Natural Disasters Cost $90.9 Billion In Losses in 2018
In 2018, the U.S. experienced 14 billion-dollar-plus natural disasters, which caused approximately $90.9 billion in losses, the fourth-highest cost since 1980, according to the U.S. Household Disaster Giving in 2017 and 2018 report.

The total damage from Hurricane Michael was estimated at $25 billion. Hurricane Florence was estimated at $24 billion in damage. The wildfires in California were estimated to have at least $12.4 billion in insured losses alone; total damage is still not clear. securitymagazine.com

How Surveillance Cameras Could Be Weaponized With A.I.
'An army of A.I. security guards being placed behind those lenses'

Businesses and the government have spent years installing millions of surveillance cameras across the United States. Now, that technology is on the verge of getting a major upgrade, the American Civil Liberties Union warns in a new report.

Advancements in artificial intelligence could supercharge surveillance, allowing camera owners to identify “unusual” behavior, recognize actions like hugging or kissing, easily seek out embarrassing footage and estimate a person’s age or, possibly, even their disposition, the group argues.

“We face the prospect of an army of A.I. security guards being placed behind those lenses that are actually, in a meaningful way, monitoring us, making decisions about us, scrutinizing us,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the A.C.L.U. and the author of the report, which was released on Thursday.

The ability to constantly analyze and learn from a video feed could help self-driving cars understand their surroundings, retail stores track their products and health professionals monitor their patients, he said. It can also be used to scrutinize the routines and actions of individuals on an enormous scale, the A.C.L.U. warns.

At a recent retail industry conference, IBM showed how its video analytics software could be used to count customers and estimate their ages and loyalty status, all in real time. The software could monitor the length of a line, identify a manager as he walked through a crowd, and flag people loitering outside the store.

Amazon’s Rekognition service, launched in 2016, can purportedly identify and track people, recognize celebrities and detect objects and read text. (The company drew criticism for pitching that service to law enforcement.) After employees protested, Google last year said it would not renew a contract with the Pentagon’s Project Maven, for which artificial intelligence is used to interpret video and images, potentially to improve the targeting of drone strikes. nytimes.com

Why the Huawei ban is bad for security
Many believe the ban on exporting U.S. technology to Chinese company Huawei could hurt American tech vendors and do little to mitigate supply chain threats.

Last week, Google reportedly warned the Trump Administration that its current ban on exports to Huawei might actually jeopardize national security by forcing Huawei to create an insecure fork of its Android operating system.

Two days before Google’s reported warning was made public, the Washington Post released the results of a survey of 100 cybersecurity experts from government, academia and the private sector who mostly concluded that the ban would only end up hurting U.S. tech companies and further diminish U.S. influence over the security of new products. One of the experts, former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos, now a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, said that the ban could cause China to “emerge as the indispensable nation in consumer technology." csonline.com

Has RFID Finally Found Its Place in Retail?
Aside from some false starts and eagerly publicized trials, radio frequency identification technology never quite delivered on its promise to be the next great thing in inventory control. Now it seems RFID might finally be ready for retail and, better still, appears to offer value across a far wider range of applications than those previously anticipated.

RFID in Provenance and Profit Protection
Retail shrinkage, which includes losses from shoplifting and employee theft, reached a total of 1.33 percent of sales in 2018, according to the National Retail Federation. In this light, some retailers are turning to RFID technology as a way to combat theft, a task for which the technology is particularly well suited. Vastly superior to the EAS tags used by most retailers, RFID tags can be used in the same way - to set off an alarm if an unpaid-for item passes through the exit door - but also to provide real-time intelligence as to what that item exactly is.

However, theft isn't the only security issue that RFID tags and readers can help to thwart. In the apparel and fashion sector, counterfeit products are a huge issue, making up almost half of the global counterfeit industry. High-end retailers are responding with RFID tagging at the source to prove product authenticity and combat counterfeiting. This is being made possible by the latest developments in tag construction, which gives manufacturers the ability to produce tags that can withstand being washed and dry-cleaned, and just about anything else which might happen to an item of clothing after purchase.

Read more to learn about about the variety of ways RFID is being put to use in retail - some of which might surprise you: rfidjournal.com

What does RFID mean for retail?
RFID tags cut down the time it takes to inventory a store from days to hours. Waving a scanner across a table of folded sweaters or jeans or a rack of blouses captures inventory information faster and more accurately.

Some stores are operating with 70 percent accuracy in their inventory, and that's weak for retailers trying to merge their online and in-store businesses for shoppers, said Dean Frew, Chief Technology Officer for Hong Kong-based SML, the second-largest RFID firm behind No. 1 Avery Dennison.

Only about 8 percent of the industry - mostly single-branded stores - is using RFID tags, he said. Stores that have adopted RFID tags have increased sales from 2% to 9% while reducing inventory by as much as 10%, Frew said.

Walmart was a big proponent of RFID tags in the early 2000s and even tested it in Dallas-area Walmart and Sam's Club stores. Many in retailing thought that tags would eventually replace the bar codes on consumer product packaging. The cost of a tag back then was as much as a dollar, so it wasn't cost effective except for big pallets of merchandise. To add an RFID tag to a piece of apparel costs about 6 cents now. dallasnews.com

Phoenix: 4-Year-Old Girl's Doll Theft at Family Dollar Leads to Gunpoint Arrest
Family sues Phoenix PD for $10M over officer's response to shoplifting incident
The Phoenix Police Department will be facing a $10 million lawsuit in connection with officers' response to a shoplifting call. The documents claim that Phoenix police officers engaged in police brutality and civil rights violations.

According to the claim, Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper, who is five months pregnant, didn't realize their 4-year-old took a doll from the Family Dollar Store at 36th Street and McDowell Road on May 29 until they were in the car. The family drove to a building near 32nd and Roosevelt streets, where their babysitter lived. A police car pulled up behind them with "no sirens or lights," court documents said.

"We're talking about a little doll that's worth maybe $5 and the horrors that came from the overreaction to that," said former Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, who is representing the family.

That's when the family claims an officer went up to Ames, who was in the driver's seat, pointed a gun at him and said, "I'm going to put a cap in your ass." The officer also said, "I'm gonna shoot you in your (expletive) face," the claim said.

Their 4-year-old and their 1-year-old children were in the backseat of the car. The family claims the officer pulled Ames out of the car, kicked him in the right leg, and punched him in the back. Ames said he wasn't resisting. The officer also pointed a gun at the mother and children inside, the claim said.

The money is based on $2.5 million for each family member. azfamily.com

Academy Sports Urges Texas Justices To Toss Mass-Shooting Suits
A Texas-based sporting goods store has asked the Texas Supreme Court to undo lower court rulings that allowed four lawsuits brought by families of victims of the Sutherland Springs mass shooting to proceed, arguing federal law bars the claims.

Academy Ltd., which operates as Academy Sports & Outdoors, filed a petition with the state's high court on Tuesday, arguing the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, passed by Congress in 2005, requires dismissal of the lawsuits that allege negligence in its sale of a rifle and magazines to gunman Devin Kelley, who killed 26 people and wounded 20 others when he walked into Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church in November 2017, using a rifle and two 30-round magazines purchased from Academy in April 2016 to carry out the attack. law360.com

Hate Crimes Act Applies To Amazon Assault, 4th Circ. Says
A split Fourth Circuit appeals panel on Thursday ruled that an Amazon worker who assaulted a gay colleague was properly prosecuted under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act because the incident took place during work hours at a shipping facility and thus impacted interstate commerce. law360.com

661 companies, including Walmart, Costco and Target, warn Trump about tariffs
As part of a multi-industry effort coordinated by the Tariffs Hurt the Heartland coalition, 661 groups, including 520 companies and 141 associations representing a wide range of industries — agriculture, apparel and footwear, furniture, manufacturing, retail and more — sent a letter sent to the White House on Thursday that warned about about the long-term impact of tariffs on American businesses and consumer. The groups urged the Administration to negotiate a deal with China that eliminates tariffs.

In the letter, the companies cited a study which found that 25% tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods would add more than $2,000 in costs for the average American family of four.

An array of retailers signed the letter, including Walmart, Target, and Costco to J.C. Penney, Jo-Ann Stores, and PetSmart.  (The full letter can be read here.)  chainstoreage.com

Department stores are still taking Manhattan
Manhattan is undergoing an unprecedented shift in its shopping scene. Gone are the gargantuan Lord & Taylor and the Henri Bendel flagship and the Saks Fifth Avenue women’s store downtown. New arrivals are Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. Shakeups of this magnitude are a rarity in a market where stores can stay open for more than 100 years, through every downturn and depression.

The turnover underscores the extent of the duress that the retail industry is going through in the age of Amazon. On a net basis, the city will lose about 340,000 square feet of department stores this year - the equivalent of two Walmart Supercenters. At the same time, it highlights the enduring lure of Manhattan, the nation’s most prestigious place to sell fashion and luxury goods. When Nordstrom opens its mega-store in a skyscraper overlooking Central Park in October, it will be the biggest new retail space the city has seen in over half a century. bloomberg.com

Discounters will account for more than half of store openings this year
Dollar General leads the way - 975 new stores in 2019
Discount retailers, led by dollar stores and Aldi, will account for more than half of retail store openings this year, according to data from Coresight Research cited by CBS News. Out of the almost 2,780 new locations slated for 2019, about 1,800 belong to discount chains.

Dollar General leads growth by a wide margin, with 975 openings planned in 2019, followed by Dollar Tree, which is planning 350 new stores, then Family Dollar, Aldi and Five Below, according to the report. retaildive.com

Mile High Grub: Uber plans to use drones to deliver McD’s orders
Uber Eats is planning to test a delivery program this summer using drones to deliver orders place with McDonald’s. The pilot program planned for San Diego requires Uber to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. Uber Eats is one of the few divisions of Uber to have reported a profit in 2018. retailwire.com

May’s Retail Sales Show Consumer Resilience and Confidence in the Economy
Retail sales rose 0.5 percent in May seasonally adjusted from April and up 3.2 percent unadjusted year-over-year, the National Retail Federation said today. The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. Revisions to April monthly data were significant with retail sales reversing a loss of 0.2 percent monthly change to a gain of 0.3 percent. businesswire.com