By The Numbers

The nuts and bolts of robot soccer

Marketplace Staff Jul 23, 2015
255,000

That’s how many jobless claims came in last week, the lowest number in four decades. As Bloomberg reports, economists are saying part of the reason is that employers are holding on workers to keep up with an uptick in demand. 

345

That’s how many miles of bike ways snake their way through the streets of Portland, Oregon. Now a new app called Ride is hoping to make biking in the city even easier. It asks users to share cycling data collected through the app, which can then be used to improve biking infrastructure in and around Portland.

$50

That’s the cost of a membership to Jet.com, a company that aims to compete with Amazon for the lowest prices on the internet. Think of it as a cross between Amazon Prime and Costco, with a flat fee for free shipping and  low prices. Analysts say that if the site has any hope of competing with some of the giants already in the market, they’ll have to offer more than just low prices. Customer experience, in this case, may be the key.

1-0

That was the final score of the RoboCup World Championships, in which Japan bested China in the “child-sized humanoid football final.” As the BBC reports, this year’s games added new challenges, including replacing the easier-to-spot red ball with a white one, and installing a kind of artificial turf that gave some of the robots stability issues.

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