Business

As American tastes change, fast food chains are suffering. More than half of all diners nowadays prefer a burger at a specialty restaurant or a burger restaurant than any other burger. Burger King has struggled with a harsh decline since 2008, and recently lost its number two spot at the top to Wendy's. McDonald's, which still sits on the fast food throne, isn't doing so well either, reporting a more severe sales decline than expected in the first three months of 2015. Now, Carl's Jr. and Hardee's have devised a new burger to draw summer crazed consumers away from the gourmet and foodie spots: The Most American Thickburger. For just $5.79, hungry patrons can get a burger made with a one-third pound patty of Black Angus beef, a grilled hot dog split in two, American cheese, lettuce, red oni...

Google is well aware of how dangerous hackers have become. Web-based security attacks have increased about 23% since 2013, after all, and the cost of cybercrime skyrocketed 78% that same year. According to cyber security company McAfee, the global economy from cybercrime is about $400 billion. Now, Google is taking steps to beef up its own security measures for Gmail users. Webizens are greeted with a space to enter their usernames, and are then redirected to a new page to enter their passwords. Though it may seem simple, the new design prepares for "future authentification systems that complement passwords." There are a few advantages of splitting the username and password fields up. It reduces confusion for users who have multiple Gmail accounts, such as one for work and one for person...

Sales is a notoriously tough industry to work in, and those who do are constantly trying new tips and tricks to increase their sales. Though sales is also often based on quotas which can create competition and isolation within a sales team, a new app seeks to create a climate of collaboration to help all members become more successful. According to online publication Digital Journal, sales platform ToutApp has added a feature called Sales Beat, which essentially functions like a newsfeed, updating an entire team on what their colleagues are doing -- and what works. The ToutApp platform was designed to help salespeople close more deals through analytics, email tracking, and templates. The new feature will also allow a sales team to work collaboratively by sharing best practices, and it de...

Google acknowledged May 11 that its self-driving cars have been involved in 11 accidents since the company began working on the technology approximately six years ago. The company claims, however, that in none of the accidents have the cars been at fault. “During … 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel … not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident,” Chris Urmson, head of the Google self-driving car project, wrote in a blog post published on the website Medium. Google addressed the issue after the Associated Press reported that Google had filed paperwork for three collisions in California, where reporting accidents is part of the agreement permitting the company to test the cars on public roads. It now appears that of t...

From Tampa, FL to Sacramento, CA and everywhere in between, Americans are once again starting to pay a little bit more at the gas pump. Since hitting a record low of $2.03 per gallon in January, fuel prices have been steadily on the rise, with the national average for gas prices now hovering around $2.58 per gallon. This 55 cent increase marks both the highest gas prices seen in 2015 so far and the largest seasonal increase in fuel prices since 2012, according to ClarksvilleOnline.com. AAA – The Auto Club Group explains the rise in prices stems primarily from rising crude oil prices spurred upward by uncertainty and conflict throughout the oil and gas hubs of the Middle East, especially Iraq and Yemen. Because American oil companies have been reaching all-time highs of oil production, m...

3D printing is gradually spreading to a number of different industries and sectors. These days, 3D printing is used to "print" medical and dental equipment, smartphone cases, fashion accessories and much more. And soon, you might even be able to perform a home improvement project with parts entirely produced by a 3D printer. Home improvement retailer Lowe's recently announced that it will begin offering 3D printing and scanning services in its stores. The service will allow homeowners to easily design and produce parts for their various projects, along with truly one-of-a-kind decorations for patio designs and the like. According to an April 29 Wall Street Journal article, homeowners will be able to fully customize virtually any object that they install in their home, from cabinet knobs...

Much recent discussion has questioned whether high-priced college educations are showing a good return on investment. But as a report released April 20 by the Hamilton Project shows, one thing is clear: Americans without much education are doing substantially worse than their college-educated peers. “[N]on-college educated workers are substantially more likely to work in lower-paying service occupations than in the recent past,” the report’s authors write. “In contrast, individuals with a bachelor’s degree or more are just as likely to be employed today as they were in 1990, in similar occupations, and with steadily rising earnings.” For the study, the researchers examined government data to compare how American workers have fared between 1990 and 2013. Workers were split into eight cate...

Many people pursue careers in the healthcare industry as a way to help others recover from their injuries and illnesses. However, in doing so, healthcare workers themselves are increasingly becoming injured. New data from the Occupational Health Safety Network (OHSN) reveals that injury rates for healthcare workers rose from 2012 to 2014 -- with violent injuries in particular becoming more frequent. Between January 1, 2012 and September 30, 2014, the 112 U.S. healthcare facilities studied reported 10,680 injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Patient handling and movement-related injuries represented 4,674 of these injuries. There were 3,972 slips, trips and falls, and 2,034 instances of workplace violence that led to injury. The healthcare and social ass...

You may have seen them before while driving around -- cars wrapped with a vivid, black-and-white swirling pattern. According to The News Wheel, car manufacturers apply these vinyl wraps to a pre-production vehicle that is being tested, in order to camouflage the vehicle's design and protect it from being ripped off by a competitor. While many people may think these wraps, with their ostentatious designs, do the opposite of camouflaging a prototype car. However, the patterns aren't meant to prevent the car itself from being seen out on the road -- rather, they conceal the specific details of the model's exterior. And why the black and white? That's because black absorbs infrared light from a camera's auto-focus, making it nearly impossible to capture a clear image of the vehicle -- an ef...

Two major indicators of home remodeling activity are pointing to a decelerating market throughout 2015, but investors seem to be confident that remodeling companies and supporting retailers will continue to be profitable nonetheless. The National Association of Home Builders released its Remodeling Market Index for the first quarter of 2015 on April 23. It was set at 57. Any RMI figure above 50 indicates that more remodelers say they have more activity than they did in the past quarter than say they have less activity; the current figure is above that key point, but lower than the 60 set in the last quarter of 2014. That means that the market is growing but at a slower rate. The latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity, set by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for...