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Apparel brands including Dr Martens maker AirWair International accuse platform of trademark infringement
Head of GCHQ arm warns Britain neglecting growing risk to national security from online attacks
Group threatens to leak private material from renewable energy tycoon as ‘extortionware’ scourge spreads
Unnamed passenger will pay more than $9m for each minute of zero gravity in the Blue Origin capsule
Bills introduced in Congress would represent the biggest shake-up of competition law in a generation
Chinese ride-hailing pioneer’s filings reveal financial recovery after pandemic hit
From geopolitical action to preventing payment, states must come together to halt these criminal actors
G7 proposal targeting cloud computing is the wrong way to hit the ecommerce group
The entrepreneur listened to customers rather than investors to develop his voice messaging program
Etsy buyout of fashion app is part of underlying positive trend for British start-ups
New shopping initiatives will allow profits to rise even if user growth continues to fall
Boston Ballet’s works for VR headsets bring viewers closer to the action — and it could be just the start of a whole new sub-genre of dance
Israel’s parliament votes in an eight-party coalition government led by ultranationalist Naftali Bennett
Ministers want to ensure prominence of channels such as BBC and ITV on smart televisions
Surge of investments from global utilities seeking access to smart software platforms developed by Ovo and Octopus
There is a huge amount of hype surrounding AI.
US-China trade war radically changes smartphone market structure
US and Russian presidents to meet amid heightened tensions and surge in ransomware attacks
WPP, Omnicom and IPG expected to enjoy boost from flourishing digital ad market
Digital outages periodically reveal the web’s inherent flaw — human beings
Chinese company blames ‘political decisions’ for decline as it braces for full impact in 2021
In a burnout epidemic, the right to switch off is needed more than ever
Will Brexit and Northern Ireland overshadow PM's agenda on tax, climate and poverty?
200mph Tesla, Didi IPO filing, Big Tech’s little tax
Landmark move comes ahead of UK government report on streaming payments
Beijing-based group is reportedly targeting a figure of up to $100bn.
Burger chain is latest global company to be targeted in cyber attack
The potential to do good is enormous but if a sceptical public opts out, it will be lost forever
Netflix, Disney and Amazon are splurging on local-language TV and film, but will it lead to hours of bland content?
The speed and convenience of supersonic flight will come at an environmental price
Educational technology can improve children’s prospects — but only if we get it right
US electric vehicle maker suffered spate of bad publicity in one of its most important markets
The retailer must show how it can become a hub for ecommerce, esports and online gaming
Klarna valued at $46bn, Altice’s big BT stake, JBS pays ransom
AstraZeneca’s vaccine has saved many thousands of lives. But rare side-effects, and, relative to competitors, lower efficacy against new variants have given it an uncertain outlook. Coupled with a multibillion-euro lawsuit over delivery shortfalls, the UK pharma group’s future role in the ongoing battle against Covid-19 is under scrutiny
The Australian regulator took on the media giants over content grabbing


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US Government Announces Business Licenses for US Companies
What does it mean
Huawei is still on the blacklist, however, the companies that have submitted applications have finally begun to receive answers about further cooperation with Chinese partners.
Several sources confirm thatcompanies began to receive notifications of approval or “intention to refuse” from the Ministry of Commerce. What products are allowed to sell Huawei and which companies have received or not received a license - is still unknown.
According to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross,department "there were more than 290 requests for specific licenses." Of course, among them is Google, which without a license cannot certify new Huawei smartphones and preinstall its services on them.
Recall that yesterday the US government again postponed the imposition of sanctions against Huawei for another 30 days.</ p>

domain: news


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China recently vowed to clean up its dairy sector, after contaminated milk killed at least four children in a scandal that broke last month. The damage from the scandal has been spreading, with many multinational companies forced to recall products tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical used by Chinese dairy producers to mask the dilution of their milk.
Many are asking how long it will take for the "Made in China" brand to recover.
One national brand that has been badly tarnished is White Rabbit candies. When Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, then-Premier Zhou Enlai gave him a bag of the candies as a state gift, along with two giant pandas for the United States. The white, chewy sweets were a homegrown brand — something China could be proud of.
Now, White Rabbit candies are being recalled from shelves around the world along with a host of other products tainted with melamine: yogurt drinks, milk tea drinks, chocolate and cookies.
Olympic Gains Erased
Jeremy Haft, author of All the Tea in China, says the milk scandal reawakens bad memories.
"For most Americans, we're in a position of deja vu," Haft says. "Suddenly people are recalling toothpaste, tires, toys, the poisoned batches of heparin. And yes, the Chinese brand for quality and reliability has been tarnished."
This scandal has toppled national icons, including Yili, one of the country's biggest dairies and an Olympic sponsor.
This summer's Olympic Games had caused an improvement in the perception overseas of the "Made in China" brand, one survey by the global branding consultancy Interbrand shows. But Jonathan Chajet, who conducted the research, says those gains have been wiped out.
"Immediately following the Olympics, there was quite an improvement of people's perceptions of China — perhaps they were a little less fearful of buying products made in China," Chajet says. "As soon as the milk scandal hit, the data showed the levels went back to immediately before the Olympics."
Not The First Milk Scandal
Even worse for the China brand: This was not the first scandal over milk powder. Four years ago, more than a dozen Chinese babies died from malnutrition after drinking fake formula with no nutritional value. Even that wasn't enough to clean up the dairy industry, says Edward Zhang, a consultant for DeLaval, a Swedish dairy company.
"The government didn't take continued action," Zhang says. "They have their action immediately. But after that time, most of the action disappeared."
Certainly, this time China's government has been sending out the big guns. President Hu Jintao himself has been out on the farms, addressing dairy farmers, and 32 people have been arrested so far. In a high-level Cabinet meeting, the government acknowledged that the dairy industry was chaotic and vowed more oversight. But Haft says such action may not necessarily work.
"The supply chain — that is, all the players that get together to make a product — tends to be three to four times longer than a typical supply chain in the U.S.," Haft says. "Every player adds risk, it adds input costs, it adds turnaround time. And many of those players are middlemen who are very difficult to regulate and police. What we're having here with milk is a symptom of [a] deeper problem that cannot be wished away by the authorities, and really cannot be policed away by the authorities."
Change Unlikely Despite Human Cost
The human toll has been high: Four deaths have been announced so far, and 54,000 sick infants are crowding China's hospitals, according to the most recent figures. Even this, researcher Chajet believes, might not bring about real change.
"As dark as this sounds, I'm not sure that enough babies died in this case for there to be enough public outrage that there will be mass change that Westerners might look toward," Chajet says.
This scandal could cost China's dairy industry as much as $4 billion in lost sales, according to one estimate, and it will also damage Chinese brands already struggling to make headway overseas.
Haft says the fallout will be long-lasting.
"Since the problems are so very systemic, my personal belief is it could take a generation or more for Chinese industries to truly sort themselves out, truly integrate and truly mitigate the tremendous risks you encounter doing manufacturing on the ground in China," Haft says.
And against the backdrop of global financial turmoil, as the export environment becomes more difficult, pressures will grow on struggling Chinese businesses to cut corners to squeeze out more profit. The milk powder scandal is the worst so far to taint the "Made in China" brand, but it's unlikely to be the last.


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WASHINGTON – Falling gasoline costs held U.S. consumer prices nearly in check in July, while industrial output rose in a sign of factory sector health, according to data that suggested the economy was sound despite credit fears in financial markets.
Other reports on Wednesday showed a slight dip in New York state manufacturing activity this month and a decline in the amount of capital flowing into the United States in June.
But analysts said the latest data, combined with reports earlier this week showing strong retail sales and a shrinking trade deficit, pointed to an economy that is actually doing pretty well.
"Things don't look that bad. There is no evidence yet in the data that the economy is on the cusp of losing steam," said Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners in Greenwich, Conn.
The Consumer Price Index, a key inflation gauge, rose a slightly smaller-than-expected 0.1 percent as gasoline prices fell 1.7 percent, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a rise of 0.2 percent.
Darda said even with the latest volatility in the financial markets amid fears of a liquidity shortage, the Federal Reserve is not likely to cut interest rates.
"What's happened with the financial market turbulence is it takes the Fed out of the picture for the foreseeable picture. I think the Fed is going to be very disciplined," Darda said.
CORE INFLATION RISES
Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2 percent in July, matching forecasts. Year-over-year, the core CPI held steady at 2.2 percent for a third straight month.
The Fed said last week that inflation remained its predominant concern, although it acknowledged that a wobbly housing market had led to tightening credit terms for some households and businesses.
"The July CPI readings don't make it any harder or easier for the Fed to cut interest rates," said Richard Huber, economist at A.G. Edwards and Sons in St. Louis. "The trade deficit data we got yesterday will drive GDP numbers for the second quarter higher, which will allow the Fed to say that it's still focused on inflation."
U.S. stocks were teetering between gains and losses on Wednesday amid worries over signs of worsening credit conditions, while U.S. Treasury bond prices were mixed.
INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT UP
Meanwhile, industrial output rose by an expected 0.3 percent in July as automotive-related production surged 2.6 percent during the month, offsetting a big decline in utility output, a Federal Reserve report showed.
Excluding motor vehicles and parts, industrial output rose just 0.2 percent, but manufacturing output rose 0.6 percent.
"Low inventory levels, strong export demand, and ongoing moderate economic growth at home have allowed the manufacturing sector to shake off the depressing effects of the housing downturn," said Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.
Separately, the U.S. Treasury said net overall capital inflows into the United States dropped to $58.8 billion in June from May's revised inflow of $107.3 billion, hurt by a plunge in net purchases of U.S. securities by private investors.
June's net overall capital inflow barely covered the U.S. trade deficit for the month of $58.1 billion.
In another report, the New York Federal Reserve said manufacturing activity in New York State factories slowed in August. The New York Fed's "Empire State" general business conditions index fell modestly to 25.06 from 26.46 in July.


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IBM announced today that it will be adding Nvidia P100 graphics processors to its Bluemix cloud later this month, becoming the “first major global cloud vendor” to provide the high-end “Pascal” GPUs. Big Blue is targeting the new hardware at customers who run compute-heavy workloads, such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, data analytics and high-performance computing.
Unlike Nimbix, the heterogeneous cloud vendor that began offering NVLink’d Nvidia P100 GPUs on the IBM “Minsky” Power8 platform last October (2016), IBM will be using PCIe form factor cards within an Intel x86 server. This is not really a surprise since IBM operates most of its cloud servers on Intel-based chip sets. Customers will be able to add up to two Nvidia P100 cards to a dual Xeon E5-2690 v3 machine (24-core CPUs running at 2.6 GHz).
The IBM cloud does have some Power server options for specific big data workloads but it does not have an expanded assortment of Power, says Jay Jubran, Global Offering Management for Compute at IBM Cloud. A plan to integrate Power8 based systems with NVIDIA P100 GPUs into the IBM cloud portfolio is underway. “We are are working side by side with the Power Systems team to ensure that IBM Cloud will deliver access to the best of IBM technology to allow customers to run HPC and AI workloads,” Jubran told us.
The Power8 “Minsky” platform enables tight coupling of the Power CPU and P100 GPU over Nvidia’s proprietary NVLink interconnect. The mezzanine form factor P100 also provides nearly 13 percent better raw performance than the PCIe card, 5.3 double-precision teraflops versus 4.7. Both versions provide 16 gigabytes of HBM2 stacked memory. Networking on the IBM cloud stands at 10 Gigabit Ethernet today with IBM stating that future platforms might go up to 25 Gigabit Ethernet.
IBM will be first to the P100 punch in terms of major cloud providers, but as we have seen, other cloud purveyors are advancing with P100 plays of their own. Here’s a rundown:
Nimbix – As mentioned above, Nimbix added IBM Power S822LC for HPC systems (codenamed “Minsky”) to its heterogeneous HPC cloud platform last October. Target markets include high-performance computing, data analytics, in-memory databases, and machine learning.
Cirrascale – On its GPU-driven deep learning infrastructure as a service, San Diego, Calif.-based Cirrascale offers a number of P100-based server configurations, including four-way and eight-way Intel-based GPU servers and IBM Power8 Systems with two and four GPU options.
Google – The Google Cloud platform website states that P100s are “coming soon.” Google will also be incorporating AMD FirePro S9300 x2 GPUS into its infrastructure. Google began offering K80 GPU-equipped virtual machines (as a beta release) in February of this year.
Microsoft – Microsoft last month revealed blueprints for a new open source P100-based accelerator – HGX-1 – developed under Project Olympus. It’s an accelerator box with eight Tesla P100s, connected in the same hypercube mesh as the Nvidia DGX-1 server and also leveraging the NVLink interconnect. The HGX-1 hooks to servers via PCIe interface. We’re to assume the boxes, being manufactured by Ingrasys, will show up on Azure but Microsoft hasn’t indicated when that will be. The company has had some notable delays in GPU rollouts – announcing a planned K80 instance in September 2015, and AWS beating them to general availability a year later.
Tencent – Two weeks ago, Chinese cloud giant Tencent said it will offer a range of cloud products that will include GPU cloud servers incorporating Nvidia Tesla P100, P40 and M40 GPU accelerators and Nvidia deep learning software. Tencent Cloud launched GPU servers based on Nvidia Tesla M40 GPUs and NVIDIA deep learning software in December; it expects to integrate cloud servers with up to eight Pascal-based GPUs each by mid-year.
Reigning cloud king Amazon does not yet offer Nvidia’s Pascal-based silicon (the P100 or the P40 inferencing engine). Amazon’s most recent P2 instance family is backed by Kepler-generation K80 parts, rolled out last September (2016).
IBM emphasized the advantage of its bare metal cloud offering, compared to the multi-tenant environments of AWS and the other mega-cloud providers, especially for HPC workloads. “The main reason why people come to IBM cloud, other than the global presence, is the performance and consistency of having access to the bare metal. The bare metal allows us to give better performance than any other virtualized environment with the same specification because we do not have the hypervisor tax which is roughly 10-15 percent of the CPU power,” said Jubran.
“We find HPC workloads typically find their way to the IBM cloud. If the customer is looking to run HPC on an hourly basis sometimes you’ll see them go to other clouds, but in terms of monthly consumption we have the best offering in terms of performance and price value,” he added.
The bare metal infrastructure is also attractive to the graphics community, for gaming, especially a subset called cognitive gaming, and for engineering, said Jubran. Financial services, healthcare, and retail are all target verticals.
Customers that prioritize highly elastic resources and pay-by-the-sip pricing typically go to IBM’s competitors, Jubran noted, but their core customers are the ones who understand the performance metrics that IBM offers.
“We are attracting both digital customers looking for performance, gaming customers and born on the web type customers who are looking for bare metal performance, but scalability of the cloud. And we also get in the higher end of the spectrum in terms of enterprise and that is because of IBM obviously being an enterprise-focused company from day one and they put trust in IBM to bring their workload to our datacenters. So having both aspects of the spectrum keeps us on the innovative side in terms of digital and keeps us on the high-performance secure side for the enterprise,” said Jubran.
Aside from the advantage of this enterprise trust factor, IBM’s distributed model of 50 datacenters (built up since the Softlayer acquisition in 2013 for a reported $2 billion) gives them the geo-precision to provide local data sovereignty for their customers and is a natural fit for edge computing (important for AI training workflows and for IoT). For many customers, proximity of compute and data are far more important than saving on compute cost offered by the greater elasticity of mega-datacenters. A typical IBM datacenter unit consists of roughly 20,000 servers; in the hyperscaler world, that’s pretty small.
The Tesla P100 joins Nvidia’s portfolio of GPU offerings on the IBM Cloud, including the older Tesla K2 GPU, the Tesla M60 for virtualized graphics and the Tesla K80, which IBM added in 2015, about a year ahead of the competition. IBM expects most of its K80 customers will be migrating over to the P100 servers as they begin adding the parts later this month. “We also expect newcomers into the AI platform as the P100 is the most powerful GPU in terms of AI workloads that are based on TensorFlow, Caffe, Nvidia SDK or any of the AI SDKs available out today,” said Jubran. “With so much focus from all the different industries in AI, I think you will see more and more of those workloads coming to IBM cloud and the P100 will enable that. If you look at the Nvidia material for P100 it is the most powerful GPU for both training and inferencing, the two aspects of AI.”
“With all key deep learning frameworks GPU-accelerated and over 400 HPC applications in a broad range of domains, including the top 10 high performance computing applications, IBM Cloud customers can quickly tap into the power of the our GPU platform to boost performance, accelerate time to results and save money,” Nvidia’s Vice President of Accelerated Computing Ian Buck wrote in a blog post.
The cost for the new Pascal-based hardware is $750 per month per P100 GPU card, tacked on to the price of the server. This adds a 50 percent premium over the cost of the K80s ($500 per card) but the P100 card offers a 60 percent additional performance improvement over the K80. That should make switching a no-brainer and while IBM won’t be forcing customers with active workloads off the K80, they are planning to sunset the older Teslas as inventory depletes.
Editor’s note — April 6, 2017: In an earlier version of this article, we reported (based on information IBM shared with us) that the Power8 “Minsky” platform was not on IBM’s cloud roadmap. After the article was published, IBM contacted us to let us know that it does have plans to incorporate Power8 based systems with Nvidia P100 GPUs into its cloud portfolio. We have amended the story to include this updated information.


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The first laptop powered by a processor that uses RISC-V architecture is up for pre-order. The “Roma” laptop comes from a collaboration between China’s DeepComputing and Xcalibyte. It’s expected to begin shipping toward the end of the fourth quarter of 2022.
For now it appears to be aimed at developers looking to build and test software on a native RISC-V computer, but it could pave the way for future laptops (and other devices) designed for the general public.
At the heat of the Roma computer is a system-on-a-module (SOM) featuring an “unannounced” quad-core RISC-V processor both a GPU and NPU for hardware-accelerated graphics and AI.
The companies plan to offer a choice of 12nm (Pro) or 28nm (Standard) chips at launch, but the SOM is removable and upgradable, allowing users to switch from one to the other or possibly even upgrade to a higher-performance processor in the future.
In fact, Xcalibyte says the developer-centric computer “comes with free RISC-V SoC and SOM upgrades as well as early access to any next generation laptop and accessory upgrades, along with a generous discount”.
Other features of the laptop include support for up to 16GB of LPDDR4/LPDDR4X memory, up to 256GB of storage, and an ARM SC3000 secure enclave. The companies say the computer supports “most Linux variants.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve head about a RISC-V laptop. last month CNX Software reported that Chinese RISC-V chip designer StarFive had been asking people to fill out a survey about their interest in RISC-V laptops, mini PCs, or single-board computers. It’s unclear if that project is related to the Roma computer or if the new laptop from DeepComputing and Xcalibyte is a separate project.
According to the laptop announcement, the Roma computer was designed with support from RISC-V International, and Linux news site Phoronix says they were first tipped off about the new laptop by a contact at RISC-V International, giving a bit of credibility to the project.
It’s said to only be available in limited quantities at launch. Folks who are interested in pre-ordering can register their interest at the Roma website.
Update: This article originally suggested that the laptop would only be available in China. But a PR contact reached out to let me know that it will ship to customers in other countries as well.


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Google to Introduce Android VR
From the look of things, Google may release a VR headset that functions without a phone and is at the same time powered by Android. An Android VR placeholder has been seen on Play Developer Console, and then a tweet from Peter Rojas, an entrepreneur at Betaworks, states that the Android VR will be announced at Google I/O. He also stated that the gadget is designed as a standalone that wouldn’t require a phone, although it is going to be a lot less powerful than the Rift or Vive that are plugged into a PC.
Scroll down for the video
The previous claim ridicules a previous statement that Google will launch a wireless VR headset. Motion-tracking cameras powered by Movidus, a company Google worked with on Project Tango, may be used. Nevertheless, a report from the Financial Times indicate that the tech giant is going to release a device that needs a smartphone as well as support several other products, in contrast to Gear VR. Both model types may be released at the I/O conference, according to WSJ.
What We Know So Far About the Android VR
Rumors have it that the Android VR experience will be built into the Android, and so none of the headsets would need any third-party apps, unlike the Gear VR and Google Cardboard that only function with the Oculus platform. A lot of people think first of Gear VR in regards to smartphone VR seeing that Samsung cleverly took advantage of the tech to campaign for its recently launched smartphone. Over one million people now own a Gear VR courtesy its cheap price and giveaway promo with its flagship smartphone, S7.
Many people purchased the S7 smartphone in order to get their hands on the Gear VR; therefore, in the event that Google releases an ecosystem and a wearable that bolsters various other smartphones, Oculus and Samsung will most certainly be kicked off the “monopoly” throne. Android VR will most likely be grafted into the forthcoming Android N OS, which automatically means it is going to take some time before one can get their hands on these hypothetical VR headsets, or so it seems. However, assuming this report is valid, the VR headsets will fuel a lot of enthusiasm for the I/O conference, which will be covered extensively by Engadgets.


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SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AKA LLC announced that the world's first artificially intelligent robot friend 'Musio' has been launched in Japan by SoftBank C&S.
With the official release, AKA is introducing Musio as the next English education solution to Japan's consumers. The announcement marks the first key milestone in its partnership with SoftBank C&S, signed in 2016 to facilitate the innovation of AI social robot technology.
Customers in Japan can now purchase AKA's latest innovation 'Musio X' and its interactive English materials in SoftBank SELECTION Online Shop. Musio is also available to order online at Amazon Japan, as well as in-stores of Japan's major consumer electronics and home appliance retailers.
"AKA developed Musio by integrating AI-based contextual awareness to simulate human conversation, and we believe education is one of the first industries where AI social robots can be put into practical application," said Raymond Jung, CEO of AKA LLC. "With Japan's premiere telecommunications and internet company as our official retail partner, we look forward to bringing Musio as a friend, family and a tutor to consumers in Japan."
AKA also confirmed that it is now partnering with Japan's leading education companies to add more interactive study materials and on-site education programs to its content ecosystem.
"We listened to our supporters and customers and realized what they want in Musio is personalized diagnosis and rich educational content for users in every learning stage," said Brian Lee, Chief Strategy Officer of AKA LLC. "Our goal is to offer the highest quality experience to all our customers, and we will continue to devote our best efforts to enhancing Musio's natural communication features and its content environment to address these needs."
In Japan, Musio's ability to communicate naturally is currently being spotlighted as the next generation English education solution for all: From children and students in need of a language tutor to older users seeking native conversation partners to become more proficient in business English. Together with Sophy, an intelligent pointing device that connects Musio to other objects including educational contents, Musio offers smart solution for learning English as a second language.
Pricing and Availability
- Musio X (JPY 98,000); Musio X + English education materials (JPY 128,000).
- For users interested in using Conversation Mode in Musio X, SoftBank C&S is currently offering monthly AI service plan ("Friend Plan") starting at JPY 980 per user.
- Available at: SoftBank SELECTION Online Shop, Amazon Japan, and in local consumer electronics and home appliance stores.
- Size: 218 (height) × 174 (width) × 83 (depth) mm
- Weight: 850g
- Battery: 10800mAh（Up to 9 hours of battery life)
- Charging Port: Micro-USB
- CPU: ARM Cortex quad core
- OS: Android（5.1.1）
- Applicable Wireless LAN: Wi-Fi802.11b／g／n, Bluetooth® 4.0 Low Energy
Musio is the A.I. robot friend that can learn new phrases, ideas and information making possible the interaction and conversation with human beings. Musio (powered by MUSE A.I. engine) can converse with users and help non-English speaking countries' children learn English. As the IoT hub, Musio can be also able to communicate with other machines and devices. Musio will provide an opportunity to develop emotional intelligence for users.
About AKA LLC
AKA is developing A.I. engines to help improve communication among objects. The technology integrates artificial intelligence and big data to more effectively deliver essential communication tools, such as speaking, writing, facial expressions, and gestures that are often overlooked.
- Joanne Shin
- [email protected]
This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com
SOURCE AKA LLC


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Financial Experts Believe Steak n’ Shake Might Be Done
Man, I love me some Steak n' Shake. When I heard the news regarding the future of the Illinois based chain restaurant, I started to get a little worried.
Here's one reason why Steak n' Shake might be going away:
A 'judge ordered the restaurant (Steak n' Shake) to pay its managers $6 million in unpaid overtime and an additional $1.7 million in attorney’s fees.'
This is on the heels of 44 Steak n' Shake restaurants abruptly closing "to prepare for franchise partners."
Currently, the Steak n' Shake location at East State Street in Rockford is still open for business, but after reporting a nearly a $20 million loss in the first quarter things are looking bleak.
Things have got so bad for Steak n' Shake, they're suggesting the removal of the cherry from their famous shakes in a cost-cutting move believing it will save the fledgling company $1 million per year.
To make matters worse, Business Insider saw this coming.
In March of 2018, they listed Steak n' Shake alongside Payless Shoe Source, Sears and David's Bridal as companies expected to file for bankruptcy. All three are either shuttered or in the process of liquidating.
I sure hope the same doesn't happen to Steak n' Shake, unfortunately, their closure would be the cherry on top of a sad business trend.


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U.S.-China trade tensions rattle markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 500 points Tuesday amid a broad sell-off on Wall Street as the U.S. and China inched closer to a potential escalation in their costly trade war.
The U.S. was set to impose higher tariffs on China on Friday, a day after representatives from both nations were scheduled to resume trade talks Thursday in Washington.
The looming deadline followed President Donald Trump’s threat on Sunday to raise tariffs on China in a bid to pressure Beijing to reach a long-sought resolution to the trade conflict between the world’s two biggest economies. The ongoing feud has raised costs on goods for consumers and companies.
The U.S. and China have raised tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of each other’s goods in their dispute over U.S. complaints about Chinese technology ambitions.
Washington has accused Beijing of reneging on its commitments and is preparing to raise import taxes on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%, and to impose tariffs on another $325 billion in imports, covering everything the country ships annually to the United States.
The possibility that the trade dispute could escalate represents a marked shift from just a few weeks ago, when talks between the U.S. and China appeared to be on track for an agreement. That expectation helped boost the stock market’s rally this year.
Jitters over the tougher rhetoric from the U.S. on trade sent the market sharply lower Monday, though the sell-off lost momentum by the end of the day. On Tuesday, the wave of selling intensified as the day went on.
The S&P 500 index was down 2% as of 3:10 p.m. Eastern Time. The Dow lost 555 points, or 2.1%, to 25,882. The index was briefly down 607 points. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, fell 2.4%. Major indexes in Europe also fell.
The rout is the first big jolt for stocks since the turn of the year, when fear began draining out of the market and the S&P 500 started its march back to record heights.
For months, the S&P 500 climbed steadily as worry after worry that had hounded investors late last year seemed to dissipate. Chiefly, the Federal Reserve promised to take a patient approach with interest rates. That calmed investors who had worried the Fed would push the economy into a recession by raising rates too aggressively. Economic data also improved in the United States and China, which encouraged investors.
The big rise in stocks since the beginning of the year partly reflects complacence among investors, said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research for Nationwide Investment Management.
“We’ve basically flipped from being too pessimistic to perhaps being too optimistic,” he said.


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Android 19 and 20 dbz
To solve this, Google has made Android 8. Assuming you already have a phone, then you will need an Activation kit (like the one Pictured). He must keep the client updated about every minute detail of his application. 9 0. Transportation Department and other agencies bars android 19 and 20 dbz from carrying on the devices or stowing them in checked baggage during flights. Note: Backups must be created with SMS Backup Restore apk before attempting to restore messages. For starters, Google's Fuchsia is built using Google's own microkernel called Magenta. The iPhone 6s, introduced in 2015, was the most popular in 2016 with more than 60 million units shipped during the year, research firm IHS Markit said Apple's iPhone 7, which debuted in September 2016, was second with more than 50 million units shipped followed by the iPhone 7 Plus with 25 million units and iPhone 6s Plus with just slightly less. In present day, many new developments are taking place in the field of smart phones. Deutsche Bank also claims that sources from Foxconn are only expecting Apple to order parts for the iPhone 7S and 7S Plus, according to a report from Business Insider It's possible that instead of waiting until 2018 to announce the new phone, Apple will announce it this year and start shipping to customers in 2018. The report reveals that android 19 and 20 dbz phone users are more likely to prefer prepaid plans when compared to the overall smartphone market, as well as indicate that they remain within their plans boundaries, indicating price sensitivities. It mostly focuses on games that are mostly free. While the Android One Moto X4 has the same specifications and hardware as the phone announced at IFA 2017 this summerit replaces the custom software with a pure Android experience, a limited selection of preinstalled apps and guaranteed software updates for two years. XMOD requires a rooted android device. Access to the internet relies primarily on 3G coverage, the whereby an HSDPA android 19 and 20 dbz provides speeds of up to 7. Some of the herbal penis enlargement pills are perfectly safe to use and include tested and approved ingredients which are considered by top medical experts to be very effective. Persistent rumors that Verizon will soon unveil the iPhone on its network have prompted speculation about the future of the smartphone market, as has the recent introduction of the Windows Phone 7, which does not yet appear to threaten the iOSAndroid OSRIM Blackberry chokehold. Developers can reuse the source code to develop the application for different platforms. Think about what that means. There are several affordable mobile phone deals available for this astonishing handset. Android 19 and 20 dbz will destroy other players' bases while protecting your own. 15 MP of built in camera with LED flash which offers 2048x1536 pixels of resolution. Custom Artifact - select this option to have IntelliJ IDEA upload theapk built from android 19 and 20 dbz code and resources appointed in a manually configured artifact. Android 19 and 20 dbz battery information is updated every five seconds. Not only does it track the amount of food in the pan, it also counts calories and gives you cooking instructions as you go. Blackberry apps android can't maintain a strong cell signal, the wife only works when we're android 19 and 20 dbz the house. On March 18, 2014, Google announced Android Wear, an Android-based platform specifically intended for smartwatches and other wearable devices; only a developer preview was made publicly available. Whoever came up with this stupendously ridiculous idea for mobile app development should be shot, it's pathetic, pointless and a complete waste of time. But it's noticeably bigger than its predecessor despite the small increase in screen size, it has limited storage compared to the Nexus 6P and it lacks a couple of camera features due to the slower processor. But we've talked enough about how it works in the hand. Launching an app allow businesses to take android 19 and 20 dbz orders anytime, anywhere, and as per their convenience. Developers no longer control the importance level of a notification on Android Oreo. Users are alerted to incoming calls and text messages via vibration and ringing with the option to download polyphonic ringtones and utilises How to use custom control in android music files as ringtones. ArcMedia also used FFMPEG decoding library for their player, and promise support for almost every video and audio file format available. As I try to write this article, I'm simultaneously streaming a DJ set on Mixcloud, reading an article on about Videos humor para android Reznor, researching its author on Twitter speed bump android app periodically checking Facebook. If you do factory reset, it may be wise not to restore a backup and entrepreneur games for android set the S6 up fresh instead, as you may reintroduce the problem. It's entertaining enough and you can unlock a plethora of additional characters for free. He said with more than 2 billion devices operating Android and years of data, machine learning was a natural progression for Google to help identify security risks. The phone comes with a wall outlet charger and a USB charging cable. Lead study author Sarah Chavez of the University of Florida told Reuters Health that health care providers who work with diabetes patients should stay android 19 and 20 dbz about the top apps in app stores.More...
Comments:18.04.2013 at 04:57 Mezibei:
Really and as I have not guessed earlier
20.04.2013 at 10:44 Zugor:
And everything, and variants?
28.04.2013 at 04:19 JoJot:
It is remarkable, very useful phrase


text:
Fonterra Australia has announced its weighted average farmgate milk price for the 2020/2021 season of $6.06 per kgMS, with an estimated closing price range of $6.30 to $6.70 per kgMS.
The minimum price, as set out in Fonterra’s base and seasonal rates table, along with the Milk Supply Agreements, are available to farmers on Fonterra’s dedicated website at www.farmsource.com.au/pricing.
Fonterra Australia Managing Director René Dedoncker says that Fonterra’s prices have considered all factors including the uncertain market conditions caused by COVID-19.
“Global commodity prices have softened and are back to early 2019 levels with GDT average prices between $2,800 and $3,000 USD a tonne. After considerable volatility, the Australian dollar has stabilised between US$0.64 and US$0.66 and we have based our pricing on this range.
“The impact of COVID-19 on economies and the market is still largely unknown and we are seeing softening of demand relative to supply which is putting downward pressure on prices.
“We anticipate that global dairy markets will be uncertain for some time. The global downturn is continuing to reduce consumers’ purchasing power while the foodservice industry remains impacted by restrictions in the tourism and the hospitality sectors.
“The last month has given some cause for optimism in the year ahead, with improvements in key product values. By the end of June, we’ll have more certainty on our next six-monthly product pricing, including key cheese export contracts. We will provide our farmers with an update on this by the end of June, including any resulting impact on our price forecast.
“Fonterra’s market-leading consumer brands and value-added ingredients portfolio are providing strong options to put milk into. Like our suppliers, we will be head down, doing the basics well and focusing on costs to secure the best margins,” says Mr Dedoncker.


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The world’s largest candy maker is “going all in” to fight climate change.
Mars, Inc. announced on August 5 that they will be spending a billion dollars through the next few years to reduce their carbon footprint.
“We’ve been increasingly worried about overall progress on the big issues, whether that’s climate change or solving poverty,” Barry Parkin, the company’s chief sustainability officer, told Business Insider. “There are obviously commitments the world is leaning into but, frankly, we don’t think we’re getting there fast enough collectively.”
By 2050, the manufacturer of M&M’s, Snickers, Skittles and Twix is aiming to reduce the environmental impact of the business and supply chain by more than 67 percent.
The candy titan’s “Sustainable in a Generation” plan is their boldest environmental move yet. Long a vocal advocate for climate change, Mars was among the major corporations to signed a petition in May against President Donald Trump’s withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
Nevertheless, Mars’ chief sustainability officer said the company was not motivated to take action because of the current presidential administration.
“We’re not interested in the politics here — this is about policy,” he said.
The announcement comes just days ahead of the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week, which begins September 18 in New York City.
In addition, Mars’ plan will further expand wind-powered operations, increase sustainable food sourcing, initiate cross-industry action groups, and find ways to increase income for farmers, Parkin said.
“Mars has been in business for four generations and intends to be for the next four generations,” Mars CEO Grant F. Reid stated in a press release. “We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do but also because it’s good business.”
Thinking ahead through the next century, Parkin said the company must “completely change” the way they operate their business and source products, in order to become “truly sustainable.” To date, Mars employees over 80,000 people in 78 countries, according to their website.
The family-owned firm, which earned $35 billion in global sales last year, is making sure the campaign gains traction via its advertizing, too: The company will incorporate wind turbines into its M&M’s ads to champion renewable energy.


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Centro chief misread crunchPUBLISHED: 07 Apr 2011 00:05:15 | UPDATED: 07 Apr 2011 05:46:43PUBLISHED: 07 Apr 2011 PRINT EDITION: 07 Apr 2011
Andrew Scott, the maverick former chief executive of Centro Properties Group, discounted the looming credit crunch that eventually brought about the near collapse of the $25 billion shopping centre empire he built.
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text:
Galaxy S8+ Update Rolls Out Changes For Camera And Navigation Bar
An update has been rolled out for galaxy S8+ for the month of June. Weighing in at around 455MB, the update includes changes related to camera as well as navigation bar.
Currently, units in Europe and India are getting this update, although other regions are expected to also get it sooner than later.
If you can’t wait for the auto update. go to phone settings to manually check it out.


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In 1990, the partnership company of Kairus Shavak Dadachanji and Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry, known as Kaisha Manufacturers, began producing glass ampoules and vials for pharmaceuticals. In 2008, the company went into a 50-50 joint venture with one of the world’s leading manufacturers of pharmaceutical packaging glass, the German company Schott. Schott Kaisha expanded the business to syringes, sterile solutions, and cartridges.
High-quality, affordable solutions
Rishad Dadachanji, director, Schott Kaisha, speaks about its manufacturing capacity and new developments, “We offer high-quality, yet affordable solutions to the pharma companies in India. We produce over 3 billion pieces a year across our entire product range. We are the only company in India that manufactures packaging of all types. Moreover, our leadership and expertise in the industry have motivated us to launch ready-to-fill nested solutions like nested sterile vials and cartridges. We are proud that one of these solutions is an Indian invention, patented by us. These nested solutions will be supplied globally through Schott.”
Four manufacturing plants in India
Schott Kaisha currently owns two operational manufacturing plants. One is in Daman and the other in Jambusar in Gujarat. The manufacturing plant at Daman produces all four products – syringes, vials, ampoules, and cartridges, and the Jambusar plant currently makes ampoules and vials.
Being a pharmaceutical glass packaging pioneer, the company looks to strengthen the Indian pharmaceutical packaging industry by producing products that meet both consumer demands as well as global standards. Speaking about its upcoming ventures, Dadachanji says, “We will now launch our new site in Umarsadi, 15 minutes away from Daman. Under validation currently, this plant is scheduled to be operational in March. It will handle syringes, sterile solutions, and siliconized solutions as well.”
He further explains, “This is especially an exciting year for us, as we are in the process of major expansions with two new plants coming up in Baddi (in Himachal Pradesh) and in Umarsadi (in Gujarat). With these plants expected to be operational by next year, we would have a total of four Schott Kaisha plants catering to most of the leading pharma players across the country.”
The four production sites are complementary to each other, further enhancing the company’s vision to be the supplier of choice for all the leading pharma players in India. “All the sites are extremely advanced, equipped with the latest technologies, in-line cameras for a full inspection, and more. Schott Kaisha is investing over Rs 50 crores in a new site in Baddi to set up production capacity of 360 million ampoules and 70 million vials. The plant will be operational by April 2020, as installations are going on at our new sites.”
Market share in India
Schott Kaisha is a supplier to all the major pharmaceutical companies in India. He adds, “We have 60-70% of the market share in India for tubular containers made of Type 1 glass, and directly export almost 25% of our production.” He also acknowledges the fact and sees enormous potential as Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers are following a trend of ready to fill lines, easy integration, and smooth changeover.
Nested solutions for pharma companies
The company also offers customized solutions and validation to its customers. Dadachanji explains its nested cartridge solutions. According to him, Schott Kaisha is the first company to introduce these kinds of solutions in India. Apart from nested syringes, the company has a similar concept for vials. “We were the first company to have ready-to-fill nested syringes, vials, and cartridges in a standard tub, which enables a pharma company to have a minimal setup of their machines during change-overs.”
Quality standards & GMP
On the subject of quality standards and good manufacturing practices, Dadachanji says, “We have all the necessary accreditations and certifications. The company also has ISO 13485 certification, which is a strong proof of the Quality Management System, and compliance with the highest standards for organizations in the medical device industry.” However, he admits that in India, people learn about global trends and updates of the regulatory framework, much later. With Schott Kaisha’s German suppliers as well as several partners and stakeholders in Europe and the US, the company has been a pioneer in introducing new trends and best practices to the country much sooner.
“The global market for high-quality pharmaceutical packaging products is rapidly growing, and we wish to be at the forefront of such trends. Schott Kaisha is known for bringing innovative technologies and packaging solutions to India, and we believe this is the need of the hour for our clients who cater to both domestic and global markets,” Dadachanji concludes.


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Dr. Pepper surprised a Kansas woman with her very own outdoor soda fountain after she shared a tweet expressing her love for the drink.
Kansas State University Student, Clair Daniels tweeted in December, saying she wished she had a Dr. Pepper fountain installed in her house to save money on her favorite soft drink.
She wrote, "I really just need to have a Dr. Pepper fountain installed in my house. That would probably be cheaper than how much I spend on it currently."
The soda company surprised her months later, showing up on her doorstep to install a 6-foot-tall Dr. Pepper fountain in her front yard. The fountain can hold 5 gallons of Dr. Pepper at a time.
Dr. Pepper said the fountain was built from scratch for a promotional video featuring Clair after the marketing team noticed her tweet - but it’s not safe to actually drink from.
Clair said she drinks two or three cans of the soda a day. Dr. Pepper also provided her with 1,200 cans for her drinking pleasure.


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Presley’s office eyeing wireless carriers
by MBJ Staff
Published: January 12,2012
NORTH MISSISSIPPI — Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley’s office has begun random checks of wireless phone retailers to ensure compliance with the Consumer Code for Wireless Service.
PSC regulations require designated wireless companies comply with the code, which provides consumer rights at the point of purchase such as a 14-day trial period, the availability of a map detailing service and coverage, along with eight other rights designed to protect consumers.
“Customers who are buying products and services from wireless companies should be protected, and it is important that they be made aware of their rights when making these purchases,” Presley said. “My staff has begun making random checks of wireless retailers throughout the 33 counties in North Mississippi to make sure these rules are being followed and that customers are being made aware of these rights at the point of purchase.”
During the checks, Presley said employees of the PSC could request volunteer interviews with customers who have recently purchased wireless service.
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Sabina's gift sparks special event for homeless teens
rare night of pampering inspired joy and confidence
It all began with an unusual phone call from Sabina Pinch. She had a donation, she told us, but she would like to bring it to our CEO in person. Before we knew it, Sabina and her husband Mark were bringing in box after box—each filled with designer clothing.
Considering the fact that for most of the women and girls accessing our shelters used clothing is the norm, these brand new clothes—and designer ones at that—would be a rare luxury indeed. As we began pulling the dresses and shirts from the boxes, it quickly became clear that this special donation called for a special celebration.
“Things that those of us with homes and jobs and families might take for granted can be miraculous for someone struggling to keep her head above water,” said Marilee Roloff, CEO of Volunteers of America, who accepted the clothing donation. “Sabina could have easily done something else with these beautiful clothes, but giving them to us meant we could provide an unforgettable experience for young homeless women.”
We called on a few friends from the community and quickly gathered donations of makeup, flowers, even fresh strawberries and a chocolate fountain and invited girls from Crosswalk for a special night they would not soon forget.
More than twenty young women came to pick out clothes, shoes and accessories. Ferris juniors Danielle Peterson & Sophie Rice-Sauer provided baby sitting for the girls with children. Each girl got a new make-up kit and staff gave basic how-to lessons. Stylists Gretchen Weikleenget and Jessica Wolff from Gretchen’s Salon along with volunteer Kari Grytdal offered hair styling and nail tech Tamara Noble pampered the girls with free manicures. Each girl left with a red rose and a renewed sense of confidence.
More than just putting clothes on the backs of the needy, donations like these clothes provide warmth for the human spirit, delivering hope and dignity to those who need it the most. “It made me feel very feminine,” said Adrienne (pictured with her sister Megan) of her experience at the party. “It was a blast. It was good to dress up ‘cause I don’t get to very often.”


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The cover of the latest issue of German gaming magazine PC Games has revealed the next game in the Risen series, Risen 3: Titan Lords.
Risen 3 will be an open-world game with a medieval setting, according to a NeoGAF post. The last game in the series, Risen 2: Dark Waters, released back in 2012 for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.
Risen 3: Titan Lords is being developed by Piranha Bytes and will be published by Deep Silver and All Games Beta has posted a few leaked screenshots and artwork of the game that you can check out here.
Risen 3: Titan Lords Unveiled ~ PC Games magazine cover pic.twitter.com/USSGclyy8U
— AGB (@AllGamesBeta) February 21, 2014
EGM has contacted Deep Silver about the announcement and will update the post when we here back.
PSA: The header image is taken from Risen 2: Dark Waters.


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NHTSA Recommends Autonomous Vehicles be Used for Testing Only -- For Now
May 31, 2013 7:48 AM
comment(s) - last by
NHTSA wants better safeguards before autonomous vehicles be used for general purposes on the roads
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said
should only be used for testing purposes by U.S. states until more safety features are added to these cars.
In a new set of recommendations, the NHTSA said self-driving cars need plenty of safety-related improvements before being considered for widespread consumer use. For instance, the agency said these vehicles should have a feature that recognizes when their technology is failing, and let the driver know so that they can take over quickly.
NHTSA also said that autonomous vehicles should be able to record these failures so that they can be understood later.
“We believe there are a number of technological issues as well as human performance issues that must be addressed before self-driving vehicles can be made widely available,” NHTSA said in its automated driving policy statement. “Self-driving vehicle technology is not yet at the stage of sophistication or demonstrated safety capability that it should be authorized for use by members of the public for general driving purposes.”
Some of the safety features the NHTSA is considering for autonomous vehicles is automatic braking, where the car would jump in and brake before a crash occurred.
Self-driving cars are currently being tested in California, Florida and Nevada, and the NHTSA said these cars should remain in a testing phase only until safety features improve. Once this happens, the NHTSA will reconsider their recommendations.
NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said that autonomous vehicles are a long way away from hitting the roads beyond testing.
“We’re encouraged by the new automated vehicle technologies being developed and implemented today, but want to ensure that motor vehicle safety is considered in the development of these advances,” Strickland said. “As additional states consider similar legislation, our recommendations provide lawmakers with the tools they need to encourage the safe development and implementation of automated vehicle technology.”
Many believe the NHTSA is putting autonomous vehicles off because they would eliminate revenue from traffic violations (since the cars would prevent crashes, stop at red lights, drive the speed limit, etc.) and would hurt municipalities.
Last October, NHTSA announced that it would work on
a 2-3 year project
for autonomous vehicle rules. It said the research would include topics such as safety standards (such as crashtest results) and software security (to ensure that hackers don't take over).
The Detroit News
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: Intelligent Roads First
5/31/2013 12:41:31 PM
Do we blame the driver who wasn't paying attention?
I think it's pretty clear that this the way it'll be in the near future, and there's no reason for the blame to put anywhere else.
When the technology gets good enough, I suspect we'll have insurance companies have dual insurance pricing for automated and manual driving, and for the former they'll have near unlimited coverage. They'll charge rates based on each system's accident history.
Accidents will treated just like today when you use adaptive cruise control. If 10 people get mowed down, damages are awarded to the victims' families, and the owner/driver gets charged with vehicular homicide.
Does that mean that people will never truly be free from babysitting the system? I doubt it. Eventually the risk will be seen to be low enough that they'll accept it and will do whatever they want in the car.
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -- Isaac Asimov
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text:
Xend Finance targets 500 000 non-crypto users
Xend Finance now has 100 000 users of its crypto bank’s savings platform and is looking to increase that number to 500 000, having recently expanded its service to Ghana and Kenya.
This means that Ghanaian and Kenyan users are able to convert their respective local currency (Cedis and Shillings) into digital currencies.
Enabling this conversion is a key part of Xend Finance’s Africa expansion plans. It also underpins the user case for cryptocurrencies in Arica, despite central banks’ reluctance to allow banks to process cryptocurrency transactions.
Xend Finance, popular and widely used in Nigeria, started off by offering a DeFi platform that catered for savings clubs. Xend Finance now intends to launch two new products in the next few weeks.
“We still have so much more in store, including two big product launches coming in the next month. Since launching our mobile application at the end of December, we have seen a tremendous amount of growth,” said Kevin Leu, PR manager at the company.
On Wednesday, Xend Finance announced that it had surpassed 100 000 users on the savings platform it hosts.
Ugochukwu Aronu, CEO at Xend Finance said “users will also be able to seamlessly convert their cryptocurrency” after the fintech spent the past year “pushing code and ensuring our platform is secure” through numerous audits.
In an interview with Aronu in August 2021, the Xend Finance executive said that the company was “seeing a gradual growth and steadily increasing adoption of saving in stable currencies in Nigeria” and in other parts of Africa.
“We launched our savings platform March 2021 and have been able to see over $6 million in savings volume on our platform with most savers from Africa. We started experiencing a faster adoption in July as multiple devaluations of the Nigerian Naira happened coupled with the CBN restricting sale of foreign currency to bureau de changes,” said Aronu.
With the backing of Binance and Google Launchpad, Xend Finance’s Mobile App also serves as a DeFi wallet, while also allowing for peer-to-peer fiat-to-crypto on-ramp and off-ramp.
For the remainder of the current year, Xend Finance aims to “on-board more than 500 000 non-crypto users that experience constant local currency devaluation into DeFi” to access high yields.
Although popular cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have been highly volatile, with the price plunging, digital currencies such as Stablecoins - whose value is pegged to virtual assets such as gold and US Dollars - have remained resilient and attractive as a hedge against inflation.
Stablecoins have also emerged as a useful asset for savings and credit clubs across many African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria.


text:
President William Ruto has congratulated four university students who won Sh120 Million for their business innovation.
The four students, who are from St Paul’s University, are Lennox Omondi, Keylie Muthoni, Dullah Shiltone, and Brian Ndung’u.
The four have a start-up called Eco-bana limited which makes biodegradable sanitary pads using banana fibre.
Eco-bana limited won the global finals of the 2022 Hult Prize for their innovation on Tuesday evening.
In a statement on Wednesday, September 21, Ruto congratulated the four for their win adding that it was the hustler nation spirit they sought to support.
"Congratulations to Eco-Bana, a Kenyan social venture started by four university students, that has just won the prestigious Hult Prize and a cash award of 1 million dollars. The prize is awarded to entrepreneurs who strive to tackle pressing global issues through innovation.
"The firm makes hygienic sanitary pads from banana fibres. This is the Hustler Spirit that we are keen to support," Ruto stated.


text:
Subway gets most love from Twitter and Facebook
Friday 09 September 2011
Sandwich giant Subway is the best-loved fast-food chain among users of social media, while haters are big on Burger King.
That's according to the number crunchers over at Amplicate, a service that collates the opinions of millions of social media users on different topics.
The report, released this week, found that 83 percent of the 236,400 opinions expressed on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook about Subway were positive.
Cajun chicken chain Popeyes followed closely behind with 79 percent of all comments generated expressing love for their products.
That compares to Burger King which got the most smacktalk over the past 12 months: less than half of all comments related to the burger chain were deemed friendly or positive.
Recently, the Miami-based burger chain has undergone a major overhaul, starting with the retirement of their cartoonish mascot which has been the subject of much hate and is repeatedly described as plain old 'creepy.'
Though Taco Bell led the pack heading into 2011, the Mexican-style food chain suffered a "fall from grace," the report notes, after being embroiled in a headline-grabbing lawsuit over its meat products. The lawsuit was dropped.
Subway's official US Facebook page has more than eight million fans and almost 480,000 Facebook check-ins. Their Twitter feed has 151,000 followers.
Comparatively, Burger King has 1,590,000 Facebook fans, and 26,600 Twitter followers.
Here are the results:
Most loved restaurants, in order:
Most hated restaurants
Jennifer Lawrence attacks mass media again over body image
scienceScientists find the answer to a question that even puzzled Darwin
A very timely Great Train Robbery and a frantic 24 Hours in A&E among the highlights
scienceThe new development in bio-printing technology could be used in the future to restore lost vision - though years of research still await
arts + entsThe 'Friends' actor on his new role as campaigner on addiction issues
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America's 'virgin births'? One in 200 mothers 'became pregnant without having sex'
Last orders looming for Trappist beers as Belgium's band of brotherly brewers dies off
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In recent years, the Indian government has taken significant steps to promote and support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country. One such initiative is…
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An 18th century teapot with a missing lid and damaged handle has sold for £460,000 at auction after being bought for just £15 in Lincoln.
The teapot was originally auctioned off for £15 by Lincoln auction house Golding Young & Mawer in 2016. The lucky bidder will now take home a 30,667% profit after discovering it was the work of John Bartlam, the father of US pottery.
The teapot, made in the 1780s, is believed to be the only one of its kind and is significant for being one of the first pieces of porcelain made in the United States.
John Bartlam travelled to the US to teach Americans how to make pottery, but his career was cut short when revolution broke out.
The anonymous buyer is said to have believed the teapot was a common piece of pearlwear pottery and took it to be appraised by Clare Durham of Woolley and Wallis Auctioneers in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
They were given an original estimate of £50,000 and ‘couldn’t believe it’ when it sold for nine times that amount.
It was bought by a London dealer on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum in New York at a Wooley & Wallis auction in Salisbury last month.
Watch the moment the incredible sale was agreed:
Wooley & Wallis said in a statement: “We are absolutely delighted that the teapot we have all become so fond of sold yesterday for an unheard of hammer price of £460,000.
“The John Bartlam teapot caught the imagination of many, and as its lot number drew near, the atmosphere in the auction room became increasingly tense.
“Woolley’s staff joined those already in attendance and the press were present to record this very unusual sale.
“It found its new home at the New York Metropolitan Museum through London dealer Rod Jellicoe, who topped the stakes at £460,000 against a telephone bidder.”
Clare Durham, ceramics specialist, said: “The vendor decided not to come to the auction but his daughter watched it online.
“I have spoken to him since and he can’t quite believe it. He is very happy and very thankful.”


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By AsiaToday reporter Jina Koh - About 25 kilometers away from crowded Jakarta, there is a totally different modern city. The place is filled with more than 150,000 trees, long straight roads, golf courses, shopping malls, and western-style houses. It is called Lippo Village, developed by Lippo Karawaci, a property developer owned by Indonesia's leading family conglomerate Lippo Group.
Asian family-run businesses create new complexes, open new markets, and achieve good results. Their growth has been seen as a key driver of the regional growth for decades. However, there are also some downsides.
Lippo Group, which started as a bicycle parts company, was in the process of expanding its core business to banking until it was put in trouble due to the financial crisis that swept Asia. At that time, Lippo Bank received three large plots of land as collateral for unpaid loans. One of them became Lippo Village. The crisis has turned into a new opportunity.
Some companies open new markets. India's Reliance Industries is doing a variety of business from energy and petrochemicals to textiles and retail, and is now eyeing on the mobile communication market. It has already launched fourth-generation (4G) mobile communication service in September. Its decision was based on the judgment that the age of voice calls were fading and fast data would dominate the future.
"Reliance Jio", a 4G-only mobile communication service launched separately from the company's existing mobile communication services, provides free data to subscribers until this year. Due to this, price competition has also intensified among existing telecom service providers such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. The competition is gaining positive recognition as the market is being activated by the spread of smartphones and price cuts.
The group is not worried about its operating costs due to the profit from other affiliates. Fitch Ratings analyzed that earnings from the group's refining and petrochemical businesses will serve as a buffer for the growth of its mobile communications business for some time.
Obviously, big family-run companies would make better investments. The investment bank Credit Suisse, which tracked the share price movements of more than 900 listed family-owned companies with market capitalization of over $1 billion, found that they outperformed in terms of compound annual growth rate the MSCI All Countries World Index by 4.5% since 2006. The majority of them are from Asia, including Samsung Group and Cheung Kong Property Holdings.
In an interview with the Nikkei Asian Review, prof. Joseph P H Fan from the Chinese University of Hong Kong said, "Family-run businesses usually do better than state-owned enterprises in terms of sustainability and profitability." He attributed this to "intangible capabilities" such as relationships, trust, networks and values that are "very difficult to buy and sell in the marketplace."
China's open door policy has also helped activate investment and prosperity of these family-run businesses. Deng Xiaoping's foreign direct investment (FDI) policy did not attract much attention at first, but FDI inflows increased thanks to the investment of overseas Chinese. Bangkok-based family conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP) was also one of the early investors. Dhanin Chearavanont, a second-generation leader of the conglomerate, was the first to apply for a joint venture in 1981 in Shenzhen, one of the special economic zones in China. CP was also the first to open a carpet factory in another special economic zone, then steadily grew to become one of the leading companies in Thailand.
As seen above, family businesses cannot be separated from the growth of Asia. However, there are some downsides. The case of former chairman Cyrus Mistry, who was suddenly ousted in October last year as chairman of Indian company Tata Sons, is a good example that shows the dark side of family business. The confrontation between predecessor Ratan Tata's corporate expansion policy and Mistry's restructuring and financial stability policy triggered internal management problems, leading to sudden dismissal.
In South Korea, cozy ties between politicians and family-run conglomerates lead to scandals, creating serious confusion. Politicians press family conglomerates, known as chaebols, to set up funds for their own interests in return for business favor. The appearance of Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, at a parliamentary hearing of the probe in the so-called "Choi Soo-sil gate" was a major issue these days.
The recent hearing of South Korea's major chaebol chiefs has become a place to criticize the succession of cozy ties between businesses and government. Six of the nine chaebol owners who appeared were the children of former business leaders who testified at a parliamentary hearing 28 years ago.


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RESTAURANT ADVERTISING BREAKTHROUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P A I N T!
San Rafael, California (Duke Marketing's homebase), can now boast the newest restaurant advertising breakthrough! Paint! In today's Marin Independent Journal, our food editor and collegue, Jessica Bernstein-Wax, discovered a new advertising and public relations strategy from a soon to be opened Pizza Orgasmica and their outdoor paint color. "This is a breakthrough for the restaurant industry," said Linda Duke, restaurant marketing expert. "This new advertising and public relations strategy is great, they haven't even opened yet and are on the front page of the newspaper--thanks to their paint job!"
An excerpt from the article...
Some San Rafael residents claim a new pizza parlor's yellow paint job is bright enough to singe the eyes of onlookers, while others say it adds vibrancy to Fourth Street.
And the debate over Pizza Orgasmica & Brewing Co.'s color scheme could reach a climax Wednesday when the San Rafael Design Review Board considers whether to OK the vibrant tones or send owners Gina Gochez and Taylor Maia back to the paint shop.
Pizza Orgasmica is scheduled to open next week in the historic building at 812 Fourth St. previously occupied by Rafters Grille and Brewery. The approximately 8,000-square-foot restaurant features a sports bar, main dining room and family eating area.
It will serve the same saucily named pizzas as its three San Francisco locations — as well as traditional Brazilian food — and brew beer in-house for all four Pizza Orgasmica restaurants, said Gochez and Maia, who are married and live in Marin.


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Brick and mortar retailers saw less foot traffic on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, as shoppers appeared to get an early start on holiday shopping.» Read More
Attacks on Apple software could become more common as its devices reach more markets, a cybersecurity expert said.
The flooding in South Carolina has been referred to as a once-in-a-1,000-year rain. It may sound like hyperbole, but it's actual science.
Monday's rally was a bad-news-is-good-news rally, pros said, but strategist Guy Adami doesn't think the party will continue.
Already a pizza titan in the US, Domino's Pizza is taking a shot at opening in the birthplace of pizza: Italy.
Disney is considering using a surge-pricing model to determine the cost of admission to its parks. NBC News reports.
Still, the Supreme Court decision could free up an additional $1.25 billion to be returned to victims of the epic Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Google's name change and restructuring may give the company's stock a much-needed boost, Elevation Partner's Roger McNamee said on Monday.
Shares of Amaya have surged on positive news out of New Jersey. Why one analyst says it's still worth betting on.
Residential rooftop solar in California, the very heart of the industry, could be facing a major roadblock in the coming months.
Top technician Carter Worth explains why the recent move in gold could mean a massive rally for gold stocks, specifically the miners.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to revive patent claims against AOL, Apple, Google, and Yahoo over pop-ups.
A Florida highway was blocked on Monday after a woman told police she had a premonition that there was a bomb in her car.
The Fed cannot raise interest rates because the market is not pricing in a hike, Deutsche Bank's Joseph LaVorgna told CNBC.
The world's weakness has been exported to the U.S., says Ron Insana. The Fed would be "Dopey" to ignore the repercussions.
The derailment follows an Amtrak derailment near Philadelphia in May that left eight people dead.
Assets under management in online investment services, known as robo-advisors, are expected to grow to $2.2 trillion by 2020.
The social media company made the appointment permanent earlier Monday, about three months after Dick Costolo stepped down.
Big win for Obama and Abe as the US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim economies reach agreement to strike trade pact, the FT reports.
The former Federal Reserve chief also said there's been too much reliance on the Fed, and other policymakers in the government need to step up.
Apple's October earnings report could be a big factor in whether or not U.S. stocks get a fourth-quarter rally.


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The peak lobby for Australia’s car brands has been pilloried for pitching a fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions-reduction scheme that’s less demanding on its members than similar policies in Europe or the United States.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), the lobby group in question, retorts that it wants EVs and hybrids to flourish, but claims there are reasons why Australia cannot follow the same path to decarbonisation as other nations.
Update August 18 at 4.30pm: Australia’s Climate Council today released an open letter to be sent to FCAI member brands, which will be detailed below. This wider story was originally published on August 8, but we’ve updated it with these new quotes to provide greater context.
So what’s the story here, you ask?
According to FCAI-commissioned research being presented to media and government, the types of vehicles generally favoured by Australians and the places they’re sourced from will make it tough to cut its fleet emissions to the same degree as many other parts of the globe.
It also suggests that proposals to ban the sale of internal combustion vehicles in the 2030s risk pricing people out of the market as things stand – notwithstanding the recent rollout of rebates and tax cuts for EVs across the States and Territories.
This latter point goes against many claims from car brands of cost parity being achievable well before then.
In effect the FCAI wants the Federal Government’s long-called-for, binding CO2 reduction scheme to be broadly in line with its voluntary targets suggested to car brands out to 2030 – though it reserves the right to tighten them as time goes on, it claims.
A properly binding scheme, which fines car brands for exceeding their fleet average target, is widely seen as a key plank for getting car makers to send more low-emission cars here; vehicles such as EVs, which remain hugely supply constrained and thereby less common than they should be.
Countries that fine car makers for failing to sell enough low-CO2 cars tend to get priority from factories. Australia is an outlier in that it lacks this sort of binding CO2 plan, which is one major reason car brands say they don’t have enough stock of green cars here to meet demand.
The Morrison government failed to enact one, and the Albanese government has yet to change the policy – though it almost certainly will, hence all the argy bargy between interest groups over what it looks like.
The FCAI has been calling on numerous governments to put such a scheme into law for years now, which does somewhat undermine the suggestion that it’s trying to halt the rollout of lower-emissions cars and promote guzzlers.
But there’s no argument that the FCAI’s voluntary CO2 reduction targets of 35 per cent per passenger car and light SUV by 2030 (to 98 grams per kilometre); and 26 per cent cut for utes, vans and heavy SUVs (to 143g/km), are weak in a global context. Too weak for many.
Europe already requires new cars to emit on average 95g/km and vans 147g/km – about the same as what the FCAI wants from Australia in 2030. By the end of this decade Europe wants a 55 per cent cut from today’s levels, and zero emissions from new vehicles starting in 2035.
Current CO2 targets in the US, China, and even New Zealand appear tougher than those proposed by the FCAI as well. The situation is amplified by the fact that Australia’s fleet-wide CO2 emissions today are high on average already, meaning proposed cuts must go deeper.
Referring to the FCAI’s plan, both the Electric Vehicle Council and renewable energy advocacy group Solar Citizens said it doesn’t go remotely far enough, with the former going as far as saying the government must “ignore the weak standards some in industry are lobbying for”.
“Australia will languish at the end of the queue for the best and most affordable EVs, and fail to reach net zero, unless it ignores the car industry lobby and introduces legitimate fuel efficiency standards aligning with those enforced in the US or Europe,” the EV Council said.
An already widely-cited story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald accused the lobby of “a wide-ranging secret campaign” to delay the rollout of EVs and hamper the government’s desired 43 per cent CO2 cut by 2030, and net zero by 2050.
It’s true that the FCAI has been briefing industry stakeholders (including media) on a plan to, in its words, “decarbonise the light vehicle sector in the most efficient and effective way in the Australian context”, using research it commissioned from S&P Global Research.
The stated aims include outlining how and when lower-emission vehicles are expected to be sold in Australia with no change in policy; explaining the impact of various policy options to speed the transition; and helping with the negotiation of a legislated mandatory CO2 standard “appropriate for Australia”.
Some of the key findings include the claim that, if no levers are pulled, EVs will account for just 18 per cent of new vehicle sales in Australia by 2030 (about 2.0 per cent today), compared to 31 per cent share for mild hybrids (48V), 23 per cent for regular Toyota-style hybrids, and 24 per cent for ICE cars.
By 2033 the same report suggests the EV market share in Australia is on track to hit 25 per cent, again with no change in policy applied. The report claims about three-quarters of luxury-branded cars will be EV by this time, against just 21 per cent of mainstream cars.
One reason for this alarming discrepancy is the claim that the majority of Australia’s top-selling utes – Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger etc. – are unlikely to go electric in the mid-term future, unlike in the US where electric pickups such as the Ford F-150 Lightning are proliferating.
The FCAI report makes the extraordinary claim that a meagre 2 per cent of ute and van sales by 2033 in Australia are on track to be electric as things stand, and utes and vans make up almost a quarter of the overall sales picture in the Australian market.
It’s worth noting here that demand for last-mile electric vans, as well as plans from Ford, LDV, Mercedes-Benz and Renault to sell them here soon, leaves some room for doubt, although mid-size utes remain far bigger from a market share perspective here, unlike Europe.
“While regions such as Europe, China, and North America will strongly electrify vehicle offerings, South Asia remains less progressive given the lower compliance requirements and lower price levels,” the report claims
“As a key vehicle sourcing region for Australia, it leads to less electrification headed to Australia.”
The FCAI report also claims that while the price of an entry EV passenger car will fall by $17,400 by 2030, and the price of an entry EV SUV will fall by $8490 by the same time, they’ll still be on average $10,000 to $12,500 more expensive than the cheapest ICE versions.
Any EV mandate, therefore, would potentially impact lower socioeconomic buyers, according to the FCAI, though these figures are clearly controversial ones – especially given ICE cars are certain to become more expensive as CO2 targets get harder to reach.
The EV Council’s chief executive Behyad Jafari was scathing of the FCAI’s report, reflective on a growing disconnect between the two representative bodies that are often played out in the court of public opinion.
The EV Council indeed represents many of the same car brands that are part of the FCAI, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volkswagen.
“The only fuel efficiency standards that will make a difference are standards in line with those that exist in the US and Europe,” argued Mr Jafari.
“Australia missed the boat by 30 years in introducing fuel efficiency standards making us the world’s dumping ground for dirty vehicles today. If we finally get around to it and then introduce standards that don’t work that would be a tragedy.
“Car manufacturers sell the bulk of their vehicles into markets with fuel efficiency standards because that helps avoid penalty. There is currently no such incentive in Australia, which relegates this market to a lower order priority.
“If we want to see larger and more frequent shipments of EVs to the Australian government should ignore the weak standards some in industry are lobbying for.
“There is no path to net zero by 2050 unless Australia stops selling emitting vehicles by 2035. Cars in Australia have a 15-year average life span. If we’re still selling a significant quantity of combustion engine vehicles in 2036 we fail on net zero. It’s that simple.”
Touching on the same issue, the Australia Institute think tank today said that $5.9 billion in fuel costs would have been saved and emissions equivalent to a year’s worth of domestic flights would have been avoided, if robust fuel efficiency standards were adopted in 2015.
“Australians are being left behind simply because, as a nation, we are still accepting gas guzzling cars with no emissions standards. This is costing commuters money at the petrol pump and holding Australia back from reducing our emissions,” said its Climate & Energy Program Director Richie Merzian.
“… Fuel efficiency standards are a widespread and modest policy mechanism used by policymakers globally to ensure new cars are more efficient and less polluting. These standards exist across 80 per cent of the vehicle market but not in Australia despite numerous reports, inquiries and government commitments saying we need them.
“Previous attempts to introduce fuel efficiency standards in Australia have been marred by disinformation and outright lies. Unfortunately it is everyday Australians bearing the cost. Australian motorists have paid billions more for expensive foreign oil to fuel gas guzzling cars which have been rejected by the rest of the world.
“The Albanese Government has a golden opportunity to implement robust fuel efficiency standards in line with Europe. The policy is popular, helps Australians with cost-of-living, and will help drive the uptake of cleaner vehicles.”
Finally, the Climate Council, which bills itself as “Australia’s leading climate change communications organisation” and is headed by former Australian of the Year Professor Tim Flannery, entered the fray following this story’s original publishing time.
The following quotes come from its Head of Advocacy, Dr Jennifer Rayner, and point readers to a page where they can forward an open letter to leading FCAI member car brands. At the time of writing 1435 people had sent the email.
“Last year, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) member firms Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Volvo sold over half a million new cars into the Australian market. Most of those were dirtier and less efficient than the cars they sell overseas,” contended Dr Rayner.
“Australians are left paying the price for that dirty transport fleet many times over. We pay at the petrol pump because less efficient cars guzzle more fuel and we pay in rising transport pollution, which is fuelling climate change and harming our health.
“The FCAI must arrive at the Electric Vehicle Summit [an event being held on August 19] with a stronger plan for fuel efficiency standards that prioritise and protect Australians over their own profits.
“FCAI’s members selling dirty, inefficient cars into Australia well into the 2040s is not an option if we want to achieve the deep emissions cuts needed this decade to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
“The vehicle industry must do its bit towards Australia’s new target of cutting emissions by at least 43 per cent by 2030 otherwise which other parts of our economy and community will have to do more?
“Introducing strong fuel efficiency standards is the best way to cut costs for Australians and cut our emissions for the future. The FCAI must not stand in the way of real change. It needs to stop blocking the road.”
One thing is for sure: everyone broadly agrees on the need for binding CO2 reduction targets, it’s just a matter of how deep they go, really.


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The Apple AR/VR headset, reportedly named Reality Pro, will be announced on June 5. According to Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), the headset will have two 1.41” micro OLEDs, bringing a 4,400 ppi resolution and over 5,000 nits of brightness. In a follow-up tweet, the analyst said the resolution should be “4K per eye”.
Simple math reveals that with a 1.41” diagonal and a circular/square display, the side is 1”, and the resolution is 4,000 x 4,000 pixels per display. These numbers are impressive because the Meta Quest Pro’s resolution is 1,800 x 1,920 per eye, while the PlayStation VR 2 has 2,000 x 2,040 pixels per eye.
The brightness number is 5x higher than the standard nits we’ve been reporting on smartphones. However, the human eye perceives light differently, and the number should be calculated exponentially. Similar to f-stops, there is one step from 1,000 nits to 2,000 nits, a second one from 2,000 nits to 4,000 nits, a third from 4,000 to 8,000 nits, etc. This still means the Reality Pro displays will be nearly three times brighter than a smartphone screen at peak brightness.
Apple VR headset sketch (Image: The Information)
The headset is expected to cost around $1,500, which will be a tall order for amateurs and enthusiasts. It will be advertised to professionals, who are likely to use the device to develop a metaverse for future customers who will purchase a non-Pro Reality with more modest specs and a more wallet-friendly price tag.


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- Subscribe NowLimited Time Offer
Time: 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Place: Tempe Center for the Arts
Spindle buys Yowza for cash, stock
Scottsdale-based Spindle Inc., has signed an agreement to acquire the similar Yowza International Inc., a Los Angeles-based mobile coupon provider, allowing Spindle to expand into the “more traditional couponing space.”
Spindle also has entered into a business partnership with iPayMobil Inc., a Scottsdale-based developer of mobile payment e-commerce solutions, allowing both to deliver low-cost micro-lending services to merchants with Spindle’s existing payment products.
Spindle paid $500,000 in cash and 1.6 million stock shares to acquire the three-employee Yowza company, which will be based in Scottsdale once the deal is finalized, said Spindle CEO Bill Clark.
The deals are part of Spindle’s strategy to grow its product offerings, increase its footprint, acquire new customers and technologies, and be more competitive in the market.
“We’re always looking for smart ways to find good partners,” Clark said. “We’ll integrate the capabilities and offer more services for mobile marketing, couponing and payments.”
In November, Spindle told me it was expanding its newly acquired MeNetwork apps for small businesses around the country to send out offers, consumers to discover new businesses and receive coupons, and merchants to accept payments.
Yowza’s acquisition will give Spindle 2 million consumers and 95,000 merchant locations, up from MeNetwork’s 400,000 consumers and 6,500 merchants. “It’s a pretty considerable jump,” Clark said.
The signed agreement to acquire Yowza needed shareholder approval and is expected to close by the end of the year, Clark said. Spindle is a public company with 16 employees.
Hayley Ringle covers technology and startups for the Phoenix Business Journal.
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A Kentucky man thinks it's unacceptable when a drone floats over his property. So he shoots it down. Then the drone's owners come calling.
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There are a lot of CBD products on the market. In fact, there are so many on the market that it can make choosing the right CBD product difficult. In a previous Hemp Bitch article we discussed how to choose the right CBD product for you, including choosing a product that has been through third party testing.
But why is third party testing important?
You may wonder why exactly those things are important, and that is a great question. Sante Laboratories, a hemp and CBD testing facility based in Texas, answered this question in the best possible way, stating in their site blog, "Without regulatory standards to prevent companies from selling products with poor safety and quality, third-party lab testing can help CBD companies demonstrate responsible practices independently of federal mandates."
Right now, there is very little regulation for finished hemp products. While the USDA has required states to submit a Hemp Production Plan for approval, each state has its own particular guidelines on how hemp is regulated.
Third party testing is a way to allow legitimate companies honest and transparent information about the products they sell. It's also a way for consumers to rule out the shady companies selling fake products.
Right now, the hemp industry is in its wild west phase. Third party testing is an important tool in helping consumers find products they can rely on while regulation is scarce.