Eight glasses of water a day. That’s the old recommendation you and I have heard growing up. And while we all know the importance of hydration to our health, some methods of hydration are more efficient than others. At least, that’s the premise that Hydrant was built on. The company, a wellness brand that launched […]

Optimization. Efficiency. Data-driven decisions. If I had a nickel for every time I hear these words from founders I’d be long retired. And yet, the process involved in achieving resource optimization, efficiency and making truly data-driven decisions is laborious to say the least, and usually involves an immense amount of talent and resources. And then […]

Announcement Number: TN-20-EI-00899-DH
Closing Date: 09 April 2021

The Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) has set up a dedicated webpage and will be organizing webinars to examine the trade impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on least developed countries (LDCs).

The WTO Secretariat has published a new information note looking at how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected e-commerce, including the implications for cross-border trade. It notes the increased use of e-commerce as consumers adapt to lockdowns and social distancing measures and draws attention to several challenges, such as the need to bridge the digital divide within and across countries.

Adam Neumann, the co-founder and chief executive of the international real estate co-working startup WeWork has reportedly cashed out of more than $700 million from his company ahead of its initial public offering. The size and timing of the payouts, made through a mix of stock sales and loans secured by his equity in the company, […]

High-priced, handmade boutique sports cars typically make their debut where the well-heeled and the media gather. Pagani took a different approach this time around. The Italian supercar manufacturer unveiled its new nearly $3.5 million Huayra Roadster BC in CSR2, the mobile game produced by Zynga . The physical car will eventually get its moment. Pagani […]

By the end of 2019, the global gaming market is estimated to be worth $152 billion, with 45% of that, $68.5 billion, coming directly from mobile games.

Efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 have led to a global economic downturn, but the gaming industry is booming. With hundreds of millions of people sequestered in their homes, game usage has spiked. And while the economic repercussions will persist after people cease physical distancing, gaming is positioned to fare well during a recession. […]

This evening’s Square E3 press was…something. After more than an hour of Final Fantasy remasters, the publisher closed things out with far and away its most eagerly awaited game. Licensing some white hot IP, the RPG masters at Square are offering up their own take on Earth’s mightiest heroes. Bay Area-based Crystal Dynamics addressed what […]

DoorDash has reached an agreement with Square to purchase on-demand food delivery and catering business Caviar. DoorDash has agreed to pay Square $410 million in cash and preferred DoorDash stock. Square bought Caviar about five years ago in a deal worth about $90 million. Now, Caviar has found a new home with DoorDash, the on-demand […]

Credit cards have become all but ubiquitous for consumer transactions, and it isn’t hard to see why. By intermediating payments, networks like Visa allow buyers and sellers to exchange money for goods and services without knowing the financial risk profile of the counter-party. Rather than applying for credit at every merchant you shop at, you […]

November 2019 could mark when Nigeria (arguably) became Africa’s unofficial capital for fintech investment and digital finance startups. The month saw $360 million invested in Nigerian-focused payment ventures. That is equivalent to roughly one-third of all the startup VC raised for the entire continent in 2018, according to Partech stats. A notable trend-within-the-trend is that […]

Smart rings are still a relatively young category in the wearable hardware world, but the Oura Ring seems to be a standout in terms of early success. The Oura Ring hardware is sleek and packed with sensors, allowing it to measure a user’s sleep patterns, take your body temperature and track activity, and now Oura […]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released updated projections of future U.S. energy production and use in its Annual Energy Outlook 2020 (AEO2020) today.

Adam Neumann, the co-founder and chief executive of the international real estate co-working startup WeWork has reportedly cashed out of more than $700 million from his company ahead of its initial public offering. The size and timing of the payouts, made through a mix of stock sales and loans secured by his equity in the company, […]

Layoffs are having a big impact on industries across the board due to COVID-19. This week alone news came out of massive cuts for TripAdvisor, Lyft, and reportedly Juul and Uber. But according to data tracker Layoffs.fyi, the cuts have affected certain job roles more than others. Sales and customer success roles are the most […]

We’ll admit it: Some of your Original Content podcast hosts are a little skeptical about improvised comedy. Of course, we can enjoy improv when it’s done well. It’s just that we’ve seen it done less well, often by friends who are so enthusiastic without being particularly funny. And our friends aside, live improv has rarely […]

Tom Cruise is talking to SpaceX about taking the ultimate step to top his crazy movie stunts, Apple and Google’s exposure notification API will not provide access to detailed location data and we survey seven VCs about the new media landscape. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 5, 2020. 1. Tom Cruise reportedly talking to […]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported continuing changes to the fuel mix for U.S. electricity generation. Over the past decade, the share of U.S. electricity generation supplied by natural gas-fired power plants increased from 23% of total generation in 2010 to an estimated 37% in 2019. This increase was offset by a reduction in the share of generation from coal-fired power plants from 46% in 2010 to an estimated 24% in 2019. EIA expects the share of coal generation to continue its decline to 21% in 2020, while natural gas's share of generation stabilize between 37% and 38% in 2020 and 2021 as renewable energy sources continue to gain market share. In its January Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA estimated that the expected share of generation from renewable sources will increase from 17% in 2019 to 19% this year and to 22% in 2021. The increase in the renewables share is the result of an increase in electricity generation from wind and solar. The share of generation from hydropower is expected to remain the same through 2021.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is forecasting that U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) will decrease by 7.5% in 2020, driven by the economic slowdown and restrictions on business and travel activity related to COVID-19. This follows a 2.7% decrease in emissions in 2019. EIA forecasts that energy-related CO2 emissions will then increase by 3.6% in 2021. In its April Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA estimates that in 2020, CO2 emissions from petroleum will decrease 7% and from coal will decrease 18.4%. EIA creates estimates of energy-related CO2 emissions based on energy consumption and on the amounts of CO2 that are released when different fuels are burned. Total CO2 emissions depend on total energy consumption and the fuel mix of the energy consumed. When it is burned, coal creates the most CO2 of the major fossil fuels. However, because more petroleum products (such as motor gasoline) are consumed than coal, petroleum is the largest source of CO2 emissions in the United States. Natural gas is the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel, but in recent years, because of its increasing consumption, it generates more U.S. CO2 emissions than coal. Non-fossil fuels such as nuclear power and renewable generation emit no direct CO2 at the end use. As these noncarbon generation sources increasingly enter the fuel mix, energy demand can be met without a proportional increase in energy-related CO2.

PwC Australia is delighted to announce a partnership with The Australian National Committee for UN Women in a joint effort to promote gender equality.

The global mining industry's fight for value and free cash flow has descended into a brawl, after 2014 saw the world's 40 largest miners ramp up production, slash capital spending, and rein in costs.

PwC Australia has appointed David Smorgon OAM as the Executive Chairman of its Family, Business & Wealth practice in Private Clients.

Unique granular modelling of over 2,000 locations across Australia uncover how fragmented and concentrated our economy is.

The eyesight of more than 32,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be saved if the Government invested just $227 million over 10 years, a new report has found.

In Aussie Mine - Going for Gold, we find that companies holding quality gold assets were the shining lights of 2015 with revenues up by 11% and share of mid-tier revenues growing by 5%.

Australia has fallen back to pre-2007 performance on female economic empowerment with one of the biggest annual declines among OECD countries according to PwC's annual Women in Work index.

A standalone plebiscite with a compulsory vote on marriage equality could cost the Australian economy $525 million according to modelling released by PwC Australia today.

PwC and NAB have teamed up to help self-employed and microbusiness customers operating in an emerging more flexible economy to manage their GST requirements.

Australian organisations are experiencing a significantly higher rate of economic crime than the rest of the globe according to a PwC survey released today which finds 52 percent experienced economic crime in the last 24 months compared to the global average of 36 percent.

The world's top 40 mining companies were in a race to the bottom in 2015, with falling market capitalisations and net losses leaving them slower, lower and weaker, according to PwC's Mine 2016 report released today.

Microsoft today announced a slew of updates to various parts of its Microsoft 365 ecosystem. A lot of these aren’t all that exciting (though that obviously depends on your level of enthusiasm for products like Microsoft Endpoint Manager), but the overall thrust behind this update is to make life easier for the IT admins that […]

About a year ago, Microsoft launched Visual Studio Online, its online code editor based on the popular Visual Studio Code project. It’s basically a full code editor and hosted environment that lives in your browser. Today, the company announced that it is changing the name of this service to Visual Studio Codespaces. It’s also dropping […]

Microsoft has now opened registration for the virtual edition of its online-only Build 2020 developer conference, which will take place from May 19 to 20. Typically, the event draws more than 6,000 developers, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s obviously not an option. In contrast to Google, which completely scrapped its I/O developer conference […]

AWS today announced the launch of the Elemental Link, a small hardware device that makes it easy to connect a live video source to the AWS Elemental Media Live service for broadcast-grade live video processing in the cloud. The $995 Link, which weighs in at less than a pound, is meant to allow Media Live […]

Google today launched an update to its Duo video chat app (which you definitely shouldn’t confuse with Hangouts or Google Meet, Google’s other video, audio and text chat apps). There are plenty of jokes to be made about Google’s plethora of chat options, but Duo is trying to be a bit different from Hangouts and […]

On Monday, April 20, 2020, New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil front-month futures prices fell below zero dollars per barrel (b)—at one point, trading at -$40.32/b (Figure 1)—and remained below zero for part of the following trading day. Monday marked the first time the price for the WTI futures contract fell below zero since trading began in 1983. Negative prices in commodity markets are very rare, but when they occur they typically indicate high transactions costs and significant infrastructure constraints. In this case, the WTI front-month futures contract was for May 2020 delivery, and the contract was set to expire on April 21, 2020. Unless they have made other arrangements ahead of time, market participants that hold WTI futures contracts to expiration must take physical delivery of WTI crude oil in Cushing, Oklahoma. Typically, most market participants close any futures contracts ahead of expiration through cash settlement in order to avoid taking physical delivery, and only about 1% of contracts are physically settled. The extreme market events of April 20 and April 21 were driven by several factors, including the inability of contract holders to find other market participants to sell the futures contracts. In addition, in this case, the scarcity of available crude oil storage meant several market participants sold their futures contracts at negative prices, in effect paying a counterparty to close out of the contracts. ...

Peanut, an app that began as a tool for finding new mom friends, has evolved into a social network now used by 1.6 million women to discuss a range of topics, from pregnancy and parenthood to marriage and menopause, and everything in between. On the heels of significant growth in online networking fueled by the […]

Facebook has a new connectivity app called Discover to help those who can’t afford to get online access information on the web. The service, available through mobile web and Android app, allows users to visit any website in text format (no video, images, audio and other elements that eat up large amounts of data) and […]

A video about the coronavirus featuring a well-known vaccine conspiracist is spreading like wildfire on social media this week, even as platforms talk tough about misinformation in the midst of the pandemic. In the professionally-produced video, a solemn interviewer named Mikki Willis interviews Judy Mikovits, a figure best known for her anti-vaccine activism in recent […]

1. New antiviral drug combo shows promise against Covid-19: Study  Times of India
2. Cocktail of three antiviral drugs helps coronavirus patients recover faster, says study  ThePrint
3. Coronavirus treatment: Triple antiviral drug combo shows promise against COVID-19  Times Now
4. Coronavirus | Phase-2 trial with three drugs offers hope  The Hindu
5. Coronavirus: 3-drug regimen proved effective for COVID-19  Deccan Herald
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Promising coronavirus vaccine candidate from China in talks to be tested globally  Times Now
2. China conducts first successful coronavirus vaccine test on monkeys  Times of India
3. Inactivated PiCoVacc vaccine found safe, efficacious in animal study  The Hindu
4. Chinese drugmaker in talks to test coronavirus vaccine globally: Report  Hindustan Times
5. Covid-19: The race to develop coronavirus vaccines is heating up  Times of India
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. England Cricket Board Teasing Kohli's Unique Dismissal by Rashid Has Riled up Desi Fans  News18
2. The best you’ve ever faced Virat Kohli?: ECB posts video of India captain’s dismissal to Adil Rashid  Hindustan Times
3. Virat Kohli picks his favourite match other than 2011 World Cup final  India Today
4. "The Best Ball You've Ever Faced?": ECB Asks Virat Kohli, Posts Throwback Video  NDTV Sports
5. The home giants: Time we stop scoffing at Indian cricket’s greatest strength  Scroll.in
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Amitabh Bachchan Remembers Sridevi And Irrfan In One Frame; See Pic  News18
2. Deepika Padukone & Amitabh Bachchan remember Irrfan Khan  NEWS9 live
3. Deepika Padukone recalls late Irrfan Khan with a throwback video of their tennis game; Says ‘please come back’  PINKVILLA
4. Deepika Padukone Remembers Irrfan Khan With A Sweet Memory From The Sets Of Piku  NDTV
5. Amitabh Bachchan remembers Sridevi, Irrfan Khan  Zee News
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Salman Khan and Jacqueline Fernandez share the inspiration behind their upcoming track 'Tere Bina' in the  Times of India
2. Iulia On Marriage Rumours With Salman Khan: Spending Life With Someone More Important Than Papers  News18
3. Salman Khan shoots song titled 'Tere Bina' with Jacqueline Fernandez at his Panvel farmhouse; reveals det  Times of India
4. Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez promote new song Tere Bina at his farmhouse: ‘This is our cheapest...  Hindustan Times
5. Tere Bina: Salman Khan And Jacqueline Fernandez Shoot A Music Video At The Actor's Farmhouse  NDTV
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Xiaomi Mi 10 vs OnePlus 8 Pro: A quick comparison of two flagship phones  India Today
2. “Too expensive!”: Does Xiaomi have an image problem in India?  TechPP
3. Xiaomi launches Mi 10 with 108MP camera: Price, offers and other details  Livemint
4. Can the Mi 10 Help Xiaomi Be Seen as a Premium Brand in India?  Gadgets 360
5. Xiaomi Mi 10 at Rs 49,999: Why it makes complete sense  India Today
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Max first sale in India to take place on May 12  Hindustan Times
2. Xiaomi spinoff Poco has an event next week to announce the long-rumored F2 Pro  Android Police
3. Redmi Note 9 Pro Max first sale on May 12th: price in India, specifications  91mobiles
4. Redmi Note 9 Pro Max First Sale Set for May 12: Price in India, Specifications  Gadgets 360
5. Redmi Note 9 Pro Max first sale in India scheduled for May 12: Price, specifications and more  India TV News
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Redmi K30 5G Speed Edition with new Snapdragon 768G SoC to launch on May 11th  91mobiles
2. Snapdragon 768G is real, specs leak online - GSMArena.com news  GSMArena.com
3. Xiaomi may have teased new Snapdragon 768G chip  Android Authority
4. Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon 768G chip will make its debut alongside the Redmi K30 5G Speed Edition on May 11th  Notebookcheck.net
5. Redmi K30 5G Speed Edition With Snapdragon 768G Is Now Official  Gizchina.com
6. View Full coverage on Google News