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Showing posts from April, 2020

Hard-hit companies want cloud software vendors to reduce fees - Business Insider

Hard-hit companies want cloud software vendors to reduce fees - Business Insider : Spoke to the CEO of a large private software company. The CFO of one of the largest airlines called him to ask for extended payment terms on a $250k bill. 250k," tweeted Gavin Baker, founder of the hedge fund Atreides Management, who is also well-known for his time managing Fidelity's OTC fund
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Hard-hit companies want cloud software vendors to reduce fees - Business Insider

Hard-hit companies want cloud software vendors to reduce fees - Business Insider : Spoke to the CEO of a large private software company. The CFO of one of the largest airlines called him to ask for extended payment terms on a $250k bill. 250k," tweeted Gavin Baker, founder of the hedge fund Atreides Management, who is also well-known for his time managing Fidelity's OTC fund
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- PDLN Home

- PDLN Home : Google Forced to Negotiate in France A ruling from the French competition authorities on April 9th requires Google to negotiate licence fees with French publishers. This ruling will likely encourage licensing efforts under the DSM Article 15 framework across the EU.�
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Google's Head of Quantum Computing Hardware Resigns | WIRED

Google's Head of Quantum Computing Hardware Resigns | WIRED : Here’s what Pichai didn’t mention: Soon after the team had first got its quantum supremacy experiment working a few months earlier, Martinis says, he had been reassigned from a leadership position to an advisory one. Martinis tells WIRED that the change led to disagreements with Hartmut Neven, the longtime leader of Google’s quantum project. Martinis resigned from Google early this month. “Since my professional goal is for someone to build a quantum computer, I think my resignation is the best course of action for everyone,” he adds. A Google spokesman did not dispute this account, and says that the company is grateful for Martinis’ contributions and that Neven continues to head the company’s quantum project. Parent company Alphabet has a second, smaller, quantum computing group at its X Labs research unit. Martinis retains his position as a professor at the UC Santa Barbara, which he held throughout his tenure at Go...
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Coronavirus: Is Sweden's COVID-19 response in social distancing responsibility working?

Coronavirus: Is Sweden's COVID-19 response in social distancing responsibility working? : Britain's true figure will be even worse once deaths in care homes and private houses are included in the official tally, as occurs in Sweden. About a third of all Swedish victims were residents of care homes - a result the government concedes has been a major containment failure and stain on its record.
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More U.S. companies return payroll loans after new Treasury guidance - Reuters

More U.S. companies return payroll loans after new Treasury guidance - Reuters : The department went on to say that borrowers that returned loan money by May 7 “will be deemed by the Small Business Administration to have made the required certification in good faith.” The new guidance prompted the program’s largest recipient, the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse chain (RUTH.O) to say it would quickly repay its $20 million loan to maintain its payroll during coronavirus-prompted shutdowns.
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Why Coca-Cola is cutting back on marketing | WARC

Why Coca-Cola is cutting back on marketing | WARC : Why Coca-Cola is cutting back on marketing 3 min read News, 22 April 2020 Coca-Cola, the soft drinks manufacturer, is reducing its marketing activity in the face of COVID-19 due to concerns about consumer responsiveness and return on investment (ROI), but plans to “reengage when the timing is right”. James Quincey, Coca-Cola’s chairman/CEO, discussed its careful scrutiny of capital expenditure during a quarterly conference call with investors. “We're also being mindful about the right level of brand marketing and new product launches given the consumer mindset across markets,” he said. For April to date, Coca-Cola’s global volume sales are down by around 25%, largely because of declines in out-of-home locations – like restaurants, sporting venues and convenience stores – which yield some 50% of its business. Through the month of February, by way of comparison, volumes were up by 3% when excluding China, where the COVID-...
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The Trouble With News Bundles — The Information

The Trouble With News Bundles — The Information : What would happen if publishers came together and reframed their bundle thinking around experience rather than access? A publishers’ bundle guaranteeing a fast, ad-free experience across a wide range of premium sites would be cheap (you only have to beat ad ARPUs, not subscription ARPUs) and valuable to casual fans. The bundle wouldn’t provide an all-access pass because the vast majority of users wouldn’t consume enough content to hit the paywall. As a result, the bundle would avoid cannibalizing single-site subscriptions.
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Finally We May Have a Path to the Fundamental Theory of Physics… and It’s Beautiful—Stephen Wolfram Writings

Finally We May Have a Path to the Fundamental Theory of Physics… and It’s Beautiful—Stephen Wolfram Writings : We were doing zillions of computer experiments, building intuition. And gradually things were becoming clearer. We started understanding how quantum mechanics works. Then we realized what energy is. We found an outline derivation of my late friend and mentor Richard Feynman’s path integral. We started seeing some deep structural connections between relativity and quantum mechanics. Everything just started falling into place. All those things I’d known about in physics for nearly 50 years—and finally we had a way to see not just what was true, but why.
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I was in prison for two decades – here's what I learned about isolation | US news | The Guardian

I was in prison for two decades – here's what I learned about isolation | US news | The Guardian : I’m a 41-year-old woman who has spent almost half her life incarcerated. I sometimes fear there’s nothing meaningful I can contribute to society, but with a global pandemic forcing much of the world into lockdown, I have an unexpected opportunity: to share the lessons from my prison experience that might help others to adjust.
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Lee's Farewell Address - Wikipedia

Lee's Farewell Address - Wikipedia : Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, 10th April 1865. General Order No. 9 After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them. But feeling that valour and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will exten...
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Keith Richards Life

Redo a whole school year. This was the kick in the guts, pure and unmixed. The moment that happened, Spike, Terry and I, we became terrorists. I was so mad, I had a burning desire for revenge. I had reason then to bring down this country and everything it stood for. I spent the next three years trying to fuck them up. If you want to breed a rebel, that’s the way to do it. No more haircuts. Two pairs of trousers, the skin-tight ones under the regulation flannels, which came off the minute I was out the gate. Anything to annoy them. It didn’t get me anywhere; it got me a lot of black looks from my dad, but even that didn’t stop me. I really didn’t like to disappoint my dad, but... sorry, Dad. It still rankles, that humiliation. It still hasn’t gone out, the fire. That’s when I started to look at the world in a different way, not their way anymore. That’s when I realized that there’s bigger bullies than just bullies. There’s  them,  the authorities. And a slow-burning ...
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The battle for George Michael | The Independent

The battle for George Michael | The Independent : On Tuesday morning, a solicitor named Tony Russell arrived at George Michael's Hampstead home with more than 400 pages of legal documents. Michael has displayed a curious knack of creating litigious havoc since his very first days in Wham!, and for the last 12 years, Russell has guided him through many drawn-out negotiations and complex contracts. Now he had come to conclude the most acrimonious confrontation of all: the battle between George Michael and Sony Music Entertainment that had lasted a little under three years and had cost both sides many millions of pounds.
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Panayiotou v Sony Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd - Wikipedia

Panayiotou v Sony Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd - Wikipedia : Panayiotou and others v Sony Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd. ([1994] ChD 142) was a contract and entertainment law case before the High Court of Justice's Chancery Division. The plaintiff, entertainer George Michael, argued that his recording contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. Michael alleged that the defendant had failed to promote his album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 with due vigour as punishment when the artist decided to downplay his status as a sex symbol. Michael described his situation as "professional slavery" because his contract required that he produce music and cede the copyright to Sony for many years, leaving him no control over how the music would be marketed nor placing a reciprocal requirement that the label invest in promotion. Had the case succeeded, it might have curtailed the practice of signing artists to multi-album contracts. The court wholly rejected the claims.
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(12) Douglas Adams' Last TV Interview - YouTube

(12) Douglas Adams' Last TV Interview - YouTube : This is the entire raw tape, shot May 2001 in San Francisco for the pioneering news magazine show Tech Now! which covered the beginnings of the internet, interviewing the innovators as they innovated. Over 600 episodes of the show were produced from Silicon Valley starting in the late 1990's. SHOW MORE
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How the Coronavirus Is Disrupting the Advertising Industry – Adweek

How the Coronavirus Is Disrupting the Advertising Industry – Adweek : Early indications are that overall ad spending could take at least a temporary hit, but TV could actually benefit from people staying home, tuning in to news and streaming programming. Publicis Groupe’s Zenith said this week it would lower its December prediction of a 4.3% rise in global ad spending this year due to the coronavirus, according to The Wall Street Journal. Also this week, New York Times CEO Mark Thompson said the Times “is seeing a slowdown in international and domestic advertising bookings, which we associate with uncertainty and anxiety about the virus,” and that the publisher now expects first-quarter digital advertising revenue to drop 10%. Meanwhile, the consensus from TV ad-sales professionals Adweek contacted was a combination of optimism—fueled by a belief that a ratings increase between the 2020 elections and coronavirus coverage should translate to an increase in ad revenue—and “it’s too e...
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S&P Global Ratings Cuts Its 2020 U.S. Advertising Forecast In The Face Of COVID-19 | S&P Global Ratings

S&P Global Ratings Cuts Its 2020 U.S. Advertising Forecast In The Face Of COVID-19 | S&P Global Ratings : COVID-19 Reverses What Would Have Been A Solid Advertising Year In 2020 The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to domestic advertising will be severe in 2020, with the worst quarters being the second and third. However, the breadth and depth of severity will vary for each media subsector. Sectors that depend on short cycle advertising, for which ads are placed very close to broadcast and can be cancelled quickly, have already experienced steep advertising revenue declines. These sectors include those dependent on programmatic digital advertising (which is every media sector, to some degree), radio, and outdoor transit. In addition, sectors with somewhat longer lead times (measured in weeks), such as local television, are also starting to see declines, especially in forward bookings. Local TV, radio, and outdoor face longer-term issues, even when we eventually head into a reco...
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How The Coronavirus Will Transform TV Programming And Advertising

How The Coronavirus Will Transform TV Programming And Advertising : First, network entertainment executives are pitched scripts for potential programs from studios, showrunners, etc. In January and February of each year, the broadcast networks order (or greenlight) pilots. After a pilot is picked up, cast members are named. In March, pilots are filmed, and network entertainment execs review dailies. In April, network execs evaluate and audience-test program pilots. At the same time, ad sales executives hold program development meetings with ad agency executives to go over their program needs for the upcoming season and assess the pilot season. In mid-May, the networks announce their upcoming programming schedule for the fall with upfront presentations in front of advertisers across Manhattan. In late May, buyers begin to negotiate ad costs with network account executives in a process called the upfront marketplace. Advertisers buy upfront ad time for a 52-week period that begins i...
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INFOGRAPHIC: Impact of Covid-19 on Global Ad Spend

INFOGRAPHIC: Impact of Covid-19 on Global Ad Spend Total global ad spend declined slightly by mid-March as many of the world’s largest economies reacted to the COVID-19 threat. The impact varied greatly based on advertiser category; Travel, Sports and Science categories experienced the steepest ad spend declines, while News, Hobbies and Interests, and Technology & Computing saw distinct increases.
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Key insights: COVID-19 continues to impact consumer behavior, marketing spend and the marketing mix

Key insights: COVID-19 continues to impact consumer behavior, marketing spend and the marketing mix : The increase in daytime viewing more clearly reflects the boost in stay-at-home behavior: the 10AM to 5PM window increased 39 percent between March 9 and 23. Early morning hours are also up 26 percent, and pre-primetime fringe rose 20 percent. Interestingly, the only drop – a negligible 2 percent down – was in primetime. For streaming video providers and advertisers, a key question is whether these bumps will carry over in any degree once the pandemic subsides. “We anticipate streaming providers will retain new viewers long after the coronavirus has ended,” Conviva CEO Bill Demas said in a statement, “as viewers embrace the variety and flexibility of the medium.”
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How Equity Analysts Are Assessing COVID-19’s Impact On Media And Marketing Sector | AdExchanger

How Equity Analysts Are Assessing COVID-19’s Impact On Media And Marketing Sector | AdExchanger : The China case study The immediate hit on travel and entertainment sectors are likely just the beginning, said GroupM global president of business intelligence Brian Wieser. China reprsents the only market with real financial data available, since COVID-19 started spreading in there in January and the country is closer than other nations to resuming normal work and consumer routines. Wieser noted the largest public Chinese media companies, Alibaba, Weibo and Baidu, have priced in 20-30% drop-offs in media revenue for this quarter during their earnings reports in February, he said.
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The Power Plant of the Future Is Right in Your Home | WIRED

The Power Plant of the Future Is Right in Your Home | WIRED : But what makes Basalt Vista’s microgrid unique is that it autonomously allocates power. There’s an internet-connected control box in the basement of each home running experimental software that continuously optimizes electricity distribution across the microgrid and the flow of energy to and from the larger regional grid. When one home produces more energy than it needs, it can autonomously make the decision to redistribute it to its neighbors or store it for later. “We don’t have to deal with any of the machinery,” says Escobar. “The house works all by itself.”
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It's A "Cold War Every Day" Inside This Group At Apple

It's A "Cold War Every Day" Inside This Group At Apple : A group inside Apple called Information Systems & Technology, or IS&T, builds much of the company’s internal technology tools — from servers and data infrastructure to retail and corporate sales software — and operates in a state of tumult. IS&T is made up largely of contractors hired by rival consulting companies, and its dysfunction has led to a rolling state of war. “It’s a huge contractor org that handles a crazy amount of infrastructure for the company,” one ex-employee who worked closely with IS&T told me. “That whole organization is a Game of Thrones nightmare.” Interviews with multiple former IS&T employees and its internal clients paint a picture of a division in turmoil, where infighting regularly prevents the creation of useful software, and whose contract workers are treated as disposable parts. “There’s a Cold War going on every single day,” Archana Sabapathy, a former IS&T...
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"It's a battle we have to play at home, staying at home" (A. Domínguez, CONMEBOL)

Covid-19: "Nobody in the world knows when we will be able to play like before" (G. Infantino, FIFA) Reg - Paris - Friday, April 3 2020 - News #179788  "Health comes first! We all wish that we could have football tomorrow but unfortunately it's not possible and nobody in the world today knows when we will be able to play like before," said  Gianni Infantino  (ITA-SUI), president of  FIFA , via a video conference during the 72 nd   CONMEBOL  Congress, on 02/04/2020. "It is a pleasure to be with you, but also a great sadness to join you in this way, by video conference. But this is the current situation, we live in very complicated times. This virus has shown us how small and vulnerable we are..." underlines the president of the International Federation, at a time when the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has already claimed the lives of more than 54,000 people worldwide as of 03/04/2020. "With a house in order and solid finances, we will be a...
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Coronavirus is hurting xenophobic propaganda in Italy — Quartz

Coronavirus is hurting xenophobic propaganda in Italy — Quartz : First, they falsely claimed coronavirus was brought to Africa by the Chinese and from there it reached Italy through the migrants; then, since this narrative failed to account for the overwhelmingly northern concentration of cases, they blamed migrants for drying up resources needed to fight the epidemic; finally they falsely accused the government of hiding cases of Covid-19 among migrants by refusing to test them.
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Less Than Half Pay for Media, News and Entertainment, But Willingness to Pay Is Rising, Study Finds > Press releases | World Economic Forum

Less Than Half Pay for Media, News and Entertainment, But Willingness to Pay Is Rising, Study Finds > Press releases | World Economic Forum : Less than half of consumers pay for media, with 16% paying for news and 44% paying for entertainment – but a willingness to pay is rising, according to new research published by the World Economic Forum
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Official Website - Yuval Noah Harari

Official Website - Yuval Noah Harari “History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods”
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What happened to Publicis Groupe's ambitious Marcel project - Business Insider

What happened to Publicis Groupe's ambitious Marcel project - Business Insider : Publicis spent $30 million to build Marcel, an AI tool that was supposed to 'break the industry.' Instead, it's been hampered by confusion, ridicule, and delays Patrick Coffee Mar 30, 2020, 4:03 PM Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun presents the first preview of Marcel in May 2018. Getty Images In June 2017, Publicis Groupe announced that it would skip all awards and industry events for a year to develop an AI-driven project management platform called Marcel. It was supposed to be Arthur Sadoun's first big move as CEO of the world's third-largest holding company and create a huge splash in the industry. But Marcel became one of the industry's most mysterious and ridiculed projects in recent years and was hampered by internal skepticism, tension, and confusion. When Publicis and Microsoft finally debuted a Marcel prototype in May 2018,�it fell short of its promise. Since...
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