Introduction

This review is a critique of Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System by Ian Angus. The review adopted a multi-theoretical framework that combines insights from socio-cognitive terminology theory (STT), legitimation code theory (LCT) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to respond to some claims and a proposal discussed in the book. The review further appraises two essays in the appendix of the book that clarify some misconceptions and confusions on anthropocene discourse, particularly on whether the choice of the term anthropocene is appropriate. The review concludes with an analysis of the terms (climate change) and (global warming) with a view to show that: (a) the terminology of climate change discourse is also prone to variation and (b) the use of the terms (climate change) and (global warming) interchangeably in the book is indexical of growth in disciplinarity.

Background

Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System describes a new geological epoch (the anthropocene) and its impacts on the earth system. The book further identifies the possible cause of the present crisis of the earth system (fossil capitalism) and discusses the effects of fossil capitalism on the earth system (environmental degradation, climate change). The book concludes with a proposal on what needs to be done (eco-civilization and solidarity) to address the environmental crisis caused by exploration of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) for economic gains. The book is a critique of fossil fuel economy that is underpinned with Marxist Ecological Thinking and backed with epistemic inputs from cutting edge research in the sciences (Chemistry, Geology, Atmospheric Science, Geophysics, Hydrology, Marine, Meteorology and Cosmology) and the social sciences (Neo-classical Economics, Geography). The central thesis of the book is that the adverse changes in the physical environment today are caused by fossil capitalism and that humanity needs to evolve an eco-social civilization that can curb capitalist destruction of the earth system.

Overview of the thematic strands

The book has three major parts, with each discussing the different themes discussed in the book. The first part (A No Analog State) presents the scientific evidence for the anthropocene and clarifies some basic concepts related to planetary boundaries. The second section (Fossil Capitalism) examines anthropocene as an eco-social phenomenon and discusses its devastating impacts on the environment. In the third section (The Alternative), Ian Angus proposes an agenda for addressing climate change arguing that ecological issues should be integrated into socialist thinking rather than being viewed as a discretionary practice. The book also has a forward by John Bellamy Foster and a preface by a renowned environmentalist, Barry Commoner. The appendix of the book has two essays (What is in a name? and Confusions and Misconceptions) that respond to claims among conservative green circles that the choice of the term anthropocene is a misnomer and that anthropocene discourse blames humanity for the crisis of the earth system.

Part 1: A No Analog State

Anthropocene as a new biophysical phenomenon with little recognition in mainstream media and environmental discourse

In this section of the book, Ian Angus announces the emergence of a new geological epoch (anthropocene) and denounces how the recognition of this knowledge is lacking in the mainstream media and in climate change discourse. The author presents a range of scientific evidence and biophysical indicators to support his claim that the earth has moved beyond the threshold of its natural variability (in the Holocene with normal balance between carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) to a deadly climate regime (the Anthropocene), which according to Ian Angus is characterised by significant human impact on earths geology and ecosystem arising from an unprecedented levels of oxygen and nitrogen. The author concludes the section by outlining the implications of living in an age that is less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer and stormier and capable of veering the earth into an uncharted territory.

Part 2: Fossil Capitalism

Market economies and technological projects are responsible for the earth crisis in the anthropocene

In the second part of the book, Angus identifies fossil capitalisms drive for profit [and] accumulation of more capital and technological projects (such as) as the root causes of the global environmental crisis. Motivated by Marxist Ecological Ideology, precisely the works of Justus von Liebig and Karl Marx, Angus describes the general features of global capitalism, the specific ways in which it has evolved since the latter half of the 20th century and its impact on the ecosystem from the standpoint of fossil market economy. Citing Americas military spending (of about 130 times what it spent on humanitarian aid in 2013), profits derived from war and military Keynesianism, the author justifies why market economies and technological projects are responsible for the present earth crisis. Angus concludes the section on a catastrophic note cautioning that if fossil capitalism remains dominant, the anthropocene will be a new dark age of barbarous rule by a few and barbaric suffering for most(Pp.187).

Part 3: The Alternative

Eco-socialist civilization and solidarity are needed to derail capitalisms Hell Bound Train

The third section of the book presents an eco-socialist agenda for addressing the environmental crisis caused by an economic system that values profits more than life. The neo-marxist proposal recommends a conscious and collective struggle to derail capitalisms destructive train. The components of the proposed framework include: the provision of decent human existence for everyone, the elimination of domination or control of humans by others, the development of worker and community control of factories, farms and other workplaces, promotion of easy recall of elected personnel, and recreating the unity between humans and the natural systems (Pp.196-197).

Responding to Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System using a multi-theoretical framework

A No Analog State: provision of epistemic access to knowledge on the anthropocene

This section adopts a multi-theoretical framework that combines insights from socio-cognitive terminology theory (STT), legitimation code theory (LCT) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to respond to some claims and a proposal discussed in the book. From the standpoint of Legitimation Code Theory, discourse on climate science can be described as a field of practice that is dominated by knower codes. This means that, climate change narratives render knowledge invisible to outsiders (non-specialists) [possibly] because of its scientific subject matter. To an extent, Ian Angus can be exonerated of this criticism because he has been able to step down knowledge on the anthropocene to non-specialist readers. He particularly achieves this by employing related concepts on planetary boundaries that are clearly explained to the reader. The author also uses simple language to unpack technical concepts such that anyone could use the knowledge in the book to speak intelligibly about climate science. Furthermore, the discourse is persuasive. In other words, contentious issues in the book are backed with data from cutting edge research in science and social sciences. These discourse strategies not only provide epistemic access to knowledge on the anthropocene but also contribute to shaping knowledge on the crisis of the earth system, which the author decries were lacking in mainstream media and environmental discourse.

Fossil Capitalism: alignment with consensus view on the causes of climate change

The philosophical bias in the book is underpinned by a perspective that the cause of climate change is anthropogenic or man made. This argument runs counter intuitive to other theories linking climate change to effects of cosmic radiation arising from the successive passages of the planet through the various spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy (Shaviv, 2002) or to an Astrophysical Cycle Event (Polar Wander), in which the spin axis of the earth shifts locations relative to the surface of our planet (Woodworth & Gordon, 2018). A critical discourse analysis of the book indicates that these perspectives are missing in Ian Angus book. The focus of the book rather is on the consensus claim that fossil capitalisms destructive role poses a grave threat to the future of humanity and should not be allowed to continue unabated. The non-recognition of these opposing perspectives can provide a basis for labelling Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System as a socialist plot that is aimed at undermining fossil fuel capitalist interests.

The Alternative: A Socialist Realist framework for Addressing the Crisis of the Earth System

Technological projects proposed to tackle the crisis of the earth system in anthropocene discourse are myriad. For instance, Roll Royce-Airbus-Siemens are developing a hybrid plane (known as E-Fan) that could reduce nitrous oxide by 90% and noise by 65 by using a supplemental electric motor to help supply the extra power needed for take-offs. Similarly, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Y Combinator, unveiled a radical desert flooding plan that would create millions of 1-acre-square micro-reservoirs to grow enough algae to eat up all of earths climate-changing carbon dioxide. Environmental scientists are also proposing an ingenious project that would require the spraying of sun-dimming chemicals into the earths atmosphere to reduce the impact of ultra-violet rays that depletes the ozone layer (Delluchi & Jacobson,2012).

While these responses to the environmental crisis are commendable, they appear to be top-down approaches that are championed by technocrats, politicians and NGOs. Ian Angus however proposes a bottom up approach that is people oriented and fosters participatory capitalism or worker community control of means of production (factories, farms and other workplaces) as was discussed in the 2020 Davos Summit on climate change. The framework is realistic and innovative and does not put its weight behind ameliorative measures (geoengineering, reduction of emissions,adaptation, climate engineering etc.) but is rather an epistemically-sensitive and coherent response that can foster behavioural change and lays a foundation for subsequent technological interventions.

Response to Ian Angus Essays

Is the choice of the term anthropocene a misnomer?

Ian Angus puts forward a very convincing argument in his first essay (Whats in a name?) to justify the choice of the term anthropocene and why he feels the term is the preferred term candidate that best describes the earths senescence. Alternative term candidates proposed in environmental discourse include: misanthropocene, homogenocene, econocene and capitalocene. He compares the appropriateness of each of the terms and concluded that anthropocene is the preferred term. Angus compared the term anthropocene and the most often proposed term that is popular in left wing green circles (Capitalocene) arguing that the choice of the latter would be a category mistake because capitalism is a 600 year socioeconomic system that predates the anthropocene, which is a 60 year old earth system epoch. Angus further argued that treating them as synonyms can only weaken efforts to get rid of capitalism and mitigate the harm it has caused to the earth system (Pp232).

A further argument put forward by Ian Angus on the choice of the term anthropocene is that the proposed terms (Technocene, Capitaloscene etc) have not been forwarded to a standard body where they would be formally evaluated. Even at that, Angus seems to be oblivious of the fact that neither theInternational Commission on Stratigraphy(ICS), theInternational Union of Geological Sciences(IUGS) and the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) have officially also approved the term anthropocene as a recognised subdivision ofgeologic time. A consensus on the choice of the term sent to the ICS by the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) is yet to be debated until 2021.

Response to Ian Angus Essay on Confusion and Misconception on the Anthropocene

Does the book Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System blame humanity for the crisis of the earth system?

Naomi Klein-a renowned critic of Angus thesis on the cause of the crisis of the earth system is of the view that the term anthropocene is unhelpful and suggests that humanity in general, rather than the capitalist system, is to blame for climate change. Ian Angus endorses this view but argues further that the anthropocene does not necessarily lead to such a conclusion. Based on insights from CDA, it can be argued that, although anthropocene discourse actually locates humanity as the geological force behind the climate crisis, Ian Angus identifies the capitalists and the affluent contemporary consumer as the human of the anthropocene epoch. Thus, the social reality of who is responsible for the crisis of the earth system is not obscured in the book.

Term variation in anthropocene discourse: intentional obfuscation or growth in epistemology?

As a final comment, the issue of term variation in discourse on the environment will be discussed with a view to illustrate a further source of confusion and misconception. It can be observed that the termglobal warmingand its variantclimate changewere used interchangeably throughout the book despite the fact that both terms activate different senses. In climate science, global warmingdenotes human-caused increase in global surface temperatures projected continuation over time while climate changeincludes bothglobal warmingand its effects, such as changes in precipitation (Wigley, 2006). In the public domain, the terms are contentious and perceived differently. Smith & Leiserowitz (2012) found out that people tend to display a strong negative affective feeling towards the term global warming than climate change. Similar findings were reported in a study by ONeill & Nicholson-Cole (2009) where respondents seemed to have negative and bleak imaginations of the concept of global warming. This distinction is blurred in the book and might constitutes a further source of confusion and misconception to some non-specialist readers.

The issue of Global warming has also been the subject of controversy in the political sphere, substantially more common in themediathan in the scientific literature. For some time now, the legitimacy of global warming as a social problem and its scientific evidence have been challenged on the grounds that global warming was some kind ofsocialistplot to undermine Americancapitalism. What then is the motivation(s) for the authors use of the variants global warming and climate change in his book? I argue in the next section that it is not intentional but indexical of growth in knowledge in the field of climate science.

A meta-analysis of the area which fifteen top most climate scientists have written their doctoral thesis indicates the climate science is a specialised discourse with different points of entry, some of which include: Applied Mathematics, Chemistry, Geology, Atmospheric Science, Geophysics, Hydrology, Marine Geology, Meteorology, Planetary Atmospheres, Physics and Mathematical Theoretical Physics. A cursory look at the bibliography of the book reveals that the author cited some of these scholars in order to provide a nuanced perspective on the crisis of the earth system. For instance, Wallace Smith Broeker, who is often called the grandfather of climate science and some others. It can therefore be argued that the author uses the term variants to possibly accommodate the different perspectives of the scholars whose findings formed the scientific basis of the major arguments in the book. This is consistent with research findings in terminology where multidimensionality and perspectivization (Bowker, 1997; Rogers,2004) are identified as different motivations for the use of term variants in specialised texts.

Conclusion

Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System by Ian Angus synthesises findings from cutting edge research in the natural and social sciences to demonstrate how capitalisms excessive drive for growth, fostered by the rapid burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) for economic gains, has driven the earth to the brink of disaster. Taken as a whole, the issues discussed in the different parts of the book are logical and coherent. The first part clearly describes the crisis of the earth system (climate change). The second part identifies what is causing it (fossil capitalism) while the third part proposes what needs to be done to address the problem (eco-civilization and solidarity). The perspectives offered by the author on the crisis of the earth system are nuanced, thought provoking and relevant for anyone who wants to talk intelligibly about climate change and its impacts on the environment.

References

Bowker, L. (1997). 1.4. 4 Multidimensional Classification of Concepts and Terms.Handbook of Terminology Management: Basic aspects of terminology management,1, 133.

Delucchi, M. A., & Jacobson, M. Z. (2012). Response to A critique of Jacobson and Delucchis proposals for a world renewable energy supply by Ted Trainer.Energy Policy,44, 482-484.

Koshy, J. (2017). Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. NYU. 2016. Pp 280 $95. The Hindu, 4th November, 2017.

ONeill, S., & Nicholson-Cole, S. (2009). Fear wont do it promoting positive engagement with climate change through visual and iconic representations.Science Communication,30(3), 355-379.

Rogers, M. (2004). Multidimensionality in concepts systems: A bilingual textual perspective.Terminology. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Issues in Specialized Communication,10(2), 215-240.

Smith, N., & Leiserowitz, A. (2012). The rise of global warming skepticism: Exploring affective image associations in the United States over time.Risk Analysis: An International Journal,32(6), 1021-1032.

Shaviv, N. J. (2002). Cosmic ray diffusion from the galactic spiral arms, iron meteorites, and a possible climatic connection.Physical review letters,89(5), 051102.

Wigley, T. M. (2006). A combined mitigation/geoengineering approach to climate stabilization.Science,314(5798), 452-454.

Woodworth, D., & Gordon, R. G. (2018). Paleolatitude of the Hawaiian hot spot since 48 Ma: Evidence for a midCenozoic true polar stillstand followed by late Cenozoic true polar wander coincident with Northern Hemisphere glaciation.Geophysical Research Letters,45(21), 11-632.

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Review of Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System - Resilience

Humios live streaming log management platform adds scalability and real-time analytics to the IBM Edge Ecosystem

Already a member of IBMs Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management ecosystem, Humio is pleased to announce it is now part of the IBM Edge Application Manager Ecosystem, a platform designed to remove the complexity of the scale and variability of edge deployments, an initiative designed to help enterprises capture the opportunities of edge computing with a variety of solutions built upon IBMs technology. Humios log management platform streams event data in real time to give insights on data from edge computing for retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and any other industry.

Organizations are deploying edge computing strategies to extend compute and move data storage closer to where the data is being created, and to protect a rapidly-growing number of distributed endpoints. Humio is able to manage hundreds of terabytes of logs, events, and other data a day, in real time, to monitor performance, security, and business metrics, and search for threats, incidents and errors to discover the root cause.

Trifork operates more than 250,000 edge devices in a battlefield with IT security threads, OTA firmware updates and network infrastructure changes. We use Humio as the central component to monitor all edge devices and servers. The platforms capabilities to drill down in data reduces the time from issue detection to solution minimizing the impact of cyberattack or unforeseen changes in network infrastructure. Sren Eskildsen, CCO of IoT, Trifork

IDC predicts that by 2023, half of the newly deployed on-premises infrastructure will be in critical edge locations rather than corporate datacenters, up from less than 10% today.1 Humio enables customers to prepare for this transformation with a modern, scalable log management platform and its unlimited ingest plan to allow users to store any amount of data from across distributed systems. And Humios index-free design leverages principles of mechanical sympathy, reducing CPU power demand and making it suited for a system made up of less-powerful, decentralized servers.

Humio collects machine data from edge devices, gateways, and servers to monitor the health of the entire infrastructure, detect security incidences, and reveal insights into the customer experience.

Humio CEO Geeta Schmidt explains how IBM and Humio provide unique business value.

We are excited to be part of the IBM Edge Ecosystem to provide observability and deliver valuable insights for data coming from every part of the enterprise. Collaborating with IBM allows us to be part of the industry-leading movement to gain intelligence from an ocean of data. While most organizations struggle to understand whats happening at the edge, Humios ability to log everything at scale makes it possible for customers to monitor the performance and use of all endpoints in real time, and designed to dramatically improve their experience. Geeta Schmidt, CEO Humio

With the expansion of edge technologies, data will be created at unprecedented rates. IDCs DataSphere forecasts that the amount of data generated will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.8% through 2023.1 Made with an index-free architecture and 10-20x compression technology for log and event data, Humio is situated to meet the future data scalability needs of the IBM Edge Ecosystem, providing an affordable means of observability for complex distributed systems.

Humio helps secure the infrastructure and its endpoints by providing actionable, real-time alerts and the ability to instantly search streaming or historical data. Humio helps security response teams to quickly discover the root causes, and address problems that may otherwise prevent users from taking advantage of edge technologies.

Humio offers a view into what is happening across the network and at the edge in real time, or at any point in the past, at scale. Users can deploy Humio at a central location, or in locations near the edge.

Learn more about how Humio supports an unlimited flow of data:Why Unlimited?

See Humio in action by scheduling a30-minute live demowith one of our product experts, or get started with afree 30-day trial.

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Humio Joins the IBM Edge Ecosystem to Bring Real-Time Insights to Organizations Deploying Edge Computing - DevOps.com

It's a cliche to say that we live in turbulent political times. Never before have the institutions and norms that underpin US democracy seemed more vulnerable to the forces of demagoguery, corruption, and maybe worst of all apathy.

We all know that our representatives take huge contributions from lobbyists, making them more accountable to interest groups than to us, their constituents.

But the blame for this parlous state of affairs doesn't only lie with corrupt politicians and amoral institutions. It lies with the nearly 50% of eligible voters who don't turn up. You may well be one of those abstainers.

No judgement here. Politics can be arcane, opaque, and aloof. That's why you need MOXY, a new app and online ecosystem from developer Epluribus, designed to demystify the political process and give you a more direct line of communication to your representatives.

MOXY is totally non-partisan, and exists purely to encourage democratic participation. It does this in a number of ways the eight keystones around which the app is designed.

First up, MOXY allows users to quickly and easily view upcoming local, regional, and national elections. It includes information on the candidates and other ballot measures.

It also has a section on elected representatives, allowing you to follow, contact, and review those that represent you on a local, regional, and national level.

Proposed and enacted legislation is visible in the app, too, along with pertinent details to enable users to understand how they might be affected by the new laws.

Then there are the forums, where users can discuss, debate, and exchange political views. Civil discourse is a vital ingredient of a healthy democracy, and this is where it happens. This is augmented by a handy chat function, where you can message friends, colleagues, and representatives.

MOXY also contains surveys and polls to help you get a sense of the big picture and contribute to the discussion in a quick and easy way.

There's a carefully curated library of featured podcasts, too. These allow users to avail themselves of the most insightful and informative punditry available. And there are live streams, where you can get immediate updates from community leaders and representatives.

The free, ad-supported version of MOXY lets you register to vote, check your status, connect with your representatives, and more. The premium version, meanwhile, gets rid of ads and lets you Go Live daily. A further Power User tier lets you lead your own forum, create chat groups, start a podcast, and Go Live three times a day.

Download MOXY right now on Google Play and the App Store.

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MOXY Is A Non-Partisan Online Ecosystem To Inform And Engage You In Politics - Android Headlines

Pakistan has become one of the fastest emerging economies in Asia which support startups. The startup ecosystem is flourishing in Pakistan and this is leading startups to become leading companies in the future.

The young talent with innovative ideas and advancement is growing a new era of the economy in Pakistan. According to McKinsey & Cos latest report on the Pakistani startup ecosystem, Pakistan has become one of the emerging economies in Asia.

The report also claims that since 2010, in Pakistan, around 720 startups had been created and from which 67 percent.

are still operational, including 100 that have gained funding from international investors.

International companies have also shown their trust in Pakistans tech market. The Chinese famous e-commerce giant Alibaba.com has acquired Pakistans well-known e-commerce store, Daraz.pk, for $200 million.

Here are a few of the shining startups of Pakistan that are achieving immense success in a short-term period.

Zameen.com was founded in 2006 and is one of the most well-funded startups in Pakistan. Up till now, in disclosed venture capital funding, Zameen.com has raised $29 million.

It is an app-based transportation service provider. To date, Airlift has raised $14.2 million in disclosed venture capital funding.

It is a Pakistan-based logistics company that offers multiple online delivery services such as delivering gifts, food, medicines, books, parcels, cosmetics, etc. The Startup managed to raise $7.8 million in a series.

It is the most popular website for employers and job seekers in Pakistan. Till now, Rozee.pk has raised $8.5 million.

Founded in 2016, it is an on-demand transport and logistics startup. Up till now, Bykea has raised $5.7 million in disclosed venture capital funding.

It is the most well-funded FinTech startup in Pakistan.According to Crunchbase, in 2019, investors poured $36 million into 14 Pakistani tech startups across 15 deals.

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Pakistan is one of the fastest emerging startup ecosystem in Asia, McKinsey & Co - Technology Times Pakistan

Square's (SQ) - Get ReportrecentQ1 2020 results surprised investors by missingits EPS estimates, although its shares still rallied. Indeed, Square's stock has been very volatile, as have most stocks of late, and although Square missed bottom-line estimates due to having to take reserves for transaction and loan losses, these are one-off and there's more here than meets the eye.

Square's smaller peer-to-peer payment service, Cash App, makes up 33% of total gross profits, but it's growing very quickly at triple digit revenue growth ratesand shows no signs of slowing down.

Square is priced at 7.4 times trailing sales, but its revenues continue to grow rapidly year-over-year by 44%.

Square reports that before the impact of COVID-19, the company was growing its gross profits 51% year-over-year, excluding its divested Caviar business. Gross profits are Square's preferred key performance indicator rather than revenues, sinceits cost of revenues includesprocessing fees and bank settlement fees paid to third-party payment processors, which are largely out of its control.

Performance before the impact of shelter-in-placehas been a theme among most reporting companies this quarter. Square notes that Q1 was performing strongly, but that in the second half of March, its results severely contracted.

Further, similar to most companies, despite Square stating that it expects a "material impact" to its upcoming results, investors are willing to look past that on the expectation that once the economy reopens, companies will be performing strongly once again.

It has long been understood that although Square derives 66% of its total gross profits from its Seller ecosystem, making it by far Squares biggest segment, this segment'srevenue growth rate is rapidly decelerating.

Specifically, despite Squares strong performance in the first two months of Q1 2020, the final two weeks of Q1 dragged down its Seller ecosystem segments performance so that it ended the quarter growing its revenues at 18% year-over-year.

Looking back to 2018, Squares Seller ecosystem was growing its revenue growth rates at 38%, then in 2019 it was growing its revenue growth rates at 30%. And Square exited Q4 2019 growing at 27%. Hence, even without the impact of COVID and shelter-in-place, the trend on Squares Seller ecosystem was already slowing down. Why?

This spaces economics are simply too attractive and face intense competition from numerous players, such as PayPal (PYPL) - Get Report, Shopify (SHOP) - Get Reportand Stripe. What's more, the latter weeks of March and in early April were particularly challenging for Squares Seller ecosystem, as it mostly relies on person-to-person card contact.

However, starting in the second half of April, this business unit started to stabilize as many businesses adapted their operations. Indeed, Squares Gross Payment Volume bounced back slightly compared with the start of April, driven by new sellers adapting to contactless commerce, thetiming of the Easter holiday and government stimulus programs.

If Squares story ended there, the allure of this stock would be wrongly placed. But although Squares Cash App segment only accounts for approximately a third of Squares total gross profits, this segment continues to grow its revenues at a breakneck pace.

This latest quarter saw Squares Cash App gross profits grow by 115% year-over-year. The readers' first question will be, was this a one-off, somehow related to COVID? Absolutely not.

Looking back to Q4 2019 this segment was up 147% year-over-year, and for Q3 2019 this segment was up 115% compared with the same period in the prior year.

So why is this segment growing at such a rapid clip? As Squares CEO Jack Dorsey (who is also Twitters (TWTR) - Get Report CEO) states, Square is about making payments quick and painless.

Squares Cash App is also attractive because it has very strong network effects since when a friend or employee adopts Cash App, they ask someone else to join them so that they can send payments to each other.

Accordingly, not only is Cash App seeing increased customers using Cash App to send payments, including celebrities sending funds to help support their fans and followers during this troublesome period, but its increased array of products are resonating with its existing customers, which is increasing the lifetime value of each customer, driving an increase in profitability.

On the surface, Square has is barely profitable. Furthermore, this quarter saw Squares EBITDA fall 85% year-over-year, as Square took reserves for transaction and loan losses. However, investors are seeing past this bumpy period and are willing to give Squares diversified portfolio the benefit of the doubt.

Presently, investors are paying 7.4 times Square's trailing twelve-month sales, which is in line with what investors have been paying during the 2018-2019 period.

Square's portfolio has two main segments. Its larger segment, Seller Ecosystem is still growing its revenue growth rates, but at a decelerating rate.

It also has a smaller segment, Cash App, that accounts for approximately 33% of total gross profits and it's postingtriple digits growth rates and showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.

It's still early days for its Cash App segment, but its performance looks very promising.

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Square Still Represents a Very Attractive Investment - TheStreet

A cellular pathway in plants to sense danger signals and elicit a response. Credit: Tokyo University of Science

Scientists uncover how oral secretions of the cotton leaf worm trigger defense responses in a plant.

In nature, every species must be equipped with a strategy to be able to survive in response to danger. Plants, too, have innate systems that are triggered in response to a particular threat, such as insects feeding on them.

For example, some plants sense herbivore-derived danger signals (HDS), which are specific chemicals in oral secretions of insects. This activates a cascade of events in the plants defense machinery, which leads to the plant developing resistance to (or immunity against) the predator. But despite decades of research, exactly how plants recognize these signals has remained a bit of a mystery.

In a new study published in Communications Biology, a research team from Tokyo University of Science, Ehime University, Okayama University, The University of Tokyo, and Iwate Biotechnology Research Center, led by Prof Gen-ichiro Arimura, attempts to shed light on exactly how plant HDS systems work.

They chose to study membrane proteins called receptor-like kinases (RLKs), which are found in soybean leaves. They based their study on previous evidence from plants like Arabidopsis, tobacco, and cowpea, in which RLKs play a major role in HDS systems.

Prof Arimura says, Scientists have been trying to understand the molecular mechanism of plant resistance for years, but the sensors involved in plant recognition of insect pests are still not known. Thus, we wanted to get a detailed understanding of these mechanisms.

To begin with, the scientists focused on soybean RLK genes that were structurally and functionally similar to a RLK gene, which is known to trigger a danger response by recognizing oligosaccharides (small carbohydrate molecules) during pathogen attack. They speculated that owing to these similarities, soybean genes might also show a mechanism similar to that seen in pathogen resistance. They found 15 such genes through genetic analysis.

Next, the scientists generated 15 types of Arabidopsis plants, each plant uniquely expressing only one of the 15 individual soy genes. When they tested these plants using oral secretions from the pest, they uncovered genes for two novel RLKs that showed a defense response specific to the oral secretions, called GmHAK1 and GmHAK2.

These findings were unprecedented: the role of these RLKs in soybean HDS systems had never been revealed before. Moreover, when the scientists dug deeper into the mechanism of these regulatory factors in Arabidopsis, they found two proteins, a HAK homolog and PBL27 (which play a role in intracellular signaling), to be involved in this pathway. Accordingly, this confirmed what the scientists had initially expected soybean and Arabidopsis possess similar mechanisms for danger response.

In agriculture, it is crucial to develop strategies for pest control in crop plants to avoid incurring losses. This study takes a massive step in this direction by uncovering an important cellular mechanism that triggers defense response in plants. Manipulating this innate cellular system may even help scientists to fuel the development of new agricultural products, potentially making life easier for farmers.

Prof Arimura concludes, It has been challenging to find new pest control methods that are effective and do not harm the ecosystem in any way. Our study offers a potential solution to this problem by uncovering the details of how certain plants develop resistance.

Reference: Soy and Arabidopsis receptor-like kinases respond to polysaccharide signals from Spodoptera species and mediate herbivore resistance by Takuya Uemura, Masakazu Hachisu, Yoshitake Desaki, Ayaka Ito, Ryosuke Hoshino, Yuka Sano, Akira Nozawa, Kadis Mujiono, Ivan Galis, Ayako Yoshida, Keiichirou Nemoto, Shigetoshi Miura, Makoto Nishiyama, Chiharu Nishiyama, Shigeomi Horito, Tatsuya Sawasaki and Gen-ichiro Arimura, 8 May 2020, Communications Biology.DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0959-4

The rest is here:

Revealed: Plants Molecular Alarm System That Protects Them From Predators - SciTechDaily

Click here to download the presentation.

Todays consumers expect brands to be able to understand and speak to them across devices without skipping a beat. Its critical now more than ever for marketers to have the right technology ecosystem in place to reach their customers effectively.

With the right mix of best-in-class technologies, tailored for different customer engagement needs, marketers will be able to make accurate connections to support responsive, relevant and deeply human brand experiences.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Magith Noohukhan, a customer engagement evangelist at Braze, and Jean Thomas, CMO of Pomelo Fashion. They shared how to provide meaningful, relevant brand experiences using a variety of different technologies, including customer data platforms (CDPs) and analytics platforms.

Watch this webinar and learn:

PRESENTERS

Magith Noohukhanis a customer engagement evangelist at Braze. In this role, Magith addresses the company's global vision for customer engagement. He also helps brands feel empowered to create more meaningful, human conversations with their customers.

Jean Thomasis CMO of Pomelo Fashion, a leading omnichannel fashion platform in Asia. Prior to Pomelo, Jean previously served as the CMO at Alibaba-backed Lazada, where he spearheaded all marketing initiatives in Singapore across Lazada, RedMart and LiveUp. He has a vast range of experience in ecommerce, having previously worked at Vinomofo and SmartBuyGlasses, as well as agency experience at Ogilvy & Mather.

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The Rise of the Modern Tech Ecosystem | Sponsored Content | Tech-Talk Webinar, On-Demand - eMarketer

(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) Formula One chief has said some teams have been given cash payments to protect the championship's "ecosystem" as it absorbs the financial hit caused by the coronavirus pandemic.Greg Maffei, the chief executive of Formula One owners Liberty Media, said an undisclosed number of payments had been made to teams, which rely heavily on profit-sharing from F1 to survive.The 2020 championship has been thrown into turmoil since the Covid-19 crisis swept around the world, with the Australian Grand Prix and Monaco Grand Prix cancelled and seven other races postponed.With the possibility of races taking place without fans when the season does eventually resume, Maffei told analysts on a conference call Formula One may struggle to make a profit this year."If you run races with no live audience, we'll obviously have lower profitability, and that may be even no profitability," Maffei said."We may be sufficiently capitalized to handle that for 2020, but there are teams which will incur costs, particularly those that don't have minimum guarantees from F1 and really their major revenue source is the share of the profits from F1."We have advanced money in advance of team payments for certain teams already.There are cases where we may do more of that. There are other things that we might do to bridge teams that might need help. We're certainly not viewing this as an open checkbook."We want to make sure that teams are solvent because they are part of what we need to race successfully in 2020, 2021, and beyond."That's one of the reasons why we have to be thoughtful about how we begin. That's not only good for us, but good for the ecosystem."Maffei, meanwhile, admitted that Formula One chiefs still had no clear idea of how the season may unfold, noting that officials were planning for a variety of scenarios."That's the great unknown," Maffei said. "We have scenarios for zero races, anywhere from 15-18 races, races that begin with no fans present and only the teams," Maffei said in a call with Wall Street analysts."We really have a host of opportunities or challenges on all fronts." Maffei added that while drivers would need only a short lead time to resume racing, the logistics of moving teams to a particular venue would require significant planning."The lead time depends on a lot of things -- how quickly can you get a team, or a series of teams which have been viewed as clean, to a location and where that location is," Maffei said."There are a lot of variables there. The drivers can probably race anytime if you can get them to a location safely."

MENAFN2504202000490000ID1100082126

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UAE- Formula One paying teams to protect 'ecosystem' - MENAFN.COM

Among the many things left unsaid in the several statements surrounding the $5.7 billion investment by Facebook in Reliance Industries Ltd.-owned Jio Platforms on Wednesday, was that the social media giants messaging service WhatsApp could now be transitioning beyond an app into a platform, with commerce and transactions (payments) becoming integral to its strategy, besides communication.

A video by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered a clue of sorts. India is a special place for us. We are also committing to work together on some critical projects that we think are going to open up a lot of opportunities for commerce in India, Zuckerberg said in his post. In a way, Facebook, the company, has logged into the Jio ecosystem.

One of those opportunities Zuckerberg mentioned, impeccably timed for a post-pandemic era, could involve the digitisation of retail. Even beyond the kirana stores that RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani referenced in his media address on Wednesday, Facebook and WhatsApp have been trying to court small and medium businesses (SMBs) on their respective platforms over the last two years.Jio too has been onboarding these kirana stores for the last two years with occasional pilots, without a clear go-to-market plan. But this deal, industry sources say, gives it the necessary impetus.

Once kirana stores come on to its JioMart (business-to-business) ecosystem, the latter would enable its supply chain, while WhatsApp could likely power the (business-to-consumer) payments offering, with a logistics network or the kirana store ensuring delivery.

JioMart could essentially be a digital storefront which aggregates a mix of Reliance Retails distribution centres, its B2B cash and carry businessReliance Market, the neighbourhood kirana stores, and other organised retail outlets owned by Reliance.Beyond the specific contours of the deal and WhatsApp strategy, the Reliance-Facebook deal has ensured the creation of yet another high-powered ecosystem. The deal, as Arpan Sheth, partner at Bain Capital says, has allowed Facebook to get a foothold into a high-performing and valuable telco in India with a strong leadership position. He adds, They also have the ability to jointly create interesting ecosystem plays that take advantage of Facebook's high daily active users or DAUs and extremely engaged customer base and Jio's platform assets."

It is unlikely that Jio will give away real estate on WhatsApp, says a fintech professional aware of developments surrounding the deal. It is likely that WhatsApp will remain an open platform, he adds. This could underline its platform ambitionswith the unification of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, enabling ease of data flow, with a plug and play model, allowing brands and publishers to reach out to consumers directly, for an access fee of sorts.

WhatsApp Pay, which was stuck and rolled out in phases due to regulatory reasons and a court case, could be launched as early as next month or June, government sources tell ET. Once launched, WhatsApp could leverage Jios Payments Bank, the person quoted earlier adds, as a sponsor bank to power its UPI-based paymentsan @jio handle, for instance, instead of the existing @icici handle, owing to a prior partnership.

Jio, on its part, could leverage or bundle WhatsApp for Business to its retailers, with an end-to-end service, unlike now, where they have to go to via Facebook and other third-party companies like Facebook. These could effectively be one win each for both sides, the person adds, before saying, Given Ambanis track record with telecom, if Jio can guarantee 10 million WhatsApp for business accounts in the next six months, Zuckerberg will be delighted.

But in the long run, this could fuel Jios fintech ambitionsespecially around lending and insurancewhich until now have been restricted to point-of-service terminals. Providing financial services, sources say, is also on WhatsApps radar from a longer-term point of view, given that it was doubling down on payments, as a first step. Another person familiar with these developments says, Once you enable these kiranas on to your ecosystem, it is easier to power fintech on top of this.

A 360-degree viewWhile all the focus has been on kirana stores, what goes without saying is the inherent data play in this partnership. WhatsApp, through its commercial agreement with JioMart, could provide deeper, richer data to Facebook.

That would mean, granular insights around consumption patterns akin to who is consuming what to how much is someone spending.

This, according to people closely involved with internet advertising, would give Facebook an exact pulse of consumer insights, which will only funnel its already formidable advertising machine, beyond the top 1000 advertisers on digital. Facebook has been gaining a lot of traction among SMEs because of how easy it is to advertise there, the person cited earlier added.

But above all, it could give Jio a chance of monetising its 360-million strong subscriber base, and Facebook and the marketers and publishers on its platform, willing to pay to access Jios user base.

Advertising is the holy grail. Jio is sitting on a goldmine since it hasnt been able to monetise its users, says Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research. Besides, Jio can also integrate Facebooks ad platform into its products on a revenue share basis, Shah adds.

All of this hinges on how both sides have agreed to share data. Facebook may get access to Jios data, but the other way could also be true, given the changes in discoverability. They could monetise discovery. How do you do that? You feed the data of apparel you likely saw on Instagram, into Reliance Retails inventory, which can inform the customer about its availability, and the transaction can be initiated and completed, says Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors.

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How Facebook is logging into the Reliance Jio ecosystem - Economic Times

Al Qaeda and Islamic Statelinked groups are working together and strengthening in West Africas Sahel region, which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. They have common objectives to transform society into their image, informed by the Salafi-jihadi ideology. The groups active in the Sahel today Jamaa Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM), the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), and Ansar al Islam share histories, ethnic ties, and relationships that facilitate their coordination. JNIM unified four al Qaedalinked groups in March 2017 that had historical connections to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. In May 2015, ISGS splintered from al Murabitoun, one of the groups that joined JNIM. The network these groups form is a unique ecosystem of terror.

Read the full report here.

This graphic depicts the Salafi-jihadi ecosystem in the Sahel, including the histories of the current operational groups and the relationships that run between the groups and to al Qaeda and Islamic State groups globally. Click on a group for more information.

Having issues viewing the graphic on your mobile device?Check out the desktop version.

Having issues viewing the graphic on your mobile device?Check out the desktop version.

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Interactive Graphic: Salafi Jihadi Ecosystem In The Sahel - Critical Threats Project

Recently in a media interview, Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), India's first national-level organisation pioneering the movement of mass entrepreneurship in the country, pointed out the enormity of possible disruption in the million micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector due to COVID-19. He said, It is likely that more than one fourth of Indias 69 million MSMEs could shut shop if the nation-wide lockdown were to extend beyond eight weeks. A possibility that has been reiterated by experts in the sector time and again.

Once considered the backbone of Indias economy, the MSME sector is now hustling hard to survive and thrive. Today, microentrepreneurs have no option but to look at doing things differently, repurposing their business models or adopting a new one. Many experts and organisations working closely in the sector say, that this is as much an opportunity as it is a challenge. Organisations that are working with microentrepreneurs are innovating and pivoting in these tough conditions. They are showing that it is possible to mitigate the risks even amidst the vulnerability. But, this in no way negates the challenge at hand which is real, big and continues to pose a threat.

Throwing light on the reality and gravity of the challenge, and how microentrepreneurs are insulating themselves from the long, medium and short term challenges brought about by COVID-19 on the market, the solutions that are working for them and the significance of collectives, were seasoned experts from some of Indias more renowned and respected grassroots organisations and collectives.

At the panel discussion on the topic of Support mass entrepreneurs to survive, Reema Nanavaty, Executive Director, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA); Raghunathan Narayanan, Founder and Chief Mentor Vrutti -Livelihood Impact Partners; Krishnagopal GV, CEO, Access Livelihoods Consulting India; Vivek Pawar, CEO & Trustee Deshpande Foundation India; Pradnya Godbole, CEO, deAsra Foundation; and Baskar S Reddy, Executive Director at Syngenta Foundation India shared a detailed account of the challenges faced by the micropreneurs they closely work with, how are working on addressing them and perspectives on the road ahead as an ecosystem. Moderated by Madan Padaki, Co-founder, GAME, the panel was part of the day-long webinar hosted by GAME on April 13.

She added that low levels of digital literacy among microentrepreneurs have turned out to be a major obstacle. They are finding it difficult to adjust to the new way of doing business. Pradnyas account of the challenges set a firm ground for the discussion to lead through.

Reema Nanavaty from SEWA agreed with Pradnya and shared, Digital literacy and having a strong command on digital knowhow is now becoming a must for these entrepreneurs. She added that the lockdown and the sudden change in the market dynamics has drastically affected those in the textile and garment industry as well as those entrepreneurs or enterprises whose supply chain was dependent on the urban market.

If there was one underlying theme expressed by the panelists it was that the world had come crashing down for the tiny and the microentrepreneurs who were struggling to stand on their feet and trying to come into the mainstream market.

Their world has turned upside down, stated Vivek Pawar.

Krishnagopal GV, from Access Livelihoods Consulting India, then delved deeper into the macro challenges that collectives and enterprises that worked with micro entrepreneurial ecosystem was facing.

The experts pointed that microentrepreneurs will need to be proactive and take a long-term outlook of the crisis. They also shared how they have been working closely with their community of microentrepreneurs and ecosystem players to address the challenges and also tap into the opportunities that had taken roots in the crisis. Reema Nanavaty for instance highlighted how SEWA has been working closely with the local governments and panchayats to make way for their agribusiness company to sell their produce directly to the people at the bottomline - making it a win-win - both for consumers and the microentrepreneurs.

She also explained in detail, how seeing the opportunity for ready-made dry snacks, they have been able to mobilise their team of women quickly to cater to the market demand for baked goods. And, given the spurt in market demand, they are now working to put together e-modules and train more women and thereby enable more women microentrepreneurs leverage the market demand. Reema also stated that they have also worked together with the Municipal Corporations to supply fresh produce to the consumers directly while also engaging women to make soaps and masks, and thereby cater to local demands. The many initiatives that we have implemented have been possible because of restructuring our supply chain. We focused on local production and distribution within a hundred mile radius to address challenges related to lockdown and travel restrictions.

Vivek shared how Deshpande Foundation is collaborating with a technology startup for a pilot project that is leveraging the existing gap in the supply-demand chain of essentials in rural areas as a livelihood opportunity for their ecosystem of microentrepreneurs. He shared, The idea is to work on an idea, convert it into a pilot, make it successful and then scale.

Krishnagopal also detailed how Access Livelihoods Consulting India has worked on a model to provide food security to the tribal villages by providing them with ration stocks that would last at least two months. He also added that through talks with the government, they have been able to seek relevant permission for their community of microentrepreneurs so that the business, especially for those in the production and processing units, can be run as usual, and thereby meet the market demands once the market situation begins improving.

For the deAsra Foundation, a lot of their COVID-19 response initiatives have been towards enabling microentrepreneurs in the urban areas to come to terms with the new normal brought about by the pandemic, and how they can find innovative ways to survive in the post phobic world.

Given this backdrop,the foundation has worked to educate its community of microentrepreneurs and gear up for the new normal. We are helping them go online. We are helping them learn how they can leverage platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook or their own websites to sell their product or services. We are also helping them understand the importance of winning customer trust and loyalty because that will help them survive in the months to come. We are trying to see how these microentrepreneurs can sell gift cards and vouchers, which the customers can avail later but will help in keeping the cash flow running.

If one were to look closely, one common factor that is today helping millions of microentrepreneurs in India battle the current crisis as well as helping them gear up for its aftermath is the effective role of grassroot organisations and federations.

Coming soon: Experts share how liquidity and funding in these difficult times will help small businesses navigate through the tough times that lay ahead.

How has the coronavirus outbreak disrupted your life? And how are you dealing with it? Write to us or send us a video with subject line 'Coronavirus Disruption' to editorial@yourstory.com

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What will it take for the micro-entrepreneurial ecosystem to survive the crisis that has been amplified by COV - YourStory

Cloudogu EcoSystem Architecture

BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany (PRWEB) April 23, 2020

Cloudogu EcoSystem is an open source platform for software development that simplifies the operation of the software development toolchain by standardizing the installation and maintenance of tools. The central federal IT service provider of Germany (Informationstechnikzentrum Bund or ITZBund for short) chose the platform for its Software Life-cycle Management (SLM) in a tendering process. This was part of a consolidation project (IT Konsolidierung Bund) that aims at the standardization of processes and technologies for the IT of the federal administration in Germany. The goal of the project is to reduce the heterogeneity of the IT infrastructures and to utilize synergy effects to improve the efficiency and effectiveness by implementing a flexible and modern IT infrastructure that is easy to administer throughout all locations and authorities. The project is planned until 2025. A pivotal role in this consolidation process is played by a reference architecture of a private cloud for IT services for public authorities, which is known as the federal cloud (Bundescloud).

Integrated development platformThe federal cloud provides everything from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) over Platform as a Service (PaaS) to Software as a Service (SaaS). A vital component of the PaaS offer is a SLM development platform, which provides a continuous development process. For this component the ITZBund chose the Cloudogu EcoSystem. The platform from Cloudogu offers the possibility to operate open source tools and commercial tools alongside and to integrate them into a toolchain. To this end, Cloudogu containerizes and pre-configures the tools and creates a consistent environment for development teams that meets all requirements of modern and agile software development. The platform uses locally installed instances that get their components from a central cloud backend. This way, instances can be assembled in a short time to meet the individual requirements of teams. The Cloudogu EcoSystem combines the simple administration of cloud services with decentralized operated tools that are individually configurable. By switching over to the Cloudogu EcoSystem we now have a centralized and easy to administer development platform. Axel Rockstroh, product owner Bundescloud Entwicklungsplattform at ITZBund. It allows us to gain efficiency and flexibility, especially for Software Life-cycle Management. Simultaneously, we were able to reduce the cost for everyday operation without compromising data privacy of comfort of the users.

More flexibility, lower costA decisive reason for the ITZBund to choose the Cloudogu EcoSystem was, that the default platform already met the primary requirements like standardized provisioning via self-service, modularized integration of tools, simple administration and independence from tool vendors. Currently the ITZBund supplies more than 70 projects and organizational units through the federal cloud with the Cloudogu EcoSystem. The further expansion of the solution is already planned. The federal cloud development platform (BundescloudEntwicklungsplattform) with the Cloudogu EcoSystem is an impressive example of a successful e-governance project Thomas Grosser, CEO at Cloudogu. Together, all involved parties implemented a standardized and scalable platform for public administration with a lot of commitment.

About ITZBundThe ITZBund emerged from the fusion of the Center for Information Processing and Information Technology (ZIVIT), the Federal Institute for IT Services, and the Federal Office for Information Technology. Approximately 3,100 employees based in twelve locations look after 91,000 IT workstations and 750 IT solutions. Among others, it realizes measures for the federal IT consolidation project (IT Konsolidierung Bund).

About Cloudogu GmbHThe Cloudogu GmbH was founded in 2014 as a spin-off of the TRIOLOGY GmbH in the center of Braunschweig. The companys goal is to make software development more efficient by increasing automation and standardization through representing the whole product life-cycle of software development through an interlinked toolset. The result is the open source development platform Cloudogu EcoSystem, which is a pre-configured and efficient platform based on containers that allows development teams to operate the tools of their choice with minimal administration effort and therefore to gain efficiency and flexibility. Thanks to the combination of on-premises installed instances and a central backend, the Cloudogu EcoSystem combines all advantages of cloud services and local operation.

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The federal IT service provider of Germany relies on Cloudogu EcoSystem - PR Web

TOLEDO, Ohio Cannaley Treehouse Village, believed to be the countrys largest collection of overnight treehouses in a public park, will open this summer at Oak Openings Preserve near Toledo, with five treehouses available for rent.

Included in the village: a six-person treehouse, a four-person treehouse, two two-person treehouses, all available for overnight stays, clustered around a day-use treehouse that can accommodate up to 49. Also available: three tent platforms for camping in the trees, plus a canopy walk culminating at a crows nest lookout point.

The village is expected to debut in July, with reservations also opening this summer. But dont plan on getting an immediate booking. Metroparks Toledo held a raffle earlier this year for an early opportunity to reserve an overnight stay, and received thousands of entries, enough to fill the treetop cabins for more than a year, according to Scott Carpenter, director of public relations for the park system.

From the very beginning, people have been very excited about this, said Carpenter. These are not the treehouses you built when you were a kid.

Indeed, these year-round elevated cabins have electricity, heating and air conditioning, plus a refrigerator, grill and composting toilet. There is no water, but a shower house is located nearby.

Cannaley Treehouse Village is expected to open this summer at Oak Openings Preserve in Swanton, part of Metroparks Toledo.

Cannaley Treehouse Village, part of the Metroparks Toledo, features five treehouses, including four available for overnight stays.

Overnight rates run $150 per night for a two-person treehouse, $200 for the four-person abode and $225 per night for the six-person unit. The entire complex can be rented one weekend per quarter for $5,000 (including both Friday and Saturday nights).

The idea for Treehouse Village evolved from a systemwide effort to immerse more people in nature, said Carpenter. When you experience nature, you learn to love nature and you support nature. Thats the approach to everything we do, he said.

Overnight experiences have always been in high demand, said Carpenter. Oak Openings Preserve, about 20 miles southwest of Toledo in Swanton, also features campsites and cabins.

These days, we have to compete with YouTube, video games, said Carpenter. We felt like we had to turn it up a notch. I think weve done it.

The $1.5 million project was funded with private dollars, including a $750,000 donation from local resident Linda Cannaley, a former teacher and real estate broker. Well-known treehouse expert Pete Nelson, host of Treehouse Masters on Animal Planet, designed the village; the park systems construction crew built the houses.

The village is located in the new Beach Ridge Area of Oak Openings, a park that is known for its rare and varied ecosystem, including oak forests, sand dunes, savannas and prairies.

Also new to this part of the park is a 12-mile, single-track, mountain-bike trail, accessible from the treehouse village.

After the Treehouse Village opens, the park system plans public tours and programs on Mondays and Tuesdays, which will not be available for overnight stays. For information: metroparkstoledo.com/treehouse-village

If you go: Cannaley Treehouse Village at Oak Openings Preserve

What: Collection of five treehouses in a public park, including four available for overnight stays.

Where: 3520 Waterville Swanton Road, Swanton, about 125 miles west of Cleveland.

How much: Overnight rates range from $150 to $225 per night.

More information: metroparkstoledo.com/treehouse-village

Read more:

Expanding Mohican Treehouse Resort offers unique overnights in the treetops

More Ohio treehouses for overnight adventures in Hocking Hills, Holmes County

Cannaley Treehouse Village is expected to open in July in Oak Openings Preserve, part of the Metroparks Toledo.

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Treehouse Village overnights available this summer at Metroparks Toledos Oak Openings Preserve - cleveland.com

Apple says that an ongoing outage is preventing some Apple Card users from paying their bill and accessing other features in the Wallet app on iOS. The outage started at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

[Update: Resolved]

Apple writes on its System Status webpage:

Some users may not be able to pay their Apple Card bill, lock/unlock their physical card, request a new or replacement physical card, or request a new card number.

Its unclear how widespread this outage is, but Apples System Status tool indicates that some users are affected. Apple, unfortunately, doesnt offer any information more specific than that.

I attempted to schedule an Apple Card payment this morning but was unable to do so. When I got to the final step and double-clicked my iPhones side button, the payment window just said processing indefinitely.

Are you experiencing any issues managing your Apple Card via the Wallet app on your iPhone? Let us know down in the comments. Well update this post once the issue is resolved.

Thanks, Ryan!

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Apple Pay outage preventing some users from paying their Apple Card bill and more - 9to5Mac

Many investors first think of Square (SQ) as a POS (point-of-sale) system for small brick-and-mortar merchants, and I don't blame them. Square solutions are easy to identify in our day-to-day lives, with their contact-less chip readers and quick-checkout tools. "Sidecar payments" were the primary source of gross profit for the company back in 2016.

Today, software solutions (back office, online selling) and integrated payments are the main drivers of the seller business. Square Capital (quick business loans) and Square Card (free business debit card) are also having a growing impact on the business.

Square's seller ecosystem is heavily reliant on SMBs. And the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many analysts to raise the alarm and point to a potentially very challenging year for Square with many small businesses seeing their activity and transactions dry up.

But the fastest-growing segment in Square's gross profit is one that targets an entirely different ecosystem: individuals. The product behind this growth is a platform called Cash App.

Square launched its Cash App service in 2013. At the time, the focus was to compete with services like Venmo (owned by PayPal (PYPL)), Apple (AAPL) Pay, and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) Pay.

At first, Cash App was just a P2P (peer-to-peer) payment service. Today, the platform has evolved into an all-in-one digital wallet combining a free debit card, cashback offerings, direct deposits, and now stocks and bitcoin investing.

The Cash App ecosystem is often overlooked by investors focused on the seller ecosystem. But I believe it's about to become the main catalyst for future growth, and it could be the platform that will help turn Square into a much bigger company in the coming decade.

Let's review why.

Source

Don't take it from me, but from the reputable research firm ARK Investment Management.

Cash App is closing in on Venmo and could come ahead at some point in 2020.

Source

This is also evident based on Google Trends, as reflected below. Cash App is now well ahead of Venmo in searches, and it has been the case for months.

Source

The most recent ranking released by Sensor Tower also shows Cash App as the fourth most downloaded fintech app in the world (up one rank from January to February). Cash App is in very good company between PayPal and Alipay (Note: PhonePe is an Indian e-commerce payment system and digital wallet company) .

Source

Let put Cash App in context with Square's FY19 numbers.

Square has seen impressive growth since going public in 2015.

Data by YCharts

If we look at the breakdown from management in their most recent investor update, Cash App was 25% of Square's gross margin in FY19. That compares with 6% in 2017 and less than 1% in 2016.

Source

And the momentum is accelerating. Square disclosed that Cash App was 27% of the company's gross profit in the most recent quarter ($144 million).

Source

Based on the trend over the past three years and the recent momentum, it's only a matter of time before Cash App becomes the dominant source of gross profit for the company.

Square has broken down its total addressable market as follows:

Source

The implication is that the runway ahead is larger for Cash App given that its run rate of $1.1 billion revenue in FY19 implies less than 2% market penetration.

Management is breaking down this $60B+ opportunity into three categories:

Source

And Cash App's market opportunity doesn't stop here. Over time, new products and use cases are likely to emerge. Cash App could become an all-in-one solution, targeting new areas such as lending or wealth management.

Source

Cash App is making money on all three categories it targets:

Source

Cash App really shines when it comes down to the variety of its revenue streams. The additional use cases developed since 2016 have created new avenues for growth that have stacked on top of the existing ones.

Source

To get a sense of the user base, what we usually refer to as MAU (Monthly Average Users) on social media platforms is referred to as MTA (Monthly Transacting Actives) for Cash App. It is defined by Square as "a Cash App customer who has one cash inflow or outflow during a given monthly period."

The number of MTA has gone parabolic for Cash App, from 3 million in 2016 to 24 million in 2019.

To measure a user base, a monthly metric is obviously much more valuable than a yearly one. When PayPal revealed that Venmo had 40 million active users in 2019, that number included 12 months of transactions.

What is even more interesting than the active user base of Cash App is how user engagement has grown just as fast.

The number of DTA (daily equivalent of MTA) has grown 80% Y/Y in Q4 FY19, which is even faster than the MTA. The implication is that not only are more users using the app, but they are doing so more frequently.

Source

Cash App has obviously proven that it could find and grow an audience very fast. Now, volume matters only if the unit economics are promising. And, in my view, this is where Cash App shines the most.

Revenue per customer has reached $30 annualized revenue per monthly active customer in 2019, a double from 2017 level.

Source

It gets more interesting when we analyse specific cohorts of users. Management gave shareholders a unique look into how fast they can recoup their user acquisition spend, using the example of the June 2017 cohort:

This means a return on investment of more than 5x after 2.5 years. And this cohort is obviously going to continue to generate revenue.

Source

The implication for such a strong return on investment shows in the financials of the company. Yearly gross profit by cohort has been expanding and cohorts of users are stacking. This is the true engine behind Cash App's meteoric rise.

Source

Not only is Square increasing its ARPU, but also its conversion rate. According to management, 50% of Cash App's quarterly users generated revenue in Q4 FY19. The high engagement within the ecosystem is what's driving the lifetime value per user higher.

Source

Consumers are willing to pay for convenience more than ever before. We increasingly expect everything to be handed over to us in a way that is simple, frictionless and all-in-one place. Be it for shopping, delivery, travel or entertainment, this has naturally contributed to the rise of digital wallets.

Cash App screenshot from Google Play store (Source).

With innovations like Cash Boost (instant cashback offer with specific brands) and Cash Card, Square has rewarded stronger engagement within its ecosystem.

At the end of the day, the Cash App Ecosystem is meant to replace the need for a bank account. The long game is not to take market shares from Venmo, but to gain shares from the entire banking and wealth management industry.

Last month, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) granted Square conditional approval to open a bank. Named Square Financial Services, the bank will open next year and will offer small business loans. There will be natural synergies and complementary features that could overlap between the seller and the Cash App ecosystem.

Another obvious area for future growth is the expansion beyond the US. Cash App is still a US-focused product. But Square has proven with its seller ecosystem that it can expand beyond North America when the time comes.

Square is likely to continue to scale user acquisition, and in return create organic growth via word-of-mouth as the existing community grows. With new users coming on the platform adding fuel to the fire, the existing very strong unit economics will continue to drive Cash App's importance in Square's gross profit expansion.

Source

Beyond what we know today, what remains the most exciting feature of Cash App is its optionality.

Acquisition, retention and monetization could expand even more over time with new use cases. Given how engaged existing users are, it's easy to see how future features could find success and further expand conversion and ARPU.

Lending and personal finance are obvious areas that Cash App is likely to target over time, and I can't wait to see more.

If you are looking for a portfolio of actionable ideas like this one, please consider joining the App Economy Portoflio. Start your free trial today!

The rise of the App Economy is disrupting many industries: retail, entertainment, financials, media, social platforms, healthcare, enterprise software and more.

While keeping in mind some of the best recommendations from experienced gurus of Wall Street such as Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Burton Malkiel or Philip Fisher, I am trying to beat the S&P 500 index by a significant margin.

Here are some of the trends reflected in the portfolio:

Disclosure: I am/we are long SQ AAPL GOOG. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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The Thailand Environment Institute (TEI)President, Dr. Wijarn Simachaya.

BANGKOK The Thailand Environment Institute (TEI) has reported that the COVID-19 pandemic is having positive effects on the natural ecosystem, as it provides time for many tourist destinations to recover. The amount of garbage, including discarded face masks and plastic waste however, has increased exponentially.

TEI President, Dr. Wijarn Simachaya, said air pollution, particularly in Bangkok, has reduced sharply due to fewer vehicles on the road. A number of natural destinations are starting to recover. Leatherback sea turtles, which are the largest sea turtles and are in danger of extinction, are laying eggs on beaches in Phang Nga and Phuket provinces at an all-time high rate. This is also good time for the government to develop tourism plans and maintain the ecosystem by limiting the number of visitors to natural sites.

Dr. Wijarn said some 1.5 million face masks are being used and disposed of in Thailand each day. The amount in Bangkok is about 150 tons per day. Members of the public are advised put them in red bins, which are designated for hazardous waste. Used masks will be incinerated at a temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius. People should not burn them on their own because they can cause harmful effects on human health and air pollution.

The amount of plastic waste has also increased by 15 percent, due to the surge in deliveries. In normal times, Thailand produces 1,500 tons per day. Now. the country is producing 6,300 tons of plastic waste per day, and about 1,500 tons are in Bangkok alone.(NNT)

See the article here:

COVID-19 has positive impact on Thailand's ecosystem - Pattaya Mail

Life in Pasadena has been turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. I must express my heartfelt sympathy to those who have lost loved ones and my profound gratitude to those who have worked so hard to keep us all going.

Like the rest of the state, Pasadena has shut down everything but essential businesses and directed everyone to practice social distancing. We took these extraordinary steps to limit deaths and to avoid overwhelming our medical system. With widespread cooperation from our residents and effective work by city staff, we have been successful to date.

The economic impacts of these measures have been devastating for many people and we all yearn for them to end soon. Unsurprisingly there are loud voices demanding that the restrictions and their attendant economic hardships can no longer be tolerated and that it is time to loosen the rules, allow more people to go back to work and resume other aspects of their normal lives.

Unhappily, the best available scientific advice advocates maintaining the current strictures until certain benchmarks regarding reductions in cases, expanded testing and the availability of therapeutic drugs have been achieved. Of course, there is controversy regarding the accuracy of the tests and the efficacy of existing drugs.

Then there is the matter of Pasadenas unique role in all of this.

Our city prides itself as being a leader in many arenas and clearly because of our world-class institutions and events, we have an image and a footprint that far exceeds our population. Notably, we are one of only three cities in California that boasts of its own health department. Therefore, some assume that we should exercise more control over own destiny. We should decide which stores are truly essential and which potentially crowd-gathering attractions should remain open. Pasadena should be leading the way in decision-making instead of moving in lock-step with the rest of Los Angeles County. While I value our leadership role, I disagree that we should consider going our own way.

Our Public Health Department has been working hard to manage the nursing home hotspots and pursuing vital tracking and tracing of infected people. Our public health officer does have some authority. However, our resources are limited and we are relying on the same science as others in the region. The disease is not limited by municipal boundaries and I believe Pasadenas elected officials and city staff must rely on science and experts. Also, is the case with all disasters, we must act in concert with the county and state.

Pasadena has shown significant and appropriate leadership in providing assistance to those most in need. We have allocated substantial resources to feeding the hungry and helping the homeless. We have installed a 250-bed surge medical facility in our Convention Center and we have provided $11 million in rebates to all of our power customers.

This pandemic experience is new to all of us, although the 1918 version does offer some guidance. We will undoubtedly make some missteps in our efforts to keep our residents safe. We may even be overly cautious in the way we manage the reopening of normal commerce, education and recreation. We will strive to do the best possible job of keeping everyone informed as to the basis of decisions as well as what the rules are. However, we cannot allow those armed not with facts but with loud voices to push us into bad choices.

So please, continue to ask questions, make your opinions known and reach your own conclusions. But allow us to act as best we can on your behalf and realize Pasadena is not an island, but rather a special piece in a larger urban ecosystem that is confronting an international crisis. Be patient. Stay safe.

Terry Tornek is mayor of Pasadena.

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Pasadenas mayor reflects on the pandemics strictures - The Pasadena Star-News

Up to 1 in 3 death certificates nationwide were already wrong before COVID-19. (Photo: Getty)(Photo: Getty)

As the U.S. struggles to track coronavirus fatalities amid spotty testing, delayed lab results and inconsistent reporting standards, a more insidious problem could thwart its quest for an accurate death toll.

Up to 1 in 3 death certificates nationwide were already wrong before COVID-19, said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the National Center for Health Statistics in an interview with the USA TODAY Network.

Im always worried about getting good data. I think this sort of thing can be an issue even in a pandemic, Anderson said.

Experts say the inaccuracies are part and parcel of a patchwork, state-by-state system of medical examiners, coroners and doctors who have disparate medical backgrounds, and in some cases none at all.

And the problem is about to get worse. The pandemic will undoubtedly inundate already overworked and sometimes untrained officials who fill out the forms.

Accurate death certificates are paramount for local health officials who are trying to determine where to focus resources to fight the spread of the coronavirus, said Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of the public health department in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston.

That death represents an ecosystem of people, Shah said.

Inaccurate death reporting is a longstanding problem noted by numerous researchers in study after study.

A 2017 review of Missouri hospitals, for example, found nearly half of death certificates listed an incorrect cause of death. A Vermont study found 51% of death certificates had major errors. Nearly half of the physicians the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed in 2010 admitted that they knowingly reported an inaccurate cause of death.

Death certificates regularly lack enough details to accurately pinpoint the cause of death, Anderson said.

For example, cardiac arrest is not an acceptable cause of death, because everybody dies of cardiac arrest, Anderson said. That just means your heart stopped.

The widespread inaccuracy of death certificate information stems largely from the varying levels of expertise of those who complete the forms, experts said.

Physicians, coroners, medical examiners, and in some states, other medical personnel, such as nurse practitioners, can legally sign death certificates, said Dr. Sally Aiken, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners and a practicing medical examiner in Spokane County, Washington.

Coroners and medical examiners are responsible for certificates in homicides, accidents and suicides, Aiken said. Physicians fill out the form when natural deaths, such as those caused by COVID-19, occur in a hospital. But medical examiners and coroners do it if the person died at home or in another non-healthcare setting.

Medical examiners are generally physicians specializing in forensic pathology who can perform autopsies.

Coroners, however, are not always doctors. In some states, such as Alabama and Georgia, the only requirement for a coroner is that they are a non-felon of legal age to be elected to the position.

Even those with medical expertise, though, regularly get it wrong. In Vermont, there are no coroners. If a death is natural or happens in a hospital or out in the community, physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants fill out death certificates. And the state medical examiners office, which investigates violent deaths, reviews about 5,000 certificates each year to find and fix errors.

When the state medical examiners office compared 601 death certificates completed between July 1, 2015 and Jan. 31, 2016 with medical records, they found that 51% had major errors.

When the Vermont state medical examiners office compared 601 death certificates completed between July 1, 2015 and Jan. 31, 2016 with medical records, they found that 51% had major errors.(Photo: Thinkstock)

Lauri McGovirn, a medical examiner who worked on that review, said some physicians didnt complete death certificates regularly, so they were unfamiliar with the process. Others viewed it as an administrative chore.

It does make you wonder in other states where they dont have the type of resources or the money to review every death certificate what their error rate may be, McGovirn said.

In addition to expertise gaps, theres a severe shortage of medical examiners nationwide.

In a recent report to Congress, the Justice Department said as many as 700 more forensic pathologists are needed. That same report noted that in addition to staffing, budgets, resources and supplies are too inconsistent to ensure that death investigations are of the same quality across the United States.

Dr. Ray Fernandez has been the chief medical examiner for Nueces County, Texas, for 19 years. He knows what the shortage means a punishing workload.

Despite hiring another full-time pathologist and two part-time pathologists several years ago, he and his colleagues each perform 200 to 300 autopsies per year, regularly bumping up against the National Association of Medical Examiners recommendation of no more than 325 per year.

The organization has temporarily suspended that caseload limit amid due to COVID-19, but Fernandez said the more cases medical examiners take on, the greater the chance theyll make mistakes.

COVID-19, he said, is impacting the system at a time when its already in a crisis with a shortage of people doing the work.

To further complicate efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus, many medical examiners and coroners refuse to attribute a death to COVID-19 without a positive test before the person died. Some medical examiners are doing post mortem testing if they have the means. But with tests in short supply, thats not always possible.

Dr. James Gill, vice president of the National Association of Medical Examiners and the chief medical examiner for the state of Connecticut, said hes sending his staff to funeral homes to swab the noses of the deceased, which are then analyzed by an outside lab.

The family of the deceased and the first responders who attended to them need the lab results to know whether they should self isolate or get treatment, Gill said.

You have to remember, though, that even if we are doing a swab on a dead person, those results may affect the living, Gill said.

The National Center for Health Statistics, where Anderson works, updated its website on April 1 to clarify that those filling out death certificates should record COVID-19 as the probable cause if testing isnt possible and if the medical records or circumstances support that.

Despite this, Anderson said, some physicians will simply list the cause of death as pneumonia when the pneumonia likely came after a COVID-19 infection. But he hopes fewer do.

The fact is, a lot of these deaths are not going to be autopsied and post mortem testing is not going to be done, so were going to have to rely on second-hand accounts and what the symptoms were, Anderson said. We may miss some as a result.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/04/25/coronavirus-death-toll-hard-track-1-3-death-certificates-wrong/3020778001/

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One in 3 death certificates were wrong before coronavirus. It's about to get even worse. - USA TODAY

PR.com2020-04-25

Shanghai, China, April 25, 2020 --(PR.com)-- Background: RT-Thread was born in 2006, it is an open-source, neutral, and community-based real-time operating system (RTOS). RT-Thread has a Standard version and Nano version.

- For resource-constrained microcontroller (MCU) systems, the NANO kernel version that requires only 3KB Flash and 1.2KB RAM resources can be tailored with easy-to-use tools;

- For resource-rich IoT devices, RT-Thread can use the online software package management tool, together with system configuration tools, to achieve intuitive and rapid modular cutting, seamlessly import rich software packages, thus achieving complex functions like Android's graphical interface and touch sliding effects, smart voice interaction effects, and so on.

RT-Thread Architecture includes:

- Kernel layer: RT-Thread kernel, the core part of RT-Thread, includes the implementation of objects in the kernel system, such as multi-threading and its scheduling, semaphore, mailbox, message queue, memory management, timer, etc., libcpu/BSP (Chip Migration Related Files/Board Support Package) is closely related to hardware and consists of peripheral drivers and CPU porting.

- Components and Service Layer: Components are based on upper-level software on top of the RT-Thread kernel, such as virtual file systems, FinSH command-line interfaces, network frameworks, device frameworks, and more. Its modular design allows for high internal cohesion inside the components and low coupling between components.

- RT-Thread software package: A general-purpose software component running on the RT-Thread IoT operating system platform for different application areas, consisting of description information, source code or library files. RT-Thread provides an open package platform with officially available or developer-supplied packages that provide developers with a choice of reusable packages that are an important part of the RT-Thread ecosystem. The package ecosystem is critical to the choice of an operating system because these packages are highly reusable and modular, making it easy for application developers to build the system they want in the shortest amount of time. RT-Thread supports more than 200 software packages.

RT-Thread Features

* Supports resource-constrained devices, the minimum kernel requires only 1.2KB of RAM and 3 KB of Flash.

* It has rich components and a prosperous and fast-growing package ecosystem.

* Elegant code style, easy to use, read and master.

* High Scalability. RT-Thread has high-quality scalable software architecture, loose coupling, modularity, is easy to tailor and expand.

* Supports high-performance applications.

* Supports cross-platform and a wide range of chips.

Supported Architectures

RT-Thread supports many architectures and has covered the major architectures in current applications. Architecture and chip manufacturer involved:

- ARM Cortex-M0/M0+:manufacturers like ST

- ARM Cortex-M3: manufacturers like ST, Winner Micro, MindMotion, etc.

- ARM Cortex-M4: manufacturers like ST, Nuvton, NXP, GigaDevice, Realtek, Ambiq Micro, etc.

- ARM Cortex-M7: manufacturers like ST, NXP

- ARM Cortex-M23: manufacturers like GigaDevice

- ARM Cortex-R4ARM Cortex-A8/A9: manufacturers like NXP

- ARM7: manufacturers like Samsung

- ARM9: manufacturers like Allwinner, Xilinx, GOKE

- ARM11: manufacturers like Fullhan

- MIPS32: manufacturers like loongson, Ingenic

- RISC-V: manufacturers like Hifive, Kendryte

- ARC: manufacturers like SYNOPSYS

- DSP: manufacturers like TI

- C-Sky

- x86

Supported IDE and Compiler

The main IDE/compilers supported by RT-Thread are:

* MDK KEIL

* IAR

* GCC

* RT-Thread Studio (RT-Thread studio is a one-stop development tool built by RT-Thread)

* Use Python-based scons for command-line builds

Community

RT-Thread received great support from community developers when it started. Now, RT-Thread has gathered 200+ software packages which were created by community developers; also RT-Thread had 9357 commits and gained 4.2K stars on Github.

Real-time operating systems (RTOS) are increasingly used in the high-end Internet of Things (like AIoT) because of its low cost, high real-time, and fast start-up characteristics, sooner or later, more and more RTOSs will support multi-kernel SMP, AI, audio & video and this is inevitable. Shortly, RT-Thread Studio IDE, next-generation microkernel architecture, AI frameworks and more will all be released step by step. This is a new world of RTOS.

RT-Thread Contact Info:

Website: rt-thread.io

Github: github.com/RT-Thread

Twitter: twitter.com/rt_thread

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/RT-Thread-IoT-OS-110395723808463/?modal=admin_todo_tour

Contact Information:

RT-Thread

Abby Wu

021-31608913

Contact via Email

https://www.rt-thread.io

Tweets by rt_thread

Read the full story here: https://www.pr.com/press-release/810936

Press Release Distributed by PR.com

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RT-Thread RTOS Creates a New Model of the Real-Time Operating System - IT News Online

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "COVID-19 Impact on the Industrial Robotics Market by Type (Articulated, SCARA, Parallel, Cartesian Robots), Industry (Automotive; Electrical and Electronics; Food & Beverages; Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics), and Region - Global Forecast to 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Post-COVID-19, the global traditional industrial robotics market size (including the prices of peripherals, software, and system engineering) is expected to grow from USD 44.6 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 73 billion by 2025; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.4% during the forecast period. The projection for 2025 is estimated to be down by ~3% as compared to pre-COVID-19 estimation.

A shortage of skilled labor, especially in developed countries, is driving the further use of automation, in the industrial robotics market. Manufacturers are turning to automation to decrease manufacturing costs and to keep their cost advantage in the market. Automation in the electronics industry presents an excellent growth opportunity for traditional industrial robots in the coming years, especially in the APAC region where manufacturers are looking to automate their production processes further. Post-COVID-19, manufacturers are expected to increase in-house manufacturing through automation rather than outsource manufacture to other countries to mitigate global supply chain risks in the future.

SCARA robots market to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period

The market for SCARA robots is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. SCARA robots are expected to play a vital role specifically in industries such as food & beverages and electronics & electrical by preventing contamination of food products and preventing damage of delicate semiconductor wafers due to human contact, especially for companies looking to minimize their losses during COVID-19.

The market for metals & machinery industry to grow at a significant CAGR from 2020 to 2025

Like other industries, the metals & machinery industry has also been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of demand for metals and machines from the construction, automotive, shipbuilding, and many more industries have severely affected the metals & machinery sector. Additionally, metals and machinery companies are planning to operate by utilizing only 50% of their workforce. However, the metals and machinery industry make up the building blocks for other large industries. Companies in the metals and machinery industry make for a large number of essential suppliers. To minimize disruption in production, the traditional industrial robotics market for this industry is expected to grow at the fastest rate post-COVID-19.

APAC to dominate the global traditional industrial robotics market throughout the forecast period

2018 saw a decrease in sales of industrial robots due to countries like China seeing a fall in demand in the automotive sector and the adverse effects of the US-China trade war. Subsequently, the COVID-19 pandemic starting in late 2019 and extending till mostly Q2 or Q3 of 2020 is now adversely affecting the market growth for traditional industrial robots. However, the market in APAC is still expected to grow at the highest CAGR during 2020-2025. Although major countries contributing to the APAC market, such as China, experienced a greater slowdown in growth, their market share remains significant.

On the other hand, 2018 has witnessed the penetration and sales of industrial robots in developing APAC countries such as India and Taiwan. The electrical and electronics industry is an important driver for industrial robots in APAC, owing to the rising demand for electronic products around the world. Components like computer chips, batteries, and displays that are small and sensitive need to be handled with high speed and high precision. APAC also houses a major number of strong global players in the industrial robotics market.

Apart from APAC, the growth of industrial robots in Europe has remained steady over the years. In Europe, industrial robots are not only relevant for large enterprises, but smaller enterprises as well. Germany remains the largest market in Europe for industrial robots. Government initiatives like Industrie 4.0 and the penetration of IoT and AI are expected to boost robot sales in the coming years post-COVID-19. However, the COVID-19 pandemic will negatively affect growth even in developing APAC countries as well as European manufacturers until Q2 or Q3 of 2020.

Key Benefits of Buying the Report

Key Topics Covered

1 Introduction

1.1 COVID-19 Health Assessment

1.2 COVID-19 Economic Assessment

1.2.1 COVID-19 Impact on Economy - Scenario Assessment

2 Research Methodology

2.1 Research Assumptions

2.2 Primary Data

2.2.1 Breakdown of Primaries

2.3 Inclusions and Exclusions

2.4 Approach to Estimate Post-COVID-19 Decline in 2020

2.5 Stakeholders

3 Executive Summary

4 Impact on Ecosystem and Extended Ecosystem (Adjacent Markets)

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 Component Suppliers

4.1.2 Original Equipment Manufacturers

4.1.3 System Integrators

4.1.4 Software Providers

4.1.5 Accessory Providers

4.1.6 End Users

4.2 COVID-19-Driven Market Dynamics and Factor Analysis

4.2.1 Drivers

4.2.1.1 Solicitation of Proposals by Governments and Public-Private Companies to Mitigate Adverse Impact of COVID-19

4.2.1.2 Anticipated Shortage of Skilled Workforce in Manufacturing Industries Due to Ban on Migration

4.2.2 Restraints

4.2.2.1 High Installation Cost of Industrial Robots, Especially for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

4.2.3 Opportunities

4.2.3.1 Accelerating Spread of COVID-19 Pandemic Prompting Several Industries to Adopt Automation Technologies

4.2.4 Challenges

4.2.4.1 Difficulties Faced by Start-Up Companies to Demonstrate Their Products Virtually

5 Business Implications of COVID-19 on Industrial Robotics Market

5.1 Implications Based on Various Types of Robots (Pessimistic (Post-COVID-19) and Realistic (Post-COVID-19))

5.1.1 Articulated Robots Market Forecast (2020-2025)

5.1.2 Scara Robots Market Forecast (2020-2025)

5.1.3 Parallel/Delta Robots Market Forecast (2020-2025)

5.1.4 Cartesian/Gantry/Linear Robots Market Forecast (2020-2025)

5.1.5 Other Robots (Cylindrical, Spherical, Swing Arm) Market Forecast (2020-2025)

6 Use Cases Showing Impact of COVID-19 on Major Verticals and Steps Taken by Clients to Respond to Current Scenario

6.1 Shift in Clients' Revenues

6.2 Automotive

6.2.1 Forecast from 2020 to 2025

6.2.1.1 Pessimistic Scenario

6.2.1.2 Realistic Scenario

6.2.2 Key Use Cases

6.3 Electrical and Electronics

6.4 Chemicals, Rubber, and Plastics

6.5 Metals and Machinery

6.6 Food & Beverages

6.7 Precision Engineering and Optics

6.8 Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics

7 Impact of COVID-19 on Geographic Regions

7.1 Geographic Analysis

7.1.1 Forecast from 2020 to 2025

7.2 North America

7.2.1 Forecast from 2020 to 2025

7.2.2.1 US

7.2.2.1.1 US to Dominate Traditional Industrial Robots Market in North America in 2020

7.2.2.2 Canada

7.2.2.2.1 Government Initiatives to Fuel Growth of Canadian Traditional Industrial Robots Market

7.2.2.3 Mexico

7.2.2.3.1 Growth of Mexican Market to Slow Down Owing to COVID-19

7.3 Europe

7.4 APAC

7.5 RoW

8 COVID-19 Focused Profiles of Key Vendors

8.1 Industrial Robotics Ecosystem

8.1.1 ABB

8.1.1.1 Company Overview

8.1.1.2 COVID-19 Impact on Industrial Robotics Market Company-Specific Developments

8.1.2 Yaskawa

8.1.3 Fanuc

8.1.4 Kuka

8.1.5 Kawasaki Heavy Industries

8.1.6 Mitsubishi Electric

8.1.7 Denso Corporation

8.1.8 Nachi-Fujikoshi

8.1.9 Seiko Epson

8.1.10 Durr

8.1.11 Omron Adept

8.1.12 B+M Surface Systems

8.2 Collaborative Robot Ecosystem

8.2.1 Universal Robots

8.2.2 Techman Robot

8.2.3 Doosan Robotics

8.2.4 Aubo Robotics

8.2.5 Precise Automation

8.2.6 Rethink Robotics

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COVID-19 Impact on the Global Industrial Robotics Market - Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 10.4% During 2020-2025; Down by ~3% on the Pre-COVID-19...