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Maria Gurova

Driverless cars, pilotless planes … will there be jobs left for a human being... - 3 views

  • From staff-free ticket offices to students who can learn online, it seems there is no corner of economic life in which people are not being replaced by machines.
  • One of the reasons Google is investing so much is that whoever owns the communications system for driverless cars will own the 21st century's equivalent of the telephone network or money clearing system: this will be a licence to print money.
  • The only new jobs will be in the design and marketing of the cars, and in writing the computer software that will allow them to navigate their journeys, along with the apps for our mobile phones that will help us to use them better
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  • The invention of 3D printing, in which every home or office will be equipped with an in-house printer that can spew out the goods we want – from shoes to pills – anticipates a world of what Summers calls automated "doers". They will do everything for us, eliminating the need for much work.
  • we have come to the end of the great "general purpose technologies" (technologies that transform an entire economy, such as the steam engine, electricity, the car and so on) that changed the world. There are no new transformative technologies to carry us forward, while the old activities are being robotised and automated.
  • The second is in human wellbeing. There will be vast growth in advising, coaching, caring, mentoring, doctoring, nursing, teaching and generally enhancing capabilities.
  • Notwithstanding robotisation and automation, I identify four broad areas in which there will be vast job opportunities.The first is in micro-production
  • The third is in addressing the globe's "wicked issues" . There will be new forms of nutrition and carbon-efficient energy, along with economising with water, to meet the demands of a world population of 9 billion in 2050.
  • And fourthly, digital and big data management will foster whole new industries
  • the truth is, nobody knows. What we do know is that two-thirds of what we consume today was not invented 25 years ago. It will be the same again in a generation's time
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    demand for the new expertise may impact not only the school and academic education, but earlier development stages
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.
Maria Gurova

Is it curtains for the big screen? - FT.com - 1 views

  • According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, US movie attendance peaked in 2002 and has been steadily declining ever since. To compensate, theatres have rolled out new technologies such as 3D, Imax and premium large-format cinemas, raising their ticket prices and thus keeping the box office at record-breaking levels
  • The majority of us are increasingly staying home.
  • At Cannes this year, the studio with the most films in competition
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  • was not one of the big studios, but the streaming service Amazon.
  • But blockbusters have a design flaw: their marketing costs are enormous — opening a movie typically costs anywhere from $20m — and they spend less and less time in cinemas. To take a recent example, ticket sales for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dropped by an astonishing 68.4 per cent on its second weekend
  • “What you’re going to end up with is fewer theatres,” George Lucas said during a panel at the University of Southern California in 2013. “Bigger theatres, with a lot of nice things. Going to the movies is going to cost you 50 bucks, maybe 100.”
  • He argued that a film will come out in cinemas for 17 days — three weekends — which is where 98 per cent of films make 95 per cent of their revenues anyway. On the 18th day, the film will be available everywhere and you will pay for the size: a movie screen will be $15, a 75-inch TV will be $4, a smartphone will be $1.99.
  • “Fifty per cent of Americans did not step into a movie theatre last year, and of the 50 per cent that did go into a theatre, 95 per cent of them went to one or two films,”
  • Arguably, it’s more visual than television. It has our full attention: each frame must pull its weight in terms of narrative and spectacle. That is why it is a director’s medium: it envelops us. TV comes to us, into our homes, casual, familiar, favouring habit-forming episodic narratives. That is why it is a writer’s medium. The big screen glamorises — its stars are the stuff of myth; the small screen is more like a member of the family
  • And something like The Avengers, it’s too much fun laughing with the audience. These things are communal experiences.
  • But then many film-makers would argue that movies should be consumed differently from music: a song is a song wherever you play it, whereas films were built for the big screen.
  • “I don’t think that experience is going to die,” says Obst, “although I do worry that eventually we will all be inside on our huge computer screens, watching all of the different types of entertainment together
  • Nothing breaks the spell of the movie more instantly than the pause button.
alexbelov

Facebook's Messenger Bot Store could be the most important launch since the App Store |... - 0 views

  • Today, Facebook Messenger has 800 million monthly active users – more than 100 times the number of iPhone owners when Apple launched the App Store. Messenger’s current active user base exceeds even the total number of iPhones ever sold. Messaging apps now have more active users than social networks.
  • If and when Facebook announces a Bot Store, it will mark the “end of the beginning” of a new era: messaging as a platform. Conversational user interfaces are about to change the way billions of users interact with the world around them.
  • Pavel Durov announced the expansion of the Telegram Bot Store and Ted Livingston staked out Kik’s claim to be the WeChat of the West. By the end of the year, Slack had announced the Slack App Directory, supported by an $80 million fund to fuel the growth of the ecosystem, and Google was rumored to be developing its own chatbots.
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  • 2016 would be “the year of conversational commerce”, but the Messenger bot platform will inevitably extend far beyond commerce.
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    Facebook is developing chatbot platform for its messenger. It will open new opportunities for online businesses, including conversational commerce. Message bots will become new apps and challenge existing industries.
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 Movie Theater Of The Future Is All About Big Screens And Big Data - 2 views

  • With huge-flat screen TVs becoming more affordable — and more original TV content being produced — cinemas have to step up their game to keep pace in the arms race with home theaters. That’s why theater chains are coming out with better food, reclining chairs, and more supersized screens like Imax to take full advantage of the special effects in many tentpole blockbusters.
  • The theater, which opens to the public Friday night, now has a lobby that’s part of the show (and soon, a camera-based audience data gathering tool to go with it), and a cinema equipped with the showpiece Barco Escape, which combines three screens in a U-shaped pattern that gives the viewer almost a cockpit-type perspective of the action.
  • “The Maze Runner” and its sequel, “Maze Runner: Scorch Trials,” were the first — and only — two films with scenes optimized for Barco Escape, but with dozens of Imax films coming out every year, there needs to be a much broader pipeline of content to compete with other large format
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  • Hoddick said he wants to develop three additional films this year, then eight in 2017 and then 12 a year after that
  • The Barco Escape costs exhibitors $100,000 with an additional fee per movie.
  • there are currently 21 Barco Escape theaters in the world — 16 in the United States, two each in Europe and China, and one in Mexico.
  • the plan is to have more than 100 by the end of this year, and 1,000 within three to five years. Oh, and they want an additional 1,000 just in China, soon to be the world’s biggest movie market — and one where Imax is in the process of opening hundreds of its own screens
  • Hoddick said while Barco Escape is only for 2D films at this point, he imagines it’s only a matter of time before 3D comes to the platform
  • it’s currently about 4 percent more expensive to produce a movie for Barco Escape, because the work has to happen in post-production, Hoddick said new cameras from manufacturers including Sony that can film in the 7:1 aspect ratio necessary for the medium will slash costs significantly
  • the theater will soon install a camera-based surveillance system to analyze demographics and customize which “lobby dominations” go live — think superhero trailers going up when a crew of high school kids walks in
Maria Gurova

How to Approach the Generation Gap in the Workplace - The New York Times - 0 views

  • A generation gap is widening in the workplace. As baby boomers (ages 51 to 69 or so) express reluctance about retiring, so-called millennials (roughly ages 18 to 34) have become the single largest demographic in the American labor force. Because of this, more older workers have found themselves being hired and managed by people much younger than they are
  • Robert Goldfarb, 85, a working management consultant. “The moment I enter the office of a prospective client, there’s an elephant in the room,” he wrote. “My age.”
  • I doubt anyone will be surprised to hear that many readers emphasized staying current with technology. Many also pointed out that this is easier to do than ever: From instructional YouTube videos to courses at your local library, the resources are endless.
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  • And if they don’t want to work with you because you’re ‘too old,’ perhaps you don’t want to work with them either,” she said.
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    The article explores the opposite side of the generation conflict - when older people are hired or happen to work for bosses twice younger then themselves. The set of good advices on how to apply your experience and wisdom in the organizations ruled by 30-somethings 
Maria Gurova

The future of local government - 0 views

  • We increasingly live in a world where we don’t have to leave our homes, and when we do, we travel in isolation
  • It is in public space that we encounter a wide variety of people different from ourselves. Public spaces are important because they provide room to negotiate how we will live together in a highly populated environment. Encountering people of different races, classes, ages and abilities on a daily basis has the potential to cultivate a citizenry that is more tolerant of diversit
  • Streets are declining as a form of public space because street life often is perceived – and sometime is – unsafe: thus we frequently retreat indoors, making the streets even less safe
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  • Harford argues that much can be done to make public space safe for children. “I would like to see pedestrian-friendly crossings more frequently on streets. I would like to see the streets be more kid-oriented with wider sidewalks, as well as a more coherent attitude amongst people on the street to be watching out for kids.”
  • in “real life, only from the ordinary adults of the city sidewalks do children learn – if they learn it at all – the first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.
  • Ronda Howard, a Vancouver senior city planner, notes that when there are greater incentives for people to walk in their neighbourhoods, there are more eyes on the street: thus the streets become safer.
  • Despite the challenges facing parents raising children in the city, different social networks can augment child involvement in public space. Harford says that strong social ties help increase her son’s autonomy in Vancouver
  • When we actively engage with others who are different from us, we have the opportunity to become more sophisticated and tolerant citizens. When we get to know the diverse members of our communities, we create social networks that make our cities safer and more enjoyable. Public spaces are integral to making this happen. These spaces are an antidote to the inward gaze of individualism. We need to reclaim public space and work to expand its boundaries. It’s time for us to leave the house of the self in the background, and go outside
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    how modern public spaces are interconnected with the health and social skills of the future generation. When kids spent less time indoors not only their health become vulnerable, but also their position as future citizens 
Maria Gurova

How To Get More People Into Movie Theaters (Without Higher Ticket Prices) - 3 views

  • Its newest toy is called Barco Escape and right now it’s essentially three theater screens in one space — the main screen and then additional screens on the left and right walls. The effect is a 270-degree image that makes viewers feel like they are in the middle of the action.
  • It’s the kind of premium experience that most people would expect to pay extra for but Schilowitz says part of the point of Escape is to give viewers a more theme-park like experience without charging any more for a ticket.
  • One of the biggest trends right now is people watching other people play video games.
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  • Schilowitz hopes to engage brands to make 270-degree short films to show before the actual movie. Think Red Bull's Red Bull's many extreme sports videos. Now picture them in an immersive experience.  The money coming from brands could help offset the costs of the Escape screen.
  • Schilowitz believes you could take that experience into the theater. Have two people playing a virtual reality game while strapped into Oculus Rift-type devices and people would pay to watch the game on the big screen if top- ranked players were competing.
  • Escape will also be used to show things like concerts which can be better experienced with a wider screen. A Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett show will debut in Escape theaters in 2015.
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    The new technology that may transform all that real estate Theaters owns into the arcades of the future.  
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

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.
Ekaterina Yanovskaya

Rising Seas Threaten Low-Lying Coastlines | Ecology Global Network - 0 views

  • The inexorable rise of the waters of the earth’s oceans since 1880 has already contributed almost 20 cm (nearly a foot) since 1880, and more recently the rise continues at an accelerating pace . The IPCC (2007) predicts an increase of sea level of between 0.5 to 1.5 m by the year 2100
  • Island nations under threat include Bermuda and the Bahamas in the Atlantic, the Pacific Islands of Palmerston, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean
  • in terms of numbers of persons impacted, the oceanic islands pale in comparison with the slow-motion disasters that will occur in densely populated, low-lying coastal cities like New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore, Jakarta and Dhaka.
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  • The extraordinary warming of 2.5°C (4.5°F) over the past 50 years on the Antarctic Peninsula is both the world’s greatest temperature change and least opportune venue for warming on the planet. Warmer air and currents penetrating deep into West Antarctica could initiate collapse of the marine based West Antarctic Ice Sheet ice sheet (Joughin and Alley, 2011), rapidly elevating global seas by as much as 3-6 meters.
Vladimir Antonov

BMW Vision Next 100 shows future of BMW - Business Insider - 1 views

  • body of the concept car is designed to maximize aerodynamic efficiency and is constructed primarily out of recycled materials
  • BMW has also eliminated to wood and leather from the its interiors to promote sustainable manufacturing.
  • The BMW design study also incorporates full autonomous and manual driving modes, called "Ease" and "Boost" modes.
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  • In Ease mode, the car is fully autonomous, and the driver the able to sit back let the machine do the driving.
  • Boost mode affords the driver the opportunity to push the performance boundaries of the BMW at his or own pleasure. It's the traditional BMW driving experience. 
  • future of automobiles will be built upon four pillars
  • Artificial intelligence and intuitive technology
  • future cars will be able to learn, think and interact in a more human-like manner. 
  • future technology will be seamlessly integrated into the usage experience in way that the driver may not even know he or she is interacting with technology
  • According to BMW, the development of carbon fiber and composite parts along with new manufacturing techniques like 4D printing may render old-fashioned pressed steel obsolete.
  • mobility will remain an emotional experience
  • BMWs will remain driver focused
  • Features such as autonomous drive are key because they keep the brand at the forefront technological development. But they may threaten the driver-centric, pleasure-of-driving ethos BMW has built for itself over the past 100 years
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    1. BMW probably won't be exist in 100 years from now :) 2. Those cars will be on our roads much much sooner 
alexbelov

Reality Substitution Project is a Unique Approach to Virtual Reality | Virtual Reality ... - 0 views

  • Reality Substitution Project is a Unique Approach to Virtual Reality
  • The tech project, named RealiSM, has developed a user-friendly virtual world capture system that effectively shoots actual videos of real-world situations, and these videos are to be generated as virtual content on a supported head-mounted display (HMD).
  • Initially developed for the medical field, RealiSM aims to be utilized in the laboratory to facilitate research of the human memory and the peri-personal space (perceived space available to a person within his reach).
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  • This is how things get interesting for the RealiSM project: the prototype works as an integrated video recording, editing, and playback system – all working hand in hand to generate what they call reality substitution. A custom-built camera rig, consisting of 18 high-definition cameras which are pointed in all directions, seamlessly shoots a 360-degree spherical imagery that is stitched together in all three dimensions of space. These 18 high-def cameras are paired with 4 omnidirectional microphones, able to pick up sound from all directions relative to the prototype. The 3D spherical video capture is then processed and is rendered by a custom-built HMD that also features a front camera to orient the user’s presence in both the virtual and outside environments.
  • Aside from the usage focus of the prototype in the medical field, it is also seen as a potential tool for bringing immersive, real-time teleconferencing – bridging the gap caused by time zone issues between the two ends of the communication medium; and also to enhance entertainment experiences – particularly in games – by introducing extremely immersive and true-to-life visuals and audio experiences.
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    Reality substitution is a new approach to VR experience. The system  aptures videos of real world situations and generates VR content. The technology can be applied in medical research, therapy, gaming and teleconferencing.
Maria Gurova

The Artificial Intelligence Company You Should Watch ⚙ Co.Labs ⚙ code + commu... - 1 views

  • taking these technologies out of the lab and into people’s everyday lives.
  • we're able to program physical objects to be intelligent, adapt and interact with their surroundings, and to surprise people with what is possible.
  • a video game programmed for the real world, is the first step for us and demonstrates what’s possible with Anki technology.
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  • physical objects to understand the real world and using that information to behave intelligently, we can treat these characters in the physical world as if they were just characters in a video game
  • elements that make video games so engaging and fun and literally program them onto physical characters to make an entertainment experience that has never been possible before.
  • a massive opportunity in consumer products to change the way people interact with the physical world around them
  • new category of entertainment that brings these technologies to people in a familiar and fun way
  • Almost anything we interact with in the physical world has the potential to act with autonomy and purpose, and the challenge is in identifying the truly high-impact opportunities at the right times
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    please also watch the demonstration of the Anki Drive from WWDC - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnsR-kZUx6o
Maria Gurova

Tesla's Model S Has New Autopilot Tech--And I Just Sat Behind The Wheel | Fast Company ... - 0 views

  • Tesla is rolling out version 7.0 of its software, and with it new autopilot features that allow the car to stay in its lane, change lanes, and parallel park itself.
  • the new Autosteer feature. This is designed specifically for highway driving, and when engaged keeps the car in its lane. When you need to change lanes, you flip your turn signal and the car will move over on its own when it determines it’s safe to do so.
  • That "hands-on" detail is an important one. CEO Elon Musk emphasizes that the update is a public beta. "We say keep your hands on the wheel because it’s very important to exercise caution at this early stage,"
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  • Musk acknowledges that eventually we’ll not only be able to take our hands off the wheel, but there won’t be a steering wheel to begin with.
  • "This version doesn’t take into account stop signs and stop lights, but a future version will,"
  • "The more miles that are driven the better it will get," says Musk. "People should see the car improve with every passing week."
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    Autosteer feature that has been added to the recent update of Tesla vehicles software update is another step toward self-driving cars. In 10 years time the technology might lead to a accessibility of driving to everyone without the necessity of having a driving license 
Maria Gurova

Developed world plays waiting game with mobile payments - FT.com - 0 views

  • High-profile mobile money launches by Apple and Samsung may have caught the headlines
  • But it is the developments in payments systems in supposedly less developed nations in Africa and Asia that point the way to the probable future for wider mobile banking.
  • the reality remains that the mobile phone as a means of payment remains relatively niche even in developed markets.
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  • But analysts anticipate a further shift as more financial services and greater interactivity are added, which is when mobile payments will become mobile banking.
  • In the UK, for example, just 1 per cent
  • the mobile phone is taking on extra roles as a place to keep money safe and move it around, as well as to acquire other financial services from trusted providers.
  • services are quickly expanding to include loan disbursement, bill payment and micro insurance.
  • In the next few years mobile banking apps will become the predominant means to access all routine banking services, from applying for a loan or overdraft increase to letting the bank know you are moving house
  • So while we are working closely with digital giants such as Apple, Samsung and Google to roll out their payment services, we’re also working with the banks to create their own payment functionality embedded within their existing hugely popular banking apps
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    The article is about a shifting consumer behaviour in mobile payments and that it's not driven by developed economies with the established finical systems but rather by the emerging regions, like Africa and Asia 
Maria Gurova

Imax's Richard Gelfond on Virtual Reality, Woody Allen and Reservations Over Netflix - ... - 0 views

  • Given Imax receipts typically account for about 10 percent of the average tentpole's box office, studios and top filmmakers frequently shift their release dates to land a big-screen berth
  • Looking forward, the company is making a big push into virtual reality, partnering with Google on a camera, and will launch its first VR space in Los Angeles this year. On the content front, Michael Bay is in talks to create original VR content for Imax
  • Any regrets about partnering with Netflix to release the low-grossing Crouching Tiger 2? I have no regrets about experimenting because, especially with the windows changing distribution patterns, with digital distribution and over‑the‑top alternatives evolving quickly, the industry is going to have to experiment and learn.
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  • If someone came to us and said, "Would you launch a TV series in Imax day-and-date?", that's definitely something we would consider
  • We have over 300 theaters open; we have over 200 theaters in backlog [where a theater has been approved and the space designated, but it hasn't been built yet]. We just announced a 10‑theater deal.
  • Wanda, which accounts for the largest number of Imax screens in China, has its own giant-screen technology. Worried? I'm not very worried.
  • If the public wants an experience that's better than a standard 35mm but not as good as an Imax, there's a category they fit in.
  • In 2015, you announced the creation of the Imax China Film Fund to invest in Chinese tentpoles.
  • We can leverage those relationships, plus the Imax technology, plus the Imax release windows, and create value by investing in the right films.
  • We could get into original programming, but we're not going to be a small participant in a $200 million movie. Could I see there being a $10 million or $20 million film that is with an Imax filmmaker who loves Imax and plays well to the Imax audience and has the right ancillary distribution afterward? Yes. That's something we're exploring.
Maria Gurova

From Netflix to full immersion: how the future of cinema lies in our handhelds | Film |... - 2 views

  • Unlike films made for the silver screen, an internet film doesn’t need to contain something for everyone
  • But the internet is different. As viewers are watching alone, films can be made exclusively for certain fanbases and still be confident of finding an audience.
  • in the eyes of a conservative family, the company should stand for wholesome entertainment, but to a 20-year-old city-dwelling college graduate, it should be more edgy. It’s unlikely these two demographics would go to the cinema together, while they almost certainly won’t be streaming the same content.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Cinemas probably aren’t going to die out any time soon, but they may well host different kinds of films than laptops and phones in the near future.
  • Netflix’s chief content officer is open about this, saying that watching a movie online is like seeing a sports game broadcast on TV rather than being at the stadium
  • When you watch it, you realise that this software blurs the boundary between films and games: although, strictly speaking, you are not playing anything; you are participating in the experience.
  • A distinctive form of film is also emerging on phones: 360-degree movies were developed by Google
  • The technology gets really interesting when it comes to documentaries. Director Chris Milk has used virtual reality to make films about a refugee camp in Jordan and a mass protest in New York.
  • Fundamentally, this is taking out the middle man in that process, and making you feel as if you were actually there.
  • Call it fly-off-the-wall film-making
  • traditionally it is the director’s job to tell the audience what to look at, in this approach directors don’t exist, only “creators”
Irina Marchenko

G20's Young Entrepreneurs are Increasingly Interested in Digital Technologies but not H... - 0 views

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    The recommendations summarized in a final Summit communique primarily focus on the following: *Need to develop digital infrastructure. Young entrepreneurs are the most active group in terms of both starting up businesses and using the latest digital technology to help run the business and optimize business processes; *Importance of developing educational programs for entrepreneurs, advancing the entrepreneurial culture, and streamlining government funding for "green" technology studies; *Need to ease the tax burden in the fields of scientific-technical programs and social entrepreneurship, namely the taxes imposed on employers and employee income tax; *Access to funding for startups and emerging companies. Ensuring funding on easy terms, changing banking requirements, developing rules for new forms of funding, including cross border online platforms, investors' and entrepreneurs' networks.
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