Category Archives: Business

Business, Entertainment, Movies

After “Toy Story 4” Grabs Oscar for Best Animated Feature, Pixar is still Lightyears ahead

Toy Story 4 characters

Photo / Pixar

Disney’s Slate Continues to Outperform Commercially, if not always Critically

Although the first animated feature film debuted way back in 1939 with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” the Best Animated Feature category at the Academy Awards has only existed for nineteen years, arriving in 2001 when DreamWorks’ “Shrek” won the inaugural prize.

Although “Shrek” may have taken home that initial award—beating out fellow nominees “Monsters Inc.” and “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius”—DreamWorks would not be the animation studio to rein supreme over the category in the coming years. In the nineteen years that the category has taken place, Disney’s Pixar has won ten times, making it the unrivaled champion of the Best Animated Feature title.

In fact, almost every time Pixar releases a movie, it gets a nomination, and almost every time it gets a nomination, it wins. Only three times has a Pixar movie been in the runnings, but lost to one of its competitors. Following “Monsters Inc’s” initial loss to “Shrek,” “Cars” lost to “Happy Feet” in 2006 and “Incredibles 2” lost to “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” just last year—albeit, the studio won Best Animated short with yesteryear’s “Bao.”

Many were happy to see “Spider-Verse” win in 2019. The movie was original and its animation was captivating, far from the predictable family narratives and re-hashed 3D style of Pixar that audiences have become all too familiar with over the past twenty-six years. Furthermore, with Disney being a conglomerate juggernaut in modern Hollywood, there is something cathartic about seeing an underdog beat them out—in addition to the ten Pixar wins, Walt Disney Animation studios have also won three of the nineteen Best Animated Feature titles, leaving the House-of-Mouse with all but six of the total trophies for the category.

With “Spider-Verse” winning last year, some assumed that Pixar might be losing its power, and when “Toy Story 4” lost to the commercially unsuccessful, but critically acclaimed “Missing Link” at the 2020 Golden Globes, many were optimistically foreseeing another Pixar defeat at the upcoming Oscars—making it Disney’s first consecutive defeat in the category since 2006.

Overrated or Just still too Big to Ignore, Toy Story’s Success is Undeniable

“Toy Story 4” is by no means a bad movie, and it grossed over a billion dollars at the Box Office, but many movie goers grow weary of Pixar’s cash-out sequels. Likewise, the fourth installment in the “Toy Story” series feels a bit unnecessary, especially considering how excellently “Toy Story 3” seemed to conclude the saga in 2010. Also, it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to think that Disney insisted on a fourth film just to sell more Woody and Buzz toys to a younger generation.

Moreover, the Animated Feature category was filled with some suburb competition this year. “Missing Link” was a visual masterpiece from unsung stop-motion animation company Laika. “How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” was a wonderful conclusion to DreamWorks’ heartfelt fantasy trilogy—all three of the films losing to Disney titles in previous years’ Oscars. Then, Netflix’s “Klaus” was an aesthetic stunner, and Jérémy Clapin’s “I Lost My Body” was a mature meditation on the human condition and the first animated movie to win the esteemed Nespresso Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

In short, the competition was stacked for Best Animated Feature and while the winner was anything but a sure thing, the divisive “Toy Story 4” hardly felt like anyone’s first pick. Thus, when actress Mindy Kaling presented the award partway through the evening, few expected and many were disappointed when she announced the Pixar title as the victor.

When director Josh Cooley and producers Mark Nielsen and Jonas Rivera took the stage, their acceptance speech was sincere. All involved in “Toy Story 4” seemed grateful for the prize, but audiences cannot help but feel like some of the other titles deserved it more.

Everything New is Old Again

In a year of Oscar firsts and progressive wins—from “Parasite” being the first foreign film to earn Best Picture, to the animated short “Hair Love” and the documentary “American Factory” winning with stories that celebrate multiculturalism—the Best Animated Feature category seemed a little regressive, championing the default, blockbuster Pixar nominee over some truly innovative pieces of cinema.

At least Pixar claims that it is done with sequels now and that the studio will be returning to original stories from here on out. 2020 promises the releases of “Onward” and “Soul” from Pixar, a couple movies with no connection to any previous intellectual properties. When they inevitably get nominated at the 2021 Academy Awards, let’s hope that they deserve their opportunity for hardware, and that the Academy keeps up its progressive tendencies when deciding on animated movies going forward.

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Books, Business, Entertainment

Book Miracle: Gutsy Upstart Aims to Resuscitate Amazon’s Original Targets of Destruction

Photo / Monique Ly

Amazon represents a New Normal but Not Everybody is Happy with That

From a consumer perspective it’s hard to argue with buying things at a very low price, often, in the case of books, below wholesale and with ridiculously fast free shipping. But who is paying for this? Mainly, it’s complicated, but it has traditionally been people and companies that sold books before the existence of Amazon, later known as the grim reaper, destroyed their businesses and livelihoods.

Recently, deep inside the Amazon system the rot is starting to show. Just as a camel is unlikely to pass through the eye of a needle, you don’t get to be a trillion dollar eCommerce retail giant without some internal corruption. A lot of internal corruption. Who knows? …as a customer, you might even encounter expired lemon curd or a used diaper along the way.

Compare this to Apple, a company that charges a premium for the best products and service. And for the caché of being part of a greater whole that stands for something other than “the cheapest no matter what”. Not without soiled hands perhaps, but on the other end of the spectrum from winning by selling at impossible prices. Instead it is a company known for building a brand that stands for quality, luxury and innovation above all.

Somewhere, on the good-guy side yet between these diametrically opposed behemoths now stands a new, tiny, alternative for the book world: Bookshop.Org

A Formula that just might Work, as People Gradually Realize that a Monopsony is Just as bad as a Monopoly

The ORG is important as it signals the true fact that this is a company with a purpose beyond profit and that it is a cooperative venture in nature. The site is founded as a bet that true Booklovers can be persuaded forego a few dollars of artificial price reduction to support a better entity, and still get a premium product and experience.

Bookshop.org is registered as a B-Corp and therefore pledged to place social good ahead of profit. Since profits are predivirted to help independent booksellers, authors and others that choose to affiliate, profits are limited inherently in the business model.

The idea that the thought content of the books themselves can bind together producer, seller and reader, along with the sharing of an affinity towards authors and ideas, is something that has been all but lost, after the decimation of bookstores of all kinds in the wake of the Amazon explosion.

This is also true of other product categories, say, consumer electronics, but books and bookstores were the first target for extermination, thus the experience of sharing a like-minded love of books with a store that will provide them is now, truly, an all but extinct concept.

Created to help those independent book sellers across the country that have survived in spite of the “success” of the below-cost dumping strategy employed by the “Death Star”, Bookshop.org is an alliance that includes the American Booksellers Association as well as the largest book distributer in the US, assuring a vast current selection and an established fulfillment network.

Communicating the value of opting out of the status quo will fall on the booksellers and new partners that join the Bookshop in its quest. By the way, you too can contribute and become an affiliate member at no cost, for example if you are and Author or an Influencer, or if your blog can send potential book buyers to the site.

Finally, For Booklovers who Love Booklovers a site that Loves Indie Booksellers

John Warner of the Chicago Tribune has likened the endeavor to the Starwars Rebel Alliance fighting against Amazon’s Death Star, and the analogy is certainly apt. However, this is more about the option to inhabit a world where there is a book buying choice beyond the obvious and ubiquitous.

Where, in an Amazon world, is it possible to choose an experience that is, in a sense, also an investment in dignity and diversity, and who better to make such an unique choice than the well-read Booklover?

Ammunition on the supplier side is a commission, more like a stipend really, of approximately double the amount a seller receives if they send buyers to Amazon (known as an affiliate commission and attached to virtually all offers across the web), with the extra bit paid for by not being an only for-profit entity. That’s high concept if ever there was.

For a detailed breakdown of the site’s concept and financial structure you can go directly to Bookshop or read Joan Verdon’s excellent article in Forbes.

So, while the richest man on planet earth pays hundreds of million$ to PHDs to come up with new ways to destroy existing competitors – even those that pose no threat whatsoever, you can side-step all that noise and chose to be Hans Solo, reluctant but ultimately heroic, and support the people who love books more than just money.

If you see Lynxotic book reviews, from now on, they will likely have a link to an offer to buy from our Bookshop.org independent bookstore partner cherrybooks who, yes, will reap a small but meaningful reward for joining the cause.

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Business, Politics

Deutsche Bank-VTB Trump Story sparks Trending Tags on Twitter but so far no Mainstream Coverage

According to whistleblower, Documents he Inherited connect Trump Loans to Russian Entity – indirectly

Val Broeksmit, the son of Bill Broeksmit, a former senior Deutche Bank executive who committed suicide in 2014, has surfaced at this intense juncture with evidence that at least some of Trump’s now infamous Deutsche Bank loans were indirectly tied to a Russian financial entity.

Val Broeksmit’s personal story was recently updated in the New York Times in a piece called “Me and My Whistle-Blower” which the author David Enrich indicated was also research for his upcoming book “Dark Towers”.

According to Enrich, although Broeksmit’s directly related verbal information is often unreliable due to drug use and other personal issues, the data provided in the form of email and documents is rock solid: “In this article, every detail not directly attributed to Mr. Broeksmit has been corroborated by documents, recordings or an independent source”

While Enrich may be holding some juicy evidence back for his book, scheduled for release on February 18, 2020, it is unlikely that the ultimate linchpin in the Deutsche Bank / Trump story would remain hidden this long, only to be revealed in a book, but it is possible.

In the meantime Val Broeksmit a.k.a. @BikiniRobotArmy is teasing via Scot Stedman at Forensic News, whose web site is mysteriously down, a story, based on connections to Broeksmit and documents he possessed, that a portion of Trump’s Deutsche Bank loans were indirectly linked to Russian company VTB.

If the Documents go Deep it’s Huge, but So Far they are not Confirmed

As far as can be seen only a few smaller outlets picked up the story shortly before the original was unavailable due to the outage at Forensic News, for example “Inquisitr”. The article presents a summary of the original story and quotes the Deutsche Bank twitter response:

“More responsible news outlets have either investigated and avoided, or retracted, similar allegations as there is no truth to them,”

Deutsche Bank via Twitter

While it is true that larger media outlets have yet to follow up on this thread, the information trail does not appear to be at its conclusion and there me be details yet to come out that can be more widely corroborated.

According the the original Forensic News story, which is available in document form from download site Scribd, during the time that the web site is inaccessible, documentation, which they inspected, provided by Val Broeksmit, indicates that at least some of the loans extended to Trump where not from Deutsche Bank directly but rather a subsiary Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas (DBTCA) which had ties to VTB.

While not the smoking gun that was implied in the somewhat sensational title, this entire somewhat convoluted story to date, appears to indicate that the ongoing investigations into Trump financial dealings with Deutsche Bank are rife with potential bombshells.

Although Deutsche Bank is relying on “more responsible news outlets” to stay silent about possible negative connections to Trump, at the very least David Enrich’s book release, in February, is likely to contain a detailed account of this and much more potentially damning information about the inner workings of the bank.

It’s also not much of a stretch, as was mentioned in the NYT article sited above, that Val Broeksmit might just fulfill his dream of one day seeing a movie about his father and the scandals at Deutsche Bank that surrounded his death, if the threads of “Dark Towers” continue and expand.

Find books on Big Tech, Sustainable Energy, Economics and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

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Business, Tech

Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin Step Down, Displacing Accountability To Sundar Pichai

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google and respective President and CEO of its parent company Alphabet Inc, have officially announced plans to step down from their high-ranking management roles in the tech world. Page and Brin created the Google search engine in 1998 when they were PhD students at Stanford University. Since then, the two have expanded the company into a multi-purpose technological empire. 

Now, twenty-one years later, the forty-six year old entrepreneurs are resigning from their leading positions at Google. However, given the stress that Google is under, they are retiring at a suspiciously convenient time. And even though they are sacrificing their titles, they are simultaneously managing to maintain stakes in the Google brand.

Taking over for Page and Brin is Pichai Sundararajan—better known as Sundar Pichai, the former number-two at Google who has practically been acting as the face of the company for the past few years. As the two founders have found themselves more invested in Google’s experimental sectors recently—Brin focusing on GoogleX’s driverless cars and Google Glasses while Page has shifted his attention towards flying automobiles—most of the Google’s more widely-used properties have fallen under Pichai’s supervision.

Pichai has been with Google since 2004. He is responsible for convincing the company to start its own browser in 2008, which lead to the immensely successful Google Chrome. In 2013, he took over the Android Division, better integrating Google properties into the line of smartphones without sacrificing their affordability. He also spearheaded the development of Chrome OS, the operating system that fuels Google’s popular Chromebook laptops.

Indeed, Pichai is an obvious choice to replace Page and Brin as CEO of Google and Alphabet. The man has practically been running the company’s mainstream innovations for the past ten years, while its founders take the backseat to play out their billion dollar tech fantasies. 

Then again, Page and Brin are far from exiled from the Google community. Although they are no longer acting leaders, they will still keep their fourteen percent stakes in the company’s finances. As majority stockholders, they will also retain influence over Alphabet’s decisions. Thus, Page and Brin’s step down from power is hardly a step down at all, but rather an excuse to hold onto control while dodging personal accountability in trying times.

And trying times these are indeed for Google. Within the past year especially, Congress and other authorities have been cracking down on tech conglomerates such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and of course, Google. Like its fellow cyber juggernauts, Alphabet has been criticized for having a monopoly on data. Not only are users starting to think that Google wields too much power, but they also fear what it is doing with such power, as the worldwide company becomes oddly elusive when questioned about its privacy standards, information distribution, and business ethics.

Even Marc Zuckerberg had the slightest integrity to come before Congress and speak for Facebook during the Senate Committee hearing on big tech last year. Page and Brin, however, were nowhere to be found. Despite being requested at the hearing, they left a conspicuously empty seat in Washington DC with Google’s name on it.

Ever since cyber ethics and big tech have become hot topics in the media, the founders of Google have been moving further and further away from the spotlight. Their resignation from Alphabet as a whole signifies their ultimate fall into the shadows, where no one can accuse them of immorality or illegality on behalf of the company. The burden will now fall on Pichai.

In a way, little has changed. Pichai has more or less been answering for Page and Brin for a while, handling publicity and leading all of the launches that come from Google. Now, however, he holds the actual crown—even if Page and Brin are keeping the royal treasure. With any luck, though, maybe Pichai will improve Google, not just by creating more innovative software, but by bettering Alphabet’s approach to security, designing tech with human decency in mind, and actually owning up and responding to some of the company’s mistakes as they come.

It’s unlikely and perhaps foolishly optimistic, but it’s a silver lining that users can grasp onto given the (albeit somewhat empty) change in Google’s leadership.

Find books on Big Tech, Sustainable Energy, Economics and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

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Business, Observation, Tech

Wall Street Journal Slams Amazon at Peak of Holiday Buying Season: “Are you Buying (Actual) Garbage?”

In a Feature article WSJ does an Investigative Report but Leaves out the Real Dirt

opinion

In an article with a date stamp of December 18, 2019 at 3:38 am, WSJ released a scathing report detailing how potentially millions of sellers are allegedly scamming the public by selling discarded and remaindered good through Amazon’s marketplace.

The aim of the investigative piece was to show that Amazon did not pre-qualify or filter its selling accounts in any way and that pretty much anyone can sell anything, at least for a while, until Amazon shuts them down.

In order to add drama to the account and to emphasize how disgusting this situation can be for the buyer, WSJ set up its own marketplace “storefront” and listed items, literally found in a dumpster, for sale on Amazon. The items included a discarded jar of Lemon Curd.

While the interaction with Amazon ( a nicety afforded the Wall Street Journal) was amusing, with Amazon repeating the phrase “Amazon’s high bar for product quality” repeated over and over, for the most part the article, while well researched, totally misses the point.

The Real Rot is not in the Garbage Being Sold but Amazon’s System that Is a Machine Designed to Destroy Legitmate Retail

As is well documented in the, now ancient, saga of how Amazon killed off all competitors in the Book selling business, it has always been a clear goal of Amazon to bankrupt its competitors by any (legal?) means. These extreme tactics have not been abandoned now that all products are target for sales monopolization.

Further, regarding selling products out of dumpsters, for many years Amazon’s system has not only encouraged such desperate methods on it’s marketplace it has made them virtually impossible to avoid. In the WSJ article the question of the motivation of the sellers and why they “prefer” to sell, literally, garbage is never addressed.

It is even implied that they are just “poor” and one seller is even quoted as saying that he started selling products out of dumpsters because “he didn’t have money to buy products”.

It was also mentioned that one of the sellers “couldn’t make money as a photographer” and so he decided to start selling trash from dumpsters.

This is so incredibly misleading that it is difficult to even begin to deconstruct.

The List of Omissions from the WSJ article is Mind-boggling

While it is great to see some of the common practices that make up over 50% of sales on the Amazon platform exposed, omitting the real issues, the built-in ugliness of the system itself, is inexcusable.

First of all, no human sells products out of the trash as a first resort. To imply that these are “poor” people and therefore somehow taking advantage of Amazon’s lack of oversight is utterly ridiculous. Somehow in a “serious” exposé WSJ manages to make Amazon look like the victim. You have got to be kidding.

The fact is that Amazon is based on a system of undercutting, through various tactics, legitimate commerce, especially competing eCommerce, by forcing prices, after fees, to a level well below traditional wholesale levels. This means that anyone, large company or small individual, must source products at an unrealistic “impossible” price level in order to be competitive. Hence the popularity of the dumpster.

Who is the Real Victim? We all are.

That bears repeating: It is not possible to make a single cent on the Amazon marketplace by buying an item legitimately through a wholesale distributor and then adding a retail mark-up as has been the system for centuries (except in cases of price-gouging and other anomalies).

To use a different method to put this into perspective, remember that jar of Lemon Curd from the dumpster? Here’s the rough general breakdown for a similar product based on a 10$ sale price on the Amazon Marketplace:

Price of item “shipped” (free shipping) = $10 (rounded off for illustration purposes)

Cost of shipping and handling = $4.50

Various Fees to Amazon = $4.50

Remaining amount retained by seller = $1.00

Since the cost of this product at wholesale is around $5 and the seller must also survive, the only acceptable price for the seller to acquire the jar is $0. Dumpsters do not charge. Therefore this is the default system for sellers that work 7 days a week to try to make even a modest income.

The absurdity of this is off the charts. Even if you debate the details +- .50 in each category, etc., this is nevertheless the system that gets your Lemon Curd to your porch. A more wasteful and backward system could not be devised if you tried. Thank “modern” finance and devious minds for this wonderful invention of commerce.

The Amazon system is based on these concepts:

A. Set marketplace fees at a level where the maximum allowable “profit” for the third-party seller, after fees, is effectively zero. Fees are added to everything. A “variable closing fee” for the sale itself, fees on storage, “pick and pull” fees, shipping fees, on and on and on. These apply, at varying but always astronomical levels, through the “Fulfillment by Amazon” program and for sellers that ship and warehouse their own goods as well.

B. Encourage Chinese and other gray-market suppliers to maintain the system and “impossible” price level at below wholesale cost. Next, sell Amazon Branded products as an “alternative” and source these at the lowest possible cost to insure no legitimate seller can compete.

C. Cover all this with “no questions asked” returns (paid for primarily by the 3rd party sellers themselves) and by taking massive losses due to unrealistic shipping speeds. These ultra fast speeds serve as an attack against other companies such as Walmart, that can not be crushed by A. and B. above due to size and other market advantages.

The key objective of this strategy is to destroy legitimate retailers and brands at every level. Large brands like Nike, who recently ended a short-lived arrangement to allow its products to be sold on Amazon, are hurt by a relentless cheapening of the brand and a stampede of inferior knock offs and other damaging effects.

Smaller independent retailers are either bankrupted or forced to reduce costs of supply to well below standard wholesale prices. If you are thinking “fell off a truck” you are on the right track.

As a dramatization of the problem it can be said that to sell on Amazon, and realize any profit at all, your source must be either couinterfeit, aftermarket rejects, stolen or….. wait for it….. from a dumpster.

So, to be clear, the “dumpster divers” so lovingly described in the WSJ feature article are not just “poor” they are an inevitable result of a system, built on endless greed by the “richest man in the world” in order to have a virtual monopoly in US online sales (can’t survive without selling on Amazon is the mantra) and to insure future growth by literally destroying all legitimate competition.

Please let me know when this background “color” will be included in the next hard hitting investigative piece from the Journal.

Sunshine Behind the Clouds and the Future in your Hands

Finally, it is all of us, consumers that control the quality of the products and the purity of the supply chain that fulfills sales, online or otherwise. While it is ceratinly convenient to go online and visit either Google, Facebook or Amazon, competition online is, no less than in traditional commerce, essential to maintaining standards of quality and service.

For all Amazon’s “high standards” a deeper look at the system they have in place clearly shows that it is profit for amazon on every sale – and more importantly using income by gouging smaller marketplace sellers to attack larger competitors with unrealistic shipping cost structures, that is most important, not the quality of goods.

For now they will continue to “bribe” the public with a powerful cocktail of virtually instant delivery and “no questions asked” returns. But does that make you feel better about the dumpster sourced lemon curd you just ate? What about the poor seller than has been forced into dumpster diving to have a shot at the huge success of a $20,000 per year income, which Bezos gets in a microsecond. Maybe there are better places to buy your lemon curd.

Find books on Big Tech, Sustainable Energy, Economics and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

Business, Climate Solutions, Observation, Tech

Capitalists to the Rescue?: Automakers follow Tesla in Race for Electric Car Dominance

Tesla Model Y

The Tipping Point is Behind us Now, It’s only a question of When EV’s Market Share will Overtake ICE

The most talked about car in 2019 has been Tesla’s Model 3, an electric vehicle from Tesla that is sleek, modern looking, and highly desirable. In Tesla’s latest quarter alone, the company has sold nearly 80,000 Model 3s, sustaining it as the most popular EV on the market.

This is not Tesla’s only achievement for the year. The company’s Cybertruck and Semi have received copious attention; its Model X and Model S continue to be popular; and consumers are eagerly awaiting 2020’s releases of the Model Y and Roadster. It’s been a long time coming, but thanks to Tesla, EVs are growing market share at an extremely rapid pace.

Other car manufacturers, even ones that have been stubbornly committed to ICE vehicles, have had to accept that the tide is turning. Naturally, many of these companies do not want Tesla to have a monopoly on EVs, and they want to have their own stake in the market before it’s too late. For that reason they appear to have capitulated and there is now a large and public shift towards the EV market.

Car companies from General Motors to Ford to Mercedes to VolksWagen and more are now hopping aboard the EV train, announcing new full electric models aimed at competing with Tesla in the upcoming year.

In addition, longer term multi-billion dollar investments to fund an infrastucture and development shift toward sustainable and EV systems have been announced. There has been some scepticism that these are more of a PR effort, with possible changes at anytime, likely due to the extremely poor efforts of the last 25 years, and even the perception that they were trying to intentionally “fail” with EVs just to postpne any meaningful transition away from fossil fuel based transportation.

While the oncoming change in car-culture may be attributed more to Tesla’s sexy, ulta-modern designs than it is to environmentalism, the widespread transition towards electric vehicles is still an enormous win for the battle against climate change.

Transportation is the top CO2 buring category and automobiles are the largest contributors to carbon emission from transport across the globe. The systemic reliance on gasoline makes cars even more environmentally harmful, as their very fuel comes from big oil companies that drill the earth without much regard for balanced ecosystems.

Finally, there has been a Major Shift in Thinking in the Auto Industry

In just the past year, however, we have seen a noticeable increase in the number of charging stations for EVs, and certain governments have started cracking down on vehicle-related greenhouse gas emissions. These changes in infrastructure and politics reflect evolutions in consumer behavior—evolutions that bode well for our planet.

Between the VolksWagen ID.4, Ford Mustang EV, Mercedes ESQ, and all the upcoming Tesla models, there are about to be a whole lot more electric cars on the market, which will (hopefully) create healthy competition.

There remians skepticism in the automobile industry, implying that this could, indeed be some sort of elaborate head fake. In response to General Motor’s recent announcement to invest $2.3 billion in an EV battery factory, for example, Toyota Executive Bob Carter warned of an “electrified armageddon” for the industry. Indeed, despite EVs recent surge in popularity, gasoline-powered cars continue to dominate the streets. To invest so much in EVs at this point is a bold, somewhat presumptuous move for all of the companies, and they run the risk of overshooting consumer demand.

There is Still only one EV Company that Stands Above in Every Way

And the Toyota response while both tone deaf and likely misguided, is not wrong in the sense that a worldwide shift away from a fossil fuel based economic system will certainly lead to hardship and immense challenges and a long time. The problem with trying to wish away that fact is that, by extending the intentional sate of denial that has persisted for over a half century, things will only be worse when the inevitible and necessary changes finally come.

This exposes the brilliance of Tesla’s approach of starting with high end luxury vehicles, spurring demand and desire and then building downmarket into more afforable vehicles as economies of scale begin to kick in. And, even more prescient is Tesla’s stated mission “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” which removes any ambiguity or hesitation and signals a 100% clear commitment to the most important goal a transportation and energycompany can have.

Nevertheless, while this “plays” as an example of corporations displaying a logical reaction to the market for the benefit of the environment, it could, in actuality, more likely be an example of corporations playing the market to make money as per usual. The less cynical among us must hope, nevertheless that this is truly at least partially an ecological conscious choice that happens to transparently project an immediate economic benefit. If these companies are correct, and EVs do ultimately lead the car market, then it will not just satisfy the executive’s bottom line, but it will also help make the planet a cleaner and safer place.

Find books on Big Tech, Sustainable Energy, Economics and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

Business, Stock Market

Shifting to a Sustainable Energy Infrastructure: Saudi Aramco’s IPO shares are a bad Investment for the Planet

Literally Trillions are Staked on a Carbon Nightmare Future

Saudi Aramco is Saudi Arabia’s largest national oil company and one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, corporations in the world. On Sunday, November 30th, 2019, Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority stated that Aramco is going to be turned into a publically traded corporation and start making initial public offers of 1 to 3 percent of its shares sometime in December.

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman initially boasted the Aramco’s worth at $2 trillion. Further research, however, deems the valuation somewhere between $1.3 and 1.7 trillion. Nevertheless, these enormous figures—mixed with the projected IPO of $8.53 per share—still make Aramco more fiscally valuable than Apple or Microsoft.

Putting Aramco in the public sector is a huge move for Saudi Ariabia’s economy and is inextricably linked to the Crown Prince’s “Vision 2030” socioeconomic reform plan for the kingdom. It will make oil a larger money-maker than it already is for the nation by attracting additional foreign investors and combatting the shift towards alternative energy sources.

At the same time, though, this move is not the most environmentally progressive, and although it creates a short-term economic boost for the country, it may not be sustainable in the long run.

Right now the world is trying desperately to reform its energy practices and emissions standards. The 2015 Paris Climate Accord outlined bold plans to address the global climate crisis and currently, the UN Climate Conference in Madrid is working on updating and evaluating those goals. A big part of these initiatives puts focus on transferring global energy away from fossil fuel burning and towards cleaner and more renewable sources and methods.

While Saudi Arabia has made some investments in alternative energy sources, it remains overwhelmingly focused on oil—its most profitable commodity. The nation’s slight investments in solar power are dwarfed compared to its ongoing oil extraction. Then, even when the country does employ solar energy, it often uses it to fund or power oil wells and refineries.

When asked about Aramco’s response to the Paris Climate Accord, the company’s Chief Executive Amin Nasser practically laughed it off, boasting that with all other parts of the world being held to stringent energy conditions, Aramco would easily become the global leader in gas.

Not a Question of When but rather How Fast can the World Switch off the Oil Pumps?

The corporation should not be so quick to celebrate, though. While the planet still has a long way to go when it comes to environmental protection and security, more investors are turning away from oil and starting to consider alternatives. With the scarcity and conflict surrounding the resource, oil is becoming less reliable. The recent surge in electric vehicle adoption is just one example of alternative energy sources affecting the oil economy.

Nasser responded to this observation by calling it a “crisis of perception” facing oil firms. Cynically, he explains that ideas of oil going away anytime soon is a highly exaggerated theory, and that fossil fuels remain the most secure form of energy.

Perhaps this is the case for now. But if big oil continues to pump the Earth without regard for ecological fragility, then there will eventually be nothing “secure” about the practice at all, and economic influence will mean quite little in the face of Armageddon. All humans will be affected, not just the “green” ones.

Even in less dramatic terms, studies suggest that “Peak Oil” will arrive at some point in the next twenty-five years. When this happens, it will severely hurt Aramco’s prices, as demand will go down and investors will have a greater economic incentive to move on from oil. The company will not seem so high and mighty when that happens. Geopolitical dangers will almost certainly rise.

All of this is not even to mention the socio-political risks that come with investing in Aramco. Environmental issues aside, Aramco still faces international competition with the U.S. and Russia, stagnant output for the past five years, warlike attacks from Iran, and a lack of corporate autonomy against the Saudi Arabian government.

From an immediate money-driven perspective, investing in Aramco might seem like an easy buck and a booming economic development for Saudi Arabia. However, money (like oil wells) can dry up quicker than one thinks, and when that happens, investors might be left with nothing in their pockets but a long list of political, sociological, and environmental problems.

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Business

Amazon Allegedly Allowing Chinese Sellers to Deceive Consumers and Paralyze US Vendors

Amazon finally Admits to Facilitating Safety Issues and Fakes in Online Product Listings

Chinese products listed on the e-commerce site have been known to present a multitude of issues for US sellers on the platform. Consumers are also put into potential risks whenever purchasing an item from overseas on Amazon’s site. Counterfeits, unsafe goods, and items that lack the necessary US FDA approval, despite including the logo, are among some of the problems that have frequently occurred. 

On the U.S. site, Amazon doesn’t require a seller’s locations to be disclosed, which makes it harder for Chinese sellers to be held accountable when fake and unsafe goods are identified after shipping.

When consumers attempted to sue Amazon in court proceedings in the past, Amazon’s argument was that they held no burden on product liability, claiming that the items in question were neither manufactured nor sold directly by the company and that they merely allowed those items to be listed for sale.

An extremely dangerous case happened when a customer purchased a hoverboard on Amazon from a third party seller and the board exploded and resulted in the buyer’s house catching on fire and burning down. In that 2016 court proceeding, Amazon won the case and was not held responsible.

However, for the first time ever, Amazon is finally admitting that such risks actually exist. The 2018 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) file stated “Under our seller programs, we may be unable to prevent sellers from collecting payments, fraudulently or otherwise, when buyers never receive the products they ordered or when the products received are materially different from the sellers’ descriptions. We also may be unable to prevent sellers in our stores or through other stores from selling unlawful, counterfeit, pirated, or stolen goods, selling goods in an unlawful or unethical manner, violating the proprietary rights of others, or otherwise violating our policies”  

Whether Amazon can be held liable in court for damages that result from this passivity appears to be another story.

Mysterious Third-Party Chinese Vendors Lack Accountability on Amazon’s Seller Platform

Chinese sellers within the Amazon marketplace could represent a significant portion of the third-party sellers. Although Amazon does not publicly disclose any data of sellers’ location on the Amazon.com US site, according to Market Place Pulse, approximately 38% of the top sellers are based in China and 44% of China sellers were calculated among the 5 marketplaces (France, Germany, Italy, UK and Spain). 

The majority of Chinese sellers, more than 79%, utilize Amazon Fulfillment (FBA) services that allow for customers to receive items quickly. This has resulted in US sellers struggling to compete in the market while also allowing customers to experience the same shipping experience regardless of the products’ origin.  

Legitimate US Companies Can’t Compete with Rampant Flock of Fraudulent Chinese Vendors

This insurgence of sellers from China are affecting US sellers that have sold products imported from overseas because they are not able to provide competitive prices against Chinese suppliers that are now selling the same products on the site. 

In an interview with the WSJ, a US based company that sells goose-feather duvets claims that they’ve struggled to compete with Chinese sellers that claim to sell the same quality goods but are counterfeits. This US company bought the Chinese “equivalent” and had the materials tested and found that they were duck feathers, instead of its proclaimed goose-feathers, and were being sold at a fraction of the price.

These deceptive listings not only hurt the customers that believe that they are purchasing one thing but actually receive another, but they are also killing a number of legitimate companies’ chances to make a living. The company brought the testing results to Amazon’s attention and the counterfeits were removed. However, the burden of responsibility in locating vendors that sell “fakes” should not be on the third party seller’s shoulders.

Consumers have also been deceived into thinking a product is great based on 5 star feedback when, in actuality, a string of companies have been proven to directly influence inauthentic reviews by bribing customers with gift cards in exchange for a high rating.  

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Business

New Tesla Gigafactory praised as Boost for The German Economy

Tesla Storefront on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, Germany – Photo / Monique Ly

Brandenberg premier Sees Tesla move as the start of a Trend…

The rapid build-out of Elon Musk’s Gigafactory 4 near Berlin is getting praise from local officials for influencing a trend toward local job and factory growth. In Germany, which is at the forefront of the transition to renewable energy sources, currently at 40% from wind and solar power, with peaks up to 65% in a given week, and local carmakers in a ramp-up to increased EV production, those same manufacturers have recently chosen cheaper foreign alternatives for their new factories.

BMW and Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes Benz, both chose Hungry in recent years for new plants.

However, since Tesla’s announcement of the new Gigafactory near Berlin, Dietmar Woidke, premier of Brandenburg, the area where Berlin is located, has said that he has seen a significant uptick in interest from other companies to move to the region.

“Tesla will cause other companies to follow,”

– Dietmar Woidke, premier of Brandenburg, Germany

“They are already on their way. I’m hearing there are further inquiries with the communities and the regional business development program. Tesla will cause other companies to follow,”, he was quoted as saying in “Die Welt” a german business magazine.

Already expecting Deal Confirmations before the end of the year

He indicated that his office was already in talks with other companies in the electric transportation and energy storage sectors, but could not divulge any names due to non-disclosure agreements.

He also indicated that there would likely be an announcement on the matter “before Christmas”.

With goals, clearly achievable, to increase the percentage of clean energy sources that supply the country to 65% by 2030, and now the transportation infrastructure transitioning to electric vehicles (as well as other non-ICE systems), Germany appears to be on its way to becoming a model for other countries to follow, toward a future of reduced carbon emissions.

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Business, Tech

Nike Pulls the Plug on Amazon: The Two Year Pilot Program is Over

Nike Shoe Steps on Sad Amazon – Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Upsplash

Just Do It – Nike Dunks on, or Rather Dumps Amazon

In 2017 Nike participated in a pilot program to test out selling a small sampling of its products on the Amazon e-commerce site. Now, in late 2019, Nike made the decision to end that relationship, one that will have only lasted a little over two years. This parting will mean that Nike will no longer sell any of its merchandise directly through Amazon.com.

In a Yahoo Finance interview with the President, Heidi O’Neil, she explained, “We have ended our pilot with Amazon — it comes back to being incredibly committed to amazing experiences for our consumers, direct relationships and building unbreakable relationships. We want to move forward and make sure we continue to innovate on our own platform.”

Nike’s separation from Amazon comes at a time when Nike has also made internal changes to its leadership. Heidi O’Neil has been President of Nike Direct for one year (working within Nike in the marketing department for 20 years). Mark Parker current CEO will soon be stepping down and taking on the role of executive chair and be succeeded by John Donahoe at the start of the new year on January 13, 2020. Donahoe was the former CEO of eBay and current chairman of PayPal, his experience with e-commerce and online payment systems will surely serve Nike well. 

Sharing Customer Relations is not what Amazon was Built On

Nike’s shift away from Amazon serves the company’s larger mission to provide stronger customer relations. Using a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business approach, the aim is to sell more Nike products through its own website and stores – which is something not possible when partnering with Amazon. 

Since making a purchase through Amazon, all points of communication begin and end and are funneled through its platform. If any third-party vendor (even Nike) required additional information from a buyer or wanted to reach out to establish more of a relationship with customer – this involves, at best, a shared information system as the customer is deemed, by Amazon, to be its own, regardless of what brand they are purchasing. This stranglehold of customer data allows for Amazon to keep control in the purchasing process from start to finish. 

In addition, companies that sell on Amazon and have repeat business on the platform do not reap the customer relation benefits, instead Amazon asserts control of that customer relationship. 

Nike’s status as a well-established brand fortunately does not necessarily need to rely on Amazon’s fast shipping and low prices in order to its attract customers – instead the company can focus more on its desired goals to bring about “unbreakable relationships” with those that sport Nike footwear and branded gear.

After Nike’s exit from Amazon, things can only get better: For Nike

Nike counterfeits and unauthorized sellers have always been a concern for the company and was a major discussion point prior to entering into the pilot program with Amazon. Brands that do not sell directly on Amazon are often faced with resellers filling that gap. Grey market goods and resellers with fake or counterfeit products have been a major problem with Nike related products – even conducting a simple Amazon search for Nike products will yield many a reviews that point out the above issues.

“The move shows us that strong brands realize that traffic driven to their own site is self-sustaining, more profitable, and actually brand enhancing, while traffic and incremental revue from Amazon.com is less profitable but also less brand enhancing.”

– Randy Konik, Jefferies & Company ANalyst

Although Nike will cease listing on Amazon, the e-commerce site will still have third party sellers that hold Nike products available for purchase, which leaves the door open for problems relating to authenticity that customers will have to risk if they purchase on a site other than Nike.com.

The counterfeit issue within the Amazon marketplace has been such a rampant problem that another large name footwear brand, Birkenstock removed its products and no longer sell on Amazon as of 2016.

Nike, as one of the best known product lines to leave the online-selling platform is sure to affect Amazon’s future attempts of attracting other big name brands. 

Randy Konik a Jefferies analyst spoke about Nike’s departure: “The move shows us that strong brands realize that traffic driven to their own site is self-sustaining, more profitable, and actually brand enhancing, while traffic and incremental revue from Amazon.com is less profitable but also less brand enhancing.”

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Business, Tech

The iPhone 12 could see a Serious Sales Boom for Apple due to 5G and Starlink Internet

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https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/iphone-11-pro/2019/3bd902e4-0752-4ac1-95f8-6225c32aec6d/films/product/iphone-11-pro-product-tpl-cc-us-2019_1920x1080h.mp4

Rumors Already Predicting big things for the iPhone 12: 5G plus Starlink will only Add to the Furor…

Seems like just yesterday that Apple Inc. released the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. Consumers are still riding high on the hype and performance of these latest smartphone models. Nevertheless, Apple is already looking to the future and creating estimates for the iPhone 12 in 2020. According to Digitimes, Apple expects that the iPhone 12 will be one of the company’s most successful models.

While the 11 and 11 Pro are expected to have sold 80 million units by the end of 2019, Apple predicts that they will receive over 100 million orders for the 12 next year. 

Apple anticipates such high figures for the iPhone 12 in part due to oncoming innovations in 5G and satellite Internet. While the software and hardware details of the new phone remain shrouded in mystery for now, there is high confidence that the device will be built for the latest advances in Internet speed and 5G networking—a powerful upgrade that is bound to bring in many customers. 

Right now, the term “satellite Internet” may seem like something slow, old-fashioned, and used only by people living in remote locations where traditional broadband sources are unavailable. This may be the case at the moment, but new technology known as “Low Earth Orbit” micro-satellites could bring satellite Internet access with fiber optic speeds and beyond. Constellations of these micro-satellites could not only deliver the internet to more people around the world, they could potentially reinvent satellite Internet as a high-speed and perhaps even premiere way for virtually all people to get online.

Many tech companies have been trying to perfect micro-satellites and get the upper hand and dominate the skies. Leading the charge is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which intends to cover the stratosphere with thousands of low-orbit satellites through its StarLink initiative. The company has already gotten approval by the FCC to launch several thousand micro-satellites into the sky, and they intend to keep launching more until they have a massive interconnected network of satellites orbiting the globe.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson & OneWeb, Google, and Facebook are all playing competitive catch up with SpaceX on the micro-satellite front. Jeff Bezos has been pursuing Project Kuiper, a satellite-oriented task which aims to provide worldwide broadband access via space. While certainly not as far along as StarLink, Kuiper plans to have hundreds of satellites in the sky in the near future.

Google has an alternative route to Low Earth Orbit micro-satellites, relying on weather balloons with antennas to stand in for cell towers and provide service to greater areas—an initiative that the company has coined “Loon.” Simultaneously, Facebook tried to make headway with its “FreeBasics” project, whereby the social network also wants to get more people active and connected on the web, and, of course, logged into its Social Network. 

5G Speeds will be the Big Upgrade but the extended Competition and Coverage of Satellites are Next

After purchasing Intel’s 5G modem unit earlier this year, and with 5G modems by Qualcom already widely expected to be in the iPhone 12, Apple is uniquely positioned to be at the forefront of this looming expansion of mobile data networks and satellite internet access points.

It’s important to remember that 5G and satellite internet both have the potential to be much faster than current broadband connections. However, the roll out timing is uncertain and the speed increases will depend on various systems and stages of network build as well as many other factors. For example, an ultra fast satellite system is being built by LeoSat which will be used by Enterprise level customers at up 5.2 Gigabits, close to double the speed of fiber, but this will be exclusively business users, at least initially.

It is the sheer breath of competition and the wide array of systems in the mix that insures that there will be more options, and more speed coming online by 2021. Not only for mobile phones but for mobile laptops and as wireless home and business routing systems also.

What all this means, in a nutshell, for Apple, is that more people will want to buy smartphones that are capable of accessing these newer, faster internet providers. If StarLink (or any of the other upcoming satellite services) can provide a greater fraction of the world with Internet access, more people will desire the latest devices to make full use that Internet. Likewise, these consumers will also want the device that is most compatible with 5G and micro-satellite technology.

Given Apple’s record, the company will probably release the iPhone 12 in September, 2020. 5G will already be in an ongoing build-out phase, with T-mobil launching on December 6, 2019 and Verizon, AT&T and Sprint already in the mix. StarLink will likely not be up and ready by that time—they are aiming for an initial roll out to start as early as mid 2020 and with continuous expansion to 2022 and beyond. However, the project will certainly be further along in becoming a worldwide sensation, with launches of multiple satellites happening every few months.

With 5G speed, and an Operating System fit for the latest forms access in its arsenal, and with the fastest chips and most powerful software and systems to accommodate the added bandwidth, the iPhone 12 has the potential to be a blockbuster of historic proportions, even by Apple’s high standards.

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Business, Observation, Tech

Cybertruck Turnaround tells us a Boatload about Tesla, Elon Musk and the Future

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https://www.tesla.com/xNVh4yUEc3B9/11_Desktop_Video.mp4

More than 200k in pre-orders and Future buyers posting Proof Online as a Badge of Honor

The Cybertruck unveiling at the SpaceX adjacent Tesla Design Center on November 21st was one for the the ages. The initial reaction by the throngs of invited press (invitations were required and very hard to come by for the ultra-anticipated event) was to run with the obvious: smash proof window failure and wild twitter responses to the extreme throw-back-style design.

Elon Musk even pre-revealed what the general look the truck would be before the event, as if he was concerned that people needed a preview to reduce the shock of seeing the radical concept without a prior hint of what was to come.

And then, within 24 hours of the unveiling, literally 100s of online media outlets pumped out articles, perhaps with a ratio of two or three to one ridiculing the design, or the issues with the on-stage window demonstration vs. the minority actually digging deeper into the truck itself and how it might actually fare in the real world. One outlet even speculated that the whole concept was 100% fake and that there was no chance that any truck, at least not similar to this one, would ever be produced.

In the run-up to the epic unveiling, Musk hinted that the truck would possibly be influenced by the “Blade Runner” aesthetic and cyberpunk ethos and might be like “an armored personnel carrier from the future”. And how spot on those hints turned out to be!

Once the pre-orders started to flood in, something changed, big time.

Within 72 hours Elon had tweeted milestones for the $100 fully refundable pre-orders. First that approximately 160k and then more than 200k orders had been taken. Not quite at the level of the Model 3 pre-orders, and at a much lower cost (Model 3 was a $1000 deposit) but, for an unveiling that was considered by the press, generally, to be a failure and even worthy of mocking and derision, this was an abrupt, if not surprising turn-around.

Not surprising because this type of press-vs-the public behavior is commonplace in all areas of commerce and entertainment. Just last summer, Disney’s Lion King was almost universally panned by critics, then went on, predictably, to be one of the biggest financial successes in movie history. Cybertruck is unlikely to be that extreme as it bounces back from the initial negativity coming from the press, but what the bounce back says about Tesla, climate change and the future is an even more fascinating story, to observe and speculate on, than that cute and cuddly digital cat.

[gdgallery_gallery id_gallery=”30″]

Tesla’s Support and Status as a Hero in the Fight against the Fossil Fuel Industrial Complex and ICE automakers runs deep and strong

The speculation on why Elon Musk chose to design and offer this vehicle at this time has obviously run rampant. There are many theories, most of them pretty silly, and, short of a detailed announcement from the man himself, there can be no definitive statement.

However, now that the pre-orders are proving to be robust and the company’s stock has rebounded (probably unrelated but, that’s another story), the possibility of a “crazy like a fox” story behind it all begins to make more sense.

One interesting development is the tweets of the deposit receipts as a badge of honor among the faithful. This could just be folks who love everything about the truck and it’s radical design and features.

It could also, however, be something larger in play. Once the truck concept vs. the EV concept is taken into account the process of observing social and commercial trends in this case becomes very interesting.

Factoid 1: Incidents involving Tesla charging stations being blocked and vandalized have generally been perpetrated by strange rogue Pick-up truck owners and there has been an exaggerated hate and pride in driving a gas guzzling anti-Tesla. It’s bizarre to think that Tesla in this case could be creating a kind of counter force to these oddly “pro-gasoline” wackos who seems to see Tesla as some sort of flashpoint for their retro-oil-fetish. And, the Cybertruck is bulletproof (!?).

Factoid 2: While it has been well documented that Tesla stands virtually alone against the power structure of the entire world in its crusade to rid the world of ICE vehicles ASAP, the degree to which the general public has a strong desire and motive to support the company and its products, above and beyond a love for the products themselves or its leader, is as yet an unknown quantity.

In the press at large (many who are beholden to the ICE power structure) Tesla is often seen as just another carmaker selling wares, while customers may have a deeper connection as they search for ways to support solutions to the climate crisis as individuals. This could be a major and growing force in the days and months ahead, and can be a powerful resource to help to keep Tesla afloat even when Elon Musk decides to tackle challenging and even outlandish ventures.

Factoid 3: Perhaps more fantasy based than fact supported, the connection between the climate crisis as a motivation to buy and EV truck may go even deeper and wider than just the battery power. As a virtual disaster survival vehicle with various features that would be potentially life saving in a post-catastrophe situation – such as being employed as a bug-out vehicle to escape a flooded urban area. Various features seem to be conceived in response to a potential dystopian fantasy, but could be extremely valuable in a real emergency. The almost tank like durability, the shatterproof windows (as long as a sledgehammer doesn’t hit the door first), the battery powered cooking facilities in the camping-mode version, even the optional ATV come to mind.

“an armored personnel carrier from the future.”

– Elon Musk

Taking this thought experiment to its furthest possible conclusion its not hard to imagine a future (the Cybertruck could be on streets by perhaps 2021-2022) where the factions who support ICE trucks and the anti-fossil fuel “warriors”, each become radicalized and clash in some crazy mad max survival contest on US highways.

A more Optimistic stroke of Genius could also have played a role

Another very interesting possibility is that Elon Musk, known for being a master playing in marketing ventures, as well as being dedicated to sharing the EV market gladly with “competitors”, who he sees more as partners, once they take up the mantel of helping to accelerate the global transition to sustainable energy transportation.

It is no coincidence that GM, Ford, and many others have announced EV truck projects and details in the wake of the Cybertruck unveiling. It is a given that they will be watching very closely as Tesla ventures in to the traditional automakers most lucrative market segment.

“Trucks have been the same for a very long time like 100 years, we wanted to try something different,”

– Elon musk

For Musk and Tesla, however, it is clearly a win-win if you understand the higher purpose and motivation that infuses all activities within the company and yet is often misunderstood by others.

If the Cybertruck does not command a large market share and somehow ends up like the DeLorean that it resembles, it will have, nevertheless, been a huge success in forcing the hand of the legacy automakers toward offering more EV options asap.

The legacy ICE carmakers cannot afford to wait while hoping that Tesla will fail. That phase of the battle over sustainable vs fossil-fuel transportation is over. Tesla is a force to be reckoned with and the Cybertruck, along with its on-going army of supporters who’ve ponied up C-notes, are making themselves seen and heard and stand as a warning that it’s not only the climate that’s changing on this planet.

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Business, Politics, Tech

Amnesty International Calls Out Google and Facebook for Lack of Cyber-Security And Invasion of Privacy

Consensus Building Rapidly Against the Business Models of Internet Giants

Earlier this week, Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization from the UK, called Google and Facebook’s practices of omnipresent surveillance on people around the world an “assault on privacy.” The organization, which focuses on human rights, recently released a report outlining how these two major tech companies hold too much power and should change their business models to stop infringing on users’ personal information. 

Amnesty International’s accusations may seem extreme, but that does not mean that they are inaccurate. While Google and Facebook might appear to be free websites, the reality is that you pay for their services with your data. Whenever you search for something, you feed the sites information—information that they can sell, manipulate, market, or use for a countless number of other things, some of them perhaps unethical.

The upside is that data is cheap, and therefore these websites are not about to start charging you. The downside, however, is that there are really no limits to how tech juggernauts like Google or Facebook (or Apple, or Amazon, or Microsoft for that matter) use the data you provide them. No concrete laws in the United States monitor these companies’ use of data, and given that the Internet was built as a place of free-flowing information, there are no internal boundaries that stop these websites from taking full, unrestricted advantage of your information.

This is not the first time that Facebook and Google have been called out for issues regarding privacy and cyber-ethics. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has found himself before Congress on more than one occasion recently. Ever since it became known that Cambridge Analytica used web data to falsely advertise on Facebook during the 2016 elections, the social network’s surveillance tactics have been in question.  

Benign Monarchs? Not Likely.

As for Google, the website practically has a monopoly on web-searches across the world. The search engine accounts for 90% of the Internet searches on Earth, and it is not always transparent about what it does with the resulting data. With such huge numbers, though, Google can afford to distribute your extensive information to just about anyone—even government organizations or institutions with malintent.

The two companies usually respond to these kinds of accusations with vague optimism about current and future cyber-safety. Google claims to have changed its model within the last year, making the site more user-friendly and giving its patrons more control. Meanwhile, Facebook has largely stood its ground when it comes to online freedom. Zuckerberg and other Facebook officials have suggested that they will heighten security, but they simultaneously stand by that censorship on any scale is constrictive and antithetical to the website’s intent.

Facebook also owns Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and several other websites/apps that are used across borders, making the issue a conglomerate and worldly one. Although they are both American companies by origin, both Facebook and Google are international entities. Thus, creating laws around their practices is a complicated and culturally sensitive process.

At the same time, though, these enterprises have been going unchecked and unchallenged for well over a decade now. When they started, the digital world was much smaller and very different than it is now. Technology has changed, and so has the world— now the rules that govern it must follow suit.

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Business, Earth and Ecology

California Creates New Plan to Lower Emissions Despite being Denied Right to set own Standards

Tesla Semi Rendering / Photo / Tesla

If State Legislation Doesn’t Work, Hit the Offenders Where it Hurts…

A couple of weeks ago, California lost a battle with the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Wanting to set its own standards for vehicular carbon emissions, California campaigned for statewide legislation that would call for lighter, more fuel-efficient cars. The Trump administration, however, backed by car manufactures such as General Motors, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler, eventually ruled that it was unconstitutional for California to set independent criteria when it came to carbon emissions, and that the state could not create a standard inconsistent with the federal rules.

The Golden State, however, has not given up in its battle to become more eco-friendly. Given the new stipulations, the state has come up with a reactionary plan to continue lowering emissions. Essentially, California is going to block out the car companies that stand in its way and instead use vehicles that already fall in line with its environmentally conscious goals.

This means that the California State government will no longer be purchasing vehicles from GM, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, or any other company that helped the Trump administration revoke its emissions policy. Likewise, the state will only be using low-emission vehicles and will be transitioning to electric vehicles as much as possible. 

Tesla, Rivian and Other Auto Companies’ Benefit by supporting CA’s Green Initiatives

In opposition to the handful car companies that are at odds with California right now, a few other enterprises actually benefit from the state’s eco-friendly plan. Honda, BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen have all backed California and they already make vehicles that fit in with the state’s environmental prerogatives. At the forefront of the situation, however, are Tesla and Rivian—the two premiere electric car manufacturers who can supply Cali with zero-emission vehicles.

Tesla and Rivian have even gone the extra mile, teaming up with charging companies and electric companies to form the National Coalition for Advanced Transportation (NCAT). This group’s goal is to advocate for California’s low-emission standards and try to spread fuel-efficient innovation around the world. It is currently trying to get additional U.S. states to follow in California’s footsteps, and it has filed a lawsuit against the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration for repealing Cali’s right to set its own rules when it comes to clean air.

Admittedly, these electricity-based companies and carmakers might have fiscal motives for pushing environmentally conscious agendas. Perhaps these auto-manufactures are just as interested in greasing their palms as they are in saving the planet or combatting climate change. Even if that is the case, though, and these companies do have ulterior motives, it does not put them in the wrong. In fact, their economic investment in being environmentally sustainable could be a huge step forward, for it shows that going green can be good for business—an eight letter word that has not always been the kindest when it comes to ecological consideration.

The California state government owns over fifty thousand vehicles from snowplows, to school busses, to police cars, to ambulances, and more. The fact that they are ghosting GM, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler and other brands that opposed its initiatives is a big loss for those companies. At the same time, the fact that they are investing in environmentally conscious car manufacturers will launch these eco-friendly companies to greater heights. With fifty thousand vehicles following these stringent emission standards rules, it is possible that the trend will spread outside the Golden State and end up fostering a legitimate shift forward in the ongoing fight against climate change.

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Business

Disney+ Vastly Exceeds its own Expectations, Achieving 10 Million Subscribers within First Day

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Star Wars

Streaming Wars are adding Choices for Consumers

Nobody ever doubted that Disney+ would be a success. From the second that the streaming service was announced, almost everyone knew that the website—which offers nearly every film and TV show in the Walt Disney catalogue—would be an enormous step forward for the company.

When Disney+ finally arrived on Tuesday, however, it did not just meet expectations. It immediately surpassed them, surprising even its parent company in the process. 

Within twenty-four hours of the website’s launch, Disney+ reached over 10 million subscribers. This is a number that many did not expect Disney+ to reach for at least a year. To put it in perspective, Disney+ already has more subscribers than HBO Now, CBS All-Access, and Showtime… all reputable services that have been in existence for several years. Disney+ surpassed each of them in the course of a single day.

Of course, this is reason for the Walt Disney Company to celebrate. Even at the affordable price of $7 per month or $70 per year, Disney+ is bound to be a financial goldmine for the company. 

That being said, not all of the 10 million current subscribers are guaranteed customers. Disney+ offers new members a seven-day free trial, so we can assume that at least a few people will binge for a week and then drop the service once they have to pay. Likewise, Verizon has offered the service for free to some of its users, which could account for some of the people lumped into Disney’s hefty figure. 

Nevertheless, not even the higher-ups at Disney anticipated so many people to subscribe on day one. The website’s initial activity was so intense that it actually overwhelmed the service, leaving many users with Error pages and foreboding screens reading “Unable to Connect to Disney+” accompanied by Disney’s very own Wreck-It-Ralph. Over ten thousand reports of this took place on Tuesday, making many subscribers nervous. Luckily, Disney apologized for the inconvenience and swiftly adapted to the unexpectedly large number of patrons. 

The service has been running smoothly ever since, offering users everything that it advertised. With very few exceptions, the service has every piece of Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar content along with Disney classics, National Geographic shows, and several original programs, most notably “The Mandalorian,” which is the first ever live-action series to take place in the Star Wars universe. 

Baby Yoda / Photo / Disney

Do I sound like a Fan? Ok, sorry, you got me

And this is only the beginning! The service promises more originals including “WandaVision,” “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “Loki,” and “What If…?” under the Marvel banner as well as two more Star Wars series: one focusing on Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi from the prequel trilogy and another one focusing on Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor from “Rogue One.” This is not even to mention all of the original movies, animated content, and pre-released Disney titles that are yet to make their way onto the service. Clearly, the current 10 million subscribers are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

The only ones not celebrating Disney+ right now may be its streaming competitors. While Netflix responded to the Disney’s success with optimism, looking forward to improving their own brand with original content, Amazon, CBS, and other companies of the sort are probably shaking. Likewise, we can imagine that WarnerMedia, Apple, and NBCUniversal, each of whom are about to launch their own streaming services, are sitting on the edges of their seats, fearfully glaring at Disney’s instant accomplishment.

The streaming wars have begun. Many more armies are yet to arrive on the battlefield, but Disney+ has certainly made its presence known. Not even a week into its life, it is striding into combat with confidence, power, and a militia of 10 million soldiers, joyfully armed with a vast inventory of intellectual property that is far from tapped out.

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Business, Climate Solutions, Cutting Edge, Tech

Bring It On: Elon Musk & Tesla and the EV Explosion of New Models across the Auto Industry

Video
https://video-lynxotic.akamaized.net/What-is-Mach.mp4
Ford MUSTANG Mach-E SUV Scheduled Announcement for Nov. 17

Ford Announcement is Harbinger of Avalanche of New EV Models are on the Horizon from virtually every Major Automaker

With today’s scheduled announcement of a new Ford Mustang EV and a slew of other companies rushing into the fray, the transition into more sustainable automotive transportation has gone into hyperdrive.

Since it’s founding in 2003, Tesla has been about two things: all electric zero emission electric cars and making them fun, fast and sexy.

The genius of this cannot be overstated. In retrospect, it can even be said that the auto industry intentionally tried to make EV’s, to the extent that they were developed at all, an experience like eating broccoli while everyone else at the table feasted on a cornucopia of delights. The idea appeared to be to intentionally fail and thereby take away the need for EV’s to be produced at all (and ICE vehicle production to continue uninterrupted)

Elon Musk and Tesla put a stop to all that. Facing incredible resistance and negative press bordering on sabotage, nevertheless the company persisted and stuck to the concept: EVs must be not only have a long range and be powerful but also be fast and fun like hell to drive.

Also, could it be that all the boring, staid productions and designs were built specifically to fail? That the fossil fuel industrial complex wanted to perpetuate itself (automakers included) and stop or at least slow down the transition to EVs?

For years, there was not much more than a trickle of projects at other manufacturers trying to follow suit. No more. Not only are there huge and growing numbers of new models either in production or soon to be produced, but longer term commitments and infrastructure investments, particularly by the top German automakers are being announced virtually by the day.

https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/roadster_videos/roadster-loop-imperial.mp4?20180329
Tesla Roadster

Theses commitments follow not only close attention to the sales numbers and successes of Tesla’s Roadster, Model 3, S and X, but, with a high likelihood, huge companies are seeing that the tide is turning in awareness of the need for sustainable energy infrastructure among the general public.

Although there is plenty of debate as to whether battery based individual cars can be powered by primarily sustainable energy sources (Solar, wind, etc), it is clear that reducing CO2 emissions by phasing out, and eventually eliminating, ICE vehicles is a positive step forward.

Photo / Tesla

The Future can’t wait, and thankfully, Elon and Tesla Survived and Brought us All to this Moment

But the genius and power, seldom singled out for praise of any kind (even among Tesla fanatics), in finding “sexy” ways to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and of waging war against the capitalist world that itself created the problem of Global Warming, is mind-bendingly fantastic.

While this sounds almost insane at first blush, Elon Musk and Tesla are proving that, by focusing on making products that are not only environmentally progressive but also attractive to consumers, (using a marketing style straight out of Apple and Steve Jobs playbook) the “free market” can bring extreme pressure to bear on polluting fossil fuel behemoths and force them to change.

The brilliance of this is deep and formidable. In the end, it is “the people” that must stand up and act to change the ways that we travel and use transportation. It has been clear for half a century that a “top-down” approach where a kind of energy austerity is forced on the public is not possible and would bring great hardship. And voluntary change by the power structure went virtually nowhere in the last 50 years.

Why not find ways to make sustainable energy solutions and products that improve the transportation systems into aspirational objects of desire and status? Why not make green more than just politically correct but also cutting edge and satisfying to the lifestyles of the affluent and mobile in the G7 member countries?

Tesla Store in Hamburg, Germany

One Step Forward is better than Excuses not to Act, which has been the Stance of Government and Industry until now

And so what if battery factories are not yet able to run on 100% sustainable energy sources? Isn’t it better to start now and accelerate the transition to a better way? Tesla is also a solar company and a battery manufacturing company and is doing everything possible to upgrade all available technology to make its entire operation more completely sustainable and “green”.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see the rest of the auto industry (and indeed other industries and companies) to follow this path of prioritizing sustainable energy production and use?

Now, today, we see that a miracle has happened. Using great technology and product designs and marketing them with emphasis on the driving pleasure, speed and sexy fun, just as much as the environmental benefits Tesla has pulled and prodded the rest of the auto industry toward the future, and forced them to abandon all efforts to delay or impede the transition to sustainable energy in automotive transport.

In a war with a single company / entity against almost literally the entire world infrastructure, the war was won by the underdog, hands down.

Perhaps this is a lesson for the future: that winning the hearts, minds and the wallets of the general public, by creating products people love, can be an even better catalyst for positive change, than preaching suffering and guilt while clinging to the obsolete structures of the past.

You can watch the live unveiling of the Mustang Mach-E at 5:15 PM (PST) Nov. 17, 2019 below:

https://youtu.be/o0F9Uktpgtk

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Business

Alibaba does $38.3 Billion in 24 hours with the help of Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey and Kim Kardashian

Video
https://f1.media.brightcove.com/12/5392214352001/5392214352001_5860365713001_5860365339001.mp4
MARIAH CAREY AT GLOBAL SHOPPING FESTIVAL 2019

Alibaba Group Holding Limited’s annual Singles’ Day sales event is held on the 11th of November. The origin of Singles’ Day comes from the event’s date, 11/11 or “double eleven,” which references the number one as it relates to being single and not in a relationship (one is the loneliest number after all). When it first occurred in 2009, it was a kind of anti-Valentine’s Day when single people could splurge and purchase gifts for themselves. In its more recent years, Singles’ Day has welcomed all, regardless of their relationship status, and has turned into a major online shopping event where consumers across the globe can buy name brand items at discounted prices. Because of its worldwide popularity, this ‘single’-day sales event was eventually rebranded into the Global Shopping Festival in 2015 as it became more like a “holiday season celebrated by merchants and consumers worldwide.”

This year immediately yielded huge numbers, with the company reporting $17 billion dollars (120.7 billion yuan) in just the first hour and a half alone. The first nine hours has yielded $22 billion dollars (158.31 billion yuan) and many project the sales to beat 2018, which brought Alibaba approximately $30 billion dollars worth of sales from Singles’ Day.

At the moment the clock hit 24 hours and $38.3 billion in GMV

Although it’s often dubbed as China’s equivalent to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Singles’ Day is much bigger. This year, within the first 68 seconds of the event, Alibaba Group achieved their first $1 billion in sales, and at the half hour mark, they recorded their first $10 billion in sales. After their first 24 hours, they surpassed the previous year’s record of $30.7 billion in sales with approximately $38.4 billion. In comparison, last year’s Black Friday grabbed just under $25 billion in total sales over a five-day period, while Cyber Monday, for example, had less than $8 billion.

Over 200,000 brands are participating, one million new products are on offer and more than 500 million users are expected to participate in this year’s festival – about 100 million more than last year. Estimated consumer savings from brand and platform promotions and coupons are around RMB 50 billion.

global shopping festival 2019 / alibaba group

Although Alibaba is a Chinese e-commerce site, nearly half a billion shoppers participate around the world as they bolster their global reach through their multiple websites dedicated to handling sales between China and specific global regions, with Hong Kong, US, Australia, UK, and Japan accounting for some of the international buyers that take part. 

“This year, both buyers and merchants have more than doubled and we’ve already seen a series of record-breaking moments. We’re looking forward to sharing even more good news.”

Yin Jing, Co-President of Lazada, a Subsidiary of Alibaba Group

The event’s launch included a countdown celebration gala that was broadcasted from the Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Arena. Musical performances from Jackson Yee, G.E.M. and Taylor Swift, along with a live stream with Kim Kardashian, helped to promote sales further on the evening before the big day. Also, something noteworthy about this year’s event is that co-founder and former chairman Jack Ma was not present as he recently resigned in September of this year, which coincidentally lined up with the company’s 20th anniversary since it was first established. 

Alibaba’s CTO Jeff Zhange described the event as an

“Airplane flying at turbo speed.”

Jeff Zhang, CTO of Alibaba

Additionally, he attributed this speed to the company’s biggest focus of making this “airplane” more efficient.

The 2019 event is particularly significant in regards to the continued US and China trade war, with many Chinese companies riddled with uncertainty about the future of their businesses, yet according to what Richard Wong, Head of ICT for APAC, stated to Bloomberg TV, “Alibaba will probably be the one that will be able to circumvent and come out from the trade war in better shape”.

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Business, Tech

T-Mobile to Launch 5G Network Nationwide in December: iPhone 12 could start 5G Revolution

5G Network to be Available in Over 5,000 Cities through T-Mobile in 2019…

Recently, T-Mobile announced that they are set to launch their 5G network nationwide in over 5,000 cities next month on December 6th. This comes after a successful trial period in select cities where their millimeter wave 5G was deployed for testing. For their official launch, they plan to use a 600MHZ band spectrum, which will slightly affect its 5G internet speed, but with the benefit of being able to cover more space and penetrate buildings.

The widest increase in coverage to date by T-Mobile, the new, slightly slower version will increase the initial overall coverage to over 200 million subscribers. In optimal conditions the network is predicted to ultimately reach speeds of up to 10 times the current LTE network at 450 mbps.

China’s carriers, China Unicorn, China Telecom and China Mobile all recently announced accelerated plans to launch 5G services in 2019, ahead of initial projections of a 2020 time frame. Services are currently available in 50 cities across the Middle Kingdom, and 130,000 5G base stations are planned to be activated by the end of the year, according to a government press release.

Currently, however, there are only a couple of smartphones that can take advantage of 5G. Models made by Samsung (Galaxy Note 10 ) and OnePlus (7T Pro 5G) are currently available. Naturally, this entire transition will be a multi-year affair, with 2024 being a date for eventual transition to a majority of users.

Network Build-out and Consumer Adoption could hit Initial Peak in 2021

This gradual, yet sooner than expected, expansion of 5G coverage comes at an interesting time for iPhone users as Apple continues to develop their 5G iPhone technology for their future launch in September 2020, after recently acquiring Intel’s smartphone modem unit for their upcoming 5G push back in July.

Although much has been made of the race to 5G and the battle between the U.S. and China for leadership in the area, it will likely be the adoption by consumers, dependent on the investment by same in the associated costs, that will ultimately determine the speed of the transition. The improvements to all forms of online communication, particularly when coupled with the planned rollout of global satellite systems, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, have the potential to spur major changes in the coming decade.

As 5G internet coverage becomes more widespread through the various carrier roll-outs, it has the potential to revolutionize audio and visual technology by making high-quality sound and video more accessible to the general public. Once this 10x optimal speed and bandwidth become “standard”, all forms of online media will become more viable, hence the current steaming wars.

Interestingly, this nationwide 5G coverage could possibly be even greater if T-Mobile and Sprint are able to merge successfully, especially after considering that they obtained the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) approval for the merger in the midst of anti-trust concerns and a multi-state lawsuit against it.

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Breaking News, Business, Politics, Tech

Apple Announces a $2.5 billion plan to combat California Housing Crisis

Photo / Apple

Apple’s Ambitious Commitment for Affordable Housing in California

Earlier today, Apple announced its $2.5 billion commitment to combat the housing affordability crisis in California.

$1 billion is designated for an affordable housing investment fund that provides an open line of credit to develop and build new low-to moderate-income housing at a faster rate and lower cost. Another $1 billion is designated for a first-time homebuyer mortgage assistance fund that will provide first-time homebuyers with financing and downpayment assistance with an emphasis on accessibility to first-time homeownership for service personnel, school employees, and veterans.

The remaining $0.5 billion will be for more specific projects that require immediate attention in the San Francisco Bay Area. $300 million will fund Apple-owned and available land in San Jose for affordable housing development. $150 million will go directly to a housing fund specifically for the Bay Area, which currently faces the brunt of the housing crisis. And finally, $50 million will be set apart to support vulnerable populations that will focus on driving systemic change across the many factors affecting homelessness. The $50 million will primarily go to “Destination: Home” to support their efforts to address homelessness in Silicon Valley, after which Apple will make similar efforts to combat homelessness throughout California.

Why is a Tech Company suddenly interested in affordable housing?

Before Silicon Valley became the vibrant tech powerhouse that it is today, and as well as one of the primary driving forces for the San Francisco Bay Area housing crisis, it was the home of Apple and thereby the birthplace of revolutionary personal technology.

Because of Apple’s historical impact on revolutionizing technology for the entire world since it introduced the Macintosh in 1984, the company felt a civic responsibility to alleviate the outrageous condition of California’s housing market that’s exacerbated by being a career destination for the ever-growing tech industry that they initiated into the world.

“Before the world knew the name Silicon Valley, and long before we carried technology in our pockets, Apple called this region home, and we feel a profound civic responsibility to ensure it remains a vibrant place where people can live, have a family and contribute to the community.”

– Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

The Golden State has yet to End its Gold Rush of Population Growth

As California increasingly becomes a more desirable place to live through a variety of factors, the cost of living skyrockets because residential properties increase in both scarcity and value and makes affordable housing availability unable to keep up with the state’s population growth.

It doesn’t help that the presence of the booming tech industry in the San Francisco Bay Area brings in an additional influx of tech professionals at a rapid pace. At this point, only tech professionals who make six-figure salaries could barely afford to live in the area while valuable community members like teachers, firefighters, and emergency first-responders are forced out.

“Affordable housing means stability and dignity, opportunity and pride. When these things fall out of reach for too many, we know the course we are on is unsustainable, and Apple is committed to being part of the solution.”

– Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

After having studied the housing issue in-depth, Apple’s full commitment to the state, in partnership with Governor Gavin Newsom, the state of California and community-based organizations, aims to provide statewide housing support that will be fully utilized in approximately two years, depending on housing project availabilities.

Photo / Apple

“The sky-high cost of housing — both for homeowners and renters — is the defining quality-of-life concern for millions of families across this state, one that can only be fixed by building more housing. This partnership with Apple will allow the state of California to do just that.”

– Gavin Newsom, Governor of California

Additionally, the capital returned to Apple through this project will be reinvested into future projects over the next five years. In the meantime, Apple is looking for private developers who are ready to start construction on affordable housing projects in the Bay Area as soon as possible.

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Business, Climate Solutions

Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson on Trial for allegedly Deceiving Investors about Climate Change

After their Destructive Secret was out, Exxon Mobil had yet to face Accountability until Now

It is no secret that Exxon Mobil hasn’t been the kindest to the planet over the years. The big oil company is one of the nation’s most prominent gasoline providers, and fueling automobiles is the world’s leading purpose for fossil fuel burning and the foremost cause of greenhouse gas emissions. 

For years Exxon has gone unchecked for the environmental damage they have done as a company—after all, they were never really doing anything illegal. However, former Exxon Chief Executive Officer and U.S. Secretary of State under President Trump, Rex W. Tillerson is currently in hot water. The man is facing two legal battles, one in New York and one in Massachusetts, for allegedly lying to investors about the risks and impacts of global warming.

The Case Casts the Primary Offense towards their Investors, not the Environment

At last, Tillerson may be held accountable, but these are not environmental trials per-se. Instead, they are hitting the oil tycoon where it really hurts: his wallet. And the cases are not about compensating for ecological destruction, but something far more pertinent to those who navigate the corporate world: money.

In both New York and Massachusetts, Tillerson is accused of knowingly providing investors with false information about the climate crisis. Reportedly, Tillerson sold climate change as underwhelming, insignificant, and perhaps even good for business. Meanwhile, he depicted Exxon Mobil as a champion of environmentalism. While the company does do some philanthropy in that area, these statements clearly omit some essential details, namely that Exxon does far more harm than good for the natural world.

It may be a Fraud Case, but Tillerson’s Case could be a First Step towards an Environmental Win

Thus, the trial is really just a fraud case, a dry instance of one person deceiving another for financial benefit. These cases happen all the time and usually do not garner much attention. Given Tillerson’s prominence, though, and Exxon’s dodgy history in the battle against climate change, this particular fraud case has made some noise. While Tillerson argues that the press attention is unnecessary, pandering, and based on corporate stigma rather than facts, many environmentalists are happy to see a big oil company put on the stand and questioned about its impact on the planet.

At the end of the day, the trial is mainly about money, but the larger implications of Tillerson having to answer for Exxon’s climate denial involves something much more significant. Trojan-horsed as a fiscal wrongdoing, Tillerson’s current predicament stands as a testimony to environmental justice and shows that rich business executives are not immune to consequences.

If all this is confusing, that’s probably because major corporations usually try to mask these muddy legal situations with jargon and loopholes in order to maintain their quality public images. Right now, however, Tillerson may be caught in a trap, and Exxon’s lies, deceits, and blatant disregard for scientific accuracy are finally becoming apparent in black and white, even if what really brought him to the stand is printed in green.

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Business, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Movies, Tech

The Streaming Wars are about to Erupt and TV will never be the same again

Video
https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-tv-plus/2019/ca7883f2_885a_42c7_b0cc_529b287c1925/films/for-all-mankind/apple-tv-plus-for-all-mankind-tpl-cc-us-2019_1920x1080h.mp4
Official Trailer: “For All Mankind” from APple TV+

Everything You Need to Know before the Launch of Full Throttle Entertainment Competition

Over the past ten years, online streaming has changed the course of television history. Services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have transformed the way that we consume media, taking the physical TV out of TV and replacing it with laptops and handheld devices. In the upcoming months, however, history is about to take another enormous leap forwards, as the addition of several new streaming services will take entertainment to entirely new, competitive, and corporately segregated levels.

Enter the New Players: Every Other Major & Minor Studio

While Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu have more or less reigned supreme as the premiere streaming services since they launched, they will soon meet a new lineup of fierce rivals on the battlefield. Over the next few months, Disney, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, Apple, and NCBUniversal will all be entering the streaming world, respectively with the launches of Disney+, HBO Max, Apple+, and Peacock… and that is just a handful of them.

For the most part, each of these new streaming platforms will feature all of the content owned and created by their respective parent companies. With a Disney+ subscription, one can watch everything from Marvel movies to Star Wars to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” HBO Max will offer every episode of “Game Of Thrones” and “Friends.” Peacock will give you every episode of “Saturday Night Live” and “The Office.” And so on.

How will Disney Juggle their Family-Oriented Brand with their Monolithic IP Collection?

Of course, there are a few exceptions to this rule. For example, Disney plans to keep its streaming service relatively family-friendly, and therefore will not be offering some of its more mature properties—i.e. 20th Century Fox content such as “Deadpool” or Miramax titles such as “Pulp Fiction,” all of which are technically under the wing of Disney, but do not fit their wholesome brand. 

Owning intellectual properties from Fox, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, National Geographic and beyond, Disney+ is bound to be the biggest juggernaut in this oncoming streaming war. The service also comes at the most affordable price, costing only $7 a month as opposed to HBO’s estimated $15/month or Netflix’s current $12/month. 

The Walt Disney Company is not underestimating the significance of Disney+’s launch. CEO Bob Iger has frequently mentioned that it is Disney’s most important development in the fifteen years that he has led the company—and this is the man who spearheaded the Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm acquisitions. As a testament to its importance, Disney has also dropped over a billion dollars into marketing for Disney+, recently even releasing a 3-hour long trailer showing a taste of everything the service will offer.

Corporate Segregation and the IP Divide Demands Consumer Loyalties

Disney is doing all this because they know that they will have to compete with some very skilled rivals. While Disney may have a wide breadth of content in their libraries, they are limited to their own intellectual properties. If someone is a fan of DC over Marvel, then they may take their money over to Warner’s HBO Max. Likewise, if someone is a die hard Trekkie rather than a Star Wars enthusiast, they may opt to subscribe to CBS All Access so they can watch the new episodes “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Piccard.”

This is where the corporate segregation becomes a limitation for streaming. When it was just Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu in the ring, these services would license out content from larger film studios. Netflix, for example, could write a check to Warner Brothers to have their movies and TV shows on their site. Because of multiple deals like this, subscribing to a streaming service used to mean getting access to a wide-range of content made by many different companies. 

Now that the larger companies are creating services exclusively for their own libraries, taste and target audiences will play a larger role in the world of streaming. The streaming playing field is not just about to get far more competitive, but it is also about to get far more divisive. Rather than subscribe to a seemingly arbitrary collection of movies and shows via Netflix or Amazon, subscribers will have to chose based on the company whose work they prefer the most. 

Will Content Variety that Consumers Crave Disappear?

Unfortunately, this means that if someone is a fan of both Harry Potter and Star Wars, they are out of luck and will have to pay for two different services to get them both. This could even lead to an issue of oversaturation, as people are unlikely to pay for five different services just so they can get the variety they desire. If that is the case, they might as well go back to paying their cable bill.

Thus, the future may lie in mergers and bundles between the services. For small additional prices, subscribers could get extra content or access to more than one streaming platform at a time. Disney has already started offering bundle plans with Hulu, which will give subscribers access to some of those less wholesome titles excluded from Disney+. This may be the only way to keep streaming sustainable and affordable in such a corporately stratified landscape.

Who’s going to be the Winner? Bet on Creativity to come out on top, every time

What will really determine who gets out of this streaming war alive, however, will be original content. Regardless of how good Disney’s library is, viewers can only rewatch the Marvel and Star Wars movies so many times before they desire something new to keep them subscribing. Therefore, original shows and films will be the key to keeping audiences invested. Netflix and Amazon have already been slowly transitioning towards this, focusing more on their own productions of lately as the licensing model fizzles out.

Likewise, Disney+ is promoting itself in part with new movies and shows—among them a live action “Lady and the Tramp” remake, a Marvel series focused on Tom Hiddleson’s Loki, and Star Wars’ “The Mandalorian.” Meanwhile, HBO Max is promising a “Game of Thrones” prequel series. It is products like this that will be available exclusively through the streaming platforms that will keep certain companies’ services afloat over others. 

All in all, each company best saddle up with their best writers, directors, casts, and crews, because creativity will be the most powerful weapon in the streaming war. Whoever wields it best is most likely to stand triumphant in the end.

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Business, Climate Solutions, Cutting Edge, Lifestyle, News, Stock Market, Tech

Tesla Announcements: Elon Musk shares 3rd Quarter Profits, Gigafactory, and Solar Tiles V3

Video

Tesla Shares Make a Surprise Comeback and Soar 21%

Tesla’s third-quarter profit results released on Wednesday, October 23rd surprised investors after a long-time series of doubts about the company’s ability to compete with larger and better capitalized rivals in other parts of the world.

The company announced a $143 million profit third quarter profit in 2019, and that, by the end of September, Tesla had $5.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents along with $371 million in operating cash.

Additionally, after Chief Executive Elon Musk announced his promise of a 2020 rollout with a more affordable SUV and more self-driving technology, Tesla’s shares rose almost 21% to $307.12 within hours of the unexpected news.

This is obviously good news for both Tesla and its investors, but there are going be a few more battles needed to prove consistent profitability and to remain ahead of the market it was the first to establish.

“Given the breakneck speed of expansion, Tesla will face significant demands on its cash pile.”

Nicholas Hyett, Financial Analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown

So far, Tesla has shown significant increases in production efficiency while setting another record for deliveries led by Model 3. This, along with their new, cost-cutting Shanghai Gigafactory 3, holds promise that they’ll be able to meet these profitability demands.

Tesla Giga Factory 3 in Shanghai, China

Shanghai Gigafactory Increases Tesla Production Efficiency

After returning to profitability, Tesla revealed that its Shanghai Gigafatory is now ready to start producing EVs for China, the world’s most populated country. In fact, it’s already assembling full vehicles on a trial basis to work out a few regulatory kinks before official production begins.

Tesla released their Q3 2019 update and said “China is by far the largest market for mid-sized premium sedans. With Model 3 priced on par with gasoline powered mid-sized sedans (even before gas savings and other benefits), we believe China could become the biggest market for Model 3.”

As Tesla breaks significant ground in China, their sustainable influence reaches beyond North America, aiming for a greater presence on the global stage.

Solar Roof Tile V3: Affordable Sustainability = Accessible Sustainability

Elon Musk’s proposed third iteration of his solar roof tile products is now ready for sales.

During his company’s annual shareholder meeting in June, Musk promised that these solar tiles would have a significant improvement in performance and affordability. If you factor-in future utility savings and how much a new roof installation generally costs, the product would be on par with the cost of cheap, non-solar roofing tiles.

This is a significant development towards affordable, sustainable energy measures since Tesla first unveiled the product in 2016 and opened pre-orders in 2017.

However, consumers have been generally slow to purchase the solar tiles because of their reservations regarding timeline expectations for prospective installation.

Tesla App showing “My Home” – Photo / Tesla

Hopefully, once more information about this is made available, the sales will take off, thereby increasing the accessibility for many more homes to go solar.

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