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AsiaOne
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- AsiaOne
Daily roundup: FairPrice trials smart trolleys in pilot plan to integrate AI — and other top stories today, World News
Stay in the know with a recap of our top stories today. 1. In-store navigation and personalised recommendations: FairPrice trials smart trolleys in pilot plan to integrate AI FairPrice Group (FPG) has revealed plans for a large-scale technology overhaul with its Store of Tomorrow programme that aims to revolutionise the retail experience for customers at their supermarket outlets. According to a press release on Tuesday (June 3), FPG has already begun piloting various digital solutions, such as Smart Carts and digital price cards at one of its FairPrice Finest outlets... » READ MORE 2. Man, 44, charged with murder of 79-year-old woman in Sengkang A 44-year-old man was on Tuesday (June 3) charged with the murder of a 79-year-old woman at a residential unit along Fernvale Road in Sengkang. Lim Yuen Li, who was arrested on Sunday (June 1), was handed one count of murder at the State Court... » READ MORE 3. Kyoto's viral Kichi Kichi Omurice chef is coming to Singapore, here's how you can meet him Fans of Japanese food would probably be familiar with Kichi Kichi Omurice, a popular restaurant in Kyoto that is hard to get a seat at. It's helmed by the charismatic Chef Motokichi Yukimura, who is known for his theatrical meal services and delicious omurice... » READ MORE 4. TXT pop-up store at Plaza Singapura opens in June K-pop boy group Tomorrow X Together (TXT) isn't returning to Singapore just yet but they're bringing something else to the table. Their Ppulbatu Pop-up store opens this Friday (June 6) at Plaza Singapura and will run until June 29... » READ MORE editor@
AsiaOne
03-06-2025
- Business
- AsiaOne
In-store navigation and personalised recommendations: FairPrice trials smart trolleys in pilot plan to integrate AI, Singapore News
FairPrice Group (FPG) has revealed plans for a large-scale technology overhaul with its Store of Tomorrow programme that aims to revolutionise the retail experience for customers at their supermarket outlets. According to a press release on Tuesday (June 3), FPG has already begun piloting various digital solutions, such as Smart Carts and digital price cards at one of its FairPrice Finest outlets. "The last few years of global disruption have shown that the only certainty in retail is how quickly consumer needs, tastes, and preferences evolve," said Vipul Chawla, Group CEO of FPG, adding that FPG aims to trial more than 20 new digital solutions within the next three years. The new initiatives will be launched in FPG's Punggol Digital District FairPrice Finest outlet, set to open in August 2025. They will then be gradually rolled out to FPG's 164 FairPrice supermarkets, and eventually, across the Group's wider network of over 570 touchpoints. Smart Carts Currently piloted at FairPrice Finest Sengkang Grand Mall, Smart Carts are shopping carts with built-in displays that can support customers with in-store navigation and highlight promotions for nearby products. Smart Carts can also provide product recommendations and feature scanners that customers can use to scan and pay for products as they go. To use a Smart Cart, customers will have to scan the Pay/Earn QR code on their FPG App. Customers can then use the Smart Cart's display function to search for specific products, which will yield a map and directions to guide them to the product's location in-store. Shoppers can also use the built-in scanner on the trolley's handlebar to add items to their digital checkout basket. Smart Carts will also have their own designated checkout area, where customers can apply relevant vouchers and make payment through the FPG app. MyInfo integration & biometric payment FPG also aims to streamline the checkout process by integrating the FPG app with the government MyInfo database on citizens and permanent residents. By doing so, customers eligible for discount schemes — CHAS Blue/Orange, Seniors, Pioneer Generation, Merdeka Generation — will have their discounts applied automatically to their purchases. Eliminating the need for physical card verification simplifies the checkout process and helps reduce time spent by staff on verifying customer details. FPG is also attempting to further enhance the checkout process by implementing biometric payment. By scanning and registering their palm prints to the FPG app, customers will eventually be able to make payment and earn LinkPoints by scanning their palms at checkout counters. Digital price cards Also being piloted at FairPrice Finest Sengkang Grand Mall are digital price cards which remove the need for physical labels and are part of FPG's wider sustainability efforts. At the same time, digital labels automatically update themselves with any changes to pricing or promotions, reducing the need for manual work, allowing staff to focus on other tasks. If successful, FPG will roll out digital price cards across all supermarket touchpoints within the next three years. FPG is also looking to launch other AI-enabled initiatives focused on improving workflow for staff and customers, such as Vision AI which incorporates data analytics. Vision AI "leverages existing in-store CCTV infrastructure and advanced video analytics to provide real-time updates to staff on where support or intervention is required throughout the store", according to the press release. For example, it can detect potential safety hazards such as spills or obstructions to facilitate a safer shopping environment. The queue management feature is also able to monitor and analyse queue wait times, alerting staff when more manpower is needed to manage the high volume of shoppers at checkout. "Through our Store of Tomorrow programme, we want to re-imagine how innovation and technologies like Gen AI and data analytics can make things easier on the wallet and experience for both physical and digital retail formats," said Chawla. [[nid:718264]]
Atlantic
28-05-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
Who Killed America's Shipbuilding Industry?
Tom Stimson / FPG / Getty Despite being economically and militarily reliant on shipping, the U.S. has an astonishing lack of maritime capacity. 'He who commands the sea has command of everything,' the ancient Athenian general Themistocles said. By that standard, the United States has command of very little. America depends on ocean shipping. About 80 percent of its international trade by weight traverses the seas. The U.S. needs ships to deliver nearly 90 percent of its armed forces' supplies and equipment, including fuel, ammunition, and food. Commercial shipyard capacity is essential for surge construction of warships and sealift-support ships that transport equipment and troops in times of national emergency. Yet the U.S. has an astonishing lack of maritime capacity. Of the tens of thousands of large vessels that dot the oceans, a mere 0.13 percent are built in the United States. China, by contrast, fulfills roughly 60 percent of all new shipbuilding orders and has amassed more than 200 times America's shipbuilding capacity. Not only do most U.S. imports and exports travel on foreign-built ships, but those ships are owned and crewed almost exclusively by nine giant carriers based in Europe and Asia. By the end of 2024, these carriers had organized into three cartels that controlled about 90 percent of the U.S. containerized-shipping trade. From the July 1870 issue: The shipping of the United States After a ship arrives at a U.S. port, the crane that lifts containers from its cargo hold will probably have been made by a single Chinese corporation that produces 80 percent of all ship-to-shore cranes in the United States. China also makes 86 percent of the truck chassis onto which containers are loaded. Some 95 percent of the containers themselves are built in China. In the early days of the pandemic, some consequences of America's loss of control over ocean shipping were suddenly thrown into relief. Foreign cartels raised the cost of spot contracts on certain shipping lanes by up to 1,000 percent while making a record $190 billion in windfall profits. They also rejected hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of U.S. agricultural exports, preferring to race back to China with empty containers to fill with more profitable Chinese imports while American-grown food rotted on the docks. The national-security implications of America's lack of shipbuilding and shipping capacity are also becoming dire. Because so few commercial ships fly the American flag and employ American mariners, the U.S. faces a critical shortage of civilian sailors needed to crew Navy support vessels. In November 2024, the Navy confirmed that it would lay up 17 support vessels, some delivered as recently as January 2024, because of crew shortages. More alarming are shortages of support ships themselves. The U.S. would need more than 100 fuel tankers in the event of a conflict in the Pacific. It has access to about 15. This should never have happened. In the middle of the 20th century, the U.S. had a thriving, well-regulated ocean-shipping industry. Then the country turned its back on the system that made it all possible. At the turn of the 20th century, the ocean-shipping industry was plagued by a phenomenon known as 'ruinous competition.' Carriers engaged in ruthless rate wars, reasoning that even if they moved cargo often at below-average cost, this would at least help defray the high fixed cost of operating a freighter. But the strategy was unsustainable. Years of continuous losses pushed many in the industry to the brink of insolvency. To avoid total collapse, the carriers banded together to form unregulated cartels in order to reduce supply and fix prices. The cartels provided some stability, but at the public's expense. They offered secretive rebates to large operators that agreed to ship exclusively on cartel vessels, and they often refused to deal with shippers that did business with competitors. The cartels also engaged in price discrimination, offering steep discounts and rebates to big shippers—and recouping their losses by charging higher prices to smaller shippers that lacked the power to demand favorable terms. The resulting unequal prices and access to transportation services harmed smaller manufacturers, farmers, and ports. At the same time that cartels were squeezing U.S. shippers, the U.S. government was neglecting maritime policy. Since the end of the Civil War, the United States had refused to allocate public resources to shipbuilding, while foreign governments, especially the British, subsidized their shipping and shipbuilding steeply. By 1901, U.S.-built vessels carried a mere 8 percent of national trade, and U.S. shipyards were left with little business aside from naval contracts. The combined results of cartelization and government inaction were perilous. After World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, Great Britain, France, and Italy immediately diverted most of their shipping capacity to support their war efforts. Because the United States was so reliant on European shipping, freight rates soared. Foreign lines increased the rate to charter a vessel or ship key goods by about 20 times. The United States was effectively cut off from the rest of the world. As the maritime historian Salvatore R. Mercogliano noted in Sea History magazine, 'The domestic economy went into a recession as goods piled up on the docks and imports stopped arriving in American ports.' In response to the emergency, Congress passed a series of bills that poured public funds into bolstering U.S. shipping and shipbuilding capacity. Both the immediate and long-term results were spectacular. Extensive public investment led to the construction of more than 2,300 vessels for World War I and more than 5,500 vessels during World War II. The United States became the world's preeminent shipbuilder, assembling vessels at a scale and speed previously unheard of. The U.S. built the Liberty-class cargo ship SS Robert E. Peary, for example, in a little more than four days during the height of World War II. But Congress recognized that simply pouring money into maritime capacity was not enough. It needed to set market rules for ocean shipping, both to forestall destructive competition and to ensure that ocean carriers operated in the public interest. To do this, Congress created a new agency, the United States Shipping Board (later replaced by the Federal Maritime Commission), which was charged with regulating the industry like a public utility. Cartels were required to submit their operating agreements to the government, which in turn disapproved or altered agreements it found to be discriminatory or unfair. Carriers were not allowed to engage in price discrimination, offer deferred rebates, or employ other underhanded tactics that excluded competition. These laws were not always effectively enforced, but they were a significant improvement over the status quo. During the 1980s, however, Congress and Ronald Reagan abandoned the regulated-competition approach. Reaganites argued that the FMC, which at the time had a budget of just $11.8 million, had become a bloated bureaucracy, and reasoned that the U.S. could achieve economic efficiency and lower shipping prices if ocean carriers were not required to treat all shippers equally. To that end, Congress passed a series of bills during the Reagan and Clinton administrations that stripped the FMC's ability to regulate ocean-carrier cartels. The first-order effect was a return to the destructive competition and underhanded exploitation that had characterized the early-20th-century market. As the rise of containerization led to ever larger ships, fixed costs grew. This increased carriers' incentives to fill empty space on ships, even at steep discounts, because at least they would lose less money than if the space were unsold. Still, profits fell, and carriers turned to waves of mergers made possible by the federal government's simultaneous retreat from antitrust enforcement. In the seven years after President Ronald Reagan signed the Shipping Act of 1984, seven major carriers were snapped up by the competition, compared with just one during the entire period from 1966 to 1983. American-flag carriers, which had higher costs than foreign counterparts, were particularly hurt by the rate wars, especially after the Reagan administration withdrew subsidies that had helped U.S. carriers defray the costs of paying crews livable wages. Foreign corporations acquired American President Lines and SeaLand, the two largest U.S. carriers at the time, in 1997 and 1999 respectively, leaving the United States with no globally competitive ocean carriers. Meanwhile, shipyards in Asia began to enjoy massive government subsidies. From the April 1943 issue: We build ships The consequences were nearly identical to the pattern in the early 1900s. Shipbuilding all but disappeared in the United States. Today, the U.S. produces five or fewer large commercial vessels a year, and shipyards almost exclusively rely on naval contracts. Worse, at a time of escalating tensions with China, the United States has virtually no surge capacity to build naval or sealift ships. In fact, China builds all the commercial ships that the U.S. government contracts to provide military support. A bipartisan bill in Congress and a recent executive order seek to address the problem. The plans aim to levy tariffs on Chinese-owned ships and create new tax incentives to spur investment in shipyards, among other provisions. These ideas, though helpful, are too simplistic and small-bore. The central problem is not just inadequate investment or insufficient tariffs. It is the abandonment of a system of regulated competition that structures the industry to meet public purposes. Restoring a robust version of that system would revive the government's ability to direct cartels to operate in the public interest. Carriers would be required to offer all shippers, big and small, similar prices and terms of service. This would ensure that market competition focuses on who provides the best products at the best prices instead of who enjoys the favor of a handful of foreign cartels. Government regulation of carriers would prevent them from excessively raising prices in times of tight capacity and engaging in ruinous price wars during times of slackening demand. Combined with robust public investment in shipping, shipbuilding, port services, and mariner training, this system would re-create the market rules we once used to address the challenge of unregulated monopolies in ocean shipping. A new era of American maritime greatness is possible. Support for this project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
National Geographic
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
You can't tell the story of New Orleans without its Black Catholics
The revelation that Pope Leo XIV has Louisiana Creole roots shines a light on a community of Catholics that has shaped New Orleans, from a famous Voodoo priestess to the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz. A member of the Treme Brass Band plays during a concert marking the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina Concert at the historically black St. Augustine Catholic Church in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1841, St. Augustine is the oldest Black parish in the United States and was the place of worship for some of the city's most influential historical figures. Photograph byThe election of Pope Leo XIV as the first American pontiff—and the subsequent revelation that he has Louisiana Creole roots—shines new light on a city long known for its vibrant mix of cultures and traditions. Indeed, it is impossible to speak of New Orleans without including the story of its Black Catholics. Black Catholicism in the Crescent City can be traced all the way back to the 15th-century European colonization of West Africa, the homeland of many of those brought against their will centuries later to Louisiana as part of the slave trade. 'When we talk about Black Catholics, we had people from the Kingdom of Kongo who were Catholic even before they came here,' says Ansel Augustine, a New Orleans native and the assistant director of African American Affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In New Orleans, the Catholicism practiced by French and Spanish settlers melded with the Catholicism and spiritual practices of the African diaspora, Augustine says. 'Thus, the birthing of the Black Catholic realities of New Orleans.' A group of boys and girls pose for a group portrait with St. Louis Cathedral in the background in New Orleans, Louisiana, circa 1975. It is the oldest continuously active Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States. Photograph by Richard Laird/FPG/Today,the Archdiocese ofNew Orleans has one of the largest African-American populations for U.S. Catholic dioceses. But more than that, the city has been shaped by its Catholic community. Black Catholics played a role in some of the most important chapters of New Orleans history—from the origins of jazz to the earliest Black schools in America to the civil rights movement. Then there's Mardi Gras, the weeks-long Carnival celebration before the solemn Catholic season of Lent. While the latter is often more explicitly associated with religion, Carnival—with its Black Masking Indians, second line parades, living 'baby dolls,' and skeletons—is a noticeably Afrocentric moment on the Church calendar. Though not well known outside of New Orleans, these are the stories of the Catholics whose lives displayed their community's commitment to faith, justice, and innovation. How the 'Code Noir' shaped the birth of Black Catholicism The earliest colonial rulers in Louisiana were the Catholic kingdoms of France and Spain—and they tended to view marriage and procreation in terms of class. 'There was no blanket term of 'Black.' We don't really see that until the Americans take over,' says David Robinson-Morris, a Black Catholic scholar and consultant in New Orleans with REImaginelution. 'The French had the Code Noir, which dictated how people of color could move about in the world and in society.' Under these laws, interracial marriage was generally prohibited, mostly to perpetuate slavery and maintain an economic hierarchy. People of mixed race often intermarried within what became known as the 'Creole' community for reasons that became increasingly tied to wealth and status. Born in 1801, Marie Catherine Laveau was both a voodoo priestess and a devout Catholic. Her teachings helped preserve African spirituality in New Orleans as it melded together with European Catholicism. Photograph by IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo One workaround was the system of plaçage, which allowed white men of status to cohabitate and procreate with Black Creole women outside of recognized Catholic marriages. This system is what produced many of the multiracial Black Catholics who came to shape the city's early history. Many well-known Catholics in New Orleans were of similar descent. Take the famous Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, for example. She's best known for leading a robust, underground interreligious practice that helped preserve African spirituality in New Orleans. But she was also a lifelong practicing Catholic who had her children baptized in the Church. Then there was the philanthropist Marie Couvent, who left her wealth to a Catholic school for the indigent founded in 1840. Later backed by the Creole educator and entrepreneur Thomy Lafon, it was the first community school devoted to Black children in the Deep South. Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll Morton' Lamothe, another devout Catholic, helped pioneer the musical style later known as jazz in the city's red light district, also known as 'Storyville.' His earliest compositions came in the early 1900s, including the 'Jelly Roll Blues' and 'King Porter Stomp.' Devotion to education and living Catholic values Others in New Orleans made their mark through explicitly religious service tied to the Church. One standout was Henriette DeLille, a free-born woman who resisted the prevailing plaçage system. Her devout religious faith led her to not only reject her suitors, but also to found the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1836, an order of nuns dedicated to serving the poor and enslaved. They opened one of the nation's oldest senior care centers, Lafon Nursing Facility, in 1842 and one of the city's oldest schools, St. Mary's Academy, in 1867. 'Mother Henriette has left a legacy that can't be disputed,' says Alicia Costa, who has served as superior general of the Holy Family Sisters since 2022. 'We're still working and Henriette is really our model.' DeLille is now on the path to sainthood, making her one of the most emblematic figures among New Orleans Black Catholics and the larger region, who invoke her name weekly in an official prayer distributed by the local archdiocese. St. Katharine Drexel, a white Philadelphia heiress who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, opened the nation's first Black Catholic institution of higher education, Xavier University of Louisiana, in 1925. It has since gone on to produce some of the nation's most prominent Black achievers, and more Black medical professionals than almost any other school in America The Josephites, another Catholic religious community founded to serve African Americans, also has a long history in New Orleans. Their priests and religious brothers have served in the city since 1909 and founded a historic all-boys Black Catholic high school, St. Augustine, in 1951. 'The Josephites served in the Greater New Orleans Urban League, even as president, and fought for equal housing and job opportunities,' says Roderick Coates, a Josephite priest in Louisiana. 'They helped found Christopher Housing for seniors and low-income people [and] served on the Board of Education for New Orleans Public Schools.' Civil rights and the Catholic Church Catholic activism characterized much of the city's presence in the Black liberation struggle, especially out of Tremé—the nation's oldest Black neighborhood. The civil rights attorney A.P. Tureaud, Sr., battled Jim Crow from his office at the headquarters of the Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary, a Black Catholic fraternal order of which he was a member. A mile away, local restaurateurs Leah and Edgar 'Dooky' Chase II—both Catholic—hosted Martin Luther King, Jr., and other movement activists for closed-door planning meetings. President Norman C. Francis of Xavier University in New Orleans shakes hands with Pope John Paul II after appearing before the United Nations committee against apartheid in a special session to pay tribute to the late Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1980. He was the first Black president of the school, which itself was the nation's first Black Catholic institution of higher education. Photograph by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images Homer Plessy—of the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson that upheld Louisiana's law on 'separate but equal' facilities—resisted segregation as a Catholic connected to the city's most historic Black church, St. Augustine. Norman C. Francis, a Black Catholic and dean of men at Xavier University of Louisiana, also helped play a role in the Civil Rights Movement, offering a dormitory as a hub for the Freedom Riders in 1961 amid white supremacist violence in the city. 'All of this is connected with our Black Catholic heritage and our faith, telling us to use spaces, places, gifts, and strength to create a more just society,' says Augustine. While Hurricane Katrina in 2005 reshaped much of New Orleans and its tangible Black Catholic heritage, the city has remained resilient. 'Remember, New Orleans is older than the country. It is a city in America, but it's not an American city,' says Robinson-Morris. 'We're talking about African culture, literally from the motherland, colliding with Afro-Caribbean culture. We're talking about French culture and Native American and Spanish culture, and all of the various ways those cultures are expressed.' It is precisely this sort of cultural and ethnic admixture that has come to bear with the new Pope Leo XIV, whose ancestry exhibits a typical New Orleans ambiguity that is still American in its own way. While he has not publicly spoken on the details of his mother's Black and Catholic Creole beginnings in New Orleans, it is clear that the background of the first American pope is as complex—and as providential—as the country's own genesis. 'Long before he was the pope, when he was just a priest and a cardinal, he mentioned that one of the reasons to a vocation was because all the neighborhood priests were always in and out of his house because they liked his mom's cooking,' says Jari Honora, the genealogist who discovered the pope's Creole roots. 'Now we know why, because his mom—both maternal and paternal—was straight out of New Orleans.' Nate Tinner-Williams is cofounder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger, an independent, nonprofit digital media publication covering stories of interest to African-American Catholics. He is a master's student in theology at Xavier University of Louisiana's Institute for Black Catholic Studies and a contributing writer for the Boston Globe.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Supermarkets roll out promotion deals for those spending CDC vouchers
SINGAPORE – Major supermarkets are introducing promotions for the use of the latest $500 CDC vouchers launched on May 13. FairPrice Group (FPG) will give a $6 return voucher for every $60 worth of CDC supermarket vouchers spent in a single transaction at any FairPrice store from May 13 to 19. No minimum spending amount is required for customers to use their $6 return vouchers. Customers can also use multiple return vouchers in a single transaction. The return vouchers will be valid for use from the day after they are issued, until June 15. The latest and seventh tranche of CDC vouchers was launched by Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong at Nee Soon South Community Club. PM Wong had announced during his Budget 2025 statement on Feb 18 that all Singaporean households would receive an additional $800 in CDC vouchers in two tranches: $500 in May 2025 and $300 in January 2026. The vouchers are split equally between spending at participating supermarkets and at participating heartland hawker stalls and merchants. They expire on Dec 31, 2025. FPG chief executive Vipul Chawla said: 'Singaporeans have shown incredible strength and spirit in the last few months of global uncertainty, and as the nation's largest retailer, we want to recognise the hard work they put in every day to lead more fulfilling lives. 'This third wave of FairPrice return vouchers is our way of helping to make every day a little better for all in Singapore, by keeping daily essentials within reach.' Customers at Giant, Cold Storage, CS Fresh and Jasons Deli will also get a $6 return voucher when they spend a minimum of $60 with their CDC vouchers in a single receipt from May 13 to 19. The return voucher may be redeemed only from a day after the date of issue till May 27, with no minimum spend. Sheng Siong will be giving out special discounts of up to 50 per cent on selected products, including eggs and rice, when customers spend $50 in a single receipt using CDC vouchers, from May 13 till June 11. Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction Discover how to enjoy other premium articles here
