Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thinks the state of film is a “real tragedy” and that movie theaters are “strangling the movie business,” he said at The New Yorker’s Tech Fest on Friday.
Netflix has long faced off against the giants of the movie theater business, who have largely refused to show Netflix’s original films in theaters because of Netflix’s commitment to making them available to stream on the same day they appear on the big screen.
That could be changing — but only a little bit.
On weekends, LaNeisha, a 33-year-old in San Francisco, borrows a friend’s car to drive for Uber. When she discovered that she could rent out her closet for $290 through a startup called Roost, she turned it into a storage unit. She finds other gigs on Craiglist. For LaNeisha, who struggled to find work otherwise, it’s a way to survive. But it’s not easy.
A new report looks at the workers of the on-demand economy—from Lyft drivers and EatWith chefs to former McKinsey consultants who now use Catalant to find clients—and argues that we need to redesign platforms and policies so all of those workers can have sustainable livelihoods.
LAST SPRING WHATSAPP pushed out code adding a new layer of security to a billion users’ apps, creating the largest end-to-end encrypted messaging network in history. Now WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook has finally given people who use its other massively popular chat app the chance to catch up.
A Facebook spokesperson tells WIRED the company just finished rolling out “Secret Conversations” to all 900 million Facebook Messenger users in the past few weeks. The opt-in feature allows users to encrypt their messages so that no one can read them except the two people on either end of a conversation—not even Facebook or law enforcement or intelligence agencies. “Your messages are already secure, but Secret Conversations are encrypted from one device to another,” states a description in the app when users initiate their first encrypted conversation.
A few days before Twitter’s Sept. 8 board meeting, as the company’s finance team readied a presentation, it received conflicting directions on a crucial question. Should their slides reflect Twitter’s prospects as an independent company or delve into the benefits of getting acquired?
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive officer, argued that the 10-year-old company should remain on its current course and work to capitalize on recent product improvements and success in streaming live video, people familiar with the discussions said. Ev Williams, a former CEO who has a history of clashing with Dorsey, was in favor of exploring a sale. Other directors agreed they had a fiduciary duty to consider that option. The board ultimately decided to consider takeover prospects after getting an expression of interest from a potential acquirer, which led it to hire Goldman Sachs and Allen & Co. to evaluate possible bids.
No business is 100 percent productive all day, every day. On-site employees will stand by the coffeepot in the morning, discussing last night’s game at length. Remote workers will take a few minutes to let the dog out or have a conversation with a neighbor, who stopped by. Both types of employees will occasionally take long lunch breaks, and check their personal social media accounts throughout the day.
While these small interruptions cut into a business’ bottom line, they aren’t the only productivity thieves companies have. In fact, some of the biggest time-wasters are things leaders themselves ask employees to do. Here are seven tasks employees engage in every day that hurt a business’ bottom line.
Tesla’s former rival in pioneering electric cars, Henrik Fisker, has re-entered the electric car market announcing two new models.
Mr Fisker’s previous company, Fisker Automotive, founded in 2007, built luxury cars popular with celebrities until its high profile 2013 bankruptcy.
For his new venture, Mr Fisker has announced both a high-end car as well as an affordable mass-market model.
Carmakers worldwide are increasingly focusing on the electric market.
Reviving his rivalry with Tesla, Mr Fisker promised “a significantly longer battery life and range than any battery currently on the market”.
Like an umbrella that protects you from the elements on a rainy day, an umbrella insurance policy can shield your personal assets from large liability claims.
Umbrella excess liability protection can help you avoid financial ruin if you’re found to be responsible for legal damages that exceed the limits of your homeowner or auto insurance policies.
“We live in a litigious society,” says Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. “It’s added protection to have peace of mind, knowing that your personal assets aren’t at risk.”
It happens to the best of us, it happens to the worst of us.
If you have a broken phone, a smashed screen or even a phone that went swimming in the toilet, do not worry, my friend, no one is exempt from smartphone damage. There are, however, some good news for you during this difficult time. There is a way for you to recover data from your broken iPhone or Android device. Read on to see how you can do this.
Types of Smartphone Damage
There are two ways in which your mobile phone can suffer damage: software damage and hardware damage. Software damage can occur if your phone is dropped into water (unless you have a water-breathing Sony Xperia), if your phone has not received an update in awhile, or if your OS has been corrupted.
Gallup CEO Jim Clifton once said in a profound statement,
“The single biggest decision you make in your job — bigger than all the rest — is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits –nothing.”
In fact, a 2015 Gallup survey of 7,200 adults discovered that about half of them had left a job at some point “to get away from their manager.” Ouch.
Not every manager is cut from the same mold. And some have no business being in a leadership role. If your office is a pressure cooker, fear is palpable, and people are walking on egg shells, look no further than who’s in charge. Their days may be numbered.
ING plans to shed 7,000 jobs and invest heavily in its digital platforms to achieve annual savings $1 billion by 2021, the Netherlands’ largest financial services company said on Monday.
The layoffs represent slightly less than 12 percent of ING’s 52,000 workforce because nearly 1,000 are expected to come at suppliers rather than the company itself.
The job losses are the heaviest since 2009, when ING was forced to restructure and spin off its insurance activities after receiving a state bailout during the financial crisis.
Dispatches From The Front 