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[ad_1] Ola Dash, the 10-minute grocery delivery service launched by mobility unicorn Ola, has scaled down its business and temporarily suspended operations of most of its dark stores due to a shortfall in demand, said two sources aware of the development. Sources also added that Ola Dash will now focus only on three cities – Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai – while putting on hold expansion into newer cities. Ola Dash is currently available in six other cities, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Lucknow with 200 operational dark stores, the start-up claimed in a January 2022 statement. Ola joined the quick commerce (q-commerce) bandwagon in late December 2021, starting with Bengaluru offering basic groceries. The 10-minute delivery service had revealed plans to launch a network of 500 dark stores in 20 cities. However, the q-commerce service from Ola seems to have starting troubles with its expansion plans mostly due to hyper-competitiveness in the q-commerce sector which has seen an explosion in venture capital funding, said one of the sources mentioned above. “Ola Dash has had trouble sourcing demand in many of the cities it recently ventured into, especially in the Delhi and NCR regions (launched in Dec 2021). The company has fired several store managers and delivery workers in the Delhi NCR geography and shut down dark stores temporarily,” said one of the sources seeking anonymity as the person is not allowed to speak with media. Apart from grocery delivery, Ola also operates a fully-managed cloud kitchen unit named Ola Foods which was launched in 2019. It currently operates multiple private labels such as Khichdi Experiment, Paratha Experiment, Biriyani experiment, and many others. It competes closely with other cloud kitchen start-ups such as Freshmenu, Faasos, Box8 and others. To be sure, this isn’t Ola’s first experiment in the grocery delivery segment. Its first attempt in the grocery delivery space came under the ‘Ola Store’ branding in June 2015. This was also shuttered down later due to operational constraints. However, the company has also been unsuccessful with its ventures in food delivery across products like Ola Cafe and Foodpanda. Just 18 months after acquiring Foodpanda India and spending $200 million on the operations, Ola completely shut down the unit in May 2019 and laid off several employees. Nevertheless, Ola’s current entry into the grocery delivery market is warranted due to a spurt in q-commerce. It is now one of the hottest consumer internet segments that has attracted massive investor attention. Start-ups such as Swiggy, Zepto, BBNow and Blinkit are already topping consumer internet funding charts. In December 2021, Swiggy said it would invest $700 million into its instant grocery delivery service Instamart, while the latest contender, Zepto, raised $100 million at a $570-million valuation within just nine months of launch, breaking all previous records set by hyperlocal delivery firms. Incidentally, Ola Dash isn’t the only q-commerce start-up facing growth troubles. Albinder Dhindsa-led Blinkit also struggled to raise funds, forcing it to lay off employees and shut down its warehouses to conserve cash in March 2022. Food delivery unicorn Zomato is said to be in talks to acquire Blinkit in a share swap deal which could likely see the foodtech firm indirectly entering into the q-commerce competition. Highlights Sources say Ola Dash will now focus only on three cities – Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai – while putting on hold expansion into newer cities. Ola joined the quick commerce bandwagon in late December 2021 starting with Bengaluru, offering basic groceries. The 10-minute delivery service had revealed plans to launch a network of 500 dark stores in 20 cities, according to an earlier statement in January 2022. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Zachary Mannheimer, founder and CEO of Alquist 3D Andrew McCoy sees a future home that involves three-dimensional printers. “Let’s say someone decides they want a new faucet for their home,” said McCoy, a professor at the Virginia Center for Housing Research, who helped complete the first 3-D printed home in the U.S. “They go to Home Depot, scan a QR code, and out prints a new faucet.” Jason Ballard, the CEO and co-founder of Icon, a 3D home printing company in Austin, Texas, possesses a similar but far more sweeping vision. “In the future, neighborhoods and towns, and eventually cities, will be built by robots and drones,” Ballard said. To Ballard, 3D printing technology is evolving to solve a crisis in modern day America and the world: The failure to meet people’s demand for housing. “The future will mean housing is abundant, affordable, beautiful, diverse, and exciting,” Ballard said. The present is different. 3-D printed homes are just starting to get built. Besides questions of how to handle local zoning officials, building code bylaws, building trade unions, the cost of land, there is curiosity about who is steering the 3-D home printing ship. Are companies like Icon trying to make money? Are they more charity groups, or some kind of hybrid? “I don’t know if these companies can steward housing beyond pilot projects,” said Tyler Pullen, a researcher at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California-Berkeley. “All of their material seems more geared toward investor pitches and media buzz generation.” Still, no one who cares about housing can afford to be too cynical. “The state of the housing crisis,” Pullen said, “Is such that we do not have the luxury to say ‘no’ to any innovative approach.” The secret of the ooze A former Texas A&M cross country and track athlete and Episcopalian minister, Ballard in 2011 co-founded TreeHouse, a retailer to sell environmentally friendly home construction materials. TreeHouse worked with Tesla on an ecofriendly home battery and opened a 25,000-square-foot retail store in Dallas. But the company was out of business by 2018. By then, Ballard had bolted TreeHouse for Icon, an Austin, Texas company that debuted in 2018 at South by Southwest, the erstwhile Austin music festival where lurking A&R’s were long ago replaced by lurking venture capital investors. With a small group of homes in Mexico and plans for a 100-home community in Austin, in conjunction with top national homebuilder Lennar, Icon is the furthest along of the U.S. 3-D home printing companies. Another such company is Alquist, an Iowa City, Iowa business founded by Zachary Mannheimer. Mannheimer is former CEO of the Des Moines Social Club, an arts nonprofit. Alquist partnered with Habitat for Humanity to complete a now occupied 3-D printed home in Williamsburg, Virginia. Also in the 3D home printing business is Mighty Buildings, which is based out of Oakland, and described by its founder Slava Solonitsyn as a “startup to disrupt the trillion-dollar residential construction industry.” The company drew attention last year when it said it would complete a 15-home 3-D printed community in Rancho Mirage, California by this spring. A prolific investor, Solonitsyn also has money in PreNav, which hopes to “capture data about the world’s infrastructure using small aerial robots.” A 20th century vision of the future, 3-D printers have existed since the 1980s. A 3-D printing synonym is additive manufacturing, a way of putting together three-dimensional material layer-by-layer. Ideally, an engineer designs a model of what they want on software, from an air duct to a prosthetic limb, and it is precisely printed out. One can produce the frame of the home like that, said McCoy of Virginia Tech. They just need a 1,200-square-feet or so printer, which McCoy estimated to cost about $160 a square foot, or $192,000 total.  Icon hopes to have 12 similar-sized printers, which they call the Vulcan, in the coming months. These companies’ goal for now is to print the home’s wall, creating the framework for one-story domiciles. “The walls are 3-D printed, and the rest of the home is built traditionally,” said Mannheimer of Alquist. “This means that the doors, windows, electrical all are done by contractors after the walls have been constructed.” The mix of materials used to print the walls is a variation of concrete. Icon, for example, calls its concrete “lavacrete,” and a company spokesperson explained, “Concrete formulations from one to another can be as different as people.” What is different in these framing materials, McCoy said, is a low water to cement ratio compared to normal concrete. There is something endearing in the 3-D printed wall’s construction. The printer has a nozzle that oozes the concrete variation, which is then layered and layered and layered, like icing on the world’s most grandiose wedding cake. The layers form an oval that is the basis of the home, and that basis can be printed out in 24 hours. The few homes completed so far have their own distinct look, partly evoking clay huts or single-story motels of mid-20th century America. One present limitation is the weather. “To print these homes the temperature should be between 60 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and cannot be below 40 degrees or above 95 degrees,” Mannheimer explained. “Printing can proceed in light rain, but not during heavy rain. Printing should not be attempted during high winds.” These walls are built offsite, a homebuilding future that connects to a past when prefabricated construction surged to meet demand. There were, for example, prefabs shipped out by Sears Roebuck in the first half of the 20th Century, as well as the balloon framed wood houses of the late 19th Century. “The lightwood frame was one of the greatest inventions they had at the time,” McCoy said. “A man in Iowa in the late 1800s would get a loan from the bank, take a train to Chicago, purchase a home, come back and the house is delivered, and his neighbors help him assemble it.” That

[ad_1] The post PointClub Review appeared first on Millennial Money. Looking for a quick and easy way to make money online? You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better way to make some cash than by taking online surveys.  A cool part about survey sites is that you don’t have to limit yourself to just one. Most people sign up for several different sites to maximize their earnings. That way, even if one site doesn’t have any available surveys, you can cycle through the others to keep earning.  In this post, I’ll review PointClub and everything it has to offer. At the end of it, you’ll be able to decide for yourself if you want to add it to your survey rotation.  To start, here’s an overview of what PointClub is and how it works.  Overall Rating Pros Free to sign up Cash or gift card payouts $5 sign-up bonus Daily Streak Bonus Cons High payout threshold No mobile app Low earning potential 2% fee for PayPal cash outs  What Is PointClub? PointClub is an online platform that provides paid survey opportunities to its members. It’s owned by Innovative Market Research.  Unlike some other rewards sites (e.g., Swagbucks and InboxDollars), PointClub focuses entirely on surveys. There are no options to watch ads or play games for points. Instead, members can focus their energy on grinding through market research questions.  How Does PointClub Work? The way PointClub works is similar to most paid survey sites and apps. When you sign up for a free account, you first fill out a brief questionnaire to establish your demographic. PointClub uses this information to find surveys that you’ll qualify for.  From there, you can see your available PointClub surveys. When you start one, you’ll answer a couple more screening questions. If you qualify, you can continue to complete the survey.  When you’re finished, you earn a certain number of reward points, which you can redeem for cash or gift cards. Sounds simple, right? That’s because it is. Get Started With PointClub PointClub Features Online surveys PointClub surveys are available to anyone 13 years or older. They’re mostly intended for folks in the United States, but other countries may have some available. New surveys pop up daily, and an average survey takes anywhere from five to 30 minutes to complete. You can expect to earn between 200 and 2,000 points for each survey. Usually, you’ll earn more money on longer surveys versus shorter ones. Each point equals $0.001, so 1,000 points are worth $1.  It’s not exactly a thrilling amount of money. But at least it’s something, right? You can also boost your point totals by logging in regularly. PointClub offers a Daily Streak Bonus of up to 10%, so even if you don’t have time to take a survey, you should try to log in every day for extra rewards. There is no mobile app. But the PointClub website works well on mobile browsers for survey-taking on the go.  Learn More: How to Make Money Online Fast: 21 Legit Ways Swagbucks vs. Survey Junkie Survey ROI Calculator Best Survey Apps for 2022 Bonus points On top of surveys, PointClub periodically offers extra point opportunities. These could be short quizzes, polls, giveaways, or other activities.  These bonus points aren’t typically high amounts. But if you ask me, free points are never a bad thing. PointClub also assures that more earning opportunities are on the way as the platform grows. Payment options To cash out your earned points, you need a balance of at least 25,000, which is worth about $25. This threshold is on the higher end for survey sites, so it could take a little while to get there. When you do build up enough, you can redeem your points for PayPal cash or e-gift cards. If you go with PayPal, you’ll have to absorb a 2% fee. Gift cards are free, and you can choose from more than 80 vendor options. Here are some of the most popular cards available: Walmart Amazon Home Depot Google Play Visa Tango Sephora PointClub Pricing and Fees Aside from the fee for cashing out to your PayPal account, PointClub is entirely free to use. There’s no sign-up fee, and you don’t need to pay for a subscription.  This is typical of nearly all survey sites. Seeing that most survey sites come with relatively low earning potential, you shouldn’t be spending money to access them.  Furthermore, some might categorize surveys as passive income. But the reality is that they take time and some effort to complete. With this in mind, my advice is simple: Only take surveys when you wouldn’t be making money otherwise. They aren’t lucrative enough to take time away from a true side hustle.  That said, they can still be a good way to make a few bucks in your downtime.  Signing Up and Getting Started You can join PointClub by setting up an account at pointclub.com. You need to enter your email address and home address to get started or you can sign up through Google or your Facebook page. Once your PointClub account is confirmed, you’ll need to fill out your initial questionnaire. Keep an eye out for “red herring” questions, which are there to ensure that you aren’t clicking at random. Survey sites need to ensure that they’re getting accurate information, and you’ll get fewer opportunities if you don’t answer honestly.  From there, you should see your available surveys, which you can start taking right away.  PointClub Promotions, Bonuses, and Coupons When you enroll with PointClub, you automatically get a 5,000 point ($5) sign-up bonus in your account. Considering the high payout threshold, this is a nice boost to get you closer to earning real money. Unlike most survey sites, PointClub doesn’t currently offer a referral bonus, though it has in the past. Fingers crossed they’ll launch a new referral program in the future. PointClub Security PointClub collects your name, email, address, and home address when you sign up. The site will also

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[ad_1] U.S. trade representative Tai to travel to Britain for continued talks [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Elon Musk’s Tesla announced the first quarter results bringing the much needed mojo back in the stock market after the poor show by Netflix. Nasdaq Composite was up by 1.20 per cent with Tesla up by about 9 per cent after the market opened on Thursday. Tesla share price trades at nearly $1065 and is up by almost 48 per cent over the last 1-year. Tesla Financials The first quarter of 2022 was another record quarter for Tesla by several measures such as revenues, vehicle deliveries, operating profit and an operating margin of over 19%. Total revenue of Tesla grew 81% YoY in Q1 to $18.8B. The increase in revenue was impacted by the growth in vehicle deliveries and increased average selling price (ASP). Tesla’s operating income improved to $3.6B in Q1, resulting in a 19.2% operating margin. Tesla’s quarter-end cash, cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities increased sequentially by $0.3B to $18.0B in Q1, driven mainly by free cash flow of $2.2B and partially offset by debt repayments of $2.1B. Tesla Delivers In the past two months, Tesla began deliveries of Model Y from Gigafactory Texas and Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg with negligible impact on Q1 gross profit. At the same time, the company is putting significant efforts into in-house cell production, raw material procurement and supplier diversification. Challenges Challenges around the supply chain have remained persistent for the company. In addition to chip shortages, recent Covid-19 outbreaks have been weighing on the supply chain and factory operations. Furthermore, prices of some raw materials have increased multiple-fold in recent months. The inflationary impact on the cost structure has contributed to adjustments in Tesla’s product pricing, despite a continued focus on reducing manufacturing costs where possible. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Wow! Don’t miss this RARE sale from Gymboree to score 75% off clearance and free shipping! Today only, Gymboree is having a 75% off Clearance Sale! No promo code needed. Plus, shipping is free on all orders! This is a RARE sale and there are tons of amazing deals! What a great time to grab some summer clothes for the kids. Here are some deals you can get… Get Girl’s 2-Pack Tights for just $3.74 shipped! Get Girl’s Leggings for just $4.99 shipped! Get Girl’s Tees for just $6.74 shipped! Get Boy’s Baseball Hats for just $4.99 shipped! Get Boy’s Tanks for just $4.99 shipped! Get Baby and Kid’s Shoes as low as $6.74 shipped! Valid today only, April 21, 2022. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Biden to announce additional $800 million in security assistance for Ukraine -senior U.S. official [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Europe is struggling to find ways to stop paying Russia USD 850 million a day for energy and hit the Kremlin’s finances over its invasion of Ukraine. Leaders of the 27-member European Union are finding that reversing decades of dependence on Russian oil and natural gas is not a simple matter. The EU is now discussing sanctions on Russian oil, including a possible boycott. Here is what such a move could mean for people in Europe and the rest of the world: HOW MUCH DOES EUROPE PAY RUSSIA FOR ENERGY?Gas and oil are flowing to Europe even as governments denounce the war. The EU sends USD 450 million a day to Russia for oil and USD 400 million per day for natural gas, according to calculations by analysts at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. That means energy revenue is bolstering the Kremlin’s budget, adding to foreign currency reserves even as Western sanctions have targeted Russia’s reserves abroad. The Russian government got an average of 43% of its revenue from oil and gas between 2011 and 2020. HOW MUCH RUSSIAN OIL GOES TO EUROPE?Europe is the biggest purchaser of Russian crude, receiving 138 million tons in 2020 out of Russia’s total exports of 260 million tons — or 53%, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Europe, which imports almost all of its crude, gets a quarter of its needs from Russia. Oil is refined into fuel for heating and driving as well as being a raw material for industry. WHY IS THE FOCUS ON OIL INSTEAD OF NATURAL GAS?It’s harder to find alternative sources of natural gas because it comes mainly by pipeline. It would be easier to find other sources for oil, which mostly moves by tanker and is traded globally. Natural gas is off the table for now. Heavy users like Germany say an immediate cutoff could cost jobs, with industrial associations warning of shutdowns in glass and metals businesses. Cutting off both natural gas and oil would likely cause a recession in Europe, economists say. European governments agreed to stop Russian coal imports starting in August, but that’s a relatively small part of energy payments to Russia. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF RUSSIAN OIL SUPPLIES STOP?Europe imported 3.8 million barrels a day from Russia before the war. In theory, European customers could replace those barrels from suppliers in the Middle East, whose exports now mostly go to Asia, as well as from the United States, Latin America and Africa. Meanwhile, cheaper Russian oil could take the place of the Middle East shipments to Asia. But it would take time for global markets to make that adjustment. In Europe, customers might scramble to reverse the usual east-west movement of oil using rail, truck and river barge. Refineries making gasoline and other products are set up for Russia’s particular kind of oil. Several major refineries depend on a pipeline from Russia. Analysts at the Bruegel think tank say European countries should be ready to impose measures to reduce fuel use, such as making public transport free and incentivizing car-sharing. If those measures don’t work, tougher ones such as odd-even driving bans based on license plate numbers would be needed. Similar measures were taken during the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, when Germany imposed car-free Sundays. “This would give markets enough time for a structural reorientation away from Russian oil,” the analysts said. Phasing in a ban over the rest of the year would be one way to prevent shortages. Germany has already said it plans to end Russian oil imports by year’s end.Prices for oil would likely go up, not just for Europe but for everyone, because oil is a global commodity and a net loss of supplies from Russia would be likely. That would mean higher costs for driving and heating fuel and more consumer inflation. Russia is a major supplier of Europe’s diesel fuel for trucks and farm equipment, meaning its price affects those for a wide range of food and goods. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE GLOBAL OIL MARKET?All of Russia’s oil couldn’t be redirected from Europe to Asia due to shipping and logistical constraints. It’s not clear to what extent buyers in countries like India and China would buy Russian oil if it means possible sanctions trouble with the West. The OPEC oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia — which sets production levels along with allied non-members like Russia — has made it clear it won’t increase output to make up for any supply loss from Russia due to a boycott. “It would be a major, major, major rebalancing of crude flows,” said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president for analysts at Rystad Energy. “From a theoretical standpoint, it’s possible. From an operational standpoint, it’s more complicated because not everything can be redirected.” Global demand for oil was already high as economies rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, and uncertainties over the war exacerbated the tight market and high prices. U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered releases from the strategic petroleum reserve to combat rising gasoline prices for Americans, while 30 other nations also have agreed to send more oil to the global market. In the most severe scenario of a loss of Russia’s 3.8 million barrels to Europe and other countries refusing its oil, a huge price spike to USD 180 per barrel could happen, followed by a sharp fall due to declining demand and economic growth. However, “that does not look like it’s going to be the case,” Galimberti said. Rystad’s expectation is a loss of 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day and oil reaching USD 120 to USD 130 per barrel by year’s end. A milder scenario, in which most Russian oil shunned by Europe is snapped up at a discount in other energy-hungry countries, would see a loss of only 1 million barrels per day. Oil prices would drop below USD 100 by June and keep falling to USD 60 by year’s end. That’s not too far from

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