Yet another Stephen King novel is getting the movie treatment. At least one familiar face will not return in Legends of Tomorrow’s next season. Jane Levy teases a major King connection for her Castle Rock character. Plus, Don Cheadle heads to Duckburg, and what’s to come on The 100. To me, my spoilers!
A new hero of the automotive industry has arisen from Elon Musk’s ashes. But Daniel Tillotson’s contributions to the car don’t have anything to do with transitioning away from fossil fuels. Instead, he focused his genius on the problem of safely enjoying a beverage behind the wheel, developing an innovation that any…
Who says farming has to be boring? The Brick Wall built this cool piece of LEGO Technic farm equipment, adding it to his already impressive collection of machines. He actually created two hay rakes. One is a modern-day farm implement, and one is inspired by the rakes of yesteryear. Both are completely functional, so they can actually collect your cut grass for you if you need a robot for such things.
It looks like both machines are driven by a standard LEGO Technic Claas Xerion 5000 tractor. The modern machine looks really cool, with a V-shaped rig and eight spinning rake wheels.
It seems like it does a good enough job collecting grass, but the old style version seems to do a more thorough job with its big grass catcher design. So, see, newer isn’t always better.
Both are very impressive builds and I wouldn’t mind having either in my yard to make my job easier. I continue to be blown away by what talented people can build with LEGO. One day we may all have LEGO robots doing our yard work for us. At least until the odd one blows up here and there and then we are all stepping on LEGO bricks hidden in the grass. That’s when it will end because, at that point, your lawn just becomes a minefield to anyone with bare feet.
[via designboom via Mike Shouts]
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Amazon is expanding its Whole Foods Delivery service to five new cities. Prime Now subscribers in New York City, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Long Island will be able to sift through a variety of dairy, meat, everyday staples and seafood op…
Astrophotography requires abundant patience and planning, but as Spanish photographer Dani Caxete has shown, you sometimes need quick reflexes, too. His entry in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018 contest shows the International Space Statio…
The European Union’s antitrust authorities have issued a series of penalties, fining consumer electronics companies Asus, Denon & Marantz, Philips and Pioneer more than €110 million (~$130M) in four separate decisions for imposing fixed or minimum resale prices on their online retailers in breach of EU competition rules.
It says the four companies engaged in so called “fixed or minimum resale price maintenance (RPM)” by restricting the ability of their online retailers to set their own retail prices for widely used consumer electronics products — such as kitchen appliances, notebooks and hi-fi products.
Asus has been hit with the largest fine (€63.5M), followed by Philips (€29.8M). The other two fines were €10.1M for Pioneer, and €7.7M for Denon & Marantz.
The Commission found the manufacturers put pressure on ecommerce outlets who offered their products at low prices, writing: “If those retailers did not follow the prices requested by manufacturers, they faced threats or sanctions such as blocking of supplies. Many, including the biggest online retailers, use pricing algorithms which automatically adapt retail prices to those of competitors. In this way, the pricing restrictions imposed on low pricing online retailers typically had a broader impact on overall online prices for the respective consumer electronics products.”
It also notes that use of “sophisticated monitoring tools” by the manufacturers allowed them to “effectively track resale price setting in the distribution network and to intervene swiftly in case of price decreases”.
“The price interventions limited effective price competition between retailers and led to higher prices with an immediate effect on consumers,” it added.
In particular, Asus, was found to have monitored the resale price of retailers for certain computer hardware and electronics products such as notebooks and displays — and to have done so in two EU Member States (Germany and France), between 2011 and 2014.
While Denon & Marantz was found to have engaged in “resale price maintenance” with respect to audio and video consumer products such as headphones and speakers of the brands Denon, Marantz and Boston Acoustics in Germany and the Netherlands between 2011 and 2015.
Philips was found to have done the same in France between the end of 2011 and 2013 — but for a range of consumer electronics products, including kitchen appliances, coffee machines, vacuum cleaners, home cinema and home video systems, electric toothbrushes, hair driers and trimmers.
In Pioneer’s case, the resale price maintenance covered products including home theatre devices, iPod speakers, speaker sets and hi-fi products.
The Commission said the company also limited the ability of its retailers to sell-cross border to EU consumers in other Member States in order to sustain different resale prices in different Member States, for example by blocking orders of retailers who sold cross-border. Its conduct lasted from the beginning of 2011 to the end of 2013 and concerned 12 countries (Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway).
In all four cases, the Commission said the level of fines were reduced — 50% in the case of Pioneer; and 40% for each of the others — due to the companies’ co-operation with its investigations, specifying that they had provided evidence with “significant added value” and had “expressly acknowledg[ed] the facts and the infringements of EU antitrust rules”.
Commenting in a statement, commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who heads up the bloc’s competition policy, said: “The online commerce market is growing rapidly and is now worth over 500 billion euros in Europe every year. More than half of Europeans now shop online. As a result of the actions taken by these four companies, millions of European consumers faced higher prices for kitchen appliances, hair dryers, notebook computers, headphones and many other products. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules. Our decisions today show that EU competition rules serve to protect consumers where companies stand in the way of more price competition and better choice.”
We’ve reached out to all the companies for comment.
The fines follow the Commission’s ecommerce sector inquiry, which reported in May 2017, and showed that resale-price related restrictions are by far the most widespread restrictions of competition in ecommerce markets, making competition enforcement in this area a priority — as part of the EC’s wider Digital Single Market strategy.
The Commission further notes that the sector inquiry shed light on the increased use of automatic software applied by retailers for price monitoring and price setting.
Separate investigations were launched in February 2017 and June 2017 to assess if certain online sales practices are preventing, in breach of EU antitrust rules, consumers from enjoying cross-border choice and from being able to buy products and services online at competitive prices. The Commission adds that those investigations are ongoing.
Commenting on today’s EC decision, a spokesman for Philips told us: “Since the start of the EC investigation in late 2013, which Philips reported in its Annual Reports, the company has fully cooperated with the EC. Philips initiated an internal investigation and addressed the matter in 2014.”
“It is good that we can now leave this case behind us, and focus on the positive impact that our products and solutions can have on people,” he added. “Let me please stress that Philips attaches prime importance to full compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Being a responsible company, everyone in Philips is expected to always act with integrity. Philips rigorously enforces compliance of its General Business Principles throughout the company. Philips has a zero tolerance policy towards non-compliance in relation to breaches of its General Business Principles.”
Anticipating the decision of the EC, he said the company had already recognized a €30M provision in its Q2 2018.
If you wanted to get a Tesla Model 3 with the slick white interior you had to order the Performance versions of the car, until now. That has changed with Tesla having confirmed that the white interior is now available as an option on the Dual Motor Model 3 AWD EV. The changed was confirmed via emails that Tesla has … Continue reading
Receiving spam via SMS is pretty common and unfortunately there’s really not much on can do about it. However spammer have also managed to invade messenger apps such as WhatsApp, and we’re sure that there are many users who have received spam messages on WhatsApp, but it looks like WhatsApp is actively trying to do something about it.
In a report from Mashable, it seems that WhatsApp is testing out a feature that lets it detect links that might appear to be suspicious and will label it as such, as you can see in the screenshot above. Of course this is only a warning and users can still go ahead and click on the link if they want to, but at the very least they have been warned.
WhatsApp has been taking active steps to try and reduce spam or at least taken steps to help educate their users. For example WhatsApp has started to label messages that have been forwarded to let users know that the message might not have originated from the sender. They have also started to limit the amount of messages that can be forwarded at once to potentially cut down on spam.
Whether or not these tools and features are enough to cut back on spammers using WhatsApp to spread marketing campaigns or conduct scams remains to be seen, but we suppose at the very least they are doing something about it.
WhatsApp Testing Feature That Detects Shady Links , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
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