Online learning is increasingly popular due to accessibility, flexibility, cost savings, and a wide range of course options available for students of all backgrounds. [ more ]
Benefits of Properly Setting Up Your Systems with a Managed IT Provider - Social Media Explorer
Increased security is a significant advantage of working with a managed IT provider, as they can provide advanced security solutions and 24/7 monitoring.
Working with a managed IT provider can lead to cost savings by eliminating the need for an in-house IT team and reducing overall IT expenses.
A managed IT provider offers scalability and flexibility, allowing businesses to easily adapt to changing IT needs and implement new technology. [ more ]
S trike action was announced on the Tube and by ambulance workers on Wednesday in a fresh wave of industrial action.London Underground drivers are to strike on March 15 Budget Day in a dispute over pensions and working arrangements, their union Aslef announced.On the same day more than 100,000 civil servants are set to walk out in a dispute over pay and conditions.
Work-From-Home Regulations Are Coming. Companies Aren't Ready.
Magazine Spring 2023 Issue The growing compliance costs of remote work could push more employers to bring workers back to the office.Dan Page/theispot.comDebates over the trade-offs of remote work arrangements have tended to focus on challenges related to maintaining worker productivity, building company culture, and upholding boundaries between work and home.
London sees highest and lowest council tax rises in England as five more boroughs hike bills above 2k
L ondon is expected to see the highest and lowest council tax increases in the country this year, analysis revealed on Tuesday.While Croydon residents will be hit by a record 15 per cent rise in bills, those in Tower Hamlets and Westminster will see their payments go up by just two per cent.The majority of Londoners face a five per cent hike in their council tax from April, as town halls seek to balance their books.
Building a finOps/ cloud economics practice from the ground up!
This blog aims to help Engineers, Engineering leaders, and Execs who want to coin a FinOps/ Cloud Economics practice facilitate their FinOps journey.You'll find the blueprint and roadmap of how we did this and cultivated a culture of cost awareness across engineering at a hypergrowth security startup with a small FinOps team and only six core objectives.
Microsoft is previewing two new Azure general-purpose virtual machines that will give organizations running compute-intensive workloads more options for balancing costs and performance.The Azure Dlsv5 and Dldsv5 VMs are addons to the Dv5 and Ev5 VMs, which went live in November.The pitch was to offer better price-performance for general-purpose and memory-intensive jobs by being both scalable (up to 96 virtual CPUs) and running on Intel's Xeon Platinum third-generation (Ice Lake) hyperthreaded processors.
What mortgage lenders need to know about wholesale
HousingWire recently spoke with Desmond Smith, chief growth officer at United Wholesale Mortgage, about the role that wholesale lending plays in the mortgage ecosystem and common myths and misconceptions about becoming an independent mortgage broker.HousingWire: What role has wholesale lending historically played in the mortgage ecosystem?
Black Knight to integrate Wolters Kluwer's eNote and eVault capabilities
Black Knight will integrateWolters Kluwer's eNote and eVault capabilities in order to cut lenders' costs per transaction and secure their clients' electronically signed assets.The two firms signed an agreement to combine Wolters Kluwer's eNote and eVault solutions with Expedite Close - Black Knight's digital closing solution - as the final pieces to connect all the tools lenders need to perform digital closings and complete digital mortgages, Black Knight said Thursday.
London Underground drivers are to strike on 15 March budget day in a dispute over pensions and working arrangements.The Aslef union announced on Wednesday that members would strike for 24 hours, in a row over changes to working arrangements and pensions.Its members in other roles on the underground including test train and engineering train drivers and those in management grades also voted to strike, the union said, and would take action on 15 March as well.
Vodafone to axe 11,000 jobs as new boss says company's performance not good enough'
Mobile phone giant Vodafone's new boss has revealed plans to slash 11,000 jobs across the group over the next three years as she said the firm must change to address its poor performance.Margherita Della Valle, recently appointed Vodafone's group chief executive, said the cull comes as part of a plan to simplify the business.
Food prices soar to record high with coffee and ready meal costs hit
Food prices have soared to a new record high as consumers continue to feel the pinch in the cost of living crisis, with ready meals and coffee becoming considerably more expensive.Overall shop inflation eased back slightly from record highs in April as spring discounts at fashion and furniture stores meant wider retail inflation slowed.
Food inflation strikes another record high but clothing price rises ease
Shop price inflation eased back slightly from record highs last month despite another surge in food prices.Food prices soared 15.7%, the highest on record, in April to continue pressure on consumer finances, according to the latest BRC-NielsenIQ shop price index.However, spring discounting at fashion and furniture stores meant wider retail inflation slowed for the month.
I'll get straight to the point: "Submit" and "Click here" are ineffective calls to action (CTAs) for your email campaigns.(I'll explain why a few paragraphs down.)If you need help with CTA samples you can test, language models like ChatGPT or Google's Bard can be your best new copywriting tools.
How HP Built An In-House Agency From Scratch | AdExchanger
By Freddie Liversidge will be speaking at AdExchanger's Programmatic IO conference on May 16-17 in Las Vegas.Click here to register.In 2016, a scandal rocked the advertising industry.A damning Association of National Advertisers (ANA) report revealed US ad agencies were pocketing profits through opaque practices like taking kickbacks from media companies and reselling media to clients at a markup.
The YouTube advertising company Channel Factory invited PwC to perform verification procedures over their proprietary platform ViewIQ, ensuring that it delivers efficiency to brands and agencies, and saves money as a result of quality ad placement.PwC's testing found Channel Factory's technology reduces media wastage by 23% leading to a 12% cost savings which is increasingly significant as a result of the economic downturn.
A blood test which can detect traces of cancer cells could spare thousands of patients unnecessary chemotherapy every year.A major bowel cancer trial is examining whether the test can show if surgery has removed all of the tumour.Doctors say half of patients with stage 3 bowel cancer are cured by surgery alone so by using chemotherapy they are over-treating many people.
Bob Iger admits Disney theme park pricing moves were 'a little too aggressive'
Walt Disney Co.Chief Executive Bob Iger acknowledges his company goofed on some of its pricing strategies.Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Thursday, Iger admitted that Disney's pursuit of higher profits at its sprawling theme parks - and its initial bargain-basement subscription fee for streaming service Disney+ - had negative consequences for the Burbank entertainment giant.
Work from home was one of the biggest labor market experiments in decades.Driven by the pandemic, the key question is - will the work from home option stick even as the worst of the pandemic is, hopefully, behind us?Recent experience and research suggests the benefits of remote work are compelling enough that there's no going back, says Marketplace's senior economics contributor, Chris Farrell.
Analysis | Elon Musk's Impossible Electric Truck Is Getting the Last Laugh
Bags of PepsiCo Inc. brand Lay's potato chips for sale at a grocery store in Bagdad, Kentucky, U.S., on Friday, April 9, 2021.PepsiCo Inc. is scheduledto release earnings figures on April 15.(Bloomberg)When Elon Musk announced plans to upend the long-haul trucking industry five years ago, it was hard to suppress the urge to laugh.
Speaker Adams says city can't afford headcount cuts called for in Mayor's latest fiscal belt-tightening move | amNewYork
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on Tuesday pushed back on Mayor Eric Adams' latest proposed budget cuts, which included a directive for city agencies to eliminate half of their vacant positions, saying the city can't afford to lose staff amid its current municipal worker shortage.Agency heads were first notified about the new spending reduction plan in a Monday letter from Mayor Adams' Budget Director Jacques Jiha who heads the city Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Judge away: A cover can actually tell you a lot about a book | CBC Radio
It turns out an old saying might be wrong you can judge a book by its cover after all, say authors and book designers."If you've got that shirtless cowboy looking out into the field, his truck nearby, you know what's going to be in that book," cover designer Brigid Pearson told The Sunday Magazine.
Why the Centralization of Marketing Departments May Increase
Driving relevance means driving growth.Join global brands and industry thought leaders at Brandweek, Sept. 11-14 in Miami, for actionable takeaways to better your marketing.50% off passes ends April 10.There is a cyclical trend within global marketing teams, vacillating from a centralized structure to one that is decentralized.
Brands like Rakuten, Squarespace, Best Buy turn to in-house teams to create flexible, quick Super Bowl campaigns
* By Kristina Monllos
As marketers continue to build out in-house agencies - creative, media or otherwise - offering the talent that joins said agencies the ability to crack major campaign moments like the Super Bowl is necessary, according to in-house agency execs.Cash-back platform Rakuten will run its second Super Bowl spot by its 45-person in-house team this year.
Using SGAI to deliver and play ads with flexibility and scale
Disney+ Basic is now available in the U.S., and allows viewers to enjoy the amazing catalog of content on Disney+ with a lower priced, ad-supported subscription option in addition to the ad-free Disney+ Premium plan.As many who have worked on an ad-supported product know, delivering ads is not always simple, at least not with service flexibility and scale.
ITV Sees Revenues Climb 7% to $5.3 Billion, Hails Launch of ITVX Streaming Platform
U.K. commercial broadcaster ITV 's annual results for 2022 were revealed Thursday and the picture is robust.Total group revenue was up 7% to £4.3 billion ($5.3 billion) and total external revenue was up 8% to £3.7 billion.ITV Studios total revenues grew 19% to £2 billion.The "Love Island" broadcaster said that the strong revenue growth and the adjusted interest, taxes, and amortization (EBITA) margin of 12.4% for ITV Studios was driven by a 58% increase in high-end scripted hours produced, with 19 formats sold in three or more countries.
Software vendor says own hardware $400m cheaper than cloud
Singaporean search engine optimisation tools vendor Ahrefs has claimed that keeping its infrastructure on-premises, rather than using Amazon Web Services, will save it $400 million over three years.A March 9th post by one of the company's data centre operations execs, Efim Mirochnik, compared the cost of acquiring its fleet of 850 servers (an image in his post depicts Dell EMC kit) and running them in a co-located data centre with the cost of running a similar rig in Amazon Web Services.
Optimizing Cloud Costs for DevOps With AI-Assisted Kubernetes
By: Marc Hornbeek on As indicated in my prior blog, Optimizing Cloud Costs for DevOps With AI-Assisted Orchestration, an AI-assisted Kubernetes orchestrator is needed to optimize cloud costs for DevOps, DevSecOps and SRE.This blog describes the landscape for cloud-native optimization approaches and a features requirement blueprint for an AI-assisted Kubernetes orchestrator.
Tory says Bill 23 will cost Toronto $2B over next decade | CBC News
Mayor John Tory said he'll be pressing for a firm commitment from Queen's Park to replace the development charge money the city will lose as a result of the province's new housing bill.(Evan Mitsui/CBC) Mayor John Tory warned Ontario's new housing bill could cost Toronto some $2 billion over the next decade and said he'll press Queen's Park to make sure the city remains financially whole.
London Underground drivers announce strike date for March
London Underground drivers announce strike date for March (Image: PA) The London Underground is set to face further strike action in March as drivers vote to strike on the day of the Budget.The action is in a dispute over pension and working arrangements, which saw a vote in favour of industrial action by 99% of members of Aslef on a turnout out of 77% in a ballot.
A weekly round-up of London's rail transport news... London Underground Poppy roundels appear at London Tube stations as appeal kicks off Standard A pair of new moving walkways opened at Bank tube station transforming the connection between the Northern and Central lines.ianVisits Commuters at Westminster Tube station were given a surprise after the prime minister turned up to sell poppies.
HS2 likely' to exceed mammoth budget unless urgent savings found
T he cost of the HS2 high-speed train line between London and Birmingham is likely to blow its 40.3bn budget unless cost savings are found quickly, MPs have been warned.Almost 30bn has been spent or allocated on phase one of the route despite the first trains not being due to run until the end of the decade at the earliest, new Transport Secretary Mark Harper has revealed.
Evorra Grows to Over 145 Million Compliant, Addressable Audiences
Evorra, the simplest-to-use next-generation SaaS marketplace for brands and agencies, has reached another milestone with over 145 million compliant and addressable audiences going live on its platform this week."We have been working hand-in-hand with some of the world's largest brands and websites to build a next-generation audience platform that ensures only the consented and fully secure use of data," said Aaron Ritoper, co-founder and CEO of Evorra.
Alibaba Introduces Buy Now Pay Later to Boost Sales; Third-Party Apps Nixed on Musk's Twitter - ExchangeWire.com
In today's ExchangeWire news digest: Alibaba offers Buy Now Pay Later to European customers; Musk's Twitter is believed to have intentionally broken third-party apps to the site; and Indian unicorn ShareChat culls its workforce against economic headwinds.Alibaba offers BNPL in Europe E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding now offers its European customers the option to pay for products after receiving them.
M&S hails strong Christmas sales across food and clothing arm
Retail giant Marks & Spencer has cheered strong Christmas trading as it revealed record food sales and its highest clothing and home market share for seven years.The retail bellwether reported a better-than-expected 6.3% rise in like-for-like sales across its food halls in the 13 weeks to December 31, with its largest Christmas sales of more than 80 million on December 23 and its highest share of the market.
A failure to attract more customers to the railway risks a permanently smaller network, an industry body has warned.Rail Partners, which represents independent passenger and freight train operators, published a report urging the Government to take urgent action to avoid a spiral of decline.It wants operators to be given more influence on key issues such as timetabling, marketing and fares.
More to pay 45% top rate of tax, Jeremy Hunt announces
More Britons will pay higher rates of tax after the autumn state as Jeremy Hunt announce he was freezing allowances for two further years and cutting the threshold for the 45p top rate.The chancellor said cutting the starting point for the top rate from earnings of 150,000 to 125,140 would see the wealthiest paying an extra 1,200 each year.
Analysis | US Takeovers Are Hot Stuff - Provided Buyers Can Afford Them
This should be the time when forward-thinking bosses can launch a takeover without having to fight a counterbid from a private equity firm, and hopefully end up paying a sensible price.And yet the shareholders of corporate buyers are punishing acquisitive ambition.What looks like an open goal is actually a trap.
We often think of brand consolidation as a "big business" concern.Take for example the recent $13.7 billion takeover of Whole Foods by Amazon.Should Amazon put its imprint on Whole Foods outlets?But branding issues play out even more frequently with small and medium enterprises.One medical practice takes over or merges with another, one manufacturer acquires another producer, or an accounting firm wants to rebrand itself for a fresh start.
BuzzFeed's CEO says AI could usher in a new model for digital media,' but warns against a dystopian' path
Over the holidays, while most media executives were perhaps looking to get a reprieve from work, Jonah Peretti was online, fully immersed in experimenting with artificial intelligence.The BuzzFeed co-founder and chief executive, who has always raced to test out the latest technologies, was familiar with AI and predictions of how it could one day revolutionize the media industry.
IBM talks up cost savings, including 'workforce rebalancing'
IBM is increasing its target for annual cost savings by $1 billion and will use various strategies to achieve it, including completing the Weather Company's asset and implementing job cuts.
IBM reported Q4 revenue of $17.4 billion, with growth in Software, Consulting, and Infrastructure divisions. Operating profit for the quarter was $3.75 billion. [ more ]
Leveraging AI and Automation to Streamline Clinical Trial Data Management - DATAVERSITY
Clinical trials are critical in developing and approving new medical treatments and technologies.These trials generate massive data that needs to be managed efficiently and accurately to ensure patient safety and successful research outcomes.The good news is that advances in AI and automation technology, such as AI-based data extraction, virtual clinical trials, and predictive analytics, are making it easier for clinical trial managers to streamline their clinical trial Data Management processes and gain insights that can help improve patient outcomes.
EY survey: Tech leaders to invest in AI, 5G, cybersecurity, big data, metaverse
Generative AI is of particular interest to leaders for the benefits of cost savings, efficiency and effectiveness.Economic perils notwithstanding, 94% of tech leaders are committed to investing in new tools and technologies, including AI, according to a survey by EY.The new poll suggests tech leaders view this investment strategy, particularly for cybersecurity, as a way to weather geopolitical uncertainty and the economic downturn.
Critics furious over Hochul, Heastie plan to crack down on NY's $8 billion home care Medicaid program: 'Recipe for corruption'
Critics oppose Gov. Hochul and Speaker Heastie's plan to overhaul $8 billion Medicaid homecare program, citing concerns about fraud and abuse prevention and cost savings. [ more ]
Tesla is smoothing its vehicle delivery process to avoid bottlenecks
Elon Musk's company had another profitable quarter, but with dark clouds looming on the horizon, the company is under pressure to meet its goals for the year
What is Google's Pixel Pass? A Complete Guide For 2023
What is Google Pixel Pass?How does it work?What Pixel phones and Google services are included?How much does it cost?Here's everything you need to know in one place...If you like Google's Pixel Phones, use its services - stuff like YouTube Premium and YouTube Music - or are looking to consolidate all of the digital expenses associated with running a smartphone under one roof, Pixel Pass could definitely be of interest.
Qatar is going to host another World Cup, adding basketball to the sports portfolio of a tiny country with long-term Olympic hosting ambitions.The International Basketball Federation picked Qatar to host the 2027 edition of its marquee men's World Cup on Friday.There was no vote between competing bids.
ICBA, affiliates urge CFPB to improve construction loan disclosures
The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and 42 affiliated state banking associations are calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to approve language that allows community banks to test out different consumer construction and construction-to-permanent loan disclosures, which the group describes as "a core offering of community banks in many local communities."
Black Knight's Scout added to Fannie Mae's new valuation options list
Lender and appraisal management companies and other property data collection companies can now use Black Knight 's Scout mobile property inspection as part of the value acceptance plus property data process.With the cloud-based Scout app, users can easily collect detailed interior and exterior property data using a mobile device, Black Knight said Tuesday.
Guild reports improved profits for 2022, affirms appetite for M&As
California-based lender Guild Mortgage posted a higher profit in 2022 thanks to its increased purchase mortgage market share - and now has its eyes set on acquiring other lenders.Guild, the purchase-focused lender with a distributed retail model, posted a net income of $328 million in 2022 despite posting a loss of $15 million in the fourth quarter of the year.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") has reduced the patent fees for small businesses and certain other applicants.This fee reduction is part of an effort to reduce financial burdens and resulting barriers that discourage or prevent these entities from participating in the patent system.
Report: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Call for AI Regulation Framework
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading business lobbying group, made headlines recently by calling for regulation of artificial intelligence technology to ensure it does not harm growth or pose a national security risk in a new report released by the group.It asks that policymakers step up their efforts in establishing a " risk-based regulatory framework " to ensure the technology is deployed in a responsible manner.
75 off books for two days each month!?-Jeneeliya Jayakumar-Parmiter's School
75% off books for two days each month!?-Jeneeliya Jayakumar-Parmiter's School (Image: Jeneeliya Jayakumar) A friend recommended this book store a few months ago.Apparently, the books were over half the price off, and so, on the required days, I went to see whether this place was as good as it had been mentioned in passing.
Instead of killing HS2 bit by bit, ministers should just put it out of its misery | Simon Jenkins
It is death by gangrene.No government seems to have the guts to kill HS2, Britain's biggest and craziest infrastructure project, so each merely lops off another limb.In 2021, it was Leeds.Now the opening of the Birmingham-to-Manchester and Acton-to-Euston lines has been delayed.HS2 to be delayed by two more years due to soaring costs This railway is a southern project on which the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is blowing a staggering 100m a week or 5bn a year.
The Parent Company Of Corcoran, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 And Sotheby's International Realty Net Loss Boston Condos For Sale Ford Realty
The parent company of Corcoran, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Sotheby's International Realty net loss The parent company of Corcoran, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Sotheby's International Realty net loss Anywhere Real Estate finished the fourth quarter with a net loss of $453 million as executives theorized the slowed housing market may be near its bottom.
At least 1,000 jobs cut in English-language news media in January
Metro newspapers at Farringdon station.Picture: Press Gazette At least 995 jobs at English-speaking news media businesses have been cut or put at risk in January 2023.The job losses accelerate a trend that began in the second half of 2022, when media companies cut more than 1,000 editorial roles across four months.
There's been a lot of talk about semantic layers lately.I've seen dozens of companies using a semantic layer to drive self-service analytics at scale.But even with all these success stories, I still get this question: "Is a semantic layer worth the effort?"In other words, is the juice worth the squeeze?
HP plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs amid plummeting PC demand
HP is the latest tech company to announce extensive layoffs.Following a surge in demand for computing products amid pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions, the computer vendor is readjusting as consumer demand for laptops and desktops falls.In its Q4 and fiscal 2022 results shared Tuesday, HP announced that it will eliminate 4,000 to 6,000 jobs by the end of fiscal 2025.
Inflation won't win Thanksgiving: Here's NPR's plan to help you save on a meal
Due to high inflation this year, NPR's Business desk shares cheaper dishes to substitute for Thanksgiving stables.Maansi Srivastava/NPR There is an annoying guest at Thanksgiving dinner this year: inflation.The turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce everything has gotten a lot more expensive.The Farm Bureau puts the total cost of the traditional ingredients at more than $80, an increase of about 40% over 2020.
The Insider: Three Cousins Rethink Row House Living With Communal Reno in Prospect Heights
Three cousins, all around age 30 - two American brothers and their first cousin, an Italian woman now settled in Brooklyn - went in on the purchase of an early 20th century row house badly in need of renovation.Each planned to take one floor of the four-story building, with the garden level to become a communal kitchen and gathering space.
Struggling to pay your electricity bills? Ontarians will pay less, starting today | CBC News
Ontarians struggling with the rising cost of living may notice something unusual when they look at their next hydro bill.The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has announced a decrease in the cost of electricity for residential and small business customers, which takes effect Tuesday.Depending on the pricing plan, people will see drops in price of as much as two cents a kilowatt hour (kWh).
Get the Glasses Social Media Craves with Replacement Lenses - Social Media Explorer
Forget the nerdy stereotype associated with glasses.64% of American adults use prescription eyewear today.Modern glasses are as much of a fashion accessory as they are a necessity.