DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Amazon's 100 drone deliveries puts Prime Air far behind Alphabet's Wing and Walmart partner Zipline
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Katie Tarasov | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +14 min

Wing CEO Adam Woodworth shows the Alphabet company's delivery drone to CNBC's Katie Tarasov on April 25, 2023, in Hollister, California. Walmart said it made more than 6,000 drone deliveries across seven states in 2022 with DroneUp, Zipline and a third partner, Flytrex. Amazon's VP of Prime Air David Carbon showcased the current MK27-2 drone in Westborough, Massachusetts, on Nov. 10, 2022. Prime Air drones, along with most other delivery drones, operate with a number of federal exemptions that greatly restrict where and how they can fly. Prime Air drones are not expected to exceed 58 decibels, according to an FAA assessment, about the noise level of an outdoor air conditioning unit.

☆ High schools and colleges require students to pay mandatory fees to walk at graduation. Critics say this discriminates against low-income students.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Misha Valencia | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Most high schools and colleges charge students a graduation fee to attend the ceremony. Critics say these high, mandatory fees discriminate against low-income students. She told Insider that nothing had changed since she graduated; the school was still charging mandatory graduation fees. High schools and colleges across the US are charging students mandatory graduation fees — sometimes called a walking fee — to walk in their graduation ceremonies. For example, California and Minnesota have barred mandatory graduation fees in public schools.

☆ What the banking crisis means for mortgage rates
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Anna Bahney | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Generally, home buyers can anticipate mortgage rates to move down through the rest of this year as the banking crisis drags on, which could cool down inflation. Neither the actions of the Federal Reserve nor the bank failures directly impact mortgage rates. When Treasury yields go up, so do mortgage rates; when they go down, mortgage rates tend to follow. Following the Fed’s announcement on Wednesday, bond yields — and the mortgage rates that usually follow them — fell. “Homebuyers in 2023 have shown themselves to be quite sensitive to any changes in mortgage rates,” Fratantoni said.

☆ Four days of panic: How startup execs navigated SVB's meltdown and prepared for the worst
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

A Silicon Valley Bank worker talks with people lining up outside of the bank office on March 13, 2023 in Santa Clara, California. Refreshing GoogleOtter.ai founder and CEO Sam Liang spent Monday driving to SVB branches in Silicon Valley to try and retrieve millions of dollars of his company's money. "I checked Google like 20 times an hour, watched [Treasury Secretary Janet] Yellen talking about not bailing out Silicon Valley Bank." Silicon Valley Bank customers listen as FDIC representatives, left, speak with them before the opening of a branch SVBs headquarters in Santa Clara, California on March 13, 2023. "But at the moment, as long as Silicon Valley Bridge Bank is 100% federally guaranteed, there's no need to diversify.

☆ I find peoples' lost jewelry on beaches for a living. I have a 90% success rate, and most searches take me under 2 hours.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Gary Nunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Michael Oliver would hunt for lost metal as a hobby while working as a forklift driver. I called my business Lost Jewelry Recovery rather than naming it as a metal-detecting service, because jewelry is the main thing clients call me to recover. The equipment tells me exactly where to dig and how far downSometimes I find lost jewelry in five minutes or less. There are heaps of lost rings: engagement rings, wedding rings, family heirlooms, 21 st-birthday rings, grandma's ring — the lot. Reunions are often emotionalSometimes curious beachgoers who've watched the nail-biting search burst into spontaneous applause when I find the lost item.

☆ One of Google's big plans to replace third-party cookies just hit a huge setback that it might not recover from
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Google's plan to replace third-party tracking cookies with new tech has hit another snag. A W3C group has rejected Google's Topics API proposal, saying it won't adequately preserve user privacy. The W3C rebuke marks the latest in a series of snags in Google's effort to kill off third-party cookies. However, other browsers like Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox already block third-party cookies as privacy features. The company has its own commercial priorities and the commitment to the CMA that it can't remove third-party cookies until new features provide an adequate replacement.

☆ Iggy Pop Isn’t About to Whitewash His Past
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +18 min

Mamadi Doumbouya for The New York Times Talk Iggy Pop Isn’t About to Whitewash His PastIggy Pop’s life and work constitute one of music’s most remarkable survival stories. Iggy and the Stooges around 1969 — from left, Scott Asheton, Ron Asheton, Dave Alexander and Iggy Pop. But if you quietly say it to some sepulchral music, that’s a different thing, because you’re facing darkness once you hit 50. I don’t think that I was really thinking about anything. My doctor tells me I have a strong immune system, but I don’t think that’ll do it for you.

☆ Homebuyers will flock to the Midwest in 2023 because prices will still be too expensive in coastal states, a Zillow economist predicts
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Robert Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Midwest could be 2023's hottest housing market because it's affordable, one Zillow economist said. Buyers may look at cities like Chicago, Indianapolis, and Cleveland, where prices have remained stable. Homebuyers in expensive markets like Denver, New York City, and San Francisco were routinely searching for homes in less expensive midwestern markets, the report added. The typical home in Milwaukee is $181,000 while in St. Louis, buyers should expect to spend $176,500, Zillow suggests. But waiting out this market may not be the best approach for buyers ready and able to buy now."

Hall of Fame wide receiver Terrell Owens punched a man over the weekend in Southern California, a brawl that the retired football great said Monday was self-defense. Once he entered the store, Owens said a customer approached him, identified themselves as a San Francisco 49ers fan and they exchanged pleasantries. "The guy I ended up fighting, he was basically threatening a guy, a fan of mine that was in the store," said Owens. Even two days later, Owens said he hasn't been able to figure out why the man was so aggressive to the 49ers fan. But the (49ers) fan was on the phone when I was talking to him.

☆ Many Americans are ditching their dreams of owning a house as recession fears flare, says the CEO of one of the nation's largest homebuilders
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Alcynna Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Not only is this a 23.2% decline from the rate a year ago — it also marks the slowest rate of sales since September 2012. So far in 2022, US housing construction has fallen in four out of nine months. It's a scenario that Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, said will not only impact home builders, but the overall housing market. "What is surprising is that rising rates normally push out potential homebuyers, but they have also pushed out potential sellers," Divounguy told Insider. With less housing inventory being introduced to the market, home prices are likely to remain high.

Voucher and card providers like Edenred stand to benefit from higher inflation as it can result in an increase in the maximum face value of employee benefit cards. The company last raised its EBITDA forecast in July to 770-820 million euros. "The current macroeconomic environment continues to favour Edenred", Berenberg's analyst Stuart Gordon says, adding he expects the shares to trade favourably on the back of the strong results and raised guidance. The group reported an operating revenue of 484 million euros in the third quarter, beating analysts' 465 million euro estimate in a company-provided consensus. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Federica Mileo and Diana Mandiá in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi & Simon Cameron-MooreOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Silicon Valley's not-so-secret thing for turning everyone into millionaires is angel investing. Here's how they do it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Once only for the superrich, angel investing is now open to anyone with a few thousand dollars. With an estimated 360,000 active angel investors, it's become a favorite pastime in Silicon Valley. "It felt like gambling," David Spreng, a veteran venture-debt investor who's been angel investing as a side hustle for more than a decade, said. He wrote his first angel check shortly thereafter, a $1,000 investment in an electric-aircraft maker. The currency of Silicon Valley"Your currency, for lack of a better term, in Silicon Valley is you either started a company or you angel invest, right?"

☆ Special-ops units from Down Under made their mark with US commandos in Vietnam. They may have to do it again against China.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Stavros Atlamazoglou | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

During the Vietnam War, US troops were supported by forces from several allied countries. The role of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) and the New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) was especially notable. From 1966 to 1971, these two special-operations units deployed a small number of commandos to support conventional forces in Vietnam. Gradually, however, they shifted to a more aggressive stance and started going after high-value North Vietnamese and Viet Cong targets in ambushes and direct-action operations. Special operators from the two countries had fought with the British against Communist insurgents in Malaya and Borneo.

Search resuls for: "Guy said"

13 mentions found