Latest news with #Apex
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Erin Blanchfield has put it all together at just 26 — and that's a scary thought for UFC women's flyweights
The first time Erin Blanchfield appeared in a main event was a little over two years ago, when she headlined a UFC Fight Night card against Jessica Andrade at the Apex. You might remember how that one went down. Andrade came out headhunting until Blanchfield shot for her first takedown early in the second round, immediately took side control, then sunk a rear-naked choke before the commentators could really get into the meat of their notes. That's when Blanchfield first arrived. She was just 23 at the time. Advertisement Yet her second main event might be the one that comes to define her. Or at least, the fight that went into necessary scaffolding of what she hopes is a championship run. That one came last spring in her home state of New Jersey, a showroom booking against Manon Fiorot in Atlantic City. It was a partisan crowd at Boardwalk Hall, there to see the upstart Blanchfield — who was 6-0 in the UFC to that point and carried the nickname of 'Cold-Blooded' — punch her ticket to a title shot. Yet what happened was closer to existential vertigo. Fiorot shut her down for five full rounds, rendering all of what made Blanchfield the women's most dominant prospect — the pressure, the pace, the managing of distance and the changing of levels — all but moot. Fiorot forced Blanchfield to produce a Plan B. Problem was, there wasn't a Plan B. Up until that point, Plan A had always worked. Advertisement Yet sometimes a hard night at the office is exactly what a young fighter needs, a night when you're forced to look more closely at your own shortcomings. If the now 26-year-old Blanchfield's rebound performance against Rose Namajunas in November is any indication, the old fight game proverb still holds true: 'You learn more from your losses …' Erin Blanchfield punches Rose Namajunas in a flyweight fight during a UFC Fight Night event at Rogers Place on Nov. 2, 2024, in Edmonton, Alberta. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC) (Jeff Bottari via Getty Images) 'I think you really do,' Blanchfield told Uncrowned. 'I've had a few losses in my career, and I feel like after I've lost, I've learned the most because it really pushes you. You don't want to lose again, and it really exposes your weaknesses. I feel like I was able to look back on that [Fiorot] fight and adjust and come back and start building a winning streak again.' She could hit two consecutive wins if she can take care of business in what will be her third main event Saturday against Maycee Barber at the Apex. It hasn't officially been dubbed a title eliminator in the women's flyweight division, but an emphatic win either way could certainly sway the matchmakers. Right now, Brazil's Natalia Silva sits as the No. 1 contender for champion Valentina Shevchenko, and there's always the possibility strawweight champ Zhang Weili could move up to try to win a second title. Advertisement None of that matters to Blanchfield, who's orbited the title for the last few years. In a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business, she knows the importance of making the case whenever the spotlight comes around. 'I feel like getting a really good win, like a finish on Saturday, it could put me right in a title picture,' she says. 'I've been fighting top five for the last two years now, so I feel like it's been a really good experience for me and just prepping me for when I do get that title shot. 'But I don't feel like there's a huge hurry [to get the title shot]. I've been in the top five for a while, but I think people forget how young I was in the top five, only 23 when I first got in. So I think I needed that experience and I needed those fights, so whichever way it goes, I know I plan on being undeniable and keep winning and improving, so I'll get there.' If her and Barber share a connection, it's that both are still young (Barber just turned 27), both have carried big expectations since they were ridiculously young (when Barber was 21, she vowed to become the youngest champ in UFC history until 10-to-1 underdog Roxanne Modafferi upset her), and both have been battle-tested (Barber's loss to Alexa Grasso all but dropper her out of top-10 talk for years). Advertisement If anything, this weekend's fight is meant to serve as a reminder the youth movement is still very much underway. That yesterday's phenoms are now carrying experience. The growth of Blanchfield lies in the details of the Namajunas fight, which was taking a bad turn early — much like the Fiorot bout. Namajunas was holding court in first couple of rounds. It looked like Blanchfield was headed toward a second straight loss, yet this time she was able to overcome the slow start. 'She's a really good boxer,' Blanchfield says of Namajunas. 'I feel like the first two rounds she out-pointed me a bit. She was kind of getting her shots off, and she was countering really well. But I was able to get my takedown in the third round and then in the fourth round I began out-striking her.' That's when vintage 'Cold-Blooded' Blanchfield began to take over. Advertisement 'I could feel that I was beating her there, and then the fifth round I was able to take her down again and beat her from there. I had a little bit of bad start, but she's also really talented and then I was able to build as the fight went.' Back when Blanchfield was coming up, she would overwhelm people by dictating where the fight would take place. She dragged JJ Aldrich into the deep water before submitting her in the second round. She all but ruined the hype of Molly McCann in what was a lopsided affair at UFC 281. She controlled Miranda Maverick and Taila Santos as if holding them in custody, racking up control times that have made those betting the over at times very happy. What Blanchfield likes to do is break an opponent mentally and physically. Advertisement In fact, she's been so predictably dominant that some people have accused her of being the one word no fighter wants to be associated with. Boring. 'I wouldn't say I'm a boring fighter,' Blanchfield says. 'I would say I'm a technical fighter. I try to bring the fight where I want to fight, to make it my fight. I think I've gotten a lot of finishes. I've got a lot of finishes, with my jiu-jitsu, and I want to get some finishes with my striking as well. My goal is always to try to finish people.' She'll get another chance Saturday against a fighter who has led the chorus of saying Blanchfield is boring. Never mind that Barber has just one finish in the last six years (to Blanchfield's five), a little bad blood never hurts. Advertisement '[Maycee]'s been outspoken,' Blanchfield says. 'I plan on going there Saturday and finishing her. I mean, I know people always say they need to talk, right? They need to talk whether they're trying to build up a fight or make themselves feel better, so that's kind of where I put that.' Where Blanchfield has always done her loudest talking is in the Octagon. The Namajunas fight told us that she's back. Back to dictating the fight on her own terms. Back to figuring people out. Back to breaking people in a way that makes her becoming a champion more a question of when rather than if. 'I feel like you can tell [when somebody is breaking], especially when people start getting gassed, they'll be taking these deep breaths,' she says, almost too happily. 'I've been in fights where I'm fighting them and I've seen them take a big breath and you're like, 'Oh, I know you're tired, it's my time to go.' Or you feel them crumbling under your strikes. So, yeah, those are the moments you can feel you're breaking someone.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Apex Unveils Satellite Bus Comet: Delivering Breakthrough Power and Economic Efficiency for Large-Scale Constellations
Comet, Apex's newest fully productized satellite bus, provides over 5 kilowatts of power to payloads in a unique flat pack configuration, enabling direct-to-device and unique sensing constellations. LOS ANGELES, May 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Apex, the world's first spacecraft manufacturer to offer productized, high-rate configurable satellite bus platforms, announced Comet, the largest satellite bus in its product line. Comet, with a unique flat design, meets the needs of commercial customers launching high-power LEO missions, including Direct-to-Device constellations, as well as government customers requiring large aperture payloads. Comet delivers more than 5 kilowatts of continuous power to payloads while its compact design allows it to stack flat in a launch vehicle's 5-meter fairing. This form factor allows more satellites to fit on a single rocket launch, reducing costs. Engineered specifically to meet rigorous technical requirements at an economically viable price point, Comet optimizes capital expenditure for organizations deploying satellite networks at scale. Comet is specially designed to support advanced antenna systems that enable large networks of satellites, serving both commercial and national security needs. "Apex developed Comet to enable a variety of commercial capabilities and defense missions," said Ian Cinnamon, CEO of Apex. "From cell phone towers in space for consumer technology, unique sensing missions, or as an interceptor platform for Golden Dome, Comet is the clear choice to accelerate the most ambitious space missions." Apex's differentiated approach to satellite bus productization has created a strong underlying foundation for the business. The introduction of Comet bolsters the company's growing product line, including Aries, which celebrated one year on-orbit in March 2025. Apex also announced Nova in 2024, an ESPA-Grande satellite bus platform built to support 300kg of payload for mixed-use constellation customers. As the sole producer of truly productized satellite buses, Apex is committed to helping customers get to space faster and will continue to scale production to achieve that goal. Earlier this year, Apex also announced a $200 million financing round led by Point72 Ventures and 8VC to increase production to meet customer demand. Media Contact: Claude Chafin, Invariant chafin@ About ApexApex is the leading manufacturer of high-rate configurable satellite bus platforms designed to meet the demands of the rapidly expanding space industrial base. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Apex manufactures scalable spacecraft solutions for both commercial and government customers. For more information, visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Apex Space Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Techday NZ
5 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Exclusive: How Dell's infrastructure promises simplified data centres
Dell Technologies is championing a brand new era of data centre architecture built on disaggregated infrastructure, a strategy designed to offer enterprises the best of both flexibility and simplicity as they navigate ever more complex IT environments. For years, organisations have faced a trade-off between flexible, modular systems and the simplified management of consolidated, hyper-converged infrastructure. Alyson Langon, Director of Product Marketing for Multicloud and as-a-Service at Dell, says the industry is now seeing "a convergence of the two approaches." "Historically, three-tier architecture gave a lot of flexibility, you could mix and match storage, compute and networking, and scale resources independently. But it came with complexity, requiring different teams and lots of management overhead," she explained during an interview at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas. The alternative, hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), bundled everything into a single platform. "There's a ton of simplicity in that, especially with lifecycle management and automation built in," Langon said. However, this simplicity comes at the cost of vendor lock-in and limited flexibility. "You can't scale resources independently and you're locked into a single software stack," she added. A hybrid approach emerges Now, spurred by the dual drivers of artificial intelligence workloads and shifts in the hypervisor market, disaggregated infrastructure has come to the fore. "Disaggregated infrastructure is about combining the best of both worlds - flexibility meets simplicity," Langon explained. "It allows you to scale resources independently, as in traditional three-tier, but with added automation and simplicity via software. We're building more automation and observability into infrastructure over time." Dell's strategy is centred around its recently announced Dell Private Cloud and the Dell Automation Platform. These allow organisations to use Dell's flagship storage and compute technologies - such as PowerStore storage and PowerEdge servers, while benefiting from advanced software automation. "What differentiates us is the intrinsic security, deduplication, compression and software-driven automation built into both the hardware and software. The Dell Automation Platform takes this a step further, delivering full stack lifecycle management that traditionally wasn't available in a three-tier setup," Langon said. The result is an infrastructure stack that is easier to manage and more efficient to deploy. "We're automating a lot of tasks, so managing the stack is much more simplified," she added. Flexible procurement and customer choice Crucially, Dell's private cloud offering is designed to be flexible not just in its architecture, but also in how it is consumed. Langon noted, "Apex is about flexible consumption, pay-as-you-go and managed services delivered as an OPEX model. With Dell Private Cloud, the underlying infrastructure can be consumed as a service through an Apex subscription, but it can also be purchased as CAPEX. You have that flexibility in how you procure the underlying hardware." This flexibility extends to software choices as well. Enterprises are increasingly seeking a multi-hypervisor strategy, particularly in light of industry shifts and the need for investment protection. "One of the key benefits of Dell Private Cloud, in addition to the simplicity and automation, is the freedom to bring your own cloud OS licences and choose your software stack," Langon said. "You're not locked in. We'll have blueprints for VMware, Red Hat OpenShift, Nutanix AHV and more, so customers can choose their preferred hypervisors." That also means underlying hardware can be reused or repurposed as business needs change. "If you want to deploy VMs today and then move to containers with Red Hat tomorrow, you can use the same hardware. Decommission and redeploy a new software blueprint—it's investment protection for customers wanting the flexibility to change their virtualisation strategy," she said. Automation and security at the core The push towards software-driven automation is a key pillar of Dell's disaggregated infrastructure. The company claims that with its automation platform, provisioning a private cloud stack now takes 90% fewer steps than manual processes, with clusters deployable in just two and a half hours. Alongside this, Dell is continuing to invest in cyber resilience and data protection, with enhancements to storage platforms and automated ransomware detection now featuring as part of its modern data centre portfolio. Langon sees this as a response to a rapidly changing landscape. "There's an increase in customers looking for multi-hypervisor strategies, but also a need for modern automation and security. We're responding by making these capabilities intrinsic to our infrastructure, not just bolt-ons," she said. A platform for innovation While Langon does not directly oversee Dell's AI solutions, she recognises the role that disaggregated infrastructure plays in enabling next-generation workloads. "We are looking to extend the capabilities of our automation platform to be able to do more with AI solutions, to help organisations scale and simplify, and build more automation in how they stand up those types of things," she explained. She is optimistic about what lies ahead, both for Dell and the broader industry. "We're at a really interesting time right now. There's so much opportunity with AI, and it's going to start permeating everything that we do. Looking forward, I'm excited to see how we continue to simplify things for customers and help them take on these new challenges," she said.
Hans India
6 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
CII urges Govt to set up centralised oversight mechanism for tribunals
Apex business chamber CII has urged the Government to set up a centralised oversight mechanism to ensure uniformity, policy coherence, and improvement in the overall performance of tribunals that adjudicate a large volume of cases in critical areas such as labour, environment, and taxes. In a research note released on Sunday, CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) suggested that suitable amendments may be introduced in the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, to provide legislative backing to this exercise. "Such a central body could undertake functions like performance monitoring, data tracking, coordination with the search-cum-selection committees, capacity building, and independent grievance redressal," the note said. According to CII, enhancing the efficiency of tribunals is critical for unlocking substantial fiscal resources tied up in disputes and improving the overall ease of doing business. For instance, as of December 31, 2024, Rs 6.7 trillion was pending resolution at the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) alone, which constituted nearly 57 per cent of all ligated direct taxes amount in the country. Such a high figure highlights the magnitude of matters being adjudicated by tribunals, and the far-reaching implications on investment climate and economic growth. CII said that the administrative control of tribunals is currently fragmented across various ministries and departments, leading to a lack of standardisation and functional inconsistencies. A key concern for tribunals is the absence of real-time performance statistics, which limits the scope for undertaking evidence-based reforms. In contrast, such statistics are readily available for the entire court system of the country on the 'National Judicial Data Grid', maintained by the e-committee of the Supreme Court. Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies designed to adjudicate domain-specific disputes, in areas like taxation, company law, environmental regulation and public service matters, among others. Originally envisioned as a complement to the conventional court system, tribunals aim to ease the burden on the judiciary while enabling faster, expert-led adjudication in technically complex matters, the note said. Today, over 16 central tribunals operate under different ministries across key sectors of the economy. These bodies directly impact the rule of law, economic governance, and ease of doing business. For example, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) plays a pivotal role in the implementation of the Companies Act, 2013 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, central to corporate debt resolution, investor confidence, and financial stability, the note observed. CII has also cited several Supreme Court judgments and expert recommendations, including the 272nd Report of the Law Commission of India (2017), all of which advocate for the creation of a centralised oversight mechanism for tribunals. Establishing a centralised oversight institution for tribunals would be a transformational step towards making India's justice delivery system more responsive, efficient, and future-ready, directly contributing to boosting regulatory credibility, improving ease of doing business and enhancing investors' confidence, the CII added.
Scottish Sun
24-05-2025
- Scottish Sun
Escape the crowds and take a dip in basement pool of Edinburgh's Apex Hotel
The hotel on Waterloo Place is set in one of the best locations in the capital. PEX APPEAL Escape the crowds and take a dip in basement pool of Edinburgh's Apex Hotel Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) ONE of the most important things on any city break is location, location, location. And Edinburgh's Apex Hotel couldn't be better placed — smack bang in the middle of Auld Reekie's buzzing centre. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 The basement pool offers a livening dip in the morning. 5 The steam room lets you sweat it out. 5 Bartenders knock up fantastic fresh cocktails in Bar 1819. My wife Emma, and I arrived on Sunday afternoon by train and it was only a matter of crossing the road and walking a few hundred paces before we arrived at our city sanctuary on Waterloo Place. The hotel sits in the shadow of Calton Hill, at the top of Princes Street and Leith Walk. And even late on the Sabbath, this part of the town was still thronging, as open top bus tours loaded and unloaded tourists, with people streaming round every corner. Once you step through the doors of the Apex, though, all the noise and bustle on the street quickly dissolves. We were taken up to our room on the ninth floor — where we could see all the way down to Leith and the River Forth and beyond to Fife. The room was well kitted out, modern, clean with touches of luxury — perfect for a quick break. There was even a special Apex branded rubber duck with a note instructing us to take it home. We'd be quackers not to! Making the most of our night of freedom from the kids, we wandered down Rose Street where the bars and restaurants were busy with punters enjoying the sunshine. We stopped off at one for a couple of pre-dinner drinks and some bar snacks, before slowly meandering past the shops on the splendour of George Street. Then it was back to base as we were booked in for dinner at the hotel's Liberte Brasserie. The wine list was stacked with a good selection of bottles right up to a very pricey variety of Pomerol, which David Beckham was seen clutching at his 50th birthday a few weeks ago. Our lovely waitress recommended a lesser-known Dolcetto d'Alba from her home region of Piedmont in northern Italy. Emma and I were happy to take her up on the suggestion and were really glad we did. Once the wine was flowing, we kicked off the meal with some bread and olives before getting stuck into the main event. I started off with a beautiful burrata, drizzled in single malt honey, while Emma had the Balvenie smoked salmon finished with a lemony creme fraiche and herring roe. Both were perfectly portioned and packed with flavour. Emma kept the fish theme going for the mains, opting for a pan-fried cod fillet with sea veg, mussels and brown butter. I went for the sirloin steak, cooked rare, with a peppercorn sauce. I'm a big steak lover and not shy about sending one back if it's overdone. But this was genuinely one of the best steaks I've ever tasted and was cooked to perfection. I made sure to send my praises to the chef. He absolutely nailed it. For dessert, Emma had the sticky toffee pudding, while I plumped for the pistachio creme brulee, which was nothing short of spectacular. The portion was huge, so my wife quickly helped herself to spoonfuls of mine too. Afterwards, we shuffled next door to the very cool Bar 1819 for a well-earned seat on a plush velvet couch and a few cocktails. Emma loved the elderflower-based Hugo Spritz while I knocked back a few Regent Terrace Sours, which combined whisky and absinthe. After that we hit the town for a few more at a piano bar a few blocks away where we were treated to multiple Billy Joel hits from the resident piano man. It's no surprise then that we slept in and missed breakfast. But the menu had all the classics including smoked kippers and eggs Benedict. Thankfully we hadn't missed out on the pool in the basement, situated next to the inhouse Yu Spa. 5 The bedrooms are modern with little touches of luxury. 5 The food in restaurant Liberte is knock-out good. Credit: We took full advantage of the steam room and sauna, before getting a few lengths in the sun-dappled pool. When it was time to head home, we found out there was a secret back exit that took us straight to Waverley underneath Princes Street — making our escape even easier. The Apex's location is truly fantastic, but it has far more going for it than that.
