KTM takes drastic measures to cut losses - as financial woes worsen

It was just a couple of years ago that Pierer Mobility - owned KTM celebrated 12 straight years of record growth. Now, the company is in a dire crisis that requires a halt in production and the sacking of more than 300 employees. How did it get here?

Overproduction and quality issues are two of the main reasons for KTM’s state of affairs. In an emergency announcement released this past week, Pierer Mobility AG disclosed that KTM AG's liquidity strategy for the 2025 fiscal year will require additional funding to the tune of a "nine-figure sum in dollars." That's in the hundreds of millions for those not wanting to count zeroes.

To cut inventory, a production halt is planned in Mattighofen in Austria. This will result in around 300 layoffs. KTM states that investor talks are in progress and that it remains to be seen if these "measures are sufficient." The KTM AG group accounts for more than 95% of Pierer Mobility AG’s revenue.

For a while now KTM has been announcing layoffs and job relocations to China. The managers at Mattighofen have previously downplayed the situation, claiming that Europe's biggest motorcycle manufacturer could handle its current financial crisis on its own. However, that crisis has worsened.

It all started towards the end of last year when KTM AG decided to shift production of its “mid-range models” and certain R&D from Austria to China (CF Moto) and India (Bajaj Auto) – all of which resulted in job losses for some 300 employees in Austria. At that point, the board of directors cited discouraging economic conditions in Europe, slowing economic growth, increasing inflation, and higher interest rates as the reasons behind the moves.

Wanna know what the real problem is here? We all like new shiny things, but I've been horrified by all the unnecessary tech and huge price tags attached to bikes these days. We need a dose of realism in motorcycling! If several of the big manufacturers (HD, BMW, Ducati - I'm looking at you) don't get that message & soon - some folks will get tempted to go to the dark side & buy into those dreadful Chinese bikes. As it is, in the UK, we've seen several major motorcycle dealerships go bust - in just the last few months. We need to encourage youngsters in - not just pander to older geezers with lots of available dosh! Have a look at this excellent video "The Affordability Crisis in Motorcycling" by Yammie Noob - it says it all...

www.newatlas.com

The Chosen: Last Supper Teaser (Season 5)

Watch this amazing trailer on YouTube. 

The table is set. The people of Israel welcome Jesus as king while his disciples anticipate his crowning. But—instead of confronting Rome—he turns the tables on his own religious festival. Their power threatened, the country’s religious and political leaders will go to any length to ensure this Passover meal is Jesus’ last.

www.thechosen.tv

Government consultation denies UK-wide bus lane access for bikers despite overwhelming support

The UK’s Labour Government have rejected a motion to allow bikers to use all bus lanes by default, releasing a statement claiming they have: “no policy to encourage greater use of motorcycles.”

The online consultation document ran from March 17 to July 16, 2024, and sought peoples’ views on allowing bikers to use bus lanes by default across the UK. At present, it is at the discretion of each local authority as to whether or not bikers can use the lanes.

“The safety benefits of allowing motorcycles into bus lanes are not clear at this time,” the consultation conclusion read. “Where data is available, the evidence varies. The response rate to this consultation, from local authorities and stakeholder organisations, was low and did not provide a robust evidence base on which to amend the current policy.”

www.motorcyclenews.com

Today's Reading: On worship - by C.S. Lewis

He demands our worship, our obedience, our prostration. Do we suppose that they can do Him any good, or fear, like the chorus in Milton, that human irreverence can bring about “His glory’s diminution”? 

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. 

But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God—though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain.

By C.S. Lewis

From The Problem of Pain

Google is (finally) turning Chrome OS into Android to compete with the iPad

Google is a massive tech company with nearly two hundred thousand employees, so it definitely has the manpower and resources to develop two different operating systems in Android and Chrome OS. While both Android and Chrome OS have seen huge success in different markets, they’ve struggled to compete in one product category where they overlap: tablets. The high-end tablet market is dominated by the Apple iPad, and no matter what Google has tried, it has failed to change that. However, a source tells Android Authority that Google is working on a multi-year project to fully turn Chrome OS into Android, and the end result could be a platform that finally bests the iPad.

Android as an operating system is designed for smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, TVs, cars, and soon XR glasses, whereas Chrome OS is primarily designed for laptops. While the term Chromebooks encompasses tablets as well, it’s fair to say that Chrome OS isn’t as suited for tablet use as Android is, at least when it comes to media consumption. On the flip side, it’s also a fair assessment that Android isn’t as suited for tablet use as Chrome OS is, at least when it comes to productivity. Google has tried to add features to both operating systems to bridge that gap, but even after a bit of convergence, neither platform managed to really eat Apple’s lunch.

www.androidauthority.com

Del Trotter's part in saving us from the Nazis

 

Wikipedia: The Eagle Has Landed is a 1976 British war film directed by John Sturges, and starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall.

Based on the 1975 novel The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins, the film is about a fictional German plot to kidnap Winston Churchill in the middle of the Second World War. The Eagle Has Landed was Sturges's final film, and was successful upon its release.

In this clip "Battle in the Village" at 6mins 23seconds in you will see what looks like Del Trotter's van behind a wall! Was this a blooper or did Del actually play his part? He who dares, wins!

www.youtube.com

D-Link won’t fix critical flaw affecting 60,000 older NAS devices

More than 60,000 D-Link network-attached storage devices that have reached end-of-life are vulnerable to a command injection vulnerability with a publicly available exploit.

The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-10914, has a critical 9.2 severity score and is present in the ‘cgi_user_add’ command where the name parameter is insufficiently sanitized.

An unauthenticated attacker could exploit it to inject arbitrary shell commands by sending specially crafted HTTP GET requests to the devices.

The flaw impacts multiple models of D-Link network-attached storage (NAS) devices that are commonly used by small businesses:

DNS-320 Version 1.00

DNS-320LW Version 1.01.0914.2012

DNS-325 Version 1.01,  Version 1.02

DNS-340L Version 1.08

In a technical write-up that provides exploit details, security researcher Netsecfish says that leveraging the vulnerability requires sending "a crafted HTTP GET request to the NAS device with malicious input in the name parameter.”

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Portsmouth Ride of Remembrance 2024

 

The organiser wrote: It was good to see so many of you out there. From my position on the wall it like there were 1000s of you. We counted 780 bikes parked up. I had printed off 1200 orders of service and we used every single one and could have done with more. On behalf of the Royal British Legion Riders branch - a massive thank you. 

An excellent gathering. Very well organized, massive thanks to all involved. The service was well attended, solemn & very moving. A true Blessing to attend.

Here is my video of the ride, and some photos here. We rode out from Lakeside North Harbour - Western road A27 - A3 - A3 Northern Parade - A3 Stamshaw road - A3 Mile End road - Church street - A2030 Holbrook road - B2151 Victoria road north - B2151 Victoria road south - B2151 Clarendon road - A288 South Parade them on to the Southsea Common via the eastern end (D Day museum end) of the Esplanade.

They shall grow not old
As we that are left grow old 
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun 
And in the morning
We will remember them 

When you go home, tell them of us and say, 

for your tomorrows, we gave our today

www.youtube.com

CrowdStrike part 2: crashes Microsoft Office on Windows 11 24H2

Enterprise users at companies that employ CrowdStrike antivirus software and have received prompts to upgrade their operating systems to Windows 11 24H2 should probably wait. The security toolchain has encountered another faulty update that could make Microsoft Office apps unusable. Fortunately, the problem isn't as widespread as the incident from earlier this year.

Microsoft is investigating an error that causes Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel to crash after users upgrade to Windows 11 24H2. The problem only impacts companies and managed IT environments, so those using Windows 11 Home or Pro on personal devices need not worry.

The issue was traced to an update for CrowdStrike's Falcon sensor software. It triggers when a host's Prevention Policy engages the "Enhanced Exploitation Visibility Prevention Policy." Other antivirus programs and older versions of Windows likely aren't affected, but Microsoft hasn't ruled out the possibility.

www.techspot.com

Honda GB350S - more of what the motorcycle market needs: affordable quality!

Honda has been showing a remarkable ability to undercut the competition with its new motorcycles over the last few years – with machines like the CB750 Hornet, Transalp and the new CB1000 Hornet all surprising with their combination of a low RRP and relatively high specification. The further down the market you more the more difficult it becomes to undercut rivals but Honda’s GB350S is doing its best to repeat the feat by coming in at under the £4k mark at £3949 when it reaches dealers in January 2025.

That puts it as close as makes no difference to its nearest rival, the £3899 Royal Enfield HNTR 350, and substantially undercuts the Enfield Meteor 350 or Classic 350 models. Given the sales success of those machines in recent years, Honda is well placed to cash in.

Well done Honda! We all like new shiny things, but I've been horrified by all the tech and huge price tags attached to bikes these days. We need a dose of realism in motorcycling! If the big manufacturers don't get that message & soon - some folks will get tempted to go to the dark side & buy into Chinese bikes. Yuk!

www.bennetts.co.uk

Another Smart Device SNAFU: air fryers that are more like air spyers!

UK consumer champion Which? wants you to know that your air fryer might be spying on you and sharing your data with third parties for marketing purposes.

The perhaps not-so-surprising findings from the buyer's friend are that smart devices in general are engaged in surveillance of their owners, and that data collection often goes "well beyond" what is necessary for the functioning of the product.

Although Which? is a UK organization – a wholly owned subsidiary of the Consumers' Association – its findings will apply just as much to devices sold in other countries.

Testing out products across four categories, the outfit discovered that all three air fryers it looked at wanted permission to record audio on the user's phone, for no specified reason.

One wanted to know gender and date of birth when setting up an owner account, while the Xiaomi app linked to its air fryer was found to be connected with trackers from Facebook, Pangle (the ad network of TikTok for Business), and Chinese tech giant Tencent.

Air fryers from brands Aigostar and Xiaomi both sent the owner's personal data to servers in China – although this was flagged in the privacy notice, for what it's worth.

This prompts the obvious question: why the heck would you want an air fryer that connects to other devices?

www.theregister.com

Do you recall "Microsoft Recall"? Well Microsoft has delayed it again. They need to delay it permanently!

Microsoft is once again delaying the roll out of its controversial Recall feature for Copilot Plus PCs. The software giant had planned to start testing Recall, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, with Windows Insiders in October. Now, Microsoft says it needs more time to get the feature ready.

“We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall. To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior product manager of Windows, in a statement to The Verge.” Originally planned for October, Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs by December.”

Microsoft was forced to originally hold back Recall after security concerns were raised ahead of its planned debut with Copilot Plus PCs in June. After a delay to the launch, Recall was then supposed to appear for Windows Insiders just a matter of weeks later. Then Microsoft delayed Recall again to October, and now it’s coming by December.

Microsoft’s multiple delays are related to it overhauling Recall’s security, making it an opt-in experience, and allowing Copilot Plus PC owners to fully uninstall it. Microsoft has spent the past few months focused on ensuring its Recall database is fully encrypted and that the only way to get access is to authenticate through Windows Hello.

www.theverge.com