uYou Can Now Make Your Own Pepsi At Home With A SodaStreamr

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  (JeepersMedia)

  SodaStream recently said it’d be focusing more on sparkling waters than on competing with traditional sodas, but it seems now that even if it did want to beat Big Soda, it’d rather just join’em, instead: after a limited trial run of Pepsi-flavored caps in Florida last year, SodaStream is expanding the partnership to offer the caps filled with Pepsi and Sierra Mist flavors to everyone.

  Pepsi says the caps will be available through the SodaStream website and will be sold at about 50 Bed Bath & Beyond stores as well, reports Reuters, with a four-cap pack selling for $3.49.

  Each cap will flavor about a half liter of carbonated water, using a system that allows the caps to latch onto the top of SodaStream bottles and then release its contents.

  The twosome will be competing with the other major name in the soda business, Coca-Cola, and SodaStream’s rival, Keurig. Those two companies previously announced plans to start selling a cold beverage machine for at-home use, called, aptly enough, the Keurig Kold Machine, this fall.

  PepsiCo deepens ties with SodaStream for homemade product [Reuters]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uWould You Pay $200 For A Machine That Only Brews Single Servings Of Tea?r

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  (JeepersMedia)

  If you’re a fan of machines that dispense a single serving of liquids at a time, here’s to hoping you have a a lot of room on your kitchen counter: Unilever is betting people love their tea enough to shell out about $200 for a Lipton tea machine, dubbed the T.O. and made by Krups.

  The €179 machine is set to debut in France next week to compete with a similar Nespresso machine from Nestle (that costs about €79) reports Bloomberg, with a box of 10 tea capsules costing about €3.90 euros.

  It’s unclear at this point if it’ll expand to other countries or if it works with any other brands or kinds of beverages other than Lipton tea. Lipton currently sells K-Cups of its tea for Keurig machines, and there are various other brands with their own teas on single-serving pod scene as well, at least in the U.S., so it’s unlikely there’s a huge need for a devoted tea machine.

  The appeal is slightly unclear to us — it’s understandable if you don’t want to drink a whole teapot of tea, but are tea bags difficult? Or do people just not want to boil water for a single cup of tea? Is there something special about this particular machine that results in a superior cup of tea? We don’t know.

  Is this something you’d be into, if it lands on our shores, or were the folks at Unilever perhaps partaking in mind-altering substances when they decided this was a great idea? Take our poll below.

  Move Over, Kettle: Unilever to Sell $200 Lipton Tea Machine [Bloomberg]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uGoogle Fiber May Expand Again: San Diego, Irvine, Louisville Now On Listr

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  Google’s expansion plan map

  Google has once again lengthened their shortlist of cities that could someday soon see Google Fiber service. If all the plans pan out, the next expansions will come in California and Kentucky.

  Google announced this week that their Fiber division has added three more cities to the “potential” list: Irvine, CA; San Diego, CA; and Louisville, KY.

  As Google terms it, they have “invited” those cities to “explore bringing Google Fiber to their communities.” That kicks off a planning process in which local officials — “strong leaders at city hall” — get to demonstrate to Google that they can roll out the right incentives, including tax breaks and various infrastructure rights, to make installation cheaper and faster.

  Currently Google offers Fiber service in Austin, Kansas City, and Provo. Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, and metro Raleigh are all on deck to get theirs hooked up in the not-too-distant future. And the rumor mill says that Portland is likely to be the next lucky locale to flip on the map above from maybe-grey to promising purple.

  Even if Google Fiber does not come quickly to the cities on the shortlist, even being considered is probably a good thing for local subscribers. Google’s presence in various markets has — totally coincidentally, we’re sure — led to Cox, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T either increasing speeds, reducing costs, or both for local customers.

  
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist

uEtsy To Try Same-Day, Next-Day Delivery In New York Cityr

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  (Kathy Z Tang)

  With Amazon’s new “Handmade” platform trying to nose into territory that has long been the domain of Etsy, the online crafts and vintage marketplace is taking a page from Amazon’s playbook and trying its hand at same-day and next-day delivery.

  Re/code reports that the Brooklyn-based company has teamed up with delivery service Postmates — who are already working with Starbucks, 7-Eleven, Carvel, and Cinnabon, among others — for a service called Etsy ASAP, designed to cut down on the sometimes lengthy and/or vague delivery windows for Etsy customers.

  When ASAP launches in the coming months, customers in parts of NYC serviced by Postmates will see when a for-sale item is eligible for the speedier delivery. It will be up to Etsy sellers to decide — on an item-by-item basis — whether to enable the ASAP option.

  Customers will be able to track deliveries and choose a delivery window, but ASAP comes with a not-small price tag of $20.

  The company is pushing ASAP as something that both customers and sellers want.

  “We hear from sellers that they get constant requests from buyers for getting stuff really fast,” an Etsy exec explains to Re/code. “They feel they are in a bind and actually it’s technologically almost impossible” to make expedited deliveries.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uRegulators Could Call On Other Parts Makers To Increase Production Of Replacement Takata Airbag Inflatorsr

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  (Listener42)

  Just days after federal regulators announced they would hold a public meeting to once again address the slow replacement of defective, shrapnel-shooting, Takata-produced airbags linked to eight deaths and hundreds of injuries, officials with the agency outlined what steps it could take to finally coordinate the messy recall.

  Reuters reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration  will likely use the Oct. 22meeting to call on other auto parts manufacturers to aid in expediting the replacement parts needed to repair the millions of recalled vehicles.

  NHTSA chief Mark Rosekind said on Thursday that the agency will unveil the plan to compel top manufacturers to supply automakers with new safety devices in order to ensure consumers are driving safe vehicles.

  The meeting will serve as a forum to “basically tell everybody how this is going to move forward,” Rosekind said.

  The agency is currently in the process of figuring out a way in which other airbag inflator manufacturers can increase production of replacement parts, Rosekind said, adding that NHTSA has conducted a series of meetings with the 10 automakers involved in the recall, Takata and other manufacturers.

  “We need to make sure the priorities are clear, make sure the supplies are going to be available, make sure the quality assurance is taken care of. The remedy has to work,” Rosekind said.

  The first details of the plan come three months after the Japanese parts maker caved to regulator pressure and recalled more than 30 million cars, while NHTSA, just last week, revised the number to about 19.2 million vehicles.

  That revision was based the most recent and accurate information provided by the 11 affected automakers, regulators said at the time.

  To date, NHTSA, Takata and other manufacturers have yet to determine why the airbag inflators have a tendency to explode with enough force to send pieces of shrapnel shooting at passengers and drivers. Because of this, it’s unclear whether or not vehicles already repaired are actually safe.

  In fact, company also plans to re-recall about 400,000 vehicles that have already been repaired.

  Takata announced it would change its use of the often volatile chemical ammonium nitrate in its safety devices and replace its batwing driver inflators.

  U.S. regulator says Takata recall plan could include other suppliers [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uStudy Says Ancient North American Civilizations Shared Our Devotion To Caffeiner

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  (fordsbasement)

  If this were a celebrity weekly the above headline would read, “Ancient Civilizations — They’re Just Like Us!” But it’s not, so let’s just say that maybe getting out of bed wasn’t so easy without beverages that pack a caffeinated kick even thousands of years ago.

  Caffeine was popular with ancient civilizations in what we call Mexico today as well as the South and Southwest U.S., says a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (via the Associated Press), so much so that different societies traded holly and cacao-based chocolate drinks among each other for around 700 years.

  The holly could be used to make a caffeinated tea, and researchers from the University of New Mexico believe the cacoa beverages were also part of the bustling beverage trade, as the beans contain small amounts of caffeine.

  Other studies had found traces of cacao drinks in parts of the U.S., but lead researcher Patricia Crown says this new study confirms they were popular, and that the holly drink wasn’t associated with people in the Southwest before now.

  Researchers believe the drinks were traded between groups living in different areas, as caffeine was found on shards of pottery at sites throughout New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. Neither holly nor cacao grow in those regions.

  “The fact we have found traces of caffeine that are 1,000 years old is exciting,” Crown said. “As new technology develops, we can discover things about the past like this using objects we already have in museums.”

  She believes the caffeine was used in rituals and political events. The drinks are believed to have been something mostly enjoyed by an elite or noble class, because of the tricky trade route involved to get their hands on it.

  “For people who had a diet consisting of corn, beans and squash, the drinks provided a kick,” Crown said.

  Study: Caffeine trade thrived in ancient America [Associated Press]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uWalmart Asks More Suppliers To Pay For Space In Warehouses And On Shelves, And They Rebelr

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  (Ben Schumin)

  Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, has an unimaginable amount of power over the vendors who supply it with products. Some suppliers are speaking out, though, after the mega-retailer has asked 10,000 more suppliers to pay storage fees for keeping products in its distribution centers, in warehouses, and on store shelves.

  Massive vendors like Procter & Gamble and Unilever are in a stronger negotiating position with Walmart, because the chain can’t just stop selling Tide or Ben & Jerry’s. It’s smaller companies that are being squeezed the most, since their cash flow is smaller, and Walmart is encouraging them to borrow money to cover the new fee structure, and to wait 90 days after delivering merchandise for payment instead of 30.

  Bloomberg Businessweek discussed the situation with a representative of one smallish business, which didn’t want to be named or even have its industry printed for obvious reasons, who said that the company would need to cut employee benefits or even lay off staff to make up the difference and cover the fees that Walmart is asking for.

  Walmart says that isn’t the case: some suppliers were already paying these fees, and others “This is the price of not just selling things to Wal-Mart, but leveraging Wal-Mart’s massive platform,” a spokesperson for Wally World told Bloomberg.

  The fees would punish companies whose products aren’t flying out of the store by having them pay the company for the shelf and warehouse space that they take up, which Walmart says is a simple cost-saving measure. Suppliers speculate that it’s to help cover recent starting pay increases for new workers while hurting their margins more than Walmart’s.

  Wal-Mart’s Suppliers Are Finally Fighting Back [Bloomberg News]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist