text:
Despite the scandals, Barclays boss says: 'We are not bad people'
Barclays has become a byword for scandal and excess among Britain’s banks – the rigging of Libor, massive mis-selling of payment protection insurance and obscene payouts to top executives and investment bankers.
Most recently, The Mail on Sunday revealed that an internal report into bullying and disregard for banking rules at one of its divisions was secretly shredded by a senior executive.
All of this doesn’t help when you are trying to attract customers. But that is the task faced by Ashok Vaswani, 51, the chief executive of Barclays’ global retail business. His predecessor, Antony Jenkins, is now head of the banking group and has sworn to overhaul and clean up its dysfunctional structure and culture.
Ashok Vaswani, head of retail banking with Barclays, still stands to get a bonus this year
In the meantime, Vaswani must convince millions of ordinary account holders that Barclays is a bank they can trust.
He says: ‘After something like Libor you can easily communicate with your 250 corporate clients to explain what you are doing to put things right. It is impossible for me to communicate directly to 15 million retail clients.’
Libor was a scandal almost entirely restricted to Barclays’ investment banking division and Vaswani believes that customers were more than capable of drawing a distinction between the retail bank they use and the more colourful end of the business.
‘Two days after the Libor news broke there was one branch where customers came in with cookies and candy for our staff,’ he says.
‘Look, let’s face it, the customers who walk into a branch know Susie the cashier or Ben the relationship manager. They know these are not bad people. They like these people. These are the people who they go to when they have troubles and who help them. So when they hear all these stories they think it’s the people on the 31st floor at Churchill Place who are bad.’
Vaswani laughs at the irony because we are on the 31st floor of Barclays’ head office at Churchill Place in London’s Docklands. But he continues: ‘We have a lot of work to do to build trust. We are really going to put customers at the heart of everything we do.’
Barclays has been at the heart of several banking scandals
He can fairly push Libor to one side because it was indeed a problem at the investment bank. He also deflects criticism about mis-selling of complex interest rate swaps to customers as not being part of the retail operation. And he won’t comment on The Mail on Sunday’s recent report about a culture of fear in Barclays Wealth, again a separate division from his own.
But he cannot dodge the issue of PPI, the policies sold to ordinary customers taking out loans or mortgages or using credit cards. The banking industry has already set aside £12 billion to repay customers who bought PPI. Barclays’ own bill is £2 billion and analysts widely expect that to rise when the bank issues its results on February 12.
Will it rise? ‘We don’t know,’ Vaswani admits, but then cautiously adds that £2 billion is the best estimate the bank could give at the time. ‘Currently where we stand today based on projections, we think it is the right number. There are variations to that. Does it keep going up and down? Sure it does.’
But Vaswani also claims to have a solution to mis-selling. ‘We have banned the word sales,’ he declares. It may sound like a glib gimmick, but Vaswani says the ban reflects a more profound change of focus.
He says: ‘We have moved away from any incentive on sales. Our only incentives to staff are based on customer satisfaction. There are absolutely no incentives to anyone in the system to try to push a product on a customer.’
While welcome, an end to incentives to sell is in fact no more than what the Financial Services Authority publicly called for last month.
Vaswani though is keen to demonstrate Barclays customer-friendliness with his approach to packaged accounts, another potential source of action over mis-selling.
Sold by all the leading banks, packaged accounts offer extras such as travel insurance and car breakdown cover alongside a current account – all for a simple monthly fee. Some customers found themselves paying for extras they did not need or which they already had.
Vaswani says: ‘We stopped selling packaged accounts last May and we launched our “feature store”. The old packaged account was about us deciding what features the customer wanted and writing them into a package. Now we say, “You choose what you would like to customise your account.”
‘You may do a lot of international travel so you may want travel insurance. I may holiday in Britain so I might want some other features.’
Vaswani is an ideal customer for travel insurance. Born and raised in Mumbai, his banking career has taken him around the world.
Vaswani was born and raised in Mumbai but has travelled all over the world throughout his banking career
‘It’s been a fantastic life. From Bombay to Dubai to Istanbul to Brussels to New York to Singapore, back to New York and now London,’ he says.
His wife is with him in London. His grown-up daughter works in New York and he admits it is hard to say where he regards as ‘home’.
Vaswani became head of the global retailing operation when Jenkins stepped up. Until then Barclays was dominated by its investment banking. With Jenkins’ promotion to the top job, many expect a rebalancing of the bank’s focus towards retail banking as part of the grand review scheduled for next month.
Vaswani is coy about that other festering issue in banking – pay. He bats the subject aside, saying the remuneration packages that have upset the public are not an issue in retail.
However, the matter is not quite so clear cut. Susie and Ben behind the counter clearly do not receive huge sums. But at the top of the organisation it is a little different. Jenkins was paid £5.2 million in 2010 when he was head of retail banking – not on the same scale as top investment bankers but hardly modest.
Vaswani is not a brash banker and when asked to explain his achievements he says a ‘whole bunch of it is luck’. Pressed further, he returns to the values he was brought up with. His father died when he was just six and he was brought up by his mother, an Indian government employee, in a middle-class home.
He says: ‘What has driven me are some core basic values. There is no substitute for hard work. There is no substitute for integrity. There is no substitute for humility.
‘At a very personal level humility is very important to me. If you lose humility, you lose the ability to learn and that is the saddest place a person can get to.’
All this could apply to reforming banking, but as Vaswani admits: ‘The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.’
Most watched Money videos
- Take a look at the new Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 supercar
- VW's new electric car set to finally launch in Britain
- Rolls-Royce release new £250,000 limo called Ghost
- New £250,000 Ghost 'most technically advanced' Rolls-Royce ever
- UK firm to build world's first electric Rolls-Royce's Phantoms
- Porsche has given the iconic Panamera a mid-life refresh
- Maserati's back! Italian brand releases first supercar for 15 years
- VW launches clever new 'Caddy California' compact campervan
- Blue Whale manager: Facebook is good value but not Tesla
- Ray Massey reviews Aston Martin's first ever SUV
- Volkswagen reveal the first electric SUV ID 3 and 4 range
- Mercedes-Benz shows how hands-free Drive Pilot system works


text:
The company has confirmed the India launch of the all-new G4 Ssangyong Rexton in the second half of 2018.
The car was revealed at the Seoul motor show in April, and Mahindra is currently evaluating the feasibility of the new Rexton in India from a cost perspective. “We need to understand what the price positioning of the Rexton is and whether can afford to bring it at that price. If it is feasible then it should take us around a year to launch it in India,” stated Pawan Goenka, managing director of M&M stated.
At the Frankfurt motor show recently, company's president of R&D and Global Product Development (Automotive Sector), Rajan Wadhera confirmed that the Rexton is a go for India. “The costs are still a challenge, but we have decided to launch the Rexton as we believe there is a good opportunity for this product in the Indian market.”
Mahindra will locally assemble the car to keep prices competitive. “We plan to weld the body in-house and then paint it as well,” added Wadhera. However, parts like the powertrain and body panels will continue to be imported from Korean suppliers.
The massive 4.8m SUV is powered by a 2.2-litre diesel engine, which delivers a modest 187hp and 420Nm. Mahindra is likely to load the car with tech and price it very aggressively.
The big question is whether the Rexton will be badged a Ssangyong or a Mahindra. “The decision on the badging is yet to be taken,” Wadhera said, but he did indicate the Rexton would most likely wear a Mahindra badge, since the Ssangyong doesn’t have the same recall value as the Mahindra brand.

domain: news


text:
For one, a contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and U.S. West Coast port operators is set to expire on July 1, the logistics platform founder said. The union in November rejected the Pacific Maritime Association’s offer to extend the contract for one year. The group representing West Coast shipping industry employers last extended the union’s contract in 2017.
“They just watched ocean carriers make a lot of money. They want to get paid too,” Petersen told the National Retail Federation’s Big Show 2022 attendees Sunday. “They don’t want more technology, and they don’t want any performance metrics on their work.”
Given the current labor shortage, a negative negotiating outcome would increase the potential for disruption to port terminal productivity.
Speaking with NRF vice president of supply chain Jon Gold, Petersen also pointed to another deadline coming up in less than a year. By Jan. 1, 2023, all international cargo holding ships must reduce their carbon emissions by 13 percent, as part of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) mandate to slash industry-wide emissions.
“How do you make a ship more carbon-efficient? There’s only one way, you go a lot slower,” Petersen said. “To achieve a 13 percent reduction in carbon, I’m told you need to go 30 percent slower. Well, a ship going 30 percent slower carries 30 percent less cargo. And you’ve reduced the cargo capacity of that world’s ocean freight network by 30 percent. I don’t predict good things will happen to the economy as a result of that.”
Retailers and importers must prioritize data visibility to successfully navigate today’s supply chain constraints, Petersen said.
“We’re now seeing that although there’s huge delays in the Port of Long Beach, there are not delays in Oakland and Seattle, or there are shorter delays,” he added. “And yet, companies keep shipping to Long Beach, as a sort of habit and lack of data, leading to these things. Machine learning is quite good at predicting when containers will actually be unloaded and delivered versus historical norms.”
Petersen criticized both the U.S. federal government and the federally owned West Coast ports, namely the former’s rhetoric based a 40 percent decline in backlogged ships that it “fixed” the supply chain problem ahead of Christmas.
“Three weeks prior, they told the ships they couldn’t wait offshore—they have to wait…over the horizon where you can’t see them,” he said. “If you counted the ships that were waiting on the horizon, the number had gone up by 30 to 40 percent.”
Aging infrastructure also exacerbated the Los Angeles-Long Beach port problem as the facility’s 40-year-old crane technology can only unload containers “one at a time,” he said. Unreliable access to truck chassis further compounded the problems at these ports, Petersen said, adding that most California ports beyond Long Beach don’t allow workers to stack containers more than two high in a truck, which quickly fills up capacity.
Over on the East Coast, ports are facing similar supply chain problems.
The Port of New York and New Jersey‘s anchored vessels climbed from an average of three to five to a recent high of 10 to 11. Last year’s average dwell time of 1.5 has now spiked to 4.5, according to Sam Ruda, director, port department for the East Coast’s biggest port complex.
And although the West Coast ports will have a labor union battle on their hands in the months ahead, the N.Y./N.J. ports’ renegotiation is still four years down the pike.
When asked how the longshoremen negotiations would impact how he approached the deal down the line, Ruda said, “I worry about my own kitchen. I like to view from the East Coast.”
Ruda referred to the gateway’s model as a “landlord port” in which it has a convener role for other parties it coordinates with, including stakeholders such as the New York Shipping Association, the trucking industry, terminal operators and freight carriers.
The agency established the Council on Port Performance (CPP) in 2014 so these stakeholders could collaborate whenever there may be a significant impact to the ports and the overall supply chain. Ruda believes the Council has helped further improve the employer-union relationship.
Similar to its West Coast peers, the East Coast port complex found itself with a pile of of empty containers and could take a cue from Georgia and North Carolina in creating an off-premise popup terminal space to return empties, Ruda said.
“We’ve been successful in flexing our capacity,” he said. “But that is not unlimited. There’s a lot of focus on this, because we do not intend to the have the same type of issues, as you know who. I just have to stay engaged on this, but I think some popup empties, even if it’s interim, are likely in our near-term future.”
The future of ocean contracts
Rising ocean freight rates and detention and demurrage fees have cost retailers a pretty penny. But beyond costs, companies must balance the risks and rewards of locking in contracts to secure vessels, as well as sometimes changing terms mid-contract that could end up in a dispute.
And now, with the IMO’s emissions mandate starting in 2023, businesses will have a tougher time inking long-term contracts designed to de-risk importers against pricing volatility.
“The reality is I don’t think most people have considered this in their contract negotiations,” Gordon Downes, CEO of NYSHEX, or New York Shipping Exchange, told NRF attendees Monday. “Quite frankly, right now I think everyone’s focus is just ‘Can I get space, and I have some semblance of a reasonable price?'”
Downes said ocean contract rates fulfilled through NYSHEX stand at 98 percent, far higher than the 60 percent industry average.
The NYSHEX platform strives to simplify and clarify ocean shipping contract terms so that supply chain managers can better manage costs and avoid blank sailings or seeing their freight rolled over to future sailings. Carriers use the platform to would better utilize vessels, generate more predictable revenue streams and sidestep potential disputes.
To protect themselves when they start negotiating, Downes suggests retailers and importers deviate away from traditional “gentleman’s agreement” contracts and their vague, unspecific and often unenforceable terms.
Downes also said retailers should always enter mutual commitments where the carrier is committing to service and price and the shipper is committing to specific volume through specific periods of time.
“We’re seeing the whole industry move in this direction,” he said. “In addition, we’re seeing much longer-term contracts. Historically, most Transpacific contracts were 12 months. …Most of the contracts we’re seeing signed are now two-to-three years. These are all positive trends, and it does de-risk some of the complexity of what will happen with IMO 2023.”


text:
Workforce shortage continues to hamper NH’s economy
Lack of affordable housing doesn’t help the matter
W.H. Bagshaw Company, the oldest pin maker in the nation, has come a long way since the 1870s, when it made pin combs, and the 1930s, when it produced phonograph needles. The “pins” now are used in aerospace and medical applications, and the company employs 41, twice the number it did a decade ago.
The Nashua-based manufacturer would like to expand even more, but it’s slowed by two threats to the state’s booming economy, one old, one new. Low unemployment, usually a blessing, has become a curse, threatening the supply of labor. And the effects of a gathering trade war are just starting to be felt.
“We haven’t officially gotten whacked yet,” said Adria Bagshaw, the company’s co-owner and vice president. “But we are waiting on four suppliers. There is a 25 percent increase on anything shipped. As manufacturers, we are caught in the middle. We can’t go to our customers and ask for 25 percent more on what they ordered. But that’s exactly what our suppliers are doing.”
Indeed, there is a possibility that the company might have to temporarily shut down “because we don’t have the wire. You have your machine ready and your staff ready and you don’t have the material,” said Bagshaw.
But for others, the effect of the tariffs right now seem like distant flashes of lightning that may not ever strike.
“If anyone said what the tariff impact is going to be, they are either misinformed or lying,” said Stephen King, director of sales at Ferrite Microwave Technologies, a Nashua firm that sells to the defense industry as well as national laboratories. “Nobody knows yet.”
However, everybody knows about the labor shortage. The state has a 2.7 percent unemployment rate, the same rate as May 2017. (In May 2016, it was 2.9 percent.)
“The main reason is that we have an older workforce than 20 years ago,” she said. And while those over 65 are participating at a greater rate, there are simply fewer workers in the “sweet spot” between 20 and 55, she said. “You can’t expand if you can’t hire people.”
“The rate of job growth has slowed because of labor constraints,” agreed Brian Gottlob, principal of PolEcon Research in Dover. “Growth is occurring, but at a relatively slow pace.”
For instance, last year, the state’s gross domestic product grew by 1.9 percent, in the middle of the pack among the 50 states. Despite this, the state added nearly 13,000 jobs in the last year in non-farm employment. But Gottlob can’t figure out where these workers are coming from. Are they from out of state, or are they local residents who would have gone out of state?
The shortage is particularly acute in manufacturing, forcing the existing workforce into overtime. Factory workers are averaging 41.7 hours a week, up from 40 hours just a year ago.
A manufacturing job isn’t what it used to be. Employees need to take courses in such things as physics and calculus in order to qualified, but students with that kind of aptitude are generally college-bound. Organizations like the NH Manufacturing Extension Partnership have tried to prime the vocational pump. Manufacturing Week, for instance, has become Manufacturing Month, and NHMEP has arranged some 1,865 visits from schools to manufacturing plants to show students how things have changed and the kind of jobs that are available.
Bagshaw looks for its workers in community college, as does Tidland Corp., a Keene division of Maxcess International, which makes accessory products for winding machines to better roll out various materials. The division has 65 employees to ship out some $20 million in products. It could use five more, said Victor Kissell, senior manufacturing supervisor.
“It is what it is,” sighed Kissell. “Our best bet now is to take kids out of high school as interns, hire them when they graduate and pay them when they are in school. Either that or steal them from another manufacturer.”
Tidland doesn’t use much steel and gets its aluminum domestically, so Kissell doesn’t worry much about material supplies, but he does fear retaliatory tariffs. “We are shipping basically all over the world — raw materials to plants from Poland to Brazil, finished components to Canada and Mexico.”
Though he voted for President Trump in the last election, he now says, “I am not sure it was a good thing. Putting on these restrictions is hurting our business.”
Statistically, there has been little impact on trade thus far.
Nationally, exports were up 8 percent in the first quarter, a little higher than last year. New Hampshire exports only went up 2.35 percent, the 10th lowest increase in the country, but it did increase 24 percent in 2017, the third-highest increase among states.
What might be telling is the state’s trading partners. Exports to China, traditionally one of New Hampshire’s top three markets, dropped by nearly 40 percent year to date, and exports to Japan fell off by 63 percent. Shipments to Mexico — another target of the current administration’s rhetoric — were also off slightly. Exports to the No. 1 market, Canada, were more robust, topping 14 percent, but that was before Trump insulted the country’s prime minister and outraged Canadians, who started boycotting American products and canceling visits. There was a surge of exports to Germany (up 73 percent) and Ireland (up 128 percent), that so far occupy the second and third positions.
The state’s wood industry has been benefiting from the tariff situation, even though China is now stricter about accepting U.S. logs, citing concerns about insect infestation. Jasen Stock, executive director of the NH Timberland Owners Association, thinks the timing is suspicious.
“There is no evidence that it is related [to tariff disputes], but it sure seems that way,” said Stock.
That hasn’t hurt loggers, who still have lots of domestic markets, but local sawmills are happy to take the logs China rejects. Similarly, U.S.-imposed tariffs have stifled wood coming in from Canada, but that has meant more of a market for local loggers, which is more than enough to keep sawmills busy.
But the labor shortage is everywhere, stressed Stock.
“It’s in the sawmills. It’s truck drivers. It’s everywhere.”
“It’s a crisis. It is definitely a crisis,” said Priscilla Lane-Rondeau, owner of three 900 Degrees restaurants, who needs about 35 to staff her newest eatery, which opened in Portsmouth in May. By early June, she had only succeeded in hiring 21.
“We’ve got our managers working overtime,” she said.
It is daunting to open up a new establishment in the hospitality industry on the Seacoast, where there is intense competition not only over customers but over workers. Frankly, though, that is true pretty much everywhere in New Hampshire.
The state is expecting a deluge of visitors this summer. The NH Division of Travel and Tourism is predicting a record 3.4 million tourists spending $1.8 billion overall.
Occupancy at hotels was already up in the first quarter — 53.6 percent, year to date, a percentage point better than last year, even though ski area visits were down about 5 percent.
“Business is very brisk, better than last year. People are not spending more, but they are dining out more,” said Tom Boucher, president of Bedford-based Great American Restaurants.
Business at his recently rebranded CJ’s Great West Grill (the former Cactus Jack’s) has been a “little soft,” he said, but that’s because Manchester is also “very saturated right now.”
His main complaint is finding labor. “We are paying them for gas. We are paying a hiring bonus at the end of the summer. In Laconia, we are really feeling the pain,” he said, and restaurants on the border have to compete with the higher wages offered in Massachusetts.
Overall, nonfarm hourly wages are up by 60 cents, but since hours decreased slightly, that translates to an $8 weekly increase, to $1,010.32 a week. The opposite trend is true for manufacturing workers. Their hourly pay went down a little, to $25.23 an hour. That was more than offset by the aforementioned increase in hours, giving workers a $34 weekly raise to $1052.
Why wages have not increased more in this tight labor market is “a bit of a puzzle,” said Nielsen, though she theorizes it also might be related to demographics. As highly paid older workers retire, they are replaced by entry-level workers, creating a statistical drag on overall wages.
And there are other ways of attracting workers than by wage.
“They need to get creative and offer benefits other than the typical paid time off and health care. Things like free coffee, take your dog to work or Friday summer hours,” said Colleen Strickler, head of sales operations for JobsInTheUS, a national employment agency that posted nearly 50,000 jobs in New Hampshire. (Half of those posted took more than two months to fill, she said.)
The tech industry has been using such techniques for a while, but they felt they needed something more when the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) set up shop in Manchester — an approximately $80 million defense grant to foster companies that can grow back organs from a person’s DNA.
ARMI and companies associated with it lobbied for and won state business tax incentives and a fund to help pay off student loans for workers in the industry.
While ARMI and biotechnology were the big story in New Hampshire tech this year, Matt Cookson, the outgoing executive director of the NH High Tech Council, rattled off a number of other hot industries: drones, robotics and artificial intelligence.
There are about 3,000 tech jobs a month that go begging in the industry for over the past three years, said Cookson. “And the situation is not getting any better.”
The growing diversity has also caused the council to diversify, uniting with Alpha Loft to form the NH Tech Alliance, which would bring in educational institutions to create “ecosystem engagement,” in the words of Toral Cowieson, chair of the emerging organization.
One example of engagement is through matching the skill required by employers with those of graduates. “Universities are not necessarily delivering the skills that are needed,” she said.
Labor isn’t the only thing in short supply in New Hampshire. The housing shortage is also acute. Home sales fell in May by 8 percent due to lack of inventory.
The state had only 5,130 homes on the market in May, a 20 percent decrease from last year, or about 3.4 months of supply, down from a 4.4-month supply a year ago.
Those listing a home in May were likely to have sold it in 65 days (as opposed to 70 last year) at a median price of $283,000 ($12,500 more than last year), which was about 98.7 percent of what they asked for.
“The name of the game is inventory right now,” said Rachel Eames, owner of Concord-based Eames Realty Services and past president of the NH Association of Realtors. “We don’t have enough building starts.”
An average of 408 housing permits were issued this spring, compared to an average of 128 in 2009. But it is not nearly enough to keep up with demand.
The same could be said about rentals. The vacancy rate for a two-bedroom apartment is down to 1.4 percent, compared to 5 percent a decade ago, with a median gross rent of $1,259, double what it was two decades ago.
But for builders, like Liberty Hill Construction in Bedford, “the biggest challenge” is getting workers, said owner Greg Rehm. “There is nobody there.”


text:
Smartphone manufacturers have hit the nail on the head when it comes to consumer demand. They have chosen just the right industry if current sales are anything to go by. The worldwide shipment of smart phones has hit record highs this year with an 11 percent increase in sales currently recorded for the last 12 months. The trend throughout 2016 was significantly different as at this time last year there was an 8 percent decline in sales.
Oppo, Vivo and Samsung are the players that gained the most as their phones have been priced to suit an average market.
The reasons for a surge in demand for smart phones
You need a good connection for a smart phone and it’s the proliferation of the faster LTE service that appears to be driving the current smart phone demand. The better the speeds the more devices a network provider can connect and the better user experience.
Places which are experiencing the most growth
Africa, The Middle East, India and smaller parts of Europe and Asia are experiencing the highest growth markets. OPPO, Huawei and Vivo are pushing their products to the extent they are capturing the market as opposed to the usual big players of Apple and Samsung.
Smartphone prices and market share
The Premium group
This is the biggest growth area for prices of $400+ which now contributes nearly 20 percent of the world’s smart phone market.
However, there has been a slight decline recently due to the decrease in the iPhone’s volumes and restriction in the number of the Samsung Galaxy S7/S7+. This was due in part to the imminent release of the Galaxy S8 series.
The Premium affordable group
This comes down a peg or 2 in price, at between $300 and $399, but it has been rated as the fastest rate of growth in the smart phone sector throughout the 1st quarter of 2017 mainly due to the likes of products being sold by vivo, OPPO and the Samsung A series.
The $100 to $199 price range
These cheaper smartphones have become particularly popular amongst those who prefer prepay options and more than 30 percent of phone shipments are for these customers. This sector has recorded a 28.8% increase in the first quarter of this year. The phones that are most popular include the Samsung’s J series, the OPPO A series, the Huawei Honor series and the Xiaomi Redmi series. Altogether these particular brands made up more than 50 percent of smart phone sales in this price bracket.
India led the demand for smartphones this quarter
India’s 1.3 billion have turned out to be the population whose demand for smart phones has grown the most. Shipments increased by a whopping 283 percent this last quarter. The Redmi Note 4 was the key driver for smart phone sales this year. India, China and South East Asia are the main growth areas for the brands supplied by vivo and OPPO.
How the big players match up
- Samsung held the lead in the smart phone market capitalising a share of 21 percent in the first quarter of 2017.
- Apple released 50.8 million iPhones which was actually a fall on normal annual sales.
- Huawei shipped 34.6 million smart phones in the first quarter of the year which was a marked increase when compared to annual sales figures.
All in all, coupled with the opening of new markets and the speed of connections, smart phone sales are seemingly going from strength to strength. It’s not the traditional affluent western countries leading this increase in demand, but the growing economies and wealth in populous Asian countries. No doubt the increase in demand will be fuelled by these countries into the future.


text:
Thus far, the virtual reality hardware market has been dominated by the likes of HTC, Oculus and Samsung, but that may change as a slew of other companies are preparing to enter the fray.
Virtual reality has been a hot topic for us at RedShark over the last year. Questions have surfaced that strike to the heart of the experience and its relationship to the cinema. Is VR simply a new gaming platform or something more? Is it possible to tell compelling, long form narratives in VR? What level of user interaction is suitable for VR storytelling? What impact, if any, will VR have on modern video and cinema production?
Of course, we are at the beginning stages for commercially-viable VR. I trust that most of the above questions will be answered through the normal process of humans trying things. Those creative efforts may be strained, however, by the rapidly changing VR hardware landscape, as new products means new standards and feature sets that must be considered.
Currently, there is something of a lull in new VR hardware news. Yet as the Holiday buying season draws nearer, there will undoubtedly be new entrants into the market which could shake up the present-day leaderboard.
VR's killer console?
Over the last year or so, a tiered VR hardware market has formed, with various Google Cardboard viewers at the low-end, Samsung Gear VR, with its onboard sensors, at the mid and Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as the high-end commercially-available VR products. Any apples-to-apples comparison is difficult across the board, as the products constitute a wide spectrum of price points and features.
Among the high-end offerings, HTC Vive has about a 3-to-1 edge over Oculus Rift in market share, which could be due to the delay in availability for Oculus Touch motion controllers. The Oculus Rift is more comfortable and lightweight with better resolution than the Vive, but the Vive's focus on room scale VR from launch and the bundling of its own motion controllers in the retail package was apparently enough of an incentive for early adopters.
The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require tethering to a reasonably spec'd PC, which limits the size of their potential user bases. Over time and between product refreshes, those user bases will likely grow beyond such limitations, if only because future lower end GPUs and computer systems will be able to adequately run the present incarnations of the Vive and Rift. But a forthcoming product, which may reside just under the high-end, may be the mass market VR headset that helps break VR wide.
Sony Playstation VR is set to debut this fall (October 13th, to be precise). On sheer specs, the Playstation VR will likely fall short of the Rift and Vive, but that may miss the point. Sony Playstation 4 has an install base of over 40 million units and recent studies have indicated that, among gamers, console gamers have shown the most interest in VR, with Playstation 4 and Xbox One owners leading the pack.
Xbox One owners will have to wait awhile for any such VR peripheral, but Sony Playstation owners have been lining up, virtually speaking, for the Playstation VR, selling out each pre-order period in a matter of minutes.
Such early adopter activity might not be a reliable indicator of a platform's long-term success, but it's at least a check for the positive column. At $399 for the Playstation VR and $499 for the bundle that includes the camera and two Move controllers, the product comes in at more than the current cost for a Playstation 4, so it may be difficult to sustain that early momentum. Complicating the situation further, Sony is slated to release another version of the Playstation 4, dubbed either the Neo or Playstation 4K or 4.5, which will feature updated, beefed-up specs to support 4K gaming and, presumably, a better Playstation VR experience.
We'll have to wait to see how well the Playstation 4 variants handle VR and whether Playstation VR will satisfy its user base. But if it can deliver on its early hype, the Playstation VR may become the leader in VR for the home by year's end.
The rise of the reference designs
While the Sony Playstation VR is set to muscle into the conversation and even threaten the viability of the high-end headsets, the market for mobile VR headsets may be at the early days of a boom period. Up until now, if you wanted VR on-the-go, your choices were rather limited. You could either pair your existing smartphone with one of the vast assortment of Google Cardboard viewers or opt for a Samsung Gear VR, which is only compatible with specific models in Samsung's Galaxy line of phones and phablets. The Gear VR, besides being a generally well-designed product that has improved over generations, also has integrated electronics and sensors at a lower latency than a smartphone's own sensors, providing a smoother experience.
Presently, there are no mobile VR headsets that can compete with the Gear VR, but that is also set to change, as several flagship phones from Android device manufacturers will hit the market as part of Google's Daydream initiative. Google Daydream is, essentially, a list of required specifications for Android smartphones for use as mobile VR devices and a reference design for an adjoining headset. These specifications include better in-phone sensors that will presumably rival that of the Gear VR's sensors within the headset, while the next version of Android will have a dedicated VR mode for ease-of-use. Google will likely enter the market itself with a reference unit/package, leveraging its latest Nexus smartphone. Nearly every Android manufacturer of note has signed onto to produce a Daydream-compatible phones as well, including Samsung, which brings into question how it will differentiate its Daydream offering from the Gear VR (and whether it continues to be developed).
The popularity of Daydream will go a long way to determining if manufacturers continue to support Google's VR efforts, which should come into greater focus, again, by the end of the year. But another reference design for mobile has been unveiled that may point to an alternate path forward for mobile VR. Intel has unveiled Project Alloy, its plans for a reference design for a self-contained VR headset which does not require a phone or a tether to a PC or console.
In addition, Project Alloy ventures to brings inside-out method for monitoring body movements, room sensing and interaction with everyday objects (what Intel calls 'Merged Reality'), courtesy of Intel RealSense cameras on the headset. Project Alloy could be the beginning of a more sophisticated mobile VR experience, but we may have to wait until the middle to end of 2017 before we see such devices, as Intel is targeting next year to open up Project Alloy to developers.
The next generation(s)
Yes, we're just at the beginning of whatever VR will become, but it's not too early to ponder the features and specs of next gen VR devices. We're likely to see greater resolution, larger FOVs, better sensors and a variety of peripherals, but what else?
Expect eye tracking to be the major addition to next gen VR devices and along with it foveated rendering, which entails only rendering at full resolution the precise portion of the image that you're looking at, which is only possible via eye tracking.
At some point, VR and AR will blend into devices that can offer seamless integration of immersive and augmented experiences. Magic Leap, the ultra-secretive startup partially funded by Google, may introduce a headset that lives up to that ideal in a few years time, but we may not have to wait that long for another such effort to hit the market, even if it use a different means of blending realities.
Upstart device maker Sulon has partnered with AMD for production of the Sulon Q, which eschews the light field technology of the Magic Leap for a stereoscopic approach, using twin cameras and their feed as your view of the real world, for what AMD describes as "the first and only all-in-one, tether-free, 'wear and play' spatially-aware headset for VR and AR. Like nothing there is now. Like nothing there ever was." Such grand statements assume that another product won't come out of nowhere to steal Sulon Q's thunder before it arrives, presumably in 2017.
It may be such blending of VR and AR, as well as PC-specs and mobile convenience, that will truly characterize the coming generations. Regardless of your opinion of VR and its related technologies, those interested in VR will have many more options in the near future, which should make for a very interesting close to 2016 for that market.
Tags: VR & AR


text:
Consignment stores attract shoppers, sellers
Last year's severe economic downturn has many Americans still holding tight to their wallets.
Amid the hazards of pay cuts, layoffs and rising prices, people are scrambling for ways to boost their own bottom line. One way to do that is by selling to and shopping at consignment stores.
Consignment shops work much like thrift stores, except those who provide merchandise for the shelves have a chance to earn cash instead of a tax deduction. The shop staff keeps a tab on how much each item sells for, and the original owner receives a percentage from the sale.
Those who make purchases at consignment shops can look for savings on everyday items while the sellers have an opportunity to line their pockets with some extra money.
Merchandise has been flowing in and out the doors of Tracey's Upscale Resale & Consignment in Indiana, which pleases owner Tracey Howard and those who sell items through her store.
According to Howard, those who sell by consignment can reap financial benefits with minimal effort.
"I'd say most of my consignment people are really happy," she said. "It's better than garage sales. You make more money and you don't have to put the work into it."
Howard first opened Tracey's Upscale Resale & Consignment two years ago, and she tries to move her inventory around to keep it fresh.
The merchandise changes every few months, and her seasonal and housewares items change even more frequently because they continually sell well.
In addition to housewares, Howard focuses on designer and vintage clothing and antiques. But, she said, "We have a little bit of everything."
Her selection and prices seem to be drawing in the customers, which is a win-win for everyone involved -- the store, the seller and the buyer.
"Business, it's been good for us," Howard said.
So much so that on Feb. 22 she moved her shop about a half block west, to a larger space at 622 Philadelphia St. Her new location is roughly three times the size of her previous shop.
"Since we opened up in February, I'm shocked at how busy we've been," she said.
Having the Indiana University of Pennsylvania nearby is a plus for business, with many of the college students and faculty coming in to find bargains.
But, Howard noted, she gets just as much business from long-term members of the community.
"I'm real happy with the support we get from local residents here," she said.
Repeat business, from both buyers and sellers, has been a boon for Howard. "I'd say that just about everybody that comes into the store comes back in," she said.
Howard suggested those intending to offer articles for sale at her store call in advance so she can determine which of the items might be a food fit for the store.
If an accepted item is purchased, the consignment seller collects a percentage of the money received.
For clothing, Howard usually splits the purchase price evenly with the seller, but she noted it really depends on the item. For instance, if a prom dress is sold on consignment, Howard drops the percentage she makes slightly, "Because I know how much money people put into them," she said of such formal dresses and gowns.
For housewares and antiques, Howard usually comes away with 40 percent of the profit.
"The consignment customers always get the higher percentage," she noted.
Howard currently is working with about 80 different consignment sellers and issues checks on a monthly basis to any whose items have been purchased. She noted sellers are welcome to call at any time to get an update on their merchandise.
In terms of clothing, Howard only sells women's apparel, though she eventually wants to expand that to include children's clothing. At her former location, she had tried offering men's apparel, but it didn't sell, so she doesn't see dabbling in that area of the clothing market again.
Designer jeans and clothing are popular sellers and can earn the consignment seller a nice return.
For example, Howard said, a pair of Gap jeans, or apparel from Ralph Lauren or Abercrombie and Fitch, usually sell for between $10 and $14.99 at her shop, so the consignment seller could get anywhere from $5 to $7 for each piece sold.
"We've run them higher, but they usually don't sell for higher than that," Howard said of designer label clothing. "We try to keep the prices at a level so that the customer, the consignment seller and the store all make out. I don't like things sitting in the store, and if no one is looking at it, it will go back" to the seller.
Every once in a while Howard will have a seller who doesn't want the item returned if it fails to attract a buyer. In that case, she will donate the item to Indiana County Human Services, the Salvation Army or another charitable organization.
"It just depends on the item and where it fits best," she said.
According to Howard, much of the clothing sold at Tracey's Upscale Resale & Consignment is new, not used at all. The used items she does sell, she ensures that they were gently and not excessively worn.
Among the top sellers in her shop are items for fuller-figured women.
"We have a really nice selection for larger sized women that you really can't find in town," Howard said, including apparel from Susan Gray and Bob Mackie.
Now that she has more room in the new store, Howard said she may start taking books again on consignment. She noted she's looking for coffee table books and collectibles, not trade and mass market paperbacks and novels.
In an effort to promote local artists and crafters, she has also begun selling locally made jewelry and crafts.
"I wanted to give them an option to sell their items," she said.
If a prospective seller isn't sure whether Howard will accept an item for her store, all they need to do is ask, she said. "I don't say no to anything within reason, really.
"I watch the items for a few months to see if there's interest in them. But I really haven't turned away much of anything because you never know what people want."
What people do want in today's cash-conscious climate is to buy a quality product without spending a pretty penny. Howard believes consignment buying and selling gives the public the opportunity to do just that.
"With the economy, it's a great option for everybody -- for the retail person, the consignment person, the person who needs to make a little extra money," she said. "Sometimes it's hard to give something up, but when you get a little money for it, it makes it easier."
Tracey's Upscale Resale & Consignment is open from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. For more information about selling on consignment at the shop, contact Howard at 724-471-4171.
Best kept secret?
Consignment shops aren't abundant locally, but there is one that has been in operation for more than a decade -- though many may not know about it.
The Indiana Social Center of Aging Services Inc. runs its own consignment shop at 1001 Oak St., Indiana. But, according to Jan Wascak, program assistant and public information specialist for Aging Services, not everyone is aware that the shop is open to the public.
"It's there for anybody. They do a lot of business, and a lot of people donate to them," Wascak said. But it wasn't until the center recently began advertising the shop that business really began to pick up.
Eileen Sarnovsky, manager at the center, said she's seen a marked increase in customer traffic in the last year and a half, since the economy began to backslide.
Knowing that some people shop there due to financial struggles, the center tries to keep its prices as low as possible while offering a higher percentage of profit to the seller.
The Indiana Social Center shop collects some household items, jewelry, books and clothing that are in good condition, but it does not accept bedding, undergarments or children's clothing.
"We sell basically used clothing for adults, and it has to be in good condition," Sarnovsky said. "We want it to be nice, clean, something they would buy themselves."
If an items doesn't sell after three months, the seller is contacted and asked to collect the merchandise.
"If anyone has a closet they're cleaning out, it's a nice place to donate," Wascak said.
The Indiana Social Center shop is open from 9 a.m. to noon and 1:30 to 3 p.m. on weekdays. Anyone interested in offering items to sell on consignment at the shop can call the center at 724-465-2697.
For kid's sake
Parents in Indiana County and those living nearby have another consignment buying option open to them this weekend, thanks to Kristen Conway, a Blairsville native now living in Jeannette, and her business partner, Katie Hartman, also of Jeannette.
Conway and Hartman have organized Cents & Sensibility Consignments, a children's sale held twice a year at the Indiana Fairgrounds, 803 Hospital Road, Indiana.
Conway, a 1996 Blairsville High School graduate and stay-at-home mom, said the economy was one of the biggest factors motivating the two women to organize their consignment business.
"I thought it would be well received because things are so expensive now," she said. "I thought it would help parents make money off their gently used items and at the same time save money on purchases."
Conway met Hartman through their sons' school, and a fast friendship formed. Conway and her husband, Brian, have three children ranging in age from 3 to 8, and Hartman's family will soon welcome a third child, so the women know how expensive it can be to keep ever-growing children in clothes and toys suitable for their age.
"Just being a mother of three, things get awfully expensive, and I took part in a few consignment sales before I started my own," Conway said.
Her husband knew she had been wanting to get back into the workforce part-time, and he suggested she start her own consignment business.
"He thought this would be perfect, something flexible for me, being a stay-at-home mom, and it combined helping in the community and getting back into the workforce," Conway said. "I thought it was a great idea, and started talking to Katie about it, and we said, 'Let's do this.'"
In June 2009, the pair forged ahead in creating Cents & Sensibility Consignments -- deciding on a name, getting all of their paperwork submitted, and securing a location.
The Greensburg area already had a similar consignment sale offered during the year, and Conway wanted to do something in the community where she spent her own childhood and where her parents, Dave and Evelyn Bondra, are still very active.
"I still spend a lot of time in the Indiana County area and thought it would be great to do something where I grew up," Conway said.
With a location set, Conway and Hartman launched an advertising campaign and a Web site that allowed sellers to sign up for the sales.
"Consignors started rolling in," Conway said. "We went and set up our facility, and we were good to go."
Cents & Sensibility held its first sale at the end of September 2009 in the sportsmen's barn at the Indiana Fairgrounds. Once planning was under way for the second sale, it became clear more room was needed, so the partners secured the old skating rink at the fairgrounds for this weekend's sale.
The September sale drew in quite a crowd of both sellers and buying customers.
"We were really excited by the amount of consignments we had," Conway said. "The sales were better than what I had expected."
The September sale featured items from between 25 and 30 consignment sellers, but this weekend's sale has nearly doubled that number with more than 45 consignors bringing items to sell.
Conway pointed out most consignment stores use a 50/50 or 60/40 percentage split on profits, with the higher percentage going to the seller. Cents & Sensibility goes further, offering a 70-percent share to consignors on sales made over the weekend -- minus a $10 registration fee.
The sale will feature maternity and children's clothing and apparel, from infants to size 16 in girls and 20 in boys, as well as a wide variety of all other things kid-related -- including games, toys, infant equipment and children's furniture.
Car seats are accepted, though the consignor has to answer a series of eight questions, including whether or not the seat is less than five years old, whether it has ever been in an accident, and whether it includes its original paperwork.
"When you're talking about a child's safety, we take precautions," Conway said.
Items that are not accepted by Cents & Sensibility include used potty chairs, infant bathtubs, underwear and bottles -- anything where there are sanitary concerns.
"We'll accept them only if they're new in their original packaging," Conway noted.
For this weekend's spring/summer sale, Conway said the partners have many returning consignors and expect to see some return shoppers.
"I've got some people who e-mail me regularly. They can't wait," Conway said.
Those interested in becoming a consignor with Cents & Sensibility can fill out an online application. Once accepted, they are assigned a consignor number and can use the Web site to create price tags for items they plan to sell.
The consignors are asked to have clothing hung and ready to go, and they were to drop off their items Wednesday and Thursday before the sale.
The quantity of items sold by each consignor varies greatly, according to Conway. Some will drop off 20 items, while Conway said one consignor featured in this weekend's sale has more than 600 items.
"It's a huge spectrum," said.
For some, the prospect of tagging and hanging a large quantity of items can be too daunting. For those parents, Conway and Hartman formed the "very busy person," or VBP program, which allows them to simply drop their items off at the homes of either Conway or Hartman, who then prepare the items for sale.
In that case, the consignor's share drops to 50 percent.
In the days before the sale takes place, Conway and Hartman arrange the merchandise on the floor of the selling space, "like a regular store, separated by gender and size," Conway said. "It makes it very easy on the shoppers."
At the end of the sale Sunday, the consignors are asked to return to pick up their unsold merchandise. If consignors fail to show up, or if they state that they don't want the leftover items, the surplus is donated to either the Indiana County Community Action Program or to Birthright of Indiana County.
Conway said checks for sold items are usually sent to consignors within a week after the sale.
Conway and Hartman had decided that they wanted to hold a benefit drive during each of their sales. For this weekend's sale, those attending are encouraged to bring new, unopened bags or boxes of diapers and wipes, which will be donated to Birthright.
Those bringing diapers or wipes for the drive will receive chances to win a gift basket filled with goodies and gift cards. Three tickets for the drawing will be earned for each package of diapers, and one ticket will be given for every package of wipes donated.
The Cents & Sensibility Consignment sales is presented as an ideal outlet for cash-strapped parents who are constantly trying to keep up with their children out-growing both clothing and toys. The events allow them to sell the things their kids have outgrown. At the same time, they can buy quality clothes and items at a lower price from other consignors.
"It's a win-win situation for all involved," Conway said. "You can clean out your closet and put some money in your closet.
"There are always people looking for a deal."
The Cents & Sensibility Consignment spring/summer sale will take place 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. There is no admission fee, and parking is free.
For more information on Cents & Sensibility, contact Conway at 724-838-8821 or email@example.com . More details also can be found at www.centsandsensibilityconsignments.com .


text:
Saturday, July 28, 2012
During this past week, Mitt Romney opened his biggest lead in over a month over President Obama. During the same week, consumer confidence fell to the lowest level of 2012. It’s no coincidence that they happened during the same week.
Long-term optimism about the U.S. Economy Fell to a new low this month. Just 40% believe the economy will be stronger in FIVE years. That’s down from 46% a year ago, 50% two years ago and 58% three years ago. Most Americans (56%) believe the Housing market will take more than three years to fully recover.
As Scott Rasmussen noted in his weekly newspaper column, “Declining Views of the Economy Put Obama's Reelection at Risk.” He added that, for Obama to win, “he will need to improve his own job approval rating between now and Election Day. For that to happen, perceptions of the economy will have to reverse their current downward trend.”Rasmussen subscribers can log in to read the rest of this article.
ORBecome a member and get full access to all articles and polls starting at $4.95/month.
Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information.
We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence, we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions, sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day. If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a daily update newsletter and various media outlets across the country.
Some information, including the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and commentaries are available for free to the general public. Subscriptions are available for $4.95 a month or 34.95 a year that provide subscribers with exclusive access to more than 20 stories per week on upcoming elections, consumer confidence, and issues that affect us all. For those who are really into the numbers, Platinum Members can review demographic crosstabs and a full history of our data.
To learn more about our methodology, click here.


text:
McBride, which manufactures own-label household and personal care products, has warned its full-year profits will be £5m lower than expected due to escalating commodity prices.
The Manchester-based company said that although sales were in line with expectations and were 1% up in the past four months, commodity costs were continuing to increase.
"Recent further escalation in commodity prices has led us to anticipate that fourth-quarter material costs will be higher than expected," warned chief executive Chris Bull.
"Further initiatives will be implemented to recover these cost increases but the time-lag, combined with an ongoing weak trading environment, is expected to result in a further reduction in trading profit this year of around £5m.
"We will continue to monitor commodity prices very closely and will act quickly to recover any further increases."
The Grocer Suppliers of the Year 2011: And the winners are... (16 April 2011)
Persil washing-up liquid is back with a fruity look (12 March 2011)


text:
Gratomic Inc CBULF, a Canadian graphite miner, is gearing up to be the largest vein graphite mining company in the world. Could Panasonic Corp PCRFY and other large battery makers such as LG Chem could be looking to partner with Gratomic for a supply agreement?
What Happened: In July 2014, Tesla Inc TSLA announced a deal with Panasonic in which the latter would manufacture and supply lithium-ion batteries for Tesla’s range of EVs produced at its U.S. Gigafactory.
At the time, Tesla said “a network of supplier partners is planned to produce the required precursor materials” for the batteries, which left investors wondering who those suppliers would be.
At its Sept. 21, 2020 Battery Day event, Tesla prompted more interest in the companies that could supply Panasonic with battery metals when it announced its plan to create a 3TWh battery by 2030.
Tesla also has a partnership deal with LG Chem that it announced in December 2020 for its nickel-based batteries.
As a company that delivered 500,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2020, the amount of battery metals that Tesla’s battery makers will require looks to be astronomical.
Graphene, produced from graphite, is one of the necessary metals used in lithium-ion batteries, and Gratomic will be the largest vein graphite miner, which could set Gratomic on track to secure supply agreements with some of the largest battery makers in the world.
Why It Matters: The graphite used in EV batteries, as an anode for the transfer of lithium, is not all created equal.
Gratomic’s graphite is of the highest quality both because of the type of graphite it mines — the rarer lump-vein graphite — and the process it uses to produce the product.
The company said it has been able to upscale “its naturally pure vein graphite to a battery grade level of 99% + Cg” by using a combination of water and air classification.
Gratomic’s competitors more commonly mine found flake graphite. Flake graphite is encompassed in other elements, and miners must use acid to release the graphite, which causes pitting and reduces conductivity.
Further, Gratomic is able to run an eco-friendly mining and processing facility that does not use harmful chemicals or negatively affects the environment.
What’s Next: Gratomic looks set to announce the next stage of production at its Aukum project in the coming weeks and said on Feb. 22 it's now debt-free.
Although the pandemic, which restricted travel between North America and the Namibian mine, slowed operations for the company, in that time it has solidified its business plans and formed a management team under new CEO Arno Brand.
With everything now in place, an announcement of a supply agreement looks to be the logical next step for the company — and it has its sights set on the EV market.
What's More: If Gratomic was able to secure a supply deal with Panasonic it would not only supply the graphite used for Tesla's batteries.
Panasonic also supplies the batteries for BMW and Toyota Motor Corp TOYOF.
Likewise, a deal with LG Chem, could enable Gratomic to supply graphite to Tesla as well as Volkswagen AG VLKAY, General Motors Co GM Ford Motor Co F, Geely Auto GELYY, Renault RNSDF, Nissan NSANY, Hyundai Motor Co HYMTF and, Kia KIMTF.
© 2022 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.


text:
Atari announces that an Xbox version of Unreal II: The Awakening with Live support is currently in development.
Atari has today announced that an Xbox version of Unreal II: The Awakening is currently in development and scheduled for release before the end of this year. The game, which is currently being developed by Tantalus and Atari's own Legend Entertainment in concert with Epic Games, will boast a number of enhancements over the PC version released earlier this year--not the least of which will be a number of new multiplayer modes.
"Unreal II: The Awakening raised the bar for single-player first-person shooters on PC, and now Xbox owners will get to experience the same amazing gameplay along with the multiplayer benefits of Xbox Live," said Steve Allison, vice president of marketing in Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The game features a great story, amazing graphics and truly unique gameplay styles that keep it exciting from beginning to end. It's the perfect title for console shooter fans."
News source: GameSpot


text:
Urban Farming Yields Fresh Foods, Land Reuse
In backyards and on once-barren city lots, local growers produce crops and livestock.
Martha M. Hamilton
PUBLISHED MAY 18, 2014
Chickens are coming home to roost in U.S. cities, near pens for goats and hives for bees. In urban yards and on once-vacant lots, planting beds brim with herb plants, pea vines, and the ubiquitous kale.
A new wave of urban agriculture is flourishing because it benefits consumers concerned about sustainably grown food as well as cities with land to spare. It started in 2008, fueled both by economic stress and concerns about nutrition, childhood obesity, and diabetes highlighted by First Lady Michelle Obama.


text:
Pizza drone delivery? Israel to give it a test flight this summer
A new type of pizza delivery is on its way to Israel: drones.
A test program that will begin in June will allow Pizza Hut to test pilot the flying robots, according to The Wall Street Journal. The first part of the test will entail the drones carrying the orders to a parking lot where a driver will bring the order the rest of the way.
Israel has some of the world’s tightest regulations when it comes to drones. According to the Ministry of Transportation, the company will be limited to a 50-square-mile zone from a single store and will be limited to 5.5-pound deliveries — the equivalent of two pizza pies and a bottle of soda.
Pizza Hut Israel president Udi Shamai told the paper that he hopes regulators will up the weight limit to 22 pounds by June.
On the other hand, Pizza Hut said it adds another 7,000 households that it normally could not service.
“Drone delivery is a sexy thing to talk about, but it’s not realistic to think we’re going to see drones flying all over the sky dropping pizzas into everyone’s backyards anytime soon,” Ido Levanon of Dragontail Systems told the Journal.


text:
What do you see when you look at this package? Here’s what my eyes jumped to: Given the vaguely fleshy color of the contents underneath the text “100% human,” I just couldn’t bring myself to pick up the darned package. Design matters.
Proper Cloth doesn’t admit that its outsourcing practices are cutting corners, of course. They prefer to use terms like “supply chain and logistics” and “streamline operations” to “deliver a better value” to refer to the way that they outsource work to foreign factories with sloppy standards.
CafePress has done it again. CafePress announced last week that designers who choose to retain a place on the CafePress marketplace will now only receive 5 percent of the profit from the sale of its gear. That’s a 50 percent pay cut.


text:
- Tana Mongeau’s Coachella outfit was the most-googled female celebrity outfit of 2019.
- She described her look as “Tomb Raider meets slut.”
There are only 20 days left in 2019, and if you’re thinking about finally starting whatever “New Year’s resolution” you gave yourself in January, just give yourself a break and pore over this fascinating intel about the most-googled people and trends this year instead. Take, for instance, how Tana Mongeau’s Coachella outfit was the most-googled female celebrity look of the entire year. Let that sink in.
Seriously, according to some new stats published by Google data scientists, Tana’s Coachella fashion brought in more searches than Billie Eilish, Beyoncé’s Formation Tour costumes, and Audrey freaking Hepburn. Truly impressive!
If you can barely remember what happened in the news last week, let alone in April, allow me to refresh your memory about Tana’s “Tomb Raider meets slut” outfit. The vlogger said she was feeling herself so much that she didn’t even bother to use Facetune on her Instagram.
Oh, and those shorts? Assless.
For her third day in the trendy desert, Tana went for mismatched green and pink eyeshadow and paired it with neon-green shorts and a pink leopard shirt.
And to go watch Billie Eilish perform during Weekend 2, Tana opted for more low-key ripped jeans and a white crop top.
Here’s what the rest of that Google list looked like:
- Tana Mongeau Coachella outfit
- Serena Williams outfit
- Cardi B Grammy outfit
- Katy Perry Ursula outfit
- Josie Canseco outfit
- Cardi B yellow outfit
- Miley Cyrus Coachella outfit
- Kelly Clarkson outfit on The Voice
- Billie Eilish outfit
- Beyoncé Formation outfit
You Might Also Like


text:
Cadbury is breaking with almost 90 years of tradition by launching a chocolate bar spin-off of the Creme Egg, backed by a TV ad campaign portraying it as the "evil" offspring of the much-loved Easter treat.
The confectionery company, which first started producing a version of the Creme Egg in the 1920s, is launching a £2m TV campaign to introduce Creme Egg Twisted.
Two TV commercials borrow from movies including Godzilla and Terminator.
Cadbury's TV campaign opens with a Creme Egg being splattered into goo by a whisk. The goo then reforms - echoing Robert Patrick's liquid cyborg from Terminator 2 - into an animated caterpillar-like chocolate bar. The Twisted bar then comes to life and starts firing off chunks of goo.
Cadbury, which is launching the first TV ad during the Champions League final on ITV1 on Wednesday, will make the bar available throughout the year while Creme Eggs will still be available in the key Easter period.
"This campaign is about the dark side of Creme Egg," said Neil Simpson, the chief executive of Cadbury's ad agency, Publicis, which has produced the ad.
"We wanted to build on the success of the theme of the Creme Egg campaign and introduce a twisted sibling. The campaign has a more contemporary feel to it, compared to traditional advertising campaigns for the brand, inspired by the way the Creme Egg is made."
In January, Publicis developed a series of 20 short TV ads that featured Creme Eggs being split open in ever more elaborate ways with objects including a hammer, a picture and a ghetto blaster.
The finale of the campaign, which ran up until Easter and used the strapline "Here today, Goo tomorrow", was a TV ad featuring 225 Creme Eggs being "gooed" in mousetraps.
In 2006 Cadbury launched a Dairy Milk bar with Creme Egg flavouring - but this is the first time the chocolate maker has launched a bar under the Creme Egg brand.
· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email firstname.lastname@example.org or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.
· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".


text:
As a keynote sponsor of the 2021 International Dairy Forum, Amcor says it will demonstrate its sustainable solutions and innovative design and delivery that are able of extending shelf life for customers. Amcor will highlight its latest developments in sustainability and dairy packaging solutions during a webinar Feb. 16 at 1 p.m. EST at the virtual Dairy Forum 2021.
“As consumer demands increase, brands know they need smarter and more sustainable packaging strategies in order to break from the pack and truly differentiate themselves,” says Carmen Becker, vice president and general manager, Amcor Rigid Packaging, Specialty Containers. “We offer the capabilities that are best suited to meet strong growth in key dairy segments through stellar design, one-of-a-kind preform technology, and industry-leading manufacturing.”
Visit www.idfa.org/events/dairy-forum-2021 for more information.


text:
Old carpet tiles that are going away as part of a Minneapolis Convention Center renovation are avoiding the landfill with help from a service available through the Bloomington office of engineering firm Burns & McDonnell.
The tiles will be available for purchase at Habitat for Humanity ReStores in Willmar and Mankato, said Nathan Benjamin, who heads up the Kansas City-based firm’s new Global Reuse Services operation.
About four semi-truck loads of the tiles have been taken out of the building for new uses, Benjamin said. It’s a big deal, because cushion-backed carpet tiles like those can’t be recycled, he said.
Salvaging materials from razed and renovated buildings is hardly a new concept.
Before the Metrodome came down last year to make way for the new $1.026 billion Minnesota Vikings stadium in downtown Minneapolis, for example, the project team sold off everything from plastic blue spectator seats to pieces of the white Teflon roof.
Benjamin, a 17-year veteran of the building industry, believes he has taken the practice to another level with a range of one-stop-shop services that include brokering, consulting and coordinating the delivery of materials throughout North America.
About seven years ago, he launched PlanetReuse, which helped clients Nike, Boy Scouts of America, Habitat for Humanity International, Whole Foods and others divert such materials from landfills.
PlanetReuse has reclaimed products ranging from old barn doors to Western Red Cedar lumber from deconstructed bridges in Washington state.
Last November, Benjamin and PlanetReuse partner Brian Alferman were hired by Burns & McDonnell, and now head up the company’s new “Global Reuse Services” team.
The services are available through all of Burns & McDonnell’s offices, including the Bloomington location at 8201 Norman Center Drive, Benjamin said.
“It’s an exciting time for us and a great place to be,” Benjamin said.
About 40 percent of landfill waste comes from building construction and demolition, and 80 percent of that can be reused “in its current state, while adding character and interest to a wide scope of projects,” Benjamin said.
There’s growing demand for things like recycled demolition debris, and projects have a higher percentage of recycled materials than they did 10 or 15 years ago, said Mark Andrew, owner of GreenMark, a Minneapolis-based environmental marketing company.
“The ambitions of some of these reuse companies can be dampened when the markets change. If the price of steel goes up, then there’s a more lively demand for the reuse material,” he said.
“But I still believe there has been and will continue to be an increase in the public appetite for these kinds of businesses because ultimately they can be profitable and there is more public demand for materials reuse,” Andrew said.
Benjamin and Alferman got the Minneapolis Convention Center contract with their own company before joining Burns & McDonnell.
Benjamin said PlanetReuse continues to have a website presence, but over time it will go away now that the company’s services have been woven into Burns & McConnell’s operation.


text:
Sattviko, a healthy food restaurant chain, has raised funding from a series of investors including existing investor Nasscom chairman Raman Roy.
Other investors who participated in this funding round include existing investor former Jet Airways CEO G Ravi Shankar and new investors like Whirlpool chairman Arvind Uppal, FAB founder Sonu Bhasin, Global Holdings partner G Karthik and Credit Suisse (US) Vice President Sudheer Mamadpur.
"We aim to penetrate deeper into existing geographies and grow into newer cities in India," said Sattviko founder Prasoon Gupta, adding that they already working on launching new product lines in different parts of the India.
Delhi-based Sattviko had earlier raised Rs 2 crore seed funding in February 2015, to foray into the non-food products segment. It had also raised funds from Raman Roy in November last year.
Sattviko also announced that it has acqui-hired snacks company Indori Chotore that has presence in Mumbai and Pune. The company had earlier acquired food delivery startup Call A Meal in November 2015.
- Sattviko raised strategic fund from marquee investors
- Sattviko plans cafes as idea addas at IITs
- Sattviko launches a marketplace for Satvik food
- Health Food Dining Chain Sattviko Raises 2 crore seed funding
- Healthy dining chain Sattviko buys food delivery startup Call A Meal
- Delhi-based food startup Sattviko to raise over Rs 25 cr for technology upgrade


text:
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- HemoSense HEM, +5.26% on Monday cut the estimated price range of its initial public offering to $7-$9 a share, down from $8-$10 a share. The San Jose, Calif. medical device maker kept the size of the IPO at 3.5 million shares with underwriters Lazard and WR Hambrecht. The company plans to list its shares on the American Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "HEM." The company had planned a Nasdaq debut under the ticker symbol "HEMO." Under the new terms, the company will raise about $28 million.
Have breaking news sent to your inbox. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Bulletin emails. Sign up here.


text:
The Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) has asked businesses owners within the municipal to disregard an earlier directive to pay N120,000 for the disinfection of their facilities.
AMAC asked business owners to pay N120,000 for the disinfection of their facilities.
In a letter to business owners, Yahaya Kana, director of administration, AMAC, had said the directive was in line with the guidelines for the gradual easing of the lockdown in the federal capital territory (FCT).
Many Nigerians, especially on social media, had criticised the council, saying government ought to bear the cost of disinfection without burdening business owners.
In a series of tweets on Saturday, the council said its mandate is to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It said as part of measures to overcome the pandemic, it is necessary for business owners to keep their premises disinfected.
“The council wishes to inform business owners and residents to disregard any letter requesting business owners to pay for their fumigation. It is necessary for business owners to keep their premises disinfected as the government relaxes lockdown measures,” it tweeted.
“The world has been impacted greatly by the #COVID19 pandemic. As a government institution, our mandate is to cushion the effect of the crisis on all areas of life.
“It is a critical moment for everyone and we are here to help your businesses overcome post-COVID-19 challenges.”


text:
October 19, 2011 — To celebrate Food Day 2011, the University of Virginia Food Collaborative and several local organizations are sponsoring an event Oct. 23 at The Haven, 112 W. Market St., Charlottesville.
The event features a community potluck dinner at 6 p.m. and a 7:15 p.m. presentation by Tanya Denckla Cobb, associate director of U.Va.'s Institute for Environmental Negotiation who also teaches food system planning in U.Va.'s School of Architecture.
Cobb will share success stories from grassroots groups all over the country that are producing, processing, distributing and serving locally grown food. These stories are featured in her new book, "Reclaiming Our Food: How the Grassroots Food Movement is Changing the Way We Eat."
Cobb will sign copies of her book afterward. Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Food Collaborative, which is co-sponsoring the event along with Market Central, the Local Food Hub, U.Va.'s Morven Farm, the Virginia Food System Council, Transition Charlottesville and the Healthy Food Coalition.
The book can be purchased at the event, or pre-ordered online for pick up at the Haven event.
Donations for this event will help supply fresh, locally sourced eggs for the Haven's breakfast program, which serves a hot breakfast 365 days a year to the local homeless community. A donation box will be available at the event; to donate online, visit the Food Day website.
Food Day seeks to bring Americans from all walks of life together to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way, according to the event's website. Food Day was created by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the nonprofit watchdog group that has fought for food labeling, better nutrition, and safer food since 1971.


text:
Mall makeover and all that jazz
A number of malls coming up in the metro are changing both its landscape and lifestyle, reports Moushumi Das Gupta.india Updated: Jan 15, 2007 01:45 IST
Lutyens’ Delhi has its impressive bhavans and boulevards. Old Delhi has its old-world charm. What’s the trademark of the rest of Delhi and its suburb? The question would have drawn a stinging blank a couple of years ago. But today, the Capital beyond the walled city and Lutyens Zone has acquired its own identity, and a modern one at that: swish malls.
In the past two years alone, about a dozen malls have opened in the Capital. Some may sneer at them as symbols of materialistic culture, but a large section of the metro citizenry is loving the experience. Ask any of those teenagers swaggering up and down escalators in these glitzy hang-outs. And demand for them is only growing.
The proof is in the figures: in 2004-05, 24 malls and commercial complexes were sanctioned by the Delhi Development Authority in the Capital. So if you think Shalimar Bagh, Raja Garden, Rohini, Janakpuri, Netaji Subhas Place and Wazirpur are areas you go to while paying a visit to a friend or an old uncle, or when hunting for a rented accommodation, you’d soon be forced to change your opinion. A majority of the upcoming malls, 13, are in west Delhi. Another four malls are coming up in south Delhi — three in Saket and one each in Vasant Kunj and Jasola.
A way of life
Come 2007 the metro landscape is going to be dominated by glitzy malls looming over the dull, grey buildings. And you don’t have to look over the horizon to feel the change. Even our lifestyle hasn’t remained the same; the way we shop, they way we sell and places the youth hang out around. They are the ‘shoppertainment’ destinations, where you shop, catch a film, have a family dinner or just chill out with friends doing nothing in particular. “A mall is a convenient meeting place. Calling friends at your home is so un-cool,” says Vineet Jain, an engineering student.
The funny thing about mall mania is that in this game the Capital city is aping its suburbia (Ansal Plaza and EDM notwithstanding) — believe it or not people from all over Delhi still drive all the way to Gurgaon to get a feel of its famous malls. But experts warn that the Gurgaon mall boom should serve as an instruction. If city planners don’t rev up the basic infrastructure such as transport, power, water and parking space, the mall experience in the Capital can go the Gurgaon way, where 52 shopping malls were proposed but only five are functioning right now. Decreasing footfalls forced the authorities to axe majority of the proposed malls.
“In Delhi there is a huge demand for organised retail. But to ensure that they are a success DDA has to take into account the norms of planning. There has to be proper mall management,” said Deepak Bhavsar, national head for consulting, Trammell Crow Meghraj.
Changing the urban landscape is also the hospitality industry. With over a lakh tourists expected to turn up in the Capital for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, DDA has identified 22 sites where star and budget hotels will come up.


text:
Bank card big Visa has launched an NFT creator program in an effort to carry small companies into the digital financial system.
“We’ve seen speedy progress within the NFT ecosystem over the previous yr,” Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, informed TechCrunch. “We expect NFTs symbolize a brand new type of e-commerce.”
The concept of a small enterprise is evolving from the standard “brick-and-mortar mom-and-pop outlets” to incorporate different impartial companies with creators and entrepreneurs who wish to construct digital-focused corporations and harness new instruments like NFTs, Sheffield stated.
The one-year immersion program, the Visa Creator Program, will carry collectively a worldwide cohort of creators together with artists, musicians, vogue designers and filmmakers the power to construct their companies with NFTs.
There’s no “laborious cap” on the variety of creators for the primary cohort and all members can have entry to Visa shoppers and a broader community of mentors, Sheffield famous.
“Massive retailers and types are asking day-after-day how they will become involved.” Sheffield stated. “The factor that’s so thrilling to us about NFTs is we expect it lowers the barrier to entry for individuals to construct a enterprise and promote on-line.”
The normal method of promoting bodily items has a variety of logistics concerned, which could be a big problem for small companies and people to compete and scale. “NFTs enable somebody who’s inventive, who’s an artist, who’s gifted, to provide totally in a digital method,” Sheffield stated.
Micah Johnson, a former Main League Baseball participant and present artist behind Aku, was one of many first members within the cohort. Visa beforehand introduced the partnership in October 2021, however didn’t disclose that he was concerned in this system on the time.
Johnson’s Aku NFTs are based mostly on a personality created by Johnson after listening to his nephew ask, “Can astronauts be Black?”
His 10-part assortment consists of Black male astronauts posing in a spread of parts from helmets lined in spaghetti and meatballs to a easy, glossy white helmet. The Aku NFTs vary in worth from $1,790 to $37,000, in response to its website.
“I noticed firsthand how NFTs can allow artists,” Johnson stated to TechCrunch. “I used to be actually portray in my storage with this concept, this mission, and I’ve scaled it into a worldwide firm. I wouldn’t be within the place I’m now with out NFTs.”
Visa is not any stranger to the crypto neighborhood and has been an advocate for it over the previous 12 months. It beforehand made headlines for getting a preferred CryptoPunk NFT in August 2021, and Sheffield has said that the acquisition wouldn’t be the corporate’s solely NFT underneath its belt.
Apart from gathering NFTs, Visa has constructed out its crypto workforce, and in December 2021 launched a crypto advisory follow to assist shoppers and companions think about a deep dive into the area.
“We expect that [NFTs] are a elementary primitive instrument that may reshape commerce and create new alternatives,” Sheffield stated. “However there’s nonetheless a ton of questions round how does it evolve? Which blockchains to make use of? How do you stand out? How do you attain prospects? And so we wish to study as a lot from the creators as we expect they will study from us.”
Going ahead, Visa desires to embed itself in these crypto applied sciences to observe the way forward for commerce, Sheffield stated. “We’re extremely enthusiastic about NFTs,” Sheffield stated. “We wish each [NFT] market to have the ability to settle for Visa playing cards as a result of we expect NFT’s will exist throughout many various networks.”
As for subsequent steps? Visa desires to make shopping for an NFT as simple as it’s to purchase the rest on-line, Sheffield stated.
“What we’ve discovered is that the expertise immediately could be fairly troublesome and takes a number of steps of going to an alternate, shopping for cryptocurrency and transferring it over to a different pockets. … It’s very troublesome for brand new customers to return into the area,” Sheffield stated.
Apart from this program, the bank card firm is wanting into different methods to make NFTs extra accessible for customers to buy and entry. There are a “variety of initiatives” that Visa is engaged on to make it simpler for customers to get into the area, however Sheffield didn’t disclose a timeline for future NFT-focused product launches or providers with the corporate.
“Small companies and commerce play a extremely essential position in constructing neighborhood, in cities and neighborhoods the world over,” Sheffield stated. “It’s a pleasant face you see in an area barber [or] native bakery. And now what we’re seeing is creators are utilizing commerce and NFTs to construct like-minded communities of individuals all around the world which are coming collectively as a result of they share a typical set of beliefs, or beliefs.”


text:
Sony Confirms 'The Interview' Will See Limited Release Christmas Day
"We have never given up on releasing 'The Interview' and we're excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day," said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Entertainment. "At the same time, we are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience."
"I want to thank our talent on 'The Interview' and our employees, who have worked tirelessly through the many challenges we have all faced over the last month. While we hope this is only the first step of the film's release, we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech."
It's not yet known how many theaters are jumping on board, and it's possible that this could have a trickle down effect where more cinemas show support for Sony. With that said, it appears the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain will play the flick, according to a Twitter post by founder Tim League.
Breaking news: Sony has authorized screenings of THE INTERVIEW on Christmas Day. We are making shows available within the hour. #Victory
— Tim League (@timalamo) December 23, 2014
Even one of the stars of the movie, Seth Rogan, took to Twitter to applaud the move.
Sony initially cancelled the Christmas Day release of "The Interview" when hackers threatened violence against moviegoers and cinemas. However, Sony didn't have much of a choice when movie chains big and small said they weren't going to show the film.
The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn't give up! The Interview will be shown at theaters willing to play it on Xmas day!— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) December 23, 2014
With this new announcement, it will be interesting to see how many movie chains stand up and support Sony on this one.


text:
Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics may be on the verge of a major deal with Apple.
According to the "Financial Times," Apple is close to purchasing Beats for a reported $3.2 billion.
Sources close to the talks between the two companies say a deal could be announced as soon as next week, however, there are a number of key details that still need to be hashed out.
If it ends up going through, the purchase would be Apple's largest acquisition.
Earlier this year, Beats launched its own streaming service, Beats Music, which directly competes with iTunes Radio and Pandora.
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine founded Beats Electronics in 2008.


text:
Monkeyparking, the app that lets assholes auction off their parking spots, has been sent a cease-and-desist letter by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who says the practice of selling your public parking spot is illegal. Monkeyparking's competition are expected to receive the same treatment soon.
Herrera denounced the app as creating “a predatory private market for public parking spaces.”
“Worst of all, it encourages drivers to use their mobile devices unsafely — to engage in online bidding wars while driving,” Herrera said. “People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so. But we will not abide businesses that hold hostage on‐street public parking spots for their own private profit.”
MonkeyParking and any motorists using the app face fines of $300 per violation of the city’s law prohibiting selling or contracting for parts of a public street, according to the city attorney. The company faces penalties of $2,500 per violation if the city sues it under the state’s unfair competition Law, Herrera wrote.
SF cracks down on ‘Monkey Parking’ mobile app [John Coté/SFGate]
The AP reports that Jeremy Putnam, 31, was arrested in Winchester, Virginia, and charged with “wearing a mask in public,” a felony in that state. He was armed with a “sword” in public, which apparently alarmed residents. But they haven’t charged him with that; they’ve charged him with this, a fascinatingly terrible law: § 18.2-422. […]
Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to ensure that the FCC won’t be able to prevent your ISP from spying on your internet usage and selling your private information. What does that mean in practice?
American penitentiaries, in idealized Quaker imaginings, were to be a place for reflective penitence followed by forgiveness. That’s not how it worked out, especially for the poor. And the problem goes far beyond prison reform:
What could be more fun than a slingshot that shoots tiny airplanes? A slingshot that shoots tiny glowing airplanes of course! These toy planes are outfitted with ultra-bright LEDs, so you can fly all night without losing them in the trees.Whether you are a regular-sized child, or an overgrown adult one, these light-up flyers offer […]
You know the drill. You go to the dentist and they ask you how often you floss. You lie through your teeth and say, “every day!” (Bonus points if you have some cilantro or chives stuck in your gums from lunch). You don’t want to keep up the charade any longer, but rubbing that tiny strand […]
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has done outstanding work packing a fully capable desktop computer into a package the size of a deck cards—especially one that only costs $35. But if you already have a working laptop, why should you care? Oh, how much you have to learn. Besides operating well as a compact digital media hub, […]


text:
The Calgary area’s newest mall is being billed as one unlike any other in western Canada, and its 500 retailers are banking on its unique style to help them thrive once their doors open this summer.
Located just north of the city across the road from CrossIron Mills, the New Horizon Mall cost $200 million to build and was developed by the Torgan Group and MPI Property Group. The 30,000-square-metre, international-themed shopping centre is the first mall in Alberta where each retail space is purchased, not rented. It’s similar to a condo building for retailers, with individual stores either owner-operated or leased by owners to other retailers.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“The business model of this mall is like an Asian-styled mall really, something that you would see in the east part of the world, the old shuks or the bazaars, but much more, of course, modern and up-to-date,” said Moe Kharfan, an investor who purchased four units.
“You can come to this mall and purchase things from all over the world. This was the attraction for me because it’s different from anything in the region.”
Units range in size from about 13-40 square metres, with those on the higher end costing owners $750,000. Each unit is surrounded by glass walls throughout the largely white-coated shopping centre.
The mall’s doors are open to the public, but retailers only started receiving their keys on Tuesday and shops haven’t yet been set up. A grand opening is expected in the summer.
One prominent theme of the mall will be entertainment, with fashion shows and live music events taking place at the stage located at the centre of the mall’s ground floor.
A dining centre and food court, featuring 26 diverse fast food restaurants, are located on the top floor, where the most expensive unit sold for $950,000. More than 350 underground parking stalls are also available for free to customers.
Torgan Group president Eli Swirsky said the shopping centre’s business model has worked in the Toronto-area, where the company has operated Pacific Mall since 1997.
“This is not going to be Tim Hortons. It’s going to be mainly small stores and small merchants. Some of the names you will recognize but the majority of the names will be unique to this mall,” Swirsky said. “It’s owned by the merchants so it has a different type of commitment. It’s a higher level of commitment compared to being a tenant in a mall. It worked very well in Toronto because people liked to own the stores and they liked to own the businesses.”
Swirsky said the company believes the concept will work in Calgary because of the city’s multicultural community. Proximity to CrossIron Mills shouldn’t hurt either, he added.
“We expect our shoppers to go over there and their shoppers to go over here,” he said. “We actually complement each other very well.”
Based on the number of businesses, New Horizon is the second largest shopping centre in Canada, with an area more than five times the size of a CFL football field. The new mall ranks behind the West Edmonton Mall, which has more than 800 stores.
But for new shop owners like Ramesh Prajuli, who purchased a 13-square metre space to sell Himalayan arts and crafts, his business might not have been possible at other malls in the city.
“The shopping experience will be entirely different from going to a big mall with a big area,” said Prajuli, who plans to sell “purely exotic items” from Nepal, India and Pakistan out of his $182,000 unit. “Customers want to have different experiences. I’m hoping they’re going to enjoy the shopping experience here. I’m hoping this will be a kind of tourist destination as well in Calgary.”
Albert Fialkow, a realtor with Century21 Bravo who bought two units, said he hopes to turn his space into a gallery where local artists can showcase their work.
“They can get in here, get mall exposure for a nominal amount,” Fialkow said. “I think the traffic will come … because people are curious. You’re going to have the variety and the diversity in this mall that really doesn’t exist anywhere else. People are going to have the opportunity to pick up interesting items. This mall allows those opportunities that don’t exist elsewhere.”


text:
People will eat mostly vegan meat by 2040
Jun 12, 2019
A report has predicted that by 2040, most people will consume meat that does not come from slaughtered animals. In the past few years, several studies have been published explaining the consequences of consuming red meat and its environmental impact. Now; the global consultant AT Kearney interviewed several experts in the matter to determine what would be the future of red meat. Experts concluded that within the next couple of decades the consumption of beef coming from slaughtered animals would be significantly reduced thanks to replacements like plant-based meats and cultured meats. Moreover, the researchers estimated that by 2040, 35% of all meat consumption would be cultured, while 25% will be vegan replacements.


text:
HANOI, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's leading coffee producer and exporter Vinacafe Bien Hoa has made the world's largest cup of coffee which holds 3,613 liters of coffee, enough for over 30,000 people to drink, Nguyen Thanh Tung, marketing director of Vinacafe Bien Hoa Joint Stock Company, told Xinhua on Friday.
"The Guinness World Records has recently granted us a certificate recognizing our cup of coffee with 2.33 meters in width and 1.53 meters in height as the world's biggest cup of coffee. Other coffee cups in the world are merely cups. Our cup is used to make coffee," he said.
To make coffee from 818 kilograms of instant coffee in its giant stainless steel cup, the company had to mobilize over 100 people to simultaneously do the work skillfully, he said.
Vinacafe Bien Hoa made after-tax profits of more than 108.3 billion Vietnamese dong (VND) (6.8 million U.S. dollars) in 2007, up 80.6 percent against 2006. Its total asset stood at 379.4 billion VND (23.7 million dollars) by the end of last year.