Shopify POS Smart Grid Now Lets Merchants Select Discount Codes From a Dropdown Instead of Typing Them Manually
Shopify has upgraded its POS Smart Grid editor to include a dropdown menu for selecting discount codes when building Discount tiles. The change replaces the previous free‑text field, which was vulnerable to typos and mismatched codes. Each tile now pulls a validated discount directly from the Shopify admin, automatically applying the correct logic, eligibility rules, and values at checkout. The update streamlines the in‑store checkout experience for merchants and their customers.
EBay Beta Testing Video Ads in Promoted Listings Priority Cost-per-Click Placements Starting in Australia
eBay has begun beta‑testing a video‑enabled version of its Promoted Listings Priority in Australia. The feature allows sellers to attach 5‑ to 60‑second videos that auto‑play in eligible ad placements, reverting to static images where video isn’t supported. Pricing remains...
UK, European Consortium Launches Nomadlink Connectivity Solution
A UK‑European consortium comprising Excelerate Technology, Eutelsat and Livewire Digital has unveiled the Nomadlink connectivity trailer. The mobile unit promises near‑instant broadband for rural and isolated sites, targeting large public gatherings, major incidents and other high‑demand scenarios. By integrating satellite...
Strait of Hormuz LNG Disruption Exposes Risks to Global LNG Supply and Asian Gas Markets
Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has constrained tanker flows, cutting roughly 20% of global LNG supply. The shutdown of Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant and reduced transit capacity have driven sharp price spikes across Asian and European markets. Approximately 90%...
Dr. Paul Marik Offers New Hope for Cancer Patients
Dr. Paul Marik, known for his outspoken views on pandemic policy, has launched a Substack newsletter dedicated to cancer prevention and treatment. The newsletter emphasizes simple lifestyle and dietary changes, especially vitamin D adequacy, as ways to lower cancer risk....
Pentagon Begins Replacing Anthropic’s AI Tools in Military Operations with Alternative Models
The Pentagon is actively replacing Anthropic’s Claude model with alternative large‑language models, a transition Cameron Stanley says will take more than a month. OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI have already secured clearance for classified work, while Google is rolling out...
The HCCH Website Now Features E-Country Profiles
The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) has added an e‑country profile section to its website, allowing states to publish practical guidance on its conventions. To date, only the United States and Latvia have posted profiles for the Service...
Summa Networks, Cataleya Partner on Secure Core and VoIP Platforms
Madrid‑based Summa Networks and communications‑software specialist Cataleya have announced a partnership to deliver secure, cloud‑native core‑network and VoIP signalling platforms for mobile operators. The joint offering combines Summa’s modular HLR, HSS, EPC and IMS stack with Cataleya’s Orchid Link Session Border...
Laser Process Creates Silicon-Graphene Battery Anodes that Barely Lose Charge
Researchers at Tel Aviv University have unveiled a single‑step laser technique that fabricates prelithiated silicon‑graphene anodes under ambient conditions. The process embeds lithium directly into silicon nanoparticles within a graphene matrix, eliminating binders, conductive additives, and multi‑step chemistries. Resulting electrodes...
Army Training Dropout Rate Falls
The Ministry of Defence reports that the British Army’s Phase 1 training attrition has fallen to 19 percent in the 2024/25 recruiting year, matching pre‑2020 levels. The dropout rate declined from a peak of 29 percent in 2021/22, then 25 percent in 2022/23, and...
ESA to Incentivise the Use of European Launchers for LEO Cargo Return Initiative
The European Space Agency announced a €50 million incentive to encourage the use of Ariane 6 or other European launchers for its ALADDIN demonstration missions, part of the LEO Cargo Return Services program. Up to €420 million per contract will be awarded, split...
You're Invited: April Private Roundtable - The War in Iran
Geopolitical Dispatch is hosting a private roundtable on April 6‑7 to dissect the war in Iran and its potential outcomes. The 60‑minute session includes a 30‑minute briefing followed by an off‑the‑record discussion with authors and experts. Attendees will explore implications...
Russia Sees Investment in Public Wi-Fi Networks More than Double in 2025
Russia’s public budget for public Wi‑Fi upgrades jumps to 9.62 billion roubles in 2025, more than double the 3.77 billion allocated in 2024. Data traffic on these networks surged 10.6‑fold year‑on‑year, reaching 13.8 million petabytes. The growth is linked to mobile‑internet disruptions caused...
Porsche Patent’s Koenigsegg-Style Manual Shifter for Auto Transmission
Porsche has filed a shift‑by‑wire manual‑style shifter patent, echoing Koenigsegg’s gated selector on its CC850 hypercar. The electronic gear selector aims to merge the rapid, clutch‑less shifts of the PDK dual‑clutch system with the tactile engagement of a traditional manual....
CBS Evening News Is Dying
CBS Evening News, anchored by Tony Dokoupil, has seen a sharp ratings drop, shedding roughly 20% of its audience in the first week. Current average viewership sits at about 3.83 million overall and only 468,000 in the coveted 25‑54 demographic, far...
Clean Slate Law Hits Milestone
Connecticut’s Clean Slate law has automatically erased criminal records for more than 150,000 residents, targeting eligible misdemeanors after seven years and low‑level felonies after ten years while excluding serious offenses. The program, launched in 2023 following the 2021 legislation, marks...
Video Wednesday
On November 20, 2020 Johnson & Johnson’s Verb division unveiled OTTAVA, a six‑armed robotic platform designed for minimally invasive surgery. The system combines modular hardware with AI‑driven control to perform simultaneous tasks, promising greater precision and efficiency. Early trials indicate up to...
Tennessee Captive Premium Doubles in 2025
The Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance licensed five new captives and 50 new cells in 2025, pushing the state's captive portfolio to 184 captives and 703 cells. Captive premiums surged to $4.2 billion, exactly double the $2.1 billion recorded in 2024....
Iran War: Qatar Airways Evacuates Four Widebody Airplanes to a Deep Storage Facility in the Aragon Mountains
Qatar Airways evacuated four Airbus A330 wide‑bodies from Doha to Tarmac Aerosave in Teruel, Spain, after the Iran‑Qatar conflict shut Qatari airspace in late February. The deep‑storage facility, known for housing aircraft long‑term, offers protection from desert sand and corrosion....
Digital Twins Double up and Down
Control’s latest resource hub aggregates a broad set of digital‑twin assets—from Covestro’s polymer‑process model and ABB’s ten industry case studies to Sandia’s 42‑page nuclear‑plant evaluation and MathWorks’ gas‑turbine diagnostics video. The collection also includes beginner guides, Siemens AI‑enhanced whitepapers, Nvidia’s...
Brazil Aims for 80% 5G Population Coverage by 2026
Brazil's Ministry of Communications aims for 80% of the population to have 5G coverage by the end of 2026, spanning 2,220 municipalities. This exceeds the original target of 1,469 cities. To date, 5G is active in about 1,420 municipalities, focusing...
The Naked Stress Test
The European Central Bank’s 2024 geopolitical‑risk reverse stress test asks banks to start with a worst‑case loss—three percentage points of their capital ratio—and work backwards to identify the geopolitical shock that could cause it. For BNP Paribas, that means roughly €20 billion...
A Look At The “FEPA Report”
The Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA), effective July 2024, obligates the DOJ to submit an annual report on foreign officials’ bribery demands and related enforcement actions. In a recent DOJ letter, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ronald Lampard outlined how the...
The Administration of Maritime Insolvencies Under the Paradigm of Cooperative Territoriality
Maritime insolvencies are uniquely international, involving owners, charterers, crew, and creditors across multiple jurisdictions. Existing cross‑border insolvency regimes such as the UNCITRAL Model Law and the European Insolvency Regulation adopt a universalist approach, which clashes with the territorial nature of...
Thermwood Gear Pump Patent Optimizes Large Format Extrusions
Thermwood’s new patent tackles bead‑size inconsistency in large‑format pellet extrusion by inserting a gear pump between the screw extruder and nozzle. The pump’s fixed displacement, synchronized with screw speed and guided by pressure feedback, decouples melt flow from rapid gantry...
America Is Digitally Fragile — and Our Adversaries Know It
The opinion piece warns that America’s critical infrastructure has become digitally fragile, with adversaries like China embedding persistent footholds in water, energy, telecom and port systems. U.S. cyber strategy remains episodic and reactive, allowing hostile actors to pre‑position capabilities before...
Fleet Advantage Launches Free Audit to Help Fleets Cut 2027 Truck Costs
Fleet Advantage has launched a complimentary Capital Cost Avoidance Program (CCAP) audit, debuting at the ATA Technology & Maintenance Council meeting in Nashville. The audit offers a procurement calculator, pull‑forward purchase strategies, and identifies incentives that can offset up to...
SPAC Fallout, Accrual Battles, and the Long Tail of De-SPAC Risk
The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Delaware Chancery Court’s ruling that the standard three‑year statute of limitations applies to fiduciary‑duty claims arising from de‑SPAC transactions. The court applied Delaware’s long‑standing occurrence rule, holding that the limitations clock starts when the...
Nvidia GTC 2026: Solidigm Introduces Luceta AI Software Suite AI Vision Platform
Solidigm unveiled the Luceta AI software suite, an end‑to‑end vision platform that lets enterprises build, deploy and continuously improve visual models for manufacturing, logistics, retail and more. The suite bundles a Data Agent, Model Agent, Pipeline Manager and Adaptive Agent,...
How RFID Data Is Transforming Logistics Back-Office Accuracy
RFID adoption in logistics is moving beyond warehouse floor visibility to reshape back‑office operations. By capturing timestamped, location‑specific events, RFID creates an event‑based data layer that replaces manual scans and carrier estimates. This data foundation automates freight audit, inventory reconciliation...
WEEKLY WEBCAST: Is Less Dire Strait Easing Market Fears? (With Special Guest Eric Wallerstein)
Dr. Ed’s latest webcast, featuring Eric Wallerstein, assesses the impact of the Strait of Hormuz tension on energy markets. He argues that the perceived blockade is less severe, with oil supply disruptions roughly half of worst‑case estimates. Iran’s decision to...
India Just Redrew the Map on Cross-Border Discovery
An appellate ruling by the Madras High Court in Softgel Healthcare v. Pfizer refused to execute U.S. Letters Rogatory seeking manufacturing records from an Indian API supplier, citing four provisions of the Hague Evidence Convention. The court rejected the request...
The EDRM Isn’t Broken; It’s Misunderstood.
Craig Ball argues that the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) isn’t fundamentally broken; its perceived flaws stem from widespread misunderstanding. He outlines common misconceptions, such as conflating distinct stages and applying outdated workflows to modern technology. The piece stresses that...
Why Data Matters for Shipbuilding Industrial Policy
The OECD policy brief highlights shipbuilding as a cornerstone of national competitiveness, economic security, and energy efficiency. It warns that many industrial‑policy decisions in leading shipbuilding nations rely on fragmented or outdated evidence. Four core data shortcomings—misaligned statistical definitions, opaque...
Achieving Operator Growth in the AI Development Era
At MWC Barcelona 2026, Huawei introduced an “Agentic Operations” framework for telecom operators, leveraging AI agents across user interaction, experience operations, and network O&M. The approach showcased rapid GTM acceleration in Kenya, a 30% reduction in handling time in Hong...
Liver Failure From Alternative Medicines
A recent Indian study of 91 patients exposed to alternative medicines found that 39.6% developed acute‑on‑chronic liver failure (ACLF), with a 38.9% mortality rate among those cases. Heavy‑metal contamination exceeded WHO limits in many products, and 27.7% contained undeclared pharmaceutical...
![[Guest Post] [Conference Report] Intellectual Property in the Gaming Industry (JDPI)](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSrqYAFbXxoFv9cNjpxVd0o9me9yS7YejRYAS8dIttFWC1R9f0z6eW6275fBFlOOxsXuPF8oj__dDYARtNjQABMLqUbKY4mbrfjzXKplZRBsJ-2dixJM07ZAG8CPLU4J8vXbVHj6JTDEpc4afXCsBB1jDZaln3rtc_sk1Uzs25-pvV7fvScBW0Ow/s72-c/pexels-70979789-8405029.jpg)
[Guest Post] [Conference Report] Intellectual Property in the Gaming Industry (JDPI)
The University of Geneva’s JDPI 2026 conference examined intellectual property challenges in the video‑game sector, emphasizing the difficulty of classifying games as software, audiovisual works, or hybrid creations. Speakers compared EU, US, and UK approaches, noting the EU’s aggregation model...
Live Nation Settlement Transparency Clause Is a Win for Artists
The Department of Justice’s proposed settlement with Live Nation adds an “Artist Transparency” clause that forces the ticketing giant to share ticket‑buyer information with performers upon request. The data will be provided under privacy safeguards and a DOJ‑approved non‑disclosure agreement....
Retail Building at 525 Tunxis Hill Road Sells for $888,888 in Fairfield, CT
Choyce Peterson brokered the sale of a fully leased 2,619‑square‑foot retail building at 525 Tunxis Hill Road in Fairfield, Connecticut for $888,888. The property, anchored by In Higher Spirits, sold to local investors Scott and Eva Howes, who intend to...
United CEO Scott Kirby Says Buying JetBlue Is Up To Them — As Government Travel Falls 50%
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told investors that government travel is down roughly 50%, eroding about 4‑5% of the carrier’s revenue. United is responding by retiring 21 aircraft early, cutting redeye flights and shifting its yield‑management system to fill seats...
☕ Morning Briefing — Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Israel confirmed a precision airstrike in Tehran that killed Ali Larijani, the de facto head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, along with his son and security staff. In the United States, an undercover James O’Keefe video alleges voter‑registration fraud on Los Angeles’...
The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse
The Boeing B‑1B Lancer, a long‑range strategic bomber, narrowly avoided cancellation after the Vietnam era left policymakers wary of heavy bombers. Reagan’s 1981 intervention revived the program, leading to the B‑1B’s first flight in October 1984 and operational deployment at...
Sixth Circuit Slaps Steep Sanctions on Two Lawyers for Fake Citations and Misrepresentations in Appellate Briefs
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals imposed steep sanctions on Tennessee lawyers Van R. Irion and Russ Egli after discovering more than two dozen fabricated or misrepresented case citations in their appellate briefs. The court ordered each attorney to...
US Joint Special Operations in Support of Earnest Will (1987-88): US Military Protection of Oil Tankers From Iranian Attacks
Operation Earnest Will (July 1987‑Sept 1988) saw the U.S. protect re‑flagged Kuwaiti tankers from Iranian attacks. To counter mines and fast‑boat raids, the Navy and Army converted two oil‑platform barges into mobile sea bases, deploying SEALs, Marines, helicopters and riverine...
Litigated Off-Channel Communications Charge Survives Motion to Dismiss: Where Are We on Books and Records?
A federal judge in Illinois refused to dismiss the SEC’s off‑channel communications claim in SEC v. Arete Wealth Management, affirming that the books‑and‑records rule applies to text messages. The court rejected Arete’s arguments that Rule 17a‑4 is unconstitutionally vague and...
Fixing Federal Permitting
The House passed H.R. 5419, the Enhancing Administrative Reviews of Broadband Deployment Act, directing the Interior and Agriculture departments to assess and report on administrative barriers to broadband permits on federal lands within a year. The bill follows previous executive...
Economic Signals – New Well Returns Rebound
The latest analysis shows new-well returns in Russia rebounding after a sharp dip, driven by the Iran crisis that has more than doubled Russian oil prices while the ruble weakens. Using the Marginal Well Model, the author demonstrates that the...
US Drops Bunker Busters on Coastal Iran Missile Sites Near Hormuz; Russia Expands Support for Iran in Targeting US Forces
U.S. Central Command confirmed that U.S. forces used multiple 5,000‑pound deep‑penetrator bombs to destroy hardened Iranian missile sites along the coast near the Strait of Hormuz. The sites housed anti‑ship cruise missiles that could threaten the vital shipping lane. Simultaneously,...
Room00 Plans €330 Million Investment to Scale Platform in 2026
Room00 announced a €330‑€420 million investment plan for 2026 to add 20 properties and more than 1,400 rooms across Spain, Italy, Portugal and the UK. Eighty percent of the capital will fund acquisitions of existing hostels and hotels, with the remaining...
Blog 109a. Cybersecurity Crisis in Healthcare: When AI and Ransomware Shut Down Patient Care.
In 2026 healthcare cyberattacks escalated from IT nuisances to clinical emergencies, with ransomware and system intrusions forcing hospitals to cancel procedures and revert to manual processes. The convergence of AI-driven tools and sophisticated ransomware amplified attack vectors, making recovery slower...