https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiVyfyxxPzkAhVFn-AKHSSdB2sQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bostik-industrial.com%2Fdrones-for-package-deliveries-what-it-means-for-the-packaging-market%2F&psig=AOvVaw31WmZ_Rgvl_TirtN_3v0L6&ust=1570069876044612

In recent news, UPS has announced that it has received the US government’s approval to operate a drone delivery service. UPS states that they won’t be sending out packages to its customers yet, as they will use their new drone approval to build a drone fleet to deliver packages to hospitals around the US. In the statement released by UPS, the company said that they have been trying to gain the government’s approval since the beginning of July.

UPS’s new delivery service is called, UPS Flight Forward and was granted an operating certification through the FAA. Even though drones aren’t particularly planes, the FAA still treats them as such and the federal government evaluates these drones with similar expectations and guidelines. Through the certification granted by the FAA, UPS is allowed to fly its drones with these specific exemptions:

• UPS can fly as many drones as they want
• UPS can let their drones fly beyond their pilot’s line of sight
• UPS can load their drones with more than 55 pounds of packages
• UPS can fly their drones at night

UPS is the first company to be granted this level of clearance from the FAA and federal government. Currently, other companies that are working on drone delivery but haven’t been approved yet are Amazon and Uber Eats.

In my opinion, I think this is a great thing for UPS and their development of this service will truly benefit everyone. If UPS puts a lot of effort into this service and develops it to its fullest potential, the delivery system we currently have in the United States could drastically change. It would affect how fast people get packages and mail, how individuals order food and items off the internet, and would truly disrupt the current system we have in place. Do I think that this will completely flip our current delivery system upside down? No, however it is cool to think of what the possibilities could be.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20893655/ups-faa-approval-delivery-drones-airline-amazon-air-uber-eats-alphabet-wing

Article Credit: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/media/the-irishman-netflix-new-york-film-festival/index.html

A film by Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman” will premiere this Friday at the New York Film Festival. However, the film may have Netflix to thank for making the dream a reality. Scorsese claims he has tried for years to find the funding for the film until Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos saved the day. Netflix funded and backed the entire film. They allowed Scorcese to keep his creative rights and did not interfere in the directing or producing of the film. 

The film includes an all-star cast of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and many more. It also rounded out to be Scorsese’s most expensive production yet at a total of $150 million.

Netflix has recently enjoyed multiple Oscars with films like “Roma” and record-breaking views on “Bird Box.” However, both Scorsese and Sarandos have hopes for “The Irishman” as an Oscar success and a hit among Netflix viewers. While the future of this film is important to Scorsese and his team, it could also be a crucial moment for Netflix. With streaming services from Apple and Disney releasing soon, Netflix needs a power move to help stay on top of competition. 

The film will open in theaters on November 1 and on Netflix on November 27. Scorsese obviously pushed for a larger theatrical release, but Netflix surely pushed back. The change in viewing habits has caused strain between theater owners and streaming services such as Netflix. “The Irishman” opening in both shows both sides to the conversation. 

A theatrical release allows the director to release commercials, measure ticket and box office sales and a Netflix release draws viewers to the platform and hopefully keeps them there

This article highlights the struggle that popular streaming services will soon face. With the rise of competition in what was once a slim industry, companies will have to create and release the best content in order to get to the top and stay there.

California Passes “Game Changer” Law Allowing College Athletes To Make Money From Name & Likeness

One of the most talked about topics in sports is whether or not NCAA student athletes should be paid from the athletic performance. The monetary statistics that student athletes draw towards nationwide universities and colleges is over 14 billion dollars per year and the NCAA makes an additional 1 Billion annually.

To be equally compensated for their efforts and finances that these universities receive, California legislation has introduced The Fair Pay to Play Act (SB 206). The law addresses the NCAA’s ban on student athletes earning compensation from college sports even though the school can make millions from their athletic performance.

At the very least, California is developing a complete game changer for college athletes. Overtime, it will be interesting to see how the new law will benefit the students, but also the universities as well. In California specifically, the entertainment & marketing is Los Angeles’ business. Music and movie moguls are everywhere and the major tech companies are built within the state. Do you think LeBron James signed with the Lakers to be coached by Luke Walton and play alongside Lonzo Ball? Probably not.

In this light, we can assume that a number of these athletes will be marketed through commercialized advertisements, major partnerships, and social media promotional content. If the Law outlines a positive effect towards both parties, will other states with major cash grabs soon follow? If so, perhaps the NCAA football video game makes a comeback. And the deal for the cover would be huge.

As student athletes begin to be paid, the whole marketing landscape for universities nationwide is going to change, and will bring in even more money. The power of the media and its viewership may increase production costs, but the ROI driven towards the schools will be substantial. And most importantly, the athletes as well.

Facebook has a mole and there is now witch hunt within the company to find out who. Over two hours of audio was leaked to The Verge from a all-hands meeting, exposing CEO Zuckerberg ranting about Sen. Warren’s plans to break up the company and how he wants to demolish TikTok. Zuckerberg is often painted in a poor light by media outlets, but this raw uncut audio really puts a bad taste in users mouths. Zuckerberg tries to come off as reserved and composed when in the eye of the public, but this is the first real look the public is getting of him behind close doors.

Clearly the leak shows there are not only issues externally with Facebook, but internally employees aren’t happy either. Transparency is apparently encouraged within the company, but leaks are intolerable. Facebook often reminds employees to never talk to reporters about any issues or scandals going on at the moment or from the past. Anyone who is found to be a leak is terminated, and they even have teams that are meant to just investigate scandals and seek out the ‘lose ends’.

This isn’t the first sign of low morale among employees at Facebook. Back in November the results to a survey were leaked showed that employee morale had dropped across numerous metrics.

Overall, Facebook I think is example No.1 of companies I would never want to work for. The morals and values of the company seem to be non existent or can’t be taken for face value. They don’t seem to have an issue with selling out and invading people’s privacy, which are thing I find troubling.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/leaked-facebook-audio-is-a-sign-of-decreased-morale-former-employees-say.html

It’s no secret that the amount of time we spend consuming media has increased dramatically and is still currently increasing. A recent study by JAMA Psychiatry revealed that children and teens who spend more than 3 hours using social media such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, loneliness and aggression than children who don’t. The survey was done nationally, on about 6,595 adolescents living in the United States.The finding wasn’t surprising, but thinking about the amount of children in this age range who definitely use these applications more than 3 hours a day this observation really puts things into perspective.

 Heavy social media use can lead to sleep problems and an increase the risk for cyberbullying, which has been tied to symptoms of depression, and result in unrealistic comparisons of yourself and your life to those of others seen on social media. Children who spend more than 6 hours a day on social media are 4 times more likely to suffer these problems.

Social media is proven to be detrimental to children and pre teens because they’re in a very fragile transitional period. Social media can be a very hostile, judgmental environment and it’s not for children of this age. Pediatrics suggest that parents have a media plan for their children so that they can monitor and control the amount of media their kids consume daily and what exactly they’re consuming. 

 

 

Source https://www.wsj.com/articles/vice-media-in-final-stages-of-talks-to-acquire-refinery29-11569947137

Vice Media is on it’s way toward becoming an even bigger brand. The multi-platform media company has decided to buy Refinery 29. Refinery 29 is another digital media platform that caters to young women, delivering a multitude of news from political to pop culture. The deal has not yet been finalized but many business experts strongly believe that this deal will go through, and could be very beneficial to the Vice Media brand.

Vice Media is concerned with building it’s “digital footprint” Though the platform is doing well on it’s own, with content like Vice News on HBO and its own channel with the company name they feel that there are still ways in which this brand can become bigger than what it is now. Vice Media has chosen to combine with Refinery 29 in order to take the brands majority-female audience, as well as it’s streaming content and licensing.

The other big reason why Vice Media wants to accommodate more digital platforms is because they are aware of their current competition. The digital company is force to compete with platforms like Facebook and Google. In order to be able to run in a race with these two powerful media giants they have to acquire as many similar companies as they possibly can. They also need to reach a larger audience domestically as well as internationally.

Though I didn’t see this coming I think that this merge could be great for the brand.

This article was in the ‘opinion’ section of nytimes.com, but I thought it was interesting. All social media outlets have the same basic model: Create a product that maximizes attention and gets users hooked, then collect as much data from possible from then in order to sell it. The author of the article, Mark Coatney argues that social media is toxic to children, racial relations, and essentially society itself. The pressure to impose regulations and breaking up big companies.

Coatney suggests that the problem can’t be solved by current for-profit media outlets and that we need to create non profit outlet that aims to create a less toxic environment online. 50 years ago when Lydon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which allowed a portion of funds in order to create public television and radio that would be “responsive to the interests of people”. Why can’t this be done for social media? After all, the definition of “media” has changed a lot in the last 50 years.

The non profit social media application would be explicitly non commercial among other things, and it would collect minimal data from the user.

“An account on a public media platform would be tied to a real-world, local identity, like a driver’s license or library card. Anonymity online has real benefits, and a user name doesn’t have to be your real name” (Coatney, 2019).

There are certainly downfalls to Coatley’s idea, but he makes a great point throughout the article. Despite the massive amount of people that have existing social media accounts on for profit platforms, people might be happier and feel less stress and anxiety on a pbs-like social media platform.

A recent commercial featuring Colin Kaepernick just won Nike its first commercial award in almost 20 years.

At the Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Sunday, September, 15, Nike took home the Emmy award for “outstanding commercial”. The last time Nike won this award was in 2002 for their Winter Olympics campaign, “Move”. The “Dream Crazy” campaign, which first aired last September, promoted to viewers the idea of dreaming big, and dreaming crazy. While the message behind the ad was powerful, it sparked controversy surrounding former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as the face of the campaign.

Kaepernick is well known for his nationally controversial action of kneeling during the national anthem at a 2016 NFL preseason game. Kaepernick was protesting racial injustice in the United States by not standing for the national anthem, which praises a flag and a country that has oppressed minorities for centuries. Throughout the 2016 NFL season, Kaepernick continued to kneel for the national anthem in the beginning of each game, which created a national divide. Many stood with Kaepernick and his protest, while many were infuriated, saying the action was disrespecting our country and our soldiers. The situation led to Kaepernicks leave by the end of the 2016 season.

Two years after Kaepernick’s protest, Nike’s “Dream Crazy” campaign still faced initial backlash. When the ad first aired, Nike experienced a 3.2% drop in shares, while #NikeBoycott was trending on Twitter. This is not last long, however. Within a few days, people began to shine light on the importance of Nike being “brave enough to change the game”.

Despite controversy and backlash, Nike brings home an Emmy Award for “outstanding commercial”, one year after the “Dream Crazy” release.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/16/nike-wins-emmy-for-ad-featuring-colin-kaepernick.html

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/22/darpa_n3_project/

In an age where individuals are constantly looking for the “next big thing”, Facebook may have found just that with their recent acquisition of CTRL-labs. Facebook announced on Monday that it has acquired the neurotechnology startup CTRL-labs for an estimated range of $500 million to $1 billion. With their recent acquisition, Facebook hopes to further their efforts to develop a wristband that has the power to control smartphones, computers, and other devices without having to actually touch the screen. Facebook’s main goal for the last couple years has been to innovate and transform how individuals communicate with each other and the acquisition sets them far above their competition. The company hopes to further develop a wearable device instead of technology that requires surgery.

The startup, CTRL-labs, has been trying to develop a wristband that “decodes” the electrical signals that neurons in the spinal cord sends to individual’s arm and hand muscles. The wristband will play a crucial part in developing new ways that individual’s interact with technology and the company hopes to phase out traditional technology like mouse and keyboards, touchscreens, and any form of physical controllers. Andrew Bosworth, head of AR and VR at Facebook, says that “technology like this has the potential to open up new creative possibilities and reimagine 19th century inventions in a 21st century world. This is how our interactions in VR and AR can one day look. It can change the way we connect”.

Overall, in my opinion, I feel like this could really be a huge breakthrough for technology and could propel technology even further then we think it could. It makes sense to see Facebook invest in CTRL-labs because of the recent news that they have been trying to develop technology that makes it easier for consumers to produce and consume media. Not only could this technology impact cellular devices, computers, and social media, but it would have a huge impact on the video game industry. This technology could completely change the way that individuals consume and play video games. I will definitely be keeping my eye on this and I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook tries to roll out a product within the next year, especially since they also own Oculus VR.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/23/20881032/facebook-ctrl-labs-acquisition-neural-interface-armband-ar-vr-deal

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-buys-ctrl-labs-to-work-on-a-wristband-that-will-let-you-control-computers-with-your-mind/

 

Article Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-film-joker/joker-raises-concern-for-u-s-movie-theater-massacre-families-idUSKBN1W92MO

I chose to discuss this article for many reasons, but primarily because of my love for Joaquin Phoenix even though I truly believe no one will ever live up to the role Heath Ledger played as the 2008 joker. I also feel like this movie has gotten an overwhelming amount of attention- mostly for good reasons, until now. 

In a letter to Warner Bros studios, families of some of the victims of a 2012 mass shooting that took place in a movie theater in Colorado, expressed concerns that perhaps this film may provide “encouragement” to someone who is on the edge and not at peace with themselves. Twelve people were killed and many more suffered serious injury in Colorado during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight,” another movie that depicts the joker, by a gunman who is now serving multiple life sentences in prison. 

The ultimate concerns by these families is that the movie is in a way promoting feeling sympathetic for Joaquin Phoenix’s character because of his origin story and his concerning mental health. Phoenix and “Joker” director, Todd Phillips, came to the defense of their movie saying that this depiction is something everyone is aware of, and therefore should not be so taboo. “I don’t think that we can be afraid to talk about it,” said Phoenix in an interview with IGN. 

While I believe the issue with mass shootings in the United States is a growing and serious matter, I do not believe that writing a letter to Warner Bros is the best way to see any sort of serious action taken. Plenty of movies display this same character profile: a mentally disturbed young man or woman who takes to violence to fill a void of some sort that can never really be filled. This article prompts the question, should major television studios like Warner Bros walk on eggshells when depicting touchy social issues? The answer may not be so black and white, but perhaps is one that should be discussed by the industry at large.