AM Radio Fights Back After Getting the Boot From Tesla and Other EVs

Automakers moving into an electric future are locked in a battle with broadcasters concerned about the potential loss of an aged and fading technology: AM radio.

Major carmakers, including Tesla Inc. and BMW AG, are omitting AM tuners from electric vehicles, citing electromagnetic interference with the frequencies used by the century-old broadcasting service. AM radio is particularly susceptible to disruption because it uses frequencies like those emitted by EV systems, which can overwhelm the radio signal and make it unintelligible. FM stations operate over different wavelengths. Shielding radio reception gear can be costly and complex, especially when vehicle users can access AM signals via digital platforms. READ MORE

Price tag of Apple’s newly unveiled ‘Vision Pro’ headset draws mockery

Apple’s newly unveiled mixed-reality headset — hailed by the company as an innovation as groundbreaking as the original iPhone — drew near immediate mockery online with many scoffing at its eye-popping price tag.

Dubbed the “Vision Pro,” the device will go for a whopping $3,499 a pop when it becomes available early next year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers conference event at its California headquarters. READ MORE

The rivalry between Meta and Apple is moving to a new playing field: virtual reality

Months after Apple unveiled a privacy change that threatened Facebook’s core advertising business, the social networking company rebranded as Meta and shifted its focus to virtual reality.

Now, less than two years later, Apple may be threatening Meta’s business there, too. READ MORE

Americans Are Working Fewer Hours. How Are Employers Responding?

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a slew of changes in the U.S. workplace: hybrid work, talent shortages, employee mental health issues and more. As a result, newly released data shows that Americans are working fewer hours than ever before.

Prior to the pandemic, the average employee was paid to work 37.5 hours per week. As of last November, that number had fallen to 36.9 hours, according to a study from the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. READ MORE

5 takeaways from Apple’s biggest product event in years

Apple on Monday unveiled its most ambitious – and riskiest – new hardware product in years: a mixed reality headset called the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple CEO Tim Cook touted the Vision Pro, which combines virtual reality and augmented reality, as a “revolutionary product,” with the potential to change how users interact with technology, each other and the world around them. READ MORE

The alt-right economy is failing. Here’s the real performance of anti-woke entrepreneurs

In commenting on Bob Iger’s defense of Disney's values and brand in the face of threats from Florida Governor DeSantis, Nike CEO John Donahoe said, “I think Bob’s doing a great job at this. If it’s core to who you are and your values, then you stand up for your values.”

That spirit has been rewarded by the free market. Across many fronts, we have shown in quantitative analysis of business performance that doing good for society is not at the expense of doing well for shareholders, with clear examples ranging from Russian business exits to public engagement on voting rights. READ MORE

FTC’s Proposed Rule to Ban Noncompetes Faces Stiff Resistance

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) January rule proposal to ban employers from adding noncompetes to their employment contracts is now facing stiff and steady resistance from employer advocacy groups.  

The FTC received nearly 27,000 comments on the draft rule proposed, and Bloomberg Law reportedOpen in a new tab that the agency is expected to vote in April 2024 on the final version of the rule.  READ MORE

Apple just announced its first major product since 2014

Apple announced its mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, on Monday during its WWDC developer conference. The $3,499 headset is its first major new product since the Apple Watch in 2014.

The Vision Pro will allow users to see apps in a new way, in the spaces around them. Users can use their eyes and hands to navigate through apps and search with their voices. The headset can be used to watch movies, including in 3-D, with spatial audio, view their own pictures or videos, and play video games. It can also be used for work with video conferencing apps, Microsoft READ MORE

Twitter’s U.S. Ad Sales Plunge 59% as Woes Continue

Elon Musk recently said Twitter’s advertising business was on the upswing. “Almost all advertisers have come back,” he asserted, adding that the social media company could soon become profitable.

But Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, down 59 percent from a year earlier, according to an internal presentation obtained by The New York Times. The company has regularly fallen short of its U.S. weekly sales projections, sometimes by as much as 30 percent, the document said. READ MORE

Target loses $9 billion amid Pride merchandising controversy

Target's stock value is taking a hit, leaving shareholders in the lurch as controversy continues to swirl over its Pride merchandising plans, as first reported by Fox News Digital.

Shares slipped another 1.6% on Thursday and have dropped more than 12.6% since the furor erupted a week ago Wednesday, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data Group. That amounts to $9.3 billion in market value. READ MORE

Scientists Working to Generate Electricity From Thin Air Make Breakthrough

Scientists have invented a device that can continuously generate electricity from thin air, offering a glimpse of a possible sustainable energy source that can be made of almost any material and runs on the ambient humidity that surrounds all of us, reports a new study.  READ MORE

Elon Musk opens up about significant job cuts at Twitter

Twitter CEO Elon Musk discussed the significant cuts at Twitter saying that "there were a lot of people that didn't seem to have a lot of value" at the social media company before he took over sharing that he believes that other Silicon Valley companies can do the same. 

"There were a lot of people that didn't seem to have a lot of value," Musk said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, England, speaking virtually. "I think that's true at many Silicon Valley companies." READ MORE

CEOs give fair warning to Chicago over bad for business policies

Two CEOs who have operated their businesses in Chicago for years have raised concerns about a growing number of employers leaving the Windy City over high taxes and crime – and cautioned the exodus will continue.

"I didn't say I would. I didn't threaten I would. I just said if they pass ill-conceived proposals," CME Group Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy said of leaving the city on "Mornings with Maria" Tuesday.  READ MORE

6 Ways To Transform Performance Management To Deliver What Employees Actually Need

Performance management has room to improve. According to Gartner research, 52% of chief human resource officers (CHROs) believe they are not rewarding the right behavior in employees, and only 32% of HR business partners believe performance management delivers what employees need to perform.

Because of this, in the last five years, 74% of organizations have significantly changed their performance management processes. “Companies are implementing a variety of new practices, from linking pay to project performance to eliminating performance reviews entirely,” says Benjamin Loring, Research Director at Gartner. “The real unlock, however, is making performance management useful to both managers and employees with this six-part roadmap.” READ MORE

Performance Appraisal Bombshells: Delivering Bad News

The first rule of performance reviews is that employees should never be surprised by what is said. Assuming that managers are speaking with their reports in real time throughout the year, providing transparent communication and soliciting feedback, the information discussed during a review should be a summary of past conversations.

But that doesn't always happen. Sometimes, a manager will need to introduce information that may be new to the employee, especially if the manager has been accepting performance flaws in the past but is now ready to address shortcomings. How the manager introduces and, more importantly, explains new negative feedback is critical to gaining employee buy-in and understanding, even if the employee is caught off guard. READ MORE

The Top 8 Challenges of Prospecting and How to Conquer Them

From identifying potential customers, to finding quality leads and maintaining a healthy pipeline, sales prospecting is vital to the success of your business. When done right, it can help you close more deals and increase revenue.

That’s not to say it’s without its challenges, however. Successful prospecting requires time management skills, a proactive mindset and the ability to communicate effectively. In this article, we’ll dive deep into eight of the top challenges of prospecting that salespeople face and discuss strategies you can use to overcome them. READ MORE

The Forever Labor Shortage

Ever since the pandemic, American companies big and small have been scrambling to find enough workers to stay fully staffed. They've been forced to offer big salaries and generous perks, while employees were free to shop around for better offers or simply walk off the job to join the Great Resignation. But now, layoffs are up and job openings are down. The economy is slowing, and the Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates at the fastest pace in decades. By any objective measure, the balance of power in the job market should be tipping back to employers. READ MORE

In-person work still popular, iHire survey finds

As the work-arrangement tug-of-war between employers and workers continues, much of the coverage has focused on employees’ desire for remote- and hybrid-work options. Perhaps surprisingly, however, a recent survey from iHire found that while close, workers’ preference for in-person work (36.3%) edged out remote (32.2%) and hybrid (31.5%) options. READ MORE

US weekly jobless claims fall; labor market defying recession fears

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, with applications in Massachusetts decreasing sharply, suggesting the labor market remains tight.

The steep decline in weekly jobless claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday reversed the surge in the prior week, which had boosted them to the highest level since Oct. 30, 2021. That increase was largely blamed on an unusual jump in applications for unemployment insurance in Massachusetts. READ MORE

What price would you pay to work from home?

Would you get a mullet to work from home? I wouldn’t. But I would doth speak in Shakespearean prose to work from mine estate with mine felines (as long as I didn’t have to worry about proper usage).

As an outlet covering human resources and workforce issues, our team’s inboxes fill with news about the return to work, employees’ feelings about it and how those decisions affect engagement and productivity. But one email a few weeks ago was a party in the front and business in the back — and worth sharing.  READ MORE