3 Noticias economicas ingles

Last major US social network to operate in the country cites ‘challenging operating environment’

Last major US social network to operate in the country cites ‘challenging operating environment’

Last major US social network to operate in the country cites ‘challenging operating environment’

BTS may have their own McDonald’s dipping sauce, but Megan Thee Stallion is getting her own Popeyes franchise.

On October 19, Popeyes is introducing Megan Thee Stallion Hottie Sauce to spice up its Chicken Sandwich and new nuggets in the U.S. and 14 other countries around the globe. As part of the deal, the Grammy-winning artist will become a franchise owner for the fast-food company. And it wouldn’t be a celebrity collab without a co-branded, limited-edition merchandise collection. It’s called “The Heat” and includes bikinis, long-sleeve shirts, hats, tumblers, and Popeyes chicken tenders-theme plush dog toys. Get ready for these to go bonkers on the secondary market, but fans can sign up at TheeHottieSauce.com to receive updates and notification about upcoming drops.

Y'all ready? ???? #MeganTheeStallionHottieSauce ????❤️???? pic.twitter.com/s8fApKDvuT

— Popeyes (@Popeyes) October 14, 2021

This is just the latest is what is quickly becoming a branded celebrity arms race. McDonald’s arguably fired the first shot with Travis Scott back in September 2020, taking its Famous Orders idea global in May with K-pop superstars BTS. While Scott had a customized meal and merch collab, McDonald’s learned from the partnership and expanded its offerings for BTS to include Sweet Chili and Cajun dipping sauces adapted from popular dips at McDonald’s Korea. Also in May, salad chain Sweetgreen announced a partnership with Naomi Osaka that included a custom salad bowl and taking the tennis star on as its youngest investor. And in August, Taco Bell named Lil Nas X its newest chief impact officer. 

The celeb ownership model isn’t new. Shaquille O’Neal, at one point, has had ownership stakes in about 155 Five Guys burgers, 17 Auntie Anne’s, and 1 Krispy Kreme franchise. And LeBron James is an investor and franchise owner of Blaze Pizza.

Yesss Hotties it’s true ???? Thee mf HOTTIE SAUCE IS DROPPING AT @Popeyes OCT 19TH So pull up and get you some???????????? Not only that buttt ya girl is now a franchise owner and will be opening my very own Popeyes locations! pic.twitter.com/zxXmlC0jlF

— TINA SNOW (@theestallion) October 14, 2021

Still, in a media landscape that requires a big splash to gain major attention, the music artist x fast food concept is something different. Popeyes and others are finding real connections with these celebs who enjoy the products themselves, and then benefit from that love when the artists tell their millions of fans about that love. It’s a fascinating mix of business, pop culture, streetwear, and menu creation that we’ll doubtless see more of in the future.

Search giant seeks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft by taking advantage of two key trends

Search giant seeks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft by taking advantage of two key trends

Search giant seeks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft by taking advantage of two key trends

Brussels wins first round of briefing war and an exclusive preview of a new post-Brexit tracker

The U.S. labor shortage has hit low-paying service industries especially hard, pushing companies to adapt. Many economists expect the shortage to last years, and some think it could be permanent.

Biden administration announced measures to ease bottlenecks and shortages but problems are deep-seated

Biden administration announced measures to ease bottlenecks and shortages but problems are deep-seated

Biden administration announced measures to ease bottlenecks and shortages but problems are deep-seated

Production of certain steel products at economical costs is becoming more difficult, says company

Production of certain steel products at economical costs is becoming more difficult, says company

Production of certain steel products at economical costs is becoming more difficult, says company

Executives and their boards must be optimistic about the prospects for next year

Executives and their boards must be optimistic about the prospects for next year

When it comes to consumer electronics, their increasingly shortened product lifecycles and our limited repair options are leaving a big, very literal mark: Nearly 63 million tons just in 2021 alone, according to a new assessment from WEEE Forum, the leading group dedicated to solving the planet’s growing e-waste problem. E-waste is a category that includes old computers and TVs, discarded iPhones, broken smart objects, and other types of electronic consumer waste.

The group says if its 2021 estimate proves correct, this year’s “mountain” of e-waste will set an alarming new milestone—it will outweigh Earth’s largest human-made object, the Great Wall of China. Beyond being an absolutely enormous pile of non-biodegradable trash, WEEE Forum point outs this heap of electronics is incredibly valuable. A 2019 report by the World Economic Forum guessed global e-waste is worth about $62.5 billion annually, more than many nations’ GPDs.

In its report, WEEE Forum director Pascal Leroy presses manufacturers to acknowledge their role in this problem, citing electronics’ shrinking lifespans and the fight these companies are waging against consumers’ right to repair. The waste is hard to fathom, from multiple angles: A ton of discarded mobile phones now contains more gold than a ton of gold ore, UN Sustainable Cycles Program director Ruediger Kuehr tells WEEE Forum. Which means that, technically, mining iPhones should now be more lucrative than extracting actual gold nuggets from the rocks in a mine. And unless we reduce their use, we’re at risk in the next century of running out of several other elements used as smartphone materials—some random chemicals like gallium, arsenic, silver, indium, yttrium, and tantalum.

In summary, WEEE Forum says the amount of e-waste we generate grows by another 2 million tons each year, but the amount that ever gets collected for recycling is stuck at less than 20%.

New York City’s subway system has a new map with a very old design concept.

Rolling out in a handful of stations across the city, a pilot version of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) subway map features an abstract version of the city, overlaid with bold lines marking each route. It’s an attempt to clarify where each line goes and how they connect at stations.

The printed map, now being tested on the walls of nine subway stations, is an updated version of a 1970s-era map that has become a classic example of informational design. The new map simplifies the shape of the city, and the precise location of subway lines, to give riders an easily comprehensible overview of the system, showing which lines connect and how to get across boroughs or into different neighborhoods.

[Image: MTA]The new abstract maps are coupled with more geographically accurate maps of the city’s bus system, offering more detail on the exact location of services. MTA chief customer officer Sarah Meyer is leading the effort to redesign the system’s maps, and says the bus map offers “geographic relevance” to show how many blocks it will take to get from one place to another, while the abstract subway map provides a simple way to know where to change trains or how to get across town.

[Image: MTA]The new subway map is more than a little reminiscent of the iconic, if once controversial, subway map from 1972. Created by legendary designer Massimo Vignelli and his team at the New York office of Unimark International, the decidedly minimalist design didn’t take long to raise eyebrows, as the locations of subway lines on the map didn’t actually align with the reality. By 1978, a debate over the future of the stylized but technically inaccurate map was staged at the Cooper Union art school. As explored in a recent book from documentarian Gary Hustwit, Vignelli was pitted against the chair of the MTA Subway Map committee, John Tauranac, who had his own idea for a more geographically accurate map. Tauranac praised Vignelli’s version as aesthetically pleasing, but brushed it off as more art than information. “It’s made some lovely T-shirts for us at the MTA. But there is no relationship between the subway routes and the city above,” Tauranac said.

The next year, Vignelli’s map was replaced by one designed by Michael Hertz Associates, based on Tauranac’s concept. It features a more accurate representation of the city’s layout and distances between stations but simplifies some of the subway routes by combining multiple lines into a single trunk. Nonetheless, it’s been the MTA’s subway map for more than 40 years.

A few years ago, the MTA began reconsidering the wisdom of the Hertz design in the digital age. In 2020, Meyer worked with the interactive agency Work & Co to develop a digital version of the subway map that riders could use to plan journeys and see when service changes might affect their routes. Before, service updates and changes were mostly communicated on paper inside stations.

“I’m personally directionally challenged and really rely on maps,” Meyer says. “The disconnect from having our customers use two different visual forms to try to understand where service is felt wrong to me.”

[Photo: MTA/Marc Hermann]One of Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation By Design award winners, the digital map streamlines all this information—including real-time arrivals—into an app and map with one visual language. The new printed maps being tested in subway stations were developed in parallel and are the static version of the app. They’re intended to be used in combination with one another, with riders able to plan origin-to-destination trips on the app and use the printed maps in stations to grasp routes within the system at a glance. In conjunction with the geographically accurate bus map, they provide two levels of detail.

“The two together is a very powerful way to understand the geography of the system, where you need to go and how long it’s likely to take you to get here,” says J.P. Chan, senior director of creative at the MTA. “You have the best of both worlds.”

[Photo: MTA/Marc Hermann]They’re also intended to be used alongside maps that riders likely already have in their pockets. Unlike the past, when the physical map in the subway station was the primary way riders could plan their journeys, riders today have more options, including smartphone map apps, in-station digital displays, and printed maps. Riders can view one or more map depending on how much information they need, instead of relying on a single map to convey the entire system. “That’s a big burden to ask of a large poster in a station,” Chan says.

Though the new subway map may be seen as vindication for fans of Vignelli’s version, Meyer says the redesign is not about choosing sides, but about getting people information efficiently. “We’re putting up what’s relevant for 2021 riders and the tools that they have.” (Besides, Vignelli’s map is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.)

The maps installed in the nine subway stations also include a QR code linking to a webpage that riders can use to provide feedback on the designs. Chan says the MTA has received hundreds of responses so far, and the maps will continue to evolve ahead of a system-wide rollout. A final version of the new map is likely months away, Meyer says. “But not that many months.”

After a good start, problems have mounted for the banker-turned-president