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Harvard Book Store gets a new backer: John Henry
John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and owner of the Boston Globe, has chosen to invest in another Boston-area institution. He’s taken on part-ownership of the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, which has been in the book business since 1932.

Henry has long had an affinity for independent read more

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Big tech’s first generation of founders starts to step aside
Massive tech companies like Google, Amazon, Netflix, and more have had a huge impact on the way we live our lives, and have had incredible levels of financial success. Another thing many of these companies have in common is that their founders are no longer necessarily read more

A glassblower at Roberto Beltrami’s workshop, which is trying to compensate for gas-bill increases by raising prices by 15% to 35%.
Murano island, Venice: glass-worker heats a glass artistic creation in a methane powered oven

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Italy’s artisan glassblowers feel heat as gas prices soar
Surging energy prices are posing problems for the artisan glassblowers of Italy’s Murano. They have seen off plagues and pandemics and changed their business model to outrun low-priced competition from Asia. But now methane prices are shattering their read more

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Take a look at the record-breaking port congestion from 10,000 feet above, as 70 hulking cargo ships park off the LA coast
Every day last week, key ports in Southern California hit a new record backlog of cargo ships. An aerial view shows how the coast has turned into a parking lot for container ships. Before the pandemic, the read more

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Since the pandemic, employees are leaving the workforce or switching jobs in droves. For many, employers have played a big part in why they’re walking away.
A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers showed that 41% of workers were considering quitting or changing professions this year, and a study from HR software read more

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Your Phone’s Location Data Is Worth $12 Billion
Interconnected firms are monetizing user data and analytics from ‘1.9 billion devices’.

Wherever you go, you might make money.
But for someone else.
Some companies that shy away from the spotlight are paying top dollar for privileged access to the location history stored read more

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NYC food delivery workers face a ‘harrowing world’ New York City’s app-based delivery workers—a lifeline to city residents during the COVID-19 pandemic—regularly face nonpayment or underpayment, unsanitary or unsafe working conditions and the risk of violence, according to a new report released Sept. 13. The report, “Essential but Unprotected,” read more

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — New Year’s Eve got off to a rocky start early Thursday as a 3.6 magnitude struck along the San Andreas Fault just south of Muir Beach and was felt widely in San Francisco and Marin County. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck at 5:41 a.m. with the epicenter on the famed fault line in the read more

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Like a Zumwalt Class Destroyer meets leftover Blade Runner prop, Tesla’s truck looks like none the world has ever seen before.
Its design is deceptively simple. Its profile is diamondlike, with five simple lines. Its nose is wedge-shaped, its sheetmetal quickly merging with a single massive pane of windshield glass—“bulletproof,” Elon read more

The Ripsaw M5 Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV)

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Meet America’s newest military giant: Amazon

The fatal flaw that could make AI weapons useless
AI-guided missiles could be blinded by adversarial data, and perhaps even steered back toward friendly targets.

Robots cannot replace the problem-solving, decision-making abilities of human cognition in “direct fire”

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Image courtesy Pablo Delcan / Technology Review and Textron Systems

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A year after Toys R Us closed, tens of thousands of laid-off workers are getting a portion of the severance promised and then rescinded as the retailer unraveled.
While workers are getting $2 million, a fraction of the $56 million in fees awarded to Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm representing Toys R Us, read more

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“Business Roundtable is encouraged that President Trump and President Xi agreed to resume trade negotiations and suspend any further tariff escalation,” the organization said in a statement on Saturday. Business Roundtable members lead companies with more than 15 million employees and $7.5 trillion.

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Photo courtesy Alex Brandon—AP