Blog dedicado a la formación en todos sus ámbitos: presencial, online, a distancia
Hola:
Una infografía sobre Planes de fidelización: ¿son eficaces? Vía
Un saludo
Planes de fidelización: ¿son eficaces?
Hola:
Una infografía animada sobre la Cronología del Universo.
Un saludo
Thankfully, AdWeek’s David Griner was willing to put his stomach on the line for the sake of humanity, taste-testing each of the 11 items on the new bargain-basement menu and living long enough to write up his thoughts.
After investing his $12.99 in science, Griner headed home with, “two satisfyingly hefty sacks of warm, damp, processed food.”
Oh yum.
Feel free to read his entire story — sure to be a James Beard award nominee — but we’ve got the highlights here:
On the Spicy Potato Soft Taco:
“It tastes like breakfast, but with lettuce.”
On the Cheese Roll-Up:
“It’s the kind of thing my 2-year-old would order, unroll out of curiosity and then slowly push toward the center of the table… This is the toast sandwich of Taco Bell cuisine.”
On the Cinnamon Twists:
“I’ve always liked these more in theory than in practice, and sure enough, they’re basically just packing peanuts dusted with sweetness.”
On the Caramel Apple Empanada:
“[Y]ou’d get more for your money with a fruit pie from a nearby gas station. (That might be the saddest sentence I’ve ever written.)”
On forcing himself to eat the Spicy Tostada despite being full:
“It’s earnestly good, but I’m officially in pain.”
It’s worth noting that Griner did not get the chance to test the one thing that vaguely interests me on the cheapo menu — the Cinnabon Delights 2-Pack, which he paid for but which mysteriously never made it home.
One of the most aggressive of those discounts is their price-matching plan, which is Staples’ plan to get some electronics business back from other big-box retailers and Amazon. Notably, the only website they will match is Amazon. For this back-to-school season, Staples is doing a 110% price match: matching prices, then discounting 10%.
Will it work? Maybe. Reuters reports that the company’s overall sales continue to fall, and were down 6% in the second quarter of 2014. Sales of electronics were down even more in the last quarter, and
Aggressive discounts like the 110% price match may get customers in the doors, but will they come back to buy items that can’t be matched to sales elsewhere? Will they at least show up to buy some ink cartridges and resume paper?
Competitors Office Depot and OfficeMax merged last year to better compete against Staples, and they report that revenues are down as well. Will paperless offices and online ordering doom the big-box office supply store chains? We’ll find out in the coming years.
Staples closing 140 stores this year amid poor sales [Reuters]
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter may not be in a position to objectively evaluate Comcast.
The letter [nutterlovescomcast], signed by Nutter and 51 other mayors around the country, praises the merger as a way for current Time Warner Cable markets to benefit from “increased network investment, faster Internet speeds, improved video options and leading community development programs.”
What the mayors fail to acknowledge is that there is absolutely no reason that Time Warner Cable couldn’t make these improvements on its own; it is the largest operator in the nation’s two biggest markets (NYC and L.A.) and has millions of subscribers who pay huge bills every month. TWC is not some scrappy startup that needs a deep-pocketed investor or some rickety old dinosaur that needs saving. It has merely profited by charging top dollar for bottom-dollar service.
And the reason TWC has been able to get away with offering cruddy cable and Internet to customers is because there has been no competition in these markets. If you live in Manhattan and want Internet service, you’ll likely need TWC. And even those that don’t generally have to get Cablevision service, but the two don’t overlap.
But these mayors all think that Comcast — the only cable and Internet operator that competes with TWC for last place in national customer satisfaction surveys — will somehow swoop in and make everything better.
The mayors also are operating under the delusion that a Comcast/TWC merger will create jobs. Perhaps that’s true in Philadelphia and some other places might pick up a few staffers as redundant positions get shifted around, but there is no way a consolidated TWC/Comcast will see a net gain in employees nationwide. These two companies might not have a geographical overlap, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t staffing overlap.
Notably left out of the letter from the mayors are New York City Mayor Bill DiBlasio, who has openly questioned the validity of the merger, and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who recently asked for an extension on the deadline to file comments regarding the deal.
The best part of the mayors’ letter is where they credit Comcast with being the sole impetus behind recent gigabit broadband expansion plans from Google and AT&T.
Yes, because apparently Google — that little Internet company that hates to expand — had only been planning on bringing Google Fiber to the Kansas City area, and tiny telecom titan AT&T bought miles and miles of fiber cable just so it could make cool-looking jump ropes for the company fitness center.
Thank you Comcast for showing these companies the way to roll out fiber networks that were already the result of years of planning and billions of dollars!
The folks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance say we shouldn’t stop with just thanking Comcast for its apparent role in other companies’ gigabit expansion plans.
• Since Comcast announced the merger, the Large Hardon Collider has not created a black hole large enough to destroy the Earth. #thankyouComcast
• Since Comcast announced the merger, millions of kittens have been adopted #thankyouComcast
• Since Comcast announced the merger, we have a potential Ebola vaccine #thankyouComcast
• Since Comcast announced the merger, Bruce Willis has not had to blow up an asteroid to save our planet. #thankyouComcast
Well, we don’t know about that last one. Bruce isn’t always very public about his asteroid-destroying activities.
Back to the matter at hand… Instead of praising Comcast for its valiant effort to expand by purchasing another huge company, these mayors should be urging Comcast to spend these billions improving its speeds and building out a gigabit network of its own that would offer more choice to consumers.
CNN Money’s colorful but misleading map shows both real and imaginary private gigabit expansion but misses public gigabit networks.
The article is right that gigabit connections are, slowly, starting to meander their way into a number of cities around the United States. But the map is misleading in a couple of big ways: it overplays the current contributions of big telecom businesses, and misses a chance to highlight smaller success stories.
1.) Promises Aren’t Connections
There sure are a lot of dots for AT&T and for CenturyLink on that map! They must be expanding like mad!
Well, yes and no. Both companies have plans for expansion in several cities, but haven’t built out all their networks or connected many subscribers yet.
Currently, AT&T “U-verse with GigaPower” service is available in three cities, all in Texas. They are “confirmed” to be installing service in another 11 cities sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future. The intent to connect some of those cities was just announced as recently as this week. Plan information, pricing, and availability won’t be available to potential subscribers for some time.
Additionally, in the three cities — Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth — where AT&T does currently operate ultra-high-speed GigaPower networks, not all customers are yet seeing actual gigabit speeds, although the company does plan to reach that level during 2014.
The CenturyLink dots are a little more accurate than the AT&T dots. Just this month, the company announced that they were immediately launching residential fiber in eight cities and expanding it in their existing three. Another six cities are getting business-only access. However, even in the 11 cities where CenturyLink now provides fast fiber access, the service is new and still only available in certain areas.
2.) Municipal Broadband
The article says that, “AT&T, Google, and CenturyLink, have been the main drivers of ultra-fast Internet for home customers.” And as far as private investment goes, that’s true. But big telecom, cable, and internet companies aren’t the only game in town.
The CNN map has exactly one purple dot, representing publicly-owned networks, on their map and it’s splatted right in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Chattanooga has indeed had tremendous success with their citywide, publicly-owned fiber network. The chairman of the FCC has held the city up as a shining example of why municipal broadband networks should be allowed to thrive despite state-level laws currently blocking them.
But laws in 20 states haven’t blocked all public fiber networks. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which tracks and advocates for the expansion of municipal broadband networks, there are roughly 90 communities out there where fiber-to-the-home is available for “most or all” of the residents. And of those, over 40 communities in 13 states offer gigabit connections.
Granted, localities cluster together on a national-level map so asking for 40+ purple dots is really a bit much. But at least 12 other states around the country should have an indicator in them somewhere and don’t.
Where you can get blazing-fast Internet speeds [CNN Money]
Older tweens flying solo on American Airlines and hoping for a bit more independence can kiss those dreams goodbye. The latest American/US Airways merger-related policy update for the airline involves increasing the age for which unaccompanied minors must pay to be supervised.
According to the Dallas Morning New’s Aviation Blog, starting on Sept. 3 American Airlines expands its current $150 each way unaccompanied minor (UMNR) fee, which covers children ages 5 to 11, to include young teens ages 12 to 14.
Passengers who purchased tickets for unaccompanied passengers ages 12 to 14 prior to Sept. 3 with flight dates after the expanded fee goes into effect, the UMNR service will be provided free of charge.
The Airline also announced inane employee email that it is currently working to merge its UMNR requirements with that of US Airways.
Currently US Airways does not allow UMNRs to travel on connecting flights, while American does. Eventually, officials say that passengers 8 to 14 will be able to travel on connecting flights with US Airways.
American is by no means the only U.S. carrier to charge UMNR fees.
• Delta charges $100 each way for minors ages 5 to 14. The airline also offers the service for those ages 15 to 17.
• Southwest charges $50 each way for unaccompanied minors ages 5 to 11.
• United Airlines charges $150 each way for children ages 5 to 11.
• JetBlue charges $100 each way for unaccompanied minors ages 5 to 13.
• Alaska Airlines charges just $25 each way for non-stop or same-plane flights for children ages 5 to 7. Kids 8 to 12 can take connecting flights, the fee increases by $50 each way.
• Spirit Airlines charges $100 each way for children ages 5 to 14 to fly alone, but only on nonstop and same-plan flights.
American Airlines to charge for older youths flying alone [Dallas Morning News]
Aereo had originally claimed that its service — which uses arrays of tiny antennae to capture freely available over-the-air broadcast signals and then transmit the live feeds over the Internet to paying users — didn’t violate broadcasters’ copyright because the setup was really just a high-tech rooftop antenna, connecting one user with a single wee antenna.
But a divided SCOTUS disagreed, with the majority ruling that what Aereo was doing was not substantially different from the way in which pay-TV operators collect and retransmit over-the-air network feeds to cable customers. Thing is, those pay-TV companies fork over heft fees for that access while Aereo did not.
And so, when the Aereo case was sent back to the lower court, the company tried to make the argument that it should be allowed to operate if it agrees to pay reasonable retrans fees to the broadcasters.
“If Aereo is a ‘cable system’ as that term is defined in the Copyright Act,” wrote the company’s lawyers in a letter to the court, “it is eligible for a statutory license, and its transmissions may not be enjoined.”
However, in July the U.S. Copyright Office said it could not grant Aereo’s request to be licensed similarly to a cable company, explaining that it had yet to be determined if had the authority to grant such a license to an Internet video streaming service. The Aereo filing was accepted, but only provisionally, “depending upon further regulatory or judicial developments.”
But then on Thursday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit filed a document showing that it had denied Aereo’s request to make its “we’re a cable company” argument, sending the case back to the District Court and vacating that lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction against Aereo.
Not that the injunction matters, as Aereo ceased streaming video and began issuing refunds only days after the SCOTUS ruling in June.
Aereo could still take the case with broadcasters to trial and make the cable company argument there, but that seems unlikely at this point.
On the right of this photo is a 1-euro coin, which is more or less the size of a U.S. dollar coin. On the left is a super-thin skimmer recovered from the card-reader slot of an ATM in Europe. Powered by a watch battery, it was only found when the ATM displayed a “fatal error” message and a technician came by to figure out what was wrong.
The bank that showed this skimmer to Krebs on Security wants to stay anonymous, but is somewhere in Europe. While credit and bank cards in Europe in theory use EMV (computer chip) instead of magnetic strips, they still often have magnetic strips in order to be backwards-compatible in countries that still use magnetic card readers.
When it comes to skimmers, there are a few very basic precautions that you can take to prevent having your bank account drained by a skimmer.
1. Cover your hand while inputting your PIN. Imagine that there’s a camera somewhere above the screen pointing down at your hand, because sometimes there is.
This method is not foolproof: some skimmers use a false PIN pad to capture numbers instead, so shielding your hand wouldn’t work. Most skimmers recovered recently use separate data capture devices and cameras, though, so it’s a helpful tactic. This might mean using walk-up instead of drive-up ATMs if, like me, you’re too short to reach the machine with two hands while sitting in a car.
2. Use a credit card to reduce your fraud liability at a gas pump or kiosk. This one might be a little too obvious, but fraudsters can’t drain your bank account if they don’t have access to it. Yes, you will eventually get the money back, but an empty bank account can lead to a very unpleasant week.
Stealthy, Razor Thin ATM Insert Skimmers [Krebs on Security]
The voluntary industry standard requires non-refillable bean bag chairs to have closed and permanently disabled zippers. However, the recalled chairs have two zippers that can be opened, providing enough space for a child to enter. The child can then become trapped and suffocate or choke on the bag’s foam beads.
A 13-year-old boy from Texas and a 3-year-old girl from Kentucky died inside the Ace Bayou chairs after suffocating and inhaling the beads, CPSC reports.
Affected chairs include both round or L-shaped, vinyl or fabric, and are filled with polystyrene foam beads. The chairs were sold in a variety of colors, including purple, violet, blue, red, pink, yellow, Kelly green, black, port, navy, lime, royal blue, turquoise, tangerine and multi-color.
Round bean bag chairs were sold in three sizes, 30, 32 and 40 inches in diameter, while L-shaped bean bag chairs measure 18 inches wide by 30 inches deep by 30 inches high. “ACE BAYOU CORP” is printed on a tag sewn into the bean bag chair’s cover seam.
The chairs, which retailed for between $30 and $100, were sold at Bon-Ton, Meijer, Pamida, School Specialty, Wayfair, Walmart and Amazon.com before July 2013.
The CPSC urges consumers to check their bean bag chairs for any zippers that can open and take those that can open away from children immediately.
Owners should contact New Orleans-based Ace Bayou for a free repair kit to permanently disable the zippers so that they cannot be opened.
Two Deaths Reported with Ace Bayou Bean Bag Chairs; Recall Announced Due to Suffocation and Choking Hazards [U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission]
![He ate all this stuff so you wouldn't have to. [via AdWeek]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vbrL2K0EK6a4s2xmyUuMA34U-mCg2Kv1HiXsVvTbtKij9NSUsEH5ge-E6U0kZS3fPUUQazteK0=s0-d)
