Tag Archives: business

Mashable reports: A new app has just dropped for seekers of LGBTQ-owned businesses, queer-friendly artists and advisors, and inclusive community spaces — or for supporters seeking a tangible way to defy the current political tide. Launched by Everywhere is Queer, an LGBTQ business directory that gained popularity in 2022, it’s Yelp for the queer-led revolution. The just-released Everywhere is Queer …

Ars Technica reports: Hot on the heels of Google’s “One” subscription plan obtaining 100 million users, YouTube is also hitting that big milestone, with 100 million people paying for Premium and YouTube Music. YouTube’s subscription data didn’t make it into the earnings call three days ago. Ad-free videos have been getting the most aggressive promotion lately, with Google cracking down …

CNBC reports: Amazon on Thursday announced a new artificial intelligence assistant for shopping called Rufus. The tool is designed to help users search and shop for products. Shoppers type or speak a question into the search bar in Amazon’s mobile app and a chat window will appear at the bottom of their screen. Users can ask conversational questions such as, …

From the Justice Department: eBay Inc., an e-commerce company headquartered in San Jose, California, has agreed to pay $59 million and to enhance its compliance program to resolve allegations that it violated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in connection with thousands of pill presses and encapsulating machines that were sold through its website. Pill presses and encapsulating machines can be …

Gothamist reports: The Cannabis Control Board will vote on regulations that would let New Yorkers who are at least 21 years old cultivate up to six mature plants — meaning they have visible buds — and six immature plants per residence. Home cultivators would be able to keep up to 5 pounds of flower that’s been trimmed from those plants, …

CNN Business reports: Some fans of TGI Fridays were likely surprised this week when they found their local restaurant permanently closed because the chain abruptly shut down dozens of locations around the US. The chain said in a release that it closed 36 “underperforming” restaurants as part of its “ongoing growth strategy,” which also includes also a shakeup of its …

Ars Technica reports: Amazon confirmed today in an email to Prime members that it will begin showing ads alongside its streaming Prime Video content starting January 29, 2024. The price will remain the same, but subscribers who don’t wish to see any ads will have to pay an additional $2.99 per month on top of their monthly or yearly Amazon …

Axios reports: Apple filed an appeal Tuesday to the International Trade Commission’s decision to ban U.S. sales of Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 models. The emergency request came after the U.S. trade representative’s office said in a statement that it has declined to overturn the ban, which has now gone into effect. Masimo, a medical device company, claims …

Gothamist reports: New York cannabis officials will be handing out up to 1,445 new business licenses in the coming weeks, including at least 500 for dispensaries. Other licenses will go to marijuana growers, processors, wholesalers and microbusinesses after the application window for licenses closed earlier this month. In this new round, the state is prioritizing businesses that already have leases …

The Associated Press reports: Gift cards get lost or forgotten, or recipients hang on to them for a special occasion. In a July survey, the consumer finance company Bankrate found that 47% of U.S. adults had at least one unspent gift card or voucher with an average value of $18. That’s a total of $23 billion. Every year, big companies …

CNN Business reports: After three-plus years of prices steadily — and sometimes sharply — increasing month after month after month, they fell in November. Last month, for the first time since April 2020, prices fell on a monthly basis, according to a closely watched report released Friday by the Commerce Department. November’s Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, a comprehensive measure …

Reuter reports: Tesla is recalling 120,423 vehicles in the U.S. over the risk of cabin doors being unlocked during a crash, the country’s road safety regulator said on Friday, days after announcing another recall by the electric-vehicle maker. Tesla recalled over 2 million vehicles in the U.S. last week, its largest ever recall, covering nearly all of its vehicles on …

Bloomberg News reports: Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation company building tube-encased lines to zip passengers and freight from city to city at airplane-like speeds, is shutting down. The company had captured the public’s imagination since its founding in 2014, a year after Elon Musk released a white paper outlining a vision for hyperloop technology. The concept was a tantalizing promise …

Reuters reports: Records and interviews reveal for the first time that the automaker has long known far more about the frequency and extent of the defects than it has disclosed to consumers and safety regulators. The documents, dated between 2016 and 2022, include repair reports from Tesla service centers globally; analyses and data reviews by engineers on parts with high …

The Washington Post reports: A U.S. inspection of a plant in Ecuador that manufactured pouches of contaminated applesauce linked to at least 125 cases of suspected lead poisoning in children found “extremely high” levels of the metal in a key ingredient: cinnamon. The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that samples of cinnamon from the plant that were tested contained …

The New York Times reports: A national lobbying group has retracted its startling estimate that “organized retail crime” was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting. The group, the National Retail Federation, edited that claim last …

Reuters reports: A former executive at Twitter Inc, now called X Corp, has filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired after Elon Musk acquired the company for objecting to budget cuts that would prevent the company from complying with a U.S. government settlement over its security practices. Alan Rosa, who was Twitter’s global head of information security, filed the lawsuit …

Axios reports: A factory planning to pump out 10,000 two-legged robots a year is taking shape in Salem, Oregon — the better to help Amazon and other giant companies with dangerous hauling, lifting and moving. Agility Robotics says that its RoboFab manufacturing facility will be the first to mass-produce humanoid robots, which could be nimbler and more versatile than their …

TechCrunch reports: 23andMe spokesperson Katie Watson confirmed that hackers accessed the personal information of about 5.5 million people who opted-in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature, which allows customers to automatically share some of their data with others. The stolen data included the person’s name, birth year, relationship labels, the percentage of DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports and self-reported location. …

Axios reports: Mark Cuban tells Axios that he never plans to run for any elective office, cooling off speculation that began after he struck a deal earlier this week to sell his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks. Cuban had previously told NBC News that he had “no plans” to run for president in 2024, but hadn’t issued a blanket …