uCould Automated Grocery Stores Be In Our Future?r

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• Do future trips to the supermarket involve no lines, no human interaction and no endlessly searching the aisles to check items off your list? They might, and residents of Iowa could be the first to test out what is essentially an ATM-like grocery store.

  KCCI News reports that the city of Des Moines could be home to a first-of-its-kind automated store where residents can pick up fresh food items.

  The group Eat Greater Des Moines is working to bring the Oasis24Seven automated store kiosk to the Des Moines metro area in order to provide healthy food options in a convenient and affordable manner to residents.

  The completely automated system – which only accepts electronic payments – appears to be a cross between an ATM and a very large vending machine, complete with a touch screen ordering system and robotic vending.

  To use the standalone store, people would simply walk to the ordering area of the system (the part that looks like an ATM) and scroll through about 200 fresh products like milk, bread and eggs, KCCI reports.

  “It can dispense anything from one ounce to 10 pounds,” Dave Maurer of Oasis24seven, the company behind the machine, says. “The robotics are belt driven, there’s an extractor that takes the item off of the shelf, puts it on a belt and delivers it.”

  The unit will be bulletproof and have the ability to translate product options into different languages for use by all residents.

  Before the grocery store-of-the-future can be start vending its heart out, backers must secure another $70,000 and the city must give its stamp of approval.

  New robotic grocery store coming to Des Moines [KCCI News]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

u3 Postal Workers Accused Of Stealing From The “Operation Santa” Program Like A Bunch Of Grinchesr

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  (Kathleen Tyler Conklin)

  Wherever you have people trying to do something good for others, you’ll inevitably have others trying to twist that effort for their own benefit. There’s not always a name for these greedy people, but in the case of three postal workers accused of rigging the “Operation Santa” program, the word “Grinch” is pretty darn fitting.

  According to authorities, three employees stole laptop computers, a toy train, boots and other presents that were supposed to be for underprivileged children by rigging the program where they worked, reports the Associated Press.

  Court papers unsealed Wednesday as the three suspects were arrested said postal workers at the huge James A. Farley Post Office in Manhattan basically just took whatever they wanted during the 2013 holiday season.

  A U.S. Postal Service agent says in the complaint that the three workers worked their scheme between November 2013 and January 2014, writing fake letters to rake in gifts, and even allegedly replaced underprivileged kids’ addresses with their own to get the gifts delivered directly.

  The postal agent said one of the workers confessed in February to pretending to be a child writing letters, and having two others copy those fakes 20 times each. He ended up with a printer, two laptop computers, two tablet computers, clothing, gift cards and more… again, instead of a needy child getting those gifts.

  The agent said he also confessed to putting his own address on the shipping line in the Operation Santa database for packages about 50 times, effectively stealing from 50 children.

  The others allegedly confessed to similar actions, even involving family members in the fake letter-writing scheme.

  Secret Santas provided gifts for fewer than half of the 7,000 letters processed by postal workers, from more than 300,000 letters written to Santa by children across the country who were hoping for something from Santa.

  Federal charges against the three include conspiracy and mail fraud. And if guilty, they’re already doomed to having hearts that are two sizes too small.

  3 postal workers accused of rigging Operation Santa program [Associated Press]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uMcDonald’s Closing More Stores Than It’s Opening For First Time In At Least 40 Yearsr

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  (Mike Mozart)

  For the past several months McDonald’s and its new CEO Steve Easterbrook have attempted to initiate a turnaround for the slumping Golden Arches including earmarking nearly 700 stores for closure. As a result of those measures the company’s footprint is expected to shrink for the first time in nearly four decades.

  That is according to a new analysis from the Associated Press that looked at McDonald’s regulatory flings and found that the fast food giant’s plan to close more stores than it opens this year makes 2015 the first non-growth year for the company since at least 1970.

  McDonald’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission only started reporting store numbers in 1970. The AP theorizes that the company hadn’t actually slowed its growth since the mid-1950s.

  A spokesperson for McDonald’s declined to provide a year for which the company last shrank and couldn’t comment on the specific number of stores closing this year — or whether it was more than the 700 announced previously.

  However, the company says the reduction is “minimal” when compared to the 14,300 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. The closing stores will be a mix of franchise and company-owned locations.

  The closures are part of a strategic review intended to set the stage for future growth, the spokesperson says.

  The AP reports that the shrinking footprint of the company is in stark contrast to the rapid expansion it has become known for.

  Industry analysts say that the once unstoppable growth of the chain likely led to a “natural overconfidence,” despite new chains like Chipotle gaining customer love.

  Slimming down, McDonald’s to shed restaurants [The Associated Press]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uU.S. Treasury: There Will Be A Woman On The $10 Billr

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  (Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie)

  Move over, Alexander Hamilton: Come 2020, the country’s first secretary of the treasury will be sharing the $10 bill with a woman. It will be the first time in more than a century that a woman’s face will appear on American paper currency.

  The Treasury Department announced that it’s replacing the main image of its own founder on the $10 bill with a woman, though which woman it will be still has to be determined. Hamilton will still be hanging around, but his image won’t be as prominent as the woman, reports the Wall Street Journal.

  The new bill will be released in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

  U.S. citizens will get to help choose which historic female should have the honor, with the only requirement being that it can’t be someone living. Names like Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and others have been thrown out in previous discussions to have a woman on the $20 bill, so they’re likely candidates for the job.

  “It’s very important to be sending the signal of how important it is to recognize the role that women have played in our national life and in our national history for a very long time, really from the beginning,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said. “This is a symbolic representation of that but symbols are important.”

  He says he’ll announce a decision later this year, before going into production.

  The move to put a woman on the $10 bill instead of the $20 is because, Lew says, the $10 was slated to be the next for a redesign. It’s part of a broader currency redesign the government recommended in 2013 that will include tactile features for the blind and visually impaired.

  ”While it might not be the twenty dollar bill, make no mistake, this is a historic announcement and a big step forward,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. “Young girls across this country will soon be able to see an inspiring woman on the ten dollar bill who helped shape our country into what is today and know that they too can grow up and do something great for their country.”

  Alexander Hamilton to Share Image on $10 Bill With a Woman [Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uDelta, Southwest Flights Nearly Collide On Chicago Runway, FAA Investigatingr

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  (Ashi Fachler)

  The Federal Aviation Administration opened an investigation into a near collision between two planes taking off from Chicago’s Midway Airport at the same time earlier this week.

  Reuters reports that a Delta Air Lines flight and a Southwest Airlines flight stopped roughly 2,000 feet from hitting each other on intersecting runways at the airport on Tuesday evening.

  The FAA says in a statement that the Southwest plane bound for Tulsa, OK, had been cleared for takeoff on one runway, when air traffic controllers noticed that the Delta aircraft, bound for Atlanta, was taxing on another runway without proper clearance.

  

  (Google Maps)

  Upon realizing the potentially dangerous situation, the Delta crew was told to immediately stop its progress down the runway. The Southwest flight also came to a stop.

  The FAA says that when the planes came to a rest they were about 2,000 feet from the area where the runways intersect.

  Spokespeople for both airlines tell Reuters that they are cooperating with the FAA investigation into the incident.

  Two jets rolled at each other on takeoff in Chicago -officials [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uTexas Shoplifters Spotted Shoving Hamburgers Down Pantsr

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  The suspects’ likely plan for later in the day. (ken fager)

  Two men in Texas were sort of shuffling around a supermarket without purchasing anything. One of the men was wearing very baggy pants, and store employees later told police that it was obvious something had been shoved inside his trousers. When the staff confronted him, his pants fell down, revealing ill-gotten hamburgers.

  How many hamburger patties can you fit in a pair of pants, especially a really baggy pair? The news report doesn’t say; only that the suspect dropped multiple packages of hamburger along with his trousers. The police weren’t called until after the men left the meat behind and escaped in an SUV, and they are still at large. Lock up the beef.

  This has been another installment of “people shoving packages of meat down their pants,” a recurring series here at Consumerist.

  Hercules wardrobe malfunction reveals shoplifters shoved hamburgers down pants [KRON]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uPrice Tags Might Be A Strange 150-Year Anomaly In The History Of Commercer

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  (Chad Small)

  In the past, most recently in 2013, Coca-Cola has experimented with the idea of vending machines that adjust prices according to the temperature. The idea really bothers some people, but fixed prices that are always the same for everyone haven’t historically been the norm. We may be coming to the end of a weird century-and-a-half experiment with the practice.

  We never really thought about the origin of price tags, but that’s why NPR’s Planet Money team exists: they wondered why we have price tags, and whether we’ll have them for much longer.

  For most of human history, we’ve been haggling when we buy and sell things. There are problems with haggling: it’s labor-intensive, time-intensive, and requires the person negotiating for the store to have a deep knowledge of every product and what a fair price would be. This system continues in some countries and in flea markets, but most commerce today takes place with prices assigned to items.

  We have the Quakers to thank for the idea of merchandise having one fixed price for everyone: they first started that wacky idea in the mid-19th century. The first store to use fixed prices was Philadelphia-based Wanamaker’s, and the idea spread through much of the world, thanks to the influence of early department stores.

  One young Quaker man started a retail venture in New York City, bringing the fixed-price idea along with him so he could put relatively untrained employees out on the sales floor in a massive store, and so the company could advertise the prices of items in the newspaper. His name was Rowland Hussey Macy.

  Some transactions kept haggling: notably, new-car purchases, and nearly everyone hates it. More than a hundred years later, computers allowed companies to start chipping away at the idea of fixed prices for everything. Airline deregulation meant that airlines could set fares according to predicted demand, and the rest of the travel industry began to follow.

  Now, sophisticated online retailers make every price dynamic, adjusting according to demand and other factors that mere consumers don’t understand. So far, consumers have resisted the idea that prices can change dramatically at any minute in physical stores, but that could change as more people grow up with dynamic pricing when they shop online.

  Episode 633: The Birth And Death Of The Price Tag [Planet Money]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist