Glaring pattern maker logo reveal

Vizio today filed its S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as the TV and soundbar maker heads toward an initial public offering. “We envision the Vizio smart TV as the center of the connected home — where families play games together, where friends watch movies together, where work and learning happen, and where all things in between take place,” Vizio founder, chairman, and CEO William Wang wrote in a letter that opens the S-1. “Going public is an important milestone for us as we continue to grow and execute our goals.” The filing reveals that Vizio has sold over 80 million TVs and 11 million soundbars since the company’s founding. It sold 7.1 million TVs in 2020. Vizio’s TVs have long delivered performance and picture quality far above their price, though in recent years competitors like TCL have tried to outdo the company in this regard. “We will continue our successful hardware business, iterating on models as we’ve done before, and at the same time build our name … [Read more...] about Vizio files to go public, has sold over 80 million TVs

SINGAPORE: Tired and hungry after a long day at work, Mr Derrick Tay was looking forward to returning home for a warm shower, having something to eat and watching Netflix in bed. But something caught his attention while he was mindlessly thumbing through his phone in the train around 9pm on Friday a week ago: Images of shoppers making a mad dash for groceries at supermarkets across the island. While Singaporeans have earned a reputation for being kiasu (Hokkien for the fear of missing out), it was a scene that no one has witnessed here before - not even during the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis in 2003 or the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Just hours earlier, the Ministry of Health (MOH) had raised the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (DORSCON) risk assessment level from Yellow to Orange. READ: Coronavirus outbreak: Singapore raises DORSCON level to Orange; schools to suspend inter-school, external activities READ: No need to rush for supplies, says … [Read more...] about The Big Read: Panic buying grabbed the headlines, but a quiet resilience is seeing Singaporeans through COVID-19 outbreak

PARIS: As shopping trends peak over Christmas, this might be a timely moment to gauge the effects of a kind of retail therapy that researchers call compensatory consumption – but one that has a non-conscious process behind it. Indeed, why precisely do consumers buy products that they don’t really need? And if shopping is supposed to be therapeutic, to what degree is such consumption helping them to deal with their insecurities? Most importantly, once they buy the product, does that purchase actually make them feel better? These are the questions which have driven our research since 2015, absorbed as we are by the hidden impulses driving people’s consumption choices. What we have discovered is that certain marketing tactics, associated with forms of consumption, including the ones we see around Christmas time, might adversely impact consumer well-being. By bringing these findings to the fore we hope they can help consumers understand and rein in emotional impulses that drive … [Read more...] about Commentary: Retail therapy won’t repair your damaged sense of self-worth

In this Mediterranean capital watched over by the still-kicking Vesuvius volcano, tourist numbers have more than doubled since 2010, crime has dropped (notably, the murder rate is down 44 per cent in 2018 over the previous year, according to the Ministry of the Interior), and the intransigent piles of trash are far fewer. Elena Ferrante’s beloved Neapolitan Novels (and the ongoing HBO adaptation of them) – along with the gritty Gomorrah books, movie and TV series – has roused curiosity about a destination long considered little more than a steppingstone to Capri, Ischia and Amalfi. And while the Museo Archeologico, with its extraordinary collection of antiquities, remains a bit neglected, most of the city’s art, culture and social scene are on an optimistic bender, and the charms of Naples – the Baroque excess, the indulgent cuisine, the mesmerising fugue state of it all – beckon as they did in the city’s Grand Tour glory days. READ > Weekend in Milan: Where to sip and sup … [Read more...] about Suits with a side of pizza and espresso: How to spend a weekend in Naples, Italy