February 18, 2025

When the pandemic required nearly everyone to stay at home in 2020, the business world seemed to embrace remote work as a potential savior of productivity. Tech companies were especially quick to implement tools like videoconferencing and cloud computing that let employees work from anywhere. But all that’s changing as more companies start to require staffers to either spend more time in the office or else find a new job. The return-to-office trend sets up a potential culture clash with Continue reading

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February 12, 2025

When Walt Disney built his world-famous theme parks, he envisioned them as affordable places for families to spend full days together in the dreamlike world of animated movies. In fact, one executive in the 1980s who tried to raise the price of parking by one dollar met stiff resistance from people who claimed the idea ran counter to Disney’s vision for The Happiest Place on Earth. Over time, though, prices rose steadily with inflation, until the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything Continue reading

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February 10, 2025

This year, AI firms flocked to buy Super Bowl commercials, hoping to make a huge splash about their new products in a cost-effective way. A 30-second spot during Super Bowl LIX cost about $8 million, which may seem like a lot to pay for a short ad. Given that the massively popular game drew in more than 200 million viewers, however, a commercial’s cost-per-viewer actually amounts to less than a nickel. It’s incentives like these that motivated Google to use Continue reading

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February 7, 2025

The breakfast chain Waffle House is famous for serving customers a cheap and hearty breakfast at any time of day. In fact, the 24-hour eatery is so reliable and affordable that emergency officials use it as an informal gauge for judging severe weather: if the area Waffle House is closed, then the natural disaster must be extremely severe. But one thing the famously dependable chain couldn’t predict is soaring egg prices, which have driven it to add a 50-cent Continue reading

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February 4, 2025

Costco, the warehouse club famous for bulk items and cheap hot dogs, is trying to avoid what would be its first-ever employee strike. The Costco Teamsters union, which represents 18,000 workers, threatened to stop working after January 31 unless the company raised wages and benefits to reflect inflation. With only a few hours left before the strike was scheduled to start at 56 stores across six states, Costco reached a tentative agreement with the union over the weekend. Now it’s Continue reading

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January 31, 2025

The devastating wildfires that have raged in the Los Angeles area will result in an estimated $250 billion in economic losses, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in American history. The video below looks at how private insurance adjusters assess the damage done to LA homes, and the tough choices that many homeowners now face.

Questions:

  1. What service do private insurance adjusters provide for homeowners?
  2. What are some challenges that homeowners will face as they attempt to rebuild after the fires?
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January 28, 2025

TikTok turned its service back on for U.S. users after a 12-hour shutdown earlier this month, but the popular video-sharing platform is still blocked from American app stores while it faces legal uncertainty. That means people can’t download or restore the app if it gets deleted. As a result, unlocked cell phones that come preloaded with the popular social media video-sharing app have become a hot commodity on resale sites like Ebay and Facebook Marketplace. In many cases, sellers are Continue reading

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January 22, 2025

When online reviews first started in the late 1990s, shoppers used them to compare their purchases with each other instead of relying on the seller’s description or an expert recommendation. Directory sites like Yelp and Trustpilot grew their user bases by incentivizing contributors to leave authentic reviews for restaurants, doctors, and just about any public-facing business. But online reviews created a new problem: fake reviews. Businesses hired brokers to recruit people to write false reviews — either positive ones to Continue reading

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January 17, 2025

For weeks, the Los Angeles area has been battling enormous fires that have caused billions of dollars in damage while thousands of residents evacuate. Along with a large force of professional firefighters, California prison laborers are also taking on the blazes for a chance to shave some time off their sentences. They also receive some compensation, often just a couple dollars an hour. This short video shows incarcerated individuals at work actively fighting fires as well as performing routine maintenance Continue reading

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January 7, 2025

Have you ever gotten the feeling that Siri, the voice-activated digital assistant on Apple devices, was eavesdropping on your private conversations? Have you noticed online ads for a particular brand after talking about it out loud? If you said yes, you’re not alone. A 2019 class-action lawsuit representing tens of millions of people accused Apple of violating user privacy by making unauthorized recordings through Siri and sharing them with advertisers. For example, two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said Continue reading

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