkpatrick for under $7, and Shepherd’s Fall, a recent bounty hunter novel by W.L. Dyson, priced at $9.99.
Another potential market includes fiction for men, according to Gallagher, who also presented demographic research at CBA’s Industry Conference early this year. In the general market, women accounted for 68% of fiction sales, while in the Christian retail market, they made 89% of such purchases.
“Where are we with fiction for men?” Gallagher asked industry leaders at the ECPA meeting. “Are you making your fiction section so focused on one segment that you’re missing out on another?”
Gallagher also pointed out survey findings that the No. 1 series for Christian customers is Harlequin romances, followed by Steeple Hill, Harlequin’s Christian retail imprint.
“Do you want to start publishing Harlequin romance?” he asked. “No. But readers of secular material—what are you doing to engender them to better alternatives? To move them into a different point of opportunity and enlightenment?”
In recent months, some Christian fiction has received favorable mainstream media exposure.
Novelist Ted Dekker, who released The BoneMan’s Daughters (Center Street) in April and will release Green (Thomas Nelson), the newest in “The Circle” series, in September, was profiled in a story on CNN.com. The article noted Dekker’s sales of more than 3 million units and his unique spot nestled in between Christian and horror audiences.
Also in April, in an article titled “Amish Fiction: No Bonnet Rippers,” Time magazine spotlighted the popular genre and authors like Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall and Wanda E. Brunstetter.
“Lewis’ G-rated books, set among the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, have sold more than 12 million copies, as bodice rippers make room for ‘bonnet books,’ chaste romances that chronicle the lives and loves of America’s Amish,” Andrea Sachs noted in the article.


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NEW YORK – Verizon Communications has sold $49 billion in bonds, the largest corporate bond sale in history.
The sale dwarfs the previous record, Apple’s sale of $17 billion in bonds in April.
The mammoth bond sale goes with a mammoth deal. Proceeds from the sale on Wednesday will help Verizon buy the rest of its U.S. wireless business from partner Vodafone. That $130 billion deal is expected to rank as the second-largest on record when completed. Verizon will use cash and stock for remainder of the buyout.
Verizon had to pay a hefty price to investors. It priced $11 billion-worth of 10-year notes at a yield of 5.19 percent, according to a deal document obtained by The Associated Press. That is well above the 4.51 percent yield for similar Verizon bonds.


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A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
Gaming is already wildly popular. A recent spate of deals with Google, Disney, and Gamestop, suggest that social games have the promise to be wildly profitable, too.
by Patricia Sellers and JP Mangalindan FarmVille. Mafia Wars. Pet Society. With their collective userbases numbering in the hundreds of millions, social gaming is as ubiquitous and mainstream as primetime TV programming.
But for years that wasn't the case -- skeptics disregarded social games, MOREJul 29, 2010 10:13 AM ET
|American Airlines, US Airways to form largest air carrier Monday|
|'Volcker rule' finally at finish line|
|2 million Facebook, Gmail and Twitter passwords stolen in massive hack|
|Boost for trade as global deal struck|
|Where should you put your money now?|


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HTC is “spreading” it’s top devices to multiple carriers in the U.S. After Verizon Wireless got hold of one of the best mobile devices for this year – the HTC Droid DNA, it looks like AT&T is also getting the Taiwanese manufacturer’s attention, with one of their latest devices expected to be available starting this month.
The HTC One VX is one of the manufacturers most recent devices that, while not on par with the Droid DNA for Verizon, is still to be considered a mid-high end device. Powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, clocked at 1.5 Ghz and with a screen resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, for its 4.5-inches display, the device has just about the same specs as the “older” model announced at MWC this year – the HTC One S.
Other features of the One VX’s configuration are the Adreno 305 GPU, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of on-board storage, expandable via MicroSD card slot and a Gorilla Glass protected front side. Conectivity features include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, GPS and HSDPA, 42.2 Mbps. There is a 5 MP camera on the back, complete with the latest features, like capturing photos while recording videos up to 1080p. The device will be available from AT&T for $49.99 with a two-year contract starting this month (December) including 4G LTE.


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I stumbled across this article and thought it was interesting because allegations are being made against Apple by the EU as to whether their so called “agency agreements” can be considered monopolistic. In 2010, Apple started encouraging agency agreements which allow publishers to set the price at which online bookshops sell e-books to consumers. Before then, publishers sold e-books at wholesale, and the retailers were able to set the price at which they wished to resell the e-books.
The investigation also alleges that Amazon was forced to abandon its discount pricing model and adopt this agency model as well in order for its’ Kindle to better compete with Apple’s iPad. Many believe that Apple purposely did this because they feared the competition with Amazon and wished to neutralize the e-book market by imposing the agency agreement on publishers. What do you think? Is this an issue that can be considered a violation of antitrust legislation?


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The community has quickly realized that this leak smacks of hoax.
The fan community is eager for Rockstar Games to finally show the first trailer for GTA VI and give it a release date at once, so much so that in the absence of news, they make it up. In the last few hours, the alleged existence of a leaked GTA VI trailer from the Rockstar channelbut everything indicates that it is a montage.
The only thing that is known about GTA VI officially is which is just in development, so still it could be several years before you see it on store shelves. There are those who want to take advantage of this expectation and pull leaks of all kinds out of their sleeves, like this alleged leaked trailer that quickly it can be verified that it is false.
This leak shared on Twitter by GTA 6 News & Leaks shows screenshots of an alleged GTA VI trailer on Youtube that was blocked and unpublished on the Rockstar channel. It would not be the first time that things have been leaked thanks to YouTube, but quickly this hoax has begun to spread through the network when it is more than evident that it is a hoax.
GTA VI’s 1 min 53s trailer is up on R*’s YT channel. Apparently. Obviously it’s hidden and locked. I typed in the link and the onscreen message says ‘This video isn’t available anymore’. #GRAINOFSALT #COULDBEFAKE #COULDBEREAL #INSPECTELEMENT #ISABANNEDWORD #GTA6 pic.twitter.com/kOvXFUVbra
— GTA 6 NEWS & LEAKS (@NEWSLEAKSGTAS) June 30, 2022
First of all, the name of the video draws attention: “Grand Theft Auto VI — Trailer”. No one at Rockstar would title the video like that, whether it was going to come out tomorrow or trying to keep it under wraps. Second, in the first screenshot, you can see the american age rating agency logo, who would have given it an “M” for mature, but this wouldn’t be possible if the game wasn’t already very close to hitting stores. It is one of the last steps of development of a game, a far cry from the state Rockstar’s game would currently be in.
Possible release date of GTA VI
According to the latest rumors, GTA VI is having a turbulent development, although it would continue planned for 2024-2025. With so much margin it is hard to believe that Rockstar already has a trailer prepared, much less that he has left it hidden on his YouTube channel for someone to leak it. We will have to continue waiting for official news.
Related topics: rock star
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Dig if you will, the picture… of these shelter dogs dressed up in honor of Prince.
The Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter in Valley View, Ohio, recently paid homage to the late musician (and it is still so weird to refer to Prince as “the late” anything) with this fashion-forward photo shoot.
The dogs dressed as “Purple Rain”-era Prince, with purple suit jackets, ruffled shirts and flowing curls. Each one of them looks like they’re ready to grab Apollonia and purify themselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka — or, at the very least, they’re ready purify themselves in their water bowls.
“[Nesquick] thinks she’s Got the Look!” the shelter wrote on Facebook. “Rosie is a huge Prince fan and celebrated by singing us her favorite song, “Kiss!” Lisa is a spunky gal and since she couldn’t find her Raspberry Beret, she ended up in the same outfit as all the others. Last, but certainly not least, Lady Bug, rocked this look like it was 1999.”
Nothing Compares 2 Prince, but these dogs (and their fashion consultants at the shelter) have created a fantastic tribute. Lady Bug has already been adopted, according to the shelter. Now the rest just need to find their forever homes, with or without a little red Corvette in the driveway.


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Sviaz-Bank Opens Credit Line of 300 mn Rubles to INGEOCOM KRK
OREANDA-NEWS. May 30, 2013. Sviaz-Bank has started disbursement of funds to INGEOCOM KRK CJSC under a free drawdown nonrevolving credit line of 300 million rubles it has opened to the company.
The first tranche of 132 million rubles has already been issued to increase the company’s working capital.
INGEOCOM KRK manages real estate and owns 75,898.3 square meters of nonresidential space in the building of the ATRIUM shopping and recreational center in Moscow.


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Earlier this month, commissioners in Josephine and Jackson counties declared a state of emergency under a new Oregon law to stop state regulators from issuing new licenses to grow hemp in their counties. State lawmakers passed House Bill 3000 last summer to tighten testing regulations on the hemp industry and boost enforcement activity against marijuana being grown illegally on licensed hemp farms.
The heightened scrutiny of their industry has made some legitimate hemp farmers concerned about the future of hemp in Oregon.
“There’s a pretty deep chill in the market right now,” said Mason Walker, the CEO and co-owner of East Fork Cultivars, which grows nine acres of hemp and one acre of marijuana in Josephine County.
“We shrunk from about 60,000 acres in Oregon planted in 2019 to about 7,000 last year, so it’s been a pretty precipitous fall,” he added.
The glut of production has also had a negative effect on the price farmers can demand for hemp on the agricultural commodities market, according to Walker.
Paul Murdoch, a hemp farmer and the CEO of Horn Creek Hemp, a 17-acre hemp farm in Jackson County, has also witnessed the effects of a Gold Rush-like mentality take hold in Southern Oregon among novice growers.
“There were countless farms coming in, amazingly enough, without any agricultural experience,” Murdoch said. “They were overly optimistic, thinking they would grow 50 or 100 or 500 acres,” he added. “Those folks had a hard reality check.”
Although hemp can be used for an array of commercial applications, including textiles, food products and biofuels, it is primarily being grown in Oregon to produce CBD extract.
CBD is a compound extracted from hemp flowers that is being added to topical creams, beverages and other products marketed to consumers despite a lack of approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Regulatory uncertainty at both the state and federal level concerns entrepreneurs like Walker and Murdoch who are keen to expand into a growing domestic market for hemp that was worth more than $820 million last year.
“Uncertainty is really difficult for businesses and we have a lot of uncertainty in this market still, even though we’re five years into the federally legal market for hemp,” Walker said.
To hear more from Think Out Loud’s conversation with Mason Walker and Paul Murdoch, click the “play” button at the top of the page.


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First Financial FCU Brand Breathes New Life Into Former Mon-Oc FCU
WALL, N.J. -- After 70 years, Mon-Oc Federal Credit Union has shed its name and revitalized its brand with the new name First Financial Federal Credit Union to help consumers get a fresh perspective on credit unions.
After talks with different people in the community First Financial FCU President/CEO Issa E. Stephan quickly realized a change was needed.
"Many people recognized the name but they had no idea what we do," said Stephan. "I was surprised by how many nonmembers thought we were part of the labor union movement rather than a financial institution."
Turning to The Woodlands, Texas-based marketing firm D. Hilton Associates for help, research focus groups of members and nonmembers alike further revealed that the Mon-Oc name just wasn't effectively delivering the credit union's service promise commitment of making members its first priority.
"We kept the name simple and we are excited to offer a consumer focused alternative to traditional banking institutions and giving each member our personal best every day," said Stephan. "Our new name, First Financial, reflects not only that we are in fact a financial institution but also the philosophy we're grounded on as well as our vision of the future."
The credit union is striving to deliver on that personal best promise by reexamining everything from products and services to training, branch environments and processes.
"Focusing on the member and progress are not mutually exclusive, after all members are why we exist," said Stephan. "Being more member focused does not take away the need to grow and be proactive, rather it gives us a direction and we won't lose our way."
To promote the new name First Financial has increased its marketing budget from $500,000 to $730,000 and is running a media blitz that includes billboards, newspaper and bus advertisements and direct mail campaigns. In addition, the credit union had a promotion offering a 7-month CD at a 7% interest rate and is giving members the chance to win a 2006 Honda Accord. All members are eligible and a drawing will be held on December 20 to name the winner.
So far Stephan says the reaction has been positive. The promotions garnered 1,600 new members in just three weeks and the credit union has drawn the attention of local press. It was recently featured on the front page of the business section of the Asbury Park Press with a huge circulation in both counties it serves, says Stephan.
"You couldn't pay for such coverage," said Stephan. "Spreading the word is something that takes time and this change is more than just a name but a new culture, a lifestyle that has to be sustained for years to come to be successful. So we are taking small focused steps."
One of those steps is providing employees with the tools they need to deliver their personal best. In addition to training or a physical change in the branch environment, there is also an incentive to be caught delivering on the brand promise. Members are periodically surveyed about service and specifically asked if an employee has offered their personal best. Those singled out by members are provided rewards ranging from cash and gift cards to days off.
"We are lucky because the member focus was nothing new for our employees. They've been successfully doing it for many years," said Stephan. "Now we are giving them what it takes to narrow the gap from the strategic planning to execution." --firstname.lastname@example.org


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H3 Models released new 3D printed figures across several different scales.
Evolution Miniatures released a new set of figures.
The latest release from Dynamo Models features figures in relaxed poses. Available as a set or as individual kits, these figures are offered in 1/35, 1/16, 1/48 and 1/72 scales.
New MiniArt kit is coming soon, 1/72 scale #72105 StuG III Ausf. G March 1943 Prod.
A new kit from Rye Field is announced.
Rye Field shows the boxart for their upcoming Leo kit.
16.02 has released its 3D-printed kit in 1/16 scale.
New 1/35 scale 3D-printed head sets from FC Model Trend.
New M15 "Special" 40mm CGMC from AFV Club
Faustus Models Commercial Licenses
New MiniArt kit is coming soon, 1/35 scale #35436 G-518 US 1t Cargo Trailer "Ben Hur"
New MiniArt kit is coming soon, 1/35 scale #38084 Refugees. Musician Family
Lanmo Model presents two new Sherman Deep Wading Kits
A review of Panzerwrecks latest volume, the fourth on Normandy.


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With the secondary device market growing in 2020, hinting of declines ahead for new product sales, the smartphone market hit choppy waters last year, but it would appear that it entered calmer waters in the fourth quarter of the year, leading to the industry steaming.
Research from IDC, Omdia and Canalys shows that the smartphone market has bounced back to strong growth, driven mainly by the introduction of the 5G-capable iPhone 12, which in turn led to Apple delivering record revenues in its first fiscal quarter ended 26 December 2020.
According to preliminary data from IDC’s Worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker, the worldwide smartphone market continued to improve in the holiday quarter of 2020, returning to familiar territory with 4.3% year-over-year growth.
The analyst calculated that smartphone suppliers shipped a total of 385.9 million devices during the quarter. While the full year 2020 declined by 5.9% compared with 2019, the study described progress towards market recovery as impressive and predicted the momentum heading into 2021 would remain strong.
“There are a lot of elements at play that are fuelling the smartphone market recovery – pent-up demand, continued supply push on 5G, aggressive promotions and the popularity of low to mid-priced phones,” said IDC research director Nabila Popal, explaining the dynamics in the quarter.
“Vendors also seem to be better prepared for the second lockdown, ensuring they have the right channel set up ready to fulfil orders and reach the end consumer. Lockdowns also have people spending less on areas like leisure, travel and dining out – and smartphones are benefiting from this. In addition to all these factors, the fast recovery and resilience of the smartphone supply chain also has to be given some credit.”
Popal described Apple’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2020 as phenomenal, returning to the number one position with 90.1 million devices shipped, driven by the success of the iPhone 12 series. Indeed, as it reported its financial performance for the three-month period to 26 December 2020, the consumer electronics giant announced revenues totalling $111.439bn, up 21.36% compared with the same time a year ago. The driving force of the revenue surge was the iPhone with $65.597bn in revenues, an increase of 17.22%. Net income for the quarter was $28.755bn. a rise of 29.31% on an annual basis.
According to analyst Omdia’s latest smartphone tracker, the global smartphone market ended 2020 with 4.7% year-over-year growth in the final quarter, compared with the same period in 2019. Global shipments reached 381.1 million units in the quarter – up from 364 million units in the same quarter in 2019. Quarter-on-quarter, shipments increased by 6.7% from 357.3 million units in the third quarter of 2020.
Omdia’s report showed Apple as the leading manufacturer in the fourth quarter of 2020, shipping 84.5 million units, up 20.5% annually, and 204 million units for the year, 4.6% more than a year ago. By contrast, in second spot was Samsung, shipping 62.2 million units, down 11.1% compared with the final quarter of 2019. Samsung’s annual shipments reached 257 million units, the lowest volume since 2013. Omdia said the pandemic had had a significant impact on Samsung in the first two quarters of the year.
For its part, Canalys calculated that in the fourth quarter of 2020, worldwide smartphone shipments reached 359.6 million units, a small decline of 2% year-on-year. It said Apple shipped the highest number of iPhones ever in a single quarter, at 81.8 million units, up by 4% against the previous year. Samsung took second place, shipping 62 million units for a 12% decline.
Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo completed the top five, with each seeing share gains from Huawei, including the Honor business line. Xiaomi grew by 31% to 43.4 million units, Oppo grew by 15% to 34.7 million units, while Vivo shipped 32.1 million units for 14% growth.
Huawei came in sixth place, with 32 million smartphones shipped. This marked the first time in six years that it fell outside the global top five smartphone suppliers.
For the full year of 2020, Canalys placed Samsung in the global leader position, with 20% global market share, while Apple came in second place and Huawei remained in the top three.
Read more about smartphones
- Research shows refurbished and used devices continue to provide cost-effective alternatives for businesses looking to save money when buying a smartphone.
- Analyst reports indicate the smartphone market is leaving its deep pandemic funk as consumer spending on electronics rises and Chinese manufacturing returns to normal.
- Arrival of 5G-enabled iPhones to push worldwide 5G connections to 3.6 billion by 2025.


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MEXICO: Hyundai's `Atoz' to Be Sold in Mexico Via DaimlerChrysler
An agreement will be finalised between Hyundai and the DaimlerChrysler affiliate in Mexico by the end of the month for the sale of 35,000 cars in Mexico per year, a Hyundai official said yesterday.
The agreement is the first tangible development from the recently-forged strategic tie-up between Hyundai and DaimlerChrysler.
The Mexican auto market is estimated at 1.65 million units per year, with DaimlerChrysler taking the lead in market share with 23 percent.
The Mexican government only allows foreign car makers to export finished cars to Mexico if they build production lines there.
Previously, Korean manufacturers were ineligible, but through DaimlerChrysler Hyundai will be able to get around the restriction.


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Meg Schneider is a junior at Penn majoring in Environmental Studies, with a concentration in Sustainability and Environmental Management. She is currently researching behavioral solutions to environmental problems with Professor Dana of Penn Psychology for her thesis.
It’s all about incentives, said Rubicon Global‘s founder Nate Morris at IGEL’s Greening the Supply Chain conference. He said his company’s incentives are aligned with their clients, as they own no landfills or trucks themselves. In Nate’s words, “we make money off the savings we find [in our clients’ waste streams], unlike other ‘big guys’”. When first getting into the end-of-lifecycle business, Morris described how archaic the garbage disposal infrastructure is, with fax machines and costly paper invoices. Rubicon has used technology to create a niche streamlining sustainable processes for companies, which has gained it operations in over 50 states in just under 5 years.
Critics may say that their business will only last until waste-processors catch up to 21st century technology. To that point, Morris discussed other unique opportunities his company has created. In one particular example, Wegmans’, a fine goods supermarket store, had thousands of old uniforms that it did not want to dispose of in a landfill, or be processed into other materials, due to branding. Rubicon was able to find a pet cushion supplier that was able to recycle and reuse the materials, creating a win/win/win scenario for Wegmans’, the supplier, and Rubicon. With its unique positioning without assets, Rubicon will be well poised to face the future.
Overall, Morris’ talk and the success of Rubicon have clearly demonstrated that there still exists a large amount of low-hanging fruit for sustainability professionals and investors. While consumer goods and energy suppliers are often, rightly, lauded for their contributions, Rubicon has shown sustainability can be incorporated in a wide range of industries.


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Pioneer in AI-driven freight procurement technology announces the addition of George Belle as Head of Solutions Engineering to its rapidly growing executive team
CHICAGO (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 15, 2021
Sleek Technologies, a technology data company, and leader in AI-driven freight procurement software, today announced the hiring of George Belle as Head of Solutions Engineering. With over two decades of experience in computer engineering, product marketing and sales, Belle will serve as a key figure to advance the development of Sleek Technologies’s solution suite for shippers and carriers.
“George is one of the brightest talents in the logistics technology space today,” said Mike Nervick, CEO and Co-Founder of Sleek Technologies. “His background in product development and engineering will be a key asset in helping Sleek Technologies build on its already impressive growth trajectory and will help the company continue to break new ground in delivering disruptive SaaS solutions that advance the critical freight procurement process.”
Prior to joining Sleek Technologies, Belle served in multiple strategy roles at Navis, where he successfully directed the company’s Mixed Cargo and Intermodal Rail Terminal Operating System product lines. “I’m thrilled to join the Sleek Technologies team,” says Belle. “Sleek is building exciting technology to provide data-driven insight into freight procurement, and I’m excited to use my experience in software and logistics to help expand these capabilities even further.”
Belle’s hiring signals another important step in the expansion of the Sleek Technologies executive team and represents the third senior executive hire in the last 18 months — alongside other tech-related veterans Mike Edwards (Sales) and Jaimie Kowalski (Marketing).
“At Sleek Technologies, we are always looking for ways to bring better results and experiences to our SaaS customers,” said Nervick. “And through the additions of George, Mike and Jaimie, we strongly believe that we have the talent and expertise in place to help us continue towards our goal of being the most innovative technology and data player in freight procurement today.”
For more information about Sleek Technologies please visit: http://www.sleek-technologies.com.
About Sleek Technologies
Sleek Technologies has optimized the critical freight procurement process for manufacturers, retailers, and distributors resulting in reduced cost, stronger performance, and more data. With Sleek Technologies, machine learning dynamically sources compliant, asset-based capacity to improve key customer metrics such as tender acceptance, OTD, and OTIF to lower cost of goods sold. Configuration tools adjust pricing and automate the bidding process. The real-time dashboard provides 100% data transparency so customers can make data-driven freight procurement decisions. To join other shippers who have optimized freight procurement, visit http://www.sleek-technologies.com.


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The International Monetary Fund and other global agencies that forecast economic activity posted warnings a month ago. The gross domestic product (GDP) of most large nations will slow to almost a halt, they predicted. Japan is the latest country to prove the forecasts right. Its GDP grew at 1.4% in the quarter that ended in June. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected the rise to be 2.7% on an annualized basis. The hope that the global economy will not slide back to near a recession is over now. And planned stimulus in some countries will not balance that.
Japan’s disappointing figures get added to those of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and even China. The emerging economies of countries like Brazil and India also have had economic growth slowdowns. Even if they had not, their combined GDPs are not great enough to lift those of the economic giants like the United States.
The debate over how to break free of the sluggishness has not made any progress so far. Married with food inflation due to crop shortages, and a possible increase in crude prices because of worries about supply disruptions, global GDP struggles are about to be burdened more. The one offsetting hope is that some of the world’s largest countries will begin stimulus programs. While that could happen in Japan and China, the odds are sharply against similar actions in the United States, the United Kingdom and all of Europe. And, even with stimulus, the world’s economy is interlocked enough from country to country that the effects of government efforts to offset GDP slowdown can only have limited results.
The reaction to Japan’s news was not bad, if global stock market improvements are any indication. The nature of the reaction is shorted-sighted. Japan cannot pull itself up by its own boot straps. It relies way too much on the rest of the world.
Douglas A. McIntyre


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Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms, announced that she is leaving the business after 14 years.
Sheryl Sandberg was Meta Platforms’ second most important person after Mark Zuckerberg and one of the most powerful executives Silicon Valley has ever had announced her departure through an online post on Facebook. But, Sandberg will remain on board.
Following Sanberg’s announcement, shares in Meta fell by 4% indicating that she had been a vital part in making Facebook grow to where it is today. She leaves an ad legacy that she created for Facebook years ago and things look a little complicated for Meta Platforms with this decision of hers.
Ms. Sheryl, a then-23-year-old Harvard dropout, joined the company Facebook when it was still a small company led by Mark Zuckerberg. Being a veteran of Google, she helped turn Facebook’s advertising business into a profit highflier, as the company grew to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta CEO announced through an official post on Facebook that from here on, Javier Olivan will be the next Chief Operating Officer. Mark has also said He said that Mr. Olivan’s responsibilities would differ from Ms. Sandberg’s, with Mr. Olivan taking on a “more traditional” chief operating officer role that was more focused internally and operationally.
Ms. Sandberg wrote that when she took the job at Facebook in 2008, she hoped she would just be in this role for her next five years and that it is time for her to write the next chapter of her life after fourteen years.
Sanberg’s contribution to Google’s ad business was magnanimous as she was the core mind in the company’s team which became an essential part of every advertiser’s budget to date and absolutely will be forever.
Then later when she joined Facebook after four years of its birth, she brought the same self-service model to Facebook, now called Meta Platforms. But with a slight difference that had amajor impact- instead of targeting users based on their search queries like Google did, Facebook could target based on the users’ personal identities and connected interests.
An entire industry of other tech companies then followed suit with business models that offered products for free by making money off of users’ personal data.
Last year, Meta reported that more than 2.8 billion people used one of its apps daily globally along with more than $117bn in revenue.
Sheryl made her fame as an author of, what she described then as a sort of ‘feminist manifesto’ called Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. This book released in 2013 made her a global celebrity.
But her star power figure was tarnished as the company faced criticism for handling of users’ personal data in relation to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, targeted adverts as well as its moderating algorithm of social media posts.
In Mr Zuckerberg’s own post, he said Ms Sheryl’s departure marked the “end of an era”, by also noting that it was “unusual” for a business partnership like theirs to last so long as she had architectured their ads business by hiring great people and forging their management culture.
Ms Sandberg had created opportunities for millions of people around the world, and Mark says that she deserves the credit for so much of what Meta is today and that she had taught him how to run a company.
With her experience in legal, operation and policy boosted the idea for forward-looking technologies like virtual reality and Mark’s preference for the product.


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The Swiss-based Ethical Coffee Company is to stop production of its biodegradable coffee capsules, Le Temps has reported. Market conditions have become unfavourable, says its CEO.
The timing may seem strange: over the past year, the Ethical Coffee Company (ECC), which has long been embroiled in patent-related battles with capsule giant Nespresso, has seen several verdicts go in its favour.
But ECC founder and CEO Jean-Paul Gaillard revealed to Le Temps on Thursday that the company will be retiring from the capsule market over the next six months.
Despite the victories, the level of competition from new producers has driven prices and profit-margins down: “Everybody has started making capsules,” he said. “The business doesn’t make anything anymore.”
The legal fees involved in the numerous cases were also massive. Since 2010, ECC has been involved in various battles against Nespresso, which has tried to prevent the biodegradable ECC capsules from functioning in its machines.
Most recently, at the end of May, the European Patents Office (EPO) refused for the second time a challenge brought by Nestlé against ECC capsules. The “blocking system” introduced in Nespresso machines to stop competing capsules functioning was illegal, the ruling found.
Another case, concluded earlier this week in Germany, ruled that all machines with such incompatibility mechanisms be removed from the market; while in the US, in March 2016, ECC began antitrust proceedings against Nestlé demanding billions of dollars of compensation.
However, the victories come at a cost, even beyond legal fees. After acting as something of a battering ram against the dominant position of Nespresso – of which Gaillard was previously CEO, from 1988 to 1997 – the market has been saturated with new capsule manufacturers.
Last year, Reuters noted that 210 capsule manufacturers were making pods compatible with Nespresso machines. Since then, big names including Starbucks have also entered the capsule market, which Euromonitor describes as the “best performing category not only in coffee, but in hot drinks in general.”
In Switzerland, however, where ECC also fought battles to become legally available, many large stockists have been reluctant to stock its biodegradable products. Though they can be purchased in several high-street outlets such as Globus and Aligro, the supermarket giants Coop and Migros have opted not to take them on.
Coop were in negotiations with ECC for a year, in 2011, but decided against a deal, a decision that Gaillard saw as influenced by the hidden hand of Nestlé.
ECC’s main production site, located near Geneva, has already been dwindling, reports Swiss public radio RTS. Just 40 people occupy the 8,000 square metres of production space.
The company itself will continue to exist, however, only pulling out of the capsule market. It will continue with a new product relating to coffee and biomaterials, said Gaillard.