Pier 1 Imports filed for bankruptcy Monday (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), “a victim of changing consumer tastes and an unforgiving retail environment,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Unlike many other retailers that have sought bankruptcy in recent years, the publicly traded Pier 1 — with assets of $426.6 million and listed total debt of $258.3 million — isn’t weighed down…
Tag: The Wall Street Journal
Uber and Lyft Are Creating Traffic, Not Reducing It
The Wall Street Journal remembers how five years ago, Uber’s co-founder “was so confident that Uber’s rides would prompt people to leave their cars at home that he told a tech conference: ‘If every car in San Francisco was Ubered there would be no traffic.'” He was wrong.
Rather than the apps becoming a model of algorithm-driven efficiency, drivers in major cities…
EU Judge Raises Prospect of Increasing Multibillion Fine Against Google
Alphabet’s appeal against a multibillion-dollar fine for alleged anticompetitive behavior by its Google unit risks backfiring after a European Union court floated the prospect of increasing the fine (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), rather than scrapping it. The Wall Street Journal reports: In a surprise twist Friday at the end of a three-day hearing, one of five judges on the panel…
US Gov’t Buys Location Data For Millions of Cellphones
America’s government “has reportedly acquired access to a commercial database that tracks the movements of millions of cellphones in the U.S.,” reports CNET. “The data is being used for immigration and border enforcement, according to sources and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.” Engadget’s report on the news notes it’s been going on “since at least 2017.”
The publication says the…
FCC Moves To Free Up Spectrum For Potential Cellphone Service
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: The Federal Communications Commission will pay a group of satellite companies billions of dollars to upend their operations so a valuable swath of the radio spectrum can be used for cellphone service (Source: paywalled; alternative source), FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. The telecom regulator said he plans to propose $3…
Cards Against Humanity Buys ClickHole, Turning It Into a Majority Employee-Owned Company
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Cards Against Humanity, the card game company, purchased ClickHole.com from its owners at G/O Media on Monday for an undisclosed amount in an all-cash deal, BuzzFeed News has learned. ClickHole’s employees will become the majority owners of the site. Although terms were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported in November that…
US Declares Public Health Emergency Over Coronavirus
The Trump administration on Friday declared a public healthy emergency over the coronavirus outbreak and said any foreign national who has traveled within China in the last 14 days will not be allowed to enter the country. The Wall Street Journal reports: The announcement [from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar] came as stock markets tumbled amid concern about…
Apple TV Plus Reportedly Has More Subscribers Than Disney Plus
If a report from The Wall Street Journal is correct, Apple’s TV Plus service that launched late last year has 10 million more subscribers than Disney Plus, which launched at a similar time but with access to almost every TV show and movie Disney owns the rights to. For comparison, Apple TV Plus launched with only 11 titles. Fast Company reports:…
Hospitals Give Tech Giants Access To Detailed Medical Records
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals have granted Microsoft, IBM and Amazon the ability to access identifiable patient information under deals to crunch millions of health records, the latest examples of hospitals’ growing influence in the data economy. This breadth of access wasn’t always spelled out by hospitals and tech giants when the deals were…
Facebook Won’t Put Ads in WhatsApp — For Now
Facebook “will no longer push through with its plans to sell ads on WhatsApp,” writes Engadget, citing a report in the Wall Street Journal which says WhatsApp still “plans at some point to introduce ads to Status.” Newsweek reports:
WhatsApp is the only app in Facebook’s suite of products free from ads, which make up a vast amount of the parent company’s…