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The Morning Download: Dollar General CIO Takes Lead in Customer Experience
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Good morning, CIOs. Building technology for cost-conscious customers requires thinking differently, Dollar General Chief Information Officer Carman Wenkoff, tells CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos.
"Our customers are on a fairly tight budget, which means they have limited data and memory on their phones," says Mr. Wenkoff, a Subway CIO who joined the deep-discounter in 2017 in part to improve its customer-facing services.
Dollar General has invested in digital tools that helps in-store customers calculate the exact total of items in their carts, including taxes, and one that notifies them when a coupon is available for an item in their cart. Up next is technology that lets customers buy their wares online and pick them up at a local store.
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The Lovell Telescope near Holmes Chapel in Cheshire, north west England. PHOTO: PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images
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"Same math, different application." Add astrophysicists to the growing exodus of data science experts from academia to the commercial sector.
Physics fashion. Wired talks with Chris Moody, an astrophysicist who joined Stitch Fix, a fashion firm that uses machine learning and concepts from quantum mechanics to determine a customer's personal style. "This is a Poincaré space," he says about the tools he applies, referring to a math theorem far above an ordinary JavaScripter's pay grade. "It’s what Einstein used to describe relativistic spaces." (Wired)
We'reOut. Weeks after the CEO and co-founder stepped down from We Co., leaving a spiked IPO and strange tales in his wake, the co-working business is expect to dismiss about 500 employees, including data scientists and software engineers. (The Information)
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Robots at the Tesla's Gigafactory near Sparks, Nev. help assemble battery cells into battery packs for Tesla's Model 3 sedan. PHOTO: BENJAMIN SPILLMAN/THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Culture clash threatens Tesla, Panasonic battery partnership. Five years after committing to invest billions of dollars in a shared battery factory in the Nevada desert, Panasonic's relationship with the electric-car pioneer is lacking spark, The Wall Street Journal's Tim Higgins and Takashi Mochizuki report.
Missed deadlines. An early source of tension: Missed deadlines. Panasonic would rush to be ready to supply Tesla's production targets only to find the auto maker behind schedule.
Management styles. Panasonic, with hundreds of thousands of employees, was used to giving its units autonomy to solve problems. But Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a self-described “nano-manager,” seemed to have his hands on everything.
Marijuana. When Mr. Musk puffed a marijuana blunt during a live-video interview in California, executives at Panasonic were gobsmacked. “What will our investors think?” one Panasonic executive remembers wondering.
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Protesters use their phones outside an Apple store before a march in Hong Kong's Kowloon district in August. PHOTO: ANTHONY WALLACE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Apple pulls Hong Kong cop-tracking map app after China uproar The iPhone maker removed from its digital store an app that allowed Hong Kong protesters to track police movements. China is Apple Inc.’s second-most important market after the U.S., accounting for $52 billion in sales last year, a fifth of the company’s total. The company also has deleted hundreds of apps in recent years to meet local laws. (WSJ)
Facebook political ad practice put to test. The social network rejected a request from Joe Biden's presidential campaign to remove an advertisement by the Trump campaign with a false narrative of the Ukraine controversy. Facebook earlier said it would not moderate political speech by politicians and their campaigns. (New York Times)
Related. A report released on Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed how big tech helped spread misinformation in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. (WSJ)
Lithium-ion work recognized in Sweden. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists for their work developing lithium-ion batteries—power sources that now seem to power, well, everything. U.S. engineer John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham of the U.K. and Akira Yoshino of Japan shared the 9 million Swedish kronor ($906,000) prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (WSJ)
Digitalization in the age of poor infrastructure and climate change. The region that laid the groundwork for the future went back to the dark ages Wednesday, as PG&E began cutting power to nearly a million households and businesses across California. It was an unprecedented move to help lower the region’s wildfire threat. (WSJ)
Data centers on generator power. UC Berkeley did not host classes Wednesday and the university's IT staff put together a little primer on what to expect.
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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The Turkish military began an offensive in Syria to seize territory held by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, opening a new front in the war-ravaged country. (WSJ)
The gap between Treasury yields and mortgage rates is higher than it has been in years as borrowers’ appetite outpaces availability and investors demand higher returns on mortgage-backed securities. (WSJ)
Senior U.S. and Chinese officials will square off for trade talks Thursday, with higher tariffs looming if negotiators fail to break a five-month stalemate. (WSJ)
Politicians and leaders of the Jewish community in Germany called for stepped-up security after an attempted attack on a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on Wednesday left two dead. (WSJ)
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