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I have become accustomed to running into the unexpected during my junkyard travels, finding everything from a JDM Nissan Fairlady Z to a bullet-riddled Cadillac from a Mythbusters episode to a British tank. That said, I never expected to find a four-year-old hydrogen fuel-cell car, more than a thousand miles from the only state in which they were sold that year. This becomes the newest junkyard car I’ve documented, taking the top spot from the now-second-place 2015 Mitsubishi Mirage.
In case you missed it over the weekend, The New York Times had a report suggesting that Toyota is quietly working to slow the automotive industry’s shift to electric vehicles.
Yes, that Toyota. The same one that has been praised for its development of gas-electric hybrids. The same one that uses one particular hybrid — the Prius — as an avatar for its green cred.
Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess was bashing hydrogen-powered vehicles on Twitter this week in an attempt to convince those vying for Germany’s chancellorship not to embrace the technology. With Angela Merkel stating that she’ll not seek a fifth term, the country is open for new leadership and VW wouldn’t want them to take a liking to hydrogen power when it has placed all of its eggs into the electric vehicle basket.
“The hydrogen car has been proven NOT to be the climate solution,” Diess wrote on Twitter in German. “In transportation, electrification has prevailed. Sham debates are a waste of time. Please listen to the science!”
Plug Power, a provider of hydrogen engines and fueling solutions, is expanding its support of Walmart’s eCommerce network. Plug Power currently supports more than 9,500 GenDrive fuel cell-powered vehicles used by 37 Walmart distribution centers across North America.
General Motors announced it will be taking an 11-percent stake in Nikola on Tuesday. It even said it would be actively helping the startup produce the hydrogen/battery-powered Badger pickup, sending the firm’s already-insane share price through the roof. Nikola shares were up 30 percent before the trading day even began, with the General seeing some positive changes in its own stock. Things only improved from there for both companies as news of the partnership continued to spread.
The deal is costing GM $2 billion and allots it one board member of its choosing in exchange for its manufacturing expertise.
Maybe the military will still be able to get one, but the cash-consuming coronavirus pandemic appears to have nixed any chance that a normal consumer will be able to slide into a fuel cell-powered General Motors vehicle anytime soon.
Good news for Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai?
Toyota and Hyundai have reportedly suspended sales of the hydrogen fuel cell-powered Mirai and Nexo in Norway after one refueling station went up like the Hindenburg.
Local media reports that, on Monday evening, a Uno-X station in Sandvika suffered a “huge explosion” that injured two nearby drivers after the shock wave caused their vehicles’ airbags to deploy. It’s a black eye for a fuel that, despite the best efforts of a handful of determined automakers, can’t seem to make much headway in the marketplace.
Hyundai’s hydrogen-powered Nexo is so ludicrously specialized that it’s utterly impossible to make a case for it outside of California. In fact, even that might be overstating its usefulness — allow me to try again. The Nexo Fuel Cell works near Los Angeles or San Francisco and absolutely nowhere else in North America. And, while that’s primarily due to its dependency on hydrogen fueling stations, which exist almost exclusively in two relatively small corners of the Golden State, it’s not the only reason.
You need to be a certain type of person to want to drive the Nexo. Someone who likes making a statement, is interested in green tech, and possesses absolutely zero interest in spirited bouts of driving. It’s slow, appliance-like, and offers nothing to the typical enthusiast crowd, save for some interesting styling. However, if you want something eye-catching that runs on alternative energy and routinely spend a large portion of your day in horrible LA traffic, it could be the right tool for the job.
When Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, infamously tweeted her country’s congratulations to Syria’s despotic leadership for its commitment to fighting climate change (a tweet reviewed and approved by 31 civil servants), it became clear that, for some, the environment ranks higher than anything else.
In the military world, it’s true that armies and their suppliers are often not nearly as concerned about the environment as their country’s leaders, but green vehicles are making tentative baby steps into this arena. At GM Defense LLC, zero-emission vehicles are a top field of focus, but the lakes and the frogs and the trees aren’t exactly top of mind. Rather, there’s practical military attributes to be found in green vehicles, and that’s why there’s a second zero-emission Chevrolet concept rolling out of the automaker’s defense arm.
They’re the rarest breed on the road, drawing their car’s fuel source from the world’s most plentiful element — which just happens to be the hardest to get your hands on in any large quantity. Fuel cell vehicle drivers, of which none exist outside of California, depend on a small network of H2 refueling stations to stay on the road, and the drawbacks to using this rare power source are already well documented.
You’ll be renting a car if your road trip takes you too far from San Francisco or the SoCal area. Supply issues sometimes leaves that one nearby station out of service, as happened earlier this year. It’s almost as if a vehicle you plug into a wall is a better green idea, at least on the downstream side.
Regardless, these Honda Clarity FC, Toyota Mirai, and Hyundai Tucson FC owners made their bed and were prepared to lie in it. Unfortunately for them, the refueling network has once again revealed its fragility.
Despite it being the most abundant element in the world — but one of the hardest fuels to source — automakers aren’t giving up on hydrogen. That group includes Toyota, which launched the world’s best-selling hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Mirai, in 2015.
Early this year, the 3,000th U.S. Mirai found its way to the driveway of a California customer. Cali remains the only American jurisdiction where FCV vehicles, and refueling infrastructure, are offered (though a hydrogen shortage last week saw SoCal stations dry up).
In the hopes of boosting the fuel’s prevalence and stimulating demand, Toyota plans to enter mass production with its second-generation Mirai, expected early in the coming decade.
Despite the inherent challenges with using hydrogen as a fuel source, Hyundai is plowing ahead with a new generation of fuel cell vehicle as a follow up to the Tucson Fuel Cell it currently offers in limited markets.
Difference is, the current hydrogen-powered Tucson shares a lot of sheetmetal with the traditionally fuelled Tucson. The new, as yet unnamed, hydrogen crossover doesn’t look like anything in Hyundai’s portfolio … at least not yet.
The United States and Canada don’t have much of a hydrogen fueling infrastructure to speak of, but Japanese automakers continue sending fuel cell vehicles across the ocean anyway. Vehicles like the Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai have been touted as the environmental saviors of tomorrow but, with the exception of California, there really isn’t a place for them in the North America of today. So why do Japanese manufactures continue to bother with hydrogen?
The main reason is because Japan has bought into a future that America doesn’t seem interested in. With three of its automakers already producing fuel cell cars, the government as adopted a fairly aggressive plan to adopt hydrogen for homes, business, and cars by 2030 — meaning the U.S. probably won’t see these vehicles vanish anytime soon.
Toyota is teaming up with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas to help clean California’s air with a billboard advertising its hydrogen-powered Mirai fuel cell sedan.
From April 3 to May 28, a total of 37 billboards in Los Angeles and San Francisco will filter smoggy air, thanks to the titanium dioxide-coated vinyl used in the sign.
While Toyota missed an opportunity to explicitly rub salt in a certain rival’s wounds, this is nonetheless a pleasant change of scenery in the automotive world, especially considering all of the [s]Volkswagen[/s] emissions scandals of the past couple of years.
Latest Car ReviewsRead more
Latest Product ReviewsRead more
- Sayahh Story idea or car design competition: design a compact sedan, a midsize sedan, coupe and/or wagon specifically for people 6'4" through 7'2". Not an SUV nor a crossover nor a raised chassis like the US Toyota Crown or Subaru Outback.
- Sayahh I only check map app only when absolutely necessary and only at a red light. An observation: lots of ppl leave 2 car lengths (or more) between themselves and the car ahead of theirs so that they can text or check the internet (because they are afraid they might roll forward and hit the car in front of them?) This drives me crazy because many ppl do it and 3 cars will take up almost 7 car lengths and ppl cannot get into the left turn lane when it's bordered by a cement "curb." Worse is when they aren't even using their phone and have both hands on the stewring wheel and waiting for the green light. Half a car length is enough, people. Even one car length is too much, but 3 or 4 car lengths? At 40 MPH, maybe, not at 0 MPH please.
- 6-speed Pomodoro My phone never leaves my pocket while driving. This is fine in my daily with bluetooth and also fine in my classic car, but people get mad in a hurry that I'm ignoring them.
- BklynPete Maverick has had recalls but overall seems reliable. Consumer Reports recommends it for whatever that's worth, buyers think they're better than sliced bread, they're sold out, and look like a long-term success.I suppose you're right that DCT can be laid at Mulally's feet too but as COO Fields was in charge of product. When he got Mulally's job, Fields brought back mgmt siloes and lost shareholder value. Maybe Fields took the fall for other's bad decisions. But ultimately as CEO the axe had to land on him. I cannot believe that Farley won't meet the same fate if 2023 warranty claims make Ford lose money again.
- Inside Looking Out All that is BS. Nissan just tries to buy time. By 2028 every Tesla will have fusion reactor under the hood. Commercial fusion reactor is under development as we speak 5 miles away from my home in Sandia labs in Livermore.


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Thirty-five years ago, the NES launched in New York City in October 1985. It would go on to reignite the gaming industry after the crash of 1983, and caused me no end of frustration at the time by remaining tantalizingly out of reach.
The Internet Archive has made an additional 2,500 MS-DOS games playable online in a browser, in an ever-expanding effort to preserve the history of software and its ability to be studied and enjoyed by future generations.
Tetris, the world’s most successful game, is 30 years old today. Thanks to its simple and addictive gameplay, the massive popularity of the original Game Boy and mobile phones, an estimated 170 million copies of Tetris have been sold since its debut in 1984. Not bad for a game that was originally written at the height of the Cold War in the USSR on an Electronica 60 — a rack-mounted computer that lacked the ability to output graphics (the blocks were instead formed out of ASCII characters).
For 30 years the IBM PC has dictated our digital lives. It has been a wild ride, but is it now time for the PC to step aside and let the tablets in?
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MeUndies responded to customer backlash about its NFT, a Reading Rainbow TikTok filter is bringing Gen Z and Millennials back to their childhood, the night luxe aesthetic is putting a (much needed) spin on the idea of wellness, two Harvard students built a website to help Ukrainian refugees—plus more internet buzz on this week’s Viral List!
MeUndies Announced Its Refined NFT Plans Following Customer Backlash
YPulse told you about the wave of customer backlash MeUndies experienced after announcing it was joining the Bored Ape Yacht Club (in case you need a refresher: consumers were calling out how its NFT plans go against the brand’s sustainability efforts / claims). After staying silent and quietly removing mentions of the NFT on Twitter, the brand is opening up about its initial intentions and revised plans. On March 10, the brand posted a statement titled “An Update on Our NFT…” on the MeUndies subreddit. It explained that the intention behind joining the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) was to turn the image into a print for its underwear as “BAYC had the distinction of being one of the few collections of NFTs that could be licensed to make that possible.” MeUndies also took responsibility about not conducting any research on the environmental impacts of NFTs, and has since consulted with Watershed—a corporate climate advisor—for recommendations on how to move forward. Now, it’s scrapped plans to use the NFT image as an undies print, but will continue to sell its NFT, directing all of the money from its sale to the brand’s environmental work. A handful of users involved in the MeUndies’ Reddit community responded, noting they’re pleased the company is addressing the issue but the damage has unfortunately already been done as they failed to research the environmental impacts of NFTs before jumping on the hype. The comments section of MeUndies’ statement also documents mixed feelings from customers who are both “relieved” and “not-fully-convinced.” As the NFT space continues growing, it’s important to remember that although some young consumers are interested in them, there’s still a large community that remains skeptical of the cryptocurrency for both monetary and environmental reasons. Our sustainability research shows young consumers want brands in on the climate change conversation, while 78% say corporations should take more responsibility for fighting climate change.” MeUndies’ misstep is an example of why NFTs aren’t for every brand, and how brands can take action for their mistakes when they’ve done wrong, which is something Gen Z and Millennials appreciate.
Reading Rainbow Is The New Star of TikTok
“Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high / Take a look, it’s in a book, a Reading Rainbow,” is the sound of this massively popular TikTok trend. More than 230K videos have been set to the theme song as users wonder about the world’s mysteries and pair it with the Reading Rainbow filter, which lets them record their heads floating through outer space. TikTokers are using the trend to poke fun at their own WTF moments, like “who the heck coordinates the flight schedules for the entire world” or “when someone is trying to explain the board game rules to me.” The majority of these videos clock in at 10-15 seconds and take various forms as people poke fun at the things they A) wonder about or B) mysterious experiences they’ve had. Reading Rainbow recently got a reboot that premiered on livestream and interactive platform, Looped. The PBS series played an influential role in Gen Z and Millennials’ childhoods as it helped them lay the foundation for learning about the world through books, and this trend signals how Reading Rainbow continues to live on in their lives–in a new way.
The Night Luxe Aesthetic Is a Fresh New Take on Social Media’s View of Wellness
In recent years, a dominant aesthetic / trend on social media has been all about wellness. Whether it’s sharing a post-yoga workout selfie, a photo of a matcha latte, or a vlog about one’s morning routine, this wellness aesthetic has been wildly popular among Gen Z and Millennial Instagram and TikTok users as they share how they’re living out their best lives. Now, the “night luxe” aesthetic is offering a fresh take on what wellness looks like. In contrast to the “That Girl” trend, where images and clips about elaborate skincare routines, green juices, and Lululemon ‘fits are the pinnacle of wellness, the night luxe aesthetic is the counter trend where indulgence and glam can also be a form of self-care. Matcha lattes have been swapped for espresso martinis. Instead of green juices in the morning, it’s a glass of red wine in a bubble bath in the evening. Morning routine vlogs are swapped for clips documenting a night out with friends. This “roaring 20s”-style aesthetic not only challenges the idea of perfectionism that exists within popular trends like “That Girl;” it allows social media users to find beauty in the candid, unfiltered moments of their lives. “Everyone’s pulling down the exposure” on their Instagram and TikTok content as Sabrina Sadeghian (the 24-year-old co-founder of 4AM Skin) tells Glossy. “Everyone’s seeing these blurry photos with the girl and the chandelier and the martini.” Just like any other trend / aesthetic, cool girl influencers like Hannah Harrell, Jourdan Sloane are driving it, along with European influencers like French model Mara LaFontan and Shea Marie. Meme accounts and brands have picked up on the night luxe aesthetic, too. Elite Satire posted a “starter pack” collage for people wanting to get in on the trend, complete with images of espresso martinis, a black puffer coat, and a black designer bag, while lifestyle brand Flamingo Estate “emphasizes the idea of indulgence rather than self-control.” As Sadeghian puts it, “Wellness has become really performative, in that it’s not actually working for everyone, and it can become more stressful, in a way. There’s a general consensus now, where a lot of people are viewing the ‘that girl’ thing as just a performance on TikTok. Going out, for me, is my de-stressor. I can laugh, I can have fun, I can dance—and that is my self-care.”
Ukraine Take Shelter Is A College-Student Created Website Helping Refugees Find Protection from the War
Harvard students Avi Schiffman and Marco Burstein created an independent site, ukrainetakeshelter.com, in just three days, which connects Ukrainian refugees with potential hosts who have available housing. The website is in 12 languages, and hosts can register their available space within the click of a button. From there, users can type in their current city to generate a list of free shelter options—whether that’s via an apartment, unused resorts, or someone’s home. According to Ukraine Take Shelter, the site was developed to encourage people with spare space to post a listing and offer it to Ukrainian refugees, while providing a direct, easy to access platform to help people amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. YPulse told you how young people have been learning about the war via expert-backed knowledge on TikTok and videos from Ukrainian teens documenting the devastation from their POV. Our causes, charity, and activism research also shows 94% of young people are passionate about a social cause, primarily because they believe ignoring social issues is dangerous to the world and they feel sympathy to those affected, and the ongoing war in Ukraine is certainly something they’re speaking out against and donating their money to.
Links We’re Passing
Fans aren’t happy about Brie Larson (who plays Captain Marvel) flexing her NFT collection on social media.
A cleaning hack known as the #FlyLadyMethod has racked up more than 65M views on TikTok.
Health startups including Done and Cerebral are sparking concern from medical professionals for their persistent ads about ADHD medication.
Karen Fukuhara (The Boys and Suicide Squad actress) is opening up about a recent hate crime she experienced, demanding anti-Asian hate crimes to stop.
Gabrielle Union is calling out Disney for its handling of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”
Entertainment News You Should Know
The Batman will be available on HBO Max in late April.
Ryan Reynolds’ The Adam Project rose to the top of Netflix’s top 10 list while clocking in the third-best debut week for a Netflix movie.
The first trailer for Ms. Marvel dropped, introducing Marvel’s first Muslim superhero.
Fans are calling out Pixar’s Turning Red for minimizing LGBTQ+ representation.
Meanwhile, Stephanie Beatriz (who voices Mirabel in Disney’s Encanto) opened up about how her character’s bisexual background is on “her own Disney-approved path,” sharing how Mirabel’s experiences are different from some queer experiences.
Dolly Parton opted out of being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, citing the nomination as inspiration for her to record an official rock ‘n’ roll album.


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Ranveer was the first mainstream actor to endorse a condom brand
Ranveer Singh will no longer be the brand ambassador for condom brand Durex. They have parted ways after five years.
According to reports, Ranveer’s contract with Durex’s parent company Reckitt Benckiser ran down until it expired and there were no plans to renew it.
A source close to the actor confirmed the news and said: “Both agreed to part ways amicably.”
There has been speculation about the reason for Ranveer no longer endorsing Durex.
Ranveer’s high fees for the endorsement may be why the partnership ended but Ranveer’s marital status might have had a bearing on the decision to end the association.
Ranveer was the first mainstream actor to endorse a condom brand and he was responsible for boosting the market share in India.
One of Ranveer’s most popular marketing campaigns was the ‘Do the Rex’ advertising campaign. It made the brand hugely popular among the youth.
It helped Durex come out of its elite positioning, along with the ‘Durex Jeans’ that he was also part of.
When Ranveer first came on board, he said that he had already declined several lucrative endorsement offers. He said:
“Over the past three-and-a-half years that I’ve been a part of the Hindi film industry, I’ve declined several tempting endorsement offers.
“I’ve been saving my brand virginity for the right one.
“And now, finally, I’m popping my cherry with the world’s leading brand in Sexual Wellbeing – Durex!”
While it has been suggested that Ranveer’s marriage may have had to do with him cutting ties with Durex, the brand congratulated him when he got married.
Ranveer married Deepika Padukone in an intimate ceremony in Italy on November 14 and 15, 2018.
Following their wedding, Durex congratulated the couple with a cheeky tweet which read:
“We’ve got you covered. Congrats Deepika & Ranveer for officially putting a ring on it.”
— Durex India (@DurexIndia) November 14, 2018
Ranveer’s departure comes as a huge blow for Durex, but they reckon that they have the strength to bounce back.
Harish Bijoor said that the brand will find its next star sooner rather than later. He said:
“No star is indispensable to brand. Even this shall pass on to an abler hand.”
On the film front, Ranveer is getting ready to play the role of cricketer Kapil Dev for ’83, which tells the story of India’s historic win at the Cricket World Cup.
The actor has also launched his own record label which is aimed at finding rap and hip-hop talent in India.


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- Austin, Texas-based venture capital firm Springdale Ventures has closed a $40 million fund (Fund II) to invest in early-stage consumer brands across the food, beverage, pet, health, and beauty sectors.
- The fund is almost double in size from its Fund I, which launched in 2019, and includes returning limited partners, family offices, entrepreneurs, and prominent athletes.
- To date, Fund II has invested in 14 companies including Asian-inspired hard seltzer company Nectar; whiskey brand Big Nose Kate; and BloxSnacks, a kids’ snacking brand cofounder by leading YouTube creators Aphmau, Unspeakable, and NinjaKidz.
‘Capital just seized up for a couple of years’
Fund II will invest in disruptive consumer brands at seed stage up to Series A, cutting checks of around a million dollars with 25-30% of the fund reserved for follow on investments, cofounder Genevieve Gilbreath told AgFunderNews.
“It’s definitely an interesting time to fundraise. In general, capital just seized up for a couple of years, especially when it came to VC funding, with people just being a lot more conservative. A lot of funds have had a hard time raising at all, so we felt really great that we were able to almost double the Fund I fund size and bring back a lot of LPs and others.”
So what’s the exit strategy for investors in these kinds of CPG brands? And are strategics (multinational consumer packaged goods) brands as likely to invest as they were a few years ago, when emerging brands in everything from coconut water to upmarket jerky were being snapped up for huge sums?
Strategics have a mixed track record on this front (think Campbell Soup and Bolthouse Farms; Coca-Cola with Zico and Honest Tea; Hershey with KRAVE; Dean Foods with Uncle Matt’s Organic, brands that performed poorly under the corporate umbrella and were sold back to their founders in one form or another), acknowledged Gilbreath.
However, the “strategic opportunity is very much alive, as large companies still have issues innovating in ways that resonate with customers,” she claimed. “I think they have also learned a lot [about how to better manage and integrate companies and brands they acquire]. We talk to strategics all the time and the appetite is still there.
“Then there’s private equity that we have the ability to sell to, and in some of the later stage growth rounds, we can exit. We’re also seeing a lot of larger holding companies or roll ups that we’re able to exit to. We’re looking at one company going out to market next year on a large secondary [when initial purchasers of stock from a company sell that security to other investors], so there’s the opportunity to sell shares even though it isn’t a growth round or an acquisition.”
“In the United States, almost 40% of private equity capital capitalizes software companies, leaving the consumer sector significantly underfunded, yet, the consumer market constitutes a substantial 70% of the US GDP. For investors who understand the category, there is a huge white space opportunity for capital allocation within early-stage consumer brands.” Genevieve Gilbreath, cofounder, Springdale Ventures
The evolving CPG investment landscape: An influx of ‘tourist capital’
Driven by a combination of cheap money (low interest rates) and excitement around companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, the CPG space has benefited—or some would say suffered—in recent years from a big influx of ‘tourist’ capital from tech and non-specialist investors, who failed to appreciate that getting physical products into the marketplace takes money, experience, and above all time, observed Gilbreath.
“They were investing in ways that they might for a tech company and expecting consumer brands to have that same lifecycle. Not surprisingly, we’ve seen a recent market correction, and what you’re seeing now is investors who really understand the landscape and hopefully have some strategic value to add for startups trying to raise money.”
She added: “We love to see high growth companies, but not growth at all costs. You have to have good unit economics. When capital is short, you have to have the ability to pull back the growth lever and maintain a more sustainable organic growth, and then when capital becomes available again, you can step back on the gas. But if there isn’t a good underlying fundamental business, it shouldn’t be a business at all.”
“If we’re in a pitch and they talk about the product the whole time and never really get to the business, I tend to tune out. Are they interested in the brand, or actually running a business? Genevieve Gilbreath, cofounder, Springdale Ventures
What is Springdale looking for?
Asked how Springdale places its bets, Gilbreath explained: “There are definitely some trends and categories we’re interested in, such as the humanization of pets and beauty as wellness, but we see over 1,000 deals a year and really the most compelling thing is a passionate, skilled founder with a product that has a good product market fit. Other things we consider are whether they can attract a great team and do they have the ability to fundraise and communicate with investors?”
She added: “We love seeing founders who have been there and done that and we have a few serial founders in our portfolio, but actually the majority are first time founders.”
When it comes to red flags in pitches, she said, “If we’re in a pitch and they talk about the product the whole time and never really get to the business, I tend to tune out. Are they interested in the brand, or actually running a business? If they don’t really understand their numbers and the unit economics of the business, that’s a big red flag.”
The best founders typically have the right balance of self-confidence and curiosity, she said. “Founders have to have grit, backbone and self-belief to be able to make hard decisions and hard calls, but they also have to be curious and be willing to take advice.”
Aside from money, Springdale can provide founders with industry connections and support, she said. “Both [cofounder] Dan [Graham] and I have been consumer entrepreneur operators, so we really understand what it takes to build and scale a brand, both from the tactical side of things but also just from a founder empathy perspective. We get how hard it is.
“But we don’t want to get in there and operate their businesses. As investors, we’re here to help remove obstacles, whether that’s being able to make the right connections, get them the right coaching as a CEO, help them hire the right new talent or a marketing agency. It’s all about how can we help clear the path and help them move more quickly.”
‘Influencers and YouTube personalities are driving consumer engagement and stickiness’
A few years ago, CPG brands in the natural products arena might get their first break at Whole Foods and then spend years steadily building a presence in the natural channel before moving to conventional supermarkets and mass merchandizers, said Gilbreath. But the playbook has changed in recent years, with many new brands first building a presence online, partnering with celebrity investors or YouTubers with a large social media presence, or in some cases teaming up with big box retailers from the get go.
“In the case of [Springdale portfolio company] BloxSnacks, each product set has its own Minecraft influencer or YouTuber associated with it, so this expanded their reach greatly. Influencers and YouTube personalities are driving a lot more consumer engagement and stickiness.”
When it comes to distribution, she said, the biggest mistake early-stage CPG brands often make is saying yes to too many retailers before they have built real consumer traction and understood their product market fit. “I’ve always been a big fan of inch-wide mile-deep when it comes to establishing distribution.”


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How can we educate teenagers about money on their terms?
If you ask a teenager what their top priorities are, they are unlikely to mention budgeting. Study might well be one, and sports, but they are also likely to mention technological pastimes, such as mobile apps, and social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, increasingly Tumblr and YouTube. Financial institutions need to try to engage with teenagers in their own space. It is crucial that banks begin to engage with teenagers quickly if they are to become confident at managing their personal finances as quickly as possible.
The financial services industry, by its own admission, lags behind consumer companies in the quest to engage young people online. However, top consumer sites are adept at running social networking campaigns. Household names like British Airways and Marks and Spencer have greatly benefited from embracing the social media world - seeing results, both in brand awareness, and in brand loyalty. Facebook too has been used very effectively by brands seeking publicity and looking to build up a fan base.
Understandably, financial services are harder to get excited about, but they could still do more to engage with teenagers. The good news though, is that where they have tried to attract young people through social media, they have succeeded both in raising awareness of their brand, and converting customers. Aviva, for instance, ran a campaign where a magician asked young passers by questions about money under the guise of showing them a magic trick. The Aviva Magic Money campaign was widely viewed on YouTube, and was positively received, while fulfilling its remit of educating young people about money matters and the importance of learning how to budget.
The more that banks and financial institutions reach out to teenagers, the more confident teenagers will be about handling their personal finances.


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State Chamber Announces Overseas Consulting Pact
Wednesday, September 20th 2006, 11:54 am
News On 6
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Members of the State Chamber will have new access to experts in international business development under an agreement the business group announced Wednesday.
The services will be provided by The GTD Group, an Oklahoma-based business consulting firm and Washington-based BKSH & Associates, an international lobbying and international relations company.
Dick Rush, the chamber's president, said members of the business group would have access to the services of these two companies for a fee.
He said this will give small- and medium-sized companies business connections they otherwise would not have access to.
Oklahoma exports increased nearly 36 percent from 2004 through 2005.


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- Reshoring supply chains to North America could be limited by the region's reputation for protectionism, the resilience of Asian supply chains during the coronavirus pandemic and the growing consumer market in Asia, according to a new report from The Economist Intelligence Unit.
- North America's share of global exports is expected to remain unchanged, remaining at 14% by 2025, according to a forecast in the report. Asia's share is expected to grow two percentage points to reach 38%.
- The report does expect foreign direct investment to increase in the U.S. and Canada between now and 2025, but expects it to fall in Mexico over the same period.
There has been political and business interest in reshoring manufacturing to North America in recent years. A series of tariffs during the Trump administration made it more expensive to import goods from China, and China's labor wages have been on the rise for more than a decade.
Interest heightened during the pandemic as some industry stakeholders and politicians suggested that relying on other countries for vital goods like personal protective equipment could be a vulnerability in the future.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration released a report following a 100-day review of four critical supply chains. The document outlines steps to increase the manufacturing of these goods in the U.S. or ally nations.
The White House report and its suggestions are not exactly surprising, but making it happen could be difficult, according to Andrew Viteritti, the Economist Intelligence Unit's commerce and regulations lead.
"The big question then is whether we expect this to change anything," Viteritti said. "It's going to be very difficult as things stand now to convince companies that that's going to be a viable option," in reference to reshoring and domestic manufacturing.
Asia is still a viable option for many supply chains. Asia proved its resilience during the pandemic with its exports recovering more quickly than other regions. And its consumer market is growing.
"So businesses are not going to want to move too far from Asia, because doing so would essentially make it more difficult for them to sell the goods in that market," Viteritti said.
Canada and Mexico forecast to lose export share
The cost of working in Asia is still lower than the U.S. or Canada. This includes the labor cost, but also the opportunity cost of being close to its consumers, he said.
So while large-scale shifts from Asia to North America aren't expected under this forecast, it does see FDI growing in Canada and U.S. The nations remain strong business environments due to their political climates, labor, infrastructure, technological readiness and other variables.
"Mexico is going to be the odd man out, though," Viteritti said.
Labor wages are competitive in Mexico, but the country has issues of its own that could turn businesses away, he said.
"One of the biggest reasons is just because there's been a huge movement towards protectionist policy in Mexico under the current administration," Viteritti said. He pointed to the rollback of the country's energy reforms and the cancelation of high-profile foreign investment projects under the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
López Obrador's term goes through 2024 and the forecast goes through 2025. This helps explain why Mexico's business forecast "looks quite bleak," Viteritti said.


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Beware! New Scam for Chase Bank!
A Chase Bank phishing scam is targeting customers and their money. The latest scam is different from the others, because of how real it looks. Renee James of Royal Palm Beach received one of these phishing emails. She didn’t get fooled, but said she is afraid others will fall victim.
The suspicious e-mail had the subject line: “Thanks for calling us. Welcome to the Chase Customer Claims Secure Document Exchange,” then provides specific instructions. The fake message asks customers to click on a link, and type a temporary password they provide. The link sends the customer to a third-party website. Chase Bank says they will never email customers asking to click on a link about a claim, or to receive documents.
If you receive anything suspicious like this, call the bank, not the number listed on the e-mail.


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Did someone distribute a privacy-related memo of some kind at Amazon recently — one that declares, at this point, there are no rules anymore? Because there have been a steady stream of reports out of the company for months now that make it seem like the internet retail giant is trying as hard as it possibly can to be even creepier than Google.
The latest evidence came just this week, with news that the smart home company Ring which Amazon paid more than $1 billion to acquire has allegedly been violating its customers’ privacy in a shocking way — via its engineers and executives who reportedly have had “highly privileged access” to live customer camera feeds. That’s according to The Intercept, which quoted sources in recent days who also disclosed the existence of a Ring R&D team in Ukraine that could apparently access a folder containing “every video created by every Ring camera around the world.”
Yikes. After that story broke, a Ring spokesman sent us this statement that they asked be included in its entirety: “”We take the privacy and security of our customers’ personal information extremely seriously. In order to improve our service, we view and annotate certain Ring video recordings. These recordings are sourced exclusively from publicly shared Ring videos from the Neighbors app (in accordance with our terms of service), and from a small fraction of Ring users who have provided their explicit written consent to allow us to access and utilize their videos for such purposes. Ring employees do not have access to livestreams from Ring products.
“We have strict policies in place for all our team members. We implement systems to restrict and audit access to information. We hold our team members to a high ethical standard and anyone in violation of our policies faces discipline, including termination and potential legal and criminal penalties. In addition, we have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad actors who have engaged in this behavior, we will take swift action against them.”
That’s one thing. Meanwhile, you don’t have to look far at all to find tons of other examples of Amazon finding new ways to be creepy.
Ring, for example, also has a standalone app called Neighbors that’s marketed as a kind of digital neighborhood watch program but which has been criticized for encouraging people to upload video clips of things that raise their suspicions. Which then gets shared around to other users and possibly even the police. Amazon, meanwhile, also found itself raising eyebrows recently with word of a patent application that seems to envision using a combination of Ring’s doorbell cameras and facial recognition technology to build a system that could be used to match images of people who show up at your door to a “suspicious persons” database.
Then there’s this patent Amazon was granted last year for worker-tracking wristbands which sounds like something straight out of Black Mirror. The wristbands would be designed to work in tandem with ultrasonic gadgets spread around an Amazon warehouse, so that if the worker moves to pick up the wrong item, the wristband would buzz. Naturally, the bands would also serve as trackers, making sure the worker is moving fast enough.
We could go on and on. Remember Rekognition, the facial recognition system Amazon allowed police to use that sparked fears the company was essentially supporting the surveillance state? Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa has also been known to blurt out random things like “Kill your foster parents” in addition to laughing creepily. And we’ve all seen the news reports about Amazon Key, the system whereby Amazon wants your permission to be able to come into your house to drop off packages.
All of that and more is why we ask — is Amazon creepier now than Google? The retail giant certainly doesn’t have all of my emails, track my routes via map or know what I’m conducting web searches for, among the many ways Google has spread its tentacles into our lives. It’s not that Amazon sees itself as too big to fail, either, because CEO Jeff Bezos himself has been public about his belief that all companies die, eventually. That eternal life is a thing for religion, and that there’s no such concept in business.
Maybe what it is is that instead of too big to fail, you instead just get to a point where consequences start to mean different things to you than they used to. To the point where, eventually, you just get too big to care.


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Holman Enterprises, a global automotive services organization, declared on March 28 that the business has unified its seven business enterprise divisions and companies — Holman Automotive, ARI, Car Truck Group, Kargo Grasp, Holman Pieces Distribution, Holman Insurance policy, and Holman Expansion Ventures — below a new, singular international brand — Holman.
These divisions deploy fleet leasing and management solutions automobile fabrication and upfitting element production and productiveness solutions powertrain distribution and logistics services private and business coverage companies and retail automotive revenue as one of the major privately owned dealership teams in the U.S. ARI, its fleet management division, has 1.9 million cars beneath its management.
As element of the reorganization, the almost 100-calendar year-aged corporation declared a new tagline, “Driving What’s Correct.”
“As Holman nears its 100th year in small business, we’ve achieved a turning stage in our evolution as a business,” mentioned Chris Conroy, president and chief running officer, Holman. “The automotive entire world proceeds to expertise unparalleled modify, which means we face new difficulties, but also new opportunities and although we at Holman are quite common with the huge selection of competencies we possess, and companies we supply, quite a few of our clients and companions are not.”
Ongoing Conroy: “What many don’t see is what we’ve turn into: an built-in automotive services business with a set of collective competencies that transcends our classic industries, an company providing a distinctive set of complimentary companies that genuinely sets us aside from our competition. Unifying our business beneath the single international manufacturer of Holman will assist us alter that.”
“Our organizations and solutions are intersecting a lot more than at any time in support of our valued buyers and this fascinating alignment as Holman is merely the organic progression of what is been occurring internally for several many years,” stated Carl Ortell, Holman’s chief government officer.
Earlier this 12 months, Holman partnered with Electrada, a developer of automobile electrification infrastructure, to aid North American fleet operators integrate electrical motor vehicles into their fleet blend. ARI is also doing the job Enel X, an strength services company, to changeover GlaxoSmithKline’s North American fleet to 100% EVs by 2030.
“Since the working day my grandfather Steward Holman established our business enterprise in 1924 as a one Ford dealership, Holman’s success and growth has been designed on an unwavering determination to constantly doing the ideal factor for our folks, our buyers, and our communities,” stated Mindy Holman, chair of the Holman board. “This brand unification pays homage to our organization’s actually one of a kind heritage and tradition as nicely as the deeply-rooted values and concepts guiding our enterprise now and perfectly into the foreseeable future.”


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Bargain hunter! Mitt Romney reveals he bought his Met Gala tuxedo on AMAZON, and snagged the designer duds at a major discount (much to the embarrassment of his wife)
- Romney, 71, attended the Met Gala with his wife Ann on Monday
- They were guests of Stephen Schwarzman, a friend and business associate who is currently chairman and CEO of The Blackstone Group
- Romney said he bought his Brioni tux on Amazon at a discount
- Brinoi tuxedos typically cost around $6,000, but those on Amazon are going for closer to $2,000, while some are available for as little as $650
- Most celebrities at the end are lent the clothes they wear by designers
No one can say Mitt Romney say Mitt Romney isn't a fiscal conservative — particularly when it comes to his personal finances.
But unlike some of the other recognizable people walking the red carpet that night, Romney's outfit wasn't on loan from a big designer: He bought it himself, getting a big discount by shopping online.
Party people: Mitt Romney, 71, attended the Met Gala with his wife Ann on Monday
Online shopper: He said he bought his Brioni tux on Amazon at a discount
What a deal! Brioni tuxedos typically cost around $6,000, but they are being sold for $2,000 on Amazon
The New York Times caught up with the 71-year-old politician at the event, asking him the all-too-important question: Who are you wearing?
Romney said that his tuxedo was by Brioni, a high-end designer whose suits cost around $6,000 retail.
But Mitt didn't pay retail. He snatched the size-40 long tux online at Amazon, admitted he got it on 'deep discount'.
Most of the black Brioni tuxedos currently for sale on Amazon are being sold for around $2,000 — around $4,000 off.
Some, however, are available for as little as $650, depending on the style and fit.
But while Mitt might have been thrilled about his budget-savvy style steal, his wife, Ann was slightly less enthused.
According to the report, Ann expressed embarrassment over her husband's choice of tuxedo — even warning, 'Don’t you dare!' — when he revealed where it had come from.
Shh! Mitt's wife chided him when he revealed he got it on sale
At the table: Romney was the guest of Stephen Schwarzman, a friend and business associate who is currently chairman and CEO of The Blackstone Group
Romney was the guest of Stephen Schwarzman, a friend and business associate who is currently chairman and CEO of The Blackstone Group.
Schwarzman would have shelled out big bucks of his own to get seats for himself as well as his guests, as tickets for for $30,000 each (from which donations are used by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute).
It is typical for actors, models, and singers to be outfitted for free by big designers, though non-famous guests at the event naturally buy their own clothes. As a politician and not a member of Hollywood, Romney seems to fall in a gray middle area.
But while he appears to have been the only famous person to buy his outfit off-the-rack for the evening — or at least, the only to admit it — he's not the first to shock the public by buying his own pricey clothing for a red carpet event.
Off-the-rack: Hayden Panettiere bought this Tom Ford dress herself to wear to the 2014 Golden Globes
Charge it! Actress Bryce Dallas Howard regularly buys her own red carpet outfits, including what she wore at the 2016 Globes (left) and the Critics' Choice Awards in 2016
Rude! Rachel Bloom admitted she bought her own Gucci dress for the 2017 Emmys because brands refused to dress her due to her size
At the 2014 Golden Globe Awards, actress Hayden Panettiere wore a Tom Ford gown that she bought herself, explaining that she couldn't get a dress lent to her by the designer — who exclusively dressed Naomi Watts for the night.
Bryce Dallas Howard is also known for rocking frocks she picked up with her own cash, donning a $308 number she bought at Nordstrom for the Screen Actors Guild Award in January of 2017.
She wore Jenny Packham to the Golden Globes that same year, a $497 Alexis cocktail dress to the Moet Moment Film Festival which she bought online, and a $240 Topshop dress from Nordstrom.com to the Critic's Choice Awards.
'I like having lots of options for a size 6 as opposed to one option. I always go to different department stores. You know how it is!' she said.
Finally, at least year's Emmy's, actress Rachel Bloom admitted she bought her own Gucci dress because brands refused to dress her due to her size.
Most watched News videos
- Car careers off the road flips over and lands upside down
- Time-lapse shows the White Island Volcano in New Zealand erupt
- New Zealand volcano eruption kills at least on White Island
- Russian villagers chase off hungry polar bears with flares
- Locator map of volcano eruption on White Island in New Zealand
- NZ PM Jacinda Adern reveals 100 people were on White Island
- Lady twerks on Raheem Sterling before fiancée pushes her away
- Matt Hancock's advisor walks into the arm of a protester
- LBC: Boris Johnson apologises for family's 'bad experience' in NHS
- Security guard at Winter Wonderland kicks festive reveller
- Time-lapse Manly ferry shows Sydney engulfed in smoke
- Protester accuses Jerry Nadler of 'committing treason'


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NEW YORK (AP) - Superstorm Sandy knocked off nearly $4 billion of retail sales last week in the hard-hit Mid-Atlantic and Northeast region, nearly 20 percent of the usual total, according to figures released Tuesday by a retail data service.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Richard Chan prowled around his cold, dark Staten Island home with knives and a sword to protect it from thieves, standing his ground as another East Coast storm threatened and police went through neighborhoods with loudspeakers warning people to get out.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Microsoft and Apple are garnering the highest profit margins for their tablets, followed by Google and then Amazon, according to research firm IHS.
CUPERTINO (AP) - A federal judge in Madison, Wis., on Monday threw out a suit by Apple Inc. claiming that Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility is seeking unreasonably high license fees for the use of patents on wireless technology.
LOS GATOS (AP) - Netflix is moving to protect itself against hostile takeovers, less than a week after activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a stake of nearly 10 percent in the online video company.
BREA (AP) - American Suzuki Motor Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and says it will cease selling automobiles in the U.S. as part of a plan to restructure its business.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - J.J. Barea had 21 points and five assists in 28 minutes for Minnesota, helping the Timberwolves overcome a weak shooting performance in their season opener and beat the Sacramento Kings 92-80 on Friday night.
I always strive to explain complicated Social Security rules and policies in as simple a manner as possible. And in doing so, I sometimes gloss over the fine points and intricacies of Social Security law, in order to answer someone's question or to make a point. Today's questions come from people who are essentially asking me to "un-simplify" my answers.
DETROIT (AP) - Hyundai and Kia overstated the gas mileage on 900,000 vehicles in the past three years, a discovery that could result in sanctions from the U.S. government and millions of dollars in payments to car owners.
costs as Dow Jones tumbles 139 points
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States added a solid 171,000 jobs in October, and more than a half-million Americans joined the work force, the latest signs that the uneven economic recovery is gaining strength once again.
NEW YORK (AP) - Kellogg's appetite for salty snacks is helping fatten its profits.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A flurry of data issued Thursday sketched a brightening view of the U.S. economy in the final days before a presidential election that will pivot on the strength of the recovery.
CUPERTINO (AP) - Facebook has tightened its research guidelines following uproar over its disclosure this summer that it allowed researchers to manipulate users' feeds to see if their moods could be changed.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Microsoft plans to offer a glimpse of its vision for Windows this week, as its new CEO seeks to redefine the company and recover from missteps with its flagship operating system.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Qantas is putting the world's biggest passenger plane on the world's longest airline route.


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- Get In Touch
You’ve given your personal assistant a place in your home. But would you give it the keys?
Last week, Amazon announced a new product in its bid to take over the home with smart technology.
Amazon Key is a new smart lock and security camera system. It permits users remote control, to allow couriers to unlock their front door to place orders inside the home.
Users can choose to watch the delivery live in real-time, or receive a short video after the drop-off for confidence that the courier has completed the delivery with integrity.
Acting, as always, in the name of customer convenience, Amazon is making it simpler than ever to order products for home delivery. Resolving the issue of being out of the house when a home delivery arrives, and removing the need to visit a click-and-collect locker or location, the customer can be sure that their order will be delivered successfully without the need to lift a finger.
Slightly uncomfortable? You’re not alone. One analyst said that Amazon would need to convince consumers that the technology was completely secure if they were to use it as remote permission for a stranger to deliver orders inside their own four walls. There have also been concerns raised over the Cloud Cam, which records continually whilst inside your home.
If Amazon is as ‘unstoppable’ as the market thinks it is, it wouldn’t take much for a security breach to damage the whole operation – whether that takes the form of the smart lock being hacked, or the courier losing integrity when inside the home.
But, as Amazon has quickly pushed its range of personal assistants into our living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms, the boom of AI is simply undeniable, along with the surprising level of convenience it offers. We are becoming more accustomed to having personal assistants carrying out our “thinking and doing” processes, just as smartphone usage has become second nature.
The much-quoted Gartner statistic could not be more relevant here: by 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human.
Amazon Alexa can advise you in the kitchen with a recipe, whilst turning up your favourite music, and turning the heating down. But we are now trusting a technology device to unlock your front door with a digital key, which crosses both a symbolic and very physical threshold.
What will be next from the world’s largest online retailer? Post your comments below.
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Cloudflare announced its R2 storage service on Tuesday with a promise that it will store customer data without holding them hostage.
R2 Storage stands for âReally Requestable,â âRidicully Reliable,â and several other ambitious formulations endorsed by marketing editors. It is designed to be compatible with S3, Amazon Web Service’s simple storage service, at least at the API level.
Where R2 diverges from S3 is its approach to billing – that and not yet publicly available. In July, Cloudflare tackled AWS ” huge ‘egress fees – what AWS charges customers to move their own data off of its servers – by charging $ 0.015 per GB of data and a limited egress fee. .
AWS responded at the time by defending its need to recoup its investment in the network and noting that it had “made eight price cuts related to data transfer (egress) in the past 11 years.”
But Cloudflare continues to put pressure on pricing, perhaps having sensed an opportunity to flip Jeff Bezos’ famous saying, âYour margin is my opportunity,â to the company that first applied it.
Prince not interested in the charm of Amazon
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince challenged AWS ‘cost reduction demand on Monday evening, noting via Twitter that the cloud giant’s cost-cutting scissors have rusted: “Fun fact: AWS hasn’t cut the price of S3 since December 2016.”
AWS has scaled down a different service, Glacier, this year. And the company added S3 functionality during this period, such as strong consistency. So it’s not as if AWS has rested idly on its annual execution rate of $ 59 billion; it’s just not meant to be the low price leader.
Characterizing the exit fee as a tax that does not translate into value for customers, product manager Greg McKeon argued that R2 demonstrates Cloudflare’s commitment to the Bandwidth Alliance, an anti-exit fee consortium, by providing free transfers for storage objects, regardless of the request rate.
âThroughput bandwidth is often the highest load for developers using object storage and is also the most difficult load to predict,â McKeon said in a blog post. “Eliminating it is a huge victory for open access to data stored in the cloud.”
To turn its declared victory into a loss for AWS and other competitors that support exit fees, Cloudflare provides developers with a free migration service that works with any other S3-compatible storage service.
McKeon insists that R2’s low price is not offset by the costs shifting elsewhere. âCloudflare R2 will be priced at $ 0.015 per GB of data stored per month, which is significantly cheaper than the major legacy providers,â he said, adding that there would be no charge for operations. infrequent storage – less than 10 requests per second – and that R2 charges less per operation than other large vendors.
Better yet from a customer perspective, R2 appears to be even simpler than Amazon Simple Storage Service and its not-so-simple tiering system. According to McKeon, R2 manages data prioritization to maximize performance during peak loads and to avoid costs associated with rarely requested objects.
âWe got rid of complex manual tiering policies in favor of what developers always wanted from object storage: unlimited scale at the lowest possible cost,â he explained.
Everyone is shaking
In an article published on Hacker News, Ben Schaechter, co-founder of cloud cost analysis company Vantage, suggested that Cloudflare had the opportunity to shake things up.
âThe amount of effort required to understand and factor in S3 Intelligent-Tiering is somewhat mind-boggling, so getting rid of all of that (and the associated fees) would be really good and TheWayThingsShouldBe â¢ for the customer,â he said. declared. âOn top of that, most users don’t even know S3 Intelligent-Tiering exists, so it would be great if Cloudflare manages it automatically.â
During a phone call with The register, Schaechter said that S3 offers four different storage classes, and most customers use the standard tier, which is the most expensive. But AWS, he said, offers a service called Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering that customers can pay for to have AWS monitor file access patterns and move them to a different storage class with a price structure. more favorable.
“It’s not very well known, it’s complicated, and you have to pay extra,” he said. “What Cloudflare is saying up front is that not only can we do it for less, but we will do it automatically on your behalf.”
Schaechter, who previously worked at AWS and DigitalOcean, acknowledged that AWS is known in the industry for its high exit fees. âAmazon,â he said, âcan order these fees because they have a suite of 250 other services that you don’t get elsewhere.â
Some AWS customers, he said, may be able to easily switch to Cloudflare while others, especially large organizations, may not be able to easily lift and move their operations. How it all plays out, he said, will depend on how R2 actually performs once it is released to the public.
âIt’s not all about price,â he said. “People are willing to pay for better performance.”
Cloudflare R2 is currently under development and interested parties can sign up for a waitlist for early access. Â®


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Twitter posted fourth-quarter 2014 revenue of $479 million — up 97% year over year — and beat analysts’ earnings estimates for the period.
The No. 2 social service (behind Facebook) had 288 million average monthly active users in Q4, up 20% from the year-earlier period. But Twitter reported a net increase of only 4 million MAUs from the previous quarter, disappointing the Street, with the company blaming in part an issue with Apple’s iOS 8 update.
Twitter reported a net loss of $125.3 million for the quarter, which included $177 million of stock-based compensation expense. Its adjusted non-GAAP net income excluding that was $79.3 million, or 12¢ per share. Wall Street analysts had projected adjusted EPS of 6¢ and $453 million in revenue, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.
“We closed out the year with our business advancing at a great pace,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in announcing the results. “In addition, the trend thus far in Q1 leads us to believe that the absolute number of net users added in Q1 will be similar to what we saw during the first three quarters of 2014.”
The strong 4Q revenue growth and improved full-year 2015 guidance “reduce our concern on monetization expectations,” Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne wrote in a research note. While user growth lagged in the most recent quarter, he added, “1Q user growth appears to be accelerating to the low teens versus our prior estimate of 12 mm, which is encouraging.”
Last month, the company noted in its earnings release, Twitter launched a new video feature that lets users capture, edit and share videos up to 30 seconds from within the Twitter mobile app. In addition, the company debuted a recap feature with a “while you were away” heading that displays top tweets, as well as a group-based direct messaging feature for private conversations involving up to 20 people.
Costolo, on Twitter’s earnings call Thursday, said video growth has been strong. The company now delivers 1.5 billion Vine looping videos per day, and he said the Twitter Amplify program for video-enabled advertising tweets from media partners has been expanding.
Twitter is now syndicating advertising on third-party websites, and has initial deals with Flipboard and Yahoo Japan, Costolo said. In addition, Twitter has an agreement with Google to index tweets immediately as they’re posted in the search engine, which Costolo said is aimed at driving traffic back to Twitter.
The company said that for the first quarter of 2015 it expects revenue to be in the range of $440 million to $450 million, with adjusted net income of between $89 million to $94 million (excluding stock-based compensation expense of $160 million to $170 million).
In Q4, Twitter said, it lost a net 4 million users who upgraded to Apple’s iOS 8; about 1 million of those didn’t access the Twitter app after the update, while 3 million users that Twitter had counted as active users stopped getting updates from the service in the Safari browser. Costolo said “seasonality” also hampered user growth in Q4 2014.


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With Vera Wang and Anna Wintour by his side, Mayor Bloomberg held a pep rally for the fashion industry today, announcing that on September 10, 2009 — the first night of spring fashion week — over 100 stores in all five boroughs will stay open until 11 p.m. and host in-store events. Bloomberg said he was pleased to see fashion journalists at the City Hall press conference (and he seemed it), adding that he sometimes prefers them to political press. Flattery will get you everywhere with the fashion press, Mr. Mayor.
“Fashion is vital to New York’s economy,” Bloomberg said, adding that more than 800 fashion companies are located in New York City — double that of Paris, the closest competitor — and that the industry generates $10 billion per year in New York. It also “does a fantastic job projecting an exciting and attractive image of New York City to the world,” he added. Wintour, sans sunglasses, kept mum and smiled at the floor, donning a turquoise cardigan with elbow pads. She was joined by Jason Wu and Tommy Hilfiger, Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, and other industry insiders. Vera Wang, dressed in all black, spoke after the mayor: “Fashion is an outlet for creativity and self-expression. New York City inspires designers of all ilk — not just Calvin Klein and Carolina Herrera, but the young seamstress in Williamsburg.”
Fashion’s Night Out will coordinate promotional T-shirts that benefit a 9/11 memorial (the event takes place on 9/10, after all) and drop-off locations for clothes to benefit HIV/AIDS organizations. Sponsored by NYC & Company, Vogue, and CFDA, the event already has Marc Jacobs, Diane Von Furstenberg, and the Gap lined up. After the press conference, the fashion set hightailed it out of there before the mayor held a presser on swine flu.


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Arthritis is on the rise, even among younger people. It contributes to chronic pain in the back, neck, and extremities. There are many factors that can increase your risk of arthritis: heredity, old injuries, and obesity are just a few. I recently wrote a blog about how the ingredients in soda can increase the risk of osteoarthritis, as well. The take home message from that post was to consume as few chemicals in found as possible, by eating more natural foods.
Well, it appears that just watching what chemicals are in our foods is not enough. A new study, done at Yale University, found that widely used chemicals (found in many objects around the home) were linked to an increased arthritis risk. The main compounds in question, PFCs, are synthetic chemicals found in things like take-out containers, carpeting, and non-stick cookware.
These substances are used to waterproof rain gear, protect textiles from stains, and grease-proof packaging. PFCs have also been linked in the past to the premature onset of menopause in women. While the biological connection is unclear at this point, the prevailing theory is that these chemicals affect the balance of hormones, especially in women. Since processes like inflammation and cartilage repair are impacted by hormones, any disruption to the endocrine system (the glands which secrete hormones) can have an impact on osteoarthritis.
Unfortunately, these compounds are in so many products that it is very difficult to avoid them. The goods news is that since there is a growing body of research showing that these compounds are hazardous, the use of PFCs will soon be trending downward. However, PFCs stay in the body for a long time, so the sooner you can avoid them, the better. While I wouldn't advise someone to rip out all their carpet and replace all their rainwear, it would make sense to make easier (and much less expensive) changes, like using cast iron cook wear.
In my opinion, the best thing you can do is lessen the impact of these compounds by doing things to negate the other factors that increase osteoarthritis. Get exercise. Sleep more. Eat healthier. Get adjusted. Limit inflammation. Take action on the things you can control that will improve your overall health.


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The Law Of Unintended Consequences is a complicated idea for most of our elites and most of our politicians, but this consequence is so obvious that one suspects that it was absolutely intended.
The D.C. cops do nothing when stores are looting, emboldening thieves who recently stripped a CVS pharmacy practically bare. And lo and behold! It looks like those goods are being sold right across the street…probably by the same people who stole them.
DC decriminalized illegal street vending, this is the result!
[Hat Tip: dhmosquito]
It turns out that Washington DC City just decriminalized illegal street vending! It is called the Street Vendor Advancement Amendment Act of 2023, which went into effect on July 1st, 2023. The act decriminalized illegal street vending. It granted an amnesty for unpaid fines and unpaid sales tax. It banned background checks for people seeking permits and licenses. The act also created the “Columbia Heights-Mount Pleasant Sidewalk Vending Zone.”
Read into it a bit and you will discover that there is also graft involved. Yes…I know…that is shocking in our nation’s capital.
Decriminalizing theft, then decriminalizing once-illegal street vending seems too convenient to be unintended. Driving out the retail businesses in these neighborhoods is the The Cloward-Piven strategy, nothing more.
But the good people of the District of Columbia voted for these policies by electing and reelecting a never-ending series of hard-left politicians whose interests are diametrically opposed to the goals of most people.
On to New York City, whose subway system is a wasteland governed by gangs, random violence, and catastrophic under-policing caused by the decriminalization of pretty much everything short of being white and protecting other riders. So the wicked witch of Albany has decided to revoke the 4th Amendment and send the National Guard and the State Police into the subways to harass law-abiding citizens. Yeah…searches of middle-aged housewives’ handbags is going to stop crime in its tracks!
Governor Hochul is a fascist, whose idea of a good time is siccing her pet legislature on her enemies; like gun owners and small businesses. But she sure does love criminals…NY has been a leader in eliminating bail, ending jail for parole violations, etc. The huge increase in crime is not a surprise, nor is the evisceration of our civil rights under the guise of crime prevention.
It’s called authoritarianism, and it is alive and well in NY.


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The European Union has a plan to bolster its microchips industry to catch up with rivals like China and the US, using a new ‘Chips Act’ announced by Ursula von der Leyen.
The initiative aims to link up research and design across members states, coordinate funding, and create a joint state-of-the-art ecosystem of microchip companies.
The European Commission president said this during her State of the European Union speech in Strasbourg. She said the bloc has to ‘be bold again’ to build a competitive semiconductor industry, a task she said would be ‘daunting.’
Von der Leyen’s gambit on chips
The announcement comes after Europe suffered a chip shortage linked to the disruption of global supply chains.
Europe’s car manufacturers who rely on chips have been forced to stop production lines several times this past year, as the production of other goods reliant on chips has experienced disruptions.
Global powers, embarrassed by how unaware they were when the shortage hit, have been funnelling public funds into projects to bolster chip production and ease the existing bottlenecks. The US had the Chips for America Act, where they committed tens of billions of dollars into the sector.
The EU has some way to go
The EU is yet to pledge any specific amount of money toward chip design or production. However, it has said it wants to boost its share of the global chips market to 20% by 2030.
However, critics have argued the bloc lacks a credible industry policy and public subsidies that can match the Chinese and American programs.
While EU leaders have said they want to do what their peers have done, they still need to collect tens of billions of euros in public and private funds to compete. It remains to be seen how well ongoing efforts will do.


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Taco Bell Testing Fiery Chicken Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco
When it comes to Doritos-flavored tacos, Taco Bell just can’t seem to let it go. Their Doritos Locos Tacos, which ingeniously replaced the traditional taco shell with a giant Dorito, became the chain’s most popular new release ever, and they followed up on that earlier this year by releasing one with a Cool Ranch shell. It’s apparent that they’re not quite finished with this concept yet, as Brand Eating is reporting that they’re currently testing a Fiery Chicken Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco in Southern California.
This is the first time that they’re actually changing what goes inside the shell, as both previous products came with only beef as an option. This one is filled with shredded chicken instead of ground beef, as well as a spicy chipotle sauce. The regular one also comes with lettuce and shredded cheese, and a "Supreme" adds diced tomatoes and sour cream as well.
These are currently being tested in a few select markets in Southern California, and while they’re being tested they’re being offered at a discounted price. The regular ones are going for $0.79 and Supremes are $0.99s, but when they get rolled out nationally they’ll probably go for $1.39 and $1.69, respectively.


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The initiatives are two of the five global initiatives backed by Interpol and aimed at combating organised crime and terrorist activities, the foundation said in a statement.
"Tata has given his commitment that Tata Trusts will donate Rs 3 crore to AP CM's Relief Fund," an official release said here today.
From being inducted to the board of Interpol this month to his recent ecommerce investments — the many facets of the business icon Ratan Tata
Tata also said it is really important for companies to survive over the longer term and besides the ability to innovate.
“We are extremely proud that Urban Ladder caught Mr. Tata’s attention,” said Ashish Goel, cofounder & CEO at the Bengaluru-based Urban Ladder.
They are investors, mentors and entrepreneurs all rolled into one, with the likes of Ratan Tata and Ronnie Screwvala buying into their vision.
The state-of-the-art plant which is set to manufacture about 1.30 lakh vehicles per annum formally rolled out its first batch of vehicles at the ceremony.
Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of the group, believes India is still feudal in its mindset and that much of the inequity in society can be attributed to the debilitating caste system.


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|By Business Wire||
|November 28, 2012 03:51 PM EST||
More than 820 technology companies based in the Western region of the United States (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming) will debut their latest consumer technology innovations at the 2013 International CES®. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, the 2013 CES, the world’s largest annual innovation event, will feature 3,000 exhibitors across 1.8 million net square feet of exhibit space. The 2013 International CES will run Tuesday, January 8-Friday, January 11, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“The 2013 International CES is the ideal venue for consumer electronics leaders to showcase the very best in internet connected and wireless technologies,” said Noam Meppen, director of U.S. sales for Pure, based in San Francisco, Calif. “This year, as more consumer content comes from the cloud, Pure will be delivering consumers with a range of products and services to connect them to a personalized audio entertainment experience within every room of the home, as well as on-the-go.”
The 2013 CES will feature more than 20 market-specific TechZones. Returning hot spots at the 2013 CES include Eureka Park, with more than 140 entrepreneurs, startups and small companies, an increase of forty percent over the 2012 Eureka Park, as well as the iLounge Pavilion, featuring more than 440 exhibitors spanning 120,000 net square feet of i-related products, located in the LVCC North Hall and the LVH.
“Every year, Gefen kicks off the new year with CES, the most important show for reaching consumers and gauging interest in the trends and technologies that will unfold throughout the remainder of 2013,” said Hagai Gefen, president and CEO of Gefen Inc., based in the greater Los Angeles, Calif. area. “This year we expect to see more activity in home automation and are looking forward to unveiling our own contribution to this ever growing market.”
Other popular TechZones highlighting the latest technology at the 2013 CES include CEPro@CES, Gaming Showcase, GoElectricDrive, MEMS, Mobile TV, PMA@CES, Robotics, Safe Driver, Sustainable Planet, Wireless Mobility Brought to you by Qualcomm and Zigbee. Additionally, lifestyle TechZones featured at the 2013 CES include: Digital Health Summit, HigherEdTECH, Kids@Play, MommyTech, Silvers Summit and FitnessTech.
“Everyone at Wilocity is thrilled to be at CES again this year and we look forward to seeing the latest devices brought to market by our fellow exhibitors,” said Tal Tamir, chief executive officer at Wilocity, based in San Jose, Calif. “Last year at CES we were the first to have live demonstrations of WiGig technology, and this year, after years of discussion, vision statements, promises and hype, we are excited to announce the world’s first commercially available implementation of WiGig multi-gigabit wireless technology. This is just the start of what will be the year of WiGig.”
The 2013 CES conference program will feature 300 robust sessions and 800 speakers, including keynotes from the leaders of Qualcomm, Panasonic, Samsung and Verizon. Additionally, the Entertainment Matters program, sponsored by Variety, is back for its third year with exhibits, conference programs and special events for professionals in the entertainment community and will feature actress Felicia Day as the program’s ambassador.
“As a longtime member, we look forward to participating in the 2013 International CES because it offers huge business opportunities and is the best venue to launch new products and showcase solutions like Viper SmartStart,” said Mike Simmons, president of Directed, based in Vista, Calif. “This year we are showcasing our Innovations Award-winning MyAutomate app and new XPRESSSTART ONE product.”
The 2013 CES will feature 3,000 global technology companies unveiling the latest consumer technology products and services across 15 major product categories including the latest in audio, automotive electronics, connected home technologies, digital imaging/photography, electronic gaming, entertainment/content and more. For a complete listing of CES exhibitors, please visit the 2013 CES Exhibitor Directory at CESweb.org.
Note to Editors: The official name of the global technology event is “International CES.” Subsequent references to the show can be shortened to “CES.” Please do not use “Consumer Electronics Show” to refer to the International CES.
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $206 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA also owns and produces the International CES – The Global Stage for Innovation. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services. Find CEA online: www.CE.org and www.DeclareInnovation.com. Follow CES at www.CESweb.org and through social media: http://facebook.com/InternationalCES, http://twitter.com/IntlCES, http://blog.ce.org/.
2013 International CES
January 8-11, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
March 8-10, 2013, Snowmass, CO
Internet of Things (IoT) will be a hybrid ecosystem of diverse devices and sensors collaborating with operational and enterprise systems to create the next big application. In their session at @ThingsExpo, Bramh Gupta, founder and CEO of robomq.io, and Fred Yatzeck, principal architect leading product development at robomq.io, discussed how choosing the right middleware and integration strategy from the get-go will enable IoT solution developers to adapt and grow with the industry, while at th...
Jun. 29, 2015 06:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,636
"We provide a web application framework for building really sophisticated web applications that run on a browser without any installation need so we get used for biotech, defense, and banking applications," noted Charles Kendrick, CTO and Chief Architect at Isomorphic Software, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @DevOpsSummit (http://DevOpsSummit.SYS-CON.com), held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York
Jun. 29, 2015 04:16 PM EDT Reads: 366
"Plutora provides release and testing environment capabilities to the enterprise," explained Dalibor Siroky, Director and Co-founder of Plutora, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @DevOpsSummit, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Jun. 29, 2015 03:34 PM EDT Reads: 364
The time is ripe for high speed resilient software defined storage solutions with unlimited scalability. ISS has been working with the leading open source projects and developed a commercial high performance solution that is able to grow forever without performance limitations. In his session at Cloud Expo, Alex Gorbachev, President of Intelligent Systems Services Inc., shared foundation principles of Ceph architecture, as well as the design to deliver this storage to traditional SAN storage co...
Jun. 29, 2015 03:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,760
Public Cloud IaaS started its life in the developer and startup communities and has grown rapidly to a $20B+ industry, but it still pales in comparison to how much is spent worldwide on IT: $3.6 trillion. In fact, there are 8.6 million data centers worldwide, the reality is many small and medium sized business have server closets and colocation footprints filled with servers and storage gear. While on-premise environment virtualization may have peaked at 75%, the Public Cloud has lagged in adop...
Jun. 29, 2015 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,182
Discussions about cloud computing are evolving into discussions about enterprise IT in general. As enterprises increasingly migrate toward their own unique clouds, new issues such as the use of containers and microservices emerge to keep things interesting. In this Power Panel at 16th Cloud Expo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed the state of cloud computing today, and what enterprise IT professionals need to know about how the latest topics and trends affect t...
Jun. 29, 2015 01:19 PM EDT Reads: 636
The Internet of Things is not only adding billions of sensors and billions of terabytes to the Internet. It is also forcing a fundamental change in the way we envision Information Technology. For the first time, more data is being created by devices at the edge of the Internet rather than from centralized systems. What does this mean for today's IT professional? In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed this very serious issue of pro...
Jun. 29, 2015 12:19 PM EDT Reads: 549
SYS-CON Events announced today that BMC will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. BMC delivers software solutions that help IT transform digital enterprises for the ultimate competitive business advantage. BMC has worked with thousands of leading companies to create and deliver powerful IT management services. From mainframe to cloud to mobile, BMC pairs high-speed digital innovation with robust...
Jun. 29, 2015 12:15 PM EDT Reads: 2,500
Even as cloud and managed services grow increasingly central to business strategy and performance, challenges remain. The biggest sticking point for companies seeking to capitalize on the cloud is data security. Keeping data safe is an issue in any computing environment, and it has been a focus since the earliest days of the cloud revolution. Understandably so: a lot can go wrong when you allow valuable information to live outside the firewall. Recent revelations about government snooping, along...
Jun. 29, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,094
DevOps tends to focus on the relationship between Dev and Ops, putting an emphasis on the ops and application infrastructure. But that’s changing with microservices architectures. In her session at DevOps Summit, Lori MacVittie, Evangelist for F5 Networks, will focus on how microservices are changing the underlying architectures needed to scale, secure and deliver applications based on highly distributed (micro) services and why that means an expansion into “the network” for DevOps.
Jun. 29, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,202
Internet of Things is moving from being a hype to a reality. Experts estimate that internet connected cars will grow to 152 million, while over 100 million internet connected wireless light bulbs and lamps will be operational by 2020. These and many other intriguing statistics highlight the importance of Internet powered devices and how market penetration is going to multiply many times over in the next few years.
Jun. 29, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,822
There will be 150 billion connected devices by 2020. New digital businesses have already disrupted value chains across every industry. APIs are at the center of the digital business. You need to understand what assets you have that can be exposed digitally, what their digital value chain is, and how to create an effective business model around that value chain to compete in this economy. No enterprise can be complacent and not engage in the digital economy. Learn how to be the disruptor and not ...
Jun. 29, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,077
"We got started as search consultants. On the services side of the business we have help organizations save time and save money when they hit issues that everyone more or less hits when their data grows," noted Otis Gospodnetić, Founder of Sematext, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @DevOpsSummit, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Jun. 29, 2015 10:46 AM EDT Reads: 466
It is one thing to build single industrial IoT applications, but what will it take to build the Smart Cities and truly society-changing applications of the future? The technology won’t be the problem, it will be the number of parties that need to work together and be aligned in their motivation to succeed. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jason Mondanaro, Director, Product Management at Metanga, discussed how you can plan to cooperate, partner, and form lasting all-star teams to change the world...
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One of the hottest areas in cloud right now is DRaaS and related offerings. In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Dale Levesque, Disaster Recovery Product Manager with Windstream's Cloud and Data Center Marketing team, will discuss the benefits of the cloud model, which far outweigh the traditional approach, and how enterprises need to ensure that their needs are properly being met.
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Containers have changed the mind of IT in DevOps. They enable developers to work with dev, test, stage and production environments identically. Containers provide the right abstraction for microservices and many cloud platforms have integrated them into deployment pipelines. DevOps and Containers together help companies to achieve their business goals faster and more effectively. In his session at DevOps Summit, Ruslan Synytsky, CEO and Co-founder of Jelastic, reviewed the current landscape of...
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Malicious agents are moving faster than the speed of business. Even more worrisome, most companies are relying on legacy approaches to security that are no longer capable of meeting current threats. In the modern cloud, threat diversity is rapidly expanding, necessitating more sophisticated security protocols than those used in the past or in desktop environments. Yet companies are falling for cloud security myths that were truths at one time but have evolved out of existence.
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The Internet of Things is not only adding billions of sensors and billions of terabytes to the Internet. It is also forcing a fundamental change in the way we envision Information Technology. For the first time, more data is being created by devices at the edge of the Internet rather than from centralized systems. What does this mean for today's IT professional? In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists will addresses this very serious issue o...
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SYS-CON Events announced today that JFrog, maker of Artifactory, the popular Binary Repository Manager, will exhibit at SYS-CON's @DevOpsSummit Silicon Valley, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Based in California, Israel and France, founded by longtime field-experts, JFrog, creator of Artifactory and Bintray, has provided the market with the first Binary Repository solution and a software distribution social platform.
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The kids are not all right.
Regulators and public-health specialists state that vaping is the most recent pattern amongst youths which the practice is developing a generation of brand-new cigarette smokers At the center of the debate is Juul, the Silicon Valley e-cigarette start-up whose smooth gadgets now guideline the vaping market
At Stanford University– the university of Juul’s cofounders, Adam Bowen and James Monsees– scientists have actually been putting together a chest of images, videos, and social-media posts the start-up utilized to market its gadgets. Their work, which they exposed for the very first time recently, becomes part of a bigger research study on the results of tobacco marketing and consists of professors and trainees from pediatrics and medication to history and sociology.
The countless images clarified how a small vaping start-up utilized a mix of launch celebrations, social networks, and totally free samples to end up being the primary seller of e cigarettes in simply 3 years. And they include brand-new fuel to the dispute about whether the business intentionally marketed to youths, as United States regulators punish youth vaping
The images recommend that Juul’s advertising campaign started with launch celebrations in New york city and other cities, where visitors were welcomed to attempt Juul’s items free of charge and share selfies on social networks.
“Juul’s launch project was patently youth-oriented,” Robert Jackler, a practicing Stanford doctor and the primary private investigator behind the tobacco image collection, informed Service Expert.
Juul has actually preserved that its items are not for youths and are planned for grownups aiming to shift far from standard cigarettes and into less damaging vaping items.
“The marketing was planned for grownups, was brief, and had really little effect on our development,” a Juul agent informed Service Expert in action to concerns about the Stanford research study.
According to the Stanford scientists who gathered the images, among the goals of Juul’s New york city launch celebration (in addition to a handful of comparable occasions in other cities) was to hand out totally free or steeply marked down samples of its items, which include extremely addicting nicotine.
“Their organisation design was to get the gadgets in your hands either free of charge or inexpensively,” Jackler stated.
More than 1,500 samples were provided at each occasion, according to products seen by Service Expert from the Los Angeles-based marketing company that assisted Juul prepare the occasions.
However after discovering that United States regulators prohibited totally free tasting of tobacco items– a 2010 guideline that has actually been changed to consist of e-cigarettes like the Juul– the business started charging individuals $1 for the items, Jackler stated.
Quickly after the launch celebrations came what Juul experts describe as the “triangle project,” a series of advertisements including youths positioning with a Juul in front of a brilliantly colored, triangle-bedazzled background.
As part of that project, Juul emailed consumers and motivated them to become what it called “Juul influencers,” according to products that Jackler showed Service Expert.
That method straight impacted teenagers, he stated.
“You began seeing viral peer-to-peer interaction amongst teenagers who generally ended up being brand name ambassadors for Juul,” Jackler stated.
Jackler and his group of scientists likewise compared Juul’s advertisements with the projects of standard huge tobacco business. In one area of the collection, the scientists show Juul’s advertisements side by side with those of brand names like Virginia Slims, Lucky Strike, and Kool.
In addition to publishing its advertisements throughout social-media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, Juul promoted its sweet tastes as one of the primary factors to utilize the item.
Scientists have actually stated these tastes are utilized to hook youths. Juul states the tastes play a crucial function in assisting grownups shift to its items and far from flammable cigarettes.
One Twitter advertisement including Juul’s “Creme Brulee” cartridges asked audiences to retweet if they delighted in “dessert without the spoon.”
A handful of scientists and public-health specialists have actually stated that many parts of Juul’s marketing campaign– like holding celebrations to introduce items and highlighting sweet tastes– had the impact of making its items interesting youths who may not have actually otherwise utilized tobacco items.
Recently, to resolve what’s been called an “epidemic” of teenager vaping, federal regulators at the Fda revealed strategies to location flavored e-cigarettes like the Juul behind a more powerful regulative fence.
To get ahead of the FDA’s scheduled regulative relocations, Juul briefly stopped sales of its flavored items in stores. It has actually likewise altered the names of a few of its tastes to get rid of a few of their interest youths– Creme Brulee is now “Creme,” while “Fruit Assortment” and “Cool Cucumber” are now “Fruit” and “Cucumber.”
“Although Juul is taking steps now to deal with the virality of its items amongst teens, it’s insufficient, too late,” Jackler stated.


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New messaging device lets you send long-distance smoochJul 23, 3:07 pm
London, July 23 (ANI): If you're missing your partner and fancy a smooch , a new messaging device can help you fulfil your wish.The device dubbed Kissenger and unveiled at the Designing Interactive Systems conference in Newcastle, UK, in June, lets users send kisses wirelessly to one another.Developed by Singapore-based Lovotics, Kissenger comprises a pair of pressure-sensitive soft plastic lips , which protrude through a smooth plastic casing the size of a large Easter egg.The lips contain pressure sensors and actuators. When you kiss them, the shape changes you create are transmitted in real time over the net to a receiving Kissenger.There, the actuators reproduce the mirror image of the pressure patterns you created- magically transmitting your smacker to your partner."People have found it a very positive way to improve intimacy in communications with their partners when they are apart," New Scientist quoted Hooman Samani of Lovotics, as saying.The device is a prototype and Samani said it would not be commercialised until "all the ethical and technical considerations are covered".Also he has pointed that he's not interested in sexual uses for it. (ANI)
E-mail authentication reduces phishing scams: Google Dec 7, 2:25 pm
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Google likely to launch Android-based 'Nexus TV' Dec 7, 12:39 pm
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