Toys R Us is rising from the ashes. Now Americans may not have to go another Christmas without its once beloved toy store.

The retailer is making a comeback in time for the 2019 holiday season with a new approach. Instead of providing mile-long aisles filled with a plethora of toys, the company is switching its focus to smaller stores that will feature interactive toy demonstrations, spaces for special events like birthday parties, new activities every day and open play areas.

The plan was announced Thursday after Tru Kids Brand, the parent of Toys R Us, entered a joint venture with the startup b8ta, which owns a chain of “experiential” stores. The retailer has relaunched its website, touting an experience “centered around product discovery and engagement.”

Although preferences and consumer shopping habits have changed over the years, “what hasn’t changed is that kids want to touch everything and simply “play,” said Phillip Raub, president of b8ta and interim co-CEO of the Toys R Us joint venture.

Consumers will have the opportunity to play with toys displayed out of the box before potentially purchasing them. The company believes that this immersive experience, for example, will help it track patterns and measure how in-store retail experiences effect online sales.

Enlarge this image

The first new stores will be in Texas and New Jersey.

Toys “R” Us

hide caption

toggle caption

Toys “R” Us

After officially closing its doors in nearly 200 locations in 2017, Toys R Us open the two new stores in The Galleria in Houston, Texas, and in the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J.

The stores will be nearly 6,500 square feet — roughly one third the size of its big-box stores.

The joint partnership plans to open 10 additional stores in “prime, high-traffic retail markets” within the U.S. throughout 2020. Future store locations are planned to be about 10,000 square feet.

They’ll be “the most progressive and advanced stores in its category in the world, and we hope to surprise and delight kids for generations to come,” Vibhu Norby, CEO of b8ta said.

As NPR previously reported, the chain employed more than 30,000 people in the U.S. before the bankruptcy. Tru Kids Brands said it wants to give hiring priority to former employees.

Toys R Us declared bankruptcy after struggling with a heavy load of debt caused by a buyout in 2005, including competition from Amazon, Target and Walmart. The company owed more than $5 million.

Even as it went bankrupt, the original Toys R Us accounted for about a fifth of toy sales in the U.S.

Tru Kids Brands currently operates more than 700 stores outside the U.S.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The growing popularity of FaceApp, a photo filter app that delights smartphone users with its ability to transform the features of any face, like tacking on years of wrinkles, has prompted Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer to call for a federal investigation into the Russia-based company over what he says are potential national security and privacy risks to millions of Americans.

“It would be deeply troubling if the sensitive personal information of U.S. citizens was provided to a hostile foreign power actively engaged in cyber hostilities against the United States,” Schumer said in a letter to the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission.

“I ask that the FTC consider whether there are adequate safeguards in place to prevent the privacy of Americans using this application, including government personnel and military service members, from being compromised,” the senator wrote.

Even as privacy advocates raised security concerns, FaceApp’s mug-morphing powers lured celebrities — or anyone who had their picture saved to their phone — such as Drake and the Jonas Brothers, to try on greying hair and wrinkles. By Wednesday, FaceApp had topped Apple’s and Google’s app download charts.

Schumer’s appeal echoed concerns expressed earlier in the day from the Democratic National Committee, over fears that its artificial intelligence technology could expose vulnerable facial recognition data to a country that launched a hacking campaign against the party during the 2016 election.

The DNC has since expanded its cyber security efforts, including bringing on chief security officer Bob Lord.

In an email sent to 2020 presidential campaign staff Wednesday, Lord urged “people in the Democratic ecosystem” against using an app that could have access to its users’ photos.

“It’s not clear at this point what the privacy risks are, but what is clear is that the benefits of avoiding the app outweigh the risks,” Lord said in a notice first reported by CNN. “If you or any of your staff have already used the app, we recommend that they delete the app immediately.”

Prior to the Democratic warnings, FaceApp began responding to a flood of inquiries about whether the company stores user data and where. FaceApp told TechCrunch in a statement that while its research and development team is based in Russia, no user data is transferred there.

The company also claims that “most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date.”

Founder Yaroslav Goncharov told the website that FaceApp, headquartered in St. Petersburg, uses Amazon’s cloud platform and Google Cloud to host the app data, where it processes “most” photos. Uploaded photos, FaceApp said, may be stored temporarily for “performance and traffic” to ensure users don’t repeatedly upload the same photo as the platform completes an edit.

Users have expressed concerns that the app has access to their entire respective iOS or Android photo library even if the user sets photo permissions to “never.”

But FaceApp told TechCrunch that it only processes photos selected by the user — slurped from their photo library or those captured within the app. Security researchers have done their own work to back that claim. Will Strafach, a security researcher, said he couldn’t find evidence that the app uploads the camera roll to remote servers.

FaceApp also said that 99% of users don’t log in and, for that group of users, it doesn’t have access to any identifying data.

Many data privacy experts are wary about these kinds of machine-learning apps, especially in a post-Cambridge Analytica era. Last year, up to 87 million Facebook users had their personal data compromised by the third-party data analytics firm after an apparent breach of Facebook’s policy.

FaceApp’s terms of service states that it won’t “rent or sell your information to third-parties outside FaceApp (or the group of companies of which FaceApp is a part) without your consent.”

But it’s that parenthetical clause — giving leeway to an open-ended, unidentified “group of companies” — that raises a red flag for Liz O’Sullivan, a technologist at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project and, she said, leaves the door open to another Cambridge Analytica-type scandal.

“My impression of it honestly was shock that so many people were, in this climate, so willing to upload their picture to a seemingly unknown server without really understanding what that data would go to feed,” she said.

“For all we know, there could be a military application, there could be a police application,” O’Sullivan said of FaceApp.

In the event FaceApp sells its platform to another company in the future, its privacy policy states, “user content and any other information collected through the service” are also up for grabs.

This app is one of many that leave open the potential to advance facial recognition software that, often unknown to users, is created from a compilation of people’s faces.

In many cases, O’Sullivan said, the public doesn’t find out what data is being collected about them until we see personal information revealed through Freedom of Information Act requests.

This month, as NPR has reported, researchers received records through one such request to find that Immigration and Customs Enforcement mines a massive database of driver’s license photos in facial recognition efforts that may be used to target undocumented immigrants. Researchers have concluded facial recognition technology is biased and imperfect, putting innocent people at risk.

O’Sullivan wants to see more regulation in place that’s designed to protect consumers.

Like her, many security advocates in the U.S. will be watching Europe’s testing ground as lawsuits against tech giants play out under the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, the European Union’s sweeping new data privacy law.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Updated at 5:15 p.m. ET

Does Google have bias?

It’s the question that’s at the center of a hearing Tuesday by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

The hearing is probing into Google’s search engine and whether it censors conservative media and bloggers out of the top search results.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the subcommittee chairman, called the hearing after Google failed to attend an April hearing on the topic. Facebook and Google attended.

Cruz said he’s concerned about Google’s control over what people see on the Internet, and said previous legislation passed to protect tech companies was not created to “empower large technology companies to control our speech.”

“When you submit a video, people at YouTube determine whether you’ve engaged in hate speech, an ever-changing and vague standard meant to give censorship an air of legitimacy,” Cruz said. “This is a staggering amount of power to ban speech, to manipulate search results, to destroy rivals and to shape culture.”

President Trump has alleged that big tech companies have an anti-conservative bias. On Dec. 18, 2018, the president tweeted: “Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous!”

Google has denied the claim.

“Google needs to be useful for everyone, regardless of race, nationality or political leanings,” Google’s Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy Karan Bhatia said at Tuesday’s hearing. “We have a strong business incentive to prevent anyone from interfering with the integrity of our products, or the results we provide to our users. Our platform reflects the online world that exists.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

At one time, the Volkswagen Beetle was so ubiquitous that its sighting is often punctuated by a swift punch in the arm and a shout of “Punch Buggy!” (Or “Slug Bug!” depending on your regional take on the road trip game).

But this week, the Beetle set off down the road to extinction. On Wednesday, Volkswagen ended production of the Beetle, saying it wants to set its sights on manufacturing electric vehicles.

Over the decades, Volkswagen managed to revamp the beloved car’s image by distancing itself from an uncomfortable history.

The original Beetle was formulated by Adolph Hitler, who wanted a “people’s car,” or “volkswagen.” But the car wasn’t actually produced for civilians until the late 1940s, when the victorious Allies wanted to refuel Germany’s economy.

Many rebranding campaigns later, a hipster favorite was born.

For many Beetle owners, bidding adieu to the automotive icon summons nostalgia.

NPR asked its audience to share their favorite Volkswagen Beetle memories. More than 900 of you wrote in. We’ve excerpted just a handful of your stories — both fond and unpleasant — below.

Hippie’s best friend

Kristine Smith’s parents gifted her a 2005 robin egg blue convertible Beetle for her 16th birthday.

Although the car better withstood her college move to Los Angeles than her Chicago winter back home, the car accessorized her patched-up denim and her long and flowy tie-dye skirts that she procured from eBay.

“I was obsessed with all things hippie/bohemian in high school, and my Beetle was core to my identity,” she said in an interview with NPR’s Michel Martin.

Enlarge this image

Kristine Smith, pictured in 2005, when she first got her robin egg blue convertible Beetle for her 16th birthday.

Courtesy of Kristine Smith

hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Kristine Smith

Regrettably, she said, she sold it in 2013 to use the money for graduate school in Washington, D.C.

“The car definitely feels like a pet I once had than a piece of machinery,” she said.

But, as a souvenir for her first and only car, Smith did hold onto the fake flowers she kept in the vase next to the steering wheel.

Burned into memory

A hot summer day in Oklahoma was too much for Robert Rillo’s family Beetle.

When he was 13, he and his 23-year-old sister were stuck in traffic on the way to a Huey Lewis and the News concert.

Rillo remembered that his sister’s friend sitting in the back seat said, “It’s getting hot in here.”

“It was a hot summer day so we didn’t think too much about it, until he says again, ‘It’s getting real hot!’ Suddenly he jumped up and the back seat was on fire.”

The battery, located under the backseat, was heating up — catching the seat on fire. Damage control ensued.

“We yanked the seat out of the car and put it out and went in to the concert.”

Alas, they missed the show’s opening act: Stevie Ray Vaughan — who’s famous, as it happens, for his album Couldn’t Stand the Weather.

Love Bug

Paul Weidenbach of Topeka, Kan., said he vowed to the previous owner of his first car that he would keep “Gladys” as its name.

The third-hand 1973 Super Beetle, with a Starsky and Hutch stripe trimming its top and sides, witnessed Weidenbach’s first love.

Paul Weidenbach in 1984, with his first car, a black-and-yellow Beetle named Gladys.

Courtesy of Paul Weidenbach

hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Paul Weidenbach

“My high school sweetheart, Vicky, and I made the rounds with Gladys’ help, including a drive-in movie where we made Vicky’s 6-year-old brother, Matt, sit on the roof during Jungle Book at the Chief Drive-In in Topeka,” he said. “In full disclosure, we only talked and held hands.”

He hadn’t spoken to Vicky since 1991, but last year, he said, she died unexpectedly. When he went to her funeral, the memory returned in full force. “Of course, that night at the Chief Drive-In with Matt on the roof played over and over again in my mind,” he recalled.

As for Gladys, Weidenbach said, her motor has reincarnated as a rare 1950’s VW truck.

“We were ahead of our time!”

You could say Jessica Bray’s husband crept into her life. Bray met him five years ago when she was serving as chair of a local car show in Kentucky.

“As cars were lining up to park, here comes a guy driving a silent VW Beetle,” she said.

After striking up a conversation with him, she learned that he’d converted his ’70 Beetle to an electric vehicle by switching out the motor for a forklift motor and adding batteries, she said. They went out to dinner together that night.

“Six months later, he asked me to be his wife,” she said.

Now Volkswagen says it’s dumping the classic model to pour money into electric car ventures.

“We were ahead of our time!” she said.

Paint it black

In high school, “cool” came before comfort for Damian Rodriguez.

When his mother gave him her baby blue ’73 Bug in 1991, he painted it black to make it “less ‘mom-like.’ “

In sweltering Austin, his parents thought the idea was crazy. The car didn’t even have AC. “I sweated so much in that car, but I loved it and have many great memories of it,” Damian said.

But when a milkman totaled the Bug while delivering to the grocery store where he worked, he said, “I was literally crushed.”

So when he recently came across a die-cast, black ’70s VW Bug toy car, he gave it to his 2-year-old.

Damian Rodriquez gave his son, Diego, a toy replica of his black ’70s-era Bug.

Courtesy of Damian Rodriguez

hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Damian Rodriguez

But as it happens — like father, like son.

He dropped it, cracking the back brake light, Rodriguez said, “ironically making it more like my Bug was.”

NPR’s Eliza Dennis and Natalie Winston produced and edited this story for broadcast.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The last Volkswagen Beetle has rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico, and we’re feeling nostalgic.

Were you lucky enough to own this tiny emblem of the hippie era? Did you succumb to Volkswagen’s claim: “It’s ugly, but it gets you there”? If so, we want to hear all about it.

Tell us your best VW Beetle story: What model did you own? Did you take it on a particularly memorable road trip? Was it your first car? Did your grandmother own one? Or do you just love shouting “punch buggy no punch backs”? Help us commemorate this iconic car on NPR’s All Things Considered this weekend.

Please tell us your memory in the form below or by following this link, and we may reach out to you for more details. Your story may be read on air.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Facing a backlash, Home Depot sought to distance itself from billionaire co-founder Bernie Marcus after he pledged to back President Trump’s bid for re-election in 2020.

Calls to boycott the retailer took off this week on social media as news spread that Marcus told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution late last month that he plans to support Trump’s bid for another term.

“If you plan on buying a hammer, wood, or ANY home improvement items from Home Depot, you may as well send donations DIRECTLY to trump’s 2020 campaign,” read one tweet under the hashtag #BoycottHomeDepot.

Home Depot spokeswoman Margaret Smith said in a statement to NPR that Marcus retired more than a decade ago and is not speaking on behalf of the company. “In fact, as a standard practice, the company does not endorse Presidential candidates,” she said.

It was unclear Wednesday whether the calls for a boycott had gained traction.

But the threat was enough that Trump took to Twitter to express support for Marcus, whom he called a “patriotic & charitable man,” and to rail against the boycott, which he said was led by people who are “vicious and totally crazed.”

“More and more the Radical Left is using Commerce to hurt their ‘Enemy.’ They put out the name of a store, brand or company, and ask their so-called followers not to do business there,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “They don’t care who gets hurt, but also don’t understand that two can play that game!”

Indeed, Trump himself has often used boycotts as a means of leverage. Just last month, he urged his more than 60 million Twitter followers to boycott AT&T, apparently in retribution for the coverage of him by its subsidiary CNN.

“I believe that if people stoped using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway,” the president tweeted on June 3. “It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn’t they act.”

Over the years, Trump has asked consumers to shun several U.S. entities.

Among the boycotts Trump has endorsed: Macy’s after the retailer cut ties with the then-presidential candidate over controversial remarks about immigrants from Mexico, Harley-Davidson over a plan to move some of its production overseas and NFL games over player protests during the national anthem.

Many people on social media were quick to express their support of Trump and Home Depot.

“Ridiculous,” was how one person characterized the boycott calls in a tweet. “I’m heading out tomorrow to shop my heart out at their store. Thank you Home Depot for supporting President Trump.”

In his interview with the Journal-Constitution, Marcus said that while Trump “sucks” at communication, the president has “got a businessman’s common sense approach to most things.”

Marcus’s support of Trump is not new. The 90-year-old donated more than $7 million to Trump’s 2016 presidential run, according to OpenSecrets, a project of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Forbes estimates Marcus’s net worth at $5.9 billion. He told the Journal-Constitution that he has given away some $2 billion to philanthropic causes worldwide and plans to donate the bulk of his wealth after his death.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)