Walmart Will Let You Exchange Those Annoying Gift Cards This Christmas

NEW YORK (AP) — Starting Christmas Day, Wal-Mart is letting customers exchange gift cards from more than 200 retailers, airlines and restaurants for a Wal-Mart card. The cards don't expire and can be used in stores and online.

The exchange may send more shoppers to the website of the world's largest retailer.

It's a test program, but if it's successful, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the card swap could become a permanent service. Wal-Mart spokesman Ravi Jariwala said the chain doesn't have specific metrics to evaluate that but will watch how shoppers react.

Shoppers won't get the full value of their gift cards to use at Wal-Mart. For example, with Amazon.com, customers can redeem up to 95 percent, while for Staples that figure is up to 90 percent and for Gap, up to 85 percent. For some brands, a Wal-Mart gift card will be worth just 70 percent of the original card.

Up to about $1 billion worth of gift cards will go unused this year, according to CEB TowerGroup, a consultancy. That's because recipients either lose them or can't figure out what to buy.

"We recognized that this was an opportunity," said Jariwala. "A large number don't get redeemed. We figured this was a good way to get gift cards in the hands of more customers."

He said that 95 percent of Wal-Mart holiday cards are typically redeemed by February.

Wal-Mart gift cards are the most sought-after on CardCash, the country's largest gift card exchange website, said CardCash CEO Elliot Bohm. CardCash is Wal-Mart's partner in the program. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

To exchange a card, go to http://walmart.cardcash.com and input your information. The Wal-Mart eGift cards should be emailed to you within an hour.

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio

JPMorgan Could Have Prevented Data Breach With Simple Fix

Dec 22 (Reuters) - A computer breach at JPMorgan Chase & Co earlier this year could have been avoided if the bank had installed a simple security fix to an overlooked server in its network, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on investigations.

In October, JPMorgan Chase revealed that names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of the holders of some 83 million accounts were exposed when the bank's computer systems were compromised by hackers, making it one of the biggest data breaches in history.

The weak spot at the bank appears to have been a very basic one - the bank did not use a double authentication scheme, known as two-factor authentication, the paper reported. (http://nyti.ms/1zdvK32)

JPMorgan's security team had apparently neglected upgrading one of its network servers with the dual password scheme, the newspaper said, citing people who did not want to be identified because the investigation into the attack was incomplete.

Officials at JP Morgan were not immediately available for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

Earlier this month, U.S. regulators said they were stepping up efforts to examine financial institutions' defenses to ward off cyber attacks, as a top FBI official warned of new "increasingly complex" threats to the financial sector. (Reporting by Supriya Kurane in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Wills)

Amazon's Enormous Same-Day Delivery Growth Comes At A Price

Amazon hit a new record for its same-day deliveries this holiday season, with 10 times as many items shipped as last year, the company announced in a Friday press release.

With the company racking up all these speedy deliveries, it might be worth revisiting the woes of workers tasked with transporting items from the e-commerce giant’s warehouses to customers’ doors.

In April, The Huffington Post’s Dave Jamieson profiled Myron Ballard, a driver based out of Washington, D.C., for LaserShip, a shipping service hired by Amazon to meet its same-day delivery deadlines.

Technically hired as an “independent contractor,” Ballard received little support for the work he was doing. Delivering about 150 Amazon packages a day might have earned him, on average, $225.

But that money was spread thin covering his expenses.

Per Jamieson’s story:

Ballard had to purchase the cargo van he drives for work. He doesn't get reimbursed for the wear and tear he puts on it; for the gasoline he pours into it on a near-daily basis; for the auto insurance he needs to carry; or for the parking tickets he inevitably racks up downtown. He doesn't even get reimbursed for the LaserShip uniform he's obliged to purchase and wear.

"It's like they want us to be employees, but they don't want to pay for it," the 45-year-old Ballard said at the time.

Amazon has little incentive to change this system. Here’s why it works out so well for the retail company:

For starters, a delivery company using independent contractors avoids paying payroll or unemployment taxes on its drivers, as well as workers' compensation insurance -- never mind basic workplace benefits like health coverage and a 401(k). Such companies also aren't obliged to pay workers overtime under federal law, meaning no time and a half when the delivery day stretches into a 12-hour shift. And since they pay drivers on a per-delivery basis, they don't owe them anything for non-delivery work, like loading the van at the warehouse before hitting the road, a task that can take up to two hours.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Make no mistake, Amazon has reason to celebrate success right now. In October, the company faced its biggest quarterly loss in 14 years, leading some profit-hungry investors and pundits to dub CEO Jeff Bezos a “grinch.” Sales growth, especially during the retail industry’s coveted holiday season, is one way of proving Amazon is on the right track. But during a time of year when everyone, delivery drivers included, traditionally celebrates with family, it may be worth looking into the real costs of this same-day delivery service.

New York Attorney General Goes After Jimmy John's Over Noncompete Agreements

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman plans to send letters to Jimmy John's sandwich shops on Tuesday asking them to hand over information related to the chain's controversial noncompete agreements for workers, according to Schneiderman's office.

As HuffPost first reported in October, many rank-and-file workers at Jimmy John's have been required to sign noncompete contracts in which they agree not to work at a competing sandwich shop for a period of two years following their employment at Jimmy John's. A competitor is broadly defined as any business that earns 10 percent or more of its revenue from sandwichs and is located within three miles of a Jimmy John's.

The agreement would shut workers out of sandwich-related jobs in much of the country. News of such a contract for low-wage workers brought widespread mockery and criticism upon the Illinois-based chain, with members of Congress asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate.

In New York state, an investigation already appears to be moving. In the letters Schneiderman plans to send, copies of which were provided to HuffPost by his office, New York-based Jimmy John's franchisees will be asked to provide samples of any noncompete contracts distributed by Jimmy John's corporate, as well as a list of the job titles and responsibilities of any workers who've been asked to sign them.

In a separate letter, Schneiderman plans to ask Jimmy John's corporate offices in Illinois for the same documents.

Noncompete agreements have generally been used for high-ranking executives or workers in a position to hold trade secrets or proprietary information. But in recent years, they've been popping up even in low-wage service industry jobs. As HuffPost reported in November, the doggy day care franchise Camp Bow Wow requires its dog-sitters to sign a noncompete agreement as a condition of employment.

Aside from the fact that the agreements can be intimidating, they prevent employees from taking their work and skills to the highest bidder in a free labor market. By tethering employees to their current jobs, the agreements reduce workers' bargaining power.

Schneiderman's office seems to think the Jimmy John's noncompete agreement may run afoul of state law. The legality of noncompetes varies from state to state, with California, for instance, barring them in all but a few instances. Schneiderman's letters refer to several court cases in New York and note that noncompete agreements that inhibit workers from finding new jobs are "disfavored by New York law."

In many cases, an employer may have a "legitimate concern" regarding the theft of trade secrets, Schneiderman says, but it isn't clear how that applies to people who make tuna sandwiches or deliver food by bicycle.

"Most of the employees subject to Jimmy John’s Non-Competition Agreement are highly unlikely to be privy to trade secrets or confidential customer lists or to provide unique services," a draft of the letter reads. "Further, the geographic breadth of the Non-Competition Agreement is staggering; it prevents employees from working for almost any sandwich shop within two miles of any Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shop nationwide. As you no doubt are aware, Jimmy John’s has multiple locations in nearly every state."

Jimmy John's has declined to comment on the noncompete agreement since it was first reported.

According to Jimmy John's franchisees HuffPost has spoken to, the noncompete agreement was distributed in a standard hiring packet issued by the corporate office. Since store workers are employed by franchisees rather than Jimmy John's corporate, it has been left to franchisees to execute the agreements. Some franchisees have required all workers to sign them, while other franchisees applied them solely to workers in managerial roles.

One Jimmy John's store owner told HuffPost that since the noncompete came to light, several franchisees have jettisoned it from their hiring packet for rank-and-file workers.

Elon Musk's Hyperloop Could Be Just 10 Years Away

Hyperloop, the ultra-fast tube transport dreamed up by SpaceX founder and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, could be ready for passengers in as few as 10 years.

In a 76-page report released on Dropbox on Thursday, a new startup called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies laid out plans for building Musk's futuristic transportation system, which could cut travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco down to 35 minutes. The trip takes up to 12 hours by Amtrak train, and more than six hours by car.

The system would carry passengers in pods moving as fast as 800 miles per hour, according to the white paper. The plan laid out by Musk -- who has no involvement in the project, and did not help with the paper -- has broadened beyond the two California metropoles. Hyperloop Transportation has drawn up maps with lines connecting every major U.S. city.

Housed within a newly-launched crowd-funding company called JumpStartFund, the startup offered wildly varying estimates for the cost of the project -- anywhere between $7 billion and $19 billion.

Hyperloop CEO Dirk Ahlborn told The Huffington Post that the wide potential price range is due to the unpredictability of prices for materials and other expenses over the next decade. He said wealthy donors and investors are already approaching JumpStartFund, of which he is also chief executive, about pledging money.

He admitted his 10-year timeline might be ambitious. It does not account for the political opposition and regulatory hurdles that would undoubtedly dog a new form of public transportation being built up the coastline of the country’s most populous state.

“We’re working very close with the public and being very transparent,” said Ahlborn, a German-born entrepreneur based in Los Angeles.

If he finds it too difficult to build the inaugural Hyperloop in California, he may choose to build it in another country.

“For us, it’s mostly about building the Hyperloop,” he said. “We want to see it in the U.S., but if it makes more sense to do that somewhere else, then so be it. The goal is to build it.”

The other goal is to keep it cheap. While his plan envisions making luxury pods available, Ahlborn said the estimated ticket price for economy-class seats would be about $20 to $30. But he said rides would ideally be free -- perhaps supported by ads, to take advantage of time spent with a captive audience of travelers.

As with air travel, Hyperloop plans to have luxury and economy class pods.

“You have the passenger for 30 to 40 minutes,” Ahlborn said. “This is not a venture for good, it’s a commercial company, so it has to make business sense. But we’ll see.”

In the meantime, recent publicity about the Hyperloop has drummed up interest. His team of about 100 engineers, who are paid largely through stock options, seems set to expand.

“I would say that, on average, we’re receiving 10 to 20 new applications per hour,” he said with a laugh.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of time it takes to travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco by train.

The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind

Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

'Eat More Kale' Guy Beats Chick-fil-A In Trademark Battle

By Ted Siefer

Dec 12 (Reuters) - A Vermont T-shirt maker has been granted a trademark for the phrase "Eat More Kale," a decision the state's governor on Friday hailed as a victory for "the little guy" over a "corporate bully."

Bo Muller-Moore, who lives in Montpelier, had been ordered to cease using the phrase on T-shirts and other merchandise by the fried chicken chain Chick-fil-A, on the grounds it violated its trademarked slogan, "Eat Mor Chikn."

The United States Patent and Trademark Office this week approved Muller-Moore's application for the trademark, and on Friday he was joined by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin on the steps of the state capital to declare victory.

"People recognize that a dude in Vermont that currently has people stealing my easily replicable designs, they recognize I need more protection," Muller-Moore said in an interview on Friday. "People recognize that I'm selling T-shirts online, and they're selling sandwiches in airports and malls and stand-alone stores. And there's plenty of room for each of us."

Muller-Moore's cause drew the support of top officials in Vermont, known for its commitment to family farms and small businesses.

"This isn't just a win for the little guy who stands up to a corporate bully, it's a win for our state," Shumlin said Friday. "In Vermont, we care about what's in our food, who grows it, and where it comes from."

A spokeswoman for Chick-fil-A, which is based in Atlanta, said in a email: "Cows love kale, too!"

Cows appear in the company's advertisements holding signs that read "Eat Mor Chikn."

The spokeswoman did not indicate whether the company would pursue further legal action against Muller-Moore.

Muller-Moore first created the "Eat More Kale" design in 2001 at the request of a friend who wanted a T-shirt he could sell to support his family farm. It's since become a rallying cry for enthusiasts of the leafy plant and healthy eating.

The kale battle was not the first time Chick-fil-A faced off with New England interests. In 2012, then-Boston Mayor Thomas Menino wrote a letter to the company asking it to stay out his city after its leadership came out publicly as opponents of gay marriage, which has been legal in Massachusetts for a decade.

The company has no locations in Vermont or in Boston, according to its website. (Reporting by Ted Siefer in Lowell, Massachsuetts; Editing by Scott Malone and Sandra Maler)

Amazon To Experiment With 1-Hour Bike Messenger Delivery: WSJ

Dec 8 (Reuters) - E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc plans to experiment with bike messengers to offer deliveries in New York City within an hour, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

The company was not immediately available for comment.

The superfast service, dubbed "Amazon Prime Now," attempts to replicate shopping in a physical store by delivering some items in an hour or two, the WSJ report said. (http://on.wsj.com/1qmehHu)

Amazon has been experimenting with three different courier services to pick the fastest and the most careful for its deliveries, the report cited the source as saying.

The bike messengers are paid around $15 an hour and work in eight hour shifts, the Journal reported.

Amazon will use its West 34th Street location as a base for the bike messengers. The company has built a lounge there with facilities including foosball, pool and airhockey tables, for messengers waiting between deliveries, the Journal added. (Reporting by Anya George Tharakan and Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

L.L. Bean Can't Make Boots Fast Enough To Keep Up With Demand

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Whether it's "lumberjack chic" or old-school utility, demand for L.L. Bean boots is surging — so much so that some customers will have to wait until February to get their holiday purchases.

A backlog of 60,000 boot orders could grow to 100,000 by month's end, and the company is in the process of hiring 100 workers and purchasing additional equipment to catch up with demand.

"We just can't make enough of them," said Tom Armstrong, L.L. Bean's chief merchandising officer.

The rubber-bottomed, leather-topped "duck boot" has seen sales grow from fewer than 100,000 a decade ago to about 450,000 this year. Next year, the number is expected to top 500,000.

That growth has outpaced even the company's aggressive expectations, Armstrong said. But it's difficult to say exactly what's boosting demand — popularity on college campuses, new styles including bright colors or the plaid-and-boots style dubbed "lumberjack chic."

"Whatever is driving it is making us happy. We're scurrying to get them produced," said Royce Haines, L.L. Bean's operations manager, who oversees Bean's shoemaking operations.

L.L. Bean is adding a third shift this weekend at its leather-sewing operation in Brunswick, which joins an operation that makes rubber soles in Lewiston that's already working around the clock.

In the coming year, the company is also hiring 100 workers to bring the shoe-making operation to 500 workers and spending $1 million to purchase a second injection-molding machine like one that's currently in use in Lewiston. But the production boost won't happen overnight because it takes up to six months to get new workers fully trained.

L.L. Bean is an enviable position with its boots because price-conscious young consumers are willing to pay for the original heritage item as opposed to a knockoff, much like the growing demand for original Sperry Top-Siders, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at market researcher NPD Group.

"You've got the younger consumer jumping all over it like they just discovered it but the boomer generation has been wearing it for all their lives. So you're getting growth from the top and the bottom of the age spectrum," he said.

Bean's boot is a rare success story for domestic shoe making.

Other well-known brands like G.H. Bass, Cole Haan, Sebago and Dexter long ago moved their production out of Maine in search of cheaper labor. Nationwide, the number of shoe-manufacturing jobs dropped from more than 200,000 in the 1970s to about 14,000 last year, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Many of L.L. Bean's products are now made overseas as well, but the family-owned company has insisted on keeping production of its iconic boot in Maine.

L.L Bean's familiar boot started with the original "Maine hunting shoe" first produced by Leon Leonwood Bean in 1912. These days, the company has two giant "L.L. Bean Bootmobiles" that travel the country to promote the brand, and tourists pose for photos next to a giant boot outside flagship store in Freeport, Maine.

For now, there's no sign that demand is waning.

A couple of miles from the Lewiston plant, many Bates College students trudging across the snowy campus on a recent day were keeping their feet warm and dry with Bean boots.

"It's kind of a running joke that your outfit is not complete without a pair of Bean boots and a North Face jacket," said Caitrin Griffin, a junior from outside Chicago. "As a Bates student, that's what you wear. You see everyone walking around in them, especially after the first snowfall."

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Follow David Sharp on Twitter at https://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP

Uber's Value Just Doubled To $40 Billion In 6 Months (Sorry, Haters)

While many of us have spent the past six months getting mad at Uber, Uber has spent the past six months making $22 billion magically appear.

The ride-sharing app maker, a lightning rod for controversy, announced on Thursday that it has raised $1.2 billion in new funding, bringing the company's value to roughly $40 billion. That's up from a paltry $18 billion six months ago.

Uber's investors are apparently unfazed by bad press. In recent months, the company has had to apologize for a top executive threatening to smear journalists critical of the business. It's also been rated F by the Better Business Bureau, protested by its own drivers, kicked out of Las Vegas and accused of dirty practices aimed at undercutting its rivals.

But Uber is willing to acknowledge it has issues.

"The events of the recent weeks have shown us that we also need to invest in internal growth and change," CEO Travis Kalanick said in the blog post announcing the new funding. He promised Uber would make changes to become "a smarter and more humble company."

One possible teensy consolation for Uber is this factoid suggested by Wall Street Journal editor Dennis Berman: Roughly four years ago, the company was worth $60 million. Today it's worth $40 billion. At this rate of growth, it is appreciating by $19,839 per minute, according to Berman's math.

If you had invested $10,000 in the company when it started, that $10,000 would be worth about $80 million now, estimates tech investor Semil Shah -- though the effects of the company repeatedly issuing new stock would have cut that gain down significantly by making stock worth less. Maybe your $10,000 share would only be worth $20 million today. Still, $20 million > $10,000, according to my math.

At the moment, Uber is worth more than most members of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. It is worth more than Delta Air Lines and the railroad company CSX. It's also worth more than all the personal real estate in Anaheim, California.

Whether the company is actually worth all that money, or whether it's just the poster child for a growing startup bubble, is a different question altogether. Uber is making a lot of money, though the exact amount won't be entirely clear until the company goes public -- at which point maybe you can help boost Uber's valuation, too.

An Uber spokeswoman declined to provide further comment.

Reports Conflict Over Whether North Korea Is Source Of Sony Hack

Sony Pictures will announce that North Korea was the source of the company's recent hack, Re/code reports. The announcement could come "as soon as today."

A representative for Sony told The Hollywood Reporter's Matthew Belloni that Re/code's story is wrong, and that the company will not be making a statement on the attack:

A Sony rep tells me the studio will not be making a statement on the source of the hack. A contrary report out there is wrong, they say.

— Matthew Belloni (@THRMattBelloni) December 3, 2014

Sony did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment.

Sony was hacked last week, and the following five unreleased films were posted online: "Annie," "Still Alice," "Mr. Turner," "To Write Love On Her Arms" and "Fury."

There has been a bit of speculation about North Korea's involvement in the hack since it first occurred, as the country's government has been vocal about its objection to the upcoming Sony film "The Interview." The film, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, involves a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Last June, North Korea's ambassador to the U.N., Ja Song Nam, wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying that the movie was an "act of war."

As of last week, the FBI had begun investigating the hack.

This story has been updated to include additional details and clarify that the date of the announcement is still unclear, according to Re/code.

Coke Is Going To Try And Sell You Milk

Soda sales are falling, so Coca-Cola is getting ready to sell us a new drink. You may have heard of it. It's called milk. It comes from cows.

Coke's new milk isn't just plain old white stuff, though. Called FairLife, the new drink is marketed as "premium" milk with 50 percent more protein, 30 percent more calcium, half the sugar of typical milk -- and a higher price tag.

“We’ll charge twice as much for it as the milk we're used to buying in a jug,” the president of Coca-Cola North America told analysts at a Morgan Stanley conference last week. “It's basically the premiumisation of milk," Coke's Sandy Douglas said, according to a transcript from the event.

Douglas compared the milk to Coke's high-end juice brand, Simply. If the new milk does as well as Simply, in a few years it will "rain money," he said.

So far, Fairlife is only sold in test markets. The soda giant plans to launch it nationally in the U.S. in 2015, according to a statement from a Coca-Cola spokeswoman. The enhanced milk is a joint venture between Coke and Select Milk Producers dairy co-op, a collective of large dairy producers.

The dairy industry needs this to work. American milk consumption is declining, along with soft drink sales, as Americans increasingly swap cereal and milk for breakfast bars and fast food breakfast sandwiches. Retail sales of milk dropped 3 percent in 2014 after falling 2 percent the year before, according to data from Euromonitor. Competition from non-dairy milk alternatives, protein drinks and ready-to-drink teas may make it difficult for the milk industry to reverse the trend.

Fairlife hits on a couple of food fads that may help it succeed. The drink offers more protein than traditional milk. And protein is having a moment, thanks largely to cross-fit enthusiasts and paleo dieters. Companies increasingly have been using claims of high protein to sell everything from jerky to cereal.

People also seem to love milk alternatives and are often willing to pay a little bit more for them. Soy milk and almond milk revenues are expected to grow by 7.1 percent annually over the next four years, to $1.4 billion, according to data from IBISWorld, a research firm.

Fairlife contains dairy, but the fact that “there is something special about the product” makes shoppers think of it a bit differently than “the basic private-label milk that people buy in supermarkets,” said John Sicher, the editor of Beverage Digest, an industry newsletter.

An ad for Fairlife.

Turning a staple drink into a premium beverage to justify a higher price isn't a new strategy. The alcohol industry does it with Grey Goose vodka, Patron tequila and Tanqueray gin.

Water is probably the best example. Once just something that you got from the tap or even, gasp, a well in the ground, water was a more than $11 billion industry in 2011, according to the International Bottled Water Association. In addition to fancy water like Fiji and Voss, there are now sommeliers and websites dedicated to helping shoppers find the most luxurious types of water. Coke is in the water business as well with Dasani, which contains filtered tap water and trace amounts of minerals.

For Coke, premium milk is part of a broader push to diversify as Americans tire of soda. Rival Pepsi, which owns Frito-Lay, has already done this. Coke's biggest competitor is pushing into dairy as well, with a yogurt brand sold in stores nationwide.

Earlier this year, Coke capitalized on the rising popularity of energy drinks by buying a 17 percent stake in Monster. Coke also will offer its brands in Keurig’s single-serve cold brew machines next year. Honest Tea is the first Coke brand Keurig users will be able to brew in single-serve form.

Injecting some new life into Coke’s business is paramount. The company reported a 14 percent drop in profit last quarter and announced a cost-cutting program aimed at reducing expenses by $3 billion a year by 2019.

The soda giant also reported a 1 percent decline in carbonated drink volume in North America and it’s “very unlikely” it will see much growth in the U.S. soda business in the future, said Howard Telford, a beverage analyst at Euromonitor International, a market research firm. Shoppers, increasingly aware of high levels of sugar in soda, are opting for other drinks.

Americans will drink way less soda over the next several years, according to this chart from IBISWorld.