Tech
Pokemon and sports cards business booming after rise in popularity during pandemic – CBC.ca
Remember those old Pokemon and sports cards you collected as a kid that are now sitting in a binder at your parents’ house? They could be worth $100,000 or more.
The business of collecting and selling cards has been booming over the past year and some experts say it’s thanks to the pandemic.
For many people who’ve held onto their collection, like Kemptville, Ont. resident Logan Fournier, this could be an opportunity to cash in.
In just seven months, Fournier went from searching his parents’ basement for his childhood cards to opening his own local shop during the pandemic and earning $1.2 million in sales.
“I came across my old Pokémon collection and I was like ‘this is crazy’ everything is sleeved and in perfect condition,” he said.
Fournier, the owner of Hobbiesville, was able to achieve his dream of opening a hobby shop thanks to the money he made selling his old cards.
“At the start of the pandemic I saw that some of the Pokemon cards I had were going for five-,10 thousand dollars and I was like ‘this is weird. There’s something here,'” he said.
Fournier says his business has grown so quickly that he’s planning to expand things in the near future by opening up new shops in Toronto, Ottawa and possibly the U.S. to meet demand.
His story isn’t unique.
Card sales saving local businesses
From Pokemon to sports cards, local card shops say the demand has skyrocketed.
In eBay’s 2021 “State of Trading Cards” report, the e-commerce corporation said they saw a record growth in their trading card sales, with Pokemon topping its list.
For William Chong, owner of Dolly’s Toys & Games in Scarborough, those sales have actually helped keep his business afloat.
“When the pandemic started, we were so worried we’d be shut down but then sales increased. Sales have gone up maybe 1000 per cent, ten fold. It’s been very busy for us,” he said.
He tells CBC News Toronto that the sports card boom has been happening almost since the pandemic started.
“We’ve seen a huge comeback for hockey and vintage sports cards. Any of the big hall of fame names, if you have any of those cards in good condition, you’re looking at a lot of money,” he said.
In December 2020, a Wayne Gretzky rookie card — rated as a 10 on the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) card grading system, sold for $1.29 million US.
How card grading works
Brad Hartlin, who represents PSA Canada, a company that grades sports cards and sends them to the U.S. says there’s an 8-step process that goes into getting a card graded and potentially sold for a large amount of money.
Owners send cards in to one of three industry leaders like PSA to get professionally graded.
Sports and trading cards are marked by these companies with a numerical grade.
Brad Hartlin, who represents PSA Canada, a company that grades sports cards and sends them to the US says there’s a process that goes into getting a card graded and potentially selling them for large amounts of money. 0:42
These companies have professional graders who are trained and experienced in the field of cards and collectibles.
Hartlin says professionals on his team look at several factors to determine if a card is worth being sent off for grading.
“In order to be a 10, it needs to be 50/50 centring all the way around the card, then you look at the corners and check to see if they’re dinged. Then you look at the surface to see if there are any slight flaws, printer lines, slight scratches,” he said.
Hartlin says the prices someone will pay are based on the grade of the card, with 10 being the most valuable.
“This is how you end up with PSA 10 Charizards that sell on eBay for around $500,000 or people who end up buying a house from selling a few cards. This stuff does happen,” he said.
Hobby was ‘bubbling’ for years
While the card business may be seeing a spike in sales right now, one expert says this resurgence was always going to happen because of entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk and famous YouTubers like Logan Paul who were putting millions of their subscribers onto the hobby before the pandemic.
Josh Luber, co-founder of StockX, a multi-billion-dollar online “stock market of things” that specializes in shoes and collectibles says the hobby was starting to bubble up in the last few years.
“The trading card industry was going to blow up this year anyway. I think it would be extraordinary to see what would have happened if there hadn’t been a pandemic,” he said.
StockX co-founder Josh Luber tells CBC News Toronto that the resurgence of Pokemon and sports card was always going to happen this year regardless of a pandemic. 0:47
Luber tells CBC Toronto the major comeback trading cards are making is due to many popular interests meeting at the intersection of a global pandemic.
He says it’s the convergence of things like sneakers, streetwear and fashion, with sports cards, Pokemon and the lockdowns from COVID-19.
“You add a pandemic into this mix and you get a lot of people stuck at home, feeling nostalgic for their youth or passing something on to their kids by rediscovering the joy of opening a pack of cards,” said Luber.
“Every time you open a box or pack, it feels like you’re a kid on Christmas again.”
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By Steve Scherer
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s Telesat is racing to launch a low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to provide high-speed global broadband from space, pitting the satellite communications firm founded in 1969 against two trailblazing billionaires, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Musk, the Tesla Inc CEO who was only a year old when Telesat launched its first satellite, is putting the so-called Starlink LEO into orbit with his company SpaceX, and Amazon.com Inc, which Bezos founded, is planning a LEO called Project Kuiper. Bezos also owns Blue Origin, which builds rockets.
Despite the competition, Dan Goldberg, Telesat’s chief executive officer, voices confidence when he calls Telesat’s LEO constellation “the Holy Grail” for his shareholders – “a sustainable competitive advantage in global broadband delivery.”
Telesat’s LEO has a much lighter price tag than SpaceX and Amazon’s, and the company has been in satellite services decades longer. In addition, instead of focusing on the consumer market like SpaceX and Amazon, Telesat seeks deep-pocketed business clients.
Goldberg said he was literally losing sleep six years ago when he realized the company’s business model was in peril as Netflix and video streaming took off and fiber optics guaranteed lightning-fast internet connectivity.
Telesat’s 15 geostationary (GEO) satellites provide services mainly to TV broadcasters, internet service providers and government networks, all of whom were growing increasingly worried about the latency, or time delay, of bouncing signals off orbiters more than 35,000 km (22,200 miles) above earth.
Then in 2015 on a flight home from a Paris industry conference where latency was a constant theme, Goldberg wrote down his initial ideas for a LEO constellation on an Air Canada napkin.
Those ideas eventually led to Telesat’s LEO constellation, dubbed Lightspeed, which will orbit about 35 times closer to earth than GEO satellites, and will provide internet connectivity at a speed akin to fiber optics.
Telesat’s first launch is planned in early 2023, while there are already some 1,200 of Musk’s Starlink satellites in orbit.
“Starlink is going to be in service much sooner … and that gives SpaceX the opportunity to win customers,” said Caleb Henry, a senior analyst at Quilty Analytics.
Starlink’s “first mover” advantage is at most 24 months and “no one’s going to lock this whole market up in that amount of time,” Goldberg said.
Telesat in 2019 signed a launch deal with Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin. Discussions are ongoing with three others, said David Wendling, Telesat’s chief technical officer.
They are Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, Europe’s ArianeGroup , and Musk’s SpaceX, which launches the Starlink satellites. Wendling said a decision would be taken in a matter of months.
Telesat aims to launch its first batch of 298 satellites being built by Thales Alenia Space in early 2023, with partial service in higher latitudes later that same year, and full global service in 2024.
‘SWEET SPOT’
The Lightspeed constellation is estimated to cost half as much as the $10 billion SpaceX and Amazon projects.
“We think we’re in the sweet spot,” Goldberg said. “When we look at some of these other constellations, we don’t get it.”
Analyst Henry said Telesat’s focus on business clients is the right one.
“You have two heavyweight players, SpaceX and Amazon, that are already pledging to spend $10 billion on satellite constellations optimized for the consumer market,” he said. “If Telesat can spend half that amount creating a high-performance system for businesses, then yeah, they stand to be very competitive.”
Telesat’s industry experience may also provide an edge.
“We’ve worked with many of these customers for decades … That’s going to give us a real advantage,” Goldberg said.
Telesat “is a satellite operator, has been a satellite operator, and has both the advantage of expertise and experience in that business,” said Carissa Christensen, chief executive officer of the research firm BryceTech, adding, however, that she sees only two to three LEO constellations surviving.
Telesat is nailing down financing – one-third equity and two-thirds debt – and will become publicly traded on the Nasdaq sometime this summer, and it could also list on the Toronto exchange after that. Currently, Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Loral Space & Communications Inc are the company’s main shareholders.
France and Canada’s export credit agencies, BPI and EDC respectively, are expected to be the main lenders, Goldberg said. Quebec’s provincial government is lending C$400 million ($317 million), and Canada’s federal government has promised C$600 million to be a preferred customer. The company also posted C$246 million in net income in 2020.
Executing the LEO plan is what keeps Goldberg up at night now, he said.
“When we decided to go down this path, the two richest people in the universe weren’t focused on their own LEO constellations.”
($1 = 1.2622 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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Nova Scotia Health’s mental health and addictions program hopes to offer more online support to people across the province after receiving a significant donation this week.
The QEII Foundation announced that RBC is contributing $600,000 toward the province’s e-mental health programming.
“It’s particularly important for the current time under all the strains of COVID,” said Dr. Andrew Harris, a psychiatrist and the senior medical director for the program.
The plan for online programming has been in the works for years, he said, but the pandemic expedited the push. Last June, the department launched a number of applications that can be used to help those with anxiety, depression and addictions.
Since then, as many as 3,000 Nova Scotians have used the site to access mental health services.
“There’s a persistent difficulty in accessing services,” Harris said of traditional models in Nova Scotia. He said those who don’t need intensive therapy may find the support they need through the online programs.
He uses the example of someone who can’t take time off work to speak to a clinician.
“It’s better for them to be able to access a service after hours or on the weekend. So our e-mental health services are tailored a little bit to meet that need.”
Calls to crisis line increase
Harris said the province’s mental health crisis line continues to see a 30 per cent increase in calls for help, so he’s trying to raise awareness that services can be accessed immediately online.
“I think everyone is aware that for a lot of people it’s much easier to talk about a physical illness than a mental illness. So there’s an allowance there for privacy, for some anonymity but still making available things that can help the person who is struggling in the community.”
The online portal has a list of programs that people can use, covering things like reducing stress, solving problems and becoming mindful. It mirrors a site in Newfoundland and Labrador that Harris said is used to help people in remote areas.
Harris said the donation from RBC will be used to continue to evaluate more services, and pay for the licensing of the products that are mostly developed by other organizations.
He encourages anyone who is struggling to test out the site, and use it as an entry point into the mental health system.
“It’s important for people to acknowledge when they’re struggling. It happens to all of us through our lives in different times.”
Anyone in Nova Scotia looking to access the tools can visit: https://mha.nshealth.ca.
Source:- CBC.ca
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Samsung
Samsung
- Release date: April 9
- Price: $499.99
The Galaxy A52 5G is the most expensive smartphone of the bunch. It comes with a 6.5-inch FHD+ screen and a quad-camera system that includes some of the same features as Samsung’s more expensive Galaxy S phones. These include Single Take, which creates several different photos or video clips with different effects with a single press of the shutter button.
Its screen can also boost its refresh rate up to 120Hz for smoother scrolling and performance, a feature that has become common on pricier flagship phones but is rare on cheaper models. It’s also the only phone in this A-series lineup to include Samsung’s notch-free screen design.
Samsung
- Release date: April 8
- Price: $399.99
The less expensive Galaxy A42 5G has a slightly larger screen than the A52 5G, but scales back on certain features when it comes to the camera and screen refresh rate.
Still, it has a triple-lens camera with high-resolution sensors, and like its pricier sibling it also supports Single Take.
Samsung
Release date: April 9
Price: $279.99
The Galaxy A32 5G is Samsung’s cheapest 5G smartphone to date. It has a large 6.5-inch screen, but it’s made from an LCD panel instead of Super AMOLED. That means it will likely lack some of the contrast and boldness of Samsung’s other devices. But Samsung hasn’t skimped on the camera considering this model has a quad-lens main camera, which is rare if not unheard of at that price.
Samsung
Release date: April 9
Price: $179.99
Samsung’s Galaxy A12 doesn’t come with 5G support, but it still gives you a lot for the price. For less than $200, you’re getting a quad-lens camera and a large 6.5-inch LCD screen. But remember this phone only has 32GB of storage, so it’s best suited for those who don’t store a lot of photos and videos on their device.
Samsung
- Release date: April 29
- Price: $109.99
The Galaxy A02s is Samsung’s cheapest phone, offering a 6.5-inch LCD screen and three main cameras. It doesn’t have 5G support or as much computing power or camera prowess as Samsung’s other A-series phones, but that’s to be expected for a device at this price. This phone is truly for those who just need the basics and little else.
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Source:- Business Insider
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