Surprise Ending for Publishers: In 2020, Business Was Good

Like everybody else, book publishers will be happy to see the end of 2020. But for many of them, the year has brought some positive news, which has been as welcome as it was surprising: Business has been good. From a report: With so many people stuck at home and activities from concerts to movies off limits, people have been reading…

Dozens of Amazon’s Own Products Have Been Reported as Dangerous — Melting, Exploding or Even Bursting Into Flames. Many Are Still on the Market.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Launched in 2009, AmazonBasics has grown to offer more than 5,000 products, according to the retailer. Its mission: identifying everyday items that Amazon can create at a similar or higher quality and lower price point when compared to existing name brands — a strategy also employed by companies such as Costco and Target. A growing…

A Small US Town is Now Printing Its Own Currency

Tenino, Washington (population: 1,884) has launched its own local currency, reports the Hustle:
Mayor Wayne Fournier decided that Tenino would set aside $10k to give out to low-income residents hurt by the pandemic. But instead of using federal dollars, he’d print the money on thin sheets of wood designed exclusively for use in Tenino. His mint? A 130-year-old newspaper printer from a…

Is Amazon Losing Market Share?

For the first three months of 2020, Amazon’s revenue was up 26% (to $75.5 billion). Yet several of its competitors in e-commerce “are showing dramatically faster growth rates,” reports Bloomberg’s opinion columnist, noting Shopify reported “the aggregated online sales of its merchant customer base grew 46% in the first quarter.” And of course, after March sales began increasing even more:
Online furniture…

US Consumers Might Get Their First Taste of Transgenic Salmon This Year

Wave723 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: Only in the past five years has it become possible to raise thousands of healthy fish so far from the shoreline without contaminating millions of gallons of fresh water. A technology called recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) now allows indoor aquaculture farms to recycle up to 99 percent of the water they use. And the…

Apple and Amazon Become Top US Solar Users, Besting Target and Walmart

Apple has spent nearly a decade dramatically expanding its use of solar energy across the United States, and the effort has paid off. From a report: The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reports today that Apple now has the most installed solar capacity of any U.S. company, followed by Amazon, as both companies vaulted over prior industry leaders Target and Walmart….