Business i t services

Retailer Harris Scarfe has gone under after 169 years selling selling bedding, linen and homewares to Australians. The business went into voluntary administration on Wednesday - with the jobs of many of the 1,800 staff in 66 stores nationwide now at risk.  Deloitte Restructuring Services will be responsible for attempting to re-purpose and sell the business and claim they will attempt to retain as many staff as possible. The administrator said it would be business as usual over the Christmas period and all employees will continue to be paid.  The chain is believed to make about $380million is sales each year annually.  Australian retailer Harris Scarfe has gone into voluntary administration (Pictured: Rundle Place in Adelaide with a Harris Scarfe store on the second floor) The Aussies businesses that went bust in 2019  Ed HarryBardot Karen Millen Shoes of Prey Several Red Rooster outlets  CrinitisNapoleon PerdisStylerunner Muscle … [Read more...] about Department store chain Harris Scarfe goes broke after 169 years of business – putting hundreds of jobs at risk

Nearly every moment of our lives, we’re producing data about ourselves that companies profit from. Our smartwatches know when we wake up, Alexa listens to our private conversations, our phones track where we go, Google knows what we email and search, Facebook knows what we share with friends, and our loyalty cards remember what we buy. We share all this data about ourselves because we like the services these companies provide, and business leaders tell us we must to make it possible for those services to be cheap or free. Facebook’s business has relied on the trade of data for free service since we started it in our dorm room nearly 15 years ago, but it’s taken the Cambridge Analytica scandal to educate many users about just how this works. Just like many other business leaders, Mark Zuckerberg describes this as a win-win – people stay in touch with friends and family more often through a free service, and businesses can more efficiently spend marketing dollars … [Read more...] about The wealth of our collective data should belong to all of us

However they see Amazon, for good or ill, residents of the fastest-growing city in the US largely agree on the price Seattle has paid to be the home of the megacorporation: surging rents, homelessness, traffic-clogged streets, overburdened public transport, an influx of young men in polo shirts and a creeping uniformity rubbing against the city’s counterculture. But the issue of Jeff Bezos’s balls is far from settled. “Have you seen the Bezos balls?” asked Dave Christie, a jewellery maker at a waterfront market who makes no secret of his personal dislike for the man who founded and still runs Amazon. “No one wanted them. They’ve disfigured downtown. Giant balls say everything about the man. Bezos is holding Seattle hostage.” It’s not strictly true to say everyone is against the three huge plant-forested glass spheres at what Amazon calls its “campus” in the heart of the city. The Bezos balls, as the conservatories are … [Read more...] about Is Bezos holding Seattle hostage? The cost of being Amazon’s home

In the aftermath of the uprising in Ferguson, Missouri, over the killing of Michael Brown, police departments and policy makers around the country hit upon a supposed panacea to racist policing and police brutality: body-worn cameras. Many hailed the move as a victory for accountability. But among the few dissenters was Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice and a leader in the Black Lives Matter network, who warned early and often that the cameras could become tools of surveillance against people of color because “body-worn cameras don’t watch the police, they watch the community being policed, people like me”. The scope and scale of that surveillance became clearer Tuesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California released a collection of public records detailing how Amazon has been marketing and selling facial recognition software, called Amazon Rekognition, to law enforcement agencies. Amazon marketing materials … [Read more...] about ‘Recipe for authoritarianism’: Amazon under fire for selling face-recognition software to police

AMAZON will begin rolling out machines to automate the jobs held by thousands of its workers, it's been revealed today. New technology designed to box up customer orders has already been added to a handful of warehouses. The machines are said to scan goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelope them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two Amazon workers told Reuters. Two machines at dozens more warehouses may be installed, removing at least 24 roles at each one, people working on the project said. These facilities typically employ more than 2,000 people.JOB CUTS That would amount to 1,320 job cuts across 55 US fulfilment centres for standard-sized inventory.The multinational, famous for its drive to automate as many parts of its business as possible, is pushing to reduce labour and boost profits. However, automation of the most common warehouse task – picking up an item – is still beyond its reach. The company is one of the largest employers in the US, … [Read more...] about Fears for Amazon workers as company rolls out robots that automatically pack orders