Thursday, April 25
Two Moving Scams in Arizona Face Lawsuits from State Attorney General
Local News

Two Moving Scams in Arizona Face Lawsuits from State Attorney General

Two Arizona-based moving companies are facing consumer-fraud lawsuits from the state's Attorney General, Tom Horne. The lawsuits allege that 3 Gorillas Moving and Storage LLC in Tuscon, and Allstars Movers and Storage Inc. in Phoenix, engaged in practices that were deceptive, misleading, and just plain false. Both companies are charged with falsely representing the costs of their services, demanding payment when reaching a destination, and refusing to unload trucks unless customers paid up. Both companies also provided unfair claims processes for items that were lost or damaged. The defendants in each lawsuit will have to pay restitution for customers if they are charged, in addition to fines of $10,000, per violation of the Consumer Fraud Act. Allstars Movers go by several nam...
New Survey Finds Work Time and Personal Time Bleeding Together, And That’s a Good Thing
National News

New Survey Finds Work Time and Personal Time Bleeding Together, And That’s a Good Thing

The thin veneer separating work time and personal time has seemingly disappeared. Mobile devices, like smartphones and tablet computers, now allow professionals to get to work as quickly as it takes to unlock their home screens. They can respond to emails, field phone calls, answer texts, edit presentations, and more, all on their mobile devices. Plus, they're the dominant way for people to get online now, too. Consumers spend about 60% of their time online on mobile devices, as opposed to laptops or desktops. Perhaps surprisingly, many business professionals think that this is a good thing. According to a new survey from Entrepreneur, about 80% of surveyed professionals felt positively about being tethered to their offices via their mobile devices, while nearly three in 10 thought it w...
Small Business Saturday Aims to Promote Local Holiday Shopping
Local News

Small Business Saturday Aims to Promote Local Holiday Shopping

Black Friday has long been one of the busiest shopping days of the year, but the businesses that typically stand to benefit from it are usually behemoth retail stores, which draw a huge portion of revenue away from small businesses. What's more, is the corresponding internet shopping event, Cyber Monday, cuts into the retail dollars that might be otherwise spent at small businesses as well. Small Business Saturday, which falls on Saturday, November 29th, aims to change that. According to The Missoulian, Small Business Saturday was created in 2010 by financial services company American Express to help encourage people to do some of their holiday shopping at local small businesses. The Missoulian also reports that studies have shown that both Black Friday and Cyber Monday pose a threat to...
LAPD Makes Decision About Body Cameras For Officers
Local News

LAPD Makes Decision About Body Cameras For Officers

The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed on Tuesday that it will begin equipping its officers with body cameras, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. They have chosen to go with body cameras supplied by Taser, the company best known for producing stun guns that are used by officers to subdue potentially dangerous suspects. Officers from the LAPD tested two different body camera brands in the field over the last three months, choosing the Taser brand cameras due to their ease of use and storage, and other features that make the cameras and video footage more accessible. It also took officers very little time to adjust to evidence.com, Taser's storage site for video footage collected by on-duty police officers. One officer compared the cloud-based storage system to Apple's iPhon...
Arizona Navajo High School Defends Use of Redskins Mascot Amidst Controversy
Local News

Arizona Navajo High School Defends Use of Redskins Mascot Amidst Controversy

As the heated national debate continues over the use of the Washington Redskins mascot name, with many citing the term as racist and derogatory, a Navajo high school on the nation's largest Native American reservation, in Arizona, continues to defend the mascot's use despite growing controversy. The high school has emerged as a symbol, and continues to inspire those supporting the NFL franchise's right to use it. Both students and teachers at Red Mesa High School have shown overwhelming support of keeping their football team's nickname as the Redskins. A recent poll conducted by the school revealed that over 88% of students and 70% of faculty are in favor of keeping and honoring the use of their traditional mascot. Furthermore, over half of students -- 60% -- did not feel that the term "R...
Predicting the Growth of Public and Private Cloud Computing Through 2018
National News

Predicting the Growth of Public and Private Cloud Computing Through 2018

Cloud computing technology has quickly become the go-to solution for companies of all sizes around the world. By the end of this year alone, American businesses will have spent approximately $13 billion on cloud-based technologies. But how does cloud computing's future look? According to recent studies, we can expect the cloud's growth to continue on the upward trajectory it's been on for the last few years. According to a Cloud Tech article, a recent Cisco study found that some 78% of all workloads will be based in and processed by cloud data centers by 2018 -- with global annual cloud network traffic reaching an astonishing 6.5 zettabytes (for comparison, one zettabyte is equivalent to one trillion gigabytes). Of these cloud-based workloads, approximately 69% will be located on privat...
Oregon Hiker Takes the Road Less Traveled, Finds Himself Lost in the Frosty Three Sisters Wilderness
Local News

Oregon Hiker Takes the Road Less Traveled, Finds Himself Lost in the Frosty Three Sisters Wilderness

A 28-year-old hiker escaped the wilds of Oregon unscathed, thanks in no small part to the forces of luck. Erik Larson, a resident of Bend, Oregon, disappeared into Oregon's famed Three Sisters Wilderness, one of the more scenic parts of the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail, on September 30. Larson, like many hikers, wasn't content with the trails outdoorsmen typically take, and chose instead to take the proverbial road less traveled. That, as the famous Robert Frost poem goes, certainly did make all the difference. Changes in climate, the lack of a map, and spotty cellphone service left Larson without any means of escape, as he slowly realized that he was in out of his depth. Luckily, as the hiker pushed on to find a way out of the woods, he found a spot with cell reception, enabling him ...
Research Shows that Half of U.K. Small Business Owners Don’t Know What They Spend on Utilities
National News

Research Shows that Half of U.K. Small Business Owners Don’t Know What They Spend on Utilities

According to recent research, more than half of small business owners in the United Kingdom have no clue what they actually spend on their utility bills. In a survey conducted by Utilitywise, a U.K.-based energy and water consultancy, 52% of small businesses in the U.K. reported no knowledge of the overhead they were spending on gas, electricity and water. A third of respondents reported being unable to access data that would tell them how much energy they use. Small businesses have a lot of responsibilities to take care of, from cleaning carpets to reduce indoor air pollutants, to regularly maintaining HVAC systems and operating equipment. Keeping track of utilities is the key to constructing a budget that allows for all these costs. Monitoring of utility expenditure is also the only w...
“Waters of the United States” Rule Pits EPA against Small Business Administration
National News

“Waters of the United States” Rule Pits EPA against Small Business Administration

The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy is clashing with the Environmental Protection Agency over the agency's “Waters of the United States” rule. The EPA hopes that the rule will help clarify which smaller bodies of water (like streams and wetlands) that the agency is responsible for regulating under the Clean Water Act. The Agency website states that jurisdictions for streams and wetlands became unclear following Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006. The SBA, however, argues that the proposed rule would give federal regulators jurisdiction over water even on private property, like ditches and pastures, and put undue strain on small businesses by forcing them to meet regulations. According to a letter sent by the SBA to the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the r...
Why Are More Small Businesses Not Making Energy-Efficient Improvements?
National News

Why Are More Small Businesses Not Making Energy-Efficient Improvements?

Energy-efficient measures could save smaller businesses money, but a recent roundtable discussion presented by The Guardian determined that many of these businesses aren't take advantage of these resources. The roundtable, which was sponsored by ScottishPower, gathered experts in the fields of small business and energy. The group discussed ways in which small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a classification used by the European Union, could improve their efficiency, thereby reducing their energy costs. The discussion comes at a time when businesses, especially startups, need to save money more than ever. A survey by the Forum for Private Businesses found that 87% of companies reported increased energy costs in 2013, yet the Business Energy Index found that 53% of UK small businesses had n...