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Maria Gurova

HBO NOW Pushing the Cord-Cutting Trend - App Annie Blog - 3 views

  • In 2007, Netflix changed the landscape by introducing streaming on PC, allowing customers to instantly watch shows. By 2010, Netflix video streaming became available on additional platforms, including iOS devices. Today, video streaming services Netflix and Hulu have a strong hold among combined iOS and Android Top US Apps.
  • These convenient apps have set the stage for a preferred entertainment delivery. A whole generation of consumers have grown up with video streaming, rather than (or in addition to) paying for cable television: cord cutters and cord nevers. Major premium cable networks, HBO and Showtime, are now after a piece of the pie Netflix and Hulu have carved out
  • Both HBO NOW and Showtime are taking different approaches to standalone streaming partnerships. HBO NOW has gotten more traction in part to a heavy promotion from Apple, resulting in positive metrics. Showtime’s success is less clear, being married into Hulu’s already strong performance
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  • Netflix isn’t being left in the dust completely, kicking off their original film initiative with “Beasts of No Nation”, which will launch both in theaters and streaming video on October 16th. HBO, Showtime, Netflix and Hulu will still need to compete with each other to retain users in a new “entertainment as a service” landscape where retention is not a given, but an earned currency.
  • Cable provider Comcast hasn’t felt the heat from the cord-cutting trend, having its second best Q2 in nine years. Comcast is also in an advantageous place as a broadband provider, with 22.3 million total customers in Q2. Good quality video streaming relies on broadband internet, meaning cable providers that offer bundled internet service will still be valuable
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    the rise of streaming services and how cable networks are competing with video streaming services on their battle field 
zolotarev

What Does the Gaming Landscape Look Like for Marketers? - 0 views

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    Gaming has gone mainstream, with 86% of internet users worldwide noting that they have gamed on at least one device within the past month. That figure climbed to 92% among those ages 16 to 24 Boosted by global smartphone ownership, mobile has become the most popular channel for gaming
Anton Vorykhalov

'Snooper's charter' bill becomes law, extending UK state surveillance | World news | Th... - 0 views

  • 'Snooper's charter' bill becomes law, extending UK state surveillance
  • The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data.
  • “The government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement and security and intelligence services have the power they need to keep people safe. The internet presents new opportunities for terrorists and we must ensure we have the capabilities to confront this challenge. But it is also right that these powers are subject to strict safeguards and rigorous oversight.”
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  • He said the legislation was debated and passed while the public, media and politicians were preoccupied with Brexit: “Now that the bill has passed, there is renewed concern about the extent of the powers that will be given to the police and security agencies.
  • Home secretary hails ‘world-leading’ laws, which include forcing web and phone companies to collect browsing histories
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    British Yarovaya law
Maria Gurova

The Public Costs of Private Distribution Strategies: Content Release Windows as Negativ... - 0 views

  • “copyright extremism” – a term he used to describe extended delays in content distribution, which often result in content reaching foreign markets months after it is released in the United States.
  • Essentially, “extremism” is another way of saying that piracy is more a business model problem than a policy problem. 
  • The strategy of windowing has long been practiced because it is believed to maximize revenue opportunities for a given film.  By giving successive distribution channels exclusive rights to the work, a film distributor aims to extract maximum revenues from licensees in each channel.
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  • Even if film distributors were to reject the conventional wisdom of windowing, those windows are jealously guarded by their respective sectors.  The theatrical exhibition window is particularly so
  • announced in September 2014 that they would distribute a sequel to the 2000 hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon simultaneously via Netflix and IMAX theaters worldwide, movie theater chains swiftly circled the wagons and announced a boycott of the Weinsteins’ film.
  • “value of ownership for the consumer” is a euphemism for “consumer willingness-to-pay.”  The longer a consumer must wait before they can watch a movie on their Netflix subscription, the likelier that consumer is to pay for a DVD
  • numerous industries have attempted to insulate themselves from disruption by persuading lawmakers to prescribe their exclusive industrial role in public laws, including auto dealers and beer distributors
  • windowing has been widely criticized as contributing to piracy, and “leaving money on the table.”  Empirical evidence bears that out.  Content producers are not unaware of this data; their calculus is that the revenues attributable to aggressive windowing (and avoiding friction with their distributors) exceed losses associated with piracy.
  • Windowing alienates consumers and arguably undermines respect for copyright in countries that receive content late
  • In the content distribution example, compensation might involve repayment for government resources expended on attributable piracy, perhaps based on a user-fee model that various government agencies already have.  If the windowed release distribution model generated more revenue than the costs it incurs, it would continue, taxpayers would be made whole, and the externality would be “internalized.”
Maria Gurova

The Benefits of Workplace Sabbaticals - Experteer Magazine - 0 views

  • Many firms, including 25 percent of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, now offer sabbaticals. These typically four- to 10-week pauses allow employees time out to focus on their needs instead of the organization’s. 
  • Most organizations offer sabbaticals to employees who have been there for a certain period of time (at least five to seven years is common), and employees may take multiple sabbaticals so long as they work a minimum number of years in between. This provides an incentive for workers to remain at a company longer.
  • Adobe Systems encourages its employees to use their breaks to do volunteer work. Then they promote the good deeds in the Adobe Life magazine, a website directed at attracting new talent. Companies that have formal career pauses advertise them as part of the benefits package, like Boston Consulting Group’s Time For You/Flexleave program, which allows workers with just 12-months of time onboard to take an eight-week unpaid break to recharge.
Ekaterina Nurieva

Russia seeks skilled workers, tweaks migration laws - 1 views

http://rbth.ru/politics/2013/08/05/russia_seeks_skilled_workers_tweaks_migration_laws_28659.html

3.5 million illegal foreign workers in Russia; Vacancies will be offered to local residents during the first month all Russians second and only after that foreigners;Before they were either fined or deported; now both penalties apply social Political

started by Ekaterina Nurieva on 05 Sep 13 no follow-up yet
Maria Gurova

Google: The new GE: Google, everywhere | The Economist - 0 views

  • Its latest purchase is Nest Labs, a maker of sophisticated thermostats and smoke detectors: on January 13th Google said it would pay $3.2 billion in cash for the firm. Google’s biggest move into hardware so far is its $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility
  • With Google’s collection of hardware businesses, the common factor is data: gathering and crunching them, to make physical devices more intelligent.
  • Packed with sensors and software that can, say, detect that the house is empty and turn down the heating, Nest’s connected thermostats generate plenty of data, which the firm captures.
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  • This month Samsung announced a new smart-home computing platform that will let people control washing machines, televisions and other devices it makes from a single app. Microsoft, Apple and Amazon were also tipped to take a lead there, but Google was until now seen as something of a laggard.
  • it is likely to do what it did with driverless cars: take a technology financed by military contracts and adapt it for the consumer market.
Maria Gurova

Brown University creates first wireless, implanted brain-computer interface | ExtremeTech - 0 views

  • Researchers at Brown University have succeeded in creating the first wireless, implantable, rechargeable, long-term brain-computer interface. The wireless BCIs have been implanted in pigs and monkeys for over 13 months without issue, and human subjects are next.
  • Brown’s wireless BCI allows the subject to move freely, dramatically increasing the quantity and quality of data that can be gathered — instead of watching what happens when a monkey moves its arm, scientists can now analyze its brain activity during complex activity, such as foraging or social interaction
  • the device’s power consumption, which is just 100 milliwatts. For a device that might eventually find its way into humans, frugal power consumption is a key factor that will enable all-day, highly mobile usage
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  • Amusingly, though, the research paper notes that the wireless charging does cause significant warming of the device
  • While the wireless BCI isn’t approve for human use (and there’s no indication that they’re seeking approval yet), it was designed specifically so that it should be safe for human use.
Maria Gurova

Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children
  • “The average 8- to 10-year-old spends nearly eight hours a day with a variety of different media, and older children and teenagers spend more than 11 hours per day.”
  • Before age 2, children should not be exposed to any electronic media, the pediatrics academy maintains, because “a child’s brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens.”
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  • They need time to daydream, deal with anxieties, process their thoughts and share them with parents, who can provide reassurance.
  • Texting looms as the next national epidemic, with half of teenagers sending 50 or more text messages a day and those aged 13 through 17 averaging 3,364 texts a month, Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Research Center found in a 2012 study
Maria Gurova

Russia and the Menace of Unreality - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action.
  • there is one great difference between Soviet propaganda and the latest Russian variety. For the Soviets, the idea of truth was important—even when they were lying.
  • today’s Russia, by contrast, the idea of truth is irrelevant. On Russian ‘news’ broadcasts, the borders between fact and fiction have become utterly blurred.
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  • “The public likes how our main TV channels present material, the tone of our programs,” he said. “The share of viewers for news programs on Russian TV has doubled over the last two months.”
  • The point of this new propaganda is not to persuade anyone, but to keep the viewer hooked and distracted—to disrupt Western narratives rather than provide a counternarrative.
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    the tone is a bit hysterical, but this is how the world sees us from the outside and also a good inspiration for a Fortress scenario 
Maria Gurova

The Airbnb vs. New York hearing: Lots of yelling, no decisions - 0 views

  • The City Council's Housing and Buildings Committee heard testimony Tuesday from residents, housing advocates, city officials and companies about the effects of the growing industry on the city.
  • In November 2014, about 15,300 New York City listings were entire homes or apartments representing about 59% of the available listings on the site that month, according to Slee. There were also 9,704 listings for private rooms, and 753 listings for shared rooms. The analysis also showed that 2,764 users were renting out two or more units, which opponents have cited as evidence the service is helping illegal hotels. More than 200 users were renting out five units or more
  • Airbnb is calling for "smart regulation," which it has had success with in cities including Portland, Oregon; San Jose and San Francisco, California; Amsterdam; and Paris. Airbnb collects lodging tax directly from hosts in those cities, and several local governments have passed laws that allow short-term rentals in some form.
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  • Both sides agreed on seemingly only one thing: That a discussion and regulation of short-term rentals in New York City is overdue.
Maria Gurova

The first around-the-world flight in a solar airplane will launch this March | The Verge - 0 views

  • In around two months, the team behind the solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 will attempt the first ever around-the-world flight powered only by sunlight.
  • After taking off in Abu Dhabi, the Solar Impulse 2 will make stops in Oman, India, Myanmar, China, the US, and Southern Europe or North Africa before landing back in Abu Dhabi sometime in August.
  • The Solar Impulse 2's across-the-world flight should clock 500 hours total flight time and around 21,748 miles
al_semenchenko

Kela to prepare basic income proposal | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi - 2 views

  • The Finnish Social Insurance Institution is to begin drawing up plans for a citizens' basic income model. The preparation's director Olli Kangas says that full-fledged basic income would net Finns some 800 euros a month.
  • Kela says it will prepare the basic income proposal by November, 2016. The government's nationwide basic income trial will be based on the finished proposal.
  • Under basic income all Finnish citizens would be paid an untaxed benefit sum free of charge by the government.
Maria Gurova

online piracy in Norway falls says report - 1 views

  • 210 million songs were illegally downloaded last year, compared to more than a billion four years ago.
  • Earlier this month, strict new laws aimed at tackling piracy were introduced which give rights holders the power to monitor suspected infringers and potentially order the government to shut down sites.
  • claims and has said on its website that income from online use of music, including legal streaming services, has risen.
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  • TONO also
  • “As high-speed internet capacity has become normal and often included in mobile subscriptions, illegal download and use of music has decreased,”
  • “The new legislation is in my opinion not sufficiently technology neutral, as it is clearly designed to serve as a tool to prevent P2P file sharing and not, for example, illegal streaming services, which may become a problem in the years to come.”
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    Norway continue to tighten the copyright laws in the advantage of the IP owners. Though the approach is based on strong preventive measures rather then transparent, easy to use, relatively inexpensive access to content it seems to work
Maria Gurova

Academic conference on 'Love and Sex with Robots' abruptly cancelled after being declar... - 0 views

  • Humanoid robots are now being introduced into nursing homes, and as therapists, for example. The new Hello Barbie toy will be a "friend" to children, holding conversations with young boys and girls. Robots are even getting married in Japan.
  • A perfect example of the backlash against human-like machines happened last Friday, when Adrian David Cheok and David Levy were forced to cancel their second annual Congress on Love and Sex with Robots, set to be held in Malaysia next month.
  • The case of the cancelled conference is just the beginning of the kind of obstacles intellectuals and researchers may encounter in the pursuit of academic study of humanoid robotics—an increasingly controversial field as the line between fantasy and reality gets blurred
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    Two academics decided to hold a conference for a controversial matter of human robot interactions, the conference with a provocative name and a highly scientific content was banned in a very conservative and religious country of Malaysia 
Oleg Batluk

Web-mad Hongkongers have digital dementia - and we're losing our memories | South China... - 1 views

  • Frequent use of digital devices is causing memory loss among Hongkongers
  • brain health experts have even coined a name for the condition: digital dementia.
  • correlation between more frequent usage of digital devices and self-reported memory loss in daily life and at work.
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  • the cognitive challenges and attention problems that result from overuse of digital technology.
  • Almost all respondents (95 per cent) owned at least two digital devices
  • bio-behavioural sciences
  • Respondents who spent more than six hours daily on their digital devices were more likely to report experiencing forgetfulness in the past month compared to those who spent fewer hours
  • the survey for first time shows this connection between overuse or higher use of digital devices and more complaints of memory disturbances in Hongkongers
  • "digital immigrants"
  • In his 2008 book iBrain, Small talks about "digital natives"
  • The survey also found poor dietary and exercise habits among the respondents
  • The term digital dementia was coined a few years ago in South Korea, after doctors reported seeing young patients with memory and cognitive problems, conditions that were more commonly linked to brain injuries.
  • Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul, South Korea: "As people are more dependent on digital devices for searching information than memorising, the brain function for searching improves whereas an ability to remember decreases
  • Dr Manfred Spitzer, a German neuroscientist and author of the 2012 book Digital Dementia: What We and Our Children are Doing to our Minds,
  • warns that children who spend too much time on electronic devices could experience irreversible deficits in brain development.
  • multitasking teens
  • The devices are not all bad," he says. "It's really about content, context and dose
  • balance the online time with offline time
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    Digtal overdose and multitasking digtal natives with "Inspector Gadget Syndrome" ((c) Batluk) can lead to medically diagnosed digital dementia which can be avoided by offline online balance
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    Digtal overdose and multitasking digtal natives with "Inspector Gadget Syndrome" ((c) Batluk) can lead to medically diagnosed digital dementia which can be avoided by offline online balance
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    Digtal overdose and multitasking digtal natives with "Inspector Gadget Syndrome" ((c) Batluk) can lead to medically diagnosed digital dementia which can be avoided by offline online balance
Maria Gurova

Virtual Reality Is the Most Powerful Artistic Medium of Our Time - 0 views

  • “When the zeitgeist is moving, art usually goes hand-in-hand with it,” says Rossin, describing a world in which we’re constantly glued to our iPhones, Androids, laptops, and tablets as much if not more than we are to the faces of fellow humans. Mediums have historically risen from the predominant technology and social relations of the time in which they exist
  • “Because of the level of sensory overload we experience on a day-to-day basis, we need to have this fully arresting experience in virtual reality in order to get a total sense of vertigo from a work of art,”
  • Enveloping, consciousness-bending experiences aren’t “just to escape life,” says Rafman. “But to create a total experience that will create a feeling that is qualitatively new. That is ultimately the most radical thing.”
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  • “Ultimately, new technology can reveal desires that already exist on a deep level in society,” says Rafman of the works, which pull from and amplify the seductive forces of video games and cinema. “This desire to escape completely into another dimension has existed for a long time.”
  • Virtual reality’s recent resurgence in prominence begins with Oculus and its visionary 23-year-old founder, Palmer Luckey. In 2012, the then-18-year-old with an affinity for retooling defunct ’90s VR headsets took a hacked-together model to Kickstarter with a funding goal of $250,000. A month later, over 10,000 individuals contributed $2.4 million to the campaign for what was at the time mainly aimed at being a gaming peripheral. Two years later, Facebook wrote a check to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion
  • “This is not a drill. It’s real. It’s a moment,” says Michael Naimark, Google’s first resident virtual reality artist (like Char Davies, he’s listed as a pioneer of VR on Wikipedia). “And the arts community can play a huge role in propagation.
  • Throughout art history, art has reflected the prevalent social relations of the time. It makes sense, then, that the most relative and innovative art forms being produced today would mirror our reality—one defined by a perceived sense of agency in a world filled with invisible algorithms and clicks baited to us by past clicks. The internet spoils us with infinite choice: opportunities to invent our personas, refashion our self-brands, optimize our lives, and enhance our experience. But with mega-corporations quietly holding the joystick, can we really self-determine our destiny?
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    on how contemporary are embraces VR, what artist can do to explore, explain and populate the exciting technology.
Maria Gurova

MoviePass, The Sequel: Quest To Become The Netflix Of The Big Screen Continues | Fast C... - 1 views

  • MoviePass, which opens up to 75,000 wait-listed users today, is an invite-only subscription-based service that lets you pay between $19.99 and $34.99 a month to watch up to one in-theater movie per day
  • Unlike Netflix viewership, theatrical attendance tends to heavily peak twice a year, during Oscars season and the summer blockbusters.
  • Spikes says this demographic is also more likely to drive post-theater purchases, such as DVDs, soundtracks, and branded merchandise. To that end, he says MoviePass will be exploring options to offer these items through its service in the future
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    Movie Pass is the new service that allows you to visit any theater that accepts credit card for free as long as you pay pricey annual subscription fee
ksenia12348

The Sex Recession Is Making Young Americans Unhappy - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • In 2018, happiness among young adults in America fell to a record low. The share of adults ages 18 to 34 reporting that they were“very happy” in life fell to 25 percent—the lowest level that the General Social Survey, a key barometer of American social life, has ever recorded for that population.
  • Happiness fell most among young men—with only 22 percent of young men (and 28 percent of young women) reporting that they were “very happy” in 2018.
  • We wondered whether this trend was rooted in distinct shifts in young adults’ social ties—including what The Atlantic has called “the sex recession,” that is, a marked decline in sexual activity for this group in recent years.
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  • We’re happiest when our ties with others are deep and strong. And the research tells us that the ebb and flow of happiness in America is clearly linked to the quality and character of our social ties—including our friendships, community ties, and marriage. It’s also linked, specifically, to the frequency with which we have sex.
  • So we investigated four indicators of sociability among today’s young adults—marriage, friendship, religious attendance, and sex—in an effort to explain
  • married young adults are about 75 percent more likely to report that they are very happy, compared with their peers who are not married
  • As it turns out, the share of young adults who are married has fallen from 59 percent in 1972 to 28 percent in 2018. The decline has been similar for men and women, although from 2016 to 2018 the share of married men fell, while the share of married women rose.
  • Faith was the second factor. Young adults who attend religious services more than once a month are about 40 percent more likely to report that they are very happy, compared with their peers who are not religious at all
  • The share of young adults who attend religious services more than monthly has fallen from 38 percent in 1972 to 27 percent in 2018, even as the share who never attend has risen rapidly.
  • The third factor was friendship. The effect of seeing friends frequently is less clear than that of marriage or religion, but young adults who see their friends regularly do seem to be about 10 percent more likely to report being very happy than their less-sociable peers.
  • Indeed, it may be that rising social time spent with friends in recent years could be buffering young adults from the declines in institutions such as marriage or religion, as friends stand in place of other relationships or forms of community.*
  • And, finally, we looked at sex. Young adults who have sex at least once a week are about 35 percent more likely to report that they are very happy, compared with their peers who have no sex.
  • This trend in rising sexlessness is broadly confirmed in other surveys of sexual behavior,
  • Less sex, we speculate, could help account for declining happiness for many young adults.
  • What’s more, as the #MeToo era has taught us, there has been too much unwanted or nonconsensual sex out there, which is obviously bad for the (more often female) target of such advances. From this perspective, the so-called sex recession might just amount to a sexual recalibration, with a lot of bad sex being eliminated from our social lives—and this would be a good thing. For all these reasons, the feminist family historian Stephanie Coontz is “suspicious of any hand-wringing” about the sex recession.
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