Click here to download this week’s podcast, or click the play button below to listen online. [audio:http://postcom.org/postalweek/10.15.10.twip.mp3]
Previous podcasts in the series are at thisweekinpostal.info.
LOS GATOS, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire/ — Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) and Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: DLB) today announced that Netflix has selected Dolby® Digital Plus to deliver 5.1-channel surround sound for TV shows and movies streamed instantly over the Internet. Beginning October 18, the PlayStation®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system from Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. will be the first consumer electronics device to support 5.1-channel surround sound on movies streamed from Netflix. Netflix said more devices would be added over time to support streaming digital surround sound.
“Netflix is committed to delivering an unparalleled experience to its members who watch TV shows and movies streamed instantly over the Internet,” said Greg Peters, Netflix vice president of product development. “Netflix required an audio solution that could efficiently deliver an outstanding surround sound experience for a wide range of consumer devices. Dolby Digital Plus proved to be the best solution to meet our needs and the needs of our device partners.”
Dolby Digital Plus supports up to 7.1 channels of premium-quality surround sound and allows consumers to enjoy outstanding high-definition audio from broadcasts, streaming and downloaded media, and Blu-ray Disc™. To date, tens of millions of TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, Audio/Video receivers, and mobile phones have shipped with Dolby Digital Plus.
“Dolby Digital Plus makes the online entertainment experience rich, realistic, and memorable,” said John Couling, vice president, marketing, products & platforms, Dolby Laboratories. “Dolby is excited to be working with Netflix and its partners to provide premium Dolby surround sound to Netflix subscribers. This collaboration will enable subscribers to enjoy movies and TV shows presented in surround sound just as the artists and directors intended.”
Dolby Digital Plus is a sophisticated audio system based on Dolby Digital that has been adopted by many of the world’s leading broadcasters, TV and set-top-box manufacturers, and device makers to provide consumers with full digital surround sound. It is designed to adapt to the changing demands of entertainment delivery while retaining compatibility with existing Dolby Digital 5.1-channel home theater systems.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Eight Postal Service workers were arrested and indicted Thursday on felony mail theft charges in Orlando.Those arrested were Ariel Alvarez-Bordoy, 34, of Sanford; Thomas Anderson, 57, of St. Cloud; Joseph Anaskevich, 21, of Inverness; Jason Fillenwarth, 25, of Orlando; Barbara Hennecy, 46, of St. Cloud; Michael Schlitt, 65, of Kissimmee; Barbara Totillo, 44, of Tavares; and Ahmed Yahya, 42, of Minneola.According to the indictments, the workers opened or stole mail, including gift cards, debit cards, vases and other valuable items, while working for the United States Postal Service as employees or contract workers.
Full story: 8 Postal Service Workers Charged With Mail Theft – Jacksonville News Story – WJXT Jacksonville.
United States Attorney Michael J. Moore announced that on October 12, 2010 in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, in the Albany Division, RENEE GARRETT, age 60, a resident of Cairo, Georgia, was found guilty after a jury trial of three counts of Theft of Mail, all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1709.Garrett, who was employed as a Postal Service mail carrier in Cairo, embezzled various items of mail addressed to others on multiple occasions from July, 2005 through November, 2007.Garrett’s sentencing will be scheduled by the Court in approximately sixty days. Garrett faces a maximum sentence on all counts of up to five years imprisonment, a fine not to exceed $250,000.00, a period of supervised release of up to three years, and a mandatory $100.00 assessment fee.The case was investigated by the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General, and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney K. Alan Dasher.
Ottawa – Starting as early as November, Canada Post will anchor a new direct-marketing network that will connect advertisers and consumers at a local level. Using the successful model introduced by CentrSource, a progressive e-commerce company, the new service will leverage proven digital-marketing practices to deliver local offers and advertisements in a dynamic, real-time online environment.
“This unique online advertising capability will deliver value to Canadian businesses on many levels,” says Laurene Cihosky, Senior Vice President, Direct Marketing at Canada Post. “This customizable service will offer enhanced geographical targeting, valuable measurement capabilities and the potential for significant return on investment.”
APWU President Bill Burrus responds to a recent column in the E-Commerce Times:
Mr. Theodore F. di Stefano
Capital Source Partners
c/o Ecommerce Times
Dear Mr. di Stefano:
I have been provided a copy of your October 8 article, “Can the USPS Be Saved?” and feel compelled to respond. It would be helpful if you researched the Postal Service before editorializing on its current condition, its future, and its use by the American public. There were so many misstatements in your article, I hardly know where to begin.
For starters, let us begin with your assertion that six-day delivery will likely be “a thing of the past.” This delivery obligation is required by the legislation that funds the U.S. government, and it is virtually certain that Congress will pass a Continuing Resolution that includes the requirement to continue six-day mail delivery. I also expect the Postal Regulatory Commission to render an opinion rejecting proposals to reduce delivery to five days per week.
You also write that the cost of first class mail is “at an all-time high,” without noting that it is the cheapest in the world. The three countries that are nominally cheaper (New Zealand, Australia, and Spain) charge the same rate for all mail pieces, with no special rate for standard mail and no discounts.
You continue with a reference to the penny postcard, inquiring “if one can imagine that.” You neglect to mention, however, that the cost of the penny postcard, which was subsidized heavily by the American taxpayer, was increased in 1925. In the 1920s, the cost of a Ford Model T was just $290. I suspect that very few of your readers personally recall that history. For accuracy, you could have tracked the increase in the Consumer Price Index and discovered that postage rate hikes are well within the rate of inflation, which measures increases in the cost of all goods and services.
It is evident that you are unaware that the USPS deficits over the past four years are the sole result of the legislation passed by Congress in 2006 (the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act), which requires the Postal Service to pre-fund future healthcare liabilities in the amount of $5.4 to $5.7 billion annually over a 10-year period. This requirement is not imposed on any other public agency or private company. Furthermore, two independent auditors have concluded that the Postal Service has overfunded its retirement obligations in the amount of $50 – $75 billion, which greatly exceeds the healthcare pre-funding obligation.
An informed presentation would have reported that the Postal Service’s current deficits are directly related to the resolution of these contested financial obligations. Contrary to the message presented in your article, the USPS deficit is unrelated to its operating revenue and expenses, which includes the wages and benefits of craft workers.
You conclude with a summation that implies that your experience using the mail is a model representing American households of all income levels. I believe you overstate the similarities among the senders and receivers of the 170 billion mail pieces that will be processed and delivered in our country this year. In fact, mail volume is expected to increase in 2012 as the nation continues to recover from the worst recession in 70 years.
Thank you for spelling the name of our institution, the United States Postal Service, correctly; but I am afraid that is virtually all that was factual in your article.
Sincerely,
William Burrus
President
American Postal Workers Union
The USPS has posted the following solicitation at FedBizOpps.gov:
The United States Postal Service (USPS) utilizes a large array of material handling equipment (rolling stock including carts and dollies) during mail processing that we refer to as Mail Transport Equipment (MTE). This equipment is used for the staging and transportation of mail for downstream mail processing operations (intra/inter facility). The accurate and efficient labeling, identification, and tracking of this MTE is of the utmost importance.
Currently, the USPS uses printed (human readable) placards in order to label, track, and route MTE throughout the facility. The use of printed placards is a recurring cost (paper, ink, maintenance) as well as the labor associated with adhering and removing printed placards from MTE.
The USPS is seeking a solution that will eliminate the need for paper, ink, and labor hours associated with the labeling of MTE in a USPS mail processing environment. The desired solution we believe includes an electronic display device/placard to be affixed to the MTE. Updating of the electronic placards shall be performed wirelessly. All data to be wirelessly written to the digital displays would be retrieved automatically and electronically from a web service and or database provided by the USPS. Once an image has been written to the placard, it shall remain static until wirelessly overwritten. The battery for each individual electronic placard must have a long-life – no less than 4 years. Any proposed solution will provide no less information (MTE identification, routing, tracking, etc.) than that of the existing paper placard methodology.
The USPS is not currently seeking a production ready solution. The USPS is seeking a “ready to field” prototype system which would allow for the feasibility testing of a paperless placard system in a controlled processing environment. This feasibility test will require the installation of up to 600 electronic display devices on mail transport equipment (MTE) at a Washington D.C. area processing and distribution center (P&DC).
If this feasibility trial shows promise for future application, the USPS would move forward with a more formal research and development effort for the fielding of a production quality product. The USPS is seeking a prototype ready for testing within 1 week of contract award.
via Paperless Cart Placard System – Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities.
It must be the day for right wing attacks on postal workers. Hot on the heels of ace market forecaster Kevin Hassett’s latest predictions comes a rant from that favorite tea bagger think tank, the Cato Institute. Tad Dehaven, who bills himself as a budget analyst, analyzes the USPS by pointing to the fact that “The USPS, which is close to maxing out its $15 billion line of credit with the U.S. Treasury, faces the prospect of running out of operating cash by year’s end.” No mention of the fact that the entire $15 billion in borrowing is due to the “trust fund” requirements of the 2006 PAEA law, which forces the USPS to borrow money from the Treasury so it can turn around and loan the money back to the Treasury.
Similarly, Dehaven trots out the familiar “labor still accounts for 80 percent of the USPS’s costs” without mentioning that 90% of the last fiscal year’s $6 billion loss was due to the $5.5 billion “trust fund” requirement.
Then Dehaven gets to the big one- he tells us “An arbitrator weighing a decision on a contract dispute between postal management and a union is not allowed to consider the financial position of the USPS when rendering a decision.” It would be nice if Dehaven could tell us where this restriction appears in the law, but of course he can’t, because there is no such restriction. More importantly, Dehaven seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact that for the last ten years, postal wages and benefits have been set voluntarily by collective bargaining, not by arbitrators. More importantly, since the USPS was established in 1971, wage increases granted by arbitrators have averaged significantly lower than increases agreed to by the USPS at the bargaining table.
None of those actual facts fit the narrative, though, so Dehaven leaves them out.
Update: Thanks to a commenter on postalnews.com for pointing out that Kevin Hassett, the author of the alleged analysis of postal finances described below has yet another claim to fame- he earlier this year suggested the US Air Force attack France and Switzerland in order to prevent the Large Hadron Collider from destroying the Earth. I am not making this up.
Bloomberg today carries an an essay by Kevin Hassett, an economist for the right wing American Enterprise Institute who claims that the current financial woes of the US Postal Service indicate how the nation will fare if Democrats remain in charge in Washington. The columnist uses the infamous “$238 billion loss over the next ten years” figure given by the Postmaster General earlier this year, a number the PMG later had to admit was bogus. He also cites the $6 billion loss estimated for the fiscal year just ended, but fails to note that almost all of that was due to the $5.5 billion “trust fund” tax imposed on mailers by the 2006 PAEA law. (Mentioning that would probably be somewhat inconvenient, given that the law was passed while the GOP was in power.) Read the rest of this entry »
A former employee of one of the U.S. post office branches in Granville pleaded guilty last week in federal court to a misdemeanor charge for stealing more than $3,500 while working at the post office.
Whitehall resident Anthony Huntington pleaded guilty on Oct. 4 to a misdemeanor theft charge in U.S. District Court in Albany.
He had been indicted on a felony theft charge in August but agreed to a plea deal that required him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor with the understanding the felony charge would be dropped.
Huntington was a part-time clerk at one of the post office branches in Granville when he allegedly stole $3,500.07 between Feb. 4, 2009, and March 3 of this year. Federal court records did not specify whether he worked in the village of Granville, Middle Granville or North Granville post office branch. Both the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, and the U.S. Postal Service were closed for the Columbus Day holiday on Monday.
Federal court records show Huntington rang up 184 fraudulent "service not rendered" refunds in the post office’s computer system over the 13-month period, pocketing $25 or less each time.
Full story: Former post office worker pleads guilty to theft.
