As Comcast Xfinity continues delivering not always top of the line service, they don’t seem to care that they’re losing long-term customers as online subscribers are becoming their new bread and butter. Expect customer service for those of us that have hung in with them through the rough (and it’s been horrible) to continue dwindling down. Good news for Amazon Prime members; the delivery giant adds pressure to Walmart with one-day delivery now.
Comcast kept
shedding cable customers and adding home internet customers in its most recent
quarter.
Traditional TV providers
are losing customers at an increasing rate while streaming companies pop
up seemingly every few weeks. To deal with that industry shift
online from cable, Comcast has focused on growing its broadband business while
integrating streaming apps into its cable box. It is also launching its own
NBCUniversal streaming service in 2020.
It’s a crowded market. Disney, Apple, and AT&T are also launching new streaming services as younger people turn away from the traditional cable bundle.
In the January-March
quarter, Comcast added 375,000 internet customers and lost 121,000 video
customers.
NBCUniversal’s revenue
dropped 12.5% to $8.31 billion. Last year, the entertainment division got a big
boost from the live sports extravaganzas of the Super Bowl and the Winter
Olympics, both aired on NBC. Those live sports events pull in more viewers than
usual and get more money from advertisers. Within NBCUniversal, a bright spot
was movies, where revenue rose 7%.
The company’s new Sky
division in Europe, which it bought last year, posted a 5% revenue decline, to
$4.8 billion. Comcast Corp. says revenue rose 1.9% if currency changes are
taken into account.
Shares jumped 3.6% to
$43.35 in morning trading after the cable company’s profit topped analyst
expectations. Overall, Comcast’s net income rose 14% to $3.48 billion, or 76
cents. Analysts polled by FactSet expected 68 cents per share.
Revenue rose 18% to $26.86
billion. Analysts expected $27.21 billion.
Amazon Goes One Day Prime
Two-day
delivery is going out of style.
Amazon, which hooked shoppers on getting just about anything shipped in two days, said this week that it will soon promise one-day delivery for its U.S. Prime members on most items.
The company hopes that
cutting delivery times in half will make its $119-a-year Prime membership more
attractive, since nearly every other online store offers free deliveries in two
days. Amazon also can’t compete with Walmart and Target, where ordering online
and picking up at a store is becoming more popular with shoppers.
“It is a smart change, but
it is also one that is becoming increasingly necessary,” said Neil Saunders,
managing director at GlobalData Retail. “Other retailers have really upped
their game in terms of delivery.”
Still, Saunders said the
shift is likely to put even more pressure on Amazon’s retail rivals, as
shoppers become accustomed to even faster shipping times. Shares of Walmart and
Target fell Friday, a day after Amazon’s announcement.
Walmart and Target offer
free two-day shipping for those who spend over $35 on their website. And both
companies have been turning their physical stores into shipping hubs, speeding
up deliveries and helping to defray costs.
Walmart Inc. declined to
comment Friday. Target Corp. said its shoppers already have ways to receive
purchases “within hours.”
Amazon didn’t say when the
change to its U.S. Prime membership will happen, but it said Thursday that it
in the past month it has been increasing its selection of items eligible for
one-day deliveries.
In some other countries,
such as the U.K., Prime members are already offered one-day shipping.
Brian Olsavsky, Amazon.com
Inc.’s chief financial officer, said the Seattle company is equipped to offer
one-day shipping, since it has spent more than 20 years adding warehouses
around the country where orders are packed and shipped.
Amazon has also been
delivering more packages itself, rather than relying on UPS, the post office
and other carriers. It has expanded its fleet of jets, has plans to open
package sorting hubs at two airports and launched a program last year that
allows contractors around the country to deliver Amazon packages in vans
stamped with the Amazon smile logo.
Still, Amazon said that it
expects to spend $800 million in this year’s second quarter to speed up
deliveries.
We’ve seen movies where robots and artificial intelligence (AI) have stolen people’s hearts like “Her,” “Robot and Frank,” and even that 1986 gem “Short Circuit,” but those feelings have begun to creep over into some people’s lives. Just think about how reliant we’ve all become on some form of AI. Our homes are getting ‘smarter,’ but are we getting dumber as we rely on those systems? How many of you can get to a simple location now without the assistance of your GPS?
When something creeps into our lives this much, what happens when they suddenly disappear? Yes, people are now finding themselves having real feelings towards robots and AI.
When a robot
“dies,” does it make you sad? For lots of people, the answer is “yes” — and
that tells us something important, and potentially worrisome, about our
emotional responses to the social machines that are starting to move into
our lives.
For Christal White, a
42-year-old marketing and customer service director in Bedford, Texas, that
moment came several months ago with the cute, friendly Jibo robot perched in
her home office. After more than two years in her house, the foot-tall humanoid
and its inviting, round screen “face” had started to grate on her. Sure, it
danced and played fun word games with her kids, but it also sometimes
interrupted her during conference calls.
White and her husband
Peter had already started talking about moving Jibo into the empty guest
bedroom upstairs. Then they heard about the “death sentence” Jibo’s maker had
levied on the product as its business collapsed. News arrived via Jibo itself,
which said its servers would be shutting down, effectively lobotomizing it.
“My heart broke,” she
said. “It was like an annoying dog that you don’t really like because it’s your
husband’s dog. But then you realize you actually loved it all along.”
The Whites are far from the
first to experience this feeling. People took to social media this year to say teary
goodbyes to the Mars Opportunity rover when NASA lost contact with the
15-year-old robot. A few years ago, scads of concerned commenters weighed in on
a demonstration video from robotics company Boston Dynamics in which employees
kicked a dog-like robot to prove its stability.
Smart robots like Jibo
obviously aren’t alive, but that doesn’t stop us from acting as though they
are. Research has shown that people have a tendency to project human traits
onto robots, especially when they move or act in even vaguely human-like ways.
Designers acknowledge that
such traits can be powerful tools for both connection and manipulation. That
could be an especially acute issue as robots move into our homes — particularly
if, like so many other home devices, they also turn into conduits for data collected on their owners.
“When we interact with
another human, dog, or machine, how we treat it is influenced by what kind of
mind we think it has,” said Jonathan Gratch, a professor at University of
Southern California who studies virtual human interactions. “When you feel
something has emotion, it now merits protection from harm.”
The way robots are
designed can influence the tendency people have to project narratives and
feelings onto mechanical objects, said Julie Carpenter, a researcher who
studies people’s interaction with new technologies. Especially if a robot has
something resembling a face, its body resembles those of humans or animals, or
just seems self-directed, like a Roomba robot vacuum.
“Even if you know a robot
has very little autonomy, when something moves in your space and it seems to
have a sense of purpose, we associate that with something having an inner
awareness or goals,” she said.
Such design decisions are
also practical, she said. Our homes are built for humans and pets, so robots
that look and move like humans or pets will fit in more easily.
Some researchers, however,
worry that designers are underestimating the dangers associated with attachment
to increasingly life-like robots.
Longtime AI researcher and
MIT professor Sherry Turkle, for instance, is concerned that design cues can
trick us into thinking some robots are expressing emotion back toward us. Some
AI systems already present as socially and emotionally aware, but those
reactions are often scripted, making the machine seem “smarter” than it
actually is.
“The performance of
empathy is not empathy,” she said. “Simulated thinking might be thinking, but
simulated feeling is never feeling. Simulated love is never love.”
Designers at robotic
startups insist that humanizing elements are critical as robot use expands.
“There is a need to appease the public, to show that you are not disruptive to
the public culture,” said Gadi Amit, president of NewDealDesign in San
Francisco.
His agency recently worked
on designing a new delivery robot for Postmates — a four-wheeled, bucket-shaped
object with a cute, if abstract, face; rounded edges; and lights that indicate
which way it’s going to turn.
It’ll take time for humans
and robots to establish a common language as they move throughout the world
together, Amit said. But he expects it to happen in the next few decades.
But what about robots that
work with kids? In 2016, Dallas-based startup RoboKind introduced a robot
called Milo designed specifically to help teach social behaviors to kids who
have autism. The mechanism, which resembles a young boy, is now in about 400
schools and has worked with thousands of kids.
It’s meant to connect
emotionally with kids at a certain level, but RoboKind co-founder Richard
Margolin says the company is sensitive to the concern that kids could get too
attached to the robot, which features human-like speech and facial expressions.
So RoboKind suggests
limits in its curriculum, both to keep Milo interesting and to make sure kids
are able to transfer those skills to real life. Kids are only recommended to
meet with Milo three to five times a week for 30 minutes each time.
As part of our ongoing series breaking down the Robert Mueller Russia report into more bitesize digestible portions, this part regards how former White House Communications Director, Hope Hicks, tried to warn President Donald Trump about those Trump Tower e-mails. She knew there was going to be a big problem, but Donald Trump, Jr. wound up releasing them on Twitter. You can read the first entry about James Comey being proven correct.
Naturally, nobody listened, and Hicks knew when it was time to exit before things really got bad. Now on to the story.
Hope Hicks Trump Tower Warning
The
president’s communications director didn’t sugarcoat it: The emails, Hope Hicks
told Donald Trump, were “really bad.”
They
concerned an as-yet unpublicized meeting in Trump Tower a year earlier
involving Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former
campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The emails
showed how the president’s oldest son had accepted
a meeting with a Russian
lawyer with the promise of receiving dirt on his father’s opponent, Hillary
Clinton. Not only that, he’d been told the dirt was part of the Russian
government’s ongoing support for his father.
“I love it,”
Trump Jr. had replied.
When Kushner
tried to bring the documents to Trump’s attention, on June 22, 2017, his
father-in-law didn’t want to discuss them, and shut the conversation down,
Hicks said.
But she
looked them over on her own the next week, and went to see the president. She warned
him that when a story about these messages broke, it would be “massive.”
She was
right.
The June 9,
2016, meeting had been brief and, by the accounts of participants on both
sides, fairly uneventful — even boring. It brought together an unlikely cast of
characters, including a gregarious music promoter, a Russian-American lobbyist
with a background in Soviet military counterintelligence and a Russian lawyer
with links to the Kremlin.
The
gathering was initiated by Emin Agalarov, a pop star in Russia whose real
estate developer father Aras had worked with Trump on a Miss Universe pageant
in Moscow in 2013.
The younger
Agalarov’s publicist, a British music promoter named Rob Goldstone, emailed
Trump Jr. on June 3 with an enticing offer.
“The Crown
prosecutor of Russia” had met with Aras Agalarov and was offering documents
that would incriminate Clinton and her dealings with Russia. This was part of
efforts by Russia and its government to help his father, Goldstone wrote.
Minutes
later, Trump Jr. memorably responded: “Seems we have some time and if it’s what
you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
The meeting
occurred as scheduled, though it is disputed who knew what in advance. Trump’s
deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, said Trump Jr. had told other campaign
officials that he had a lead on negative information, originating from a group
in Kyrgyzstan, on the Clinton Foundation. But others said they had no memory of
Trump being told in advance about the meeting. Trump said in written answers
supplied to Mueller’s office that he had no recollection that he knew about it
ahead of time.
At the
center of the meeting was the lawyer thought to be delivering dirt on Clinton —
Natalia Veselnitskaya, a former prosecutor who’d aggressively lobbied against a
U.S. law known as the Magnitsky Act that imposed sanctions on Russian
officials. Russia had retaliated by banning U.S. adoptions of its children.
At the
meeting, Veselnitskaya raised allegations that Clinton and the Democratic
National Committee benefited from dirty Russian money. The conversation pivoted
to sanctions and adoptions.
The Trump
campaign representatives were nonplussed. An impatient Trump Jr. insisted there
was nothing his father, a private citizen, could do about sanctions. Kushner
texted “waste of time” to Manafort, and asked his assistants to give him an
excuse to leave.
That was
that — at least until a year later, when emails about the meeting were
discovered as Trump associates complied with congressional requests for
documents relating to contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign.
Trump was
attending the G20 summit in Germany in July when he learned The New York Times
was preparing a story about the meeting.
He told
Hicks — who’d earlier advised making the emails public to get ahead of negative
publicity — not to comment. It was an unusual reaction, she said, for a
loquacious president who considered not responding to the media to be the
“ultimate sin,” according to Mueller’s report.
When he
asked her later that day what the meeting was about, she said she’d been told
the purpose was to discuss Russian adoptions. “Then just say that,” he
insisted.
As they flew
home, she presented Trump with a draft statement on his son’s behalf that said
simply he’d been asked by someone he knew from the Miss Universe pageant to
meet someone who might have information helpful to the campaign.
Too much
information, Trump told her. Just say the meeting was brief and about adoption.
Hicks wasn’t
so sure, and neither was Trump Jr. He insisted that the statement be amended to
say they’d “primarily” discussed adoptions. After all, he conceded to Hicks,
the meeting had opened with “some Hillary thing.” It wasn’t entirely about
adoptions.
Hicks
agreed, but “boss man worried it involves a lot of questions,” according to
text messages reviewed by Mueller’s team.
Trump Jr.
stood firm: “If I don’t have it in there it appears as though I’m lying later
when they inevitably leak something.”
The statement
that was ultimately produced did include the word “primarily,” leaving open the
possibility other topics were discussed.
But,
importantly, there was no mention of Hillary Clinton, nothing about the dangled
promise of dirt, no hint that the president’s son had embraced aid he was told
was coming from Russia.
As the story
unspooled for days, the Trump team fumbled the response. One of the president’s
personal lawyers asserted incorrectly that Trump had had no role in the
statement, only to admit months later that he had personally dictated “a short
but accurate response.” Three days after the meeting was disclosed, Trump Jr.
published his own emails on Twitter to pre-empt their disclosure by the Times.
As Trump Jr.
did his own form of damage control, he tweeted after news of the meeting
surfaced that he just “had to listen” to the lawyer’s information and told Sean
Hannity of Fox News that he considered it ordinary “opposition research.”
“In
retrospect,” he said on Fox, “I probably would have done things a little
differently.”
The Cranberries had been writing music for their latest album “In the End” in the year leading up to Dolores O’Riordan’s shocking death in 2018. The band had no idea that this would be their final statement to the world, but every track gives off a feeling of finality. Of course, it’s easy to say that with O’Riordan’s death, but their music always had a sense of melancholy, even their first mainstream hit “Dreams.”
Longtime fans will feel emotional with the first listen as many of “In the End’s” songs are about moving on or trying hard to move on from something that’s holding you back. Her voice is as strong as ever, but you can hear that something was missing in her life. “All Over Now,” which is about domestic violence sounds like the topic hit too close to home and has worn her down. As with many of her songs, O’Riordan gives a sense of hope, but again, with her death, it’s easy to interpret this into her lyrics.
Whether or
not there would be a final Cranberries’ album hinged on what was on a hard
drive on the other side of the world.
Last spring the surviving members of the Irish band began combing through unfinished vocals that singer Dolores O’Riordan sent to Ireland before her death a few months before.
What they
had intrigued them, but they awaited with some anxiety the delivery of
O’Riordan’s hard drive from her New York home. Relief came as soon as it was
plugged it in. Her urgent, powerful voice was all over rudimentary
songs she hadn’t gotten around to email.
“It was just
like winning the Lotto,” said Noel Hogan, the band’s lead guitarist and
co-writer. “And that was it. We had the songs.”
Like a
parting gift, O’Riordan left enough strong vocals on the demos that the Cranberries
were able to fashion them into their eighth and final album, “In the End,” out
Friday.
It’s an
11-track album with lyrics that explore personal turmoil over the Cranberries’
melodic, driving Celtic alt-rock. One music executive gave Hogan the best
complement when it was finished: You’d never know all the members of the band
weren’t in the same room.
What’s extraordinary about her performance is that all of her
contributions were for demo recordings – sketches of songs that she and her
bandmates expected to develop in the studio. The rest of the group got that
chance, working with producer Stephen Street who helmed the Crans’ biggest
Nineties hits, and made each song its own ornate, moving statement with layers
of glassy guitar chords and moody textures. But O’Riordan didn’t get that
chance. The reason she was an important voice in the Nineties was because of
how she weighed sadness against hope, and when listening to the way she howled
in “Zombie,” cooed on “Ode to My Family” and harmonized with herself on
“Dreams” and the latter-day triumph “Tomorrow,” you can’t help but wonder how
she would have perfected these new songs. Performances like the sullen “Lost”
and its howling “Bring in the night” refrain and “Summer Song” with its playful
yodels are brilliant, but your mind can’t help but try to fill in the blanks of
O’Riordan’s style here and there.
For much of the record, the angst of the Cranberries is still there, but
this time it tips more toward feeling heartbreaking because it’s realer. When
she sings of “loosening the mortal chain” on the aching “Catch Me If You Can”
or “Thought that I’d got it/And then I lost it all” on “Got It” or “Ain’t it
strange, when everything you wanted was nothing that you wanted in the end?” on
the title track, you just want to crumple up in defeat. And then she hits you
with the gently sung line, “This is my conclusion for now,” on “Illusion.” In the End is a moving album
and a worthy epitaph for O’Riordan and the band’s legacy, but it leaves you
wanting something more, something you’ll never get to hear: the comfort of
knowing everything worked out OK. It’s a reminder that grief lingers.
The band
insisted the album be of the highest quality or they wouldn’t release it.
“Before we went into the studio, we kind of set the bar saying, ‘OK if it’s not
good enough, it’s not going to make the cut,’” said drummer Fergal Lawler.
The
Cranberries used demo vocal tracks on past albums when a new song would excite
O’Riordan and she would deliver a passionate demo version that she’d be unable
to achieve later in a studio. This time, her vocals were especially strong.
“When
Dolores was doing the demos, she kind of gave that bit more and was really just
feeling very emotional with these songs,” said Lawler. “The songs are about a
period of her life that was quite difficult for her and she wanted to get that
out and get it down on paper and move past it.”
On Jan. 15,
2018, 46-year-old O’Riordan accidentally drowned in a bathtub after drinking in
her London hotel room. Hogan said O’Riordan had turned a corner in her life in
the years before her death, saying she had her bipolar condition under control
and had started a new romantic relationship.
The songs on
“In the End” mine a time of turmoil, with lyrics like “I wonder when I should
give in” and “I feel the storm is coming in.” But they also celebrate love:
“You are my everything” and “When I see your face/All of my worries dissipate.”
(There’s also a now-heartbreaking reference to “a hotel in London.”)
“Things were
looking up. That’s what a lot of these songs are about,” Hogan said. “If she
was still here today sitting with us, nobody would think anything else of it.
You would just think, ‘These are songs about that period.’ But, obviously, with
everything that’s happened, it’s something we’ll be asked, I think, for a long,
long time.”
The
Cranberries made a splash right from the beginning of their career, when their
1993 debut album — “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?” — sold
millions of copies and produced the hit single “Linger.” Other later hits
included “Zombie” and “Dreams.”
Hogan
recalls first realizing how special O’Riordan’s voice was while recording
“Linger.” Her soprano could suddenly drop and she somehow found an extra,
breathy gear at the very top of her highest note, almost a yodel.
“We’re all
looking at each in the room going, ‘Where did that come out from?’ Because she
was so small and tiny — you didn’t expect that. And then she only grew from
that point on. As the years went down, she just got better and better.”
Recording
the new album was an emotional time for the surviving members, which also
includes Hogan’s bassist brother, Mike. The band worked on the songs with their
longtime producer Stephen Street, everyone listening intensely as O’Riordan
returned to life in their headphones.
On other
Cranberries albums, O’Riordan would come early to the recording studio and lay
down several guide vocals. She would then leave, letting the rest of the band
do their parts because she disliked listening to songs over and over. In the
evening, she’d return to record her vocal parts for real.
“So in that
respect it was kind of the same way we’d work,” said Lawler. “It’s just that in
the evening time we’d be kind of waiting for her to come in and realize, ‘Oh,
she’s not going to come in.’ So that’s when it kind of hit you again.”
Not having
O’Riordan around to offer fresh vocals meant the band had to adapt. If she left
behind softly delivered lyrics, the band had to play softer. If an unfinished
song needed something in the middle, they had to improvise.
After the
first week of work on the songs, the band took the weekend off, and reflected
on what they had done.
“That’s when
I thought, ‘This is actually really going to work,’” said Hogan. “We came back
in on a Monday going, ‘This is actually really, really good.’”
“In the End”
will be the last Cranberries album, the bandmates vow. They won’t look for
another lead singer. They hope they’ve done her justice. And they hope fans
like the last songs.
“If there’s another place that she’s looking down from, that’s what she would really love the most: That those songs that she spent a lot of time working on and loved means so much to so many other people,” said Hogan.
Overall, The Cranberries, “In the End” is a wonderful epitaph to Dolores O’Riordan’s life.
Walmart is jumping in with both feet to beat competitors using AI to better run their stores. It’s a big gamble that will more than likely cost more people jobs while making shareholders very happy. Nokia is admitting that the 5G tech market is going to get tougher as competition builds quickly.
Inside one of Walmart’s busiest Neighborhood Market grocery stores, high-resolution cameras suspended from the ceiling point to a table of bananas. They can tell how ripe the bananas are from their color.
When a
banana starts to bruise, the cameras send an alert to a worker. Normally, that
task would have relied on the subjective assessment of a human, who likely
doesn’t have time to inspect every piece of fruit.
Welcome to Walmart’s Intelligent Retail Lab — the retail giant’s biggest attempt to digitize the physical store.
The
thousands of cameras are a key feature of the lab, which officially opened
inside this 50,000-square-foot store on Thursday. Walmart envisions using them,
combined with other technology like sensors on shelves, to monitor the store in
real time so its workers can quickly react to replenish products or fix other
problems. The technology, shown to media outlets, will also be able to track
when shelves need to be restocked or if shopping carts are running low. It can
spot spills on the floor and even detect when cash registers need to be opened
up before long lines start forming.
Walmart’s
deep dive into artificial intelligence in its physical store comes as Amazon
raised the stakes in the grocery business with its purchase of Whole Foods
Market nearly two years ago.
That’s put
more pressure on Walmart and other traditional retailers like Kroger and
Albertson’s to pour money into technology in their physical stores. At the same
time, they’re trying to keep food prices down and manage expenses. Amazon has
been rolling out cashier-less Amazon Go stores, which has shelf sensors that
track the 1,000 products on its shelves.
Walmart’s
online U.S. sales are still a fraction of Amazon’s online global merchandise
empire, which reached $122.98 billion last year.
Walmart
hopes to start scaling some of the new technology at other stores in the next
six months, with an eye toward lowering costs and thus lower prices. As the
shopping experience improves, the retailer expects to see higher sales.
“We really
like to think of this store as an artificial intelligence factory, a place
where we are building these products, experiences, where we are testing and
learning,” said Mike Hanrahan, CEO of Walmart’s Intelligent Retail Lab and
co-founder of Jet.com, purchased by Walmart three years ago. “If we know in
real time everything that’s happening in the store from an inventory and in
stock perspective, that really helps us rethink about how we can potentially
manage the store.”
Hanrahan
says the cameras are programmed to focus primarily on the products and the
shelves at this point. They currently do not recognize faces, determine the
ethnicity of a person picking up the product or track the movement of shopper,
he says. A glass enclosed data center at the back of the store houses nine
cooling towers, 100 servers and other computer equipment that processes all the
data.
There are
signs throughout the store alerting and educating shoppers about how the store
is being used as a lab. Still, all the cameras could raise privacy concerns.
“Machine
learning fundamentally finds and matches patterns,” says Steven M. Bellovin,
professor of computer science at Columbia University and an expert on privacy,
who hasn’t seen the new Walmart AI Lab. But he says companies run into trouble
where it starts to match the behavior to a specific customer.
Hanrahan
says Walmart has made sure to protect shoppers’ privacy and also emphasized
that it does not have cameras at the pharmacy, in front of the rest rooms or
its employees’ breakrooms.
Walmart’s
new living lab marks its second in a physical store. Last year, Walmart’s Sam’s
Club opened a 32,000 square foot lab store, the quarter of a size of a typical
Sam’s Club store. It’s using the store to test new features surrounding its
Scan & Go App, which lets customers scan items as they shop and then buy
from their phones, skipping the checkout line.
The retail
lab is the third project from Walmart’s new incubation arm, created after the
Jet.com acquisition as a way for the discounter to shape the future of retail.
It follows
the launch of Jetblack, a shopping by text service aimed at affluent shoppers
in New York. Walmart’s second incubation project to launch was Spatial&, a
VR tech company. As part of the launch, it’s bringing tractor-trailers to some
of Walmart’s parking lots of some of its stores so customer can experience
DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon” through virtual reality.
Hanrahan
says the company is embracing the labs in stores because it can better
understand the real ways that technology affects customers and workers. It also
wants to educate shoppers.
Walmart has
made a point to not hide the technology. Small educational kiosks are set up
throughout the store. It plans to bring in local schools and communities.
Despite the
signs and visible cameras, many shoppers including Marcy Seinberg from Wantagh,
New York, didn’t seem to notice or care.
“I am not
bothered by it,” Seinberg said. “If technology saves me money, I would be
interested.”
Nokia Finding 5G Market Tough
Telecoms
gear maker Nokia reported Thursday a surprise first-quarter loss amid tougher
competition for the new, superfast wireless 5G networks that are expected to
increase in business this year.
The company,
based in Espoo, Finland, said its net loss for the January-March period was 116
million euros ($130 million), against profit of 83 million euros a year
earlier. Sales rose 2% to 5 billion euros.
CEO Rajeev
Suri said revenues from the faster but more expensive 5G networks were expected
to “grow sharply” in the second half of the year.
He said the slow start to the year was caused by aggressive competition in the network industry – dominated by Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson and China’s Huawei – in the early stages of 5G rollout. Companies are under pressure to offer low prices to secure 5G network deals.
That, Suri
said, had created “near-term pressure but longer-term opportunity.”
Industry
observers say Nokia and Ericsson are trying to make gains on the woes of
Huawei, which is facing obstacles in many countries over concerns – mainly
voiced by the U.S. – that its equipment may be used for China-sponsored state
espionage.
In the
latest development, Britain’s digital minister said Thursday that London is
still mulling over whether to allow Huawei to supply parts for the U.K.’s new
5G wireless network.
There is a
risk, experts say, that Nokia and Ericsson could push too hard to capitalize on
Huawei’s troubles by engaging in a price war, eroding profits.
“The 5G
(market) is in its early stages, the ecosystem is not yet mature and Nokia is
facing some new challenges of its own,” Suri told analysts and reporters in a
conference call.
“But overall
we see things improving quickly and surely. We have a (product) portfolio that
is unique for the 5G era. Still, there’s plenty of work to do in all (business)
areas but the momentum is with us,” he said.
You may have heard of the term «smart home» lately. You may have seen even a prototype of a real home of the future, called KB Home ProjeKt, that is an example of how homes in a couple of years are going to look like. At first sight, there is no difference between a simple house and that future prototype. But, even though a smart home may look like any other high-end home in your city, there is one distinctive feature, which makes it special– technology.
Today, such homes have already become something accessible to all, even though they slightly differ from that KB Home ProjeKt prototype. A smart home is a house that connects all the electronic devices and systems, creating one controllable network. If you still use your mobile devices for basic things like social media or just surfing the Net only, have a look at how your technology can be used to increase the convenience in your house too.
Smart Homes Explained
Can you build this house in your
native city or turn your own one into a smart building?
The world of Internet-connected devices that allows your gadgets and appliances to go online and talk to each other is more than just a part of the future. It is already a real technology that can be easily implemented even if the simplest house. You can surround yourself with the IoT technology by having just a laptop and a tablet around. In other words, a smart house is a variety of connected devices that share specific information with each other providing convenience and energy-saving decisions for the place you are living in.
Amazon Echo is the best example of how technology can be incorporated in your daily life for greater convenience. It is a functional innovation that is going to become even more popular in a couple of years.
Smart Home Tech
Imagine you already own a smart
house. How does it look like? And what’s inside?
The only difference between a simple building and a smart
building is that the second one has more practical smart solutions inside. It
can be pretty hard to define which house is a smart one only by looking at two
identical buildings.
A smart building starts with a smart doorbell. It is the
first and the easiest thing you can do right now to incorporate tech in your
home. Smart locks and doorbells are cheap and easy to connect to your computer.
Controlling the lights in the house is another way to
incorporate IoT elements today. It can be either a sound control only or a
sound control with a visual response when you can control the intensity of the
lights on the tablet screen.
Your TV and loudspeakers can be controlled through the
Internet from any other corner of the house as well. Turn your smartphone into
a remote control without the need to look for a real one.
Kitchen is the most interesting part
of IoT. Just think of a smart kettle, which you can control while lying in a
bed, brushing your teeth, or watching a TV show.
To make a long story short, almost
anything that uses electricity (lighting, locks, security system, TV,
loudspeakers, etc.) can be connected to your home network and controlled by
lifting a finger or something like that. The only problem here is a high level
of online protection required. All smart devices should be fully protected by
security software before being incorporated in your living area.
John Singleton’s coma right on the heels of suffering a stroke is reminding me of actor Luke Perry, who went through a similar situation in March. We can only hope it’s a much different outcome for the critically acclaimed director.
“Boyz N the
Hood” director John Singleton is in a coma at a Los Angeles hospital eight days
after suffering a major stroke, court papers filed Thursday showed.
The
51-year-old director’s condition was revealed in a court filing from his
mother, Shelia Ward, who is requesting she be immediately appointed his
temporary conservator to make medical and financial decisions for him while he
is incapacitated.
Singleton’s
family had previously announced that he’d had
a stroke on April 17, but there had been no details revealed about the
seriousness of his condition.
Friends,
colleagues and fans including Viola Davis, Mark Wahlberg and Guillermo Del Toro
have offered prayers and wished Singleton well since the announcement.
Singleton
became the first black director to receive an Academy Award nomination when he
was cited for his debut feature, “Boyz N the Hood.” The 1991 film about the
lives of young men in South Central Los Angeles starred Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice
Cube, Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne.
His other
films include 1993′s “Poetic Justice,” which starred Janet Jackson and Tupac
Shakur, 1997′s “Rosewood,” and 2003′s “2 Fast 2 Furious.”
Singleton’s
recent projects include the FX TV series “Snowfall,” a crime drama set in 1980s
Los Angeles.
The
documents put the value of Singleton’s estate at $1.4 million.
The papers
say that at the time of the stroke, Singleton was engaged in several business
deals and had been set to sign a lucrative settlement agreement on or around
April 30. The documents say that if a conservator cannot sign the papers on his
behalf, it will mean a big financial loss.
The
documents also include a doctor’s statement that Singleton is incapable of
giving consent for medical treatment.
Singleton
had no existing medical directives in place before the stroke, the documents
stated.
It’s not
clear whether the temporary conservatorship has been granted.
Messages
left with Singleton’s publicist and his mother’s attorney were not immediately
returned.
The family
had initially acknowledged on Saturday that Singleton had suffered a stroke,
saying he was “under great medical care” in an intensive care unit.
New Prince Album In June
A new Prince
album featuring his versions of songs he wrote for other artists will be
released in June.
The 15-track
“Originals” will include “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the No. 1 hit for Sinéad
O’Connor; “The Glamorous Life,” Sheila E.‘s signature song and Top 10 pop hit;
and Kenny Rogers’ “You’re My Love,” which Prince wrote under the name Joey Coco
in 1986.
The album
will be available on Jay-Z’s Tidal streaming platform exclusively for two weeks
starting June 7, which would have been his 61st birthday; it will be widely
available on June 21, including Spotify and Apple Music.
Jay-Z helped
select the tracks on the album, along with music mogul Troy Carter, who is part
of the Prince Estate. Fourteen of the 15 tracks were previously unreleased.
“Originals”
also includes The Time’s “Jungle Love” and The Bangles’ “Manic Monday.”
Michael Madsen DUI Working the Pole
Prosecutors
on Wednesday charged Michael Madsen with two misdemeanor counts of drunken
driving after the actor drove his SUV into a pole last month.
Madsen, 61,
has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol within 10 years of
another DUI offense and driving with .08% blood alcohol content within 10 years
of another DUI, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said in a
statement.
Madsen has
not entered a plea, and is scheduled to appear in court May 20.
Madsen, best
known for his roles in the Quentin Tarantino films “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill
Bill,” was driving a Land Rover that ran into a pole in Malibu on March 24,
authorities said. No one was injured.
His
attorney, Perry C. Wander, said in an email that the actor’s life has led to
stressful situations that he has used alcohol to handle. Wander said Madsen is
in Europe making films.
“Dealing
with the fact that being famous and having money does not bring happiness
presents very difficult challenges that are often dealt with through
self-medication,” Wander said. “Michael has a lot of insight into his situation
and is going to take this matter very seriously.”
Taylor Swift Works Up New Project
Taylor
Swift, who has been teasing fans for weeks with clues about a new project to be
announced Friday, hyped fans up when she visited a mural in Nashville on
Thursday.
The pop star
surprised a few hundred fans, posing with them in front of a mural she
commissioned.
Swift
thanked the artist who created the mural in an Instagram post on Thursday. She
also thanked her fans for showing up, saying: “I’ve never been more proud of
your FBI level detective skills.”
Signing
autographs and posing for selfies with Swifties at the mural, the superstar —
who wore another pastel-hued ensemble — also commended them for figuring out
she was going to be making a visit.
“You guys
are amazing for figuring this out because no one knew we were coming. No one
knew this was a part of the campaign and what we’re doing, so you figured out
the clue,” she said. “You’re the best. I love you so much.”
She added
that the next clue would be her live interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts later
in the day.
Over the
last week, Swift has stepped out in various colorful floral get-ups (including
at a high-profile appearance at the TIME 100 event) and continued to tease
fans about her upcoming music. She even showed off some of her new merch by
wearing a cropped long-sleeved T-shirt with her name on the sleeve.
The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival took it uptown Wednesday evening for their 18th opening night that honored a historic New York institution: the Apollo Theater with a documentary about it. To check out their 2019 lineup, go here.
Roger Ross Williams’ “The Apollo” premiered at
the iconic Harlem music hall whose 85-year history is chronicled in Williams’
documentary. The movie and setting added up to a gala tribute to the 125th
Street mecca of African American culture, where everyone from Ella Fitzgerald
to James Brown to Chris Rock has come to forge their legacies.
“The story of black people in America is the
story of the Apollo,” Williams said in an interview ahead of the premiere.
Tribeca isn’t the first New York film festival
to uproot to the Apollo for a special event. Lincoln Center’s New York Film
Festival came there last year to debut Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation
“If Beale Street Could Talk.”
But Tribeca, the festival founded by Robert De
Niro and Jane Rosenthal, has made a habit of celebrating the city’s cultural
institutions on opening night through documentaries about “Saturday Night Live”
and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“In these disturbing times, when the
administration is promoting divisiveness and racism, we’re making a statement
by being here tonight that we reject it,” said De Niro, a well-known critic of
President Donald Trump, introducing the film on the Apollo stage. “No, you
don’t! Not in this house, not on this stage!”
Angela Bassett
“The Apollo,” which HBO will air in the fall,
survey’s the theater’s expansive history but also its vibrant present. It
follows the production of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” a
production that Apollo president Jonelle Procope says perfectly reflects the
theater’s mission for the future.
“We want to develop this new 21st century
performing arts canon that focuses on telling the African American and African
diaspora stories,” said Procope. “We are really the only performing arts
organization in the country that is from a performing arts standpoint focused
on the African American narrative. Our legacy is to create opportunities for
emerging talent and nurture their talent and let them push the envelope.”
Opened in 1914 as a burlesque theater, the
Apollo began catering to the black community in the 1930s. Its famed Amateur
Night, begun in 1934, has been the first introduction of countless stars,
including Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder (introduced as a 12-year-old “genius”) and
the Supremes.
Roger Ross Williams at 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.
Amateur night remains the signature Apollo
show: a crucible through which endless performers have had to pass to confirm
their talent. Anyone lacking will hear it from the audience. In Williams’ film,
Dave Chappelle is seen saying his Apollo experience was the best thing that
ever happened to him. “After that, I was fearless,” says Chappelle.
“I grew up in the black church and there’s a
very similar dialogue that happens, the call and the response,” said Williams.
“The Apollo, in a sense, is church. It’s a sacred space and a gathering of
community in Harlem.”
The Apollo’s history can be staggering.
Through its doors have come Duke Ellington, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aretha
Franklin, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson and Richard Pryor. James Brown recorded
one of the most revered live albums at the Apollo.
“When we first watched the film, I had this
gut-wrenching emotional reaction. I was just crying like a baby,” said
Williams. “The journey that black people have taken in America is a painful and
difficult journey and our music is one of the tools we use to talk about that
pain, to talk about that oppression, to escape from that pain. Our musical
journey is a powerful one.”
With such an overwhelming legacy, the Apollo
has striven to be more than a museum. After falling on hard times in the 1970s,
it was named a state and city landmark in 1983. It was purchased by New York
State in 1991 and turned into a nonprofit theater. Its long-running variety
show “Showtime at the Apollo” was most recently rebooted on Fox last year.
Now, for the first time in its history, it’s plotting
an expansion. The Apollo Performing Arts Center plans to in the fall of 2020
open two adjacent theaters, two doors down from the Apollo. One will seat 99,
the other 199 — much smaller spaces than the 1,506 capacity Apollo.
Procope said the new theaters will allow the
Apollo to program more expansively, add master artist residencies, host more
speaking series, delve deeper into dance and create new streaming and
podcasting possibilities.
“I think people understand where we’ve been,”
said Procope. Soon, she says, they will see where the Apollo is going.
It’s been four years since the last James Bond film “SPECTRE” hit the big screen as internal issues have plagued the latest installment in the lucrative franchise. Fans can rejoice as it will only be one more year to see what is currently being called “Bond 25.”
The 25th
James Bond movie and Daniel Craig’s fifth and final installment as 007 is
heading home to Jamaica.
Craig, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and director Cary Fukunaga on Thursday launched the film from the Caribbean island nation where Ian Fleming wrote all of his Bond novels. It was hosted at Fleming’s GoldenEye estate. Where the still-untitled movie will be partly set in Jamaica, which was also a setting in “Dr. No” and “Live and Let Die.” GoldenEye is owned and operated by Island Outpost, founded by Chris Blackwell who formerly owned Island Records. GoldenEye will not be used as a filming location for Bond 25.
Actress Lea Seydoux, from left, director Cary Joji Fukunaga, actors Ana de Armas, Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris and Lashana Lynch pose for photographers during the photo call of the latest installment of the James Bond film franchise, currently known as ‘Bond 25’, in Oracabessa, Jamaica.
Wilson wrongly
commented, “I can’t remember the last time we had a title when we
announced the beginning of a film.” Any hardcore Bond fan knows that “Casino
Royale,” “Quantum of Solace,” “Skyfall,” an “SPECTRE” were all announced at
their official press launch.
Fukunaga told fans that Craig, who plays the super spy as a
hard-drinking bruiser, was his favorite Bond. “I want to make sure that this
run of films…have a really great next chapter and just keep upping the ante so
whoever is next has a harder job,” he said.
Rami Malek,
fresh off his Oscar win for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is joining the cast as the
villain. Malek was working in New York and
couldn’t join the cast and crew in Jamaica where they shot the promo at Bond
creator Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye estate. “I will be making sure that Mr. Bond
does not have an easy ride of it in this, his 25th outing,” said Malek.
This Malek casting actually stole some of the spotlight from the news
event.
Craig has
said this will be his final turn in the tuxedo. When the 51-year-old actor
first confirmed his return for Bond 25, he said: “I just want to go out on a
high note.” But Broccoli and Wilson, in an interview by phone from Jamaica,
said they aren’t ready to contemplate a new 007 yet.
“We’re very
happy with the Bond we have in Daniel Craig. He’s just been phenomenal in the
role,” said Broccoli. “I really just don’t want to even think about if and when
we have to replace him. We’re excited to have him back and thrilled he decided
to come back. We’re just going to set about trying to make the best Bond film
ever and not think about the future.”
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga, left, and actor Daniel Craig
Actresses Lea Seydoux, left, and Ana de Armas.
Producers Michael G Wilson, left, and Barbara Broccoli, right, pose for photographers with actor Daniel Craig during the photo call of the latest installment of the James Bond film franchise.
Actresses Lea Seydoux, from left, Ana de Armas, Naomie Harris and Lashana Lynch.
The movie
finds Bond out of active service and enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. That
changes when his CIA friend Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) turns up asking for
help. Their mission is to rescue a kidnapped scientist.
“We’ve got
quite a ride in store for Mr. Bond,” promised Broccoli. She also left a few
breadcrumbs about what that ride might entail, telling viewers that the film
will start with Bond out of active service and on holiday.
“He’s
enjoying himself in Jamaica,” said Broccoli, who added that the production has
built an “extraordinary” house for the famous agent and his license to kill.
The official log-line states that “[Bond’s] peace is short-lived when his old
friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to
rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than
expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with
dangerous new technology.”
Aside from
Jamaica, filming locations include Italy, Norway (where some shooting has
already taken place) and London, with studio production based at Pinewood
Studios outside London. Returning cast members include Lea Seydoux, Ben
Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris. Production will begin Sunday. Any 007
fan knows the secrecy behind each installed in the franchise. At one point,
Naomie Harris, set to return as Moneypenny, was asked innocuously if she’d be
joining Bond in the field only to wave the query off as giving “way too much
information.”
Bond films
have usually been announced in Britain but this time, the cast and filmmakers
flocked to Fleming’s Goldeneye villa in Jamaica for a livestreamed
announcement.
Delays and
disagreement have made for an especially long break between Bond films. The
last one, “Spectre,” came out in 2015, when it made more than $880 million
worldwide in ticket sales. Part of that was caused by a directing change. Danny
Boyle was initially set to helm the film, but he departed last year over
creative differences.
Broccoli and
Wilson declined to address rumors that the split was over Boyle’s reported
plans to kill Bond at the end of the film.
“It was sort
of a mutual agreement that the collaboration just wasn’t working out,” said
Broccoli. “So we parted very amicably and we’re looking very much forward to
his next film (‘Yesterday’) which is coming out soon.”
The cast
will include returning actors Lea Seydoux (Dr. Madeleine Swann), Jeffrey Wright
(Felix Leiter), Ben Whishaw (Q), Rory Kinnear (Tanner) and Ralph Fiennes (M).
Newcomers include Lashana Lynch, David Dencik, Ana De Armas and Dali Benssalah.
The producers confirmed a scoop that Billy Magnussen has joined the cast
The team behind the
franchise said Bond has remained relevant because they are willing to shake
things up while remaining true to Fleming’s take on the secret agent. “We do
update the stories and we do update the plots, but we stay true to the
character,” said producer Michael G. Wilson.
The script is written by Bond veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with regular Steven Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns (“The Bourne Ultimatum”) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the British actress-writer of the series “Killing Eve” and “Fleabag.” Waller-Bridge, whom producers said was brought aboard by Craig, is just the second woman to ever write a Bond film. More than 50 years ago, Johanna Harwood co-wrote “Dr. No” and received a story credit for “From Russia With Love.”
“Spectre,” the 24th James Bond film, was a global box office hit,
opening #1 in 81 territories around the world, including the U.S., and earning
$880 million at the global box office. The film broke a new all-time box office
record in the UK with the biggest seven-day opening of all time at $63.8
million. “Skyfall,” the 23rd film in the series, earned $1.1 billion worldwide.
While concerns have grown about how much time children are spending online and on mobile phones, the World Health Organization (WHO) has jumped into the debate with what they think is best. Also, that feeling of being watched in a grocery store might be real as it’s revealed that stores are using cameras to better determine your buying habits and mood. You can jump down to read that here.
WHO has issued its first-ever guidance for how much screen time children under 5 should get: not very much, and none at all for those under 1.
The U.N. health agency
said Wednesday that kids under 5 should not spend more than one hour watching
screens every day — and that less is better.
The guidelines are somewhat similar to advice
from the American Academy of Pediatrics. That group recommends children younger
than 18 months should avoid screens other than video chats. It says parents of
young children under two should choose “high-quality programming” with
educational value and that can be watched with a parent to help kids understand
what they’re seeing.
Some groups said WHO’s
screen time guidelines failed to consider the potential benefits of digital
media.
WHO’s screen time advice
“overly focuses on quantity of screen time and fails to consider the content
and context of use,” said Andrew Przybylski, director of research at the Oxford
Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. “Not all screen time is created
equal.”
Britain’s Royal College of
Paediatrics and Child Health said the data available were too weak to allow its
experts to set any thresholds for the appropriate level of screen time.
“Our research has shown
that currently there is not strong enough evidence to support the setting of
screen time limits,” said Dr. Max Davie, the college’s Officer for Health
Improvement. “The restricted screen time limits suggested by WHO do not seem
proportionate to the potential harm,” he said.
WHO did not specifically
detail the potential harm caused by too much screen time, but said the
guidelines — which also included recommendations for physical activity and
sleep — were needed to address the increasing amount of sedentary behavior in
the general population. It noted that physical inactivity is a leading risk
factor for death and a contributor to the rise in obesity.
The agency said infants
less than 1 year should spend at least half an hour every day on their stomachs
and that older kids should get at least three hours of physical activity every
day.
Is Your Grocery Store Watching Your
Mood
Eyeing that can of
soda in the supermarket cooler? Or maybe you’re craving a pint of ice cream? A
camera could be watching you. The technology was first reported
back in 2013, and now it’s become a reality.
But it’s not there to
see if you’re stealing. These cameras want to get to know you and what you’re
buying.
It’s a new technology
being trotted out to retailers, where cameras try to guess your age, gender or
mood as you walk by. The intent is to use the information to show you targeted
real-time ads on in-store video screens.
Companies are pitching
retailers to bring the technology into their physical stores as a way to better
compete with online rivals like Amazon that are already armed with troves of
information on their customers and their buying habits.
With store cameras,
you may not even realize you are being watched unless you happen to notice the
penny-sized lenses. And that has raised concerns over privacy.
“The creepy factor
here is definitely a 10 out of 10,” said Pam Dixon, the executive director of
the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit that researches privacy issues.
At the National
Retail Federation trade show in New York earlier this year, a smart shelf on
display by Mood Media tried to detect “happiness” or “fear” as people stood in
front it — information a store could use to gauge reaction to a product on the
shelf or an ad on a screen. Cineplex Digital Media showed off video screens
that can be placed in malls or bus stops and try to tell if someone is wearing
glasses or sporting a beard, which in turn can be used to sell ads for new
frames or razors.
The screens can also
be placed at the drive-thru. A minivan pulling into a fast food restaurant, for
example, might get an ad for a family-sized meal on the video screen menu.
For now, the cameras
are in just a handful of stores.
Kroger, which has
2,800 supermarkets, is testing cameras embedded in a price sign above shelves
in two stores in the suburbs outside Cincinnati and Seattle. Video screens
attached to the shelves can play ads and show discounts. Kroger said the
cameras guess a shopper’s age and sex but the information is anonymous and the
data is not being stored. If the tests work out well, the company said it could
expand it into other locations.
Walgreens, which has
more than 8,000 drugstores, installed cooler doors with cameras and sensors at
six locations in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington.
Instead of the usual clear glass doors that allow customers to see inside,
there are video screens that display ads along with the cooler’s contents.
Above the door handle
is a camera that can try to guess ages and track irises to see where you are
looking, but Walgreens said those functions are off for now. The company said
the cameras are currently being used to sense when someone is in front of the
cooler and count the number of shoppers passing by. It declined to say if it
will turn on the other functions of the camera.
“All such
enhancements will be carefully reviewed and considered in light of any consumer
privacy concerns,” Walgreens said.
Advocates of the
technology say it could benefit shoppers by showing them discounts tailored to
them or drawing attention to products that are on sale. But privacy experts
warn that even if the information being collected is anonymous, it can still be
used in an intrusive way.
For instance, if many
people are eyeing a not-so-healthy dessert but not buying it, a store could
place it at the checkout line so you see it again and “maybe your willpower
breaks down,” said Ryan Calo, a professor at the University of Washington School
of Law and co-director of its Tech Policy Lab.
“Just because a
company doesn’t know exactly who you are doesn’t mean they can’t do things that
will harm you,” Calo said.
The technology could
also lead to discriminatory practices, like raising prices when an older person
walks in or pushing products based on your perceived mood such as ads for
anti-depression medication if the cameras think you look sad, adds Dixon of the
World Privacy Forum. .
“We shouldn’t be
gathering the emotional state of anyone,” Dixon said.
At a Walgreens in New
York, a sign above a rack of wines said the store is testing cameras and
sensors that “do not identify you or store any images.” The sign doesn’t say
where the cameras or sensors are, but it does have a web address for the
privacy policy of Cooler Screens, the company that makes the doors.
Calvin Johnson, who
was looking for a Snapple, said he visited the store before, but didn’t notice
the cameras until a reporter pointed them out.
“I don’t like that at
all,” Johnson said.
Another shopper, Ray
Ewan, said he noticed the lenses while grabbing a Diet Coke, but isn’t
concerned since cameras are hard to avoid.
“There’s one on each
corner,” Ewan said.
Not all retailers are
keen on adding embedded cameras. Walmart’s Sam’s Club, which is testing shelves
with digital price tags, is cautious about them.
“I think the most
important thing you do with tech like that is to make sure people know,” said
John Furner, Sam’s Club’s CEO. “You don’t want to surprise people on how you
use technology or data.”
Jon Reily, vice
president of commerce strategy at consultancy Publicis.Sapient, said retailers
risk offending customers who may be shown ads that are aimed at a different
gender or age group. Nonetheless, he expects the embedded cameras to be widely
used in the next four years as the technology gets more accurate, costs less
and shoppers become used to it.
For now, he said, “we
are still on the creepy side of the scale.”
President Donald Trump hoped that the #MeToo movement would keep Joe Biden from entering the 2020 presidential election as the former vice-president would be a formidable opponent. His likeability and ability to relate to Trump supporters is the president’s greatest worry, plus Biden can easily hold his own when Trump goes down and dirty.
When Showtime’s “The Circus” interviewed Biden during the 2016 election, it was easy to see that Biden was in a turmoil dealing with his son Beau’s death while also considering entering the race. Now, he’s ready to deal with all of the negative oppo research the Democrats are sure to throw at him.
The first two words out of his mouth when he announced his presidential campaign Thursday was “Charlottesville, Virginia.”
Joe Biden spent a hot August day at his lakefront Delaware home watching hatred on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, where, days earlier, torch-wielding white supremacists had marched through the town. A counter-protester advocating racial equality was killed when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd.
When President Donald
Trump blamed the violence on “both sides,” the former vice president says he
was stunned.
He turned to his closest
advisers — his family — to discuss what to do next.
Spread out across the
country, the Bidens quickly convened through a series of group text messages.
For months, they’d weighed whether Biden, whose two prior White House campaigns
were abject failures, should try again.
There was now consensus:
Prepare to run against Trump.
Biden’s sister and
longtime political confidante, Valerie Biden Owens, described Trump’s comments
as a “blow” to the man who had served as the No. 2 to America’s first black
president.
“It really started
percolating, and the essence of this was Charlottesville,” Biden Owens said. “I
can tell you that was a major motivating moment for my brother, and the entire
family.”
“The big ‘yes’ started
with this,” said Ted Kaufman, Biden’s longtime Senate chief of staff.
Nearly two years later,
Biden made it official on Thursday when he announced
in a video that he would seek the Democratic
presidential nomination again. He blasted Trump’s “moral equivalence between
those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it” and
declared the election a “battle for the soul of this nation.”
Biden is positioning
himself as the anti-Trump, an experienced elder statesman ready to restore
stability to Washington.
But he faces steep
challenges. He’s staking his candidacy on an appeal to the white working-class
voters who swung to Trump in 2016, but he must also energize black voters.
At 76, he’s the second
oldest contender in the race (behind Bernie Sanders) at a time when many
Democratic activists yearn for generational change. He sees his decades in
public life as an asset. Others see it as a minefield of views on race and
personal behavior that no longer match the modern Democratic Party.
His candidacy will
serve as a fresh referendum on the eight years of the Obama administration,
which some Democrats are beginning to view more critically.
But none of that
dissuaded Biden from running.
This account of how
he arrived at his decision is based on interviews with more than a dozen aides,
longtime friends, advisers and family members who have discussed his
deliberation over the past three years. Some requested anonymity in order to
speak candidly about their conversations and observations.
Joe Biden at son Beau’s funeral.
2016 Presidential Election
It didn’t take that
much arm twisting. Biden was ready to run in 2016 before his elder son, Beau,
succumbed to brain cancer and left him navigating a grief so intense that the
rigor of a presidential campaign was out of the question.
“It started out ‘yes’
and he had every intention of running, but ran up against the unthinkable and
the only answer was ‘no,’” Biden Owens said.
The regret was
palpable after Trump’s win. In January 2017, two weeks before he would hand the
vice
presidency over to Mike Pence, Biden was on Capitol Hill to unveil his
official portrait. Notoriously chatty, he gave a glimpse of his thinking.
“I might just do it,”
Biden remarked to a small cadre of staff, some of whom were taken aback that he
was already entertaining the idea.
He stayed in regular
touch with former President Barack Obama after they left the White House, by
phone and in person. Those early conversations after Trump’s inauguration were
more about their own personal transitions out of government than Biden’s
possible political plans.
But Biden’s interest
in another presidential campaign quickly became clear. By May 2017, he started
a political action committee to support Democrats in the upcoming midterm
elections. He solicited donors — something he’s never enjoyed — and began
mapping out a plan to be a prominent player in the Democratic bid to regain the
House and defend difficult seats in the Senate.
As the midterms
neared, Biden started getting the feedback he hoped for. In August 2018, he
boarded a flight from Washington to New York and a string of passengers
encouraged him to run in 2020.
The midterm effort
wasn’t merely a vanity project for an aging politician wanting to stay in the
game. It was a test run of Biden’s message, influence and personal stamina.
Biden campaigned for
65 candidates in 24 states, a pace that accelerated to include 13 cities in the
last six days. In the final weeks of the campaign, he swung through Iowa, home
to the nation’s first presidential caucuses.
His combination of
midterm travel and financial contributions were outdone by few, if any, of his
would-be 2020 rivals.
After Democrats won
the House, Biden spent much of the winter in his two-story brick house in
suburban McLean, Virginia, plotting his next steps. He regularly called
friends, longtime supporters and potential donors to get their views of the
emerging presidential field. He pressed people on whether they thought he was
too old to run.
By the time Teri
Goodman, one of Biden’s most enduring Iowa confidantes, arrived in Virginia in
mid-February 2019, the dining room table was strewn with newspapers, files and
briefing books. The two old friends retired to a sitting room where they
chatted about the early stages of the race in Iowa as Biden’s German Shepherd
puppy, Major, flounced around and Major’s older counterpart, Champ, sat
quietly.
Goodman said there was
no ambiguity about Biden’s plans.
“I believed he was
going to run,” she said. “He was actively engaged, involved in these things.”
Facing His Liabilities
“I’m his sister. I
know he doesn’t walk on water,” Biden Owens said. “The man has flaws like we
all do. But this is a man who is decent.”
As he moved toward a
campaign, Biden’s liabilities were clear. He has faced sharp criticism for his
pointed questioning of Anita Hill, the African American woman who leveled
sexual harassment claims at Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.
Biden has also been blasted for his role in crafting the 1994 crime bill, which
is now blamed for disproportionately imprisoning hundreds of thousands of young
black men.
More recently, he’s
faced scrutiny for his past opposition to mandatory school busing in the 1970s
to achieve integration.
Biden recognized
those vulnerabilities early on, studying a briefing book that included
discussions of how his long record in public life could be seen differently in
2019 — and used against him.
He was less prepared
for what happened on the afternoon of Friday, March 29. Lucy Flores, Nevada’s
Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2014, wrote an essay saying that,
as vice president, Biden approached her from behind, put his hands on her
shoulders, smelled her hair and kissed the back of her head.
Flores said the
encounter wasn’t violent or sexual, but was “demeaning and disrespectful.”
Biden was suddenly on the wrong side in the #MeToo era. He hadn’t launched a
campaign, but was already facing calls not to run.
He first seemed to
deflect, saying in a written statement he did not recall the episode. He went
on to say that “not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately.” He
pledged to listen to women who were sharing their stories.
As negative reaction
mounted, Biden’s team struck back more aggressively, blaming “right wing
trolls” from “the dark recesses of the internet” for conflating uninvited
touching with images of the notoriously affectionate Biden hugging women and
children.
Another woman soon
shared a story of how Biden touched her face with both hands and rubbed noses
with her in 2009 when he was thanking aides who arranged an event in
Connecticut.
As the week ticked
on, news clattered away about whether Biden’s patriarchal persona put him out
of step with the times.
Biden was nowhere to
be seen. It took nearly a week before he posted a two-minute video of him
recounting how expressions of affection had helped him but “social norms have
begun to change.”
“They’ve shifted and
the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it. I
get it,” he said. “And I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility.”
But when he spoke to
a union audience in his first public appearance after the controversy, Biden
seemed to joke about the issue. He noted the embrace he shared with a male
union president, Lonnie Stephenson.
“I just want you to
know, I had permission to hug Lonnie,” Biden said, to the cheers of the mostly
male crowd.
His message was
clear: Biden would run as himself, flaws and all.
As many people won’t be reading the Robert Mueller report in full, we are breaking it down in pieces to make better sense of it. Basically, it’s our Cliffs Notes version, but if you want to read it in full, you can read it here. This portion deals with the event that started everything; Donald Trump firing FBI Director James Comey.
It makes for quite an interesting story, and you can decide which actors should play the roles below.
President
Donald Trump was seething.
The FBI
director, James Comey, had privately reassured him that he was not personally
under investigation. But on May 3, 2017, when Comey was summoned to Capitol
Hill to explain his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, he
denied the president the public vindication he’d sought.
Facing
curious lawmakers and a captivated American audience, Comey pointedly refused
to say whether any members of the Trump campaign were or were not under
criminal investigation — including the president himself.
“The
Department of Justice has authorized me to confirm” the existence of a broader
investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign,
Comey said. “We’re not going to say another word about it until we’re done.”
And, indeed,
he would not speak about it again, as FBI director.
At the White
House that afternoon, Trump’s anger grew as an adviser recounted Comey’s
testimony. He trained his fire on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who’d recused
himself from the Russia investigation two months earlier because of his work on
the Trump campaign.
Notes
maintained by Sessions’ chief of staff depict a president in full venting mode:
The attorney general was supposed to be a president’s most important
appointment, he raged. John Kennedy had his brother Robert, Barack Obama had
his friend Eric Holder.
“You left me
on an island,” Trump told Sessions. “I can’t do anything.”
He spent the
next several days stewing over Comey. Their relationship was already fraught.
Over dinner months earlier, Trump asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to him, but
the FBI chief declined. Then Comey ignored the president’s appeal to end an
investigation into his former national security adviser.
Comey was a
show-boater, a grandstander, Trump complained to aide Steve Bannon. Three
times, Trump lamented, Comey had told him he wasn’t under investigation. And
now this.
By that
weekend, Trump was at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, crafting a plan
to dismiss Comey and dictating language for a draft termination letter to aide
Stephen Miller.
In it, Trump
said that though he appreciated being told he wasn’t under investigation
“concerning the fabricated and politically motivated allegations of a
Trump-Russia relationship,” Comey had nonetheless lost the support of the
president and the American public.
That Monday,
in Washington, the plan grew more complicated.
Trump read
aloud the first paragraphs of the letter and told aides his mind was made up
and there was nothing to discuss. His White House counsel Don McGahn, who
repeatedly functioned as a check against Trump’s impulses, suggested his office
consult Justice Department leadership.
After
neither Sessions nor Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein raised concerns
about Comey’s firing, Trump asked Rosenstein to draft a memo recommending the
dismissal, and to “put the Russia stuff” in it, according to the notes of a
senior Justice Department official.
Rosenstein
agreed to the memo but resisted any Russia reference. He knew as he left the
White House that day that Comey would be fired — but not for the reasons he’d
give in his document.
Rosenstein’s
memo focused exclusively on Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation,
including his decision to publicly announce that she should not face charges.
There was no mention of Russia, save for a single-page letter to Comey in which
Trump said he’d been informed three times he wasn’t under investigation.
The White
House released the memo on the evening of May 9 as it announced
Comey’s firing, which it said was done at the Justice Department’s
recommendation.
Comey
learned of his firing from television screens as he addressed FBI employees in
Los Angeles. It was, he initially thought, a joke. Except that it wasn’t, and
news helicopters were soon tracking his trip to the airport. He flew home on
the FBI plane, helping himself to a bottle of California pinot noir he’d picked
up on the trip.
Trump
expected cheers from Democrats, given their fury over Comey’s actions toward
Clinton. Instead there was anger
and confusion.
Why would
Trump be mad about Comey’s conduct in the Clinton case since he benefited from
the FBI’s actions? If that really was the reason, why had he waited four months
to fire him?
The
administration was roiled in chaos. Trump, unhappy with the press coverage,
sought the advice of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who told him
Rosenstein should publicly defend the firing.
But when
Trump told Rosenstein he should have a press conference, Rosenstein said that
wasn’t prudent. If asked, he said, he would have to tell the truth. He’d have
to say the firing wasn’t his idea at all.
Sessions and
Rosenstein told McGahn they were concerned the White House was creating a false
narrative by suggesting Rosenstein had initiated the decision.
Trump took
care of that with a May 11 interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, in which he said
he would have fired Comey regardless of the Justice Department’s recommendation.
“In fact,
when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia
thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” Trump said. “It’s an excuse by
the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.”
He went on
to say something eerily prescient, something that proved true each day for the
next two years as the Comey firing took center stage in Mueller’s
investigation.
Instead of
ending the scrutiny
by firing Comey, the president acknowledged, “I might even lengthen out the
investigation.”
