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Europe Is Building the Next Tesla. Who Knew? – Yahoo Finance

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(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When Nikola Corp. started trading on Nasdaq in June, the Phoenix-based clean transportation company raced quickly to a valuation of almost $30 billion.

Its market worth has since fallen to a more reasonable $10.5billion, but thats still pretty spicy for a business yet to generate any revenue. Its most promising products are its heavy trucks, powered by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.

The rise of Nikola (whose name, cheekily, is another evocation of electrical engineer Nikola Tesla) will have reinforced a view among European auto industry executives that the U.S. stock market operates by different rules. While Tesla Inc. is only modestly profitable, its valued at about $275billion, more than Europes five largest carmakers combined.

At least Europe has a stake in the latest heavily hyped project.Founded by Trevor Milton, a 38-year-old American college dropout, Nikola is relying heavily on expertise from the old continent. Robert Bosch Gmbh, a German automotive supplier, has helped develop the U.S. companys electric powertrain, and the first Nikola trucks will be built in a German factory belonging to Italys Iveco, a truck maker backed by the billionaire Agnelli family. Bosch and Iveco each own more than 6% of Nikola.CNH Industrial NV, Ivecos parent, just recorded a $1.5 billion fair value gain on that investment.(1)

The biggest question is whether a start-up dependent on so much external help should have a whizzy valuation like Tesla, which builds much of its technology itself.And if Europe has this expertise, why hasnt it produced its own rival to Elon Musks carmaker?

Maybe its a lack of chutzpah. Nikolas name isnt the only reason its often compared with Tesla. Miltons hyperactive Twitter presence makes Musk look tame by comparison. Both mens ambitions extend beyond selling zero-emission vehicles to producing and storing clean energy. While Nikola is focused on heavy-duty trucks, it has touted a variety of consumer products including a pickup called the Badger. These are catnip for retail investors, as the excitement over Musks Cybertruck demonstrates.

While Tesla and Nikola are both working on electric heavy trucks, they differ in at least two important respects. The first is hydrogen: Musk is dismissive, while Milton thinks hydrogen is the perfect fuel for long truck journeys. The second is their attitude towardbuilding stuff in-house.

True, in its early days Tesla worked withLotus to help make the Roadster, and Daimler AG helpeddevelop the Model S saloon. Teslapartners with Panasonic to produce battery cells. But Musk is famous for trying to build his own technology, from electric powertrains and automated-driving software to car seats.

Nikola developed its own software,infotainment andbattery management-system, as well as vehicle aerodynamics, according to Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne. It has outsourced or used hired help to do much of the other stuff.More than 200 Bosch employees were involved in building important parts of Nikolas trucks, including the electric motor for the axle, the vehicle-control unit, the battery and the hydrogen fuel cell. The result isa mix of intellectual property owned either separately orjointly by Nikola and its suppliers.

Theres no doubt, however, who has the deeper expertise.So far Nikola has been awarded 11 U.S. patents, about 1% of the totalBosch is awarded in a typical year. Bosch gets paid to help us get to industry standards on products, Milton told me.

Getting partners to providethe technological building blockshas some advantages. Nikola has only 300 employees and yet its first trucks should start rolling off theproduction line soon. Working with partners cuts the risk of the manufacturing delays and quality problems that plagued Tesla.

Its an efficient use of capital too. Nikolas research and development expenses were just $68million last year. Tesla spent$1.3 billion. After going public, Nikola has about $900 million of cash,although that wont go far in the automotive business. Forthe North Americanmarket, Nikola plans to handle its own manufacturing, with technical assistance from Iveco. Nikola broke ground this week on a$600 million factory in Arizona.

Story continues

Whether or not you believe the extensive involvement of outside partners shouldhave a bearing on its lofty valuation, there are other things that could upset Nikolas plans.

Building a refueling network is a central part of its business model, but this wont come cheap at $17 million for each hydrogen station. The company is also entering a competitive field populated by more experienced and better capitalized rivals. Daimlers Mercedes-Benz failed to follow through on its early experiments with electric cars and let Tesla roar past. It probably wont make the same mistake withtrucks.

Daimler is the worlds largest truck maker and it plans to start production of its electric eActros and eCascadia models next year. The German giant has alsoformed a joint venture with Swedens Volvo AB to develop hydrogen fuel cell systems for heavy vehicles. That venture is valued by the companies at just 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion), putting the Nikola valuation into perspective.

Even if its share price looks overblown, Nikolas improbable rise shows theres investor demand for clean transportation companies that dont still have one foot planted in the combustion-engine past. European manufacturers have the technicalchopsbut they must find better ways to capitalize on investor excitement through new business models or spinoffs. Otherwise someone else will.

(1) This was measured on June 30 when Nikola's stock was much higher

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Chris Bryant is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies. He previously worked for the Financial Times.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Europe Is Building the Next Tesla. Who Knew? - Yahoo Finance

Why cultivated meat is about to have its Tesla Roadster moment – Massive Science

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Almost everything we consider a great invention is, in fact, a series of great inventions. Take the electric car, which was dreamed up long before the gasoline engine, and had numerous rebirths and deaths throughout the 20th century, with a whos who of great companies and inventors trying their hand at new prototypes. Unfortunately, its battery life remained too short and its top speed too slow to compete with the gas-guzzling competition. That is, until California engineer J.B. Straubel invented a new lithium-ion battery that solved both problems. His fateful meeting with Elon Musk in 2003 led to the creation of the Tesla Roadster the beginning of the end for gasoline cars.

Cultivated meat the industry I work in as a scientist has followed a similar trajectory. In a 1931 essay, Winston Churchill already imagined growing meat in a lab without harming animals. This dream has also recently become a reality, driven by constant innovation and growing concerns about the carbon footprint of factory farms. Over the past ten years, I have witnessed it grow from a niche preoccupation into a global effort. But like the old electric car, cultivated meat has since been working through its prototype phase. Whats holding it back? The stem cells that are the driving force behind it run out of steam too quickly for efficient harvesting. The process of combining the necessary fat and muscle cells has proven too unwieldy. The resulting price tag is still too high. These hurdles often dubbed our scalability problem have prevented cultivated meat from making the transition from the lab to the market. Until now.

Today, seven years after Mark Post debuted the first lab-grown hamburger to the world, my company Meatable is unveiling a new invention that could give cultivated meat that final push from prototype to widely available product. Our new patented cell-programming technology, opti-ox, has already shown exceptional promise in overcoming our industrys scalability problems. We are betting that this transition will eventually be looked back on as cultivated meats roadster moment the crucial step that helps our industry get over the hump and into supermarkets, in pursuit of a more ecological world.

But how does our technology work? And what needs to happen next for it to fulfill its revolutionary potential? In what follows, I hope to offer some exclusive insights into this breakthrough and how we got there.

Seven years ago, I was working on the research end of Mark Posts pioneer hamburger project, and I remember feeling immensely proud. News cameras started flocking to our lab in the cardiovascular department of Maastricht University. Perhaps now my mother would stop asking me when I planned to get a real job. Marks famous patty showed the world that cultivated meat was a real and transformative possibility. To those of us working on the back end, the project also illustrated how far we still had to go for its prophecy to be fulfilled. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and tens of millions of cells (and the gargantuan lab space required for processing them) had gone into creating that burger. This was an early introduction to cultivated meats famous scalability problem.

10 layers of culture flasks used in the production of the first cultivated hamburger.

Photo by Daan Luining

In the following years, I was excited to work with start-ups around the world who devoted themselves to scaling up production while bringing down the price. The hope was huge. The success of our collective project could save countless animal lives and offer an ecological alternative to an industry with a deleterious carbon footprint. What needed to be done? I immersed myself in these questions while working as Research Director for Cellular Agriculture non-profit New Harvest, getting an overview of all the great work happening in cultivated meat and a crash course in what was holding us back.

The limitations were innate. Cultivated meat is made of cells, lots of them, ideally a combination of fat and muscle cells. Unfortunately for us, these mammalian cells are innately limited by something called senescence. Anatomist Leonard Hayflick discovered it in 1961: mammalian cells can only divide between forty to sixty times before they cannot divide any more. This limitation meant that cultivated meat makers had to keep harvesting and introducing new animal cells a highly inefficient process.

We have long known of a possible way of overcoming this hurdle: using pluripotent cells. Discovered by Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka in 2006, these cells are special because they are able to divide endlessly, never running out of steam. The question was: how could we turn them into the specific cells we needed, muscle and fat? This requires shepherding the development of a cell all the way to adulthood. The available methods to do this have been time- and space-consuming. Until now.

In the years after Mark Posts famous hamburger, another Mark was (unwittingly) doing research that would prove crucial to the advancement of cultivated meat. Mark Kotter, a neurosurgeon and principal investigator at Cambridges STEM Cell Institute, spent years trying to reprogram pluripotent cells for neurological application.

Starting in 2014, Kotter discovered a way to build specific transcription factors into the pluripotent cells DNA. Every cell in the population turned into exactly what he wanted. He couldnt believe his eyes. He had his graduate students re-run the experiment over and over. Every time, 100% of the pluripotent cells were converted to oligodendrocytes. He had created pure culture of cells from stem cells, which was unheard of thus far.

This turned out to have unintended applications, when I was introduced to Mark in 2016 through a New Harvest fellow. Mark had never heard of cultivated meat, but it took me maybe five minutes to convince him that it was exactly what the world needed. I realized just as quickly that opti-ox could be a game-changer for our industry. In 2018, we co-founded Meatable with our CEO Krijn de Nood, and started applying Marks technology to reprogramming pig cells. Soon, all our hard work started to pay off.

In several experiments earlier this year, we have finally proved that we can grow pork using opti-ox technology on a porcine pluripotent cell. For the first time in history, we have successfully differentiated pluripotent cells into fat and muscle with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

Pluripotent pork cells differentiated into fat (red) and muscle (green) in 7 days.

This process will allow us to grow fat and muscle together. An answer to an elusive problem: adult muscle and fat stem cells require vastly different nearly opposite environments to thrive. With pluripotent stem cells, muscle and fat cultures start from the same type of cell, so they can be grown side-by-side. No mixing required afterwards. The two ingredients can be grown together as they naturally do in animal meat. This, too, is a game changer. It will allow us to create a controlled large-scale process on both ends.

We believe that our opti-ox technology will be the battery pack that helps propel cultivated meat into the mainstream. Combining two breakthrough technologies that use cellular reprogramming in a way that has never been done before, the next test will be our first prototype sausage, followed by a pork chop. We then intend to continue our experiments with beef.

This technology will help us produce meat that's faster to market, higher quality, and more cost effective. More importantly, it will bring us one step closer to our greater goal: separating meat consumption from the death and carbon of factory farms, just as electric cars allowed us to drive without polluting the environment.

This reality may still be 5 years off, but in science that is little more than a blink of an eye. In the long-term, our success depends not only on scaling technological boundaries, but on challenging social perceptions, and having the courage to rethink one of humanitys oldest habits. The possibilities are humbling.

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Why cultivated meat is about to have its Tesla Roadster moment - Massive Science

Whats Ahead for Tesla, Nikola, and Other Electric-Vehicle Stocks – Barron’s

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Electric-vehicle stocks are Wall Streets Wild West. EV stocks tracked by Barrons are up more than 160% year to date, led by Teslas 250% rise. Li Auto a maker of electric SUVs with onboard generatorsrose 43% in its market debut Thursday.

There is no lack of volatility in the sector. Shares in battery- and fuel-cell powered truck maker Nikola (ticker: NKLA), for instance, moved double-digit percentage points seven separate days in July, and shares dropped 56% in the month. Still, the stock is up more than 190% year to date.

All of this action is leaving Wall Street a little befuddled.

Most EV stocks now trade above analyst price targets. And those are the EV stocks followed by Wall Street analysts. Four EV companies worth more than $15 billionincluding Li Auto (LI)dont even have analyst coverage yet.

Instead of raising or lowering stock prices and stock targets rapidlysomething analysts are loath to dothey are writing worst-, base-, and best-case scenarios for EV stocks and leaving it up to investors to figure out what to do next.

Analysts, in other words, are sitting on the fence. Still, such scenario planning is a good idea for investors, especially traders. It can help them plan what to do no matter what happens, which is especially important in a sector like electric vehicles.

Nikola investors are in the midst of worst-case planning. Shares plunged after rising 135% in June. It now trades at $30. How bad can it get?

July-like declines for Nikola shares, which were catalyzed by warrant vesting, probably arent in the cards for a few months. Warrants give holders the right to buy stock at a discountfor $11.50 a share, in this caseand 24 million Nikola warrants became exercisable recently. Most of the warrant-related selling pressure is over now. Despite recent declines, Nikola stock is worth about $11 billion.

RBC analyst Joseph Spaks worst-case scenario is $20 a share. Officially, he rates the stock the equivalent of Hold and has a $46 price target. Getting to $20 means Nikola didnt hit his truck market share estimate he models in 2028.

But 2028 is a long way off. It illustrates a problem investors have with all EV startups. Nikolas ultimate success or failure will be determined far in the future. That makes EV stocks, in the short run, very sensitive to changes in investor sentiment.

Nikolas 56% correction was severe. It stalled out at around the stocks 100-day moving average. The next stop on the worst-case train might be around $21 a share. Thats the stocks 200-day moving average. Its very close to Spaks fundamental case.

Nikola reports earnings on Aug. 4. Thats the next catalyst for shares, up or down.

U.S.-listed EV stocks we track, excluding Tesla (TSLA), are worth some $30 billion, more than Ford Motor (F). Include Tesla, and the number jumps to more than $300 billion.

Tesla, the sector behemoth, is valued at roughly $750,000 per vehicle delivered, or about 10 times as much as General Motors (GM) on the same metric. Whats being discounted in Tesla stock, as well as shares of smaller EV makers, is higher and higher EV penetration of the light-vehicle market for years. Tesla stock trades at $1,430.76.

New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu has a $1,500 price target on Tesla and a Hold rating. Its a good place to review the stocks base case. He believes Tesla can sell two to three million cars by 2025, making it roughly the size of BMW (BMW.Germany), with better-than-industry growth extending past that year. Thats a good benchmark for what fundamental assumptions are reflected in the share price today.

But 2025, like 2029 in the case of Nikola, is far off. What drives Tesla higher next is better 2021 earnings. Tesla 2021 earnings estimates have gone from roughly $9 a share to $16 a share over the past year. At this point, with shares trading for 100 times estimated 2021 earnings, Tesla needs to keep beating Street estimates to maintain stock price momentum.

Wall Streets best-case scenarios for Tesla stock discount a number of different things. Some see Tesla selling more than 10 million cars in the future. Others see Tesla selling full self-driving software and making EV powertrains for other auto makers. Still others see value in Teslas battery storage and solar business.

Over the short term, the best-case scenario for Tesla stock is a surge in buying after its inclusion in the S&P 500something the stock qualified for after its recent quarterly profit.

Inclusion would lead to new buying by index funds, and more buying than selling drives up stocks. The question is: How much higher can it go? Tesla stock would be overboughtin Wall Street parlanceat around $1,700. Thats very rough math, but its a level where traders might decide to take profits.

An easier bull case is the one for electric commercial van maker Workhorse Group (WKHS). Its bidding to replace 160,000 U.S. Postal Service vehicles. If it wins, sharesnow at $15.52will top $20 and perhaps approach the top Street target price of $27 set by Roth Capitals Craig Irwin.

Losing the bid would hurt. Whatever happens, Workhorse stock, up more than 400% year to date, will stay volatile. So will shares of its EV peers.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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Whats Ahead for Tesla, Nikola, and Other Electric-Vehicle Stocks - Barron's

Onit Accelerates Workflow and Business Process Automation with Latest Version of its Apptitude Platform – GlobeNewswire

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HOUSTON, Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Onit, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management and business process automation, today announced the latest version of its workflow and business process automation platform Apptitude.

The no-code platform is highly configurable and scalable. Apptitude supports an unlimited number of solutions from department-specific, such as legal spend management, legal holds and legal service requests, to shared solutions across departments including compliance, finance, human resources, risk management, IT, marketing, operations and procurement.

Serving the enterprise, the platform supports hundreds of thousands of users, millions of files and transactions and has a global reach. Close to 300 people have been certified in building Apps in Apptitude, and 5,500 production Apps have been built and deployed. Onits 2020 summer release of Apptitude includes an entirely new visual drag-and-drop workflow builder that allows customers to create workflows in a way that is easy for even nontechnical people to understand.

COVID-19 will certainly be an inflection point in the global economy. This pandemic proves that all companies need a technology platform that can enable rapid change, commented Eric M. Elfman, CEO and co-founder of Onit. Although it is uncertain what the new normal will be in the legal ecosystem, we can safely say that efficiency, collaboration, workflow and automation are now more imperative than ever before. The latest version of our platform addresses these challenges, making it easier than ever to build workflows, automate critical business processes and connect and empower a global workforce.

Introducing Apptitude Process BuilderOnit built the new version of Apptitude to bridge the gap between technical and business users and designed it to simplify the creation of new workflows. Apptitudes new visual interface, Process Builder, allows all users to build and manage business logic and workflows using a drag-and-drop interface.

The complexity of solutions being built with Apptitude has grown significantly over the last 10 years. Builders who were initially tasked with addressing simple workflow problems are now solving vastly more complex enterprise-wide challenges, including risk management and compliance, where the Onit solutions compete with the best purpose-built compliance software. Building and managing business logic at this scale can be challenging for even the most advanced users. Process Builder makes it easier for customers and project managers to understand how applications work and create efficient workflows.

Process Builder provides a visual interface for building workflows. Builders configure business logic by dragging and dropping actions and groups of actions exactly where they need to go. Building new workflows is intuitive and only takes minutes for experienced builders to learn. Most important, Process Builder works with existing Apptitude configurations, and no migration or changes are required to get started. The new release also makes it easy to show your work to other stakeholders in an agile build process so that internal customers can quickly and easily give their input. This helps shorten the time to value in Onit implementations, which often take weeks - not months.

One of our primary goals with this summer release is to support our community of App builders and accelerate new workflow creation and execution across the enterprise, explained John Gilman, vice president of product strategy at Onit. Using the new visual drag-and-drop workflow builder, technical and business analysts are empowered to build Apps faster and more efficiently, enabling better connections and collaboration with key stakeholders and knowledge workers. The reaction I got from customers is that Process Builder is a game-changer. The App builder can instantly visualize the process, and the sponsor can demonstrate in real-time the work of the project team to internal stakeholders.

The new version of Apptitude is generally available and delivers:

The Power of the Platform With a new Apptitude version release every month, legal and business teams can benefit from the latest technology innovations and best practices and stay up to date with industry trends and compliance regulations. Designed from the ground up to be a comprehensive, scalable and agile platform, it has unlimited potential for growth. Whether a legal department is looking to automate one process or 20, it can configure and deploy what is needed when it is required. Its easy to enhance existing solutions and add new departments as needs change and a company evolves. Apptitude scales to support thousands of users and millions of documents, meaning companies will not outgrow the Apptitude platform.

The Onit Advantage Onit Nation The latest version of Apptitude has best practices from 400+ global companies that have built workflow solutions for more than a decade. Customers, employees and Onits technology and consulting partners have configured more than 5,500 Apps, comprised of 160 bespoke legal-focused workflow solutions with deployment in 120 countries. Onit has certified nearly 300 employees, partners and customers in more than 80 training sessions with 686 certification levels granted. The Onit implementation team, coupled with its partner network, brings decades of unmatched industry expertise to the creation, implementation and support of your solutions.

About Onit Onit is a global leader of enterprise workflow solutions for legal, compliance, sales, IT, HR and finance departments. Our solutions transform best practices into smarter workflows, better processes and operational efficiencies. With a focus on enterprise legal management, matter management, spend management, contract management and legal holds, we operate globally and help transform the way Fortune 500 companies and billion-dollar legal departments bridge the gap between systems of record and systems of engagement. We help customers find gains in efficiency, reduce costs and automate transactions faster. For more information, visit http://www.onit.com or call 1-800-281-1330.

Media inquiries:Melanie BrennemanOnit(713) 294-7857Melanie.brenneman@onit.com

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Onit Accelerates Workflow and Business Process Automation with Latest Version of its Apptitude Platform - GlobeNewswire

Automation: The Future of Manufacturing Is Here – Quality Magazine

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Automation: The Future of Manufacturing Is Here | 2020-08-01 | Quality Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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Automation: The Future of Manufacturing Is Here - Quality Magazine

Automation Arts and Daktronics Build Partnership With Multiple Recent Projects – Digital Signage Connection

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BMO Tower and Mecca Sports Bar & Grill highlight collaboration efforts

BROOKINGS, S.D. Aug. 6, 2020 Daktronics(NASDAQ-DAKT) of Brookings, South Dakota, has built a partnership withAutomation Arts, a Wisconsin-based commercial and residential AV integrator, for multiple recent installations including LED video displays at BMO Tower and the Milwaukee Bucks Mecca Sports Bar & Grill at Fiserv Forum.

Our experience working with the Daktronics team has been incredible, said Ron Moore, vice president of Automation Arts. From the first project, their team including Tony Mulder and Brock Wallen have been the most responsive and professional partners I have personally ever worked with leading to some very successful projects. Everything from design, delivery and support, Daktronics has been with us every step of the way on these projects. We are looking forward to collaborating on many more projects in the future.

One of the most recently completed projects took place at BMO Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The project included a large LED video display featuring 2.9-millimeter pixel spacing. The display measures more than 21 feet high by 10 feet wide and shares crisp, clear high-resolution imagery as people enter the building.

The display brings additional branding and Milwaukee-focused content to grab viewers attention and elevate the ambiance of the space to match the luxury of the building. It can show live and recorded video as well as graphics and promotional content to meet the needs of BMO Tower.

Working with Automation Arts on these installations was an exceptional experience and the results are amazing, said Daktronics Regional Sales Manager Tony Mulder. At Daktronics, weve instilled a commitment to developing relationships with AV integrators and these projects show the great things we can accomplish when working together to bring our customers visions to life. We look forward to many more successful projects, similar to these, in the future.

Another project the companies worked together to complete last year took place at the Mecca Sports Bar & Grillnear Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks.Automation Arts recently was awarded a2020 Commercial Integrator Awardfor this installation which includes a large LED video display paired with three ribbon displays that surround fans in this entertainment space.

The main display measures nearly 17.5 feet high by 31 feet wide while the three ribbon displays all measure 2 feet high and vary in length at 34.5 feet, 40.5 feet and 48 feet long. The main display shows live sports coverage and additional entertainment content while the ribbon displays supplement informationsuch as statistics and scores while sharing other graphics.

The companies also worked together to install a 17.5-feet high by 30.5-feet wide LED video display in the Bucks Beer Garden. The display features 6-millimeter pixel spacing and is similarly used to show live sporting events, supporting graphics and information.

About Automation Arts

Automation Arts has been at the forefront of high-level Commercial Audio-Visual Integration since1993.Our objective is to provide the highest quality end-user experience possible. This objective is reachedthrough our passion for customer service, attention to detail, and our experience with deploying high-level/innovative product offerings.Automation Arts has grown to become one of thelargest Audio-Visual Integrators in the state of Wisconsin.

About Daktronics

Daktronicshelps its customers to impact their audiences throughout the world with large-format LED video displays, message displays, scoreboards, digital billboards, audio systems and control systems in sport, business and transportation applications. Founded in 1968 as a USA-based manufacturing company, Daktronics has grown into the world leader in audiovisual systems and implementation with offices around the globe. Discover more atwww.daktronics.com.

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

Cautionary Notice: In addition to statements of historical fact, this news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is intended to enjoy the protection of that Act.These forward-looking statements reflect the Companys expectations or beliefs concerning future events. The Company cautions that these and similar statements involve risk and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations, including, but not limited to, changes in economic and market conditions, management of growth, timing and magnitude of future contracts, fluctuations in margins, the introduction of new products and technology, the impact of adverse weather conditions and other risks noted in the Companys SEC filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for its2019fiscal year.Forward-looking statements are made in the context of information available as of the date stated. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise such statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur.

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Automation Arts and Daktronics Build Partnership With Multiple Recent Projects - Digital Signage Connection

Parrot + Dronisos: Imagining the future of Drone Automation – UASweekly.com

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Parrot, the leading European drone group, andDronisos, a pioneer in the creation and production of customised drone swarm light shows, are expanding their ongoing partnership to explore new applications for drone flight automation leveraging the Parrot ANAFI drone platform.

Dronisos drone swarms combine sophisticated technology and artistic expression to entertain audiences around the world with dancing drones and lights for clients including Lancme, Peugeot, FIFA, and Oreo. These shows require sophisticated drone flight automation to synchronise up one thousand drones to perform choreographed movements, tricks and flight patterns.

Dronisoshas previously featured Parrot Bebop and Mambo drones, modified with specialised lights, hardware and software to act as the stars of their shows. Parrots latest ANAFI drone platform offers new opportunities to advance flight automation and synchronisation thanks to its compact size, quiet flights, and industry-leading security.

Parrot is a dream partner to help us bring to life spectacular displays of imagination though both their technology and appreciation for artistry, saidJean-DominiqueLauwereins, CTO and Co-Founder ofDronisos. Now, Parrots ANAFI droneplatform has both inspired and equipped our team to push the boundaries and take our drone swarm capabilities to new heights and new industries. In particular, the small size of the ANAFI prevents any physical harm and the highly secure connection ensures the safety and integrity of autonomous flights from potential hackers.

Parrot first partnered withDronisosin 2016 to help produce the companys now infamous drone dances at its annual CES booth to showcase the launch of the Bebop. The lighthearted and entertaining dances entertained CES attendees and served as a memorable showcase of the brand and its technology.These elaborate choreographed drone dances broke barriers in drone automation previously unimagined.

Five years later, amid months of lockdown due to the global coronavirus pandemic, theDronisosteam created a world-record breaking show flying 200 Parrot Bebop 2 drones simultaneously. Created with a dispersed team throughout the lockdown, the show broke the world record for the largest number of drones flying autonomously indoors. The show, sponsored by Cisco and Tim, was broadcast nationally for the celebration of San Giovanni, a popular annual Italian festival in Turin, Genoa and Florence.

Dronisoshas broken barriers and world records with their vision and engineering and our drone technology, said Jerome Bouvard, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Parrot. We see the ways in which our professional and enterprise customers are using our drones and believe that through this next phase of our partnership we can showcase what else can be achieved to solve new challenges forinspections, surveying and mapping, security and defense industries.

For more information on Parrot and its ANAFI drones, visitParrot.com. To learn more aboutDronisos, visitDronisos.com.

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Parrot + Dronisos: Imagining the future of Drone Automation - UASweekly.com

Automating to innovate on the factory floor – CanadianManufacturing.com

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TORONTO When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into lockdown back in March, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) saw temporary closures, labour shortages, new safety measures, production delays and even unexpected spikes in consumer demands. In this new environment, manufacturers have had to find ways to accommodate changes on the factory floor.

In a virtual summit co-hosted by Manufacturing AUTOMATION and Canadian Plastics, these magazines looked at ways to help manufacturers prepare for a potential second wave of the coronavirus and to ensure long-term competitiveness, with a focus on the role automation will play in recovery.

One session focused on the factors that should be considered when considering new industrial automation on the factory floor. Panel experts included:

Known for their Collaborative Robots nicknamed Cobots Universal Robots Michael Phillips explained that cobots can help address not only the skills shortage, but also facilitate social distancing.

Our goal is to improve the productivity of existing processes by using a collaborative approach humans working alongside with robots, Phillips said.

Phillips went on to explain that Cobots can be trained on the production floor by staff easily and quickly to set up jobs.

The main takeaway from this is that these robots can be deployed for small production runs in small batches, Phillips said. Customers can then free up their employees to complete more meaningful work.

Speaking from the Siemens perspective, Asghar Rizvi shared that COVID-19 not only accelerated the companys transition to Industry 4.0 but also an automation boom.

The power of data will assist in automating our factories of the future, said Rizvi.

Ashgar Rizvi of Siemens. PHOTO: Automate to Innovate

Rizvi then went on to review the digital technologies that enable manufacturers to operate remotely and more efficiently: remote working, AI in automation and integrated automation (IT/OT).

We need to advise our customers on what will change in their lives by applying remote working, and how they can improve these experiences, Rizvi said. This pandemic will pass, but it will change how our executives will review their readiness for real time events. Real time data will play a very important role when it comes to this pandemic.

Rizvi explained that artificial intelligence is set for a huge takeover in the coming years, and that the current COVID-19 situation is pushing the development of robots and the improvement of AI.

This could lead to a new era of robotic human helpers, Rizvi said. It is expected that global AI software market will grow exponentially.

Lastly, Rizvi shared that Siemens would be providing its customers with data at the field level rather than the cloud level.

By this approach, we are able to do application and analytics at the edge of the application itself. Customers would save a lot of costs that are currently taken as an expense at the cloud level, Rizvi said. Digitalization has become a necessity instead of an option.

Speaking on behalf of Festo, Santiago Olmedo said that the companys customer solutions group played critical role in the selection and implementation of automation systems.

We have a well rounded team of engineers, with solid project management and logistics functions, and our expertise comes from heavy piping and high volume, Olmedo said. Our goal is to make our customers more productive.

He continued, We offer integration support for our customers and a true engineering partnership Customers are able to now order a complete subsystem with a function and performance commitment, rather than ordering many, many components that they have to integrate on their own.

Olmedo added: We welcome the opportunity to collaborate and develop new solutions with our customers based on their requirements.

In another session, Michelle Chrtien, director, Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies (CAMDT), Sheridan College, looked ahead at how the future of industrial automation will expand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are different types of automation that are replacing the concept of robots, doing things we dont want to do, and expanding the role and utility of automation to work alongside humans, Chrtien said.

Chrtien reiterated Phillips thoughts by saying that collaborative robots will have a space in automation, noting that it will change the way manufacturing will look in a post-COVID-19 world.

However, she also noted that the advent of machine learning and AI will also have a massive impact on the industry.

In the events second session, Mentor Works president and founder Bernadeen McLeod took charge.

McLeods presentation addressed the ways manufacturers can scale automation in their workplace, including how to access key government funding opportunities for innovation and new manufacturing technologies.

I find the best way to strategize and navigate in this space is to look at your strategic projects and put them into funding pools and look at your challenges and identify government programs that will help you with commercialization and business expansion, McLeod said in her presentation. Look at a separate group of programs that will help you with talent acquisition and training, a separate group of programs dedicated to R&D, and then a separate group for export development.

PHOTO: Automate to Innovate

McLeod went on to educate viewers on the different types of government funding, which include the Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) and the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund, two COVID relief programs.

A partnership between Export Development Canada (EDC) and approved financial institutions across Canada, McLeod explains that BCAP is a low-interest loan product where depending upon company revenues a manufacturing company can borrow up to $300,000 to $12 million in funding.

The banks take complete control of the program and you must approach your bank, outline what your shortfall is and fixed operating expenses over the next three to 18 months, and then the banks respond to you with this low-interest loan product, McLeod explained. Theres no repayment back for 12 months.

Should a company be denied funding under BCAP, McLeod advised manufacturers to instead apply for the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund.

This is up to a $500,000 loan product with no repayments until January 2023, McLeod explained.

McLeod also stresses that when applying for government funding, manufacturers need to stress their project timelines, what types of expenses the projects require and the overall impact the project will have.

I would encourage you to be aware that the assessment for government incentives are job creation, incremental revenue growth, and the governments desire to support innovative processes and technologies into your production site, McLeod said.

The final hour of the virtual event was a panel discussion that focused on funding, planning an innovation strategy, determining primary investments, best practices for testing and scaling, enterprise risk management and automations true cost.

Moderated by Manufacturing AUTOMATION editor Kristina Urquhart, the panelists for the final session included:

PHOTO: Automate to Innovate

de Verteuil said that the most important thing for manufacturers to consider during COVID-19 is to know what problem they are trying to fix and to know the objectives of their project in order to receive funding.

Whether its cost-centric, unit cost reduction or a reduction in changeover time, your competition is edging you out, de Verteuil said.Its really difficult to convince anyone internally or organization lenders and grant decision makers to pony up cash unless you really know what youre selling.

Jeffrey reiterated de Verteuils point, but also emphasized that it is important for manufacturers to not just articulate the problem, but to quantify it as well, advising that manufacturers dont want to be solving a $10 problem with $100 solution.

Sometimes people fail to quantify and youre using a hammer to swat a fly, Jeffrey said. I think thats something where a lot of companies struggle with cash flow.

Obviously its a difficult thing to get over, but we see status quo as being the strongest gravitational force, the ability to have a vision, understand the problem and have a vision about what youre going to do to change that.

When discussing what manufacturers can expect as they start to develop their innovation strategy, Jeffrey said that its important for the manufacturing sector to adjust to the changes that COVID-19 has brought on, namely the adjustment of data-driven processes.

If we fail to adjust and operate with the status quo, you run the risk of going down and unfortunately fear is a big motivator for change, Jeffrey said. These models are changing and its a huge opportunity, but its up to us to make sure we support that with the right types of technology.

Lookig ahead, Felows said she believes that if the manufacturing industry does not implement changes to their technologies, it will result in a loss of competitiveness.

To remain competitive, adopting new innovative technologies for the factory floor will help manufacturers survive.

If our Canadian manufacturers are not adopting the technologies that will help them be more profitable produce a better quality product in a safer manner, more efficient operations, efficient use of resources, they are going to lose ground competitively, Fellows predicted.

With the right partners, and the right collaboration and the right companies to collaborate with, manufacturers will be on the right path.

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Automating to innovate on the factory floor - CanadianManufacturing.com

Jumpstarting the Hyperautomation Journey with Intelligent Automation – socPub

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By Tyler Suss, Product Marketing Director atKofax

Gartner calls hyperautomation the most important of the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2020. Is it worth the hype? The short answer is, Yes.

As 2020 has unfolded, digital disruption has had many organizations feeling the pressure to innovate to streamline internal operations and customer-facing experiences more quickly. However, as organizations look to drive innovation by transforming business processes, they often run into roadblocks or are uncertain of where to begin.

Hyperautomation may be the solution. Hyperautomation deals with the application of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to increase the scope of automated processes and augment the efforts of the human workforce.

Hyperautomation requires implementing the right combination of the right technologies, in the right order, at the right time. By adopting an intelligent automation platform, organizations gain the tools they need to jump start digital transformation and follow a methodology that catapults them into a state of hyperautomation:

Process discovery: Organizations can use IA to easily analyse patterns and tasks, then quickly identify automation opportunities. Businesses can also discover potential challenges with compliance or regulatory issues and remediate them swiftly.

Digital workflow orchestration: They can centrally build and run automated digital workflows in collaboration with existing applications and human workers. Orchestrating multiple people, actions, software robots, policies and systems enables organizations to analyse, measure and optimize business activities.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Businesses can reliably and efficiently automate repetitive, manual tasks across the enterprise, even through web interfaces and business apps.

AI and machine learning: Advanced automation technologies can be leveraged to understand, classify, and extract data including voice, text, chat, and images. AI allows organizations to automatically recognize people and documents, understand the content and context of communications, and make more insightful business decisions. Machine learning improves the accuracy of document identification, classification and separation conducted as part of cognitive capture and RPA.

Digital workforce management: An Intelligent Automation platform provides the capability to govern a growing digital workforce, including software robots that improve security, compliance, scalability, and audit ability. Organizations can increase work capacity without adding headcount.

Analytics: Businesses can measure the impact of intelligent automation across the enterprise and calculate ROI. Improved visibility, process intelligence and insight into customers, employees and business partners give executives the tools and information needed to adapt to changing market conditions and customer expectations.

The benefits of hyperautomation are measurable:

Reduced costs: Intelligent automation of business processes and workflows reduces the time and resources needed to complete manual tasks and cuts down on the number of errors.

Scalability: Hyperautomation transforms a manual or complex task into a reliable and repeatable process. A collaborative ecosystem of complementary technologies and humans working together generates exponentially better outcomes across the business.

Personalizedcustomer experience: Hyperautomation enables organizations to deliver a more personalized customer experience, resulting in improved satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue.

Operational excellence: An efficient workforce comprised of the right blend of human and digital workers creates a flexible and agile organization that can swiftly respond to changing market conditions.

Employee work satisfaction: Human workers enjoy the more thought-provoking and strategic work automation allows them. Workers get more satisfaction out of their jobs when they can see the added value they bring.

Executives who want to drive innovation and transform business processes will do well to consider hyperautomation.

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Jumpstarting the Hyperautomation Journey with Intelligent Automation - socPub

DigiCert Announces Automation Gateway To Automate Certificate Lifecycle And Increase Web Security – SecurityInformed

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DigiCert, Inc., the worlds provider of TLS/SSL, IoT and other PKI solutions, announced its new DigiCert Automation Gateway. Automation Gateway launches with integration into DigiCert CertCentral in Q4. This new automation approach is designed to accelerate the adoption of automated certificate issuance, renewal, reissuance and revocation by tackling some of the common concerns with existing offerings. Automation Gateway will provide organizations the confidence to widely deploy automation protocols within their company networks to provide greater agility.

Automation Gateway lives on-premises in an enterprise network to securely monitor, automate and process certificate lifecycle events through a controllable proxied connection. It is a communication bridge between DigiCerts various management and automation tools, such as ACME, to simplify acquiring and deploying certificates.

Deployment of this offering is a significant milestone in DigiCerts vision to promote and enable crypto-agility and shorter certificate lifecycles. Automation is key in managing security events and responding to new threats.

DigiCert is dedicated to creating robust management and automation tools that enterprises can use to simplify their security processes and increase web security. With the constant increase in threats, enterprises need agility in how they deploy and manage certificates throughout their organization, said Jeremy Rowley, Chief of Product at DigiCert. "Many enterprises are wary of fully adopting automated PKI solutions because of the inherent risk of needing to open their network ports to the public internet. Automation Gateway removes that risk with trusted, automated controllers and proxies.

Automation Gateway also offers failover to provide uninterrupted uptime and prevent outages. The gateway automatically replaces missing, expired or revoked certificates on connected devices. Using the gateway, any number of internal servers can be automatically updated. With smart meshed interaction, if one node goes dark in the network, devices may still acquire certificates and continue to function securely.

Previous industry events, such as the transition from SHA-1 to SHA-2, demonstrate the need for a more agile web PKI. In addition, CA/B Forum requirements specify that a certificate must be replaced within 24 hours for key compromise and similar events, and five days if information changes or there is a technical gap in certificate contents. Automation is critical in meeting these requirements.

Continued Rowley, Automation Gateway in CertCentral will offer an intuitive experience, with smart software that remembers organizational security preferences and eliminates the manual configuration currently required for ACME certbot and other clients in use today."

When released later, Automation Gateway will join CertCentral Automation Tools to provide a completely automated certificate management solution. Currently, CertCentral Automation Tools feature the following benefits:

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DigiCert Announces Automation Gateway To Automate Certificate Lifecycle And Increase Web Security - SecurityInformed

GRUBBRR works with BlueStar to Meet Growing Demand for Commerce Automation Solutions Post-COVID – Digital Signage Connection

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BOCA RATON, FLA., AUGUST 05, 2020 GRUBBRR, a commerce automation company at the forefront of omni-channel ordering, is working with BlueStar, a leading global distributor of numerous solution-based technologies. BlueStar brings capabilities to enable GRUBBRR the ability to begin to scale up and meet the rising demand for self-ordering solutions, while GRUBBRR helps to provide BlueStar customers with unique solutions to market.

GRUBBRR has been looking to improve efficiencies and meet demand while continuing to innovate and introduce new product offerings for Quick Service and Fast Casual Restaurants and other hospitality verticals including stadiums, entertainment facilities, casinos, hotels, micro-markets and retail. BlueStars distribution and custom services will help GRUBBRR more effectively pursue these goals.

The world was already moving towards automation, COVID-19 just accelerated the need for this technology, said Sam Zietz, CEO of GRUBBRR. BlueStar is the perfect partner given their vast and efficient distribution capabilities, and this partnership will allow us to efficiently scale our offerings to the businesses across the country who need our commerce automation products as part of their re-opening strategies.

BlueStar is a Solutions-based distributor seeking to offer its customers complete solutions which can be taken to market and not just individual pieces of hardware. GRUBBRR will work with BlueStar for ready-to-go self-ordering solutions. BlueStar distributes much of the hardware used in GRUBBRR products, and now will have access to the software that can transform those products from simple hardware into automation solutions.

BlueStar represents the best of hardware and software providers, and they do their due diligence for their customers, said Zietz. It is significant that, in the landscape of our commerce automation competitors, BlueStar found GRUBBRR to offer the premiere solutions for the post-COVID world.

The demand for Kiosk and Contactless ordering is accelerating. As a Solutions Distributor, it is in our DNA to work with an ecosystem of vendors and software companies to provide actionable solutions to fill the fast paced needs of a marketplace, states Dean Reverman, Global Marketing Manager for BlueStar. GRUBBRR is a part of our TEConnect program which fosters relationships between vendors, in this case Elo, and distribution to enable solution development, promotion and fulfillment. Working together and leveraging each others strengths benefits the community and Channel as we collectively seek to address the critical needs of those businesses looking to reopen in a safe and thoughtful way.

The solutions provided are an intuitively sensible combination of resources that allows each to maximize efficiency in creating and distributing commerce automation solutions to a wide variety of industries. For more information, visithttp://www.GRUBBRR.com.

About GRUBBRR:Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, GRUBBRR is a technology company that delivers self-ordering solutions for small to large companies across different verticals including QSR Restaurants, Fast-Casual Restaurants, Cafes, Bakeries, Stadiums, Movie Theaters, Casinos, Micro Markets, Retailers, Amusement and Entertainment Centers, and Golf Courses. Offerings include self-service kiosks, contactless ordering, point-of-sale systems mobile ordering, online ordering, tableside ordering, food lockers, curbside delivery, and other services intended to materially increase business efficiency. To learn more about GRUBBRR and the companys offers, please visit:http://www.grubbrr.com.

About BlueStar:BlueStar is the leading global distributor of solutions-based Digital Identification, Mobility, Point-of-Sale, RFID, Digital Signage, Networking and Security technology. BlueStar works exclusively with value-added resellers to provide complete solutions, business development and marketing support. The company brings unequaled expertise to the market, offers award-winning technical support and is an authorized service center for a growing number of manufacturers. BlueStar is the exclusive distributor for the In-a-Box Solutions Series, delivering hardware, software and critical accessories in one bundle with technology solutions across all verticals. For more information, please contact BlueStar at 1-800-354-9776 or visithttp://www.bluestarinc.com.

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GRUBBRR works with BlueStar to Meet Growing Demand for Commerce Automation Solutions Post-COVID - Digital Signage Connection

Pax8 Gives MSPs Access to LionGuard Automation Platform – Channelnomics

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August 6, 2020

By Jeffrey Burt

Channel partners of cloud-based distributor Pax8 are getting access to Liongards Road platform, which enables MSPs to gain better visibility into their end customers systems whether theyre deployed on premises or in the cloud.

The Lowdown: The two companies this week announced a partnership that will give MSPs access to configuration data both historical and up-to-date of a customers entire IT stack and speed up processes and issue resolution.

The Details: The technology from LionGard, a five-year-old company based in Houston, enables MPS to automatically document, audit, and secure customer systems.

Benefits include:

>APIs into more than 30 vendors to ensure documentation is up-to-date.>Capturing historical data to help with troubleshootingA custom alerting system that lets MSPs be proactive in dealing with issues.>Data exportability features for reporting>Integration into Microsoft 365, Azure AD, and Azure public cloud.>Integrations into AutoTask, Datto, ConnectWise, Kaseya, BitDefender, StorageCraft, Veeam, and Webroot.

The Impact: The capabilities in LionGards platform helps build trust between MSPs and their clients, reduces user errors, and enables IT service providers to more efficiently manage systems at scale.

Background: The partnership with Pax8 comes less than three months after the company raised $17 million in Series B funding, bringing up the total amount raised by LionGard to almost $23 million since its founding in 2015 by CEO Joe Alapat and COO Vincent Tran. The company serves both MSPs and IT companies in more than 20 countries and has seen the number of customers triple over the past 18 months and the number of companies supporting the platform double in that time.

The Buzz: To keep pace with ever-changing IT requirements, we are excited to offer Liongard to MSPs, said Ryan Walsh, chief channel officer at Pax8. Liongards strong, trusted platform enables MSPs to have greater visibility into how their systems are managed. With its capabilities, the solution gives our partners a competitive edge.

Liongard and Pax8 share a similar goal of propelling our partners forward through innovative, intuitive technology that enables greater efficiency and profitability, said Mark Sokol, vice president of marketing at Liongard. Were thrilled with this partnership and what it means for MSPs.

Related Links: CHANNELNOMICS:>Pax8 Hooks Up with RingCentral for UCaaS>Pax8 Bolsters Email Security Services for MSPs>Pax8 Brings CloudJumper, Microsoft Solution to MSPs

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Pax8 Gives MSPs Access to LionGuard Automation Platform - Channelnomics

US bishops renew call for abolition of nuclear weapons | News Headlines – Catholic Culture

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Catholic World News

July 31, 2020

Continue to this story on USCCB

CWN Editor's Note: This week we are observing the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, the president of the US bishops conference said. My brother bishops and I mourn with the Japanese people for the innocent lives that were taken and the generations that have continued to suffer the public health and environmental consequences of these tragic attacks.

For all current news, visit our News home page.

Sound Off! CatholicCulture.org supporters weigh in.

All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!

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Caribbean Observes 186th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery – caribbeannationalweekly.com

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GEORGETOWN-Guyana -The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will observe the 186th anniversary of the abolition of slavery on Saturday, with the chairman of the regional integration movement, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves saying that this years observance is taking on a greater international significance.

Gonsalves said that all, all but two of the CARICOM countries commemorate and celebrate Emancipation Day on August 1st .

The overwhelming majority of the population of CARICOM member-countries are of African descent. Joyously, people of all ethnicities in CARICOM join in commemorating and celebrating Emancipation Day; all rightfully claim this historic day as their own.

Gonsalves said the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement has gone global in a massive way consequent upon the popular resistance in the United States of America to racism, racial inequality, racial injustice and oppression and the uplifting fight for liberty, justice, and equality in every material respect.

He said the world is half-way through the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015- 2024), which was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in a Resolution (68/237), adopted on December 23, 2013; and focused on the theme People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice, and Development.

The gathering pace of the international movement for Reparations for Native Genocide and the Enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America, to provide appropriate recompense for the legacy of under-development consequent upon native genocide and

The joinder of the struggle for reparations with the quest for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, and designed as a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030, he said.

He said the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has adversely affected, disproportionately, poor communities and countries, especially those already ravaged by developmental inequities and distortions, traced substantially to the legacy of under-development to native genocide and the enslavement of Africans.

Gonsalves said he was urging all in CARICOM to focus on reparations for the enslavement of Africans on Emancipation Day.

In our region, and elsewhere, we need to have a more thorough-going public education programme on the meaning and significance of reparatory justice for the Caribbean. Further, our governments must ramp up the political, diplomatic, and international legal struggle for reparations. All hands are required on deck as a matter of urgency.

He said CARICOM has established a Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Reparatory Justice headed by the Prime Minister of Barbados. CARICOM has set up, too, a CARICOM Reparations Commission, chaired by Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.

Gonsalves said the Commission has advanced a 10-point CARlCOM Reparations Agenda which has been adopted by the CARICOM leaders and that in each country, a National Reparations Commission has been established with broad-based representation.

Solid ground work has been done thus far, but we must not lose any momentum or be side-tracked. The circumstances are now propitious for escalating a coordinated push for reparatory justice. And CARICOM must engage the African Union fully on this.

He said recently, several CARICOM member-states have been strengthening their links with Africa in profound ways; so, too, CARICOM and the African Union.

Much more is required to be done, and urgently, too. At the United Nations Security Council, a new institutional linkage of much consequence has been forged known as the A3 Plus One (the African 3: Niger, South Africa, and Tunisia, Plus St. Vincent and the Grenadines) ; this represents a collaboration between the regions of continental Africa and a representative country (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) of the sixth region of the African Union, namely the African diaspora.

Gonsalves said that a high quality of abundant research has been done and published, on Reparations for Native Genocide and the Enslavement of Africans.

More is still required to be done, but there is more than enough for us to proceed upon in our many-sided struggle. So, let us highlight reparatory justice on Emancipation Day, 2020, even as the individual countries in CARICOM engage in commemorative and celebratory activities of a cultural, social, political, and religious nature, he added.

He also urged the Caribbean to remember that June 13, this year was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Guyanese-born academic, Walter Rodney.

No one has yet been brought to court for the killing of Walter. The next government of Guyana must address this matter fully; it is a gaping wound in our collective consciousness which must be healed, Gonsalves said.

CMC

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Caribbean Observes 186th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery - caribbeannationalweekly.com

Chinas Space Silk Road reaches Mars and beyond – Asia Times

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Most geopolitical analysis is pretty down to Earth. But dont forget to look up: Chinas influence is rocketing above the heavens.

On July 23, a Long March 5 rocket blasted off from the Wenchen Launch Center on Chinas Hainan Island. Equipped with a lander, an orbiter and a rover, the Chinese Tianwen-1 spacecraft has set course for Mars to begin a comprehensive survey of the Red Planet.

The Mars mission, however, is not solely about discovery. It forms part of a comprehensive strategy designed to propel China to the ranks of fully developed, rich and powerful nations by the year 2049.

As President Xi Jinping explained to Taikonauts aboard the Tiangong-1, Chinas first prototype space station back in 2013, the space dream is part of the dream to make China stronger.Xis China is no longer hiding capabilities and keeping a low profile, its striving for achievement, he said at the time.

Under Xis command, the Peoples Republic has launched two prototype space stations (Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2), as well as a cargo ship (Tianzhou) able to refuel other spacecraft.

In 2018, it fired more rockets into the cosmos than any other nation. A year later, China made history when the Change 4 successfully landed the first rover on the dark side of the Moon.

Closer to home, the BeiDou 2 navigation system recently launched its 35th satellite, completing its sprawling constellation that promises to provide global coverage as an alternative to Americas GPS and Europes Galileo Positioning System.

If Tianwen-1 successfully reaches Mars, China will join the US and former Soviet Union as the only nations to have achieved such a space feat.

Unlike NASA and other space agencies whose stated goals are to conduct space exploration for the advancement of science, Chinas space program is more concerned with economic gains, geostrategic positioning and supporting development goals.

By 2040, the space industry is forecast to be worth $2.7 trillion, according to a recent report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. China clearly plans to capitalize on this projection.

While the most significant short- and medium-term opportunities may come from satellite broadband internet access, the future is poised to see space mining emerge as a profitable industry.

A small asteroid roughly 200 meters in length that is rich in platinum could fetch up to $30 billion, one projection estimates. The Moon possesses hundreds of billions of dollars worth of untapped resources including helium-3, titanium, and other rare earth metals.

Chinese researchers like Lin Mingtao are already working under the National Space Science Center to capture a near-Earth asteroid and bring it back to China to inspect and extract its resources.

Beijing also has big plans for the Moon. According to state news agency Xinhua, The China National Space Administration (CNAS) intends to establish a research station on the lunar surface within the next decade.

If China succeeds in building a Moon base with industrial capacity, it could significantly lower the costs of launching spacecraft and serve as a gateway for future space exploration.

But Chinas space ambitions dont stop there. By 2022, China aims to have a fully operational space station orbiting Earth.

There are also plans to launch a variety of solar power plants into low-Earth orbit engineered to beam electricity back to China. Beijing is also working to develop nuclear-powered spaceships by 2040, which will conceivably enable deep space travel.

All told, China is building a Space Silk Road. Within the framework of Xis signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) this new cosmic corridorcomplements its earthly Maritime and Land Silk Roads.

As this galactic architecture takes form, Beijing intends to offer the international community an alternate credible infrastructure network, thereby competing for global leadership in space.

At the same time, the space program is also intertwined with Made in China 2025, a policy designed to catapult China to becoming a global leader in high-tech manufacturing.

The Space Silk Road provide a new pathway to enhance Chinas indigenous innovation capabilities in fields like quantum communications, robotics, artificial intelligence, and aviation.

Accordingly, it also promotes civil-military fusion and the development of dual-use technologies: For example, while BeiDou can help navigate a ship through stormy waters, it can also guide a missile.

In modern warfare, space capability can help attain a geopolitical edge, military competitiveness and technological development, said Michael Raska, assistant professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. China is seeking all three as it embarks on the journey to great space power status, he said to regional media.

Ye Peijian, the head of the Chinese lunar exploration program, has provided some insight as to how Chinas Communist Party views space.

The universe is an ocean, the Moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island. If we dont go there now even though were capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants, Ye told reporters in 2017.

If others go there, then they will take over, and you wont be able to go even if you want to. This is reason enough.

Dale Aluf is the director of research and strategy at SIGNAL, Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership a member of Chinas Silk Road Think Tank Association SRTA.

Asia Times Financialis now live. Linking accurate news, insightful analysis and local knowledge with the ATF China Bond 50 Index, the world'sfirst benchmark cross sector Chinese Bond Indices.Read ATFnow.

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Chinas Space Silk Road reaches Mars and beyond - Asia Times

Wawa launches new Kids Meals that come with an entree, side and trading cards – pennlive.com

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Wawa has added Kids Meals to its 900 stores that include a choice of entrees and sides along with trading cards featuring the Wally Goose mascot.

The entree selections include a Junior hoagie with turkey, ham, roast beef or cheese; a small mac and cheese; cheese quesadilla; chicken strips; small meatballs; or chicken noodle soup. The side choices are apple slices, yogurt, mozzarella string cheese, chips or a chocolate chip cookie along with water, milk or chocolate milk.

The meals cost from $3.99 to $5.99.

In a news release, chief product marketing officer Mike Sherlock said, Were excited to add Kids Meals to our menu as it now, more than ever, allows Wawa to become a lunch and dinner destination for the entire family.

Parents or guardians can select their preferred menu items and order Kids Meals for children, all while preserving the experience of eating together as one family.

The meals include a pack of three Adventures of Wally Goose trading cards.

Cards show Wally sharing favorite activities that children can also enjoy, including: jumping rope, playing sports, coloring, fort-building, cooking, scavenger hunting, acting, experimenting, bike riding, dancing, reading, imagining, chalking and pretend playing. Special-edition hologram cards are also mixed into packs featuring facts about flying and space travel.

Kids can collect a total of 18 cards.

Wawa is selling a new Kids Meal that comes with a choice of entree, side and a beverage as well as Wally Goose Trading Cards. (Photo provided by Wawa)

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Wawa launches new Kids Meals that come with an entree, side and trading cards - pennlive.com

Review: ‘Lovecraft Country’ HBO vs. 100 years of racist sci-fi – Los Angeles Times

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That Lovecraft Country, which premieres Aug. 16 on HBO, has something to say about the ordinary horrors of racism as well as the cosmic ones of fantastic fiction is mixed into its foundation.

Matt Ruff, on whose 2016 novel the series is based sometimes closely, sometimes loosely was inspired in part by Pam Noles 2006 essay Shame, about the unbearable whiteness of sci-fi and the difficulties it presents to what she calls a FoP, as in, Fan of Pigment, and in its particulars by The Negro Motorist Green-Book and by James W. Loewens study Sundown Towns, as in get out by. (Ruff is white; series developer Misha Green, who previously wrote for the sci-fi series Heroes and Helix and created Underground, as in Railroad, is Black.)

There is a natural temptation to compare Lovecraft Country to Watchmen which also put Black heroes and Black history at the center of a genre piece and, because Jordan Peele is an executive producer (along with J.J. Abrams and others), to Peeles watershed satirical horror movie Get Out which, like Lovecraft, is a tale of white people using Black people for their own ends. But, while not without interest, Lovecraft is something less than either.

The racism of H.P. Lovecraft, an influential writer of pulp fiction and weird tales, is well-known; indeed, its a point the characters explicitly discuss. The difficulty he and other old-time genre writers present for FoPs, and more enlightened readers of lighter shades, is expressed by Atticus (Jonathan Majors), a Black science-fiction fan and Korean War veteran, to a fellow traveler on a bus home to Chicago. (Theyre in the back of the bus, being Black.) Stories are like people, says Atticus. The author doesnt make them perfect, you just try and cherish them, overlook their flaws. Still, both Ruffs book and Greens series function as much as critique as celebration; the mere fact that the series heroes are all Black is in itself a riposte to the early 20th century author, spitting in his otherwise admired eye.

Jurnee Smollett is a Chicago native headed into another world in HBOs Lovecraft Country.

(Elizabeth Morris / HBO)

Atticus, who is of a serious, somewhat dreamy disposition, has received a letter from his father, Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams), with whom he has issues, indicating the discovery of a secret legacy, a birthright thats been kept from you in a place Atticus first misreads as Arkham, the fictional Massachusetts town in which Lovecraft set many of his stories. It turns out the town is actually called Ardham, because Arkham is fictional, or more fictional, in the context of the series, but its a moot point: Here Be Monsters, including what looks to be a shoggoth, Lovecrafts own many-eyed blob.

He makes the trek into darkest New England in the company of his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), a fellow sci-fi fan and publisher of the Green Book"-inspired Safe Negro Travel Guide, and childhood friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett), whom the series promotes to a love interest for Atticus, not wanting the attractiveness of its leads to go to waste.

When, having braved racist townspeople, a racist gas station attendant, racist cops and the aforementioned blob, they finally come to the Gothic pile where they expect to find Montrose, they are greeted by a troika of characters (Tony Goldwyn, Abbey Lee, Jordan Patrick Smith) so pop culturally Aryan that one expects them to break any minute into a chorus of Tomorrow Belongs to Me. There are secret doors, magic spells and the familiar sight of rich old jerks in monkish robes conducting quasi-religious rites in the pursuit of unimagined power and some decadent idea of purity. Classic and evergreen.

This is only an opening chapter. Ruffs book is constructed as a set of linked short stories, and the series too has a semi-anthological structure that plays with different sorts of stories and moods a haunted house, an underground quest, ancient texts, magical space travel in and among the merely human intrigue, squabbling, family business and love stuff. (Even the chosen one status Atticus is accorded I was going to write enjoys, but suffers is closer to the mark in the opening episodes subsequently fades.) Only the first five episodes, of 10, are out for review; so far, there is a substantial enough resemblance to the novel to suggest that the series will follow its arc, even as there are differences enough to suggest that it might not.

Jonathan Majors plays a young man with a special destiny in the HBO series Lovecraft Country.

(Elizabeth Morris/HBO)

There are departures from the page; fans of the novel, and I know they will be in the minority of viewers, will note some gender swapping, some new sexual identities. There is not much in the way of sex, or sexual identity, in the book, but this is premium cable television and so ... there is. And Green has made sure to interpolate or amplify other sorts of action car chases, gun battles, flooding underground passageways, decapitation to keep things lively. Smollett is especially good at taking a heroic stance. She is the character you most dont want to mess with, though its Wunmi Mosaku, as her economically frustrated sister Ruby, who makes the greater impression, in a transmogrification storyline. (Jamie Neumann is also fine as the Hyde to her Jekyll, or maybe the other way around.) Ruby sings the blues, too, and rhythm & blues, and Mosaku should be first in line for the Sister Rosetta Tharpe biopic you can put on your schedule now, studio heads.

But the series can also feel overheated, over-motivated, muddled and unsubtle, and not just because every single white character is trouble, if not implausibly so, on a scale from casually clueless to actively evil. Its emotional volume has a way of drowning out its humor. Watchmen could be kind of a conceptual mess too, but it was impossible to miss its ambition even its daffy obscurity had a way of coming across as gravitas and arriving when it did in the life of the nation, it seemed to be not merely a harbinger of rising consciousness, but a contributor to it. Lovecraft Country has a sense of timeliness as well. When police arrive at the scene of a disturbance, the Black crowd adopts a hands up, dont shoot posture; taken into custody, Letitia is subjected to the sort of bruising police van ride that led to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015.

There is much of interest in Lovecraft. The set pieces are well done: Some money and care has been expended on staging, not just as regards the spookier special effects, but on some very nice period work, creating a corner of mid-1950s Chicago that feels inhabited and inhabitable; party and bar scenes are well-populated and choreographed. The monster attacks, crazy dream sequences, scenes that borrow with no embarrassment from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the places Raiders borrowed from, all work as theyre meant to.

We need to follow the logic of adventure novels, Montrose declares at a critical junction, and they do.

Lovecraft Country

Where: HBO

When: 9 p.m. Aug. 16

Rated: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

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Review: 'Lovecraft Country' HBO vs. 100 years of racist sci-fi - Los Angeles Times

Patents need to cover Hong Kong and Macau? Here’s the procedure. – Lexology

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Although a standard patent application can be filed directly with Hong Kong and Macau IP directories, there are routes more convenient for obtaining patent protection in these two Chinese territories.

Extension of a patent application to Hong Kong

A standard patent can be obtained by extending a Chinese patent into Hong Kong. The extension procedure includes a two-stage recordation request, one occurs at the publication of the Chinese patent application and the other at the grant of the Chinese patent, each within 6 months from the publication or grant date. The Chinese patent/application has to be a patent type, instead of a utility model, and can be a national phase of a PCT application filed in any of the receiving offices.

The Hong Kong standard patent will have a patent term of 20 years starting from the application date of the Chinese patent and independent from the validity of the Chinese patent. That is to say, a Hong Kong standard patent can only be invalidated by filing a cancelation in Hong Kong separately, even if the corresponding Chinese patent is invalidated in Mainland China.

In addition to a Chinese patent, a European or United Kingdom patent can also serve as the parent patent for extending into Hong Kong, and follows the same procedure as stated above in reference to a Chinese patent.

Extension of a Chinese patent application to Macau

The extension procedure in Macau is similar to that of a Hong Kong standard patent originating from a Chinese patent, but a European or United Kingdom patent is not eligible for the extension.

However, Macau provides a more convenient route to extend a Chinese patent into Macau, i.e., extending a Chinese patent into Macau within 3 months from the grant date of the Chinese patent without the need of filing a first-stage extension request at the time of the publication of the Chinese application.

It should be note that, although Macau was a colony of the Portuguese empire, a Portugal or European patent is not eligible for patent extension into Macau, and the extension procedure applies to Chinese patent only.

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Patents need to cover Hong Kong and Macau? Here's the procedure. - Lexology

Greece records more than 5000 coronavirus infections – Macau Business

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Greece on Thursday recorded more than 5,000 coronavirus cases after a spurt in new infections that sparked a wake-up week.

The national public health organisation announced 153 cases over the last 24 hours, raising the total to over 5,100. There have been 210 deaths so far.

The highest amount of daily cases announced was 156 on April 21, following a mass outbreak at a migrant hotel near Athens.

Greece on Wednesday announced a wake-up week on COVID-19, tightening restrictions after the steady rise in mostly domestic infections.

Officials have blamed the increase on overcrowding in clubs and social events.

Only 10 percent of cases in Greece can be traced to foreign arrivals, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

We have located three sources of concern: very regular crossings from Balkan countries by ethnic Greeks and residence permit holders social gatherings, including clubbing youths, weddings and baptisms, and public transport, Petsas said.

The public protection agency last week said masks must be worn in all indoor public areas, and visits to retirement homes and other institutions hosting vulnerable groups are restricted until August 15.

A limit of 100 guests was also set for weddings, baptisms and funerals, and summer fairs were cancelled.

Mitsotakis has already ruled out a general lockdown after gradually reopening the economy in May and starting to accept foreign arrivals in June to salvage part of the tourism season that is vital to the economy.

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Greece records more than 5000 coronavirus infections - Macau Business

Egypt and Greece ink exclusive economic zone deal – Macau Business

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Egypt and Greece signedan agreement Thursday to set up an exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean amid regional tensions over energy resources in the area.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry announced the deal, which delineates the maritime borders of both countries, at a Cairo news conference alongside his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias.

It comes after Turkey last year signed a deal with the UN-recognised government in Libya on maritime jurisdiction, with several countries accusing Ankara of trying to assert its dominance in the region.

The deal allows Egypt and Greece to move forward in maximising the benefits of the available resources in the exclusive economic zone for each of them, especially oil and gas reserves, Shoukry said.

Dendias described it as historic.

This agreement is the exact opposite of anything illegitimate like what was signed between Turkey and Tripoli, he added.

Turkey reacted angrily to the deal inked in Cairo.

The so-called maritime deal signed by Greece and Egypt is null and void, the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

The so-called delimited areas are part of Turkeys continental shelf, it said, adding that Ankara would not allow any activity in those areas.

Egypt, Cyprus and Greece have denounced a contentious deal, including a security agreement, signed last year between Ankara and the embattled Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).

Greece said at the time that it ignored the maritime boundaries of Crete.

Ankara backs the Tripoli-based GNA in its battle against eastern-based Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, who last year launched an offensive to seize the capital.

Earlier this year, forces loyal to the GNA pushed Haftars fighters, who are backed by countries including Egypt and Russia, from much of western Libya.

The relationship between Egypt and Greece was a major factor in preserving the security and stability of the eastern Mediterranean and facing belligerent policies advancing terrorism, Shoukry said.

Earlier on Thursday, Athens said it was ready for talks with Ankara on disputed maritime zones in the Aegean, weeks after tension spiked between the NATO allies over energy exploration.

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Egypt and Greece ink exclusive economic zone deal - Macau Business