If I’ve said it once, I truly don’t mind saying it once more; we are creatures of habit and individuals keen on bouts of repetition. Whether we use the restroom at the same time every day or prefer to drink our coffee with three shots of espresso, patterns make us feel more comfortable. I can think of no better form of continuing positive habits and correcting lapses in personal patterns than by reviewing how a previous week went. During that review process, I cannot imagine that it would hurt if we studied the many headlines that emerged during that time as well. Whether you agree with me or not, we are together again for the neat, sweet, elite “weekly recap.”
GoFundMe Is On Fyre
Whether you’ve seen the recent documentaries or attended the festival yourself, the media has been stirring due to a reawakening of upset from the failed Fyre Festival that took place back in 2017. For those of you unfamiliar with Fyre Festival, Billy McFarland, an entrepreneur responsible for throwing crazy, luxurious parties back in the day, wanted to throw a music festival on a private island in the Bahamas. What ended up taking place was a complete and total disaster. For brevity’s sake, there were hardly enough food, shoddy living conditions and, people were largely lied to by the festival organizers.
In an act of swift justice, a fundraising campaign was organized to pay back one of the restaurant owners on the island who lost everything, Maryann Rolle.
“I had 10 persons working for me just preparing food all day and all night, 24 hours. I literally had to pay all those people… I went through about $50,000 of the savings that I could’ve had for a rainy day. They just wiped it out and never looked back.”
–Maryann Rolle
A Little Louder For Everyone In The Back!
Much to no one’s surprise, California Senator Kamala Harris announced today that she will be running in the 2020 presidential race. According to almost every media outlet, Harris will be running under the theme of “For the people” for her campaign and is expected to formally announce her candidacy later this month. When she was elected to the Senate in 2016, she became the first Indian-American to do so, while simultaneously becoming the second black woman in the process.
“My parents were very active in the civil rights movement, and that’s the language that I grew up hearing. It was about a belief that we are a country that was founded on noble ideals and we are the best of who we are when we fight to achieve those ideals. The thing about Dr. King that always inspires me is he was aspirational. He was aspirational like our country is aspirational. We know that we have not yet reached those ideals, but our strength is that we fight to reach those ideals.”
–Sen. Kamala Harris
(Self)Drive By Incubus
Waymo, a former Google self-driving startup that ultimately became its own entity under the auspices of Alphabet today announced that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation officially voted to approve the company’s request to develop a manufacturing facility in Michigan to begin mass-producing autonomous vehicles. Given the close-knit fabric of the American automotive industry and the State of Michigan, it was only natural that Waymo looks to set up shop there.
“Waymo will first identify a facility in Southeast Michigan and, over the next few years, aim to create hundreds of local jobs in the community. We’ll be looking for engineers, operations experts, and fleet coordinators to join our team and help assemble and deploy our self-driving cars. This will be the world’s first factory 100%-dedicated to the mass production of L4 autonomous vehicles. As we begin to commercialize our business and vehicle supply grows, we’re laying the foundation for a scalable, robust vehicle integration plan, starting in Michigan.”
–official announcement from Waymo
Per the official announcement from Waymo, the location of their Michigan facility has yet to be decided, outside of their plan to build in southeast Michigan. Additionally, the factor will create up to 400 new jobs, according to TechCrunch.
Government Still Shutdown? Yikes…
According to recent reports, the US Senate will vote on two proposals meant too reopen the government shutdown later this week — one backed by Republicans and the other backed by Democrats — with both most likely going to fail. Ironically enough, the Republican-backed proposal is supported by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who’s echoed nearly every sentiment expressed by President Donald Trump throughout the course of the almost month-long partial government shutdown.
“Without a Wall our Country can never have Border or National Security. With a powerful Wall or Steel Barrier, Crime Rates (and Drugs) will go substantially down all over the U.S. The Dems know this but want to play political games. Must finally be done correctly. No Cave!”
–President Donald Trump via Twitter
Once In A Fortnite
A fortnight is equivalent to fourteen days, or two weeks, and is derived from the Old English phrase, “fēowertyne niht,” meaning “fourteen nights. I can assume, with almost unequivocal certainty, that the wordsmiths responsible for this delectable phrase had no intention of it being used as a title for a mind-numbing video game but, nevertheless, here we are. The game in question, Fortnite Battle Royale was launched back in July 2017 by Epic Games and has since become a cultural phenomenon akin to pogs, Super Smash Bros, pet rocks, and the Jersey Shore.
Though the game is completely free to play for cheapskates like yours truly, players can purchase character “skins” and other add-ons to customize their avatars using “v-bucks” which are purchased with legal currency. Super Data also estimates that 34% of all US Fortnite players also purchased a seasonal “battle pass,” which grants players access to other collectibles and VIP-items used for gameplay. To put the game’s prowess into perspective, the New York Times reported earlier this week that Netflix announced in their recent quarterly report that they feel threatened by Fortnite.
“We earn consumer screen time, both mobile and television, away from a very broad set of competitors. We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO. When YouTube went down globally for a few minutes in October, our viewing and signups spiked for that time…There are thousands of competitors in this highly fragmented market vying to entertain consumers and low barriers to entry for those with great experiences.”
–Netflix letter to shareholders, Q4-18 Report
Amazon Scout Tho
Naturally, it was only a matter of time before a tech company with just a smidge more clout entered the space of robotic delivery systems and, like clockwork, Amazon had to get in on the automated action. Amazon has made ways way to the pantheon of tech companies by continually investing in new tech to benefit the global market place. The Company today announced that they’ve developed a new, fully-electric autonomous delivery system called “Amazon Scout.”
Although Amazon is not the first company to release “Wall-E”-like delivery bots, it’s pretty obvious that their bot will take the cake over any other competitor in the nascent sector. Come on, it’s Amazon, for Scout’s sake. Per the announcement, the first launch of Amazon Scout will take place in Snohomish County, Washington, which borders Seattle’s King County, the location of Amazon’s primary headquarters.
“We’re starting with six Amazon Scout devices, delivering packages Monday through Friday, during daylight hours. The devices will autonomously follow their delivery route but will initially be accompanied by an Amazon employee. We developed Amazon Scout at our research and development lab in Seattle, ensuring the devices can safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians and anything else in their path. We are excited to work with the community of Snohomish County as our initial partner for Amazon Scout.”
–Amazon Scout official announcement
Hilton and Chill
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc and Netflix today announced that they will be teaming up to create a more personalized travel experience by allowing guests to stream their favorite Netflix series, movies, and more on in-room televisions in Hilton’s high-tech Connected Rooms, according to the official press release.
According to recent reports, Hilton currently boasts over 1,800 Connected Rooms across all of their properties and intends to extend the technological offerings to tens of thousands of rooms in hundreds of more hotels across the US.
“We know our guests want to feel connected while traveling, just as they do at home, so we’re giving them seamless access to their favorite Netflix shows, films, and specials while on the road. Inspired by 100 years of innovation, we continue to find new ways to meet the constantly evolving needs of our guests.”
–Noelle Eder, Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer, Hilton
The collaborative agreement between Netflix and Hilton will, aside from bringing the N+C to the hotel experience, allow Netflix users to access their own Netflix accounts — not some customized Hilton version — so they can easily pick up from whatever episode of New Girl they left off on. Business jargon aside, a deal like this further extends Netflix’s goal of keeping consumers glued to their platform.
Google Is In L’Trouble
Earlier this week, France’s data protection division, known by the French as CNIL, formally announced that it had found Google’s data-gathering methods to be directly in conflict with the European Union’s new set of privacy laws, the General Data Protection Regulation, according to several sources. Following CNIL’s findings, the organization slapped on a $57 million fine for the critically-acclaimed search engine behemoth.
The official language from CNIL’s statement read as follows:
“Users are not able to fully understand the extent of the processing operations carried out by GOOGLE. But the processing operations are particularly massive and intrusive because of the number of services offered (about twenty), the amount and the nature of the data processed and combined. The restricted committee observes in particular that the purposes of processing are described in a too generic and vague manner, and so are the categories of data processed for these various purposes. Similarly, the information communicated is not clear enough so that the user can understand that the legal basis of processing operations for the ads personalization is the consent, and not the legitimate interest of the company. Finally, the restricted committee notices that the information about the retention period is not provided for some data.”
Looking Forward
As we’ve recently learned according to news released on Friday, the partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government was temporarily placed on hold by President Trump. In a press briefing at the White House Rose Garden, Trump said that he is “very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government.” To be clear, the government’s reopening is temporary and the stopgap funding measure will only last until February 15, at which time Trump may elect to shut down the government once more.
As for how the market, consumers, and the remaining informed public will respond to this news, only time will tell.
