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#shelf

1 post1 participant1 post today
Chuck Darwin

Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and 13 colleagues wrote to the CEO of the supermarket behemoth #Kroger in November about electronic price tags (often called #electronic #shelf #labels or #ESLs ).
These digital displays allow companies to change prices automatically from a mobile app.
Tlaib warned that this so-called “#dynamic #pricing” permits retailers to adjust prices based on their whims.
Just as #Uber raises prices during storms or rush hour, retailers like Kroger use ESLs to adjust prices based on factors like time of day or the weather.
Supermarkets could conceivably mine a shopper’s personal data to set prices as high as possible.
“My concern is that these tools will be abused in the pursuit of profit, surging prices on essential goods in areas with fewer and fewer grocery stores,” Tlaib wrote.
In August, Senators Elizabeth #Warren and Bob #Casey wrote to Kroger raising similar concerns about #price #gouging.
Noting that the company has already implemented the technology in hundreds of stores across the county, they warned that
“ESLs may help Kroger extract maximum profits from consumers at a time when…high grocery prices are a leading concern among Americans who are concerned about inflation.”
Warren and Casey also voiced concern about Kroger’s partnership with Microsoft to install #facial-#recognition technology in stores,
which could be used to identify individual customers:
When a shopper approaches the shelf, she would see a price calibrated specifically for her.
The next shopper might pay a different amount based on their profile.
Retailers could use shopper data to charge higher prices to those who can afford to pay more, but since stores do not have to disclose who is making pricing decisions or why,
the senators worry that shoppers on a budget are particularly vulnerable.
“It is outrageous that, as families continue to struggle to pay to put food on the table, grocery giants like Kroger continue to roll out #surge #pricing and other corporate #profiteering schemes,” they wrote

thenation.com/article/society/

The Nation · Automation in Retail Is Even Worse Than You ThoughtNew technology is not just making shopping more challenging for workers and consumers—it’s poised to rip off the most vulnerable.
Chuck Darwin

An ⭐️ice stream⭐️ jostles the entire #Ross #Ice #Shelf out of place at least once daily, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
This finding is significant because of the scale of the Ross Ice Shelf: It is the largest ice shelf in Antarctica, about the same size as the country of France.
"We found that👉 the whole shelf suddenly moves about 6 to 8 centimeters (or 3 inches) once or twice a day, triggered by a slip on an ice stream that flows into the ice shelf," said Doug Wiens, the Robert S. Brookings Distinguished Professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences.
"These sudden movements could potentially play a role in triggering icequakes and fractures in the ice shelf."
The Ross Ice Shelf is a floating lip of ice that extends out over the ocean from inland glaciers.
Scientists are interested in interactions between ice shelves and ice streams in part because they are concerned about the stability of Antarctica's ice shelves in a warming world.
Ice shelves act as brakes for glaciers and ice streams, slowing their journey to the sea where they melt, thus allowing more ice to accumulate on the continent.
If an ice shelf collapses, this support disappears, and the glaciers are free to flow faster. Once they flow into the ocean, they contribute to sea level rise.
The new study, in Geophysical Research Letters, focuses on movement triggered by the #Whillans #Ice #Stream, one of about a half-dozen of the large, fast-moving rivers of ice pouring into the Ross Ice Shelf.
"One would not detect the movement just by feeling it," Wiens said. "The movement occurs over a time period of several minutes, so it is not perceptible without instrumentation. That's why the movement has not been detected until now, even though people have been walking and camping on the Ross Ice Shelf since the time of the great explorers Robert F. Scott and Roald Amundsen."

phys.org/news/2024-03-largest-

Phys.org · Largest ice shelf in Antarctica lurches forward once or twice each dayBy Talia Ogliore
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