NATO Secretary General's message to the African Union

On behalf of NATO, please accept my best wishes for the success of the AMANI AFRICA II exercise. The exercise is yet another milestone for the African Union as it develops its capabilities to help meet the many complex challenges on the African continent.

Cooperation between NATO and the African Union has deepened steadily for a number of years, in a spirit of good will between our two organizations. At the request of the African Union, NATO has been providing various forms of assistance, such as planning and other support for the African Union’s current operations, as well as for its longer-term peacekeeping capabilities, including through the operationalisation of the African Standby Force. 

We have stepped up our training and education activities, in accordance with the African Union’s identified needs, including through Mobile Education Training Teams. At the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, a NATO Senior Military Liaison Officer is helping to enhance our technical cooperation as well as our political dialogue.

The AMANI AFRICA II exercise provides a further example of our excellent cooperation. NATO experts have supported the preparation phases of the exercise, and played an active role in the execution phase.

NATO’s support to the African Union complements that of the United Nations, the European Union, and African regional organizations, as well as that by individual nations. 

We all share the vision of African nations cooperating ever more closely and effectively in matters of peace and security.

BlackBerry’s first Android device ‘BlackBerry Priv’ goes on sale

For the first time in its history, Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry has launched a device running an operating system other than its own.

Banking on the popularity of Google’s Android operating system, and a nostalgic design featuring its famous QWERTY keyboard, the company has officially launched the BlackBerry Priv. But the stakes are high for the Waterloo, Ont.-based company – if the Priv is a flop, it’s almost certain BlackBerry will pull the plug on designing phones after a series of failed device launches. CEO John Chen said the company needs to sell at least five million devices this year to stay in the handset business – if they fail to reach that goal the company will turn focus attention on its software licensing and services division.

Releasing an Android-powered smartphone is intended to resolve one of BlackBerry’s biggest criticisms – a lack of apps. Handfuls of popular apps, from dating service Tinder to Candy Crush, were unavailable for years.

But the company isn’t ready to shed its identity entirely.

Aside from unique design features – including the slide-out QWERTY keyboard and flashing LED notification light that BlackBerry has become well-known for – the company’s developers have modified the operating system to add some of BlackBerry’s strengths.

BlackBerry is hyping the phone as the most secure Android device on the market, thanks to privacy-focused software features. The Priv – which stands for privacy and privilege – helps users learn who is accessing their information by monitoring the legitimacy of apps and outlining how many times services like Facebook access things like the device’s GPS co-ordinates, image files, microphone, or contacts.

Users can monitor and access their privacy information through an app dubbed “DTEK by BlackBerry,” which provides an overall security rating of the device based on things like its screen lock and the security of installed apps.

To further enhance security, BlackBerry has promised monthly security updates through its Android vulnerability patch program. That includes “hotfix” patching, which allows BlackBerry to push security updates for critical Android vulnerabilities directly to customers when needed.

One thing the Priv lacks from its competitors? Biometric security, such as a fingerprint scanner found on many Android devices and Apple’s iPhone.

It’s important to note, however, that the device currently runs Android Lollipop – the company is working on support for Google’s latest version, Android Marshmallow, but has not provided a timeline of when it will be ready.

So how does the hardware compare to other phones on the market?

Well, the Priv weighs about the same as an iPhone 6S Plus, with roughly the same-sized screen (the Priv measures 5.43 inches, compared to the iPhone’s 5.5 inch display). The screen also features Gorilla Glass 4 to protect from scratches; however, the Priv has a distinct curved design along both sides of the device.

The device does get bonus points for its camera. The back-facing camera has 18-megapixels and 4K video shooting capabilities – by comparison, Google’s new Nexus 6P and Apple’s iPhone 6S both have 12-megapixel back-facing cameras.

BlackBerry has said advance orders for the Priv have been higher than those for the Passport, Classic and Leap devices, though it hasn’t provided presales figures.

The Priv is available Friday from carriers including Bell, Rogers, Telus, Wind Mobile, and Sasktel, and on BlackBerry’s website, unlocked, for $899.

Google Calendar Now Lets You Recover Deleted Events

Google is making a small but useful change to the web version of Google Calendar. The service is adding a "trash can" button that lets users delete events, and then quickly undelete them if a meeting has been rescheduled or an event needs to be put back on the calendar.

According to a blog post, the new "Trash" function is intended to mimic similar functionality in Google Mail and Drive, and to introduce easy undo settings for users.

The update will roll out over the next week to Google Calendar users. Google will send an explanatory email the first time a user tries the function.

GOOGLE MAY REVAMP THE ANDROID ONE PROGRAM

If a new report is accurate, Google plans to loosen the requirements for the Android One program, launched earlier this year. The rework comes after a dismal year for the program, managing to hit only three million unit sales across 19 countries.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google is working with Lava — a popular phone brand in India, and an existing Android One partner — and may launch a new low-cost phone in the coming months. Google also plans to let manufacturers have more freedom to choose components, potentially remove some of Google’s less popular services, and set different prices. Until now, the Android One program has been tightly controlled by Google, and made it difficult for manufacturers to produce phones down to a low price

Google will still want to maintain some control, because a key feature of Android One phones is the almost stock operating system that’s treated to frequent updates, much like Nexus devices. Whether these compromises and alterations will be enough for manufacturers to work on the Android One program more often remains to be seen.

So far, Google has only seen three million Android One sales across 19 countries. In India, the flagship country for the program, only 1.2 million Android One sales were recorded, according to research firm Counterpoint.

That accounts for 3.5-percent of the $50 to $100 Indian mobile market, less than half of the 7.5 percent Xiaomi managed to acquire with its similarly priced Redmi devices. Samsung and Micromax are strong competitors for Google in the region, and neither fully back Android. Instead, Samsung pushes its own Tizen mobile OS, and Micromax has partnered with Cyanogen.

Android One is not the only program developed by Google to bring more Indians online. Google’s parent company Alphabet recent engaged in talks with the Indian government on the subject of launching satellite balloons across the country, as part of Project Loon. Facebook is also heavily invested in bringing the 1.2 billion people in the country onto the Web, launching its free Internet initiative in the region earlier this year.

General Motors To Review Global PR Agencies For All Brands

General Motors is planning to launch reviews for all of its PR agency partners around the globe, with the goal of consolidating with one agency of record per brand. communications for the automaker, said the reviews will "take place for the most part in 2016," except for Cadillac, which will begin before the end of the year.

Each GM brand, such as Chevrolet and Cadillac, will consolidate from multiple PR firms to one global partner, said Mr. Cervone. However, one agency may work on both Buick and GMC.

GM has strong agency support right now, he added, so it's not an issue of underperformance, but rather the fact that the current structure is too complicated. "We're not able to fully take advantage of agencies and their abilities to run effectively and globally counsel us and leverage our skill sets," said Mr. Cervone.

The automaker will invite incumbents, such as Weber Shandwick and MSLGroup, which both do corporate work for GM; FleishmanHillard (Cadillac and Chevrolet) and John Doe (Buick and GMC) among others now on the roster to compete in the reviews.

While Mr. Cervone declined to disclose budgets, he said that they will not be trimmed.

"We're not trying to drive fear into the agency world," he said. "It's really about transforming how we're working with agencies and the way we've historically used agency resources to build on what we do normally day in and day out."

With a more streamlined communications team, Mr. Cervone said the company and its brands will have better message alignment and consistency around the world, which is "more important than ever today."

GM ranked as third largest ad spender in the U.S. according to the latest ranking from the Ad Age Datacenter. In 2014, the company spent $3.12 billion on advertising in the U.S.

Earlier this year, GM was one of a several automakers, including Lincoln, Jaguar, Honda, and Acura, that decided not to advertise during the Super Bowl.

Facebook to Tell Brands More About Who's Near Their Stores

Facebook knows a lot about where you go online, but it also knows a lot about where you go in the real world. And now it's going to start sharing some of that information with marketers.

Starting in the U.S. on Thursday, Facebook will provide marketers with more information about the people in the vicinity of their stores, including what percentage of those passersby may have seen the brand's ad on Facebook and other insights into foot traffic trends. And to push more of that foot traffic into stores, the company is giving brands new ways to tailor their ads when people are nearby.

The effort comes as cellphone carriers are trying to offer marketers similar details about consumers' movements and demographics, based in part on the information they have on their subscribers.

Marketers can now use a new section within Facebook's page insights tool to get that better look at the foot traffic around individual business locations. While the local insights tab will be available for free to any business with a Facebook page that uses the page's location features, brands that advertise on Facebook will be able to see what share of the people passing by a store's location had seen one of the brand's ads within the past 28 days.

Updated once a day, that aggregated, anonymized information won't report the actual number of people that passed near a store. Instead it will provide trend information over the past week, month or quarter so that businesses can see when particular groups of people are more or less likely to be nearby, as well as what times of the day or days of the week are the busiest in the neighborhood. That information will include breakdowns by age and gender, which can be cross-referenced to see when men or women of a certain age are typically in the vicinity. Facebook will break down ages into several groups: 18 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, 55 to 64 and people over 65 years old.

Facebook will also report whether people are from out of town or live within 200 kilometers of a store's location, but brands won't be able to filter that information by age group or gender. Facebook determines whether someone lives within that radius by using signals like the city someone lists on their Facebook account as where they live and, if someone lets Facebook track their location, where that person typically uses Facebook.

Brands can view this information for people that pass within 50, 150 or 500 meters of a store's location. However Facebook will not be telling marketers what share of that foot traffic actually enters their stores. "We're not announcing that at this time," said Matt Idema, Facebook's VP of monetization product marketing.

Because the foot-traffic information is aggregated and anonymized, marketers won't be able to see what individuals were near their stores. If people don't want Facebook to be able to gather even this type of location information about them, they can turn off Facebook's ability to track their location by clicking on the "more" tab in Facebook's mobile app, then clicking on account settings and finally location settings, which will display a toggle to turn off the location tracking.

Facebook is also getting more local with the ads that retailers can show people on the social network. A year after adding the ability for brands to target people who are within a certain distance from a store, Facebook will now let brands in 60 countries around the world that run Facebook pages for multiple individual store locations to customize those ads to each location.

The ads will automatically pull in information about the nearest store, like where it's located, its phone number and links to call that location or get directions to it. Advertisers will be able layer in Facebook's other ad-targeting options -- including age, gender and interests -- as well as upload customer lists through Facebook's custom audience program. After the ads run, they will be able to check out how the ads perform for each location.

America's Favorite--And Least Favorite--Brands

How do brands like Apple maintain their reign over successive lists of favorite brands? According to Michael J. Silverstein, senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), “They use technical and functional attributes to drive original choice and win by owning the heart and the mind.”

Apple leads a list of favorite brands recently released by BCG, based on a survey in which consumers were asked to respond to queries about how various brands made them feel, and how they felt having purchased products from those brands.

There are few surprises at the top of the list. Apple holds the first spot–as it does on so many other rankings–with respondents giving the tech titan strong marks for reliability, quality products, new offerings, and a sense of trust with the consumer. Emotionally, respondents also felt that purchasing Apple products gave them the sense of having made a smart decision, and also made them feel “excited” and “comfortable.” Another perennial favorite, Amazon, comes in second, with consumers citing convenience, trust, and the “detailed information” the company provides about its products as pluses, as well as feelings of intelligence and confidence associated with making purchases from the website. 

Walmart comes in third, earning high marks for good value. Netflixand Costco round out the top five, while Samsung, Coca-Cola, Target, Jet Blue, and Chick-fil-A fill out the top 10. Of note, some of the country’s favorite brands are simultaneously its least favorite.

“Brand love can be volatile and turn quickly negative,” warns a statement from the company, “a phenomenon that ought to keep even the most successful brands on their toes.”

Favorite number three Walmart sits atop the list of America’s least favorite brands, with one respondent quoted as saying, “I don’t like what Walmart stands for. They have cheap products and they treat their workforce cheaply. I do not want to be a part of that.”

Brand ranking darling Apple is the third least favorite, with survey respondents calling the company “secretive,” “arrogant,” and “elitist.”

“I think they are overpriced, over-hyped, and more flash than function,” wrote one consumer.

The report also highlighted emerging brands, as identified by survey participants as “a brand that you like that could be the ‘next big thing’ in its category.” Respondents mentioned brands including jewelry-maker Alex & Ani, Dre Beats, GoPro, Hulu, Nest, Oculus Rift, Snapchat, Tesla, Uber, and Virgin America. 

“Brands are fragile and they fail,” said Silverstein. “Sometimes brands that are loved are also least liked. No brand is stable–they’re either rising or declining.”