Things To Do In SW Florida

Online-first shopping strategies, many of them popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic, continue to gain traction among shoppers. One such notable practice is “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS). This shopping method — also sometimes referred to in the retail industry as “click and collect” — is exactly what it sounds like: Consumers make purchases online and then pick up their items later at a physical brick-and-mortar store.

Related Articles

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  People on the move

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  As demand for AI rises, so do power thirsty data centers

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  Lawmakers fear AI data centers will drive up residents’ power bills

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  Recent Central Florida bankruptcies

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  Google’s digital ad network declared an illegal monopoly, joining its search engine in penalty box

The practical advantages are clear: You can do your research in peace, avoid crowds and pushy sales pitches, and of course save on shipping costs, assuming there’s a store near you.

But if you’re a credit card rewards optimizer, there’s another major advantage: more bonus rewards, whether through your credit card’s online “shopping mall” or any number of third-party cash-back portals — not to mention more time to sift through all those offers in advance of your transaction. read more

By Paige Gross, Stateline.org

The next time you’re on a Zoom meeting or asking ChatGPT a question, picture this: The information zips instantaneously through a room of hot, humming servers, traveling hundreds, possibly thousands of miles, before it makes its way back to you in just a second or two.

It can be hard to wrap your mind around, said Vijay Gadepally, a senior scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, but large data centers are where nearly all artificial intelligence systems and computing happens today.

“Each one of these AI models has to sit on a server somewhere, and they tend to be very, very big,” he said. “So if your millions or billions of users are talking to the system simultaneously, the computing systems have to really grow and grow and grow.”

As the United States works to be a global AI superpower, it’s become a home to hundreds of data centers — buildings that store and maintain the physical equipment needed to compute information. read more

By Alex Brown, Stateline.org

For the first time in decades, America needs to produce more electricity.

In many places, a sharp uptick in power demand has been driven by data centers, the industrial buildings that house huge banks of computer servers and support our increasingly digital society.

State lawmakers have long sought to attract such operations with generous tax breaks and incentives. But now, some are concerned that the infrastructure needed to add all those data centers to the electric grid will drive up residents’ utility bills. The growing use of artificial intelligence, which requires massive amounts of computing power, has added to that worry.

“We’re going to have tremendous stress from AI,” said New Jersey state Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat who chairs the Environment and Energy Committee. “We have a crisis coming our way in electric rates. These outrageous increases are going to be put on the citizens. Why should they bear the rate increases?”

Smith has authored a bill that would require new AI data centers in New Jersey to arrange to supply their power from new, clean energy sources, if other states in the region enact similar measures. read more

Chapter 7

Central Florida individuals and businesses that have filed for liquidation under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code include:

Sulsona’s Tools Distributor Corp., 902 Halifax Drive, Kissimmee. Filed: April 8. Assets: $6,329. Liabilities: $85,225. Major creditors: Matco Tools, Stow, Ohio, $83,063; Florida Department of Revenue Orlando Service Center, Orlando, $2,162. Creditors meeting: May 9.

Chapter 11

Central Florida individuals and businesses that have filed for reorganization and protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code include:

First Way Inc., 9640 Sidney Hayes Road, Orlando. Filed: April 4. Assets: $0-$50,000. Liabilities: $1,000,001-$10 million. Major creditors: BMO Harris Bank, Irving, Texas, $119,663; Capital Premium Financing LLC, Draper, Utah, $104,863; National Union Fire Insurance Company, Pittsburgh, Pa., $47,301. Creditors meeting: May 5.

Lake Bennett Village-Ocoee LLC, 5237 Isleworth County Club Drive, Windermere. Filed: April 7. Assets: $32,750,000. Liabilities: $27,422,210. Major creditors: Not available. Creditors meeting: May 5. read more

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion.

The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia comes on the heels of a separate decision in August that concluded Google’s namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation.

After the U.S. Justice Department targeted Google’s ubiquitous search engine during President Donald Trump’s first administration, the same agency went after the company’s lucrative digital advertising network in 2023 during President Joe Biden’s ensuing administration in an attempt to undercut the power that Google has amassed since its inception in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

Although antitrust regulators prevailed both times, the battle is likely to continue for several more years as Google tries to overturn the two monopoly decisions in appeals while forging ahead in the new and highly lucrative technological frontier of artificial intelligence. read more