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Samsung is forced to postpone the release of its brand new folding fold smartphone because of screen-level failures
Hard blow for Samsung . The Korean giant had to resolve Monday, April 22, 2019 to postpone the release of Galaxy Fold folding smartphone for screen problems .
The launch of this device, presented as a technological feat and proposed at nearly $ 2,000 in the United States, was expected Friday. Its exit is postponed to an indefinite date.
Users “told us that the device needed improvements (…). To fully study these returns, and conduct extensive testing, we decided to postpone the launch of the Galaxy Fold, “said the world leader in smartphones, promising” measures to strengthen the screen protection. ”
Some journalists and analysts who had received the Fold test in the United States had reported problems in recent days, including broken screens or display defective.
Without knowing if this was the cause of these concerns, it seems that some have mistakenly removed a layer of protection that resembled the usual plastic film found on new smartphones: Samsung will warn customers do not remove it.
Samsung, currently in a financially complicated way, said last week that it would inspect its Galaxy Fold but not to mention postponement.
According to Monday’s press release, the screen does appear to have some weaknesses, especially at the hinge, where “impacts” can form. The group also refers to a case where “substances found inside the device have affected the performance of the screen”.
Closed, the Fold is a classic smartphone. Open, it becomes a small tablet.
Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, has had no problem in testing the Fold, she told AFP.
“Maybe some real-world tests have not been done,” she said, adding that the delay should not have a major impact on Samsung, because the Fold, given its price and the time required for systems and applications to be fully compatible, is not intended to be a bestseller.
But it is a product showcase for Samsung, notes his colleague Bob Enderle (Enderle Group), which on the contrary finds the blunder very worrisome, especially since Samsung would probably have spared it by giving the right information to the testers.
As a result, “the indirect impact could be important” for the company, continues Bob Enderle.
“If a showcase product fails, people no longer believe that you are making quality products. This can create huge damage, “adds the analyst, who also thinks it could be a blessing for Huawei.
In any case, this seems to give reason to some analysts, who already felt that the technology folding screens remains rudimentary and prices too high.
Samsung had introduced the device with great fanfare in San Francisco in February, taking a step ahead of rivals, Apple in particular, becoming the first major manufacturer to launch such a smartphone.
Others followed, like Huawei, one of the three market leaders, with Samsung and Apple.
The bad memory of explosive batteries
This is a new setback for Samsung, whose reputation had taken a serious blow in 2016 with the global reminder of the Galaxy Note 7 because of batteries that exploded. He must have done a humiliating planetary reminder.
A case that cost him billions of dollars and started his image, like the conviction of the heir to the empire Samsung Lee Jae-yong in a huge corruption scandal.
The group, however, seemed to be gaining ground in terms of reputation and in February, in addition to the Fold, presented the Galaxy S10 5G, the first smartphone running on the ultra-fast mobile internet.
The group expects to plunge 60% of its operating profit in the first quarter, due to the slowdown in its memory chip business, weighed down by a sluggish demand.
The global smartphone market has stalled in 2018, pushing manufacturers to embark on an innovation race to revitalise it.


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Apple have now warned that iPhones could be bricked when they release their new update at the end of the week.
The update includes a WiFi version of the iTunes store, which may not work on an unlocked handset. However, in amongst the update could be unannounced security measures which could either re-lock a handset, or deliberately disable it completely making it nothing more than a shiny Apple paperweight.
Now that Apple have forewarned, they’re also stating that any bricked iPhones will not be replaced under warranty.
Sony ran a similar campaign against the hackers with its PSP, and lost miserably. A few years after release of the PSP there are various different hacked firmwares which allow anything from running your own homemade games, to playing full-blown Playstation2 games that you might already own.
Everytime Sony released a new firmware update to shutdown the hacked PSPs the clever hackers merely updated their own firmware to combat it.
Hacking technology for the PSP is now so advanced that hardware has been developed in the form of a hacked battery that will allow users to un-brick their previously dead PSP.
We can expect the same for the iPhone, and Apple will be fighting a losing battle.
The full warning from Apple:
Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone’s warranty.
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WASHINGTON — Orders for durable goods such as aircraft and electronics fell unexpectedly in August, while sales of new homes rose less than expected. The weak reports renewed concerns about whether the economy can sustain a recovery with consumer spending held back by job losses, tight credit and falling home values.
Still, economists said the figures — which follow weaker-than-expected data on existing home sales Thursday — also reflect a volatile economy emerging from the worst recession since the 1930s.
“No one said this would be a smooth recovery,” Benjamin Reitzes, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients. “The data will likely continue to improve in fits and starts.”
Orders for durable goods dropped 2.4 percent in August, after rising a revised 4.8 percent in July, the Commerce Department said Friday. Economists had expected a 0.5 percent increase, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. It was the second drop in three months in orders for goods expected to last at least three years.
A category known as “nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft,” a gauge of business investment in machinery and other items, fell 0.4 percent, its second straight drop. It fell 1.3 percent in July.
Some economists said they were concerned that the two straight declines show businesses aren’t confident enough in the recovery to boost their investment in equipment.
Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re, said businesses probably are just replacing worn-out equipment, rather than investing in new capacity. Most factories are running at near record-low levels, and extra capacity isn’t needed, he said.
But several economists noted that the three-month average of business spending, which smooths volatility, is rising.
“Business equipment spending is still on track to post a solid gain in the third quarter, but perhaps not quite as robust as earlier thought,” Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, said in a note to clients.
The department also said new U.S. home sales inched up 0.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 429,000 from a downwardly revised 426,000 in July. Economists had expected a pace of 440,000.
Sales have risen 30 percent from the bottom in January, but are off about 70 percent from the peak of four years ago.
The report was the second straight disappointing sign for the U.S. housing market. The National Association of Realtors on Thursday said sales of previously occupied homes, which make up the bulk of the market, dipped 2.7 percent last month.
Builders continue to make severe cuts in prices to attract buyers. The median sales price of $195,200 was 9.5 percent below July’s $215,600. That was the largest monthly drop on records dating to 1963.
The stock market fell in midday trading. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 11 points, while broader indexes also dipped.
Orders for commercial aircraft and parts, an especially volatile category, sank 42.2 percent in August after nearly doubling in July.
Excluding aircraft and other transportation goods, orders were flat in August — below analysts’ expectations of a 0.5 percent rise.
Transportation goods orders dropped 9.3 percent.
Boeing said earlier this month that its August orders fell 11 percent, as weaker demand for air travel forces airlines to scale back plans to buy new planes.
The Chicago airplane maker also said commercial jet deliveries tumbled 22 percent last month compared with August 2008. Still, Boeing says it remains on track to deliver 480 to 485 planes this year, up from 375 in 2008.
Autos and auto parts orders posted a 0.4 percent gain in August, after rising 1.6 percent in July, according to the government data. The sector received a major boost last month from the Cash for Clunkers program, which gave consumers rebates of up to $4,500 for trading in older cars for newer, more fuel-efficient models. The program, which ended last month, boosted auto sales 30 percent in August.
Several other categories posted weak results. Orders for computers and electronic products dropped 0.7 percent, after rising for two straight months. Electrical equipment and appliance orders fell 0.5 percent, after jumping 4.2 percent in July.
Still, other recent measures of manufacturing output have been positive. The Federal Reserve said last week that industrial production rose for the second straight month in August.
And the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group, said earlier this month that its gauge of manufacturing activity signaled growth in August for the first time in 19 months.


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This month will see the inaugural edition of MEDTEC India, a new trade show focused on the country's fast-moving medical device market. In addition to the exhibition, slated for Oct. 19-20, a 1-day conference will be organized on the 19th.
The events will be held at the Nehru Center in Mumbai, with free attendance to the exhibition but paid admittance only for the conference. India's medical device manufacturing sector is currently worth around $2 billion, an amount expected to triple by 2015. The two-day exhibition in Mumbai will showcase everything from biomaterials through to high-tech manufacturing technology, the latest in pharmaceutical and device packaging and sterilization, as well as best-in-class contract manufacturing services.
According to the organizers, our colleagues in UBM Canon's trade show business unit, the accompanying MEDTEC India Conference will provide delegates with insights into how to develop and build world-class products, how best-in-class manufacturing can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of medical device OEMs and their supply chains, and more.


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LONDON — Carven has entered into a long-term partnership with Club 21 U.K. to build the brand and expand its retail network.
Over the next five years, the brand will open five boutiques, beginning with one in South Kensington, which will open officially with a party next Thursday.
Carven said that it is “dedicating investment to increase its presence in the U.K.”, which it considers “one of its most important and most receptive markets.”
The new boutique is set over 1,615 square feet and will stock both men’s and women’s wear. Conceived as a giant organized wardrobe, it has been designed by Eric Chevallier, under the direction of Carven’s creative director Guillaume Henry. Signature Carven store motifs including mosaics, Saint-Sulpice benches, oak and marble will remain features.
And an entire wall is dedicated to the Carven signature collars, displayed on custom-made papier mâché stands, while the furniture has been developed by French design house Domeau & Pérès, and Stockman has produced the rails and a range of exclusive mannequins this Carven store.
The London boutique launch follows the Shanghai store opening this week and comes ahead of the New York store opening on Nov. 14.
Club 21, the fashion and accessories arm of the Ong family’s Como Group, was founded in 1972 in Singapore. It operates multilabel fashion stores as well as licensed boutiques in Australia, the Far East, the U.K. and U.S., and manages brands including Donna Karan, ck Calvin Klein and Mulberry.


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Visa Inc. isn't expecting a near-term financial boost from processing domestic card transactions in China, even though the doors have finally opened up to do business in the massive Chinese market.
Because China's two-step application process could take more than a year for Visa or any other card brand to complete, Visa views China as "a very long-term opportunity," said Ryan McInerney, Visa's president, during a presentation May 19 at the 43rd annual JPMorgan global technology, media and telecom conference in Boston.
Visa has conducted business in China for years and has long-standing relationships with all of the large banks, mostly to provide payment cards to Chinese customers traveling outside of China.
"That's a big and growing business, and very important for us to keep relationships with those clients we already have in China," McInerney said.
But Visa, along with MasterCard, has a chance to dip its toes into the domestic card business in China, playing in a field heavily dominated by China UnionPay.
China UnionPay is the lone clearing house for payments in the country, thus it looms as a significant competitor in China for any foreign card brand.
To Visa's advantage, it represents a larger global network than China UnionPay and has some experience at competing in global markets.
"They are real competitors," McInerney said of China UnionPay and other foreign payment companies.
"We compete against them day in and day out in many countries around the world," he added. "We know how to compete against them and it's about adding value to the transaction and adding value to our clients in building a brand that matters to customers."
U.S. card brands are not the only payments entities with something to gain in an open market in China.
San Jose, Calif.-based terminal maker Verifone is watching closely as the Chinese domestic market opens, with plans to sell new terminals if Visa or MasterCard acceptance takes off.
China's State Council declared in April that it would establish the rules Visa and MasterCard would have to follow, starting June 1, to compete in the country's payments industry, estimated at handling $73 trillion a year.
News about U.S. companies' involvement in payments in China heated up this month on another front, with Apple Inc. and Alibaba Group indicating they are in talks to bring Apple Pay to the country.
In other major global matters, McInerney said there is nothing new to say on Visa Inc.'s potential acquisition of Visa Europe.
"We have shared a brand and shared clients with Visa Europe, and that relationship is as strong as ever," McInerney said. "But the [acquisition] decision is up to the Visa Europe board and out of our hands."
Visa hired McInerney as president two years ago, bringing him on from JPMorgan Chase just six months after hiring another former Chase exec, Charlie Scharf, as the card network's CEO.


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Measuring Broadband America, a 10-year-old FCC program to ensure that Internet service providers deliver on their connection speed promises to consumers, has become unreliable.
Companies including AT&T, Cox, Comcast and Verizon have been employing tactics to make their performance numbers look better than they actually are, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
The Journal revealed several ways companies manipulate their scores for the program:
- When the FCC informs a company which households will be tested, the company will prioritize service to those households to boost their speeds.
- Providers have persuaded the FCC to exclude unfavorable data from final scores, claiming households had faulty equipment.
- The companies have persuaded the FCC to exclude data gathered on test days when there is heavy traffic on their networks, such as during NFL games and when the operating systems of Apple products are being updated.
- The firms purchase information about users being tested from SamKnows, the British company that administers and provides equipment for the tests.
Customer Feedback Trumps Scores
“We don’t prioritize traffic for this test or otherwise, and we manage our network investment and upgrades continually, based on utilization at the node level,” said Cox spokesperson Todd C. Smith.
“We monitor nodes constantly, and when they reach a certain threshold we upgrade them,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Cox wants to deliver the best broadband experience on the market, Smith continued.”While speed tests can be useful indicators of that experience, the most important feedback we get is directly from customers. If a customer isn’t getting excellent broadband speed performance, we’ll work with them until it’s resolved.”
A Cox customer cited in the Journal article is a good example of the company’s responsiveness to problems, he noted.
“We were unaware she was having a problem with her service until we were contacted (by the Journal). Once we found out, we immediately sent a technician to her home who quickly identified the cause of the impairment and corrected the issue,” Smith said. “She is now getting the speed experience that all our customers expect and deserve.”
Unbiased Test Route Treatment
It is technically impossible for an Internet service provider to give speed test routes better treatment than others, AT&T spokesperson Michael Balmoris maintained.
“A panelist’s Internet traffic is routed to SamKnows servers, and ISPs have no way to control this,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“Testing servers for every panelist are chosen by SamKnows,” Balmoris continued. “This traffic is treated as standard Internet traffic. The same exact traffic routing that applies to Internet traffic also applies to the SamKnows’ traffic.”
AT&T pressured the FCC to omit data for the company’s DSL customers from Measuring Broadband America to improve its grade, the Journal also reported.
“First-generation DSL is an obsolete technology that we do not actively market, and based on the FCC’s practices with other ISPs, should have been excluded from its reporting,” Balmoris said.
The FCC has formulated a policy to provide guidance to ISPs on when a speed tier would be dropped from the MBA program. That policy is that a speed tier no longer would be included in the MBA program if it isn’t actively marketed and is less than 5 percent of the subscriber base, he explained.
“Other ISPs dropped their lower-speed tiers reporting as well, as this is a normal process in the MBA program,” Balmoris contended.
Operator Friendly Agency
“The FCC is friendly to operators currently,” observed Brett L. Sappington, senior director of research at Dallas-based Parks Assocates, a market research and consulting company specializing in consumer technology products.
“The FCC can do whatever it wants — it’s just a pro-operator FCC right now,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“It may also believe this is not such a big problem that consumers are being defrauded,” Sappington continued. “Given The Wall Street Journal article,” he added, “that attitude may change, and it could change quickly.”
The MBA program has a transparent process, and the FCC will continue to enable it to improve, evolve, and provide meaningful results moving forward, an FCC spokesman told the Journal. The FCC did not respond to our request to comment for this story.
The FCC isn’t solely responsible for making sure service providers treat consumers fairly, noted Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a technology think tank in Washington D.C.
“The FTC took joint responsibility for handling this exact issue in the MOU the two agencies signed,” he told TechNewsWorld.
In that memorandum of understanding, adopted two years ago, the Federal Trade Commission agreed to “investigate and take enforcement action as appropriate against Internet service providers for unfair, deceptive, or otherwise unlawful acts or practices, including but not limited to, actions pertaining to the accuracy of the disclosures such providers make pursuant to the Internet Freedom Order’s requirements, as well as their marketing, advertising, and promotional activities.”
The Internet Freedom Order adopted by the FCC requires broadband Internet access services to make certain disclosures to consumers, including notifying and informing them of business practices.
In addition, state attorneys general could get involved in enforcement actions, Szoka noted, should they choose to do so.
Gigabit Interest Waning
Earlier this year, the Journal performed its own test to determine how speed affected Internet performance. It found there were only marginal benefits for paying for speeds greater than 100 Mbps.
Twenty-two percent of American broadband households have speeds from 100 Mbps to 999 Mbps, suggests a study Parks Associates released this spring. However, a greater number of households — 39 percent– have no idea what their connection speeds are.
Interest in speeds above 999 Mbps, or gigabit speeds, has waned over the past two years, according to the research firm.
“Interest in gigabit speeds has declined, due partly to limited availability, but also as households prioritize cost over speed,” Parks’ Senior Research Analyst Craig Leslie said.
“Of the U.S. broadband households that switched services in the past year, 50 percent did so to get a better price, while 36 percent switched to get better speeds,” he continued. “Households are not seeing the benefits to speed upgrades, especially as providers have conditioned households to differentiate based on pricing.”


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May 28, 2022, Xiaomi, a tech giant, is known to manufacture various smartphones every year under its sub-brands like POCO, Civi, and Redmi. And for the gamers, Xiaomi launches its gaming smartphones under Black Shark. Now the news is the company is all set to launch its new gaming smartphone Black Shark 5 and 5 pro smartphones in the global market. According to the news, the series will launch in Malaysia at a press conference on June 8th at 7 PM. Here in this article, we will bring you all the smartphones’ specifications before the launch.
Table of Contents
Features of Black Shark 5:
The specs of the new smartphones will be similar to the smartphones launched on March 30 in China. The Black Shark 5 and 5 Pro arrive with the 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with the 2400 X 1080 pixels resolution. We get the refresh rate of 144Hz, and the brightness is increased to 1300 nits. Both the smartphones arrive with the 720Hz touch sampling rate with a dual-zone pressure-sensitive screen.
In terms of performance, the Black Shark 5 Pro will run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC along with the 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and internal storage of 512GB. At the same time, the vanilla version of the smartphone will get the Snapdragon 870 SoC. Along with the 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and internal storage of 256GB.
Both the gaming smartphones pack a 4650-mAh battery and support the 120W fast charging technology. According to the company, both smartphones can be fully charged in only 15 minutes with these fast chargers. The best news is customers will get the charger in the box, and the device runs on the Android 12 based on JoyUI 13.


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Developer Iwo Banaś is not having a good week. The free version of his SCR Screen Recorder app, which we featured on Android Police last month, was unceremoniously kicked off of the Play Store for "Violation of the System Interference provision of the Content Policy." Exactly what that means is outlined in a Google Support document: basically it says that ads can't impersonate portions of the Android interface or imply that they're something that they're not, like a fake virus warning or Facebook message. Read More
It may be pretty hard for Apple to get away from the ruling that it has to state publicly on its website and in advertisements that Samsung didn't copy the iPad. An appeals court has ruled that the previous sentence should still be in place. The judges stated that, if Apple wasn't the one to clear up the confusion, the damage caused by the lawsuits all over Europe would be irreparable to Samsung. Read More
Justice may be sweet, but when it comes to patents, it's not usually swift. In the case of Apple's multiple, far-reaching patent disputes with Samsung, it took them a few weeks to get an injunction on the Galaxy Nexus based on the controversial results of the billion-dollar patent infringement suit. After Samsung took its case to the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals, the higher judiciary power has sided with the Korean manufacturer. Read More
Samsung swiftly appealed the preliminary injunctions slapped on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Nexus issued by a California district court, and the presiding circuit court has issued its response.
First, the court declined to even consider lifting the sales ban (preliminary injunction) on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 - meaning that ban will stay in effect unless Samsung wins out at trial. Second, it decided that Samsung had made a plausible case for denying the preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus, and has lifted that ban temporarily, awaiting Apple's response, which is due by next week. Read More
Early last month, a German court halted the sale and distribution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 due to a suit filled against Samsung by Apple. Naturally, Sammy appealed the injunction, but the court has upheld the ban on Tab 10.1 sales, citing that "Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible."
This comes as yet another blow against Samsung, as it has already had to halt sales of the Tab 10.1 in a few other countries, as well as pull its Galaxy Tab 7.7 showcase from the IFA conference last week. Read More
Android's latest indirect legal tussle to come to a head, a patent suit between HTC and Apple, was ruled on last week by the US ITC (Court of International Trade) - finding the Taiwanese manufacture liable for two counts of patent infringement. This news has spread like wildfire through every corner of the tech blog world. But is there really anything that's changed right now (or even in the near future) because of the outcome of this suit? Read More


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Workers at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell walked off the job protesting low wages
- 11/29/2012 by Andrea Sears (WBAI)
Hundreds of workers at fast food restaurants in New York City walked off the job today. They are protesting low wages and demanded the right to form a union. WBAI's Andrea Sears spoke to Jonathan Westin, organizing director for New York Communities for Change.


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Video productions feature on new website for McCain FoodsVideo recipes form part of new website for McCain Foods.
Frozen foods producer McCain has launched a new marketing campaign that features online video productions.
As part of a £6 million integrated campaign, the company has unveiled a new website where visitors are encouraged to share content, reports New Media Age.
This includes video productions of recipes, local event information, downloadable money-off coupons, games and ideas for outdoor activities for families.
It is part of an online loyalty platform for mums with the strapline: "If it matters to families it matters to us."
Visitors to the new site are rewarded for their engagement with points which can then be traded for vouchers for retailers such as HMV and ASOS.
Nicola Ech-Channa, communications manager at McCain Foods, told the news provider: "The website aims to build an emotional connection with consumers and reward them for the time they spend online with the brand."
Earlier this month, fellow food company Kellogg's released its first ever online-only promotional video.
Posted by Liam Wallace


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Truckers Restock Stores Faster As Coronavirus Keeps Traffic Light–And Truckstop Showers In Short Supply
Alan Ohnsman, Forbes
Mar 24, 2020
Trucking companies are making heroic efforts to keep store shelves stocked with toilet paper, food and cleaning supplies that have run low amid panic-buying spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, a task made easier by lighter-usual-highway traffic. On the downside, the availability of showers and sanitizing products for drivers at truckstops is a problem.
“We are definitely seeing transit time starting to improve and drivers are commenting on that and that’s encouraging,” Derek Leathers, president and CEO of Omaha-based trucking company Werner Enterprises, tells Forbes. “We really need people to stay off the roads if we want to get the supply chain to continue to operate more efficiently and get more stuff to stores more quickly.”
Werner, with about 9,500 drivers hauling freight across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is racing to keep up with spiking demand for “paper products, sanitation products, hand sanitizers and basic household goods,” Leathers says. Shipments of products such as apparel have plunged, “but food and beverage is booming. In total, we're more in demand at the moment and just trying to work through it and get things to market as quickly and safely as we can.”
Trucking giant J.B. Hunt Transport said Monday it’s providing a one-time $500 bonus for its drivers and personnel at field operations and customer facilities in recognition of how hard they’re working right now. “All of our employees have gone above and beyond the call to action during this crisis,” said John Roberts, president and CEO of J.B. Hunt...


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Abhay Bishnoi started JB Capital along with his friends Manish and Sandeep to produce Cordyceps Militaris (aka super mushrooms) that can fight diabetes and heart diseases.
It wasn’t long ago that Abhay Bishnoi dreamed of becoming a civil servant when he quit his job in 2013. But failing the exam, he turned to Cordyceps Militaris mushrooms, better known as super mushrooms, to start a lucrative business.
“I quit my job and began taking coaching for the UPSC, other civil services, and banking. However, I couldn’t crack any of them,” Abhay said.
Abhay and his childhood friends Manish and Sandeep started JB Capital after conducting thorough research about this mushroom variety.
These ‘super mushrooms’ are used in the treatment of diabetes and heart diseases.
The trio attended training sessions in Thailand and resorted to YouTube videos to learn how to produce rare mushrooms. The process required extreme care in a controlled atmosphere, and they had many trials and errors.
The bootstrapped startup began with an investment of Rs 12 lakhs and started growing mushrooms in 1,200 jars.
Slowly but steadily, they reeled in Rs 6 lakh in one quarter with 8 kg of mushrooms. The super mushrooms cost Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh per kg.
Today, with one unit in Rajasthan, they have recently expanded their online presence on Flipkart, Amazon and other e-commerce websites.
“We are earning from what we love the most and helping improve the health of others,” Abhay added.
Watch the full story of these successful and passionate entrepreneurs:


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MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani and Dave Doyle take a closer look at the top storylines heading into UFC 155, including the main event tilt between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez for the UFC heavyweight title. UFC 155, which will take place Saturday night on pay-per-view starting at 10 p.m. ET, also features a co-main event of Joe Lauzon against Jim Miller.
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Microsoft is negotiating the purchase of short video service TikTok despite President Trump’s threat to ban TikTok in the U.S.
Clare Duffy reported the news for CNN:
Microsoft says it is still discussing a potential purchase of TikTok, days after President Donald Trump said he would ban the popular short-form video app from operating in the United States.
In a blog post Sunday, Microsoft (MSFT) said its CEO Satya Nadella has talked with Trump about buying the app, which is owned by Chinese start-up ByteDance. US policymakers have for weeks expressed concerns about the app as tensions between the United States and China escalate, with many asserting that it could pose a national security risk.
CNBC’s Jordan Novet wrote:
Microsoft said in a statement that it will keep working with the U.S. government on a deal and that it intends to conclude talks by September 15.
If it were to complete the deal, Microsoft could simultaneously resolve a recent controversy in Washington and gain power in consumer technology.
The statement comes two days after media outlets including CNBC reported that Microsoft was interested in acquiring the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. Soon after the reports emerged, President Trump said that he opposed the idea of Microsoft buying TikTok and that he would move to ban the app in the U.S.
Reuters’ Greg Roumeliotis, Echo Wang and Matt Spetalnick noted:
President Donald Trump only agreed to allow Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) to negotiate the acquisition of popular short-video app TikTok if it could secure a deal in 45 days, three people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
The move represents an about-face for Trump and prompted the U.S. tech giant to declare its interest in the blockbuster social media deal that could further inflame U.S.-China relations. Trump said on Friday he was planning to ban TikTok amid concerns that its Chinese ownership represents a national security risk because of the personal data it handles.


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LEDs’ Rise to Dominate Roadway and Area Lighting Brings Changes to Sales Process
In just a few short years, the municipal market for roadway, outdoor area and parking garage lighting has almost completely shifted from its historic mix of HID, fluorescent and incandescent sources to embrace LEDs with enthusiasm. The reasons behind the shift and its impact on the sales process are the subject of a feature in the April issue of Electrical Wholesaling. This is an edited excerpt.
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Crypto Day of Reckoning In Sweden? Central Bank Urges Clarification on Legal Tender
The oldest central bank on the planet has called on politicians to define the concept of money legally and its definition may include crypto. In an increasingly cashless society, the Swedish Riksbank is struggling to come to terms with its diminishing responsibilities and is seeking clarification on them as a matter of urgency.
Sweden has become one of the locations on earth that physical money is used the least. In its place, electronic payment systems have emerged and handle an ever-increasing percentage of the nation’s financial activity.
Could Sweden’s Central Bank be Redundant Before the Crypto Revolution Fully Takes Hold?
The Riksbank in Sweden has been responsible for ensuring that the general public can access Swedish krona since the 1850s. Faced with fewer numbers of people using cash, businesses refusing to accept it, and banks not carrying physical money for withdrawals, the institution is finding itself with a lot less of a role in Swedish society than it has enjoyed previously.
According to a report in Bloomberg, the Riksbank has stated that it wants lawmakers in Sweden to define exactly what is meant by legal tender. Although not explicitly mentioned by the financial institution, this could mean that some crypto assets may be deemed as legally accepted forms of currency.
The Riksbank said in a statement:
“For 350 years, Swedish society has relied on the Riksbank to provide the general public with various forms of the country’s currency, the Swedish krona… Cash issued by the Riksbank has been legal tender since the 1850s. Cash use has decreased rapidly in Sweden and a scenario within the not-too-distant future, in which cash is not generally accepted, can’t be ruled out.”
Last month, Bloomberg reported on efforts being made by Swedish politicians to enforce that some banks do indeed continue to carry enough cash for those wanting to make withdrawals. Forming part of the justification of this is that too heavy reliance on electronic payments might cause issues if said networks were to go down unexpectedly.
Could Sweden be the first nation to go completely cashless?
However, some in the banking industry have stated that such a measure might well be illegal since it only requires those banks offering checking accounts to carry enough cash. They argue that this is a breach of European Union rules.
Although mobile payments applications and electronic card payments make up the majority of the payments in a Sweden that is rapidly moving towards cashlessness, crypto assets may end up the subject of legal debate in the nation if lawmakers respond to the Riksbank’s request with a definition of what is and what is not considered legal tender. Naturally, this could go either way for the still nascent asset class.
The Riksbank is also working on its own digital currency that is inspired by crypto but will function more like an electronic version of fiat. Sweden has been exploring the introduction of such a currency but it is yet to disclose how far along in its research or planning it is with the idea. However, last October the e-krona’s launch was reportedly brought forward to a still undisclosed date.
Featured Image from Shutterstock.
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March 29 (Reuters) - Medical device maker Covidien Plc
said it was awarded $176.5 million in a patent
infringement lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson unit
Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc relating to the company's Harmonic
ultrasonic surgical products.
A federal court in Connecticut ruled that several claims of
Covidien's patents were valid and infringed upon by Ethicon,
Ethicon spokeswoman Bridgett Golden said the company was
evaluating the court's decision and its options for appeal.
Covidien filed the lawsuit in January 2010, claiming that
three of the company's patents were infringed by many of
Ethicon's Harmonic devices.


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More than a third of smartphone facial biometric systems defeated with photo
Printed photos of a smartphone user were sufficient to unlock 42 out of 110 devices (38 percent) with facial recognition, in a test by Dutch no-profit Consumentenbond, ZDNet reports.
The organization used photos printed from images found on social media, CCTV footage, and other sources. They were able to unlock devices from Blackberry, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Nokia, Samsung, Sony, and Xiaomi, though for some models and settings devices from Huawei, LG, Lenovo, and Samsung passed the test. Devices from Apple, OnePlus, and several other manufacturers blocked the spoof attempt.
ZDNet reports that facial biometric systems which can be unlocked with a photo are usually considered useless, though devices from several manufacturers including LG and Samsung warn users that their facial recognition feature reduces overall security.
A reporter recently spoofed the facial recognition systems of several Android devices with a custom 3D-printed head.
A presentation scheduled for the upcoming Black Hat Asia conference on defeating Apple’s Face ID was recently cancelled, after it was deemed “incomplete,” as it can only be reproduced in specific circumstances with a certain model.


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Live from Microsoft's Build 2017 product keynote
Expect news on both Windows and HoloLens.
Live from Samsung's Galaxy S8 event!
What other surprises will Samsung have in store?
We're live at Samsung's MWC 2017 press conference
No phones this year, or at least, not the one you want.
Catch our Samsung MWC 2017 liveblog here
Ain't nothin' going on but the event.
Live from LG's G6 Day at Mobile World Congress!
Like a G6. Like a G6.
We're live from BlackBerry Mobile's MWC 2017 press conference!
Mercury's coming, but what else?
Get your BlackBerry MWC 2017 liveblog right here
Live from Sony's CES 2017 press event!
Think: TVs, headphones and all the other usual suspects.
Live from Intel's CES 2017 press conference!
Get ready to get inside Intel.


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Dixons Carphone Warehouse have announced a possible massive data breach where hackers have attempted to access the details of 5.9 million payment cards. This data breach potentially includes Dixons, Carphone Warehouse, Currys and PC World customers.
The hacking attempt apparently started in July of last year and the company has said that there was an attempt to compromise the details of 5.9 million payment cards. They have revealed that only 105,000 of these cards without chip and pin protection had been leaked.
The company also revealed that records of 1.2 million customers relating to non financial data had been accessed. This information included peoples name and address and more.
Dixons Carphone Chief Executive, Alex Baldock, said:
“We are extremely disappointed and sorry for any upset this may cause. The protection of our data has to be at the heart of our business, and we’ve fallen short here. We’ve taken action to close off this unauthorised access and though we have currently no evidence of fraud as a result of these incidents, we are taking this extremely seriously. We are determined to put this right and are taking steps to do so; we promptly launched an investigation, engaged leading cyber security experts, added extra security measures to our systems and will be communicating directly with those affected. Cyber crime is a continual battle for business today and we are determined to tackle this fast-changing challenge.”
You can find out more details about the data breach for Dixons Carphone Warehouse over at their website at the link below.
Source Dixons (PDF)
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Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.


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|By Business Wire||
|March 10, 2014 02:34 PM EDT||
Advertisers can engage prospective consumers with high-function immersive ad experiences through mobile display units in social media, thanks to a new product line from PointRoll. PointRoll today launched its Social Engager™ suite, which delivers sophisticated, dynamic ad creatives directly within the Facebook News Feed and Twitter stream, reaching consumers where they engage most on the mobile web with creative that is altered dynamically through data feeds.
“PointRoll has long married form and function in boundary-pushing ways,” said 22squared SVP and Director of Earned and Emerging Media Chris Tuff. “Offering interactive and measurable creative within the social feed on Facebook and Twitter is a game-changer. It places social into familiar territory for our clients, as they compare those buys to other digital advertising placements across the web, mobile, and in-stream video using a common set of metrics."
Advertisers using PointRoll’s Social Engager can tailor their paid placements with dynamically varied and optimized images, animation, video and interactive calls to action in the feeds that command the attention of their most desired customers. Social Engager is a cornerstone of PointRoll’s top-down corporate re-launch, kicking off today at SXSW with a bar-side chat devoted to the importance of ad creative.
“The advertising community has always lived by the phrase ‘get the right message to the right person at the right time,’” said PointRoll CEO Mario Diez. “Yet the recent focus on audience and targeting — right person and right time — has caused some in the industry to forget the crucial roll that the creative execution or message plays in the success of any advertisement. At PointRoll, we love data, but we live for the right message. Today we are proud to declare that creativity is not a commodity!”
“What if” Realized Daily
Underscoring its commitment to creativity, the PointRoll re-launch boasts a new logo, new primary positioning and messaging, a new website, a new showcase of multi-screen creative examples, new sales material, a focused b-to-b campaign, a national thought-leadership program and a top-to-top sponsorship program.
The Social Engager Suite incorporates rich media features like multiple videos, gaming, polling, dynamic data integration, optimization and branded social media applications, highlighting several of the key components of the new PointRoll. Central to the company’s new positioning is its ability to deliver highly relevant creative messaging by leveraging first, second and third-party dynamic data, which can include geo-location, weather, local product and store information.
Known as the first rich media provider, PointRoll’s current digital ad innovation offering manifests in three key ways:
- High impact data-driven creative, from DCO, to multi-party sourced.
- Deeply relevant and responsive multi-screen, multi-environment, multi-mode digital ads.
- Broadly informed and insightful creative and strategic consultative services supported by more years of experience with more major brands than anyone else in ad tech.
Further underscoring the company’s emphasis on creativity is PointRoll’s new tagline: “What if, realized daily.”
PointRoll will celebrate its “creativity is not a commodity” mission with a bar-side chat hosted by Luke Sullivan, author of “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!” here at the SXSW Interactive Conference on Monday, March 10. The daylong event, held at Maggie Mae’s on 6th Street in Austin, will focus on the role of creativity in the new digital ad economy. For more information and to RSVP, click here.
Today’s creative conversation kicks off PointRoll’s upcoming slate of Big Creative summits, which will bring together leading creative and advertising visionaries for open conversations and educational opportunities in cities across the country throughout the year. For more information, visit www.PointRoll.com.
PointRoll’s new dedication and messaging come at a pivotal time, as the company increased its workforce by 20 percent in 2013 and plans to grow another 20 percent this year. More advertisers are turning to PointRoll as well, with 1,000 new advertisers in 2013 and a 15 percent growth in campaign volume.
Portions of this story were first reported in MediaPost.
Since 2001, PointRoll, a Gannett Company (NYSE: GCI), has transformed the way advertisers, agencies and publishers create, manage and deliver the most effective digital advertising. Today, PointRoll provides advertising innovations across the many screens of video, mobile, desktop and social while offering a unique strategic creative perspective. With core technology in both multi-screen delivery and data driven creative and an industry leading dynamic creative optimization (DCO) offering, PointRoll enables advertisers to effectively connect and convert consumers through highly engaging and relevant ad experiences. For more information, visit http://www.pointroll.com or follow us @pointroll.
DevOps at Cloud Expo, taking place Nov 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with 19th Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long dev...
Sep. 25, 2016 03:15 AM EDT Reads: 3,327
Almost two-thirds of companies either have or soon will have IoT as the backbone of their business in 2016. However, IoT is far more complex than most firms expected. How can you not get trapped in the pitfalls? In his session at @ThingsExpo, Tony Shan, a renowned visionary and thought leader, will introduce a holistic method of IoTification, which is the process of IoTifying the existing technology and business models to adopt and leverage IoT. He will drill down to the components in this fra...
Sep. 25, 2016 03:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,399
Without a clear strategy for cost control and an architecture designed with cloud services in mind, costs and operational performance can quickly get out of control. To avoid multiple architectural redesigns requires extensive thought and planning. Boundary (now part of BMC) launched a new public-facing multi-tenant high resolution monitoring service on Amazon AWS two years ago, facing challenges and learning best practices in the early days of the new service. In his session at 19th Cloud Exp...
Sep. 25, 2016 02:45 AM EDT Reads: 848
There is growing need for data-driven applications and the need for digital platforms to build these apps. In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Muddu Sudhakar, VP and GM of Security & IoT at Splunk, will cover different PaaS solutions and Big Data platforms that are available to build applications. In addition, AI and machine learning are creating new requirements that developers need in the building of next-gen apps. The next-generation digital platforms have some of the past platform needs a...
Sep. 25, 2016 02:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,680
I'm a lonely sensor. I spend all day telling the world how I'm feeling, but none of the other sensors seem to care. I want to be connected. I want to build relationships with other sensors to be more useful for my human. I want my human to understand that when my friends next door are too hot for a while, I'll soon be flaming. And when all my friends go outside without me, I may be left behind. Don't just log my data; use the relationship graph. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ryan Boyd, Engi...
Sep. 25, 2016 02:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,202
Information technology is an industry that has always experienced change, and the dramatic change sweeping across the industry today could not be truthfully described as the first time we've seen such widespread change impacting customer investments. However, the rate of the change, and the potential outcomes from today's digital transformation has the distinct potential to separate the industry into two camps: Organizations that see the change coming, embrace it, and successful leverage it; and...
Sep. 25, 2016 12:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,030
SYS-CON Events announced today that Numerex Corp, a leading provider of managed enterprise solutions enabling the Internet of Things (IoT), will exhibit at the 19th International Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Numerex Corp. (NASDAQ:NMRX) is a leading provider of managed enterprise solutions enabling the Internet of Things (IoT). The Company's solutions produce new revenue streams or create operating...
Sep. 25, 2016 12:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,927
While DevOps promises a better and tighter integration among an organization’s development and operation teams and transforms an application life cycle into a continual deployment, Chef and Azure together provides a speedy, cost-effective and highly scalable vehicle for realizing the business values of this transformation. In his session at @DevOpsSummit at 19th Cloud Expo, Yung Chou, a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft, will present a unique opportunity to witness how Chef and Azure work tog...
Sep. 25, 2016 12:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,587
Data is an unusual currency; it is not restricted by the same transactional limitations as money or people. In fact, the more that you leverage your data across multiple business use cases, the more valuable it becomes to the organization. And the same can be said about the organization’s analytics. In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Bill Schmarzo, CTO for the Big Data Practice at EMC, will introduce a methodology for capturing, enriching and sharing data (and analytics) across the organizati...
Sep. 24, 2016 09:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,604
SYS-CON Events announced today that Secure Channels will exhibit at the 19th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. The bedrock of Secure Channels Technology is a uniquely modified and enhanced process based on superencipherment. Superencipherment is the process of encrypting an already encrypted message one or more times, either using the same or a different algorithm.
Sep. 24, 2016 09:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,426
The vision of a connected smart home is becoming reality with the application of integrated wireless technologies in devices and appliances. The use of standardized and TCP/IP networked wireless technologies in line-powered and battery operated sensors and controls has led to the adoption of radios in the 2.4GHz band, including Wi-Fi, BT/BLE and 802.15.4 applied ZigBee and Thread. This is driving the need for robust wireless coexistence for multiple radios to ensure throughput performance and th...
Sep. 24, 2016 08:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,443
The Internet of Things can drive efficiency for airlines and airports. In their session at @ThingsExpo, Shyam Varan Nath, Principal Architect with GE, and Sudip Majumder, senior director of development at Oracle, will discuss the technical details of the connected airline baggage and related social media solutions. These IoT applications will enhance travelers' journey experience and drive efficiency for the airlines and the airports. The session will include a working demo and a technical d...
Sep. 24, 2016 08:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,651
SYS-CON Events announced today the Enterprise IoT Bootcamp, being held November 1-2, 2016, in conjunction with 19th Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Combined with real-world scenarios and use cases, the Enterprise IoT Bootcamp is not just based on presentations but with hands-on demos and detailed walkthroughs. We will introduce you to a variety of real world use cases prototyped using Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Spark, and Intel Edison. Y...
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Fact is, enterprises have significant legacy voice infrastructure that’s costly to replace with pure IP solutions. How can we bring this analog infrastructure into our shiny new cloud applications? There are proven methods to bind both legacy voice applications and traditional PSTN audio into cloud-based applications and services at a carrier scale. Some of the most successful implementations leverage WebRTC, WebSockets, SIP and other open source technologies. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Da...
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Traditional on-premises data centers have long been the domain of modern data platforms like Apache Hadoop, meaning companies who build their business on public cloud were challenged to run Big Data processing and analytics at scale. But recent advancements in Hadoop performance, security, and most importantly cloud-native integrations, are giving organizations the ability to truly gain value from all their data. In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, David Tishgart, Director of Product Marketing ...
Sep. 24, 2016 04:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,703


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300 workers go on flash strike at Tata Motors' Sanand plant
The strike from workers happens ahead of the company's much awaited small car launch, the Tata Tiago, which will be produced at the Sanand factory.
The workmen had gone on strike after the company had suspended 20 workers over a misconduct. While there was a sit-in strike at the plant, the production was going on as per schedule and the company is in talks with the workers to resolve the stand off, the company said in a statement.
The strike from workers happens ahead of the company's much awaited small car launch - the Tata Tiago, which will be produced at the Sanand factory.
Already the vehicle launch has been delayed on account of renaming of vehicle from Zica to Tiago. The company had decided to rename the vehicle, after to the outbreak of Zika virus globally.
"There have been continued agitations for further monetary increases as well as protests against disciplinary actions against those instigating the workmen, resulting in serious threat to company personnel as well as losses due to tampering. Viewed as attempts to coerce the Management, around 20 workmen have been suspended (pending enquiry) on various changes of serious misconduct," said the company statement.
2 lakh units Nano plant in Sanand has remained fairly quiet over the last few years on account of low demand with capacity utilisation of just 10-15%, with new products like the Tata Tiago and the new sub-4 meter sedan Kite 5 planned for 2016, it is expected to be buzzing with highest ever output planned of over 75,000 units.
So far the production has not been hampered and the company would be hoping, Sanand plant does not go the Dharwad plant way, which has been locked for over 20 days.
The company said it remains committed to the well-established principles of strong and cordial relationship with its people, with fair, employee-friendly policies at all times, but will not tolerate any indiscipline and coercive methods to pressurize for unreasonable demands. '
The bus factory in Dharwad has been shut on similar issues of wage negotiations and suspension of a few workers on disciplinary grounds.
The company official said Tata Motors will never compromise on four key things of safety, productivity, quality and discipline, and will continue to engage with the workers to arrive at an amicable solution.


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NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Pier 1 Imports PIR, -4.50% said it now expects fiscal second-quarter earnings to be at the low of the previously expected range of 20 to 23 cents a share, as comparable-store sales for the month of August fell 6 percent, versus prior projections for a decline of 3 to 6 percent. The decorative home furnishings retailer said that while the average ticket was up for the month, traffic and transactions were down. Total August sales increased 2.6 percent over the same period a year ago to $132.7 million. The stock closed Wednesday up a nickel at $20.75.
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It was a night of giant Jenga, ice cream, paper airplanes and photo booth fun. Or, as some of Vancouver’s prominent tech upstarts were there to convey, it was the kind of character you might expect of their companies.read more
It’s that time of the week when we look at what creative ideas Canadians are raising money to support.
Check out these Canadian crowdfunding picks-of-the-week:read more
And for those that didn’t choose this career path, one third of women (29%) stated that it was because they didn’t think they had the skillset to get into it or weren’t encouraged (11%) to develop skills in science and math.read more
Telus has revealed that in 2013 alone it received more than 100,000 requests for customer data from the government and law enforcement agencies.read more
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has issued its first Wireless Code Implementation Report Card.read more
Netflix is the leading application in Canada, and on select networks, can account for up to 40% of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours.read more
For the entrepreneur looking to make a mark in the legal vertical or someone from the legal profession who wants to build the Next Big Thing, the threshold question is “What should I build?”read more
From cash to check and credit cards to Bitcoin, the payments industry is always evolving the ways in which we offer and accept payment.read more
After an exciting week-long discussion, SMBs across Canada weighed in and voted: the collaborative economy will have the greatest impact on the future of work.read more
Crowdfunding has always been something exciting for many: it seems to offer the sense of potential for any project.read more
The massive demand for employee and customer facing mobile apps has fueled the growth of the Salesforce developer community to 1.7 million members.read more
Earlier this year, 500 Startups announced 500 Women.
It was an important step for the organization in supporting women-led companies and encouraging more women to grab a seat on the other side of the table as angel investors. Among the first two companies selected for the syndicate is Canada's own FameBit.read more
Are you an entrepreneur with an idea that will impact the energy industry? Are you a seed-stage company in the energy sector?read more


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Posted by Milton Griepp on August 4, 2016 @ 11:50 pm CT
Australian retail chain Good Games announced that it was entering the publishing business early this year with the title Monstrous, which was scheduled for Q2 release (see "Australia's Good Games Chain Announces 'Monstrous' Publishing Plan"). Under the new agreement, Monstrous will be released in Q3, and a second title, Unfair, will be launched in Kickstarter on August 16 and released to the trade in Q4.
Good Games Publishing Director Kim Brebach emphasized that the games the deal would bring to CMON would broaden its line. "We are excited to help CMON diversify their hobby game line," he said. "Australian design sensibilities are eclectic and hybridized. We share a global vision for game publishing with CMON, along with Kickstarter and retail savvy. We look forward to CMON’s help in getting our games to the broadest audience possible."
Good Games is also expanding its retail operation to the U.S. (see "Australian Game Store Chain Opens First U.S. Store").
CMON also announced that it was rebranding the company (see "CMON Rebrands Company"), and acquiring the intellectual property rights to Zombicide (see "CMON Acquires 'Zombicide'") today.


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Amazon, the world’s leading e-commerce platform, has set its eyes on the second most populous country in the world. Still a budding market for online retailing, yet already huge, India represents a great deal of opportunities and potential for growth. Amazon has taken many initiatives to properly start its business in India, especially since it is battling local grown e-commerce platforms such as Flipkart and many others.
Not only in the business of online retailing, Amazon is an international e-commerce company that offers various services such as online computing, digital content, and groceries. It’s online retailing business is, however, its biggest.
Amazon is the world’s leading online retailer in terms of sales value with over US$100 billion in 2015. The majority of the company’s revenue is generated through the sales of electronics and other products. With over 300 million active users worldwide, Amazon is considered one of the most valuable brands in the world.
India: An Emerging Market for E-Commerce
India’s purchasing power in the region is second only to China’s. In fact, the Asia-Pacific area as a whole is now responsible for over a third of the global online retail market.
Having just recently been born, the Indian online marketplace has achieved tremendous growth. Valued at just over US$2.3 billion in 2012, it has grown eight-fold in just over 3 years to be worth US$17.5 billion. But despite impressive numbers in terms of value and growth, The country’s online retail sales are estimated to be just 0.9% of India’s total retail.
Currently the third largest online retailer in India with 18% market share, Amazon has had some difficulty doing business in India. This is one of the main reasons why Amazon is taking these initiatives to strengthen its presence in the Indian market.
However, Despite not being the leader in terms of market share, Amazon still has the most valuable retail brand in India. The worldwide exemplary performance of Amazon in the field of online retailing has been beneficial to its operations in India, and a recent survey has shown that it is the most trusted retail brand in India, topping both of its competitors with higher market share.
As per the industry experts, this is one of the best things that the company has going for it, and should help Amazon overcome its local competitors not only in India but in the entire Asia Pacific region.
Business in India: Becoming Number One
Recognizing that the low penetration of online trade is due to a lack of infrastructure and access, Amazon is trying to be more involved in other processes besides providing an online platform. It will soon launch a digital wallet through acquisitions of existing local companies, which is expected to lead to more purchasing being made.
Amazon is following in FlipKart’s footsteps, as India’s leading online retailer just launched its own digital wallet a week ago named FlipKart Money.
A few weeks back, Amazon announced plans that it will be opening a new delivery center – the largest outside of the US – in the capital city of India’s Telangana state, Hyderabad. This is just one part of the move to bolster its Indian operations to capture what many are calling the “second China”.
Acknowledging that the same approach will not work everywhere, Amazon has adapted its approach to appeal to the general Indian consumer more. It has decided to set up a delivery team completely run by women to give Indian women an entry into a growing field dominated by men.
The company will not stop here with its efforts at empowering women in India. Joining the many companies and NGOs that are pushing for financial independence for women, Amazon is looking to offer self-defense classes and special hotline number for women.
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INV Fintech, Bank Innovation’s sister accelerator, announced its seventh accelerator class today, which kicks off this week with eight startups covering a wide range of the fintech space.
The startups were selected for participation after a rigorous review process by INV Fintech and its partners, which include Fiserv, TIAA, BB&T, Associated Bank, SECU, and more. The accelerator’s ecosystem includes dozens of mentors and VCs, as well.
The startups are:
Alpharank sells a Core Growth Platform called HUMAN that discovers hidden patterns in core transaction data. Financial institutions can leverage these patterns to identify and acquire deposits from new prospects with whom they don’t have a relationship.
BankingON’s mobile banking platform enables credit unions and community banks to offer mobile technology that is on par with the biggest banks. Through superior user experience, BankingON is helping 100,000+ mobile banking end-users ease financial stress through its innovative & intuitive application. The company wants to reach a significant part of the 7,000+ credit union industry in the United States, which serves 110 million people.
Diro can verify any person or document online directly from the original source. The breakthrough technology allows global anti-impersonation checks. It allows capture of provable, reportable and auditable KYC documents from any 3rd party or government source in 200+ countries.
Fraud.net has built a unified digital risk management platform that allows companies to extract immediate value and gain transparency, confidence, and clarity. Combining the powers of artificial intelligence and collaboration, Fraud.net helps financial institutions eliminate fraud and supercharge their operations with real-time, data-enriched visual analytics.
Gerald is building a credit/financial data bureau for the insurance industry by aggregating and transforming insurance payments data into actionable insights. Typically, when insurance companies underwrite insurance policies, they leverage credit reports from the top credit bureaus. However, these reports, while useful, do not provide insights on the behaviors of the insured with respect to insurance. Gerald’s global customer index of individuals and businesses will provide the underwriting basis for every single insurance policy.
Live.Give.Save is a woman-owned technology company that created Spave®, the first and only mobile app that makes saving and giving as easy as spending, so that every dollar spent is an investment in oneself and in a better world. Spave is a consumer app available in the App Store now, however, the technology is enterprise-ready for licensing to banks, credit unions and employee benefit companies via an API.
Payment Rails is the best payouts platform for businesses paying the on-demand economy. The white-label SaaS platform supports payouts to 200+ countries, direct to bank accounts and PayPal accounts. With built-in features like W-9/W-8 tax compliance, bank account validation, live FX rates, and instant payments – Payment Rails is the plug-and-play platform to automate and manage all your payouts. Payment Rails’ customers include freelancer platforms, two-sided marketplaces, accommodation platforms, ride-share platforms, influencer and partner marketing platforms, and growing businesses with domestic or international payout needs.
ROSCA helps people rehabilitate their credit. The company partners with banks to provide their “credit-challenged” customers access to borrowing, saving, and investing – on ROSCA’s platform. ROSCA reports all payment data to credit bureaus and funnels raw payment data back to the banks on a real time basis. Armed with new information, banks can re-score/re-bucket creditworthy customers. The customers “graduate” back to banks who eagerly extend to them on-balance sheet credit
“We are excited about this new cohort, our largest to date,” said Rodrigo Suarez, INV Fintech’s Principal. “We see significant growth potential in these startups, and multiple opportunities for mutually beneficial collaborations with established financial institutions.”
INV Fintech is a virtual accelerator, allowing it to host companies from across the U.S. and globally. Each company will be mentored by INV Fintech and its partners for a five-month period.
“Our goal extends beyond facilitating productive business interactions between our financial institution partners and our startups,” Suarez said. “We are here to revolutionize the financial services industry, and are thrilled to pursue that goal with our class seven cohort and our broader ecosystem.”
To learn more about joining INV Fintech as a mentor or financial institution member, click here.


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Don’t drink your calories: Mayo clinic
Why liquid calories may be thwarting your weight-loss efforts
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When trying to control calorie intake, it’s important to be mindful of what and how much you’re drinking. Although milk and juice have important nutrients and can be part of a healthy diet, they still have calories — and calories in liquids can add up even faster than can calories in food.
When you’re counting calories, your best beverage choice is water, Mayo Clinic experts say. Keep higher calorie beverages in check. As a general rule, drink no more than 118 millilitres of juice a day and 473 to 710 millilitres of skim milk a day. Also be careful about energy drinks. They can have as much added sugar as soda.
Whole fruits and vegetables are much more filling than juice — and it’s likely you’ll consume fewer calories with these choices.
For information on ordering the monthly Mayo Clinic Health Letter, please visit www.starstore.ca/mayoclinic.
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A collection of new celebrity chefs are taking the licensing world by storm with their dynamic personalities and unique product extensions.
Disney has announced Sofia the First as the newest member of the "Color & Play 3D" app family.
Modern homewares brand DwellStudio has entered two new licensing partnerships with Klaussner Home Furnishings and Magnussen Home Furnishings.
FAO Schwarz is celebrating the holidays with one-of-a-kind gifts and festive décor and is offering shoppers the chance to give back.
Americans are planning to do some big holiday shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to NRF’s Thanksgiving Weekend Expectations survey.
Boutique U.S. licensing agency Moxie & Company has signed a swath of new deals for its clients.
Retailer Steve's Blinds & Wallpaper has partnered with home fashion and lifestyle brand Waverly to launch a line of Waverly-branded custom blinds and shades.
Selk’bag has debuted a line of Marvel character anatomical sleeping bags.
Media and marketing company Meredith Corporation has signed a licensing agreement with Clipper to manufacture a line of cookware, bakeware and kitchen gadgets for Allrecipes.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and 3D printing company MakerBot are teaming to develop printing materials and 3D printable designs for the MakerBot Replicator 3D Printer.
Coffee company Illy has collaborated with artist Robert Wilson for its latest Illy Art Collection of special edition coffee cups.
Electrolux has tapped Boxman Studios to create a mobile kitchen showroom that showcases its latest appliances.
LG Electronics has formed a new alliance with interior decorator Nate Berkus who will serve as artistic advisor and ambassador for its LG Studio line of kitchen appliances.
Majesco has put the development of new Zumba Fitness video game titles on hold.
DecalGirl has signed a licensing deal with Disney and Disney Pixar to create electronics skins featuring more than 30 of the studios’ properties.
Chris Madden has teamed up with Sunham Home Fashions to create a range of homewares.
Fam Brands is expanding its range of products under the Bally Total Fitness brand with the launch of fitness accessories.
Fuhu, the creator of the Nabi kids’ tablet, has partnered with Simon Property Group to develop a technology-inspired kids’ experience, designed with DreamWorks.
Warner Bros. Consumer Products and DC Entertainment have unveiled more Mother’s Day product inspired by super heroine Wonder Woman.
Confectionery company Cloetta has teamed with RTC Direct to bring the candy brand Chewits to the home fragrance category.
Nutri Ventures Corp. has teamed with seed company Home Farmer to create a line of branded seeds and gardening accessories for kids.
©2014 ADVANSTAR COMMUNICATIONS INC. All rights reserved.


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New regulations were implemented on January 10, 2014 that limit consumer choices on what type of loan works for them or, in some cases, hurts consumers’ access to credit altogether. The rules are a part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In short, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will determine, on a one-size-fits-all scale, what is considered a “Qualified Mortgage.”
I am often asked by borrowers, “When does it make sense to refinance?” A common thought, which can be accu- rate or inaccurate, is that it makes sense to refinance when someone can lower their rate by one percent or more. In fact, there is a good deal more to the decision-making process than just a difference in rate.


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May 9, 2002
RONA buys Cashway
RONA Inc. recently entered into an agreement to acquire Cashway Building Centres Ltd., Ontario's third largest hardware chain with 61 stores.
Along with purchasing all Cashway shares, RONA will also purchase all Cashway stores belonging to subsidiaries of shareholder Russel Metals Inc.
The company plans to invest more than $400 million over the next two years to realize its plan to become a major player in Ontario's $8 billion hardware, building materials and home improvement market.
Subject to all relevant regulatory regulations and closing conditions, this transaction will cost in the range of $50 million.
"The acquisition of Cashway is a key step in RONA's development strategy for Ontario," says Robert Dutton, president and CEO of RONA. "It will immediately provide an increased presence and significant visibility in the marketplace throughout the province." RONA already has 50 RONA Hardware, Botanix and RONA Home Centre stores, as well as a big box RONA Warehouse store in Nepean, Ontario. All existing stores will now be called RONA Cashway. With this announcement, Dutton also unveiled plans to open warehouse-style stores in Ontario, the first to be located in Brampton.
For information on this acquisition and future plans, please contact RONA Inc., (514) 599-5100.


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Consumers are wary about data privacy; marketers must meet their discomfort with context | WARC | The Feed
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Consumers are wary about data privacy; marketers must meet their discomfort with context
As privacy laws tighten, customers are increasingly wary of advertisers' ability to leverage first-party data, according to a new report from ad tech company Integrated Ad Science (IAS).
Why it matters
Brands need to adapt their online advertising strategies for an era of privacy that puts the consumer perspective on data first. Reputational, and possibly legal, ramifications await those marketers which fall short when it comes to protecting privacy and staying up to date with the latest industry regulations.
The consumer perspective
Integral Ad Science partnered with YouGov and a market research firm to survey 1,131 consumers and 346 experts in digital media to gauge their views on ad targeting, They found:
- Sixty-seven percent of consumers agreed they are “more vigilant than ever about their online data and privacy.”
- Though many consumers (50%) are not entirely confident about the security of their online data, they are aware of the way that advertisers use this information to target audiences more precisely.
- Ninety percent of consumers understand that information they share during browsing is used by marketers to target and personalise ad content.
- But many are uncomfortable with this knowledge; 68% of consumers said they felt uneasy about this usage of data.
The industry perspective
- Almost two-thirds (62%) of digital-media respondents believe that having some knowledge of data privacy is important in 2022, and 89% believe that Personally Identifiable Information (PII) privacy is a crucial consideration.
- But in-depth knowledge has not caught up with awareness: only about half of media experts understand information around browsers, mobile identifiers, and regulations.
- Another 29% of this cohort said their company has not made plans to comply with changing regulations.
The big idea
Sourced from Cision PR Newswire
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Krasnodar, 17 May – Yug Times. The idea to signal on shops’ shelves food and non-food products, produced in the Krasnodar territory has been in the air already for some time. After all, Kuban has plans to become the tourism Mecca of the country. And the territory’s guests are mostly interested in local folklore. They get a taste of Kuban products, then they look for those products on the shelves in their own regions.
“Made in Kuban” trademark, has been elaborated in 2017 and presented in summer 2018 within the XXI Saint Petersburg World Economic Forum. At approximately the same time, at the end of last year, the rules for its usage have been ratified as well. The rules for the territory-wide concourse in quality is in public domain and has been published in December last year, on the official website of the Department for Consumers affairs. According to the document, in this concourse, which is planned to take place twice a year, both organizations and individual entrepreneurs, which produce in the region can participate on a voluntary basis.
The results of the first concourse have been already made public. Its point, in short, is in its numbers : the concourse commission registered 133 requests made by 46 organizations and individual entrepreneurs from 23 municipal bodies of the region. As a result, all of the companies received the right to sport the mark “Made in Kuban”. 107 of them are food companies, 11- non food .
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So, the heir to the KFC empire just went completely stark naked for a new photoshoot. Reportedly Kaila Methven was dripping in diamonds as she posed nude for her latest shoot, explaining that she wanted to create something that was both artistic and empowering to women.
Apparently, the 26-year-old heiress to the KFC chicken fortune wore nothing but $10 million worth of diamonds for the spread featured in the new issue of JMG Lifestyle Magazine, a quarterly luxury and lifestyle publication.
'For the shoot, I had to be naked in front of about 20 people, which was a little scary at first, but it really wasn't about nudity for me, this was about creating something artistic and empowering with a woman's body,' she said. Kaila sure knows how to work the camera as she looks stunning in nothing but diamonds.
'I have so much respect for women and my own mother had to face many challenges and inequality,' she said of her late mother, Lisa Methven.
'I hope to empower other women to be themselves and fight for their rights and help each other.'
Although she was born into a wealthy family, Kaila had a tumultuous upbringing that taught her discipline and determination. 'We were seven people living in a one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Paris, a two-hour train ride from the city centre,' she said.
KFC is a huge fast-food chain and her maternal grandfather, Stanley Methven, was the founder of Rainbow Chicken Unlimited, a South African company that once supplied 90 per cent of KFC's poultry. Kaila said she grew up knowing her grandfather Stanley, noting that his company, Rainbow Chicken Unlimited, was the first provider of chicken for KBS. You can check out the pics here:
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It’s 2019, Freedom, Powerful, Sensual, Cover of JMG LifeStyle Dripping in 10 Million Dollars worth of Diamonds and Versace Crown ?, I guess the life of a Celebrity isn’t so bad especially when you have the confidence like one www.jmglifestyle.com @millerpr @jmglifestyle@nowprla #sensuality#womenempowerment #diamonds#versace#kailamethven#madamemethven#dailymail


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Billionaire Elon Musk, who has vowed to eliminate “spambots” from Twitter, has claimed through the social network that there may be more such automated accounts than expected, rendering the purchase agreement unfeasible.
The recent turn by the world’s richest man to buy the social network was controversial and, according to some analysts, pointless, short of trying to drive down the cost of Twitter or renegotiate a deal that experts say is getting more and more expensive for the Tesla CEO.
While such heavy-handed tactics are not uncommon in corporate mergers, the way in which this happens, becoming a widely publicized topic on the same platform that Elon Musk intends to acquire, is almost unprecedented, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The Tesla founder recently pushed investors to their limit by announcing that he was temporarily putting on hold the purchase of the platform he announced for nearly $44 billion, only to later correct that information and indicate that he remains committed to acquiring it.
“This is the strategy you are trying to use as a way to avoid [do negócio] or get a lower price,” said Brian Quinn, associate professor of law at Boston College.
Musk took to Twitter on Tuesday to say that the agreement reached to buy the company cannot “move forward” unless the social network provides public evidence that less than 5% of the accounts on the platform are fake or “fake spam.”
Experts say Mux cannot unilaterally halt the deal, though that hasn’t stopped the billionaire from acting as if he could.
If he backs out of the agreement, he could be ordered to pay a $1 billion fee.
On Monday, Elon Musk bluntly and sarcastically responded to reports from the CEO of Twitter about fake accounts.
Parag Agrawal emphasized in his post that the social network blocks more than half a million “spam” accounts every day “before users even see them.”
“The most difficult problem is that many accounts that at first glance seem to be fake are actually real people. And some of the fake accounts that are actually the most dangerous and cause the most harm to our users may appear to be completely legitimate,” he added.
According to Agrawal, this is why the Twitter team cannot identify all fake profiles.
“We measure it within the company. And every quarter, we estimate that less than 5% of the quarterly monetized active users (mDAUs) are spam accounts,” he said.
However, the CEO indicated that “actual internal estimates for the past four quarters have been well below 5%.”
But Elon Musk mentioned in a tweet this Tuesday that there are “20% fake/spam accounts,” four times as many as Twitter claims.
Musk warned that the figure could be much higher and that his offer to buy was based on the accuracy of the social network’s records.
For Brian Quinn, the words of the founder of Tesla do not make sense.
“The disclosure you are asking for is the same information that the company has been filing with the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) for a long period of time,” he said.
Asia in red corresponds to the USA. Europe prepares for red week
After ending the worst semester since 2008, Europe should start trading in negative territory this Friday, with a loss trend spreading into the early second half of the year.
In Asia, the main indices of the continent traded in the red and registered losses for the third day in a row.
Asian markets were affected by May consumption data in the US, which recorded a decline for the first time this year. Investors are still waiting for Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Hong Kong a year after he introduced a national security law in the region.
In China, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.2% and the Hang Seng was closed for the holiday. In Japan, Topix lost 1.3% and Nikkei lost 1.6%. Finally, in South Korea, Kospi recorded a 1% decline.
Futures for the Stoxx 600, the benchmark for Western Europe, fell 0.8%.
In major market moves, companies associated with tourism and airlines in China fell after announcing emergency fuel spending. Already, chip makers in the region, namely TSMC and Samsung, have stepped up losses at a time when Micron Technology, the largest memory chip maker in the United States, ended depreciation talks on Wall Street after lowering consumer financial outlook. reduce the cost of computers and mobile phones.
“Usually lower US consumption data leads to a drop in global demand. They affect markets dominated by exports, in particular South Korea,” explains Cui Xuehua, analyst at Meritz Securities, Bloomberg.
“Investors are also looking for clues as to whether there will be policies that will benefit Hong Kong, such as opening borders and expanding trade,” an analyst said of the Chinese president’s visit this Friday.
The government will extend the tax cut on petroleum products for the next two months, according to CNN Portugal. But fix the values and stop revisiting them every week.
The government will extend tax cuts on petroleum products in July and August to bring down the final price of fuel. CNN Portugal knows that this decision was approved this Thursday by the Council of Ministers and that it has new characteristics.
The current tax reduction applied only to the months of May and June, thus ending on June 30th. But as fuel prices remain very high, the government decided to extend the decision for another two months, thus covering July and August.
But the model is not exactly the same. The government decided to stop weekly reviews of ISP cuts, as it has done so far, and fix the cuts. Recall that the original goal was to achieve with the help of ISP the equivalent of reducing VAT from 23% to 13%. To do this, the government has launched a set of measures, which now intends to simplify.
Overall, as government sources have been able to confirm to CNN Portugal, the measures approved by the Council of Ministers will constitute a decrease of 28.2 cents per liter of diesel fuel and 32.1 cents per liter of gasoline.which is close to the current values.
According to data from the Directorate General of Energy and Geology from this Thursday, the average price of plain diesel fuel in mainland Portugal is currently 2,062 euros per litre. The average price of regular gasoline 95 is 2101 euros per liter.


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“Amazon Prime membership continued its steady growth as in recent quarters,” said CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz. “Membership grew 6% in the most recent quarter, the same rate as in the June 2017 quarter, and better than the 3% in the year-ago September 2016 quarter. Over the past twelve months, Prime grew by 38%, the same growth rate as in the same twelve-month period the year before, from October 2015 to September 2016.”
Three and a half years ago, Amazon raised the price of its Prime subscription service from $79 to $99 a year. Based on CIRP’s research, it doesn’t appear that the price bump has had much of an impact on the success of the program. In fact, CIRP says that in the latest quarter, 95% of the 500 Prime members surveyed said they were either “definitely” or “probably” going to renew their Prime subscriptions when they ran out.
Since last September, the number of Prime members who said that they “probably” or “definitely” would not renew has never crossed the 10% threshold. In other words, Prime members are extremely loyal. Once someone has taken the plunge, the chances that they will abandon Prime and start paying for shipping again are negligible.


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Today is National Pie Day—a holiday founded by none other than homebrew guru Charlie Papazian in the mid-1970s. So, happy National Pie Day! Today’s Oregon beer news calls for a beer and pie pairing. As usual, I’ll be periodically updating this post throughout the day, so check back often for the latest news. And if you have news to share, please contact me and I can get that posted as well.
Gigantic Brewing (Portland) has their January Tuesday release hitting the taps today, and it’s a cask version of their Pipewrench Gin Barrel Aged IPA: “Gigantic’s Pipewrench Gin Barrel Aged IPA is perhaps our best reviewed and most award winning beer. Each batch is aged 3 months in “Old Tom” Gin Barrels from Oregon’s Ransom Distillery. “Pipewrench Cask Strength” is a celebration of the newest batch of Pipewrench – aged in barrels, served from a cask. It’s a new standard of freshness in pin to pint drinking. Get yours exclusively on Tuesday, January 23rd in the tap room.”
Breakside Brewery (Portland) has a release party for their new beer, Kids These Haze (guess the style) taking place at Beer Store Milwaukie from 5 to 8pm tonight: “When the clouds lift and the fog recedes, there’s only one thing left to see: KIDS THESE HAZE… You heard that right…it’s official: THE HAZE TRAIN continues with another pillowy bodied New England style IPA from Breakside Brewery. Follow the juicy aroma to Beer Store Milwaukie because it’s rumored fog machines may obstruct your view. We’ll have a whole host of surprises in store. Full Breakside premium beer lineup coupled with raffles, games and maybe Dazed n Confused playing in the background.”
Cascade Brewing (Portland): Their Tap It Tuesday at the Barrel House at 6pm is featuring Nukular Blues: “A blend of Belgian strong red, Belgian spiced quad, and wheat ales aged for up to three years in white wine barrels and blended with explosive amounts of fresh blueberries. This beer pours up a beautiful dark ruby red and has nostalgic notes of candied blueberries and bubblegum. It’s a nukular explosion of blueberries in every glass!”
Deschutes Brewery (Bend): Tuesdays are Community Pints days at the Deschutes locations, where $1 of every pint sold goes to benefit a local non-profit organization. In Bend this month, at both the Pub and the Tasting Room, they are supporting In Our Backyard. At the Portland Pub, their partner is Polar Plunge for Special Olympics Oregon. Be sure to stop by one of their locations and help out with a pint or 3!
Ninkasi Brewing (Eugene) announced today that they are a Good Foods Awards winner. From the press release: “This past Friday, Ninkasi Brewing Company joined the nation’s leading food producers, grocers, chefs, journalists, and activists at the San Francisco War Memorial as 199 of the nation’s most sustainable food and beverage producers were recognized by the Good Food Awards. Honored for its Pacific Rain Northwest Pale, Ninkasi was among 19 Oregon-based companies awarded for creating tasty, authentic and responsible products.” Congrats to Ninkasi! And get yourself some Pacific Rain Pale Ale to go with some pie.
Tickets are on sale now for the Oregon Beer Awards taking place in Portland on February 28, according to the New School. It will be taking place once again at Revolution Hall in southeast Portland. From the press release: “1,029 Oregon craft beers were entered and judged in a double-blind competition on January 20-21. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals will be awarded in 24 categories at the Awards Ceremony on February 28. In addition, the OBA Voting Academy (comprised of over 200 members with industry backgrounds) nominate and then vote on five non-beer style categories including Best New Brewery, Best Beer Bar/Bottleshop, Best Beer Festival, Hall of Fame/Lifetime Achievement Award and Brewery of the Year. Tickets for the public are just $18 and available at bit.ly/oba2018. $2 of every ticket goes to our non-profit partner Oregon Wild. Oregon Wild works to protect and restore Oregon’s wildlands, wildlife and waters as an enduring legacy for all Oregonians.”


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Honda is gearing up to go fully electric in the coming years, and focusing on that target, the company has now announced that it will make and launch a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2024.
The auto manufacturer has revealed that it will produce the fuel-cell Honda CR-V model at its Performance Manufacturing Center (PMC) in Marysville, Ohio, as it plans to go fully electric by 2040 and carbon neutral by 2050.
Fuel cells use hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity for powering the vehicle instead of relying on a battery. It has advantages over battery electric vehicles as the vehicles can be refueled in three to four minutes and travel longer distances before going out of the power supply. However, the technology is not ready for mass adoption, and the public hydrogen stations are concentrated in California in the US.
The upcoming Honda CR-V Hydrogen Fuel-Cell model will come with a plug-in capability for its battery pack to allow it to offer a small amount of electric-only range without having to rely on its hydrogen supply. More details of the car will be revealed sometime closer to its 2024 launch, Honda says. The company didn’t say how many units it plans to build but noted that the factory specializes in small-volume vehicles.
Apart from Honda, Toyota and General Motors have been developing fuel cell technology over the last two decades. Toyota’s Mirai mid-size sedan is heading into its second generation. Honda, which launched its first fuel cell vehicle, the FCX, in 2002 and has invested more than $14 million in California’s hydrogen refueling network.
BMW and Toyota are also teaming up to produce hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the coming years. By 2024, Bosch plans to invest more than $1 billion globally to develop fuel cell technologies, with over $200 million to build fuel cell stacks for commercial trucks at its South Carolina factory.